This Family of Mine: What It Was Like Growing Up Gotti (4 page)

One night, when they were alone at an older friend’s apartment, kissing led to petting and petting led to . . . well, more. My grandfather “was wild with passion,” he’d later tell those who would listen.

That night, things got out of control. They ended up naked and wrapped in each other’s arms. John lost his mind in the moment and begged Faye for sex; she refused. The rendezvous ended with him ejaculating all over her thigh.

For both of them, a brutal lesson in biology and procreation would soon follow. Six weeks later, Faye found out she was pregnant. “How could that be?” she wondered aloud in the doctor’s office. “We didn’t even have sex.”

The physician shrugged. He’d seen it all, heard it all. No point in giving a lecture now. That time had passed. Faye was distraught. There was no way she could adequately explain this to her family. Surely they would never believe she was pregnant—and yet still a virgin! Instead they would respond with anger and bitterness and resentment, and in the end, they would do what most Catholic families did in these types of situations: send her away to a home for
wayward girls.
She had some decisions to make. She loved John—and he definitely loved her—but his parents were “old school” and they expected their oldest son to marry an Italian girl . . . no exceptions! He told Faye that there was no way they would be happy about the pregnancy—no way they would give their blessing for marriage. In Faye’s eyes, John’s failure to stand up to his parents, and to accept responsibility for his actions, was nothing less than a fatal flaw. It was, in the end, a deal breaker.

My grandfather was devastated by Faye’s reaction. Finally, in
a desperate attempt to regain her affections (and respect), he proposed. “Let’s elope,” he said. “We can be happy.”

This was not exactly what Faye had in mind. My grandmother was proud. She refused to run away from anything; there was no way she would allow herself to be tied to a man who lacked courage. And so she bid young John DiGiorgio farewell.

In the end, Faye decided to have the baby, a dark-haired girl who was the spitting image of her handsome father. But much time would pass before John laid eyes on his firstborn child; by that time he was married and expecting another child with his wife, Della, a short, blond Italian girl who had recently moved with her family from Italy to Astoria, Queens. It was a marriage happily endorsed by his parents.

M
Y MOTHER HAS
always had mixed feelings about the topic of her conception. It was difficult for her to talk to me about her earlier years, as she was embarrassed and ashamed, just as she is conflicted about the odd and volatile nature of her parents’ relationship. Eventually, they did have sex. Indeed, the on-again, off-again romance carried on well into his marriage, even resulting in a second pregnancy—this time a son. But my grandfather was married. My grandmother found out she was pregnant approximately one month after she and my grandfather had a terrible fight, one so bad it left dents in the walls and broken dishes, and a vow by both parties “never to see each other again.” As a result, Faye stubbornly waited months to tell him about the second pregnancy. His initial response was, “Are you sure it’s mine?” This infuriated my grandmother so much that she scheduled an abortion the next day. She was nearly six months’ pregnant.

As for my mother? Faye was an old-fashioned woman who had
neither the desire nor the inclination to raise a child alone, so she enrolled her only child in Sacred Heart Academy shortly before her fourth birthday. From that day on, Victoria was on her own, a little girl without a home, without parents . . . without family. She was rootless, an inescapable fact that both saddened and defined her for many years to come.

M
y father’s stay at the boys home was strictly regimented. All of the children were forced to adhere to a daily routine of chores and exercise in exchange for room, board, and food. Three square meals a day consisted of rice cereal with sour milk in the morning, a bologna sandwich for lunch, and a small portion of chicken and rice at night. Wake-up time was 6
A.M
. Chores began at 6:30. Classes began at 8:30 and ended at 2:00 in the afternoon, with more chores to follow. By dinnertime, my father was exhausted and famished.

He had clashed with other boys at the home, as well as with the priest who ran the place. Fights and confrontations broke out on a daily basis with little or no reason at all. Most of the boys were simply angry young men, feeling rejected and depressed, each taking
their frustrations out on the others. Dad claimed he was exposed to things at the home that made even his toxic home life, with his abusive father and bickering parents, seem tame by comparison. To pass away the time, Dad played sports with some of the other kids. The home put together a football team and played skirmish games every Saturday. But because there were no other teams to compete against, Dad grew bored. When the parish priest approached him and asked him to box, Dad looked at him funny. “You want me to fight?”

