This Family of Mine: What It Was Like Growing Up Gotti (15 page)

While he was in jail, Dad started making plans—he would no longer be kept down. Most of the men in his life fell short of achieving any greatness. His own father had made little of himself, except drink, fight, and screw around. Dad didn’t recall too many success stories involving the men he’d known. But he was determined
to change that. He may not have been born into privilege or wealth, but he was determined to achieve greatness, one way or another. Street life was the only life Dad knew and respected. He learned the rules and regulations and laws of the land early on. He bucked the system and cheered on the little guy. He believed the government was nothing more than a “hypocritical pack of liars” with selfish agendas. He believed the “little people” were deliberately being suppressed and denied their God-given right to govern their own communities and provide for their own families. He believed the politicians were selfish pigs and liars, who would do or say anything to get in office. He believed these men hid behind a wall of deceit and treachery. Mobsters never denied their profession; politicians pretended to be upstanding and legitimate. Mobsters stole, killed, and cheated; politicians did the same. Mobsters went to jail. Politicians went to the White House.

Dad believed the politicians and the laws they helped make were all “hypocritical bullshit”—and he believed it was definitely time for change.

Dellacroce was leadership material, as far as Dad was concerned. A man who represented and supported the “little people”—a man John Gotti respected and wanted to be like.

T
he Gotti home where we would ultimately settle turned out to be a four-bedroom cape in Howard Beach, Queens. Mom found the modest home not more than six blocks from where Uncle Angelo and Aunt Marie moved with their now burgeoning family. Growing up, we almost always lived near the Ruggieros. Dad and Uncle Angelo were
that
close. My aunt and uncle had three children of their own, with a fourth on the way. My father was finishing the stint at Green Haven for the Gambino incident when we moved to Queens in 1975. He joined us a year later in mid-1976. It was then that John Gotti was formally inducted into the mob. He had finally become a “made” guy.

It was the mid-seventies and things weren’t so prosperous for my father out on the streets. There wasn’t much money to be
made, especially given the Gambino no-drugs policy, which Dad felt strongly about. The other families may have turned a “blind eye and deaf ear” to this ruling by the Commission, but for Dad, drugs were off-limits for his guys. So while other crews reaped the rewards from this particularly lucrative area, my dad’s crew went hungry for a little while, mostly dabbling in running numbers and gambling dens. The drawback of the latter was my father’s penchant for gambling himself—he had a weakness for
any
game.

Football and ponies were his favorites; he loved getting a good tip from some of his friends who themselves were horse owners. And as far as football went, Dad always loved to root for the underdog, the team that was destined to lose by the bookies’ standards and had wide point spreads. It had little to do with winning, as my father once told me, “and all to do with watching the team with pure heart rush to victory.” Besides, he’d add, “When you bet the underdog and the team wins, it’s usually a
big
payout, and that’s what gambling’s all about—winning big rather than a few dollars here and there. It makes the game that much more exciting when the stakes are higher.” My father was a notoriously unlucky gambler, though.

Dad’s bad gambling habit wasn’t so much of a problem in the early days, as he didn’t have much to gamble with. But when we moved up economically, from lower to middle class, his habit began to interfere with his standards of living and even played a role when the bills were due. Rather than ever admit he didn’t have the money, he’d make sure that Mom had the house money every Saturday—even if it meant walking around with nothing in his pockets. I also learned that my father’s exorbitant gambling habits stemmed from anxiety and nervousness, as well as anger. In this state, he would bet well beyond his means—practically on every game that day or week—be it pro-ball, college games, the
Belmont Stakes, or any horse race. Often a losing streak put my father in a financial bind.

Dad’s gambling habits didn’t sit too well with my mother either, and they fought constantly about it. But in the end she really had little say in the matter. It wasn’t as if my father came home from a nine-to-five job each week and handed over a predictable paycheck to cover the household expenses, so she really never knew just how much he was betting. All she knew was that he was providing.

