As long as I can remember, my life was polluted by secrets. I can’t remember a single day when I was young when I wasn’t terrified that someone would find out my secret. And they would divulge it to everyone I knew, including my friends, neighbors, and workmates. And then what would happen? My life as I knew it would never be the same.

I didn’t realize at first that my family was different than all my friends. I had a father and a mother, two sisters and older brothers, and grandparents. We all lived together in a big, old Victorian house in Philadelphia, Pa. I was the youngest. Not to mention the endless number of” Uncles” I had.

My parents told me over and over again that what went on in our house stayed in our house. There were no if, and, or buts. I was warned that there would be dire consequences if I ever told anyone about my family and what they did. I really didn’t even understand what was going on. Because all the meetings that happened in our house were behind closed doors. There were always men coming and going from our house. My mother told me that my father was a businessman and that’s all.

And so, I believed that all these guys were members of our family and they were discussing business. The weird thing was that the people who lived in my neighborhood gave my family, especially my father, a wide berth. All of my “uncles” were big guys with black hair and mustaches. They wore expensive suits and had gold pocket watches. They smoked stinky cigars that bobbed up and down in their mouths when they were talking. I never saw them without cigars. Our house always smelled like cigars.

Once a week, they had a big meeting at our house, and they all marched into my father’s office, smoking their cigars and talking and laughing loudly. After they all arrived, my father would close the double doors to his office and lock the door. Sometimes I could hear them arguing with one another. Occasionally a fight might break out, but that never lasted too long. Because my father, who was a big man, would pick up the guy causing the problem by the seat of his pants and throw him out the front door. I would never see them again. I was always afraid of my father because he was angry, loud, and violent.

One night I snuck down the steps from my bedroom and listened at the door to my father’s office. I could hear my Uncle Vinny arguing with someone, and then I heard my father say, “Hey Joe take Vinny for a ride. He needs to cool off. And that was the last time I ever saw my Uncle Vinny. I was afraid to ask my father where he was. And my mother told me I shouldn’t ask such questions. If I knew what was good for me. I missed my Uncle Vinny. He always bought me black licorice, and it was my favorite. After Uncle Vinny went for the ride, I never saw him again.

What I didn’t know when I was a little kid was that my father was a part of the Mob or Mafia, and he and his cohorts were involved in illegal gambling at the casinos, and the race track, prostitution, and of course, selling illegal alcohol. As I got older, I realized that my family was not like any of my friend’s families. Their fathers were mailmen, factory workers, and mechanics. They worked from nine to five and didn’t have scary men coming to their homes at night. Which often ended with violence. Because of this environment, I became afraid of my father. I wished that I had just an ordinary family.

If any of the kids at school knew my father was in the Mafia, they never said a word to me, and that goes for teachers at school as well. No matter what kind of trouble I got in, I was never held accountable for it. Because nobody but nobody messed with the mob and their families.

My mother was strict with my siblings and me. She wouldn’t tolerate trouble coming to her door. And she really didn’t have to worry about it because nobody was going to rat out me or my brothers or sisters.

 

At some point when I was a teenager, it dawned on me that no matter what I did, I didn’t get into trouble. So, I did whatever I wanted to, and I have to admit I became something of a bully. This didn’t go unnoticed by my older siblings or my father. I couldn’t help but notice that my father seemed kind of proud that the other kids in school were afraid of me.

When I was about sixteen, my father told me he wanted me to start going with him so I could learn the family business. And so that was the end of my formal public school education and the beginning of my life as a member of the Mafia. I have to confess that I loved every minute of it, the power, the influence, and the respect I received from the people in my neighborhood. My childhood was behind me. And my career as a mobster began. And then there was the attention from all the young women in my neighborhood, especially after I bought a 1953 red Buick Skylark. I could have any girl that I wanted.

My brothers and I worked together. We split our time between bootlegging, alcohol and gambling, and prostitution. We were literally rolling in the dough in the late 1950s. That is when my father started getting involved with construction and controlling the Unions in the casinos in Atlantic City. My life was exciting. As I grew older, my power and influence increased, and so did my brothers. We were a family to be reckoned with.

Up until the 1970s, we didn’t feel threatened by the FBI or local police. Even the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under J. Edgar Hoover didn’t believe that the local Mob families were a federal problem. And local police didn’t have the money or knowledge, or experience to support continual investigations and make cases against members of our families. We were untouchable for many years.

Not to mention that many of the local police departments were easily corrupted by the Mafia. The occasional successful prosecution had little, if any, effect on our businesses and operations. New members could easily be recruited to replace imprisoned colleagues.

And my life went on with little interruption. The Feds tried to build a case against me, but they were never able to prove anything. As I got older, I took over more and more of the responsibility from my father. In fact, my father said that he and my mother were planning on retiring soon, and he wanted me and my brothers to take over the business. And in fact, that is what we did. We took over the Family business.

My brothers and I made a great team, our business was growing, and we were making plenty of money. We even began investing in legitimate businesses. We hope that by doing that, there would be fewer problems with the Feds and the local police. But unfortunately, that is not what happened. The Feds were closing in on us, and by 2010 they had infiltrated the Mob to the extent that one of our members agreed to turn his back on the Mafia and the FBI took us all down. More than twenty-seven Mob bosses were arrested, interrogated, tried, and incarcerated.

And I was one of those. And here I sit and will continue to sit in this jail cell for what will probably be the rest of my life. I will miss the action, the power. But I knew what I was doing, and I wouldn’t change a thing about my life. It was the life I was meant to live. I do regret not being able to be with my family. I miss my children and grandchildren. I hope that one day, they will forgive me and come to visit me. All the money in the world can not make up for losing my family. It was too high a price to pay for power and money. But there is no changing past mistakes. There is only regret.

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