Carol's Corner: Middle of the Mob Chapter 3

Presents !! for You — A Serialization !!

The story continues. Please enjoy this is the next chapter of my life in the Middle of the Mob ! —The Gang

As printed…

Note: This should be about 4 to 5-minute read, though your mileage may vary…

As seen in Print Edition…

Auntie Rose Bella and Uncle Max Bella always lived next door to us with their kids, Lena and Reggie, my built-in playmates. Max was Mom’s brother and a real disciplinarian who scared me. Can’t count how many times my sister and I would say, “Glad he’s not our dad.” But Rose and Max were Mom and Dad when our parents weren’t around, whether we liked it or not. In that neighborhood, there was always someone you could turn to if you needed something. Italians lived in every house on both sides of the street and everyone knew everyone else’s business. And there was plenty of business going on in our neighborhood and it was certainly not legal. Mr. Rogers would not have approved.

The “big” dice games (involving mobsters with big money to bet) took place in the garage in the back of our house. I guess I was around six years old when I had my first encounter with the crime in our neighborhood. Mama and I and my baby sister spied through half-closed kitchen curtains as Mama prayed out loud, “Dear God, please, please watch over them. Don’t let them get caught.”

Uncle Max, who didn’t actually play in those games—don’t know if he just didn’t want to risk the money or was too afraid of getting caught—served as lookout to warn the guys if he saw any cops.

Sure enough, the warning rang out. We could hear Uncle Max scream, “Cops! Cops! Run,” as he dodged into the pathway between our two houses. But poor Uncle Max, a rather short, skinny man, ran straight into the arms of the police protesting, “I wasn’t even playing.” Two large officers hooked him by both elbows, lifted him off the ground and carried him away saying, “Yeah, buddy, then why were you running?”

The garage door flung open and you never saw so many men run in all directions in your life: running through the alley, jumping into parked cars, stuffing themselves into trash cans, and leaping over backyard fences. One poor heavyset neighbor, Fat Jimmy, who got stuck on a fence with the post right in his crotch, cried either because it hurt so much or because he was arrested. I cried because I saw Papa jumping fences all the way up the street until he disappeared from view.

Papa loved to tell the story of where he ended up hiding that day. In our neighborhood, nobody really had a bathroom like we know them today. In our house, for example, we had a bathtub upstairs in one of the bedrooms and the toilet and sink downstairs. Many people still had toilets outside in their cellars. Papa ended up at our neighbor Irene’s house and frantically threw open her outside cellar door, quickly descended the stairs, where he surprised Irene who happened to be sitting on her toilet.

Irene screamed and Papa turned his back to her and said, “Irene, shh… Please don’t scream. It’s just me, Al Carracci. I’ll keep my back turned. The cops are after me. Please just let me stay here a minute.”

Irene, who must have felt humiliated and embarrassed as she flushed the toilet and pulled herself together, roared at Dad that he needed to “go now!” She had a family and couldn’t be involved in harboring a fugitive. So, Papa crept to the top of the stairs, slowly and carefully lifting the cellar door to the unfortunate view of a cop’s black boots.

Papa said when he went in front of the court, the judge asked him, “Mr. Carracci, why is a nice guy like you hanging out with this bunch of hoodlums? You have your own business and you have kept your nose clean until now. So, I’ve decided to give you a break and let you off with a warning. But don’t let me find you involved with this gang ever again. Understood?”

Well… that was Papa’s version anyway. And he always told this story laughing, so I’m guessing the truth lies in there somewhere.

Years later, just before Uncle Max died at age one hundred, he divulged a well-kept secret to me. My father won $28,000 in one of those bar-booth games. Back then, that was a fortune and could have put him on easy street for a very long time. Unfortunately, Papa gambled it all away and never told Mom how much he had won.