Dad believed that if a man couldn’t provide for his family it was a “sign of weakness,” or the guy was just “plain irresponsible.” I guess living hand-to-mouth as a child had taught him that. Another belief my father had was that when it came to a woman—especially a wife going out to work—it was “a sign of embarrassment on a man as people would then assume that man couldn’t pay his bills at home or provide enough for his family to survive comfortably.”

Dad was always resentful that his mother was forced to work. He believed a woman’s place was at home with her family, in the kitchen and taking care of her house. He believed a woman should never be involved in financial matters—that was a man’s job. But Mom was always scared. She feared something might happen to Dad and then she wouldn’t be able to support her children.

That’s why my mother always saved whatever extra money my father gave her for herself. She would deposit the money in the bank each week, even if it was a small sum. My mother was never like the other women married to men in the “life,” either. While these wives always showed off some newly acquired diamond trinket or a new fur coat, Mom got more excited over a set of pots and pans. And while my mother was always a well-dressed woman, she was never high-maintenance or a show-off. I always respected my mother for this and was proud of just how unspoiled she was. Another important lesson Mom taught us had to do with love; she could turn into a flesh-eating monster if anyone harmed her kids.

When I was twelve years old my mother sent me to buy a few things from the local grocery store. The store was only nine blocks away, yet back then it seemed like I’d walked miles to get to what we commonly referred to as “the Boulevard”—Crossbay Boulevard. I made it to the store, and bought all the ingredients on the list. I even had a few quarters left over from the ten-dollar bill that Mom had given to me. I decided to use the change for a rainbow-flavored Italian ice. I walked the two avenues over to Gino’s Pizzeria, got my ice, and headed home.

At the corner I noticed a man riding a beat-up bike. He was watching me with dark beady eyes. He was dressed shabbily and sporting a scruffy beard. I had noticed him waiting outside the pizzeria while I was getting the ice and also noticed him following slowly behind me when I left the store. But it wasn’t until I saw him ride slowly to the corner, stop, turn back to look at me, and then wait at the light until I caught up that I got scared.

Sensing imminent danger I turned around in a panic and headed back in the other direction. I kept walking until I reached the neighborhood hardware store.

The strange man was now stopped, perched in front of the store at a fire hydrant, waiting. His creepy eyes flashed from one end of the block to the other. I strolled up and down the aisles and created enough suspicion that the two employees took notice of me almost immediately. They both approached me and asked what I was looking for. But I was so nervous I couldn’t think straight, much less talk.

I glanced out the window in the front of the store and saw the man still outside sitting on his bike, puffing on a cigarette; his eyes were fixed on the front entrance of the store. I should have blurted out something like, “Please call my parents,” but because we had just moved to the neighborhood, I couldn’t remember our phone number. Then like a ray of sunshine someone I knew,
a neighbor’s mother, entered the hardware store. She noticed me as I’d been to her house a few times, especially when we had school projects to do. Her daughter was also named Vicki, so we became friends the first time we met in class at Junior High School 202.

The woman, Mrs. Mona, called out to me almost immediately, asking how I was doing and wondering why I looked so scared. It was then that I became hysterical—crying and speaking at the same time. I told her the guy waiting outside had followed me for blocks.

Mrs. Mona ordered me to wait there in the store while she went outside and approached the man. I saw her yelling and pointing her finger as the man turned his bike around and sped off down the boulevard. Seconds later she came back in the store again and grabbed me by the hand. Before we left she asked if I wanted to call my mother and for the life of me I still could not remember my phone number. But then again I was so nervous and terrified, I could barely remember my own name.

When Mrs. Mona pulled up to my house, I spotted my mother, who, at the time, was nearly eight months’ pregnant with my youngest brother, Peter. I became hysterical again, I nearly jumped out of Mrs. Mona’s car while it was still moving. My mother was busy gardening in the front yard. She noticed the terrified look in my eyes almost immediately and came running toward the car. I could hardly speak around the lump in my throat, so Mrs. Mona explained the chain of events. My mother—all four feet of her—sprang into action: she grabbed the nearest weapon she could find, my brother’s baseball bat, and asked Mrs. Mona to drive us back to the boulevard. Mrs. Mona, noticing my mother’s condition, begged her not to go. She explained that she’d already scared the man off and told him that if she ever saw him again “lurking around Crossbay Boulevard, she would call the police.” Still, this wasn’t good
enough for my mother. She had four kids to raise on her own while her husband was on the lam and heading to jail soon, another baby on the way, and no patience for anyone causing trouble with her family.

