Читать книгу The Kid from the South Bronx Who Never Gave Up - John Giordano - Страница 5

My name is John Giordano and I am writing my life story in order to help people to overcome any obstacles that may get in their way of becoming all that they could be in life. I have gone through plenty of stumbles through life, which have threatened ever-achieving success. One thing that I have learned is that no matter what happens in life, you must never give up. Never allow anyone or anything to deter you from your passions or dreams because all things are possible, as you will see in my life story.

My story begins here.

I was born in 1946 at Misericordia Hospital in New York City. I am of Italian descent and an inner-city kid from the South Bronx. I was born to my mother, Rachel and my father, Charles before/after my brother Arthur. We lived on 135th Street in the projects; it was in the part of the city which was a lower-income neighborhood. My mother was a homemaker and my father sold produce, among other things. To make ends meet, my father dealt drugs and was a Shylock, someone who lends money at an extremely high interest rate. The nickname comes from a character in William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. Those who do not pay their interest rate on time would have to pay double, and if you did not pay, you usually would get hurt. Everyone paid one way or another. My grandfather was also a Shylock and my uncles participated in let-us-say unlawful activities. When you look at my family, you would almost say they are like a mafia family.

My father was the head of our family; when someone in our family needed help or some advice, they would call on my father. He was not very book smart, but he was very street smart, and he had this uncanny intuition about people and situations. When I was young, my father used to take me to the Italian American clubs where most of the racketeers hung out. One of my earliest memories was while sitting on the lap of my father’s friend. I noticed a gun in the holster that the man was wearing. “Can I hold it?” I asked in awe. I had seen plenty of guns before, but I was never allowed to touch one.

“Sure,” the guy said and started to loosen it from the holster to pass to me.

“Put that away,” my dad hollered. He snatched me up and smacked me on the butt. “Never touch anything like that again,” he said. There was anger in him that I had never seen before. One thing was for sure, I was always afraid of my dad. He was extremely strict and did not allow us to get away with anything, but I always knew that he loved my brother Arthur and I very much.

My brother and I shared the same room growing up. I used to tease him a lot and, then he would cry. My mother would then come into our room to tell us that our father was going to hit us with the belt. That usually kept us in line for a little while until the sting of the belt began to fade and I would tease him all over again.

One night, we were awakened by our mother crying. We heard some men out in the living room yelling at our mom, but we did not know what to do. As I opened the bedroom door, I saw men turning our house upside down. I poked my head out further, then a man yelled, “Get back in your room, kid!” I remember his big, round, mean face looking at me. He scared me so much that I ran back to bed. My brother and I were terrified. I wanted to go out to help my mom, but I was too afraid. Later in life, I found out that those men were the police and were looking for drugs. I remember when I was about six years old, my father took me down to 100 street in Harlem, which was was the roughest part of the city. We made this trip often. He left me alone in the car to go to the cleaners across the street and came out with a package. We drove down to the middle of the block and some kid would come to the car and take the package from my father. Then, he would run down the street into an alley and disappear.

I asked my father what was in the package and in my young mind, I thought it might be a present or something like that. I wondered where the kid was taking it and who would get to open it.

“Shut up,” he said gruffly, “It is none of your business and do not ask me again.”

About ten minutes later the kid returned with another package, and, this time, it was a different kind of package. This package my father opened, and I saw him counting money. I did not dare say a word. Later, when I got older, I realized what was going on. He had taken me with him on a drug deal. I guess he wanted to use me as a cover or something. But the father’s sins become the sins of the son because I did the same thing with my son when I was deep into my addiction. Drugs and alcohol do not make you think about anybody but yourself. How could any responsible father put their child in possible danger like that? The answer is: a drug addict who does not think very clearly. What a shame.

When I was around eight years old, I again heard my mother crying. I ran into the room and this time there were not any scary men ransacking our house. She was alone.

“Why are you crying, Mom?” I asked.

“Your father left on a sales trip,” she said. “I’m just going to miss him.”

“When is he coming back?” I asked, thinking this was not so bad.

She sobbed again. “Not for a long time.”

We both sat on the couch, crying and hugging each other. I felt sad and abandoned. How could my father leave us without telling us? He always said goodbye. One day, while I was playing out in the street with my friends, they told me that my father was a con, meaning a jailbird. I took a swing at the kid and said, “You take that back.” We got into it next. I really was not a good fighter back then, so I got beat up and went running home crying and telling my mother what the kids in the neighborhood were saying.

“Is it true, mom?”

She had a tear in her eye as she answered, “Yes, it is true.”

“You lied to me,” I shouted and ran out of the room. I was so angry; I felt betrayed by my own mother. I can still remember that feeling like my heart was breaking into a thousand pieces. After that, I never trusted what my mother said ever again. It was made worse when I overheard my mom talking to my grandfather. She told him that my father’s uncle was the one who had turned my dad into the police. He had been busted a few weeks earlier and ratted out my dad to get less jail time. I asked God why he gave me a family like this. What did I do wrong to deserve this? That was the first time I blamed God for what happened in my life.

Growing up was very difficult for me during the time my father was in jail. Many of the the boys in the neighborhood used to pick on me and laugh at me because I was overweight, and I had very little confidence in myself. I used to lay in bed and think about how much I hated my life and myself. I felt like such a loser.

