This Family of Mine: What It Was Like Growing Up Gotti (35 page)

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ix weeks after the abortion, doctors deemed me well enough to undergo the necessary cardiac surgery. The decision was a godsend, as I was not allowed to leave the house without the bulky machine or someone knowledgeable enough to use it in case of an emergency. After the implantation of the defibrillator, I remained in the hospital for a week for observation. It took another six weeks to heal and then I was back to my normal routine. Within two months, doctors allowed me to travel.

As soon as I could, I went to see my father. He needed to see me—to make sure I was okay. We talked about the abortion and about the defibrillator. When we finished discussing my health, the conversation shifted immediately to John. My brother was due to begin his sentence the following week and Dad was still upset
about the plea. He said to me, “Do you know why I’m here? It took them $80 million and three lying cases and seven rats that killed a hundred people in the Witness Protection Program to finally frame me. You understand?”

I tried everything I could to calm him, but nothing worked. It was as though my brother had failed him and there was nothing I nor anyone could say to change this. What was also bothering him was the distance now placed between him and John—and the rift between Dad and Mom. Mom was still angry about John. For years she had argued with Dad about John and the life. It devastated her. She made Dad promise her John would never be in danger. She wrote Dad another letter. Once again, it was nasty and filled with hatred. She’d reminded him of the son they had lost and deemed John’s lifestyle and Dad’s encouragement of it as another “death” of one of their sons. This made my father crazy and on the visit, we discussed it.

With John accepting the plea, he’d also made it clear to Dad he wanted out of the life. Surprisingly, Dad was fine with his decision to leave the mob. Usually, there was only one way out: death. Because Dad was the boss, John was given a pass. In fact, before I’d left the visit, my father gave me a message to give Mom. “Tell your mother, your brother is out. He’s released from his obligations.”

It was music to my mother’s ears and to John’s. When I returned home, I went to see my brother. We talked about my visit with Dad—and Dad’s reaction to John’s decision. John was relieved. He’d told me he’d wanted out since 1990. It was the birth of his first son that made him decide he wanted a better life. John talked about the possibility of moving his family away from New York, once he came out of prison. He talked about buying a small farm and living a “simpler life.” He wanted his own son away from the streets. He wanted better for his own kids then we had growing up. The one thing we both agreed on was that we didn’t want our
children to grow up as we had, with a father constantly in and out of jail.

The night before John went to jail, each of us stopped by to wish him well. This time, he did not want a formal good-bye dinner. He wanted a quiet night, alone with his wife and kids and immediate family. I stopped by just before ten that night. I found my brother sitting in the den, looking solemn and distant. He was concerned about his family, and I promised I would help his wife with the kids. I would do my best to make sure they were okay. We also discussed our father—John was still upset and felt guilty about letting him down. I supported John in his decision making as far as the plea deal went and as far as leaving the life. In the end, John agreed it was the right choice for him. He kept saying things like, “Vicki, I am not Daddy. He’s a man like no other. Daddy is a warrior and dedicated to the life—a cause he puts before all else. I do not.”

We also discussed the government’s vendetta. John believed by taking the plea it was the only way to escape the constant scrutiny and harassment. I agreed with him, but Dad’s words still haunted me. I really hoped he was wrong about the FBI never letting John out of jail if he took the plea.

That night, John kissed me good-bye at the door, then he walked me to my car. Outside, he hugged me, tighter than usual. He did not feel afraid. He felt liberated. Tomorrow was to be the first day of the rest of his life. I missed him already for my own selfish reasons. I couldn’t hold back the tears. “Don’t cry,” he told me. “This is a good thing. A great thing, trust me, sis. When I get out, we’ll all start a new life.” What I didn’t know then was that John had also decided to relinquish any money Dad had given him to hold, money that was to secure each of our futures if something should happen to our father.