The priest laughed. “Not the kind of fighting you and the other boys have been doing in here—I want to help you get rid of the frustration and anger you’re carrying around. Give you a chance to pound your fists and not get into trouble.”

Dad jumped at the chance and in time came to enjoy boxing very much. He got up early every morning and trained for two hours. Every Saturday, the home hosted an amateur boxing event and soon Dad held one of the highest records. John Joseph Gotti had finally found something he really enjoyed doing—and was really good at. But even his newfound affinity for boxing did little to mask the dismal surroundings that was now his home.

It was a time Dad did not recall with fondness. He would never discuss the darker aspects of life at the home in any greater detail, preferring to say only that the worst part was not knowing whether he would ever be reunited with his family. As it happened, Dad’s stay lasted only six months. Grandma was released from the hospital and when she arrived to take him home, he couldn’t help but notice how much weight she’d put on. The moment the release papers had been signed and they were heading toward the subway to the House of the Good Shepherd, Grandma announced that she was pregnant—again. She was nearly six months along, her rounded belly irrefutable proof that another Gotti heir was on its way. Dad
had mixed feelings about the pregnancy. Part of him was happy because the pregnancy meant Grandpa wouldn’t raise his hand to Grandma, at least for the next three months, but he also knew that the last thing the family needed was yet another mouth to feed.

Dad was happy to return home, but apprehensive about seeing his father. The family slipped easily back into the old routine in the apartment at the House of the Good Shepherd. Dad joined the local gym, a free, church-run program for poor kids. Every day after school, he’d head down to the gym and spar for hours with some of the local boys. He found a trainer who believed in him and decided he wanted to be a professional boxer. Dad’s father used to box amateurishly, when he was a teen—but as with everything else Grandpa had started in life, he never got far. But young John showed much promise—a ferocious temper and a hard right hook—each time he was in the ring. Dad told me years later that the engine that drove him was the pent-up anger he harbored against his father. He told me that each time he hit the punching bag or an opponent, he would pretend it was his own father. And Dad was a good boxer, too. His trainer believed that he could make him an impressive contender. It was the first dream my father believed was possible.

A few short months after the family was reunited, it was time for another Gotti baby to join the household. Dad recalled the night his mother went into labor. Curiosity pulled him into the bedroom where the birth would take place, but he did not go beyond the threshold. His older twin sisters, Rosy and Lucy, hurried around the room, carrying pots of boiling water and clean rags. Private physicians were far too expensive; even the local clinic, which treated patients on a first-come, first-served basis, required at least some meager donation.

My grandmother had given birth so many times that my grandfather saw no harm in teaching his oldest daughters the rudimentary mechanics of delivering babies. He believed it was a perfectly natural act on the woman’s part, and that “nature would take its course in the end.” Besides, this was the early 1950s, a period when home births were still considered an acceptable alternative to hospitalization. My grandfather would have reasoned that peasants once bore children in barns or cabins, without the benefit of running water or electricity; surely my grandmother would have no problems in her own comfortable bed.

This wasn’t the twins’ first experience with childbirth. Together, just a few years earlier, then barely teenagers themselves, they had successfully delivered another male Gotti. So they were familiar with the process.

My grandmother’s labor intensified; she began screaming out in pain. Between labored breaths, she shouted, “Something’s wrong.” My father stared helplessly as he watched his sister Lucy race from the bedroom to the kitchen with an armful of bloody towels. She dumped them into a laundry hamper next to the linen cabinet, grabbed a pile of clean sheets, and quickly returned to Grandma’s side.

“You need to call Doc Hansen on Dean Street,” she said to Dad. “Tell him to come right away.” Then she shut the bedroom door behind her. My father dialed quickly and told the doctor there was an emergency at the Gotti home.

