This Family of Mine: What It Was Like Growing Up Gotti (8 page)

The previous years had centered on more practical concerns, like finding a proper place to live and successfully staving off eviction.

Poverty was also certainly an issue: Dad spun through a revolving door of employment and unemployment, while Mom tried to put away a few dollars from her savings. Because Dad was so old-fashioned—especially when it came to women working—Mom quit her job with the phone company. Somehow they managed to save enough money to get a little place of their own, and that’s when they had their second wedding. It was a no-fuss, no-frills civil ceremony on November 14th.

The Fatico brothers wanted to host the wedding party. But pride kept my father from accepting their generous offer; he was adamant about paying for everything, despite the fact that he hadn’t a penny to his name. Years later Dad claimed that he had gotten lucky at another all-night card game the night before the wedding and managed to win over a thousand dollars—enough not only to cover the cost of the wedding, but to pay rent for the next few months.

Uncle Angelo made all the arrangements. The tables were to be draped in winter-white cloth linens, and set with porcelain plates and sterling silverware, with a centerpiece of white daisies; and a bottle of Cutty Sark whiskey to be placed at every table. But when Angelo arrived two hours before the party, he discovered not Cutty, but some cheap alternative on the tables. My mother vividly remembers Angelo’s reaction when he discovered this transgression and confronted the club’s owner. At first the owner refused to change it. It meant less money in his pocket if he had.

“Your uncle grabbed the poor guy by the throat and threatened him,” Mom said. “He said, ‘There better be bottles of Cutty on
every table or there’s gonna be a problem—a
big
problem, if you know what I mean!’ ”

Needless to say, within a few minutes, the rotgut had been removed, and Cutty Sark was being unloaded by the case.

The ceremony and reception took place at a rented hall in Brooklyn—a private two-room lounge owned by a neighborhood guy. Dad would tell me years later that the entire event was a break-even proposition, with wedding gifts basically covering the cost of the ceremony. Whatever was left over—and there wasn’t much—was stashed away for a rainy day. Clearly, this was not like something out of
The Godfather,
with the bride and groom enjoying an elaborate spectacle and walking away with enough cash to buy a mansion and put all of their future children through college. There was, instead, a simple gathering of family and friends.

That was enough for Mom and Dad.

I
N THE WEEKS
that followed, my father did his best to find steady work. The Gotti financial situation was bleak, and with a second baby on the way, about to get even bleaker.

My mother busied herself most days trying to master the skills of a traditional housewife. This was not a small task for her, since she’d had little training for the job. Having been raised at a school for girls and not by her own mother, Mom had not learned even the basics of cooking, cleaning, and sewing. She took her new role seriously, even going so far as to register at the local library and take out several instructional books for the budding homemaker. They were guides, mainly—cookbooks, sewing manuals, and the like. Try as she might, though, Mom’s culinary skills were frustratingly slow to develop.

“She couldn’t boil water,” Dad often joked. “Even soft-boiled eggs came out wrong.”

Frustration, combined with the hormonal swings of pregnancy, often drove Mom to tears. The crying jags came without warning, and at all hours of the day and night. There wasn’t much my father could do, and the helplessness tore at his pride, as well as his heart.

One night, while Dad was out at the social club, playing cards and messing around with the guys, a man came around with a cardboard box—inside was the cutest little dog Dad had ever seen. The man was trying to find it a good home. Dad, who had quite the soft spot considering his well-earned reputation for toughness, took one look at the puppy and fell in love; he decided immediately to take the dog home.

Dad was sure that the dog would do wonders for my mother’s emotional state. He also thought, quite correctly, that this adorable, tiny puppy would distract Mom in times of depression. How could you look at the little guy and not smile?

Dad was correct—to a point. Mom had always wanted a poodle while growing up. “The kind that the rich and fancy ladies paraded up and down the wealthy blocks of Manhattan,” she’d say. Also, poodles were the “it” dog of Brooklyn in those days.

So Dad put a big red bow around the dog’s collar and took him home to Mom. He handed her the box proudly and explained that the little pup wriggling inside was actually a baby poodle, rather than a mutt. Mom eyed the dog curiously.

