Читать книгу A Life Interrupted - John Samoles - Страница 6
ОглавлениеThis is my life story, which I am starting with my mother, who I miss more than ever. She was always there for me throughout my entire life. I truly wish I had listened to her a little more, as well as given her back some of my opinions as well. She had it so hard her whole life, fighting like someone with very little time left in her life. She had made a mistake, as you could say, by getting herself pregnant with a person who took off on her; however, the fight in her made her stay the course, and she kept on living
She was living in an apartment complex in, I believe, North Bergan, with every town drunk knocking on her door each and every night until finally her mom and sisters came by with an idea to put the baby up for adoption—which my mom, like myself, had a tremendous hardship doing. She was a good, strong woman who would not take any shit back. In those days she walked the walk, as they say today; however, she did it back in the day when it was almost impossible to do on your own without any family support.
I have nothing but great things to say about my mom because she was always up against it for no good reason and always came through it without any acclaim or anything. Anyone ever said was a good thing; she was always unselfish.
Another ironic thing is that my mom went blind in her right eye, and I lost my right eye to diabetes a few years ago; however, it is unreal that we had both lost the same eye in our lifetime. I believe that it just shows how emotionally close we both were and still are. I could never get tired of talking about or even discussing my mom due to her strong and emotional personality. She was the best person I had ever been that close with as you will read about. Hopefully, I will describe it in such a way that whoever reads this will understand what it is that I am talking about.
I truly wish I had more time with Annie Griffin Samoles because I would have liked her to come over to my home and my business because she would have made it a lot better for me in my life without a doubt. I am ashamed that she never saw me make it the way that I made it. I know she would have given me the advice to keep everything going strong and straight due to her upbringing and life with her mom and her father. She was just the best person you could ever talk to and discuss any possible issue you may have had in your life.
Like I had been saying, everyone including her sisters and brothers knew what a tremendous person she was. Unfortunately, she passed away way to soon, and I know why—due to my jerk of a father and his sister and one of his friends who came over to her home in Beachwood, New Jersey, to have some drinks.
However, the conversation turned over to my asshole father, and this fat woman said, “Joe, do you remember Mary, the girl you were giving all those free rides? She just gotten married.”
So I said, “What are you talking about?” and she said Pops had a girlfriend, which turned my mother’s smile into a death look at that son of a bitch, piece of shit; so I stopped the party and threw them all out and comforted my mom for a little while, then I had to go to work. I do not mean to ramble, but that is exactly what happened to my mother!
In the beginning, when I was born, at that point in time it had become a major issue for Mom because I needed surgery to stay alive; so the second I came out of Mom, the surgeon immediately had to operate on me to save me due to my life-threating issue within the stomach. The surgeon had to perform an operation on me to save my life. So the operation was to begin in approximately one and a half hours, and it was a major operation that I needed to have. He had to be perfect to save this kid’s life. He had to operate immediately on John for his life. As the day went on, the surgeon was extremely successful with the life-threating surgery, so John was now in the recovery room for many hours with a long scar across his stomach, which John, being a tough person, went through this like a hot knife thrown on a stick of butter.
Anyway, Pops was nowhere to be found as my Mom started to get pissed off at this fucking failure. His son was just born with a major problem, and this guy was nowhere to be found. As John always is a strong and successful person, so was his mom as well. As the doctor admitted, the surgery went very well, and he expected nothing but a healthy John moving forward. The surgeon was hanging around the next day just to check on John, and he stopped in to see Annie and just tell her really quickly that her son was very strong to have handled that surgery so well he should be okay very soon, in about a month or two. Mom thanked him for being there when we needed him, and he said it was his pleasure to get the kid the help he needed.
My mom made the most out of nothing at all. I have heard so many people say however this woman was. For real, she made a lot of mistakes; however, I believe she was always trying to get it right with her life. She taught me who to respect, whom I should look out for, as well as all the other shit that can and will slow you down. She went out of her way to teach me how to achieve in this fucking life, and for a while I did with her blessings until I could no longer do it with any family member, or even the daughter I produced with Silva many years ago. Life is a very hard thing to keep on doing what you believe is correct. There are just too many people trying to move you in the wrong direction, but you must believe in somebody, and that person is my mom!
At one point in Mom’s life she was being chased after by the star of hit show, Hawaii Five-O Show. I am sorry I forgot his name—Jack Lord, I believe it was. However, Mom was just too busy for Jack at that particular time. Anyway, I cannot imagine how she ended up with my father. Unreal? My mother knew what she was doing most of her adult life. With her very few problems, she was the most supportive person I still have ever met in my life. She would give you anything you needed; however, she wanted to see a person surviving, doing the right thing in life. In life, you really need to try to do the right thing every day. If you do, then most issues go away. That is one of Mom’s secrets that she taught me growing up.
