I was prompted to write “Let’s Hear It for the Italians” by the pain of my Dad’s life. As the poem shows. “The Mayor of New York” by the memory of my Uncle Pete saying “you don’t have a hat” as he drove me home on his way to his job at the Copa where he was a companion/bodyguard to the entertainers. Especially Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole. A mob retirement job.

My father, of Brooklyn, an orphan, came from a Germanic-type family. Dutch, Protestant French and likely Protestant Irish. His brother and two sisters all married Germans. His father had a criminal record in the Army and civilian life. And his mother died of a self-induced abortion. They are buried together at Cypress Hill Cemetery, Brooklyn.

My mother was Italian Catholic. Nine brothers and a sister who survived to adulthood. Of the nine boys, five mobbed up. So, Dad lived between two criminalities.

Dad’s family’s faults were never discussed by his family. The faults of my mother’s family were almost celebrated. Incredible stories of Mafia activities. Here are two.

Uncle Pete, a young bootlegger, met a ship, likely coming down from Canada, and took on a load of alcohol in one-gallon tins. He filled his parents’ house on East 221^rd Street in the Bronx with the tins until he found a way to get rid of them. During the interval, my grandmother would sell a few tins here and there in the neighborhood. She was stealing from the Mafia. No flies settled on Rosa De Florio.

The second: Uncle Pete was close to the Terranova family. Especially Ciro, the Artichoke King (If you wanted to sell artichokes in New York in the late 1920s, better check with Ciro). One of the Terranova girls was getting married, and since they were people of money, they had a wedding rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. Mom, a child participant in the ceremony, was at the dinner, which included an honored guest: Arthur Flegenheimer, aka Dutch Schultz. Mrs. Schultz was a beer drinker, and had her own waiter, Mom noticed, who would supply her with another beer, on a tray in a flute-like glass, just as the previous one was finished. This went on all night, Mom noticed.  And, Mom noticed, Mrs. Schultz never went to the bathroom.

I grew up in the Bronx on East 221st Street, on Penfield Street, and in an apartment near the Bronx River Parkway. We lived there until 1951. Then we moved to Connecticut.

Moving from an apartment in the Bronx to an apartment above a Fanny Farmer candy store on East Elm Street, Greenwich, was not a shock. The kids were the same. Kids. Some good, some a pain in the ass. Some living in houses, some apartments. We then moved to a housing project at the east end of Greenwich, Adams Gardens. Here, the edge of criminality. Or, maybe more than the edge. Of the kids I knew at Adams Gardens, at least five served juvenile time, serious time, or both. A little bad luck, and I could have been number six. I have a T-shirt that says, “The Bronx, Only the Strong Survive.” The same could have been said for Adams Gardens.

I’ve completed a novella and am working on another. The one I’ve completed is a Vietnam War story about a Bronx Italian native who graduates from the University of Connecticut with a degree in English. He’s an excellent medic and infantry point man on his second Vietnam commando tour. But he’s different. He has Tourette’s Syndrome. My plan is to have these novellas made into films. The payout would give me the freedom to devote more time to writing. I’m 84. Jan. 15, MLK’s birth date. No time to waste.

–Charles R. De Florio Vermilyea Jr.

"The Mayor of New York!"

A hot sun.
Bronx streets. 
Coal in molten tar.
My Uncle Pete’s car.
Black like coal, tar.
Drives me home.
From my grandparents.
“You don’t have a hat.”
“I don’t like hats!”
His Yankees cap goes on my head.

--
“His name is Chick Chickoleno.”
“You say, Mr. Chickoleno.”
“You say, ‘Is all OK with Pete?’”
“Say it.”
“Is all OK with Pete?”
“Good.”

--
“Chick! There’s a little Yankees fan here for you.”
“Hey, kid. What you want?”
“Is all OK with Pete?”

--
“Kid, tell Pete all’s OK.”
“OK.”

--
“Chick, give the kid something. Last time it was a girl.”
“Here, kid. A Ten Spot.” 
“What you gonna do with it?”
“A Spalding Hi Bounce!”
“He’s a Bronx kid!“
“A Yankees fan!” 
“A Hi Bounce for stickball, punchball, boxball!”

--
“What did he say?”
“He said to tell you all’s OK.”
“Did he give you something?”
“Yeah. Ten.”
“He only gave your cousin five. And she’s older.”
“I guess I got lucky.”
“What you gonna do with the Ten?”
“A Hi Bounce! A lot of Hi Bounces!”
“I’ll buy you a Hi Bounce.”
“Gimme the Ten.” 

--
“The money starts a college fund for you.”
“Why?”
“So you won’t end up like me. You go to Fordham University.”
“Why?”
“Maybe so you become ... the Mayor of New York!”

“Let’s Hear It for the Italians!”

I. The “Americones”

To Italians of little English, “American” is “Americone.”
My father was an “Americone.”
Protestant, North European descent.
Youngest orphan of four.

--
His mother’s sister’s home.
Has room for him. 

--
World War I ends. 
Aunt Ida’s two boy soldiers return.
No room for 6-year-old.
Pack up his little belongings.
Drive to Brooklyn orphanage. 
Leave him on porch.
Drive away.

--
He cries, and cries and cries.
Older girl assigned to sit with arm around him.
He cries, and cries and cries.

--
An elderly man, he describes episode to brother.
Again.
With smarmy voice with smarmy smile:
“I thought Ida was an elegant lady.”


II. The Italians

Uncle Nick dies of pneumonia.
Uncle Nick is a member of an Italian-American sub-culture.
Stops a bullet. Or, an effective equivalent. 
Who knows?

--
Aunt Mary, an Irish domestic, alone with kids Robert and Maryanne.
Back to the Old Sod.
It don’t work. 
A letter to her mother-in-law in the Bronx.
Rosa De Florio (not one to ignore a plea from blood!) sends out a call for money.
Her eight boys and two girls respond.

--
Aunt Mary, the kids in the De Florio home, East 221st St.
Aunt Mary gets a job. 
Moves out with kids. 
Puts them in New York public schools. 
Italian name and Irish brogue. 
Oddities among their classmates.

---

Charles R. De Florio Vermilyea Jr. lives in Mansfield, Conn., with his little dog, Tino. Vermilyea is a retired Hartford Courant news copy editor. B.A. English/history, University of Connecticut (1967). Army veteran, 2/10 Cavalry Buffalo Soldiers (Korea, 1962/63). Son Jon, an artist. Daughter Elizabeth, an actress.