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CHAPTER 1
A Girl Born in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York
I'd be lying if I said I felt normal. Never, ever have I felt that way.
When I was a very young child, something always felt off. Watching my mother on her hands and knees, scrubbing the floors in the hallway of our apartment building in Brooklyn, bothered me. It was a big, wide, mosaic-tiled hallway. I used to sit on the steps as my mother told me to wait patiently until she was finished. Years later, I asked why she scrubbed the floors, and she replied, "To save money on the rent." For some reason, something about watching her scrub the floors frightened me.
I have vivid memories of that little apartment and the happy time I spent there from infancy to age three with my father, and mother. Don't ask me how I have such clear memories, but I can clearly describe our second-floor apartment as cozy, with a decent-sized kitchen, living room, and two bedrooms. The apartment had very modern 1960s furnishings. I remember the hissing of the steam from the old cast-iron radiators and the sound of traffic horns from the street below. It was a comfortable place to live, and I felt safe.
The heart of our home was its small, bright kitchen. The walls were papered in beige with a pattern of brown diamonds and stars. We had a fridge and a washing machine next to the kitchen sink. There was a little stove in the corner and a small wooden table that family and friends gathered around.
We had a big Italian family that stood by each other no matter what. My mom was one of six girls, and she was the second to the oldest. So I had my aunts around me all the time. My parents had lost their first baby, a girl, at birth five years earlier. I was a gift and felt very much loved.
My parents met on a blind date in 1956 when my mother was eighteen and my father was twenty-one. They quietly eloped. After finding out that my mom was pregnant. My grandmother eventually had them marry in a church, once she found out. It wasn't unusual to marry at a young age back then. (It's hard to come up with the exact details here. My aunts can't always remember much, so I'm going by my own memory and my sister's memory from the stories we heard over the years.)
My parents settled into a quaint apartment in downtown Brooklyn, where they had both grown up, close to their family and friends. Unfortunately, their plans for a family and a sweet life together came crashing down when the baby was born prematurely and lived for only nine hours. They named her Lucia. My parents were, of course, devastated.
My dad went home and took apart the nursery before my mom got out of the hospital. My mom was quite sick after that. It took her a very long time to recover and five more years to get pregnant again. Sunny, summer day in 1962, I was born to two very happy parents. They finally had a sweet baby girl to fill their days and brighten their lives.
My mother was a stay-at-home mom at that time and kept our home neat as a pin. She was a clean freak, washing the kitchen floors in our home on her hands and knees. You could perform surgery in any corner of the house. As a toddler with a pretty face and big cheeks, I took baths in the kitchen sink. Every Easter, my dad brought home soft, fluffy baby chicks for me. Before they eventually went to the farm, my mom gave them baths in the same sink.
My early days in Brooklyn were filled with fun trips to the park, bus rides to visit my grandmother, and playing on the fire escape, looking up and down the street as I waited for my father, the great love of my life, to get home for dinner.
Mom would always have a meal prepared for dinner, and the kitchen always smelled of onions and garlic. She was great at making homemade sauce. Every Sunday was macaroni day. She'd make meatballs and macaroni, and dinner was early at two. On some Sundays, we went to downtown Brooklyn to my grandmother's house.. She made the same exact meal of meatballs and macaroni, and it was so good!
My all-time favorite food to eat was pastina. It would become the comfort food of my life. To this day, there is nothing like a hot bowl of this tiny, star-shaped pasta with milk, butter, and salt. My only other way to eat pastina was with Sunday sauce. I eventually would serve it to my own babies, and to this day, when my daughter does not feel well or has a rough day, I offer up a bowl of pastina.
The only thing that comes close to pastina would be peas and macaroni, as my family referred to it. Our version was a very light tomato-based soup with small shell pasta and a can of peas. Heaven. I love memories of food and family, especially meals shared with my father.
Dad worked hard. He had two jobs: He worked as a laborer for the city by day and cab driver by night. When I was little, I thought he was Superman. He was tall, dark, and handsome with a great mustached smile that made his brown eyes sparkle. Dad smelled like Old Spice and tobacco and teasingly called himself Joe Cool after the snoopy character.
He actually claimed to be Superman, and I really believed him. That went on for a while until the day he cut himself. I was amazed that he was bleeding because Superman did not bleed.
I remember the smell as Dad smoked Larks cigarettes with the charcoal filter. He also liked a little Scotch and water or a Rusty Nail every now and again. He was a happy and very friendly person.
Everyone knew that he was very generous in every sense of the word. He was always willing to lend a helping hand and went out of his way to help the family. That was the kind of person he was, no questions asked. He was known to help friends and family get a job if they needed the work. He tried to help everyone have a better life because he knew how hard it could be.
