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The year was 1931. The city? The greatest fuckin city ever built. New York City. It was the year the empire state building was dedicated by President Hoover and the lights turned on for the first time. It was the year of the Coll-Schultz gang war, which turned the streets of Manhattan into a war zone. There was good times, there was bad times, it was just another normal year in the city I had called my home for the last 21 years.
I was born in the city on August 9th 1910. My mother and father came over from Naples Italy when my mother was 6 months pregnant. My father, who's brother Salvatore had already made his way to America a few months earlier, knew that in order to support his growing family, my older brother 5, and sister 3, and soon to be me, that the land of opportunity was the only hope he had.
By 1910, there were 340,765 Italians living in New York City. Most, like my family from the poorer southern area of the country which was less industrialized had made their way to New York City with very little skills other than farming. Many Italians, my father included found themselves working construction, piecing together the great city. Italian Pit Bosses would come and cherry pick many italian men whom they either had relation to, knew somebody who did, knew somebody who knew somebody, or sometimes just because just like any other nationality Italians looked after their own and would rather see their own succeed than anyone else.
My fathers brother, the aforementioned Salvatore had done my father this favor when he had learned of my fathers plans to come to america via a letter a few months prior. Many immigrant men came to america without their families, most times because they could not afford it and had to make the money to get their wives and children over, my father refused to leave ny mother and siblings behind, he was an honorable man, unlike his brother Salvatore who first took care of himself and did not bring my cousins nor aunt over until I was the age of four.
Not that Salvatore was struggling upon reaching New York City, quite the opposite actually, he was simply selfish. Salvatore had made an agreement with a local Don back in the old country, it was that Dons nephew whom he worked for in the construction business once arriving in Italy. He spent his first few years repaying his debts to the Don through his nephew and his connections in the shipping industry, spending whatever was left leading a lavish lifestyle, by poor immigrant standards at least. My father often spoke as I grew up of how he loved his brother, but that never meant he liked him.
My father was a hard working man in the new world, working day and night, all hours just to provide for his family. His brother Salvatore in a foreman role showed no sympathy to his older brother whom he worked especially hard, momma told me as I got older that it was likely due to their raising where my father was the man of the household once his elderly father, my grandfather had passed. Now that Salvatore had some sort of power he held it over his brother, my father.
My father still never worked any less, or any less hard. He earned what little he was paid for the work he did.
A few years after I had been born, and my mother had found work sewing in a sweatshop, we finally moved into our first apartment by ourselves in East Harlem, otherwise known as Little Italy. My family had lived in cramped apartments with other italian families the first few years of our arrival. They were small, filthy, and normally housed about 12 people in one. So even though the dwellings in Little Italy were not much better, having something of our own felt like we were rich.
As I grew up in the streets, working odd jobs, carrying groceries, sweeping shop floors, you name it, i learned a lot of things I shouldn't, and some I wouldn't be here today without. I learned about cosa nostra, the way things really worked in poor neighborhoods such as mine, and why my uncle had become a foreman for the construction company my he and mt father worked for, yet rarely had to be there and people like my father had to share his job responsibilities.
I learned by the age of 11 that my uncle Salvatore was a small time guy in a Mafia outfit ran by the owner of the construction company who happened to be the nephew of the Don back in Naples. It was really a fucked up cycle when you start figuring it all out.
By the age of 16 my father was in ailing health, still working his body to the point of breaking. My uncle Salvatore had moved on from the construction company and on to what many people around the neighborhood refered to as a fall guy. I recall at least three arrests for burglary in which I don't remember him ever being gone for more than an hour. He'd show up to our apartment to find his wife and kids, my aunt and cousins, still in tears and scared only to greet them with a smile and shake it off. It always angered my father.
Though my father could barely breathe anymore, and his weight loss made him look like a much older man he still felt it was his responsibility to confront his younger brother when my aunt showed up to our apartment on the night of May 15th 1931. She was bruised and in tears, my cousins all but one had moved out on their own and began raising families of their own, my brother and sister the same, I had but one cousin remaining living with my aunt and uncle, his name was Alphonse. He too at the young age of 14 had been beaten by the alcohol fueled rage that had engulfed my uncle Salvatore. As they fell at my mother and fathers feet in bloody tears, I saw something I had not often seen from my father in my 21 years under his roof, anger.
My father began cursing in an Italian English laced slur of words about his big shot brother before storming out the door. My mother and I had both pleaded as he left not to go, but my father was a bullheaded man despite his good nature. I tried to follow, I knew what he was off to do, but my momma stopped me as she whiped away her own tears. She made me promise to let him go. Knowing the condition in which my father was in, and the anger I harbored watching my aunt and the cousin who I had looked after as if he were my little brother lying on the floor in a pool of blood and tears did not make it any easier. But I was raised to respect and listen to what my parents told me, so I stayed.
My father made his way down the two blocks to my uncles apartment complex in what I still imagine as agonizing pain with the condition he had. The remainder of what I know happened is purely speculation between the rest of the family. From what can be pieced together my father made his way up the stairs to his brothers apartment to confront him. Surely winded and tired from the walk and the climb he confronted Salvatore at the door of the fourth floor apartment. Salvatore had to have attacked him and sent him tumbling backwards down the stairs to his last resting spot on the third floor where he crashed into the wall that lay just beyond the next set of stairs. Had it not been for one nosey old Italian couple no one may have known for hours. See there's a certain level of minding your own business among the Italian community.