Back when I was a little kid, growing up, I used to go crabbing and fishing with Pops as well as Jupe, my older asshole brother. Jupe is my nickname for this asshole. So we would bring about six traps and about the same amount of drop lines so we would have about twelve things to monitor all day long. Pops would lie down in the one raft. There were two of them, side by side, in Edgewater where we went crabbing. So we would normally catch about thirty nice-sized crabs and give them to the Porzios, who loved to eat them, which worked out perfectly for us each time we went.
So one day I brought my fishing pole and cast it into the river and hooked this long green eel that started to give me a hell of a fight to bring him on land, which I finally did. It was about three and a half feet long as well as a half foot thick. We would go crabbing about five to six times in the summer each year for a few years until it stopped due to Pops drinking and other bullshit he caused. Pops always fucked up the few good things we had going on, like this crabbing shit. It was a good time and kept everyone out of trouble for the day. It was just another thing he fucked up on me. His drinking was really getting to my mother as well as everyone else. He would drink like a real asshole and start picking on whoever was in his sight, which a lot of the time was me. I could not help it, but I always told his ass off; it just came out naturally.
There are just so many stories I can write about my life with my mother, so I am just going to start now. The first story is when me and Mom went to a department store called Valley Fair in Little Ferry, New Jersey. It was a large department store as well as a supermarket. We were walking through when Mom came across a man’s wallet that was stuffed with one-hundred-dollar bills, so what she said to me was that we had to find the man who lost his wallet and give it back to him because she could not live with herself if she did not do so. So, me being me, I asked Mom to just take out the hundreds, and we can turn it into security, which quickly got me a slap in the face, and I shut up; so mom went through the wallet and found his driver’s license with his picture on it, and we found him, and she gave it back to him. He tried to give her a reward, which she would not take. She told me she would feel very good tonight because she found him and returned his wallet and money to him. She was glowing after that. It was a very important part of my life back then due to me not knowing anything about life at that time.
The above story was one that she had meant for me to learn and never forget, which I still have not at fifty-seven. It was immorally valuable throughout my entire life. We were living at 129 Bergan Avenue in Ridgefield Park, NJ. We had the Porzios on the left as well as the Murtags across the street with their twelve children. It was always a Wiffle ball game or a touch football game between everyone on the block.
The ball games were always intense, with all of us trying to win. Each year I would go up to the Catskills with the Porzios. They had fifteen acres, two homes on the property, as well as a big lake on it. I always had a great time with Mike as well as the rest of his family. We would go fishing almost every day. He also had two of the most beautiful sisters, Leslie and Evelin. I really liked Evelin simply because she was only three years older than me and had one of the most beautiful asses you would ever see.
So one day, up in the mountains, it was really bad whether outside, and me and Mile were going to sleep on the pair of bunk beds. So Mike took the bottom one, and I took the top. The weather was getting really bad, so Evelyn came into our room, and she told me to move over because she was going to sleep with me that night, which was a great night for me. Nothing really happened; however, I had a great sleep that night with Evelien right next to me the whole night!
Anyway, me and Mike Porzio used to go fishing quite often up there. His mom would drive us too and come and pick us up in a few hours. She would be drinking Budweiser while she drove us around. After we would fish, she would take us out for something to eat, then we would go to a local neighbor who had tons of corn on the cob, which we would jump out of her van and take a dozen or so each, bring them home, and shuck them for his mom. Then she would cook them, and we would eat them with whatever dinner she had made. I had such a good time with the Porzios because they always treated me in such a great way with no crap.
On the weekends it was always a blast due to everyone being there, such as Mr. Porzio as well as Leslie and Wally and Evelin. We would play all kinds of different things all the time. The time would go by so fucking quickly the weekends were up in the blink of an eye. It was so very nice to hang out with real friends who would mess around with you but also love you just the same. They were the best people in my life for such a long time!
My mom did not mind me going away with the Porzios simply because she trusted them. She believed it was good for me to get away due to the everyday problems I had each and every school day. Mainly due to the fact she had no choice but to work each and every day, she would get home till approximately 5:30, at which time I could finally come in the home because my witch older sister, Laura, kept me and my older jerk of a brother, Joe, locked out all day long.
Most days I would stay at the Porzios’ home whenever someone was home. They knew my witch sister was a total asshole. These people were the best I had ever known while I was growing up. They also had a couple of pet dogs. One was called Princess, who stayed mainly with Mrs. Porzio; the other dog’s name was Troubles, who I fell for 100 percent. He was a Terra. If he did not know you, he was 100 percent German shepherd, black as night. Troubles was mostly locked outside most days; so one day the town drunk called Tubby was drinking and was walking up to the Porzios’ fence, where Troubles was.
I screamed at Tubby, “Do not go there. He will rip you apart if you do.”
He told me to mind my fucking business then walked up to Troubles’s fence, then Troubles grabbed him by his face and tore half of his face off. He was bleeding like I had never seen before in my life. After that, the police came, and Mr. Porzio had to make a move with Troubles. He had to move him up to his New York property, or they were going to kill him. He got moved upstate to their property.