Dad had been very poor growing up. His parents were Italian immigrants. My grandfather worked at a shipyard, painting ships, and he was killed when he fell off some scaffolding. My father was only two when it happened. By the time he was five, he was shining shoes on the corner.
Dad told me stories of being hungry. One day, when he was really hungry, he stuck his fingers inside of all the candy and nut machines in his neighborhood because he didn't have a penny to buy something. He finally found one treasure inside: a pistachio nut. Dad said it tasted like steak to him.
My father dropped out of high school to join the army. After his tour of duty, he got a job as a laborer working for the city of New York, fixing potholes and shoveling snow when necessary. He rose up the ranks, and by the time he died, he was second in command in his department. He made sure all the roads were paved and pothole-free. To this day, when I smell hot asphalt, I think of him.
I had a great relationship with my dad. He was truly one of my best friends. I was "Daddy's little girl" for sure. He made me feel pretty, special, protected, and much loved. He provided everything that a daughter should feel from her father. To say that he made a huge impact on my life would be an understatement. He was the first man I ever loved, and he taught me how to love and be loved and cherished. From what I understand he made my sister feel the same way, we can both argue over who was his favorite to this day.
When people ask me about my mother, I say it's hard to describe her because her emotions were a roller coaster. She wasn't grounded and reliable like my father was. On the outside, she was seemingly a happy person. Most people that met her thought she was a relatively normal, nice housewife and mother.
My mother was a very pretty woman. She kept her hair short and frosted for most of her life. She had pretty, dark-brown eyes and gorgeous skin, and she was religious about putting her makeup on first thing in the morning before she went about her day. Her go-to routine included a signature cat eye black liner, Jean Naté splash, and Jean Naté powder applied with a big puff she kept in the bathroom. Sometimes when I go to CVS, even after all these years, I open a bottle of Jean Naté and take a whiff to catch her scent.
When I was older, I went onto the fire escape, where I could look out at the street and the front of the building. We lived on a pretty, tree-lined street. On nice days, I used to sit up on the fire escape, holding my mother's keys. I liked to be the key holder. I usually ended up accidentally dropping them down onto the sidewalk. Random passersby would hear the jingle of the metal as the keys hit the concrete and scoop them up for me. I would always ask my mother for the keys and promise not to drop them, but I always did. In some ways, wanting to hold my mother's keys is symbolic of the role I would take on later in childhood — being forced to grow up quickly and to parent my mother at times.
My mom's best friend, Natale, and her husband, Sonny, lived across the street with their son, Michael, Natale was her best friend from childhood; they had grown up in the projects together. She was very pretty with red hair, a sparkle in her eyes, and a quick smile. I loved her, and I still love her today.
Michael and I were born four months apart in 1962. He was such a cutie! We had a baby crush on each other, and I was sure he would be my husband. We played in the playpen while our moms gossiped and drank coffee. Michael and I went for many a carriage ride, and when we got a little older, we held hands any chance we could. We were best friends. It's funny that I would eventually marry another man named Michael.
My mom's five sisters were always over at the apartment, and since I was only the second grandchild born, I was spoiled by all of them. My aunts' names from oldest to youngest are Viola, Lucia, Peggy, Connie, and Ruby. My grandmother had the three younger girls with her second husband, Mike, and the first three girls were already grown by the time she had the second three. The three older girls, including my mom, were separated from their mother after she divorced their father. My grandmother became ill at that time, and the girls went into foster care. They were babies and had already been through rough years, as their dad was an alcoholic and very abusive to my grandmother.
There were nights that my mom had her sisters, Natale, and another girlfriend or two over to play cards. They would sit at the kitchen table, laughing and chattering, with a big jar of buttons that they used for chips. Buttons of all colors and sizes rested in piles on the table. Those "girl" nights were fun.
Out of all my mother's sisters, Aunt Ruby was my favorite because she was only nine years older than me; we kind of grew up together. She obviously was much younger than my mom, and she would sleep over at their apartment on occasion. I remember hearing the story about Ruby wanting to know why my parents had green water. Actually, they had a green bathtub. She'd sit in the tub and sing the song "Johnny Angel" over and over again. Years later, during darker times, Aunt Ruby was always there for me, lifting me up and making me laugh.
When I was two, Ruby was eleven. She was very pretty and dressed like a hippie with peasant shirts and flowing dresses, bellbottom jeans, and leather belts. She truly had her own style. Ruby was bubbly and funny, kind but tough, and extremely smart.
When my mom visited my grandmother, Ruby had to drag me all over Brooklyn; she was kind of stuck with me. Times were different then, and nobody worried about abductions or anything of the sort.