When I was nine, I wanted to play ball with the kids in my neighborhood, but they would not let me play. They said I was too fat and too slow. But if I let them touch me and I would touch them in their private parts, they said that they would make me captain of the team. I did not want to do that; I knew it was wrong, but I wanted them to accept me so much that I did what they asked of me. After they touched me and I touched them, they laughed at me and ran away. I felt so much shame and anger. I wondered how I could have been so stupid. I can still remember those feelings like it was yesterday. I walked back down the block all alone toward my house and cried. I eventually pushed my anger and the shameful memory deep into the back of my mind. I felt stupid and that I should never trust anyone again.

I was always getting picked on and I was tired of it, but, I was just too scared to do anything about it. Then one day, enough was enough. I had gone through another round with the neighborhood kids and came out the worst for it. I had to find a way to beat them. I had to at least try because I could not go through this anymore, I just wanted to die. It so happened that while I was watching TV, I saw the Keystone cops fighting. It was an old-time television show, and in this show, they would move so fast that no one could stop them while they were fighting. I thought they were cool. I said to myself, if I can move fast like that, no one will be able to stop me either.

The next day, while I was outside playing by myself, one of the kids started teasing me again and pushed me around. I moved quick and kept swinging at him until he fell to the ground, begging me to stop. I felt a sense of both power and relief that I had never felt before. I swore to myself that no one would ever pick on me again and get away with it. My poor grandmother and mother were always pulling me out of fights daily as I fought every kid in the neighborhood that ever picked on me and made them cry.

One day, one of the kid’s mothers came to my grandmother’s door yelling at her and saying bad things about me. This was a big mistake because I was not the only one in my family with a fighting streak. My grandmother punched her in the mouth and knocked her against the wall. The woman ran away saying she was going to call the police. A little while later, the woman came back apologizing to my grandmother. I guess she found out who my family was and became very scared.

Finally, we got word that my father was coming home from jail. My brother and I were so excited, and we started to jump up and down. We were so happy that we were finally going to get our dad back. I will never forget the day my father came walking through the door; it felt like a dream. We hugged him, kissed him, and laughed. It was wonderful. I then thought to myself that everything was going to be okay from here on out.

Oddly enough, two days later I got into a fight with one of the toughest kids in the neighborhood, Jackie. I was twelve; he was fourteen and a Golden Gloves boxing champion. He beat me up very badly; I had a black eye and a swollen lip. I made the mistake of going home and crying to my father, telling him what the kid did to me. I was expecting my father to go down and beat the kid up, but I was about to get a rude awakening.

“I don’t care if he beat you up,” my dad said, ignoring the bewildered look on my face. “I don’t want you home until you beat him up yourself. Never give up no matter what and do what it takes to win.” My heart sank down to my stomach, and I felt as though I let my father down.

I went downstairs, not knowing what to do. I then saw Jackie across the street. I walked over to him and asked, “Can we shake hands and forget about what happened?”

“Sure,” he replied and reached to shake my hand. He held onto it and punched me in the face with his other hand. He let go and walked away laughing.

I was so angry but also scared; I felt like a failure again. I held my eye and walked away. Now I could not go home and face my dad and the humiliation of it all. I did not know what to do; I feared him, and I felt defeated. Those old feelings began to surface, and I felt disgusted with myself. Just when I was feeling totally hopeless, I ran into a good friend of mine named Joey. “What happened to you?” he asked. I told him about the run-in with Jackie and my dad’s order not to come home. “Let us go find this guy. I know you can beat him.”

I said, “I don’t think so,”

“Sure, you can. Just give it all you can and do not give up until you win.”

I do not know why, but I believed him. I felt this confidence coming over me, replacing some of my self-doubt. I boldly called out, “Hey, Jackie.”

He came over to me and laughed. “You should look in a mirror and see your face because when I’m done with you, it’s going to look a lot worse.” And then he went to throw a punch at my face.

I ducked down and grabbed him by his ankles. I do not know where I got the strength from, but I picked him up and threw him over my head. He landed with a muffled thud on his back. I jumped on top of him and began to punch him as hard as I could in his face.

“I give up, I give up” he said, but I kept on hitting him until someone pulled me off him. After that day, he never bothered me again. Now, after the fight was over, I felt as though I was on top of the world. When I went upstairs to tell my father what had happened, he hit me and sent me to bed. “You should have beat that kid’s ass in the first place,” he said.

I felt shocked and confused as I lay in my bed that night. It seemed that no matter what I did, it was never good enough. Back then, I did not understand why my father was not pleased that I finally beat this guy. What I also did not realize was that I had just received my first lesson on how not to give up, no matter what or who was in my way. This lesson would serve me well throughout my life. Looking back on my life I begin to see patterns of my behaviors that caused me pain and suffering. Like the time I was left back in the sixth grade. Because I wanted to be the class clown and not do my homework, I was always in trouble with the teachers. My mother would go to school and talk to my teachers which would lead to her yelling at me. She would threaten with telling my father about what happened if I didn’t bring my grades up. I worked hard to bring up my grades for a while, but it was not good enough. I will never forget the day that my father and mother were called into the principal’s office. My parents were told that I had to that I had to do over the sixth grade. When I heard that, I felt this empty feeling in the pit of my stomach especially when I looked at my father and mother’s faces. This time I really messed up, all because I wanted to be the class clown and not do my homework. I just wanted to disappear. All of the shame and guilt washed over me, leaving me drowning in despair. I cannot even imagine what my parents felt like learning that I failed the sixth grade and had to repeat it.