“Why doesn’t he look like a poodle?”

Dad hesitated.

“Ummm, he will,” Dad stammered. “Give him some time, until his hair grows out, or his fur. He just needs one of those fancy haircuts and a few curlers in his hair. We’ll take him downtown in a few weeks, when the weather gets warmer, and the groomer will fix him up. Trust me, he’ll look just like the poodle he is.”

Mom believed him; she fell for the story and for the little puppy with the red bow, whom she named “Bitsey.” After a month of the
adorable little monster chewing his way through the apartment. Mom took him downtown to a pet salon. She walked in proudly, and holding the scraggly little mutt tightly under her arm, she marched right up to one of the groomers, and asked for a “poodle cut.”

The groomer summoned the shop’s owner. The two men stared at the dog for a moment, then retreated together to the rear of the salon to talk. Within a few minutes they reappeared, and soon my mother was engaged in a heated discussion with the owner about the type of haircut that was appropriate for this particular animal, which, according to the salon owner, was obviously no poodle. “It’s a mutt,” he informed Mom.

She did not take this news well.

“I almost died!” she said. “I wanted to kill your father—the sooner the better. I left the salon so embarrassed; I never wanted to show my face in that part of town again.”

Within a few days, cooler heads prevailed, and Mom came to the realization that perhaps it was the thought that mattered: Dad had merely been trying to cheer her up. She forgave him.

As for the dog, he turned out to be a terror. The mutt lasted in the apartment for just a few more weeks before his incessant barking and growling caught the attention of the landlady, who politely reminded my mother that the lease contained very specific wording on the subject of pets: they were not permitted. In the end, Mom found a new home for the dog—she gave it to my grandfather. Mom spent much time trying to get Dad and Grandpa to make amends. A slow process, since Dad was still too resentful of his father.

For thirteen years, the dog was a loyal and beloved companion to Grandpa. Bitsey went everywhere with him, from the neighborhood social club to the local bar, to the neighborhood OTB parlor. The two were practically inseparable; where you saw one, the other was usually right behind. Sadly, Bitsey disappeared during one
of Grandpa’s all-night drinking binges. Typically Gramps brought Bitsey inside the bar on these sojourns, and had him sit up on a stool, obediently, right next to him. But on this night Bitsey was gone. Someone had deliberately cut his leash and made off with the dog.

This devastated my grandfather; to this day, I honestly believe he loved that dog more than he loved all of his kids put together. It’s hard to explain or rationalize, but there was something about his relationship with the dog that brought out the best in the old man. And when Bitsey was gone, he fell into mourning, walking around in stunned silence, searching for his “best friend.” He would rail at no one in particular, vowing to get the person responsible for Bitsey’s disappearance. But nothing came of his threats or his efforts to find the dog.

As for my mother, at least her mood was temporarily lightened by my father’s good intentions. But reality soon intruded. The young couple fell behind on the rent; the afternoon mail brought bills and threats to turn off their utilities. The phone was the first to go; they could live without that, of course, but how would they manage without heat? My father fretted endlessly—it seemed there was no difference between his bleak and depressing childhood and the life he’d made on his own. He just couldn’t seem to dig them out of the hole, and it made him feel like a failure.

Things were about to get even worse.

Just weeks before my mother was due to give birth, the landlady served them with eviction papers. As an added touch of cruelty, she pasted the two-page summons on the apartment door for everyone in the building to see. My father walked around in utter despair that day, desperately searching for some solution. His wife and unborn child were about to be thrown into the street. It was as if he was reliving his own childhood, with one significant exception:
this time, he had to shoulder the responsibility—and the blame—himself. It nearly drove him mad.

He turned to Danny Fatico and begged for work. He told Fatico about the rent that was due and the upcoming baby’s birth. He told Fatico he was desperate and willing to do anything to make some money. Fatico offered to pay the rent—but Dad refused. He was too proud.