Back in my early life going to St. Francis Catholic School, which was right down the street from our home, was a tough place to go to school for anyone due to the strict layout of the entire school system with all the nuns. There was also a Catholic church on the property as well, so it was St. Francis School and St. Francis Church on the same property. I did not get into very much trouble my first three or four years; however, that changed. My last two years at St. Francis were not very good. I had started to steal the chocolate milk as well as the regular milk I knew when the deliveries would come. On top of that, I had so much time to myself due to being locked out of my home by my evil sister, Laura.
So after a year of swiping the milk whenever I could, as well as getting into trouble during the school day, such as ducking out of classes and not bringing my school work in for homework and all that kind of stupid stuff, I also took a lot of abuse from Sister Virginia as well as the principal, Sister Catherine. I also had an issue with Father Fats, as I called Father Daughty, who would always come after me because I would get into the school to shoot the basketball by myself for hours. He would always come into the school. I had no idea why or how he knew I was in there, shooting hoops; that was the only reason I would stop shooting hoops due to Father Fats. At the end of the day, I did have, I guess, a really good time going to school at St. Francis because I believed it was a very good school in my little community.
When I was growing up, at around six years old, me and my mom were so close basically everything I was doing I almost always let my mom know just to get her approval on my thoughts. So I was always getting into some kind of skirmish nearly every day with the neighbors or someone on the block. I did not know why this kept happening; however, it had to stop. I joined the midget football league on the Giants as a starting safety, which was a great position for me because I could really tee off on someone trying to catch a pass against me or my team. Our team only lost one game all year, so we won that year, which was a great thing for me as well as my family.
After that, I joined the Little League baseball team, where I was on third base, which I was very good at due to me spending so much time, playing Off the Wall at my home for hours every day and Wiffle ball with the Murtags every day. My mom really believed I was going to make it somewhere in the sports field if I could stay out of trouble, which was my goal; however, being locked out of the home every day was a major issue to try to deal with. So my baseball career was moving in the right direction at this point in my life, with all the Wiffle-ball playing as well as my own practices and team practices. I was really showing great promise in regard to baseball now. I believe it was just due to my constant playing on Bergan Avenue with the Murtags and everyone else on the block who wanted to play ball.
Another thing that I used to do when it snowed, which it did quite often, was I would skitch off every car that came by. Anyway, right next to the Murtags’ house was the dentist Dr. Dopkin’s place on the right-hand side on the corner of the block whenever it snowed; and when it stuck to the ground around three to six inches, that was when I would go to Dopkin’s corner due to it having a stop sign on the corner.
I would wait for any car to come to the stop sign, then I would sneak behind the car and lean up against the bumper and hold onto the bumper and go for a ride skitch for sometimes a mile or so; it depended where the car was going, and whenever I needed to, I would let go and roll for a foot or to, which was a great feeling for me. Then one day we had two gigantic snowstorm. It snowed one day, seventeen inches; then two days later it snowed again, twenty-one inches, so it was the perfect time to skitch the day. Everyone from the hood was watching me skitch, so everyone got into it, and it was a great deal of fun for everyone who tried to do it. It is pretty easy once you can get a handle on it and great fun.
One time I skitched with Scotty Brinster, who was on the car with me, and we were really moving at I guess around thirty-five miles per hour, which really felt like we were moving so fast. So, anyway, Scotty hit a manhole cover and fell off, and all I could hear was a scream like never before; so that was one thing you must look out for when you skitch.
Another thing that we all did on the block at the end of the street was the Jewish Temple, which had the best green grass all over their property. So what we would do was, play kill the guy with the football. The way the game was played was, whoever had the ball we would all go after and give him a hard tackle with a little piling on as well. We really wanted the person who picked up the ball to get hammered by all of us. So, anyway, at one point, Joey Coulard picked up the football, and his back was turned toward me, and I gave him such a shot it would have had LT blush. He did not get up right away. It was one of many that all of us threw out to all of us. Just such a great game—we all had a blast playing Kill the Guy.
We were having a very good day on the block with Liam and Paul. We started playing Wiffle ball in the front of our homes, which was a long game, with me winning 7–5 or something like that. After that we had a game of touch football. It was me and Dave versus Paul and Wooba. Me and Dave started to kick their asses when up the street our neighbor came up with a pizza, and Wooba yelled out, “Pizza Man” which became his name according to Wooba.
The pizza man every single day would go down to Tony’s pizzeria every day at around four thirty. He would walk down to Tony’s to pick up his pizza for him and his wife every day! He was just one of Wooba’s people. He would yell about another guy he called Tarto, who I believe was a war hero who did not speak at all, and another person, a woman he called Miss America who would come cruising with her mom, riding around; and they would cruise around on their bikes now and then. Wooba was wacked out of his mind. He died a few years back. I had seen it in the obituary on Michael. It was sad for me to see that he died. I was probably the only person who really liked Mike. I believe he was a very good, honest person.
