by Linda Scarpa
Although he was a killer before the war, he was a true-blue father. He was a loving, caring, protective—maybe to an extreme—father. In his book, the son of an infamous Mafia crime boss said his father chose the life before he chose his family. That’s not the case with us. In the beginning my father chose us before he chose the life, until he knew he was going to die of AIDS.
But then he had to show the world that he was still strong, even though the disease was going to ravage his body. He wanted people to know that even though he had a disease that was going to kill him, he was still who he was. He was still powerful and he was still going to fight the fight. I don’t think he really wanted to wage the war. I think he wanted to prove to people that he still was strong. But once they tried to kill him in front of us, then he lost it.
My father wasn’t the monster people make him out to be; he was a gangster. But his fatherly instincts always took over. AIDS, revenge and anger were fueling my father, and he was in a position where he didn’t care about his life anymore. He knew his life was going to end, and he wanted to be sure he got those people back for what they did to his family. He was thinking about us, but in way that wasn’t rational because he had lost control because of AIDS.
It still boggles my mind, though. I can’t figure out to this day how he was able to be two different people—if not more. I haven’t been able to make sense of any of it. I’m still tormented by it, because there’s the person I love and want to remember. Then I hear all these things, and sometimes I get angry. But then I go to the cemetery, and I’m not angry anymore. It’s just constant turmoil that I have to deal with.
And I think about the other families that he destroyed, and that hurts. I know what that feels like because of what happened with my brother. When I think about the other people that he did that to, it’s very painful and disturbing.
My brother and I—and I’m sure other kids in the life feel this way, too—we had this curse that never goes away. You have to deal with the pain for the rest of your life, especially if you lost a sibling or parent. It doesn’t ever go away—it stays with you forever. Holidays and birthdays are not the same, but my brother’s murder was the worst pain that I have ever felt.
Not too long ago a mutual friend introduced me to Wild Bill Cutolo’s son. Wild Bill’s son was dealing with the same kind of pain because we’re both children of people who were in the Mob.
We’ve been talking on the phone, trying to make sense of a life where no one thought twice about killing a friend or a former friend. We want to continue our new friendship in the hopes that it will help us get past the sins of our fathers that haunt us to this day.
Recently I also spoke to Vic Orena’s son. The first time we talked, it was very strange. It was something that was hard to imagine—two kids brought into the same type of family, whose fathers were rivals and out to get each other. Now we’re friends, and that’s also kind of strange.
He let his dad know that we were speaking, and he said his father was very happy that we were talking. Before the war started, my father and Vic were acquaintances. They weren’t really friends. I don’t even know if they really liked each other, but they had to get along.
But once the war started, that was it. They became enemies. My father wanted him badly, and he was doing everything in his power to try to find him. And Vic was after my father. It was kill or be killed, whoever found the other one first.
But neither of them found the other; they were both pretty smart, calculating men who knew how to protect themselves. That’s why they both stayed alive.
The reality of living this life is . . . I’m not sure how to explain it. If I met someone now, and he was fascinated by someone in the Mafia, or she was bragging about dating somebody in the Mafia, I would tell this person that the life has nothing but horror, misery, nightmares and death. Not that anyone would listen. I’m sure this individual wouldn’t listen. Everything horrible in life that you could ever imagine is really in that life. Nothing good ever comes out of being in that life.
All the money that you have at that time, it doesn’t matter. There is no amount of money that could bring back someone that you love. And once you’re in that life, and you lose someone, that’s the only way you’re going to know what I’m talking about.
One of my biggest fears in my life, even when I was younger, was that I was going to go crazy. I could never watch movies like Girl, Interrupted or any movies where there was somebody who was crazy and got locked up.
That’s probably why I was so scared to go to the weekend visits with Tommy, because I didn’t like being locked up. And I was afraid I would go crazy because of everything I had gone through in my life.
I was always trying to be strong and keep it together. I wanted to be there for everybody else, and I was really never there for myself. When the war happened, and my father got sick and died and my brother was murdered, I thought there was no way that I could experience those things without going crazy.
I finally got over that fear. I figured, I was already crazy, but I’ve been out in the real world and haven’t been locked up. Recently I went to a new therapist, but I was afraid to tell him everything because I didn’t want him to think that I was sick and needed to be locked up.
I’ve kept it together for my kids. My kids have always been the reason why I stayed strong, when I really wanted to fall apart.
There have been days when I couldn’t get out of bed. I literally spent a month in bed one summer when my son was with his father. I got up just to have something to eat and drink, and then I went back to bed. I was sleeping twenty hours a day for that whole month. When I knew that my son was coming back home, I had to pull myself together.
Every March 20—the anniversary of my brother’s murder—I watch my mother suffer through the day. It’s a sad life. It’s been over twenty years since he was killed but it never gets any better. My kids make me happy, of course, but there’s always that void.
