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GANGSTERS TO REMEMBER
by
Lorenzo Carcaterra

     My father loved to tell me stories. And I loved to listen. Sometimes, as we went for our Sunday morning walks along New York's West Side piers, he would rail on about boxers he admired, from the courage of Willie Pep to the determination of Carmine Basillio to the sheer majesty of Sugar Ray Robinson, his short, squat body animated and electric as he imitated their skillful ring moves. On other occasions, almost always accompanied by a meal, he would tell me tales about baseball players (Harmon Killebrew of the Minnesota Twins was his favorite) or jazz musicians (the drummers Chick Webb and Gene Krupa dominated those plots) or war heroes (World War I's Sgt. York always made the grade.) But his favorite stories, by far, were always about gangsters.
     By the age of ten, I was already well-versed in all the details of the bizarre murder of Abe "Kid Twist" Reles on the sixth-floor of the Half-Moon Hotel as he waited behind a locked door, guarded by six cops, to testify against members of Murder, Inc. I knew that the Upper West Side shoot-out involving "Two-Gun" Crawley and a squadron of cops inspired our favorite movie, "Angels With Dirty Faces" with James Cagney. I stood with my father on the corner of 23rd Street and 8th Avenue, where on the night of February 8, 1932, Owney Madden's hit men pumped 123 slugs into the body of Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll while he was dialing a number inside a wooden phone booth. "It was," my father said, nodding with approval, "the perfect set-up."
     The gangster lessons didn't just end with the stories. They extended to movies and television shows as well. My father and I saw them all-from the classics ("White Heat" with Cagney) to the forgettable (Mickey Rooney in "Baby-Face Nelson"). We watched Rod Steiger scream his way through "Al Capone" and John Erickson charm the ladies in "Pretty-Boy Floyd." On television, depending on the night of the week, we were entertained by "The Untouchables," "Racket Squad" and Lee Marvin in "M Squad." After each viewing, my father would re-enforce his point. While gangster stories are fun to watch and talk about, the life they lead, the REAL life they lead, can only end in death and prison.
     My father was not an educated man. He could not read above a child's level. He had served time in prison, convicted of second-degree manslaughter. He was not book smart nor on any level could he be called intelligent. But he knew we lived in a tough neighborhood and that the lure of the streets was hard for any boy to ignore, even one who wasn't out seeking such a life. And he did not want that to happen to me. This was his way of showing me the wrongs of such a move. I didn't understand it then. I love him for it now.
     He was not a perfect man, but I've lived long enough to know that such men are usually the ones who can impart the most important lessons. He had a violent temper and an easy smile and I don't think even he knew the impact his stories would have on me. Other kids were told fairy tales or were read to from books. I fell asleep listening to Charles "Lucky' Luciano's plans for "The Night of the Sicilian Vespers," when 39 gangsters nationwide were eliminated across a twelve-hour murder spree and the word organized was brought to crime. My father died in 1988 and I had stopped listening to his stories many years before that. But the ones he told are still very much a part of me. It is our bond. Those are memories that only he and I can ever own. And because of that, because of all those colorful stories that he so eagerly told, my new novel, GANGSTER, is as much his book as it is mine. I only hope I've told it as
well as I know he would have done.

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