By Joey B "The Cicce" Bevacqua

 Chapter Two: Joey B. Goes to Private School

All names have been changed, in order to protect the innocent as well as the guilty.

Thanks to Grand Pa there was always money coming in. My Grand Pa was a strange person! He would shoot a cigarette out the mouth of my Uncle Tony (known as Bones), while Grand Ma yelled at him for shooting his pistol in the living Room. My mom told me that he was a great hunter of many different species! (Whatever that meant!)

When Don Pietro passed away, of natural causes, my Dad and I had to go to his apartment for the gruesome task of emptying it. What a shock it was, as I entered, to discover shotguns and rifles at the front windows and in the bedroom a pistol under his pillow.

My most interesting discovery was a scrapbook in a closet. It started with newspaper clippings from Palermo, Sicily, in the early 1900’s, and progressed to the US.Each clipping depicted a murder. I was much too young to realize its significance: “Hey dad! What is this?” My Dad grabbed the book from my hands, and I never saw it again…. And Don Pietro was no more.

Mom & Dad decided to send me to a private school in Hoboken, because I was a very poor student! Every morning a taxi cab picked me up in front of the house, under the bewildered look of the neighbors and drove me to school, called Stevens Academy.Here I met my first non-Italian friends… no more vowel endings! The first thing they asked me was “hey …what’s your dad do?”  All my classmates fathers were Doctors or Lawyers, I went home and asked: “Daddy what do you do for a living? My friends at school want to know.” He replied with: “You tell them I am a Numerologist!” When I told them, they all had a puzzled look on their faces.

For you people who don’t know… this kind of numerology had something to do with numbers, as in illegal lottery! My Dad was what could be considered today as: A Bookmaker and a Loan officer. As business was booming, my Dad realized that he needed an office. He chose a beautiful corner location, with windows facing in all directions. Here was Dad’s Shoe Shine Parlor, where five elevated chairs stood guard, and accepted clients only on Saturdays, and by appointment ONLY!

This did not explain the continuous visits to the shop by many interesting individuals like: Salvatore (big Sal) Monella, Charley (The Chisel) Carcone, Mikey (The Mule) Mure, Louie (The Lip) Liparri, Frankie (Fingers) Fusilli, Matteo (The Doc) DeLuca, and many more colorful characters. When an unfamiliar face came into the shop, my Dad always looked at their hands:If they were dressed as workers, and their hands had never held anything but a pencil, it was a sure giveaway. F.B.I. …

 Chapter Three: "Knock, knock ... Who' s  there?... F.B.I...."

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