Growing up in Bensonhurst

By Ronald Newman

This book is about how I grew up living in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, from age two to age twenty-one during the late '60s, '70s, and half of the '80s. It talks about the dysfunctional family that I grew up in and the choices that I made during this time in my life. It started from as far back as I can remember. It shows the things that my mother had to endure in the times of my childhood, the craziness that our immediate family members were capable of saying and doing, and the lunacy that would came from our immediate family members and the new family members that became party of our family through marriage. It lets you read about some of the things that I have done and been a part of. It lets the reader laugh and/or get mad at some of the decisions that I made during this time. This book is entertainment for whoever reads it. Some readers may have had similar situations in their lives, or it can be for pure entertainment. The book was written in the hopes that whoever reads it, reads and anticipates the next page.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 9, 2019
• ISBN: 9781684561384

Book preview

Knock, Knock. Who’s There?

Ican remember as far back as being three years old in my mother’s arms, in the bathroom. She sat on the floor, huddled between the toilet bowl and the bathtub. No, this was not a usual routine, nor was her brain chemically imbalanced. She was scared to death and crying, and she had every right to be doing exactly that. My stepfather pounded on the door, wanting to get in so that he could beat the crap out of her. While in tears and fear trembling through her body, I can remember her whispering words in my ear (they were an attempt to comfort me). She kept saying not to worry, everything will be fine, and that I was her little man.

Eventually, he got in, very gently he picked me up and put me outside the doorway to the bathroom. He then escorted me to my room, gave me a kiss on the forehead, and said that I should stay in my room and play. That’s what I did because when Tom spoke, you listened. Once he left me, he then proceeded back to the bathroom, where Mommy (that was her name back then) was in the same spot, crying and begging him to leave her alone. He then proceeded to punch her around. He beat on her for a few minutes, knocking out her two front teeth and leaving bruises on her face, arms, and legs.

After all was said and done, Mommy (as soon as the beating was over) came into my room, trying not to cry—once again trying to comfort me. She picked me up into her arms, put her lips close to my ear, and in the most loving way she could, she repeated the words she said a little while before, Everything is going to be okay. You are my little man. Those words would be spoken many more times while Mom was with Tom. Let’s step back a minute and tell you how we (Mom and I) ended up where we were.

The Beginning

Mom met my father when she was a teenager. She fell head over heels for him. He stood six feet tall, 175 pounds, brown hair, brown eyes, and confidence pouring out of every inch of his body. Mom was a five feet seven inches, brunette, who had some figure and love in her eyes. When they met, it was love at first sight for the both of them. It was early January 1965. The temperature all that winter was colder than normal. This was Brooklyn, New York, where you expect to have harsh winters; but this particular year, the wind seemed stronger than ever. At that time, both of them attended Lafayette High School. Lafayette was in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Both were in their junior years. Both grew up in the same neighborhood but never met before high school.

Dad hung out with what would be considered the cool crowd. He really did not pay much attention to school. Matter of fact, all he was into was taking pills, getting high, and getting laid. His school future neared its end. Mom also took pills, but she still held her grades a little better than passing. The two of them started spending a lot more time together, and a few months later neither one of them really had any interest in school. Neither one made it to graduation.

They spent most of their time getting high and hanging out with friends. At that time, one of the most popular (pills) downers were called Tuinals. Tuinals were a strong barbiturate that if taken, would put you in a semiconscious state. Depending on your tolerance and how many you have taken, it can make you do things that you normally wouldn’t do, and sometimes not remember any of what you did. Mom and Dad were sexually active, and as luck would have it, Mom got pregnant. Just as quick as she got pregnant, she lost the baby. Well, as you have probably figured out, Mom got knocked up again. This time there were no hitches; hence, yours truly was conceived. Now this put a whole new turn on what their immediate future was to be. They ended up getting married in late June 1965. Nine months later, this gift from God was here—it was me.

They were not married very long; it only lasted about one year. Mom stopped taking pills when she found out she was pregnant; Dad did not. Mom wanted to have a regular family, where Dad works nine to five, comes home to dinner on the table, and we all sit around talking about our days. Dad still wanted to be a kid and party, party, party. He did try for the first couple of months by getting a job in a butcher shop. It did not last long because he was still taking pills and gallivanting as much as he could get away with. My father was a male whore! Yes, I said it, a male whore. This would be his goal throughout his lifetime. After they were married a couple of months, my father had women on the side. So as not to be caught, Dad used signals to let the women and his friends know when it was okay to come over. Which meant that Mom went somewhere and was going to be gone for a little while. One signal he used was, if the blinds on the front window were closed, that meant go away. If they were open, that meant, it was party time.

Now, Mom was no dummy; she knew what was going on after a while. Part of her wanted to believe that everything was fine. It really ended up being just a matter of time before Pop slipped up, especially since he was high the majority of the time. The day of reckoning arrived. They were in the apartment that we lived on Bay Thirty-Seventh Street in Bensonhurst. Mom had just left to go wherever she was going. Dad waited about five minutes and then opened the blinds. Poof! Magically, they appeared, his friend, Jesse, and some girl. Jesse gave Dad a few pills and left. The girl stayed. Within minutes he was in bed, hammering away on her; turns out, she was one of Mom’s acquaintances. I would not say she was Mom’s friend. Would you?

Well, what do you know? Mom forgot something, so she had to go back home. When Mom caught them in the sack, I believe the marriage was officially over (LOL). Dad, the cool character he was, I would guess his response was something to the effect of, Lorraine, she came by to visit you, and I didn’t want to be a bad host. Did I mention Pop was a sarcastic, very funny individual?