When I was approximately ten years old, I was going up to Cliffside Park, where my father worked at Scotty’s Taxi. He was a regular driver there and knew the owners well. He would drop me off at the taxi stand, then I would walk with my shine box around two and a half miles down Anderson Avenue until I hit the White Castle hamburger place then go to the other side of the street and walk back down to Scotty’s Taxi. I always had two extra black polishes, as well as two brown ones, and two brand-new shine cloths in my shine box at all times.
What I would do was stop at every bar on the street and give all the men who wanted a shine a shine for fifty cents, which I would normally get a dollar for each and every shine. I would make about twenty-five dollars going down to the White Castle and make about the same on the other side of the street coming back to Scotty’s Taxi. However, on the way back I would stop at my father’s mother’s house for a meatball sandwich, which was the best ever!
My grandmother put raisins in her meatballs which made them so good. Anyway, years later, after Grandmom had gotten put into an asylum, I met up with her sister, who was my aunt Camilla, whose home I went to in Whiting, New Jersey. It was an old folks’ retirement village. Aunt Camilla was always good to me and my mom. she was married to Uncle Louie, who was a cop in the town of North Bergan, New Jersey. Anyway, they would come over about every two months or so and always bring gifts for us.
Anyway, I was with her that day at her home. Uncle Louie had passed on many years earlier, and she began to tell me about her sister. She had asked me not to ever tell anyone what she was about to tell me. She had told me that my grandma killed her second son in her home in Cliffside Park unbeknownst to anyone; and her and my father buried the young boy in her backyard. I am not 100 percent on this story; however, I must believe Camilla! If that is not completely fucked up for my father to live with, that is mind-boggling. How can you live with burying your little brother in your backyard and keep that a secret?
My mom never told anyone about this tragedy, and I could not ask her because she had recently passed away, which all makes perfect sense why she had never liked her or ever got along with Grandma. She never liked her or ever trusted her for any reason. Now it does make sense why Mom did not like her! This is horrible; however, it is completely true and a fucking shame that my grandmother put her son up to digging a fucking hole for his younger brother. I cannot imagine how he could have lived with himself with that on his mind. Who knows? That whack job somehow must have put it out of his tiny mind!
Back in the day—I was about thirteen years old—my father had two pairs of boxing gloves. So I would take the two pairs into the backyard and spar with kids in the hood right in the backyard. I would win most of my fights, would very seldom lose. Anyway, one day I was in the backyard with a few kids when a local cop car pulled up because he could see we were fighting in the backyard.
He came up to me and the other kid and said, “Let me have a shot at this guy,” pointing to me.
So I asked him to take off his sunglasses, which he started to laugh, saying I would never ever hit him up there; so we started off, and immediately I dropped a looping right hand right on his left eye. His glasses went flying off his fucking face, and everyone started laughing at this jerk off. Then once he recovered from the shot, he started to beat the shit out of me, hitting me with really hard shots due to his embarrassment anyway.
So I was sparring one of the toughest guys in school in my backyard, and it started off with me getting an ass-whopping from this guy then I hit him with a picture-perfect left hook that nearly dropped him, and the first round ended. Then on the second round I was feeling very confident now after dropping my left hook on him. So now the second round started, and I caught him with a lead right, then he caught me with a wicked right hand again; and now I was dancing around a little bit, then I nailed him with a perfect right hand then left hook, and he went down and not back up. I won this fight, which really felt good after it was over due to him being one of the strongest guys in my school.
Another fucked up day we had on Bergan Avenue was when my drunken father was home all day on this Saturday, drinking like a real piece of shit and throwing a fucking glass ashtray and hitting my mom right in the teeth, which broke several of her teeth. That was the first time in my life where I had to stand up to this drunken motherfucker; so I hit him with my wooden baseball bat. At that point, Mr. Murtauge from across the street must have heard the commotion. He came over to try to clean up the situation, which he did, at first taking care of my mother’s broken face then telling Pops he needed to go into a rehab facility immediately (Bergan Pines).
So Mr. Murtauge took Pops up to Bergan Pines for his rehab, which I know will not improve this type of motherfucker! Now I go over to my mom, holding a wet rag on her face to control all the blood, then Mrs. Murtage came over. She was a nurse in an NYC hospital for so many years. She took great care of my mom that day, cleaning her up with everything in the house. I will never forget how messed up Mom was that day after that piece of shit hit her with that ashtray. She was bleeding so badly I just wanted to kill the fucker in such a bad way. I hated that piece of shit—that is the best thing I can call him. It just goes on to show the unbelievable strength of my mother.
So this piece of shit was at the rehab center (Bergen Pines) for about two weeks, and my mother wanted to go and see this fucken loser. So I took the ride up there with her and stayed in the back of the room while the two of them talked for a while, and then me and Mom went home that day. On the way home I asked Mom what she really wanted to do with this scumbag husband, and she said what she always said: “I married him. I have to stick it out with him no matter what because we had gotten married in front of God,” which is why I so respected my mother because it is her will to always try to do the right thing, which is why my mother was brought up correctly by her parents. However, I do not think that staying with an abuser for any extended period of time is ever any good for anyone for any reason.
