This Family of Mine: What It Was Like Growing Up Gotti (3 page)

The bathroom was actually one floor below the attic apartment, and since heat was scarce throughout the old building, the hallway was usually frigid. Not surprisingly, the Gotti children dreaded those nights when they had to navigate a cold and unwieldy trip to the bathroom. Dad would slide out from under his blanket and weave his way through a minefield of sleeping bodies, all the while shivering uncontrollably. If he was unlucky enough to step on someone’s hand or foot, the ensuing yelping and fighting would provoke an angry appearance from my grandmother—something none of the kids wanted.

While Dad continued to toss and turn, his brother Ritchie fought the urge to pee as long as he could—and when the pressure turned to pain, he jumped from the bed and stumbled toward the door. As luck would have it, the door wouldn’t open. Uncle Ritchie desperately jiggled the handle from side to side, pushing in the door, ever so slightly, and then pulling back.

Push . . . pull. Push . . . pull.

Still nothing.

With Ritchie’s bladder on the verge of giving out, he frantically sought another option. He looked around the room for a container, anything he could use to relieve himself. But a quick scan turned up nothing. He was ready to explode. Dad watched his brother make a mad dash for the bedroom window rather than soil himself or his cot. He ripped it open, and peed into the cold night air. How could he possibly know Grandpa was standing beneath the window?

My grandfather was a terror; his ill-temper had the shortest of fuses. Beatings were the norm; even at twelve, Dad couldn’t escape them. Sometimes the violence was so severe that my father would miss school for days; the blackened eyes, swollen lips, and bruises too painful and shameful to be shown in public. The poverty and abuse, both mental and physical, that my father experienced as a child helped shape his outlook as much as anything else.

When my grandfather finally made it inside and upstairs to the attic apartment, he headed for the back bedroom—straight for the person responsible for his unexpected shower. Of course, my father was scared speechless. He hopped back into bed and pulled the old army blanket up over his head, trying hard to stop trembling. My grandfather pushed in the old wooden door and stormed into the room, stepping over bodies, poking each kid with the tip of an umbrella. The first to jump, he figured, was the one already awake, and thus the most likely culprit. But Uncle Ritchie lay still
as a rock—while Dad, still unable to sleep, tossed and turned. He jumped when Grandpa poked him. So naturally, he got the blame.

The beating Dad endured that night was worse than any he’d ever received before. His face was so badly bruised that my grandmother pulled him out of school for several days. As a boy, Dad and his siblings did their best to avoid pissing off their father; what none of them had counted on was the possibility of pissing
on
their father.

T
HE FOLLOWING WEEK
, my father managed to get a job delivering laundry. He worked after school and all day Saturday for fifty cents an hour, plus tips. He used an old pushcart with rusty wheels to haul the large packages around Downtown Brooklyn, about a mile or so from the Gotti household. At the end of the week he handed his pay over to my grandmother, keeping only $1.50 for himself. The fact that Dad was forced to turn over most of his wages didn’t bother him in the least; mature beyond his years, he felt proud of being able to help support his family.

Unfortunately, his happiness was short-lived. Three months later, in the spring of 1952, my grandfather got restless and left home again. This time my grandmother fell apart. To my father’s eyes, the change was remarkable. Fannie became depressed and withdrawn. Nothing seemed to matter anymore.

The days that followed were dark times for the entire family. And for a twelve-year-old, Dad shouldered an unusually heavy burden. It wasn’t just the beatings that had stripped him of his innocence; it was the constant verbal abuse dished out by my grandfather. As my father once said to me, “How many times can a kid hear that he’s a piece of shit before he begins to believe it? How many times can a kid hear that he’ll never amount to nothing, because he is nothing?”

According to Dad, there were two strict rules necessary for survival in the Gotti household (at least whenever my grandfather was in residence): “Keep your mouth shut—and run like hell.” Usually he received advance warning before an actual event took place. Simply listening to my grandfather’s rants provided insight as to what was likely to happen next. Still, there was no way to know for certain when the proverbial shit would hit the fan.

