News from Long Island has come in that John A. Gotti son of
the more famous Mafia boss and a one-time Mafia boss himself, was stabbed on Long Island. He survived
the attack.
Gotti Jr.
told the police he was stabbed while breaking up a fight between two strangers.
Police find that about as believable as him being stabbed by a unicorn.
When I
first moved back to New York, I worked at JFK airport and found a place in Ozone Park, on 101st
Avenue near Woodhaven Boulevard. A few short blocks away was the Bergin Hunt and
Fish Club, which had served as John Gotti’s Queens headquarters before he
became head of the Gambino Crime Family.
The fact
that we were close to a place of Mafia lore was a selling point.
“You’ve
heard of John Gotti?” the real estate agent asked.
“Yes,” I
said. Who hadn’t?
“Well his
club is right down the street. People know not to mess around here.”
Gotti had
been in prison for years by then, but there were still plenty of wise-guy types
around. There were still old men playing cards in the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club
when I would walk by. It is long gone now.
Gotti’s headquarters for the time
he was the big boss was in Little Italy, the Ravenite Social Club, is now a shoe store. Only the tiled floor
remains. John Gotti died in prison, ravaged by cancer, a shadow of the feared
“Teflon Don” he was in the 1980s.
For better or worse, New York loves
its Mafia heritage. There are tours in Little Italy featuring famous
assassination sites. I love it too, no doubt. I was glad to walk by the Bergin
Hunt & Fish club and gladly bragged to friends that I was in John Gotti’s
neighborhood.
But really, when you get right down
to it, the Mafia is bullshit.
We like to imagine the Mafia
through the lens of “The Godfather,” the quintessential mob film that
popularized the genre and made mobsters look good. It’s a great film. Anyone
who doesn’t love “The Godfather” deserves to sleep with the fishes. But “The
Godfather” is an accurate portrayal of Mafia life as much as “Star Wars” is an
accurate portrayal of the space shuttle Challenger disaster.
The real Mafia is not a collection
of earnest Vito Corleones living the American dream, it’s a gaggle of the worst grease ball Goombahs you can
imagine but with guns and money. The real Mafia isn’t keeping your neighborhood
safe, it’s stealing your car and shaking you down for protection money.
A few years ago I read the book Underboss by Sammy “The Bull” Gravano,
who was John Gotti’s lieutenant who eventually turned on him and testified
against him. Gravano’s memoir, like anything else told by a career criminal,
can’t be taken at face value, but it describes a life not of dapper dons but of
sleazy thieves and thugs, always looking for new ways to make money, usually by
stealing from others in some way. A piece of shit thief in a tailored silk suit
is still a piece of shit thief.
No comments:
Post a Comment