Another day on Bergen Avenue it was me, Scott, Rickey Brinster from down the street, and Michael Wooba Murtage. Wooba was as strong as an ox with just unbelievable strength. Whenever he hit the ball, it was gone. We were going to play a game of Wiffle ball in the Murtage backyard, where the roof was a homer, the gutter was a triple, and the chimney was a grand slam; and if the ball goes into the neighbor’s yard, it is sides retired.
It was Wooba and Liam against me and the two Brinsters, so we went up to bat first, and we scored five runs, then it was Wooba and Liam. Wooba led off with a homer, then I struck out Liam; then it was Wooba up again, so I threw a crazy curveball that went behind the shed. When Wooba went behind the shed to get the ball, we all took off for the Brinsters’ basement down the street. We were laughing like morons, then I got to the door first then Rickey, then we hear, “Ouch, uff, ouff.” Scott was getting his ass fucking kicked by Wooba, really bad, then five or so minutes later, we went out to see how fucked up Scotty was, and he was a total fucking mess due to Wooba’s ass kicking the shit out of him.
Although there were a lot of kids in the hood, it really sucked to be locked out all the time, which led to so many additional problems, such as myself becoming a great thief, which troubles me to talk about due to my mom’s earlier message in Valley Fair. It was at this time my older brother, Jupe, wanted to see me steal the smokes, so I told him and Wooba to wait outside of ACME.
So I went in on my own and came out with four cartons of smokes. So then the three of us went down to the railroad tracks and began smoking the stolen smokes. For some messed-up reason, Woobs started to get sick, so we went home, and thirty minutes later there was a knock on the door. It was Mr. Murtage. Sheer panic set in because Woobs was there as well. Mr. Murtage asked for my father to come outside, which he had Woobs tell my father and all of us what had happened that day at the ACME then at the railroad tracks; then Mr. Murtage started to beat the living shit out of Woobs, then my father started to kick the living shit out of Joe, then me.
It was just another day on the avenue. However, I needed to survive with the onslaught of being locked out of the home with nowhere to go or do. It was cold as a motherfucker in the wintertime. There was nothing to do but get into some kind of trouble. I had many conversations with my mom; however, I could not go into the home, otherwise my witch sister would not watch the home, which was no big deal to her because her friends were there every day. Just to quickly touch on my older brother, Jupe, he was going out with and eventually going to marry Christine DeCatano, who was the niece of a Mafia leader named Carmine the Snake Persico, who was locked up for 140 years for running the Columbo crime family. He was the boss until he died in early 2019.
There were a few good days that I had at home. One Saturday morning, after a night of snow, I went into my witch sister’s room due to her sleeping over at a friend’s house and went out of her window onto the carport where the snow was begging to melt, and the packing of a snowball was perfect. So here came a cop car. I was on the rooftop with the window wide open, and I packed the perfect snowball and winged it right at the cop car’s window, and bing, I hit the cop right in the neck! He jumped out of the car and ran around my home, looking for anyone; however, I had dived back through the window after hitting him in the head. He could not find anyone, and I went back out on the carport again, and here he came again, going so slowly. So I packed another perfect snowball and threw it with all my might, and once again, puff, right in the neck again. Out of the fucken car he came, flying into the backyard again. This time he came up to the front door and rang the bell.
My father answered the door in his boxer shorts and asked the cop, “What the hell are you trying to say? There is nobody here throwing snowballs at anyone, so get the hell out of here.”
I had a really great friend called Kevin Mertz. We went to school together and hung out together, which was a good thing for me, being locked out of my house by the evil-witch sister of mine. At night we were doing the usual bullshit, trying to hit on schoolgirls and shot like that. So one night, right before Kevin passed away, we went into NYC to hang out at a few bars and then go back home. I believed this was going to become the normal shit we would start doing. We were really getting along great when I received a call from Kevin’s sister the same day I received a call from Kevin’s brother, telling me they had just found Kevin dead in his car in his garage as it was running for a long time. What a fucking tragedy! It was another punch in the fucken face for me with Kevin passing away.
Anyway, I ended up hooking up with this girl. Her name was Susan Morelli. I was going out with her for a little while. She was a very nice person who was a hell of a kisser, who had a very well-put-together body, which I completely enjoyed probing once in a while. Her father I knew was a mobster. Anyway, I kept my distance from Mr. Morelli. It was a great six to eight months with Susan. She was a good person who I really got along with in a very great way.
After my snowballs at the cops and my brief relationship with Susan Morelli, I had to do something positive with my life, at which point I went to see the Army recruiter by myself to discuss the Army situation. I really needed to get the hell out of Ridgefield Park. After seeing the recruiter, I signed up for three years. It was only two days after my seventeenth birthday. I was the youngest person in the Army at that time. It was very odd, being the youngest one in the Army. I did my basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, then had my schooling at Fort Lee, Virginia, then went to my permanent party at Fort Carson, Colorado. The whole process I ate it up with no problems at all due to my workouts with the Murtages back on Bergan Avenue in Ridgefield Park.