I remember her taking me to confession with her one day. She told me I could come into the booth with her if I was very quiet. She said that when she had finished confession, and if I had behaved as promised, she would take me to Parisi's candy store on the corner of my grandmother's street for penny candy.
Parisi's was one of my favorite places on earth. We would get big, red wax lips, candy necklaces, and flying saucers. (They are kind of like two communion hosts put together with tiny candies inside.) The perfect end to our candy spree was, of course, bubble gum. We spent a nickel apiece — not a bad deal. However, there was always the part when Mrs. Parisi would pinch my cheek really hard and say, "Coma si bella, coma si bella." Translated into English, that means, "You are beautiful." Ugh. But the candy was worth the pinch.
My father's mom, Constance, lived in the same neighborhood in Brooklyn, so sometimes Ruby and I would stop there as well. On some Sundays, I would visit her with my dad. She lived with my Uncle Nate, who was not quite right. Constance was a short, plump, old-school Italian grandma. She wore housecoats and rolled her black stockings halfway down her legs. She was always very kind and sweet whenever we were together. I spent a lot more time with my mom's family, so my memories of her are few. She died when I was eighteen, so it's been over thirty-five years since I've seen her. I wish I'd had more time with her and gotten to ask her many questions I have about her life and Italy. She spoke both Italian and Spanish because one of her best friends was Puerto Rican.
I don't want to say that Uncle Nate was mentally challenged, but coming from crazy means no one explains anything. When they do, trust me, you can't believe a word they say because it is misconstrued, too. The story of Nate goes something like this: One day when Nate was a baby, he was playing on a fire escape and fell off onto his head and was never right after that. I would imagine that the fall damage his brain. I never knew exactly what happened after that.
But Uncle Nate was a good, kind man. He ran errands for everyone on his block. For a small fee, he'd pick up your groceries or dry cleaning, walk your dog, and basically do whatever you asked. He was quiet and humble, and in my heart I knew he was harmless, but I was still a little leery of him.
So those first years in Brooklyn were really special, and I thought it would always be that way, as any child would. I'm not sure when my mother's addictions started. From what I understand, they had already started then but had not reared their very ugly, grotesque heads. Overall, I felt very much loved by my parents, aunts, grandmothers, and family friends during my earliest years in Brooklyn. I didn't begin to see the change in my mother and her mood swings until later. Looking back, I see that life on Four hundred Forty-Third Street was wonderful compared to the years that followed.
My father decided it was time to move out of the city he had lived in his entire life and move us to Long Island. I think the move out of Brooklyn was simply for my parents to get out of the city and into the suburbs, where they would buy their first home. We moved into that lovely old home with pretty peaked windows that I can also remember very clearly. It was two stories, and I had my own room at the top of the stairs toward the back of the house. My parents' room was next door — a bright, sunny room at the front of the house. It had been heated with coal at one time, and there was coal in the basement and also edging the garden.
We had wonderful neighbors and seemed to be surrounded by family and friends. I remember everyone coming over to visit and spending one Christmas there. I got many toys and dolls, and I felt very happy and safe. I always was outside playing with the neighbors' children in our yard or theirs. Life was easy and fun. I was three years old.
After living there for a year or two, my mother missed her family because her sisters were all buying houses and moving to Staten Island. The Verrazano Bridge, also known as the Ginny Gang Plank, had been constructed. Being Italian I can say that phrase. This resulted in most of her family packing up and moving out of Brooklyn across the bridge to Staten Island.
That's when we moved to Our little house on Staten Island, and slowly, without warning, my life changed into a nightmare that continued for twenty-five years.
CHAPTER 2
My Little World, Staten Island, New York
In 1967, Staten Island was still mostly farms and woods. However, after the Verrazano Bridge was completed, it made it easier for people to move in, and little bedroom communities started to pepper the island.
Dad purchased our house for $14,500, and the property was his little slice of forty-by-one hundred heaven. In Staten Island, the first few years seemed blissful and fun. With lots of children in the neighborhood, I made many new friends. The Marino's lived across the street, and they had five girls and were expecting their sixth, who would also be a girl. I always wanted to be one of them because they had very nice parents and an incredibly cute Chihuahua named Gonzalez.
My parents had barbecues with my mom's family. My aunts would come with their husbands and my cousins, and we'd have wonderful summer days. Some of my fondest memories were swimming and playing in the pool with my dad and having make-believe shows with my friends in the backyard, under the weeping willow tree. I remember Easter egg hunts with real hardboiled eggs that we colored together and Christmases filled with toys, food, and family. The first Christmas or two in our new little house were wonderful. We had a tree that spun around and flashed lights, and I got lots of dolls and toys.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "I Come from Crazy"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Tia Angelo.
Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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