This Family of Mine: What It Was Like Growing Up Gotti (14 page)

If you were a person of respect on the inside, it was quite possible to emerge from a sentence unharmed and unchanged. But it was hardly a picnic. Of course, with assistance from “compassionate” guards (those who were on the take), it was possible to enjoy the occasional good meal. Other than that, jail is depressing.

As my dad used to say, prison is prison. No one wants to be there.

D
AD WENT AWAY
to prison with Uncle Angelo, so each month Mom and Aunt Marie shoved bags of luggage and six kids into a beat-up Chrysler and made the three-to-four-hour drive to Pennsylvania.

Lewisburg was filled with other Mafia associates including the Bonanno captain, Carmine Galante. Galante was serving a short sentence for loan sharking and was considered by the other inmates to be “the Warden” of Mafia row. The prison, like most others, was segregated into sections and gangs. The Italians mostly stayed in Mafia row, while the Latinos, blacks, and Irish also had their own crews. My father could care less about the so-called “administration” formed when he was in prison; he marched to his own beat. He pretty much kept to himself—and channeled his energy into self-education. Dad was self conscious about being a high school dropout. He was determined to use his time in prison to become a well-read, well-educated man. But there was one thing that bothered him very much. Galante had many of the guards on his payroll, offering bribes to anyone in exchange for amenities and favors. Galante would arrange for these guards to sneak in forbidden items like succulent steaks, Cohiba cigars, fine wines and champagne, and recreational games like poker chips and horseracing
scratch sheets so he and the other inmates could eat well and keep busy playing cards and betting on the races from prison. Dad didn’t care that Galante was being pampered royally. What bothered him was that Galante kept these things for himself and a few members of his crew.

Dad was a man with undying support for the underdog. He approached Galante and asked him why he was so selfish. Dad mentioned to Galante that there were other men forced to serve much longer sentences without any luxuries or favors. Dad suggested the Bonnano captain share some of these amenities with the other inmates. If there was one thing my father hated, it was selfishness. It reminded him of the old days of being poor and not having enough to eat for dinner, of the night his own father sat down to a steak dinner while his starving siblings sat and watched. Most of the prisoners told Dad he was crazy to question Galante’s tactics.

Galante, on the other hand, was impressed with Dad’s brazen and fearless demeanor—so much so that he asked my father if he wanted to join his crew. Dad turned him down, because he was loyal to Dellacroce and Gambino. But Dad did make sure that the luxuries Galante managed to acquire were shared equally with the other less fortunate inmates.

In the years Dad was at Lewisburg, the inmates grew to like and respect him so much. Just before Dad left the prison in 1972 they threw a big “farewell” bash in his honor.

W
HILE
D
AD WAS
in Lewisburg, I was getting ready to graduate from the sixth grade. Mom had invited Uncle Pete, Dad’s older brother, and his wife Kitty to come in Dad’s place. I was happy to see my uncle and aunt there, but I wished Dad wasn’t away in jail. The ceremony took place in the school’s auditorium and awards were given out in the earlier part of the ceremony. I was called
several times to come up onstage and collect an award: one for “Outstanding Character,” another for “Academic Excellence,” and yet another for “Excellence in Physical Education.” One award in particular that I received was given out not by the school but by the entire district, which encompassed thousands of students. It was called The United Federation of Teachers Award and was given to two students yearly—one male, one female—for excellence in academics. I approached the podium once again, and accepted the award. As I made my way down from the stage and back to my seat, I searched the crowded auditorium for my mother’s face. She was sitting off to the right, next to Uncle Pete and Aunt Kitty. The three of them clapped the loudest for me. I smiled at them and turned to take my seat in the front row. Imagine my shock when I saw my father standing in the back of the auditorium. He was dressed so dapper in a navy suit and, boy, was he smiling.

I later learned he’d been released a few weeks early and planned on surprising me by showing up at my graduation. Even Mom didn’t know he was coming home that day. My father took that award with him, resting it on the passenger seat of his car. For days, he showed it to anyone he came in contact with—bragging about how smart I was and how proud he was of me.