I was now just trying to settle into my new home in the Army and was making the most of it. In the very beginning I was just trying to figure this place out. At first, looking around the whole base, I joined the boxing team, which was a great start for me, doing something I really enjoyed. It was tough because we had to do a tremendous amount of roadwork running, and the air was so thin in Colorado. It was tough at first due to the thin air, as well as me never liking the roadwork or even running—although I really needed to as far as the workouts, so the boxing part was really going good. However, I got there too late for any boxing matches because the season was just about finished.
As far as the extra services team, things were moving along pretty well for the first ten months or so. After a while I started to get bored with what was going on around me, at which time I hooked up with a guy called Roger Harris, and we started to go off the complex and into town; then we decided to rent off post in a trailer park. It was about $160 a month, something like that.
We always had a great time together whenever we hung out, which was a good time, with a lot of things to do. Anyway, we had met many girls/women and started to date a few of them here and there so much later on, two to three months later. Then me and Harris got into a jam, where Harris got into a fight with this guy who was driving a mustang, so he kicked the guy’s ass and took his car for a ride. Anyway, I was going on leave on Monday for two weeks, so everything was okay to me right now; however, Harris wanted to head to New Jersey with me in this stolen car, so I told him, “Let’s go.” We went back to the trailer, packed our shit, and headed to New Jersey. Anyway, once we got to New Jersey, Mom let Harris stay with us for a day or two. After a two-day stint with Harris, I told him I would see him at a later date. He needed to head out, so he took the car and left. I never saw him again. After my leave was over, I hopped back on a plane and went back to Fort Carson, Colorado.
After getting back to the Army base, I had to go to the fucken trailer and clean all my shit out of there because I was not going to pay $160 a month on my own. Anyway, I got the hell out of that trailer, but I did enjoy the town of Colorado Springs. So, anyway, I met a girl named Silva whom I really liked and went out with her for a long time. We would go into the mountains on the weekends and drink, as well as just hanging out with friends and just shoot the shit. We really liked hanging out in the mountains. We really liked each other and started a very good relationship with the both of us falling for each other. I called my Mom and told her about my relationship with this girl. She told me to have a great time and try to move slowly if that was any possibility. I told her I would try; however, I was not sure but would keep her in the loop as always. Moving forward, Silva and I did enjoy the mountain air and to see everything that was surrounding Colorado Springs, such as Norad, the government’s escape plan and so much more that could be seen from these mountaintops.
After I left the Army, I moved out to California with Silva and stayed at her older sister’s home in Glendale, California. I was looking for a while to find a job and then finally landed one with this landscaping company that I did not really like due to the fact that I was working unbelievable hours for minimal pay. Silva immediately got a nice job at a bank downtown, and we were trying to make it work; however, I knew I could do much better back home and had a conversation with Silva, and we decided to go back to New Jersey and stay with my parents until we got on our feet.
I went to see Mayor Gerald Calibrese from Cliffside Park, and he threw out three jobs for me to choose from, which I did pick one—an operator working on a rotating shift. Every three weeks the shift would change. I took it because of the amount of time off that I could have; and Silva again landed a job right away, working for an oriental company, making china, which was a very good job for her, and I believed she liked it as well.
Living in the basement in my parent’s home, we were making the most of it. I was working the weekend shift, and when I got home, I found Silva crying her eyes out due to my piece-of-shit older brother telling her that my parents wanted her to leave, which she did, and my life was devastated. Silva at that time was several months pregnant, and there was no way we could afford to live in New Jersey, so she went back out to California, and I stayed home in my shitty environment, just trying to adjust to my new miserable life, which I would never forgive my scumbag brother, Joe, for involving himself for no fucking reason. Loudmouth, interfering piece of shit!
I started to drink heavy by myself, then I hooked up with Joe Monaco who was a heavy drinker as well. We would go out every night I was off and drink like to drunken bastards. We would take rides everywhere to get drinks; meaning we would go to upstate New York, as well as take rides to Columbus, Ohio, to just get lit up drinking. So, anyway, me, Joe, and two other guys took a ride to the Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Louisiana, just to get completely drunk. We had a good drunken time in New Orleans.
One day me, Joey, and Joe Coulard went up to Englewood Cliffs with a cooler full of beer and were looking over this small stream of water running through the mountain. Coulard threw an empty beer can, and it got stuck against a rock pile in the stream, and Monaco said he would go and set the beer can free, which I told Joey, “Who gives a fuck? Just let the can sit there.”
Joey got up and over the balcony that kept everything separated, then he slipped and started falling down the fucking mountain, then his head hit a big rock sitting in the stream. So I got down to Joey, who had woken up at that time, and brought him up to where we started and then down to my car and off to the hospital ’cause I knew how bad Joey was. When we got to the hospital, I called Joey’s father and let him know what had happened. Him and his wife got to the hospital very quickly, and I let them know what had happened. They were messed up with it, but they said that was what could happen when you drank like that.