Mom charged for the car and forced Mrs. Mona to drive her, us, back to the boulevard. I remember praying that we didn’t see the man. I was that scared that my mother would lose it and do something stupid. She was angry, near hysterical. God knows she wanted to rip this man’s eyes out—it was written all over her face. I was scared she’d seriously hurt him and end up in jail, like my father—or worse, hurt herself and the baby she was carrying.

Needless to say, my prayers were answered and we never found the guy. Mrs. Mona
was
right—she’d scared the life out of him with her threats. I had no doubt he was a pedophile. And less than six months later, he was finally arrested after he attacked a girl who was blocks from her house. I was so relieved the jerk was finally caught. But what impacted me the most was the way Mom had behaved. She literally sat down and cried for nearly an hour after we got home.

Growing up in a home, having no parents or anyone to love her, had left Mom cold and somewhat empty inside—except when it came to her kids. She wasn’t the type of mother who hugged us or often told us how much she loved us, like some parents did. She didn’t know how. But if one of us got sick or injured, she would nurse us better than a doctor. If one of us was ever in need of protection or in trouble, she’d come to our aid like a superhero. As she cried, I kept asking her, “What’s wrong?” But she just kept shaking her head. Finally, she turned to me and said, “I’m just so scared. I’m so scared one day I am going to lose one of you—I just know it.” Mom always had it in her head—an uneasy feeling she was going to lose one of her kids. She called it “mother’s intuition.”

Dad came home two weeks later, and was getting ready to go
back to jail. On November 9, a few days before he was due to surrender, Mom went into labor and delivered her fifth child, another son, Peter Joseph Gotti.

W
HEN
D
AD LEFT
for prison, the baby was just a few weeks old and Mom had not yet fully recuperated from the delivery. Yet, she pulled herself together and did her best under the depressing circumstances. As in the past, my mother found it very difficult to survive without my father around, but not impossible. She had five children now to care for.

The monthly visits to see my father weren’t a walk in the park, either. As much as she wanted to see him, the strain of the long drive—often leaving in the middle of the night—was hard on all of us. We were stuffed into a broken-down, dilapidated old Buick, its trunk filled with luggage and care packages for my father. Because my father and his “Goombah,” Uncle Angelo, were away in prison together, these monthly visits were almost always shared with my aunt Marie and her young children—so you can imagine just how crammed we all were sitting in that Buick for hours. Often, when we’d arrive, my father and uncle would be waiting at a big table where we would all sit together. It would turn out to be more of a family picnic or gathering than a prison visit. There was always so much laughter, and most times we all left the visit feeling happy and fulfilled. But one visit in particular did not go as smoothly, and to this day I
still
have nightmares just thinking about it!

During the visit, Aunt Marie was telling a story of an incident at a neighborhood store that had ended with her and my mother arguing with the store’s owner. This made my father see red. One of his traditional and staunch rules was that a woman
never
argues with a man—that was a man’s job, especially if that particular woman had a husband. Marie just didn’t think before she began telling the
story, which infuriated both of my parents, for different reasons. One word led to another and soon everyone was yelling. Only after one of the prison guards came over did things quiet down. My father was so upset that he ended the visit an hour earlier than scheduled. No one even said good-bye. Dad and Uncle Angelo quietly followed the guard back to their cells, while another guard led the rest of us to the prison parking lot.

Needless to say, Mom and Aunt Marie argued all the way back to the car. Things turned so ugly that my aunt refused to ride in the car back to Brooklyn. She called a car service instead. Lord knows what that fare must have been in those days. It was the end of a close, twenty-year friendship.