At my father’s insistence, Danny helped my father land a “job.” The duties were simple, not exactly legal, but simple. He was to hijack a load of goods, ladies’ dresses, from a truck delivery at JFK Airport. The heist was rudimentary, according to Fatico, and involved very little risk. He introduced my father to the other members of the “team.” Each person had an assignment, culminating with the dresses being dropped off with a local fence. Once payment for the intercepted shipment was secured, everyone would be compensated for their efforts.

The heist went off without a hitch. My father was paid enough money to pay the back rent and two months forward. There was also enough left over to buy a secondhand crib for his new baby. To my father, it seemed almost too good to be true. Easy money for easy work.

Or so it seemed—until two detectives showed up at the door a few days later. They had questions. He had no answers. They slapped him in handcuffs, placed him under arrest, and ushered him out of his apartment, leaving his very pregnant wife behind.

A
lthough less imposing in stature than my father, and certainly lacking my dad’s inherent toughness, Uncle Angelo became a formidable mobster, largely due to his partnership with Dad. Over time the pair recruited a powerful crew, including such loyal members as my father’s two brothers, Pete and Gene, and “Willie Boy” Johnson. Friends since their early teens when they ruled the Fulton-Rockaway Boys, this group boasted an uncommon closeness, and over time wielded considerable clout. They made their bones with petty crimes: stealing cars, running numbers, and hijacking trucks filled with cigarettes, liquor, and ladies’ garments. This enabled my father and his crew to become what the elders in the Gambino Family called “good and impressionable earners,” resulting in progressively
favorable recognition. After Dad’s arrest for hijacking the truck full of dresses, he was sentenced to only a few months in the county jail.

It was during this period that my father met a powerful mobster who would have a profound impact on his life: Aniello Dellacroce. Everyone—from underlings to close associates and friends—referred to him as “Neil” or “Mr. O’Neill.” He was a brash, foulmouthed, and brazen man who had his own headquarters at the Ravenite Social Club on Mulberry Street in Manhattan’s Little Italy. It was a two-story brick building, nearly windowless on the ground floor. Privacy, in Dellacroce’s world, was paramount, as my father would come to learn.

For years Dellacroce had heard about John Gotti’s exploits; he knew of the young man’s reputation for being a good earner. Years later Dellacroce would acknowledge “keeping a close eye on Johnny Boy” as a means of recruiting him into Dellacroce’s crew. He saw something special in my father, “an innate leadership quality.” He also recognized a dark side to John Gotti—a wild and unbridled temper that couldn’t be tamed and would later serve as an asset to the up-and-coming mobster. He figured Dad would rise quickly in the ranks and urged other elders to keep tabs on the kid from Fulton and Rockaway.

Now, with Dellacroce’s help my dad was bringing in enough dough to rent a better, two-bedroom apartment. The task of finding a suitable place was assigned to my mother. Mom looked through the classified ads and found something she deemed appropriate, something in the right neighborhood geographically and economically.

“It was ideal when I read about it in the newspaper,” Mom later explained with a chuckle. “So I took it—sight unseen. But I should have known something was amiss when the man on the phone agreed to personally move us in! That’s right—after I spoke with him, he offered to send a truck to pick up our furniture the very
next day. When I walked into that apartment, having arrived with everything we owned . . . well, I don’t know what I expected—but the dungeon behind that old wooden door was definitely
not
it!

“When your father came home later that night, he was speechless—utterly speechless. Still, he was willing to make the best of it; there was nothing else we could do. We had no money left.”

Dad continued to work and hustle, with inconsistent results. Once, for example, someone provided him with inside information about a shipment of television sets bound for Kennedy Airport. They were color television sets, no less, and for Dad this was a potentially huge score. Color TVs were a rare commodity. So, of course, my father was more than interested in the possibility of intercepting this shipment.

He gathered his crew together and went over the heist. They planned everything perfectly, right down to the last detail. It went off without a hitch—or so they thought. One of the television sets even came home with Dad. My mother, exhausted from trying to transform the dungeon into a castle, couldn’t have been happier with the gift. Watching television was one of my mother’s small pleasures, so when Dad walked in with a brand-new color TV to replace their old black-and-white one, she was ecstatic.