Anyway, back at my home in Beachwood—a house my mom bought with her drunken husband, which I would live there for a while, helping Mom out with bills and other shit from time to time. So, anyway, I was on the rotating shift at the state job, working from 2:00 to 10:00 PM. I would come home after getting up there at around 10:00 AM each day—trying to make additional money, doing all kinds of shit, chasing down Jimmy’s guys who owed him for gambling collections, or whatever I needed to do.
When I got home each night around 11:00 PM, I would sit in my recliner and go over to my small fridge to grab a beer that I always keep full of beers. I went to grab one, except the fridge was empty because my scumbag brother, Mike, would drink all my shit and then lock his fucking door like a real pussy, then the piece of shit got his gun license and bought more guns and ammo then a fucking small army just to try to scare me with his bullshit, which I told that motherfucker one day, “I am going to stick one of those fucking guns up in your ass!”
After several months of feeling completely fucked up and speaking with Silva, she decided to put the baby up for adoption to her older sister, Venike, and her husband—I cannot remember which. I signed the documentation when Silva sent it to me. It did take me a while to finally sign off on it; however, Silva made me feel very sure that she would always be on the lookout if anything would go wrong. It really made me feel a little human again.
At some point, in I believe it was 2007, I received a phone call at the office. It was Silva on the line, which I felt very weird about. Anyway, she started to tell me about our daughter, Tiffany. As I was speaking to Silva, out of the corner of my eye I could see my fucking brother, Dan, watching me very weirdly. I had an issue right then and there that him and his whore wife contacted Silva and set this whole ball in motion. There is nothing that makes any sense about this call from Silva, Anyway, I proceeded with the call and made arrangements to fly out to California to meet with my twenty-nine-year-old daughter this coming weekend.
So the weekend was approaching, and I had a conversation with Jill to tell her what I would be doing this weekend. It was a great conversation I had with Jill, talking about Tiffany, so off to California I went. I got to Newark Airport Saturday morning and flew out to Los Angeles and was met at the airport by Tiffany and her then-boyfriend, a young man studying to become a doctor.
Anyway, we go out to a small lunch at a place called My Burger or something like that, then they dropped me off at my hotel, and we set a time for them to pick me up the next morning. When they picked me up, we went to Tiffany’s school so I could see what she had been working on while in college. It was stem cell research, which really impressed me. So then we left, and I took them both out to a very nice restaurant where we had supper, and they dropped me off at my hotel. At my hotel I just had a very weird feeling about Tiffany, so I had quite a few drinks just trying to put this issue in its proper place. The next morning came, and they picked me up and dropped me off at the LA airport, and I headed back home. There was a Hollywood personality sitting next to me in first class. I still cannot remember his name right now.
So now I had Tiffany come out to my New Jersey home on several different occasions. The first time she came out with her then-boyfriend; I cannot remember his name. They were staying with me and Jill. The second time she came out by herself, she was a real problem for me as well as Jill. So Jill and I, with her boyfriend as well, I took them down to Atlantic City, where I gave her a bunch of money to shop with her friend, then we went out to supper, and then we drove home, then I sent Tiffany and her friend to the NYC Marriott Hotel and secured show tickets for both of them as well as made dinner reservations. However, I could not feel very comfortable with Tiffany. Two days later, they came home, and I took them both back to Newark Airport and flew them back home to California in first class as usual.
The second time she came out was—as I feel a terrible visit—again right around Christmastime, so Jill and I took her down to Atlantic City again and out to dinner, and again I gave her a lot of cash to go shopping with as well as have a few drinks or whatever else she wanted to do. Then the next day Tiffany and Jill went into New York City to see the Christmas tree as well as the roller ice rink as well as the stores in Times Square to shop and have a good time. However, once they got into the city, Tiffany was on the phone all day with her new boyfriend without even having a decent conversation with Jill basically the whole day! All she did was cry on the phone all day to her new boyfriend, who we found out later was a cop in California. I really thought Tiffany would marry the first guy she brought out to my home. He was studying to become a doctor, and when we were in Atlantic City, he told me he really loved Tiffany. These are mistakes that you must live with once you make them and must live with them the rest of your life!
Anyway, I told her to be careful of what she said to Krista and everyone else due to them being related to Mafia boss, Carmine the snake Persico, and she needed to be careful of whatever her or her police-officer husband wanted to say or do with my brother’s kids. I knew something was bothering me for a long time, and as it turned out, Tiffany and my scumbag brother were getting along very well, much better than they ever should due to what this scumbag originally did to Silva many years prior.
As of right now I will not communicate with Tiffany for any reason. I had wined and dined her, as well as her company, and never once did she ever tell me or wish me a happy birthday or ever wish anything to my wife either. She has become a money-grubbing shitbag that I want nothing to do with. The last conversation I had with her she started to talk about her father who had raised her. I told her right then to “stop talking about him because he raised you!” I do not want anything to do with her as of today. I have blocked her on my phone and on my computer because I do not wish to have any more communication with her ever again!
