La Costa Nostra

Chapter 1: The Beginning

My parents are Sicilian.

To my knowledge, my father forged himself and my mother passports and managed to charm his way into the Americas, leaving all of their family and loved ones behind, their sole focus was me.

My life could be completely different if that hadn't happened. I may very well have been dead by now, the Sicilian economy isn't the strongest, laws aren't always enforced there. In fact, sometimes I wonder why my seraphic father didn't choose to stay in Sicily, business would be golden for him.

Forged passports also expire. For the next 10 years of their life, the only job opportunity my father was offered was to be a cashier at the local gas station. His employer often did hire illegal immigrants. As for my mother, she would clean for anyone who would take her.

Once they gathered enough money, they decided to finally have their first child, their only child as a matter of fact. Yes, I am an only child, not that they could afford any more than one child, I wasn't spoiled rotten like most lonely kids. Keep in mind, illegal immigrants can't get driving license, so they couldn't drive to the hospital in time. I was born in the backyard of an apartment complex, November 24th, 1980, which at the time was possibly acceptable.

It was a couple of months after I was born that my parents could no longer afford living in the large apartment complex, so we moved. My father carried what he could hold with his two bare hands, my mother carried me, and they walked 2 hours to the Bronx, where we moved into a 1-bedroom flat. My parents got a double bed and laid out a thick blanket across the floor that I could sleep on.

My future aspirations frequently changed, as they do for most children. Even though, I was completely aware that we were rock bottom poor, my mother attempted to make sure I never found out about our struggles. She even lied her way into getting me into the system, so that I could attend school.

We were all admittedly ashamed of being poor. The house always stank, but my mother always kept my school uniform clean, probably to hide the truth. She understood the troubles that I could've faced in school.

My father took on yard work, he worked 18 hours a day, 126 hours a week. I almost never saw him, and when I did, he wasn't always in the best mood. I can't blame him, though, I would want to punch the reason why I was poor in the face, too. Not that he punched me or anything.

It wasn't until I was about to go into middle school when our life started to change. My dad quit his job and started to drink excessive amounts of alcohol. He started giving up hope, but my mother did not. Unfortunately, the only thing keeping us alive was her "hope". She had to resort to selling her body for any price that was offered by her clients, she also took on 3 different side jobs.

It's said that once hope is lot, life will be at its loss as well, we were all very close to just giving up. Until a light was shared to the 3 of us.

My uncle Piero had gotten into contact with us, he found out that we lived in the Bronx. He had one of his "workers" meet my father at the Shuylerville, a big city in the middle of the Bronx. Of course I wasn't allowed to go with my father but all I can remember is my father walking through the door with a briefcase full of cash.

He sat down the briefcase on the unmade bed my father and mother sleep on, and looked up at us both with a sly smile, I was terrified. "Fa le valige, pack your bags, were moving back to Manhattan." I was confused, my mother was also confused, but we didn't ask questions.

Packing didn't take long, we didn't have much of anything to pack, anyway, or anything to pack anything into. We left that same day.

After a short 30-minute car ride, we pulled up to a brick built home, it was huge. A man with grey slicked back hair and a fine mustache was standing, crossing his arms and welcoming my father into our new estate. The strange man looked down to me with eyes brighter than the sun, "Monny! I haven't seen you since you were a baby!" he patted my head as if he's known me forever.

"Your life is about to change, little man." I waited for him to follow up with anything, he didn't, the silence was thick in the air, I could taste it.

"Your life is about to change."