The Good Life (4 page)

I was only five years old when she died, but I clearly remember my feelings. Like most people in those days, my family never talked about things like death and dying, so it was left to my childish imagination to try and work it out. I was very confused. On more than one occasion, late at night when I was half-sleep, I stared into the darkness and saw an image of a person approaching my bed. As the figure got closer I made out my grandmother’s features. She gently approached me, then sat calmly on the edge of my bed. With her warm, delicate hand, she stroked my forehead and reassured me that everything would be all right with my life. This really scared the hell out of me every time it happened. I’d
jump out of bed and run screaming to my mom and dad, convinced that I’d been visited by my grandmother’s ghost. My mother had to get up very early in the morning and go to work, so she’d explain to me that I was dreaming, then shuffle me back to bed. I still get chills thinking about these “visits” and with my family’s superstitious heritage running through my veins, I’m not totally convinced I was dreaming.

My other grandmother, Vincenza Suraci, became ill around the time her sister passed away. At that point, Uncle Frank and Aunt Emma were living downstairs from Grandma and Grandpa. Emma, despite the family’s initial resistance, had become an all-around favorite. She taught herself Italian so that nobody could talk behind her back or plot against her. She learned to cook just like an “Italian wife,” treated us like angels, and pretty soon nobody, not even Grandma, could find a bad thing to say about her. Grandpa used to like Italian card games, and Emma learned them so she and her father-in-law could play together. They played for hours on end.

When Grandma was ill, even though Grandpa had a nurse for her, the daughters and daughters-in-law each took turns keeping her company every day. Even my mother, who had a sick husband, took a day every weekend and did her part.

Vincenza was a very hot-tempered, determined lady. She was always starting some kind of disagreement with somebody in the family, and when she got sick, she wasn’t about to leave this earth without a fight! She was ill for about two years and then she had a stroke and was in a coma for months. She never regained consciousness and died in 1933.

Fortunately, Grandpa Antonio Suraci lived another ten years. He was very funny and a lot of fun to be with. He was a real guru, a gentle giant with big red cheeks and a white beard. All the kids in the neighborhood thought he was Santa Claus. He sat on the stoop smoking his pipe all day long, and
I sat with him. He couldn’t speak English very well; in fact, he was a quiet man who hardly ever said a word, even in Italian. He always seemed deep in thought.

He smoked a pipe that he filled with Ivanhoe tobacco, and when he ran out, he’d send me to the candy store for more. Because of his accent he pronounced the name “Ivan-a-hoe.” “Nino,” he’d say, “I need some more Ivan-a-hoe.” So when I went to the store, that’s exactly what I asked for: I’d say, “My grandfather needs some more Ivan-a-hoe tobacco, please,” and all the old men would break up laughing.

My grandfather made a smart move bringing the family to Astoria. It was a perfect place to grow up. Instead of being surrounded only by Italian Americans, as we might have been if we’d stayed in the city, the neighborhood was ethnically diverse. There were Irish, Polish, Greek, Italian, and Jewish families living side by side. I remember the Irish families were especially fond of the Mills Brothers, and Irish quartets hung out on street corners and sang traditional rhythm and blues songs like “Paper Doll.” It was kind of surreal.

My young life in Astoria reminds me of
Dead End
, the classic Humphrey Bogart movie that introduced the Dead End Kids. When we were children, we hung out just like those kids you’d see in the movie and we got into just as much mischief Once I nearly burned down the whole house! I found some matches lying around and I didn’t know what they were, so I started playing with them. Next thing you know, the living room curtains were ablaze!

Luckily, somebody on the street saw the flames in the window and ran up and started pounding on our door. My grandmother was in the kitchen and quickly came to the rescue, so nothing was damaged except the curtains. I still remember the screaming and the blare of the fire trucks. Boy, did I learn my lesson! I got a whipping I’ll never forget.

I was quite a handful and used to scare the devil out of my mom. I had this habit of walking backward down the street; don’t ask me why. Somehow it fascinated me to look at things as I was moving away from them. One day I was walking along backward and BAM! I got hit by a car. I was knocked out, and when I woke up at home, I had a huge bump on my head.

As it turned out, the car was driven by the New York commissioner of highways. Now, if a city official hit a child today, the parents would probably sue for millions of dollars. But my mom and dad didn’t see it that way. I wasn’t really hurt, and anyway it was my own fault. They said, “Why should we get somebody in trouble? Our son shouldn’t have been out in the street like that. He should have been looking where he was going.” They didn’t press charges or try to collect any money, even though they were very poor and this was during the Depression. They took the responsibility for me and I loved them for that. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the last time such a thing would happen. I was hit two other times—once by an ambulance. How I survived I’ll never know!

My brother, Johnny, and I were very close, so close in fact, that he and I were convinced we had ESP. We used to have fun playing these little mind games. We’d go into different rooms, concentrate on something, and then write down what we were thinking, and most of the time, we’d have written the exact same thing. It was really strange, and kind of scary, but it was a lot of fun.

John insists that I have the power to will things to happen. He remembers one particular Thanksgiving. We were preparing the holiday dinner, but we didn’t have money for a turkey. Mom was crying because she felt she’d let us down. I was overwhelmed
with emotion; I simply couldn’t stand to see her suffer that way another minute, so I told her the local movie theater was raffling off turkeys, and somehow I convinced her that if she gave me a dime to go to the movies, I would win that turkey.