The subject had never come up before, mostly because women were thought of as “weak” and “feeble” as far as men in the life
were concerned. I didn’t know then that Dad had asked Mom just before he was arrested if she wanted the responsibility of overseeing the financial matters and she said no. She told me, “I didn’t want the responsibility. What if it was stolen or lost? I didn’t want the scrutiny. I was afraid law enforcement might one day storm the door and confiscate the money.” In the end, John had asked one of the attorneys to see to it that Lewis Kasman would properly manage whatever money Dad had left. Lewis was one of only a few people left Dad could trust.

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he party started at eight sharp. My husband was still getting dressed. The kids were waiting impatiently downstairs, dressed in their Sunday finest. The occasion? Another surprise birthday party thrown by my husband at an elegant wedding hall, the Westbury Manor on Long Island. To keep the element of surprise he made me believe we were going to a charity event. The last party took place on a yacht. Two hundred guests sailed around Manhattan, dancing to the tunes of the Temptations, the Drifters, and the O’Jay’s. My husband and I were big Motown fans. It was black-tie only.

The year before, Carmine had thrown another huge and expensive bash; each time, he tried to outdo the one before. Then, he secretly purchased a beautiful, fully-loaded black Lincoln Navigator,
wrapped it in a huge red bow, and parked it on the dance floor of Carlton on the Park, the most exclusive event hall on Long Island. The only way to get the truck into the hall and onto the dance floor was to have the back wall removed the day before the party and then replaced the day after.

We were just about to walk out the door when the phone rang. I thought about just letting it ring. But something told me otherwise—something made me answer it. It was my father. It wasn’t a regularly scheduled call. He asked about the kids, twice, and immediately I sensed something was wrong. Then he dropped the bomb.

“I have cancer, Vicki.”

I couldn’t speak, couldn’t even move. The few seconds of silence seemed like an hour. Then I cleared my throat and said, “What are you talking about, Daddy?”

My father went on to explain. He’d had a sore throat for months. In fact on the last two visits he had sounded more hoarse than before. Then he told me the prison doctors said he had a persistent case of strep throat. They kept prescribing antibiotics. A week later, when Dad told the doctor he “felt like there was a lump in his throat,” the doctor suggested it might be E. coli. He prescribed another antibiotic, something stronger. A few weeks after that, when Dad told him he could no longer swallow his food, the prison doctor finally ordered an endoscopy, a procedure to look inside the throat. It took nearly a month for the doctor to schedule the test and another three weeks to get the results. The entire process took six months from the onset of the sore throat before Dad got a diagnosis. He’d waited until the results were back before telling anyone. He also wanted me to know he did not want to tell me, especially on my birthday.

But because he only got the phone once a month, and he was afraid we would learn he had cancer by reading it in the newspaper,
he broke the bad news. I sat down on the hall steps and asked him, “What do the doctors think, Daddy?” But I already knew the answer. It wasn’t good. By now, my husband knew something was wrong and shut the car off and came back inside the house. I was trying hard not to cry. Dad remained strong and convincing. “I’ll be fine, trust me, Vicki. I just wanted to tell you before you heard it any other way. Now, you go and enjoy your birthday and write me all about the party tomorrow.” As if I could even think about my birthday and the party.

It took a while to compose myself and get into the car. I didn’t say a word to my husband or the kids. In fact, I waited until the next day before I told the rest of the family as well. My youngest brother Peter and I shared the same birthday and always celebrated the day together. I didn’t want to ruin everyone’s night.

We were all in a panic. We believed the worst, and we were right. I made arrangements to go see my father the following week. When I arrived at Marion I went through the usual, grueling routine, being searched once, twice, three times. Being led through not one, but four steel doors into the visiting room, to booth number six. I spoke to my father and tried to assure him that everything would be fine. He didn’t seem to care about the cancer; he was more concerned about how the family had taken the news, especially the grandkids.

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HE VISIT WAS
taxing. We spent the better part of five hours talking about new chemo treatments and cancer procedures. We also discussed the radical surgery Dad needed. His head, neck, and face would be split down the middle and the surgeon would remove any mass or suspicious area and hopefully all of the cancer would be removed. He would be left with moveable flaps covering the area on the side of his face and neck; the flaps would be made from
skin taken from his pectoral muscles. Then he would need approximately four rounds of chemotherapy. I was terrified. But Dad remained calm. The prison wouldn’t tell Dad when the surgery would be scheduled “for security reasons.” Maybe they assumed we would try and break him out of the hospital?