“Please come right away!” he begged.

Only a few minutes later and before the doctor arrived, Rosy came out of the bedroom carrying what Dad assumed was nothing more than another bundle of bloody towels. In actuality, she held in her hands the eighteenth Gotti child, stillborn. Rosy was crying. The baby had suffered from a condition commonly known as spina bifida and was severely deformed. He was born with his spine
protruding through his back; his left foot and three fingers of his right hand were missing.

T
HIS TRAGEDY IN
the Gotti household only served to intensify my father’s anger. He wondered why his mother couldn’t go to a hospital to give birth like most of the other mothers he knew. He cursed the poor and miserable lifestyle they were forced to endure—he cursed his father’s inability to properly provide for his family. Most of all, he cursed his father’s selfish ways. For the most part, Dad took out his frustrations in the gym and the streets. As he grew into a formidable teenager, he’d go down to the local bar or pool hall, looking for trouble. In Brooklyn at that time, the toughest young guys ran in packs or gangs, in part to avoid vulnerability but also because mayhem was more fun when perpetrated with your buddies. Dad found he was more suited to life on the street than life in the high school classroom. So, after the horrible events that night at home, and with his mother being cared for by his sisters, Dad went out. Not yet seventeen years old, he ventured into a lounge on the corner of Fulton Street in Brooklyn. It was a rowdy gathering place for the mostly male working class.

My father made a phone call to one of his friends—a kid they called “Fats”—and gave him some instructions.

“Round up the boys and meet me at the lounge.”

My father found it hard to get the thought of his suffering mother out of his head. But a few beers and the company of his pals helped ease the sting, and before long they were hatching plans to get their hands on some easy and much-needed money.

On the other side of town lived a man named Tommy “Botts” Marino, a bookie with a well-deserved reputation for draining residents of their weekly paychecks and cheating them out of their winnings. Marino was a man with few admirers, although this
seemed to have little impact on his business. Since most customers were habitual gamblers and fearful of retribution, they complied with whatever terms Marino set. Marino ran his enterprise with ruthlessness and arrogance. It wasn’t unusual for him to administer, or at least order, beatings severe enough that the victim ended up in the hospital; arson was a favorite tactic as well, and on more than one occasion a debtor found his house burned to the ground. The day before Grandma went into labor, one of Dad’s friends told him that “Willy the drunk” was hit by a car and taken to a nearby hospital. Willy was one of the neighborhood fixtures and Dad really liked him. Willy started drinking after his wife died and when he lost his house to the bank and ended up homeless, he became the town drunk. Still, he was harmless and Dad felt sorry for him. Often, some of the other neighborhood kids would tease and taunt Willy, and Dad would come to his rescue. Just before Willy got hit by the car, onlookers saw Marino shoving him to the street—into oncoming traffic.

On that night my father needed to channel his anger somewhere and his thoughts turned to Botts Marino. He decided it was time to take the bookie down a notch, maybe give him a taste of the grief he had heaped upon his own people for so many years.

The story has since become the stuff of legend. My father waited until Marino made his regular neighborhood rounds, which he did without fail, virtually every night. My father and a few of his friends sat patiently near the corner of Fulton Street. As Marino approached, they pounced, pummeling him to the ground and beating him to a bloody pulp.

“Not enough damage to kill the guy,” my father recalled. “But enough to let him know that if he continued to bother these good people, he would pay a price. A hefty price.”

It was with that single act—an act of brazen machismo, born primarily of anger and frustration—that young John Gotti earned
the respect and attention of the neighborhood folk. “Crazy Horse,” they called him—and did so with admiration.

Even at such a young age, my dad attracted people whose problems seemed insurmountable. They would soon come to him with one gripe or another, seeking assistance or compensation. Dad always cheered on the underdog, and any chance he could, he would help someone less fortunate than him. Some problems were more easily rectified than others, and my father was shrewd enough to know when to act on his own and when to seek the counsel of the more worldy and respected elder men who ruled the social club on Fulton Street.