T
HE NEXT FEW
years with my father home were a blessing, an actual godsend. Things started changing quickly, and for the better. We actually owned our own house—a modest, attached cape in Canarsie, Brooklyn. Moving out of rat-infested, roach-crawling railroad flats was such a step up for us, we were overjoyed. Aside from the new house, we had a shiny new Lincoln Continental—champagne and chocolate brown, the Bill Blass edition—parked in our driveway.

Our newfound lifestyle was the reward of Dad’s moving up in
the life after he came out of prison. Later on, I’d learned that the house and the car were gifts from his then “Boss,” Carlo Gambino.

Although we thought the house was our nirvana, Dad wasn’t thrilled with what he called the “shabbiness” of it. Mom had picked it out while Dad was in jail. But Dad wasn’t impressed when he pulled up for the first time after being away. I remember his words were something like, “Butch [Dad’s pet name for Mom], I know you tried to fix this place up with all the handmade drapes and do-it-yourself decorating, but it’s a shithole. The first thing I’m going to do now that I’m home is find us somewhere decent to live.”

So my father began searching for something he felt was more appropriate.

One of our neighbors in Carnarsie was an elderly Jewish woman named Esther. She and Mom became friends early on and Esther often babysat my siblings and me when Mom had to run out. One of Esther’s relatives had a serious tax problem and had to get rid of their beautiful home on Long Island. Esther told my parents the house could be had “for a song and a dance.” She said it was a great bargain for anyone willing and ready to move quickly.

Dad put a deposit down on the house without even seeing it. Five thousand dollars. When we went out to see the house, we were totally awestruck. It was on a corner lot in Woodmere, a huge, white shingled house, set back down a long winding driveway. The house itself was hidden by rows and rows of perfectly trimmed pine trees and meticulously manicured lawns. The house needed work, like new aluminum siding, wood doors, and a good paint job, but other than that, it was the most beautiful house my siblings and I had ever seen, even more beautiful than my grandfather’s house in Port Chester. It was the kind of home I never imagined myself and my family ever being fortunate enough to live in.

Inside the house seemed even larger. The rooms seemed to go on forever. There were six bedrooms—enough for each of us to
have our own room and one leftover for guests. We’d never had guests before, though, so we didn’t quite understand the meaning of a guest quarters at the time. The kitchen was huge, nearly four times the size of our current one. The cabinets were real wood, with shiny brass handles. One appliance stood out in particular—a stainless-steel dishwasher—something we’d never even seen before. My mother was immediately drawn to it—in fact, she even asked if she could “look inside.” Her eyes lit up when she opened the door and saw the two plastic upper and lower racks. There was a maid’s room and then some talk about hiring a live-in housekeeper, and that’s when our dream came crashing into reality.

My mother, raised just as poor as my father, just couldn’t get used to the idea that we could live in such lavish surroundings. She thought the house was too “luxurious and piggish” at the same time. She believed we would be like “fish out of water” moving from where we lived to such a place. The place we lived in at the time was a tiny, one-story row house. Like a brownstone, it was attached on both sides to other, similar houses. The rooms were closet-sized and the décor was nothing short of gaudy. As in other typical Italian homes, the living room was the focal point of the house. It was a look-but-don’t-touch museum space, filled with ugly Capodimonte figurines and gold velvet couches covered in plastic slipcovers that stuck to your skin each time you sat down. In our living room, there may very well have been an invisible or imaginary velvet rope letting us know to stay out. What a joy it would have been to move to a house filled with rooms we could actually live in or use. But the mere thought completely overwhelmed my mother. Dad, not wanting to upset her, reluctantly agreed, even though the five thousand dollar deposit was nonrefundable. Our excitement was short-lived. I remember the car ride back to Brooklyn—it was a mere forty minutes, but it seemed to take forever as we rode home in silence—each of us deep in thought, both resentful and angry.
We had gotten our first taste of how the “other half” lived—if only for a moment.

T
HOUGH HE WAS
paroled in 1972, my father’s life on the outside didn’t last long. When he’d returned to the streets, back to Fatico’s social club, Dad learned he was to be given a promotion. Carmine Fatico had recently been indicted on loan-sharking charges and it was likely he was going to prison. He’d chosen Dad to be the acting captain, or capo, in his absence. As a result, Dad quickly became familiar with both adversaries and allies along the way. One such adversary was the “Don,” himself, Carlo Gambino.