We were informed of the goings ons a few hours later as a policeman came banging at the door as we sat by candle light in what could be considered somewhat of a living room. My mother broke down in tears, as she fell to the floor, my aunt as well. My cousin Alphonse I think would have done the same had he not been.so.emotionally drained and numb. I, myself was filled with intense anger, rage things I was taught not to feel in all my years growing up around my father. Now he was gone, and it seemed all good I harbored was too.
The policeman said there had yet to be an arrest, and while Salvatore had been questioned so far it had been deemed an accident. It was all an Italian bullshit. I knew how things worked and I knew who my uncle had worked for, it was a lets sweep this one under the rug moment. I'd not stand for it.
Once the policeman had left and my mothers arms had unwrapped themselves from my neck, I made my way down the same path my father must had slowly, painfully made his way down hours earlier. I choked back tears at the thought as I made my way to the first stair of Salvatores apartment building. As I made my way up the stairs the anger grew, the hate boiled. I came to the door that stood in front of the stairs my father had earlier fell to his fate. I beat on the door and called for him in Italian, the way I knew he'd respond to the quickest. He flung open the door quickly, a bat in hand. It didn't matter, it didn't slow me. Before he could lift the bat for a strike I was on top of him beating my fists into his face over and over again while blood began pouring from his mouth. I stood up off of him and began to yell at him. I screamed at the top of my lungs at him, about how big of a piece of shit he was, about how he had forsaken his own brother and his families name. The anger grew to the point where words no longer formed but screams only came from my lungs. I began kicking him, first in the ribs, over and over again. Then to his face which he had began to lift up from the floor. Lastly i stood over his limp unconscious body and leaned down to his turned up left ear and uttered the words "Rot you piece of fucking shit" before stomping my foot into his head three times for good meassure.
As I fleed from the apartment, down the stairs and out the door I did not know what to. Anger, fear, sadness, filled me. I knew I couldn't go back home, I knew I couldn't go to the police. With Italians, especially in America, if you couldn't go to the police, and you didn't have any other options you went to the mafia, the men of cosa nostra. I was unfortunately now left to turn to the man my uncle had worked for. I knee I had no other option, I couldn't go outside East Harlems Little Italy to another Don. I figured I was either going to prison or get gunned down for what I'd done anyways, might as well take a shot in the dark.
I made my way down the many blocks that separated the poor from the semi wealthy. I knew that the Dons home would have men standing guard, especially with the outbreak of violence that had swept the city. I didn't know what I was going to say, or really what to expect, but I knew it was the only slim hope I had.
As I approached the fence that blocked the house from the sidewalk I was approached by two large men, one holding a crowbar, the other a pistol which he held close to his body while still pointing at me. I knew who they were, they soon recognized me, which only eased the tension a tiny bit. I told them I needed to sit down with Don Genovese, it was urgent and could not wait. The guard with the crowbar, known around the neighborhood as Little Johnnie, went to the house to wake the Don. I could hear the Dons voice from outside the house, he was not happy about being awoke at such an hour, I could feel my heart beat in my throat as Little Johnnie emerged through the door. He informed me that the Don would see me, but was very upset to be disrespected in such a way as to be removed from his sleep. The two guards brought me into the house, through the living room, through the dining room and into a den towards the back of the house.
The guards shut the doors behind me as I stepped into the room, the Don had not taken the time to dress himself but instead sat in a chair in his robe his eyebrows formed in a way to show his anger. He asked what had brought me here at such a time, why there was blood on my clothes. I explained to the Don my story, I pleaded my case, I told him about my father, I told him about the events that had transpired. I begged of him for mercy, to not take my life like Salvatore had taken my fathers, like I had taken his. But instead of being met with anger, with gun fire, or a death sentence, I was met with a smile. He asked me if it felt good, and my fear and confusion made my voice tremble in reply when I asked him what he had said as if I'd not heard him. He repeated himself in asking if it felt good. I did not know what to say to him, I was overwhelmed. I told him I was too numb to feel remorse, too numb to care. He told me that was good. He explained to me about the times, how reputation and respect and cutting off a mans testicles and leaving him in the open didn't mean anything to anyone anymore. He explained how shooting up a families hangout, the car of a rival, the front of a rival, beating a man to death in public, shooting him at close range where others could see. This was the way power was gained now adays, war on the streets was the only way to keep what you have, and gain what you want. I sat quiet as he talked, though not raised up in it, I was raised up in the culture, I knew better than to interrupt a Don. He summed up his explanations by telling me he could make all my problems exist no more, all I had to do was come be his soldier, give my life to the family, to him.
I knew what my father would say, how he would feel. I also knew much like the Don had spoken of the times changing for cosa nostra, so had things changed for my life in the span of a few hours. What else could I do? what else could I say? I dropped to my knees, took his hand in mine and kissed the back of his hand uttering the words "my life is yours".
That's how I got to where I am today, there's many more stories, but this, this is what brought me to where I am today, this is my story. |