I’ve missed out on so much, not having my brother there for so many life events. Not being able to call him on the phone. Not being able to hear his laugh. Not being able to hear him joke about the stupidest things, and make up the craziest nicknames for everybody. Joey had a free spirit. He tried not to let things bother him, but he got mixed up in the wrong life.
After he died, I felt so alone. I ended up in a violent relationship, where I was abused, and I didn’t have anyone to turn to. I was afraid, and nobody was there for me.
One thing about being in this life is that when the shit hits the fan, everybody runs. And the people who run, they don’t come back. The people you care for are dead, and you don’t even know where you are half the time.
My nephew Gregory Scarpa III, Greg Junior’s son, grew up in the life, too. It wasn’t easy for him, either. He was eight or nine when his father went to prison in 1988. I’ve asked my nephew to share his story.
The first thing I’d like to say is that the man everybody called “the Grim Reaper” was “Grandpa” to me. He was always a very good, kind, loving grandfather. I heard the stories when the Colombo war broke out, and I was exposed to some things, but he was still my grandpa. It was just a bad situation.
After my father went away, things got really hard for my mother and me. She had to work a lot so she left me with family. We were living in Staten Island. There were a few relatives I could have spent time with, but I wanted to go to my grandfather’s house because I loved my grandfather and my uncle Joey. Joey was like my older brother and I followed him around everywhere.
When I was young, my grandfather would sometimes take me with him to his meetings. I was about six years old, and he was probably fifty-eight or so, although I didn’t know that then. To me, he was an old man. He was my old grandpa. He wanted to be sure no one was following him, so we hopped fences in Brooklyn, going from one neighborhood to another. Then we took one car to another car to another and eventually we arrived at the meeting place.
Of course, that
doesn’t sound normal now, but I was a little boy then and it was great. I used to hop fences in Staten Island with my friends, and then I was doing it with my grandfather. I thought that was cool.
Before the war I used to spend overnights at my grandfather’s house. AIDS had started to set in, but I didn’t really understand at that age. I figured Grandpa was a little sick, but he still had a lot of love for me and he loved my mom, Lillian. My dad was married three times, and my grandfather always said my mom was his favorite.
I used to go to his Wimpy Boys Social Club with my father and I’d hang out there pretty much all day. There was this one guy, Anthony Scarpati, or Scappy, who used to tease me all the time. Aunt Linda said he used to tease my uncle Joey all the time, too. Scappy was my godfather. All the guys would tease me, but Scappy would actually hurt me. He gave me noogies and put bumps on my head.
Scappy was the boss, which is probably why my father never protected me from him. I didn’t know who to hide behind. But if my grandfather was there, I knew I had someone to hide behind. If Scappy was teasing me and I ran to my grandfather, Scappy would stop dead in his tracks and I knew I was safe. I always felt so safe around my grandfather.
I didn’t know the seriousness of his illness until I heard that he was going to be on television. I found out that he had AIDS when I saw him on the news. I watched him admit to the world that he had AIDS. But I couldn’t understand why my grandfather had to go on television and admit to the rest of the country that he had this virus. Why my grandfather?
That’s when I understood that he was a pretty important guy and I started putting everything together—like what my dad was doing and how important and powerful my grandfather was.
I’ll never know for sure if my dad knew what my grandfather was doing with the FBI, because nobody ever talked to me about it at the time. Like I said, he was Grandpa, and my dad was my dad. It was a normal family to me.
Life started to get hard for me because of what was going on. I clung to my grandfather because my dad was taken away from me when I was so young. Then when I realized I was going to lose my grandfather, either to jail or to an illness, it made it even harder for me. I started to act out as a kid. Then it got worse after I lost my grandfather; and shortly after that, I lost my uncle Joey, and I worshiped him.
That wasn’t the way it was supposed to be.
When my dad went away, my mom used to take me to my grandfather’s house in Brooklyn for dinner or maybe because she had to talk to him about something.
I remember like it was yesterday, when my grandfather told me, “When your father is about to be released, me and you are gonna take a helicopter to the prison, and we’re going pick your father up in a helicopter.”
And I believed my grandfather 100 percent. I started living my life believing that when I turned twenty-one, my father was going to be released. That made things a little easier for me, having that in the back of my mind. That’s what kept me from really losing it at a young age. I knew I couldn’t lose it completely, because my father was going to be coming home.
I also believed my grandfather was going to live through this illness. He wasn’t going to go to jail and he wasn’t going to lose his life in some war on the street in Brooklyn. I believed that we were going to pick up my father someday in a helicopter from the prison in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, where he was at the time, and we were going to live happily ever after.
It didn’t work out that way. I’m thirty-five now and I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when I was twenty-nine. At that time I was actually working for a local laborers union, Local 731, which is outdoor laborers. I had been working for them for two years, and they had me on high-profile jobs. I worked on the new Yankee Stadium for nine months.The first day I walked onto the Yankee Stadium site, it was pretty much all dirt—they were pouring the concrete. By the time I left there, the grass was down and the dugouts were in. It was beautiful. I’m a huge Yankee fan, so that was a big thing.