Gambino had recently suffered a tragic loss. A group claiming to be the “Westies,” an Irish gang originating out of Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan, had kidnapped his nephew. They demanded one hundred grand in ransom. Gambino agreed to pay and wanted his nephew back safely. For the moment, he’d arranged for his nephew’s wife to pay the ransom. Gambino delivered the full amount, but the kidnappers killed his nephew anyway. It was the actions of one of the most ruthless gangs around—an act of savagery that left every wiseguy from New York to Las Vegas craving revenge. The thugs responsible for such an unspeakable act would be made to pay. Gambino reached out for Gotti, the young man he’d been hearing so much about. Ironically, Dad was not yet even a “made man.” Gambino had issued a “no buttons” restriction a few years earlier and his orders still stood. But he was very impressed with my father and made it his business to keep the young “buck” close to him. He wanted the man responsible for killing his nephew brought to him—alive.

Dad, Angelo Ruggiero, and one of Gambino’s soldiers, Ralph Galione, were personally picked by Gambino to carry out his revenge. They found out the man responsible for killing the Don’s
nephew was James McBratney, a member of the Westies gang. Gambino’s men found him one night at Snoope’s Bar and Grill in Staten Island. The three men entered the bar pretending to be detectives, claiming they had a warrant for McBratney’s arrest—a believable ruse, as McBratney was always in trouble with the law and had been arrested numerous times. But that night, McBratney resisted. He ignored the men and became belligerent. What happened next was not part of the plan. Galione pulled out a small pistol and shot McBratney at close range, killing him. The three men fled the scene. Dad and Ruggiero were soon identified from photos that police officers provided to eyewitnesses. They heard they were being hunted and went on the lam. It was as if Dad was in prison again. Money was scarce, bills piled up once again, and Mom grew increasingly depressed. As young as I was, I remember the many times that Mom would wake us in the middle of the night, telling us to “dress quickly.” Then we all shoved into my Uncle Pete’s car and hours later we’d arrive at some nondescript motel in New Jersey. Dad would be waiting, pacing the floors nervously until we arrived. We wouldn’t stay longer than overnight, so as not to draw unwanted attention to the motel and to Dad. He was on the lam and had to stay “underground” until things cooled off. This period lasted about a year, until Dad was arrested in a Queens bar. He’d deliberately let himself get caught. Gambino, meanwhile, had been busy arranging top-notch legal counsel. Roy Cohn was hired to get Dad and Angelo the best possible deal, which by the way wasn’t that hard to do. Back in the seventies, even until the mid-eighties, the police, even the FBI, rarely bothered “made” men—or any organized crime guys—mostly because law enforcement welcomed the extra protection the Mafia provided. The streets were calm and quiet, and it was a rare occasion if chaos broke out. Some cops looked the other way because they were on the take. But most of law enforcement deliberately adhered to the rules; mobsters took
care of their own territories and, if need be, reprimanded anyone who dared mess with their rules and regulations. If a mob hit or mob war took place, it was thought to be a “casualty of the job.” It went with the territory—and every man that signed on for that lifestyle signed on for the risk as well. In the case of Gambino’s nephew being kidnapped, even the cops were outraged and wanted to see justice played out.

In the end, Cohn managed to get my father and Angelo two years in prison. The charge was later dropped from murder to attempted manslaughter. Galione, who actually pulled the trigger, was never seen or heard from again. Most in the life believe he was killed on Don Carlo’s orders for botching the carefully planned event. Both Dad and Ruggiero were sent to Green Haven Prison in upstate New York in 1974. This time, Dad was automatically initiated as “the Warden” of “Mafia row.” But on the streets, where it mattered most, word soon spread that John Gotti had officially earned his “bonus”—a term used when a man became a wiseguy or goodfella.

By now, Dad had found a father figure in Dellacroce. The two became inseparable. Dellacroce took Dad under his wing and made him his protégé. And this pleased Dad. He believed Dellacroce was a “man’s man,” and few of the elders had that impact on my father. Dellacroce stayed in close contact with Dad while he was in Greenhaven; using cards and letters and many prison visits to brief my father in his way. And for Dad having the support and respect of a man in the life like Dellacroce was money in the bank as far as climbing to the top of the underworld went.