Mom was beside herself. She felt so guilty because she had not spoken to Dad for over a year. As soon as she found out about the cancer, she feared the worst and demanded to see Dad right away. I made the necessary arrangements. The visit was great. They laughed and they cried. But, most importantly, they’d made their peace. It was especially good to see a smile on Dad’s face again.

Three weeks later, we found out Dad had the surgery by reading about it in the newspapers. We also learned he was still in ICU. So Mom, Angel, and I boarded a plane and headed to the prison hospital. Because Marion was not equipped to handle a sick inmate, Dad was transferred to a nearby prison hospital, Springfield Medical Facility in Springfield, Missouri. The institution was a far cry from the depressing sight of Marion. Inmates seemed to roam freely about the halls manuevering wheelchairs or with the aid of a prison nurse. Outside, on the sprawling green lawn, inmates played sports such as football and soccer. Even the cells were more like hospital rooms than jail cells. The sight of my father post-op was startling! No wonder he didn’t want any of us to see him. His orders from the start were “no visits for at least a month after surgery.”

He looked distorted and disfigured. He’d lost a lot of weight and looked gaunt. He wasn’t able to eat anything by mouth, just a diet of pure liquids through a feeding tube. He looked heavily medicated, but tried his best to convince all of us he was fine. He even tried to get out of the wheelchair and into a nearby seat without the help of the prison nurse. It proved too difficult, so he remained in the wheelchair. It was a large room with a large table and twelve chairs. There were no booths or walls made out of Plexiglas and no
scratchy old phones. Still, we were told it was to be a “noncontact” visit. The only reason we were allowed to visit Dad in that room was because there were no other “non-contact” booths available that day. I remember most how hard it was sitting so close to him and not being able to touch him, especially since he was so sick.

Dad was in good spirits, despite his frail appearance. He did his best to sit through the visit, but we could all tell he was in pain. At one point the nurse appeared and gave him some pain medication and a can of Ensure, a nutritional supplement that tasted like a milk shake and was loaded with calories. We suggested he go back upstairs and rest. We could always come back in the morning, as was the plan. He refused. He even joked about how hungry he was. He said he would even welcome the normally inedible food the prison dished out, if only he could eat. Little did we know he would never eat solid food again. He brought up my lasagna, and how he would gladly give his right arm for a scoop of it.

A few weeks later, Dad began chemo. We thought this would be done at the prison hospital and were very surprised to learn it was administered through an IV drip in his cell at Marion. He’d been taken back one week after the surgery. Back at Marion there was no nurse to monitor his vitals, so it came as no surprise that Dad woke one night with terrible chest pain. As he got up from the bed looking for a guard, he passed out, hit the floor, and lay in a puddle of his own blood for hours until the guard came to do rounds early the next day. Later, Dad was transferred back to the prison hospital and it was discovered he’d suffered a massive heart attack. Because of the delay in getting treatment, nearly sixty percent of his heart muscle was destroyed. This time the prison kept him in the hospital for less than a week and he was transferred back to his cell. I’m convinced that the warden at Marion knew damn well that Dad belonged in a prison hospital, but he was intent on making John Gotti’s stay a living hell.

Another round of chemo was started the next day. I was stunned when I found out. I was my father’s designated “medical advocate,” and I had access to all my father’s records and some authority over his treatment, especially if he could no longer make decisions for himself. That’s how I found out they had started the chemo again so quickly. I called the prison supervisor and requested an update on Dad’s condition. When he told me about the second round of chemo, I feared another heart attack. So my mother and I jumped on the next plane to Marion. It took us three days to get in to see Dad. Prison regulations dictated what days visits were allowed and what days they were not. So we waited. The newspapers and media reported he was “near death” and we were terrified. I kept calling the prison, desperate for answers, but nobody seemed to know anything. Ironically, the press had more information on my father than I did.