Married to a Mafia Princess (eBook)

A True Love Story

Linda Robinson (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
354 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-4420-4 (ISBN)

Infos

When I was nineteen, I, Albert Volpe, fell in love with a beautiful, Italian girl from The Bronx. She was charming, smart, and sweet. She was also the favorite daughter of a family connected to the Mafia - I married her anyway. This is a true story about love, greed, in-laws from hell, intimidation, triumph, and loss.

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From the 1950's to early '70's, the Five Families of the Italian Mafia were known for their brutality and strong criminal activities in New York City. Although boasting thousands of members, most were low level thugs known as associates who carried out jobs, illegal in nature, for the capo or other members while maintaining their own rackets. Silvio Marino, until his death in 1996, was an associate in the Gambino crime family. Mere innuendo that he was affiliated with The Family was enough for anyone to take him seriously. In 1963, when Albert Volpe met Georgann Marino, the favorite daughter of Silvio Marino, he had little awareness of the Mafia. He wasn't that 'kind' of Italian. When Al and Georgann married in 1965, firsthand knowledge of the Mafia and how much it interfered in his family's lives lasted for the next thirty years. Al's story is told in his own voice; the written narrative is by Linda Robinson.

Textauszug

2

Love

In 1962, I graduated from Evander Childs High School. My parents hoped I'd get a job with security and a pension, but I knew I wasn’t a 9-to-5er kind of guy. I had other plans for my life but not much clue what they might be. Since computer programming appeared to be the wave of the future, I decided to enroll in a six-month course in computer programming at Monroe Business School in The Bronx.

At that time, computers were in their infancy. Before any computations could be made, all the data had to first be entered onto little cards by key punch operators before feeding the cards into a computer bigger than a refrigerator. The programming part I was learning involved placing little wire plugs into circuit boards. This seemed like tedious, boring work to me. Instead of going to class, I spent a lot of time in the poolroom across the street from Monroe. By graduation, I had learned to shoot a decent game of pool but not much about making a living in the computer age. While many of my classmates went on to lucrative careers in computer programming, I still had to figure out what I was going to do with my life besides becoming the next Minnesota Fats. I wasn’t too bright.

After class, a group of us from Monroe met at Saul’s Luncheonette on

172nd Street. I was sipping a coke at the counter when I first set eyes on Georgann Marino who was taking a secretarial course at Monroe. Georgann really stood out from the other girls. She was tall and slender but still curvy; her dark brown hair was frosted and teased high in the style of the day. Her big, brown eyes with their tiny flecks of gold that glinted in the sunlight drew me like a moth to a flame. She accented her long lashes with lots of mascara and when she fluttered them at me my heart skipped a beat. Her nose was a bit too wide but her luscious mouth, out of which came only softly spoken words, had me hanging on them like a puppet on a string. She was my dream girl.

Soon Georgann and I sat together at Saul’s shutting out the rest of the group as if they didn’t exist. If we passed each other in the hall at Monroe, she would lower her head; look up at me through those long lashes and whisper a soft, „Hi, Al.” My knees would buckle. I fell for Georgann hard. Even before we had our first date, it was too late for me to cut my emotions and run.

Georgann and I both graduated at the same time from Monroe. She got a job as a teller with County Trust Bank in Mt. Vernon and I found work as a clerk n a law firm in Ardsley, NY - just until I found a real job. Since computers were not my cup of espresso, I decided to enroll in night courses at Fordham University's Business School. I never intended to get a degree - that would have required more work, discipline, and time than I wanted to expend - but I figured it couldn’t hurt to learn something about management and balance sheets, since I intended to have my own business someday. My adolescent shoe shine business spurred my entrepreneurial aspirations.

A few weeks after graduation, Georgann and I decided it was time for us to become 'steadies' and date exclusively. We made plans to go on our first real date as a couple.

"Al, pick me up at my house at 6:00 on Saturday. I want you to meet my parents."

"How about I just beep my horn and you come out."

"No, Al, you have to meet my parents. They have to approve of you."

"What are you talking about, Georgann? This is 1962, not 1862 and we live in The Bronx, not Italy. Since when does a girl need her parents' permission who to date?"

"You don't know my parents. They would give me nothing but grief if they didn’t meet you and give their okay."

"How are they going stop me from seeing you? Have me whacked?" I was joking, because, at the time, I didn't know how close I was to the truth. Still, I couldn't help laughing at Georgann's old fashioned notions - until she explained her reasons.

"I never told you much about my family, Al, because I didn't want to scare you off.”

“What are they ax-murderers?” I was so hilarious.