Well, Mom was crushed. Obviously, she terminated their living arrangements. Pop ended up going back to his parents’ house, where he lived before the marriage. This was a two-family house. Upstairs lived my father’s parents and my father’s sister, Linda. Downstairs lived my great-grandmother; she was my father’s mother’s mother. Dad lived downstairs at great-grandma’s. Great? ha, not to me she wasn’t, but she adored my father; he could do no wrong. To hear her talk about him, you would expect to see Jesus Christ.

Mom, she too had to go back home to her parents’. This time she had one more piece of luggage that she did not have before the marriage; she had me. For the next year, things were pretty much without change. When Mom and I first moved back to her parents’ house, we lived in the apartment with her mother, father, and brother. After a month, my grandmother asked the couple living in the apartment across from hers to move out so that Mom and I could move in, and in two months, we did. You would think her mother would give her a break on the rent, but she didn’t. She charged Mom the same as she charged the couple that just left.

Mom by now was used to it being just her and I. She was still lonely though. I was two years old and was an easy child to take care of, according to Mom. All she had to do was give me a ball or a fire truck, put me in the middle of the living room, and tell me, Stay here and play, Ron, and I was good for the day. This was around the time she started to say, You are the man of the house, You are my little man. (Man of the house? I was only two years old). I always guessed it was her way of comforting me. I think she used to say it more to try to convince herself that everything was going to work out.

Mom’s Family

Let us start with mom’s mom, Momma. Momma was what we called my mother’s mother instead of Grandma. Momma’s house was on Benson Avenue in Brooklyn. This was a four-family, two-story brick home. It had a small backyard and a long, narrow alleyway. It was about five feet wide and as long as the house. A four-foot fence separated their alleyway from the house next door. There were two apartments downstairs and two apartments upstairs. Three apartments had two bedrooms. The only one with one bedroom was the one that was downstairs in the front. There also was a basement that started from the front of the house and went all the way to the back of the house.

In the house starting from downstairs front was Mom’s grandmother. Her name as Mae; everyone called her Nanny. This was Mom’s mother’s mother. Downstairs rear lived my mother’s sister, Auntie Mabel, her husband, Uncle Louie, and my two cousins, Louis and Michele. Louis was two years older than me, and Michele was one year older than me. In the second-floor front resided my mother’s mother’s grandma Kae; everyone called her Momma (said like this: mom-a), her husband, my grandfather Rocky, and my mother’s brother, Uncle Vinnie. Last but not least, second floor rear was Mom and me. Momma was a school teacher who worked with slow children. She was nothing like my other grandmother. She was more serious and really had no time to play with us kids. Matter of fact, she mostly complained about whatever me and my cousins did around the house. Getting back to Momma, I guess we just never really got to know her.

Her husband, my grandfather Rocky, as a child, I never really knew much about him. I knew that he was hardly ever home and that he was a cab driver. He was usually around when we would have a block party or some kind of family gathering, such as Christmas, Thanksgiving, or Easter. Rocky and Kae separated and then got divorced when I was around nine years old. I learned more about him later in my life and so will you. Great-grandma Mae (Nanny) was probably in her nineties from when I was five until she passed away when I was twenty-one. Not really sure what year she died, but it was sometime around there. She was a sweet woman who had a really nasty streak in her. She lived off her social-security checks and was the real owner of the house. Although all the rents that were being paid, (All? Ha!), our rent and my aunt’s rent were the only rents being paid. Nanny never saw the rent checks. The payments went directly to Momma. I guess she used it for the bills to the house and who knows what else.

Witch

With these living arrangements, my cousins and I ended up spending a lot of time together. We were more like brothers and sister than cousins. My uncle Vinny (we never called him Uncle), he was a bit of an oddball to us. I will explain more about him later. When we were between the ages of six through eight, we used to play one game that Momma hated; we called it Witch. My cousin Michele was the witch. She would chase Louis and me all around the house. We would run from the back of the basement, all the way up to the top of the ladder that led to the roof. Nowhere was off-limits when you were trying to get away from the witch.

Well, it turned out that in this case, Momma was right. We shouldn’t have been running from top to bottom of the house. You see, the stairs that led from downstairs to upstairs were steep. I would say there were about twenty-two to twenty-five steps. There was a banister so that you could hold on to as you went down. Thing was, you could also sit on the banister and slide down; that was a lot faster. Between the banister and the walkway for the upstairs, there was about a two-foot gap. The drop to the ground had to be at least fifteen to eighteen feet.

One day, the three us of came shooting out of Momma’s front door, first me, then Louis, then the witch. So I ran to the stairs, swung around so that I was in position to sit right on top of the banister, and went. Just like that, I was already halfway down the banister when Louis reached it. He did the same swing around, and as he hopped onto the banister, he yelled, You’re never going to catch m—

That was as far as he got when he and I both realized he was falling. He misread the distance to the banister and flew right over it and upended in the two-foot gap with just air under him. He fell to the floor and splattered straight on his back. Well, I jumped off, when I hit the bottom, I ran over and asked if he was all right. He cried like a baby who just took a dump and it stunk really bad. So out of not knowing what to expect, when the grownups come running out of the doors, I started whining; and tears now came out of my eyes, and I started telling my cousin, Please tell them it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t want no ass-whoopin’ because he was careless.

Step One

Enough time passed that Mom was ready to move on with life. Mom met a man; his name was Tom Somforti. He was about five feet seven inches, a well-built, handsome, blue-eyed man. Tom had a subtle (some would say, quiet) way of carrying himself. When he spoke, he grabbed your attention. He was able to get your attention because he chose his times to speak