When my grandfather was around, I never feared anything. If I was ever afraid and he was around, I ran to him before my own father. I was very close to him and I still am. I feel a major connection to him. I’ve always felt that he’s my higher power—and I feel that way today.
CHAPTER 20
ONE MORE SECOND WITH MY BROTHER
After my brother died, I used to drive by his house in Staten Island all the time when it was empty and just stare at the house. Then finally I had the courage to go in. I used to open the door and call out his name—that’s what I used to do when he lived here. I’d call out “Joe,” just to let him know I was there. I did that for a long time because it made me feel like he was there. Finally I decided that I wanted to live in that house. I bought it and lived there from about 1996 to 2005.
It’s so hard for me to remember some things about my brother. But I want to tell you what I do remember. Even though we were only two years apart, we were worlds apart. We had different friends and we were completely different. We really didn’t hang out. When we lived on Avenue J, we used to play outside together and play video games with my father. We did a lot of things together, but we still fought like crazy. We’d always get in trouble for that, because my mother and father hated it when we were fighting.
We were a real family on Avenue J, having dinner together every night. We loved that house. But once we moved to Eighty-Second Street, everything changed. It destroyed our lives in a lot of ways. There were no more rules. Joey wanted to go out; I was going to clubs. There was no more family. Maybe that’s why I have such a hard time remembering.
One of the things I do remember is when Joey met his wife, Maria. She was dating one of his acquaintances. My brother was head over heels for her. He fell totally in love with her. He loved everything about her. She was all he talked about. He had to have her.
At the time there was a song out called “Maria” by TKA. Joey played that song for her over and over. Actually, I still can’t listen to that song or I’ll fall apart. If you listen to the words, they pretty much described his life when he met her. The Maria in the song was dating another guy, and there was this other guy who was crazy about her. He was trying to get her away from him. When Joey met his Maria, she was with another guy, and Joey was trying to get her away from him. The words just tell the story about how Joey felt about Maria and what he was going through.
Maria finally broke up with that other guy. When she did, she and Joey started dating. They dated for a year or so; then they decided to get married. They had their wedding at the La Mer reception venue. My brother was hysterical at his wedding. Somebody had given him gum before he got there, so he was chewing gum during the ceremony.
The priest was talking about love and he kept saying the word “love” again and again. Finally my brother said, “Okay, I get it. Love.” He was just so funny.
The wedding and the reception were beautiful, but Maria’s father wasn’t quite sure how everything was going to turn out. He wore a bulletproof vest to his daughter’s wedding because he thought he was going to get shot.
My father was sitting at one of the tables talking with him when he realized the guy was wearing the vest.
“Are you wearing a vest? Is that a bulletproof vest?”
My father nearly wet himself; he was laughing so hard. He could not believe this guy wore a bulletproof vest to his daughter’s wedding. This was a joke for the longest time.
I was never sure how Maria’s family felt about my father, since they never let the real truth out. If they didn’t like him, they weren’t going to show it. But when my father was sick, Maria’s mother used to make him a lot of food every day. He’d tell her, “I don’t have a stomach. Where do you want me to fit all this?” She would tell him to “eata the food.” I guess they did like one another, because why else would she do that?
When they first got married, Joey and Maria lived in an apartment, but I don’t remember where it was. It wasn’t long before they started looking at houses and t
hey bought a fully furnished town house in Staten Island. All they took with them was their clothes. It was a beautiful house—it was the model home. Then they had a baby and there they were, two kids living in this house with a baby.
Joey wasn’t working—he was dealing drugs in the streets. He wanted to open up a business, but he didn’t know what to do or how to go about it. He just knew he didn’t want to continue to do what he was doing.
He tried to talk to my father about how to start a business and what to do, but he just couldn’t get it done. When you get caught up in making fast money, it’s really hard to get out of it—it’s really hard to get away from it.
My brother really was a good person—he wasn’t a bad guy. He didn’t want to hurt people. He didn’t act like a tough guy. Sure, he had problems in the street and he did act that way, but that was over territory and stepping on each other’s toes in the neighborhood.
He never used all his training in karate on anybody, either. He wasn’t that type of person. He had been taught by the karate teacher never to use his training in the street unless it was self-defense. He lived by that.
I’ve always felt that our lives were kind of rushed. We both got married so young. But I believe it was supposed to be that way because his life ended so fast. At least he got to do things that most kids his age wouldn’t have been able to do. It wasn’t the norm to get married at nineteen and have a baby.
We actually had our kids around the same time. My son was born in March 1990, and his daughter was born in November of that year. They used to play together.
But after Joey and Maria had the baby, things started to change. Her mother started becoming overly protective. She didn’t want Maria and the baby to come to our house or spend time with us on holidays. I wasn’t sure why she felt that way. Maybe she was being protective, because she thought that some bad things were going on.