It really messed my life up when my scumbag brother, Dan, and his whore wife took it upon themselves to interfere in my life, trying to break up my marriage for their own fucked-up reasons. Two pieces of shit. To go out and look for my ex on their own time without even telling me what they are trying to do is unbridled bullshit. I had all the information and knew exactly how Tiffany was doing. I needed nothing from those two instigating, troublemaking motherfuckers. These two troublemaking shitbags could not take care of their own two children. They are looking into my life. Two scumbag motherfuckers. At the end of the day, I will let it go for right now!
Anyway, my mother really needed some cash, so what I did was go to the credit union for my job at PVSC and borrowed 10,000 for a car that I wanted to buy, which I ended up paying 4,000 for and giving my mom 6,000 to help clear up her current bills that my father could not handle. He was a terrible, drunken bastard without any respect for anyone. So, like a jerk, I told of my credit-union adventures to my shift partner Steven Greco, who went right to the credit union and took out 25,000, and him and his girl went down to Florida for a two-week vacation.
When I saw him come back, he was wearing a $5,000 pinkie ring, then he told me what he had done and also told me he was going to cancel his loan due to him cashing the check and the money falling out of his pocket. I told him that would end up fucking me up with my car loan. He said he did not care, just that he was going to get himself straight, at which time I called him a fucking asshole. Needless to say, Big Geno from the credit union called me and asked me to come down to the credit union. He wanted to talk with me, so I went to Garfield, New Jersey, to meet with Big Geno.
When I got there, he had me go into the basement where not only was big Geno there, two other monster-sized gentlemen as well. The one guy asked me what I did with the 10,000 I borrowed. I told them the truth. I told them I bought a car for $4,000 and gave my mother $6,000 to pay her bills. I told them I had no other choice and was going to pay the loan in full no matter what.
They were looking around the room when Big Geno said, “You mother is a real nice person. Why did you tell that scumbag, Greco, what you did?”
I said, “Because I was a complete asshole.”
They told me to bring Greco there tomorrow no matter what, which I did, and they told me to get the fuck out of there, which I did, and I saw Greco all busted up and also learned he reinstated his loan. What an absolute asshole!
In 1983 I had decided to join the NYC daily news golden gloves I really needed to do something positive with my life at that time, so I signed up for middleweight, which was 165-pound class. At that time I was in unbelievable shape and ready to kick ass in the gloves, so my trainer was Sugar Ray Robinsons, brother-in-law and a great trainer. He was teaching me so much that I never knew, and I had gotten so fast with my hands as well as my feet due to this great trainer. Then I had my first fight in Madison Square Garden in the Middle of NYC. I was going up against this cop/detective from NYC PD. It was an easy win for me thanks to my trainer. Anyway, I went back to the gym, and after sparring with a couple fighters, I felt my right wrist—something was terribly wrong with it. I was on the midnight shift at that time, and I slipped on an oil slick behind the pumps in the Ray station and was sent to the hospital, where they found my right wrist was completely shattered. I ended up having the company doctor perform the surgery (big mistake). I have the ugliest scar on my right wrist that you can ever imagine. After six to eight months of rehabilitation, I was told my career was over.
Also another messed up thing happened with this guy called Stanly Slater, who was a mellow man, very into his own thing; however, he was always getting fucked with by Artie Steffanelli who was a scumbag, degenerate gambler as well as an ex con. So, anyway, this one afternoon it was hot as hell outside, so we were all in my control room when Steffanelli started fucking with Slater, saying all kinds of stupid shit to Slater. Slater then had enough, then he turned around quickly and pulled Steffanelli’s pants down around his fucking ankles, and what we all saw had us laughing like motherfuckers due to the fact Steffanelli had no underwear on, and his penis was the size of a tiny pin. We all had such a great laugh at Steffanelli for being such a scumbag. Slater really did get even with this piece-of-shit loudmouth!
Then, back to work at the sewer, I hooked up with a great guy called Jimmy Seratelli, who was a bookie whom I liked very much. Anyway, I would go and collect his debts from everyone who had lost each week. It started to become a pain in the ass, but I kept at it. Jimmy and I became really great friends. I would collect all his action from everyone who had lost and give it to Jimmy for a small fee for my time. Then Jimmie decided he wanted to bet on sports, so I found him a bookie; and Jimmie started to bet kind of small at first, then he started to click, then it became lights out. Jimmy started to clean house, winning very nice amounts of money that I would go and collect for him; this lasted a good six to eight months. Then it was Derby Day, and Jimmy told me he had the winner, so Jimmy loaded up in such a way they were afraid to take his bets any longer. So Jimmy sent in his winner. After six or eight hours later, Jimmie had died on that Saturday night. Me and Jimmy had such respect for each other I would never let anything happen to Jimmy or ever let anyone on this earth ever mess with him. If I ever heard that, the person would get their fucking heads beat the fuck in. He was one of the best people in my life who taught me more than I can even remember. He was much more than any regular friend I ever had in my life. I truly miss this guy. He was one of the best people in this world.