I ran down to the box office with that dime and bought my ticket, which had a raffle number printed on the back. I took my seat, but I didn’t even watch the movie. I just sat there clutching that ticket stub. The number on my ticket—I remember it so clearly—was four. I visualized that number over and over again in my head. I’m not really superstitious, but I kept saying, “It’s going to win, it’s going to win. It’s
got
to win.” The movie ended, and an elderly gentleman told everybody to get their ticket stubs ready. All the tickets were in one of those big bingo tumblers. The man spun it around, reached in, and sure enough, he called out in a loud voice, “Number four.” Next thing you know, I was dragging this turkey down the street to my front door, just like a scene out of a Dickens novel. When I showed up at home, the whole family looked at me like I was a magician. John just shook his head in disbelief.

John and I both loved music from the time we were little boys. In fact, for a long time it looked like John was going to be the star singer of the family. His voice was so pure and angelic that my parents thought he might have a future as a singer, so they scraped together the money to give him formal singing lessons. When his teachers heard the quality of his voice, they decided that he should study
bel canto
singing, a style of singing developed by the nineteenth-century Italian composer Vincenzo Bellini.
Bel canto
, which literally means “beautiful singing,” treats the human voice like a musical instrument. This style emphasizes purity of tone and ease of projection, rather than the melodramatic, emotional performances
that were popular in opera at the time. Johnny was so good that he was chosen to perform in the children’s choir of the Metropolitan Opera, and was even given solo spots. You can imagine how proud my father was.

Our Uncle Frank was very involved in the local Republican party. In the mayoral election of 1934, Frank helped deliver the Astoria vote to Fiorello La Guardia. Later, Frank became commissioner of libraries for all of Queens and ran for the state senate. On many occasions, he arranged for Johnny to sing arias at various political functions. Johnny became known as “The Little Caruso.”

I was aware of all the attention Johnny was getting, and I asked my folks if I could take lessons too, but this was during the Depression and they couldn’t afford it. But I was determined. I listened to the radio and emulated the singers I heard. I loved opera and the way my brother sang, but pop songs really made me happy. For me it’s still the best music in the world: of the moment and full of life. When I was around six or seven years old, the local Catholic church staged a show with all the neighborhood kids. I did my impression of Eddie Leonard, a famous comedian and singer who went back even farther than Jolson, and sang his version of “Ida (Sweet As Apple Cider).” I was getting my taste of performing too.

Unfortunately for Johnny, by the time he was thirteen or so, his voice started to change. Some people in the neighborhood were jealous of his success, and this gave them the opportunity to say things like, “Poor Johnny, his voice isn’t the same.” I think this psyched him out. Instead of riding out the change in his vocal range, he just gave up singing altogether.

But nothing could discourage me. In grammar school I had a teacher who divided the class into “golden birds,” the kids she felt could sing, and “black crows,” those she felt couldn’t. When she heard me sing, she said, “You’re definitely
a black crow,” and I thought to myself, “What is she talking about?” When somebody tells me I can’t do something that I believe I can, that’s when I rise to the occasion. Besides, my whole family encouraged me to sing, even if they couldn’t pay for lessons.

I never really enjoyed school much when I was a kid, but I did like playing the prince in my first grade’s production of
Snow White
. There was one teacher who really loved me. She thought I was a cute kid, especially when I showed up in my little prince outfit. I don’t remember her name, but she treated me like I really was a little prince, and it made me believe that I was special. Her acts of kindness will never be forgotten. It’s funny how one positive person like that can mold your whole attitude and change your life.

A couple of years later I had another teacher who really believed in me. Her name was Mrs. McQuade and she helped me get what may have been my first public performance. She arranged for me to sing at the local Democratic club. That undoubtedly annoyed my Uncle Frank, who eventually ran for state senate on the Republican ticket, but I was unconcerned with politics: this was my first gig! Since I was only nine years old, my older sister Mary had to come with me because I was too young to walk home alone.

Mrs. McQuade later helped me when I got to sing side by side with Mayor Fiorello La Guardia at the opening of the Triborough Bridge in 1936.

Construction of the bridge that would link Queens to Manhattan and the Bronx had begun on October 25, 1929—the second day of the stock market crash that set off the Great Depression. Over the next several years construction was repeatedly stopped and started. By 1932 it still hadn’t been completed, and the people of New York City were tired of the inefficient and corrupt administration of Mayor James
Walker. It was time for a change, and the civic-minded Italian-American Fiorello La Guardia appealed to the voters.

Mayor La Guardia was an extremely popular man and he endeared himself to New Yorkers by always being sensitive to common people’s day-to-day concerns. I remember once during a newspaper strike, my brother and I listened to La Guardia do a dramatic reading of our beloved
Dick Tracy
comic strip on the radio. He said that no one should be deprived of their favorite Sunday comic just because the newspaper men couldn’t work things out.

La Guardia fought against racism and economic inequality. He ran for mayor in 1933, and during his campaign he promised that if elected he’d complete the construction of the Triborough Bridge. He won the election and kept his promise: the bridge opened on July 11, 1936. A grand celebration was planned. Mayor La Guardia would officially open the bridge to traffic and invite everyone to walk across with him in a show of unity and progress. I don’t know how she did it, but Mrs. McQuade arranged for me to sing at the opening ceremony. There I was in a white silk suit, standing next to Mayor La Guardia when he cut the ribbon! After his speech I led a throng of hopeful people across the brand-new bridge, singing the song “Marching Along Together.” Everybody sang along—even the mayor.