“Of course they aren’t, Al. Don’t be silly. But, my father’s line of work is not exactly legitimate, or at least, I don’t think so. He works for the Gambino family as some kind of union representative. I don't know much about what else he does, but he's gone a lot. My mother doesn't have a job, but I know her two brothers are part of the same Colombo crime family her father belonged to. He died a number of years ago, but I was never told the cause of his death, and I wasn’t allowed to attend his funeral. I never ask my uncles what they do for the Colombo family. It isn't my place not that they'd tell me. Now that you know my family is involved with the Mafia, do you still want to see me?”

I knew the Gambino and Colombo families were big Mafia, but my knowledge came from what I read in the papers, not from personal experience.

"Your family doesn't scare me, Georgann. It's you I want to be with, not them. Don't worry your pretty head. Your parents are going to love me. I'll charm the daylights out of them. I'll pick you up at 6." I said this with the same bravado I felt, because at nineteen, I wasn't very smart.

The Marinos lived on Mace Avenue in the northeast section of The Bronx, a residential neighborhood off Pelham Parkway where many southern Italians - aka Mafia - lived. The Marinos house was a red-brick, two-story colonial with a small, neatly tended front lawn sporting the obligatory statue of the Madonna. A short brick path led to a five step stoop. The house was modest looking on the outside - like all Mafia houses - to avoid notifying the IRS that the occupants might be living beyond their means or have a different source of income they reported on their tax returns. Inside was another story - plush furniture (covered in plastic, of course), lots of gold leaf, top of the line appliances, custom made suits and designer clothes in all the closets, and a Cadillac in the single car garage.

At two minutes to six, I pulled my Ford Vicky to the curb in front of the Marino house. Dropping the visor, I smoothed back the sides of my hair with my hands, checked my teeth for food, and practiced my „you-gotta-love-me’ grin in the mirror before getting out of the car. I had more than my fair share of vanity. I was 6'1" with a 32" waist, broad shoulders, lots of thick, black hair slicked straight back from a forehead that was maybe a little too Neanderthal, clear blue eyes, a small, aquiline nose, and enough lip to produce a first-class sneer when needed. I was hip.

I got out of Vicky, pulled my Hawaiian shirt closed but not buttoned over my „wife beater’ undershirt, hiked up my black chinos and sauntered over to the house. I ran up the steps taking two at a time and rang the bell. I stood on the step smiling with my best shit-eating grin frozen on my face. Georgann's mother answered the door. Her smile was a red slash that didn’t go past her lips which were pursed as narrow as the squint of her eyes. Mrs. Marino was an attractive woman, slender, fortyish, and almost as tall as Georgann with the same dark hair teased and sprayed stiff by her weekly trips to the hair dresser. Her forehead was high and smooth except for the two deep lines between her eyes - a result of the narrow, unblinking stare she used to view the world and which she now directed at me. The memory of those piercing, dark eyes would send involuntary shivers up my spine for the rest of my life. She was dressed in a stylish blue and white shirtwaist dress and wore high heeled pointy toed shoes matching the blue in her dress. She stood blocking the entrance, hand on one hip. I could tell that her appealing looks masked a coarser side as soon as she opened her mouth.

"Hi, Mrs. Marino," I said, "I'm Al Volpe, and I'm here to pick up Georgann. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Oh, yeah," she answered looking me up and down with a flinty, fish-eyed stare. "Georgann," she screamed into the house, "there's some guy here who says he’s here to get you. I guess you’re expecting him.” Her voice was deep and raspy after years of smoking unfiltered Camels. No „nice to meet you’ from this lady.

Georgann came bouncing down the stairs, smiling at me as she put her arm around her mother's shoulders "This is Al, Ma. He's a business major and computer expert."

My hoodlum haircut, loud Hawaiian shirt, and hot rod car didn’t fit that profile. It was obvious that Mrs. Marino’s first impression of me wasn’t one of warmth and welcome. She didn't say anything, just continued to stare at me through narrowed eyes.

Then, with a crooked smile minutely lifting one corner of her red lips, she said, "Your father's not home yet, Georgann, but I'll be sure to tell him all about Al." She said my name as if I was a rat whose neck was snapped in a trap waiting for her husband to dump in the trash when he got home. I could’ve filled a book with the unspoken words her sneer conveyed.

"Bye, Ma, I'll be home by one."

Georgann rushed through the door sweeping us both down the front steps. Mrs. Marino came out on the stoop. As we walked to the car, I hunched up my shoulders feeling Mrs. Marino’s stare stabbing me in the back like daggers. If I believed in malocchio - the evil eye - I swear she was putting a curse on me. I peeled away from the curb wanting to put some distance between me and that strega - evil witch. I glanced in the rear view mirror to see Mrs. Marino rooted in the same spot watching us as we sped away. It took me a long time that night to shake that scary image.

The longer Georgann and I...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 14.2.2024
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-4420-4 / 9798350944204