Perhaps the most cataclysmic event took place in the middle of the night in mid-February 1952. Sister Mary Margaret roused the Gotti children from a comfortable sleep and gathered the family in a downstairs parlor. John knew that something was terribly wrong. Where was their mother? Even Sister Mary Margaret’s offer of hot chocolate and cookies couldn’t mask the dread and fear that hung in the air.

The children, who lived in a state of perpetual hunger, ate voraciously anyway. When they were finished, Sister Mary Margaret calmly issued the bad news. Their mother had fallen “ill,” euphemistically referred to back then as “exhaustion.” Today, of course, the condition is more commonly referred to as depression. In its most severe form, it results in a complete emotional collapse. The years of trauma had finally exacted their toll, all the bickering and fighting, the sickness that permeated every aspect of her marriage to my grandfather. It had become too much for Fannie to bear, and when my grandfather took off the last time, she withdrew into herself, to the only place, perhaps, where she felt safe.

Grandma, Sister Mary Margaret explained to Dad and his brothers and sisters, had been admitted to a local hospital and placed in the “hardship ward.” Because there were no relatives willing to accept financial and custodial responsibility, the Gotti family was effectively splintered. The children were separated and sent to various places, some more toxic than others. Most of
the kids went to live with old neighbors who had become friends; a few weren’t as fortunate. My father and his older brother, Pete, for example, drew the shortest straws and were dropped off at the Brooklyn Home for Boys, not knowing when—or if—their mother would ever come back for them.

T
he officer stared down at the gangly, dark-haired girl in front of him. She couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years old. And yet, here she was, out on her own, well after midnight, walking through Central Park.

“Are you okay?” the policeman asked.

She had enormous brown eyes, olive skin, and dark hair in a shoulder-length bob that would surely be adorable if cleaned up. Her tattered black pea coat was nearly two sizes too small; her face was smudged with traces of dirt.

He pulled out his walkie-talkie and radioed headquarters.

“I have a possible runaway in Central Park.”

By now, the girl was crying—tears spilled down her face, streaking her dirty cheeks. The officer smiled politely and noticed
the girl’s shoulders rising and falling. Beneath her flimsy coat she was shaking uncontrollably; whether from fear or cold, he couldn’t say for sure.

It took a McDonald’s cheeseburger, a package of Twinkies, and a half bottle of Coke to gain the kid’s confidence. She told the officer her name was Victoria Lorraine DiGiorgio, and she lived mostly in a home—Sacred Heart Academy for Girls—and on rare occasions stayed at her mother’s apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She’d only seen her father a few times and didn’t remember exactly where he lived.

It was two weeks before the Christmas holiday, and Sacred Heart had closed for winter recess. Most of the girls had gone home to spend the holidays with their families—everyone, that is, except young Victoria, my mother. Mom told me she’d learned two days earlier that her mother would not be picking her up for the customary winter break.

“I’m sorry,” said the officer. Mom said he was a kind man. And she could tell these types of stories never failed to tug at his heart—a kid alone in the park at Christmastime.

My mother just shrugged. “No surprise. I hardly see her at all these days.”

But earlier that day, the thought of spending another Christmas without family so saddened her that she decided to take matters into her own hands.

In the school admissions office Mom had found her file. There was a white index card with the words “Emergency Contacts” written at the top. Underneath there were two addresses, one for her mother and one for her father. His name was John DiGiorgio; he was twenty-seven years old and he lived in Queens.

Mom told the officer how she’d managed to take two buses to her father’s house in Long Island City. When she arrived at the
two-family brownstone, she’d pressed her face to the smoky glass, rang the bell, and stepped back. Despite the smudged windowpane above the front door, she could see her reflection. Her hair was a bit messy from the forceful winds and light snow; her school uniform, a green plaid vest and matching skirt, was wrinkled from the long bus ride. She brushed her hair with her fingers and smoothed the creases of her worn jumper—the last thing she wanted was to make a poor impression on her father. And yet, she thought, she still looked like a pathetic waif.

She told the officer she was most curious about his appearance. She wondered what traits they would share, what features had come from this man she’d never met. Her chin? Her mouth? The shape of her ears?

When a chubby woman in a white uniform answered the door, my mother froze. She stood in the doorway for nearly a minute before whispering.

“I need to see my father.”

The woman wasn’t receptive; at best, she was incredulous, opening the door only an inch or two, just enough to wave a hand at my mother, as if she were nothing more than an annoying bug. The woman scolded her, too, saying something about calling the police if she didn’t leave immediately. Then she slammed the door.

Mom walked forlornly to the street and looked up at the second-floor window. It was then that she saw him. He was handsome, with a full head of ink-black hair and cold brown eyes—as cold as the dark side of the moon. He was standing with both hands on his hips, staring down at her with a blank expression on his face. And then he did . . . nothing.

Nothing.

He just stood there, staring down at my mother. A few moments
passed. Their eyes locked again. And then he turned away from the window and disappeared, receding like a wave.

Mom told the officer that the search had been something she needed to do, something that made her realize her place in the world. Her father wanted her even less than her mother had wanted her, if that was even possible. Now, Victoria realized, she could simply disappear from the planet, just slip off into the unknown. Would anyone even notice?

She decided to run away. She’d gotten as far as Central Park, but when evening turned to night and the wintry winds turned frigid and forceful, she became scared; perhaps, she reasoned, running away wasn’t such a good idea after all, and she gave the officer her mother’s address.

When the officer and Victoria arrived at the Upper West Side address there was no one home. He stopped by the superintendent’s office and picked up a spare key for 4J, a two-bedroom apartment on the west side of the building. It was sparsely decorated: a sofa, two club chairs, an armoire, a television, and a small wooden dining table with four chairs.

Rather than leave the child unattended the officer sat down on the sofa and waited. Mom later told me he could have left her with a neighbor—after all, his shift had ended nearly an hour earlier—but something still tugged at his heart.

The officer saw to it that Mom got cleaned up and ready for bed. Her room was surprisingly sterile and lacking in décor—not only didn’t it look like a child’s room, it barely looked lived in at all. No wonder the child was so sad.

It was nearly 3
A.M
. when the officer was awakened by the rattling of keys at the front door. Seconds later a woman appeared in the apartment. She was tall, brunette, and nicely dressed. She was also inebriated; she lurched clumsily into the living room. As the
officer reached over and turned on a table lamp, their eyes met. The officer smiled.

“Good evening, ma’am,” he said, removing his cap.

The woman said nothing, but merely fell back into one of the chairs and sighed.

T
O SAY THAT
my mother was an unwanted child would be an understatement. My grandfather was not yet eighteen years old when he met my grandmother. He was a garage mechanic in Queens; she was a hostess at a restaurant in Manhattan. Faye Petrowski was on her way home one morning after working the night shift at a twenty-four-hour diner. She was very attractive, with long, dark curls, big brown eyes, and high cheekbones. She was petite and thin, and when she walked down Euclid Avenue in Brooklyn, more than a few heads would turn.

Among the men smitten with Faye was John DiGiorgio, a handsome Italian from a hardworking, well-to-do family from Astoria, Queens. The DiGiorgios were right off the boat, having traveled to Ellis Island from Cascina, Italy, in the early 1900s. John’s father had been a fiercely ambitious man who rose from laborer to magnate, building one of the most successful construction companies in Queens. His mother was a traditional Italian housewife who spoke very little English.

The couple had big plans for their oldest son, and those plans did not include his marrying a non-Italian from the poor side of town. Yet, despite his parents’ protests, John continued to chase after Faye. He couldn’t help himself, really—he was hopelessly in love. And so they began dating. They would sneak around the Queens neighborhood in an effort to hide their budding romance. They were madly in love, in that intoxicating, overwhelming way
that only adolescents can know. John couldn’t keep his hands off her. But Faye was raised a good girl and was saving her virginity for when she got married.