The Gloves

By Michael Silano

Based on actual events, The Gloves starts as a love story between a mother and her four daughters. She was the thumb, and her girls were the other fingers--a hand if you may.

The year was 1910 when my grandfather immigrated from Italy and joined a Hell's Kitchen mob soon after. In 1925, he met an innocent girl from New Jersey who wrongly crossed a legendary block in midtown Manhattan and wound up outside a speakeasy. They would marry, but the Great Depression, Pearl Harbor, and the ensuing War would change their lives forever.

The story of her four daughters growing up in Brooklyn unfolds with equal measures of grace and tragedy, as life grants and takes away its greatest gifts over the years. The oldest daughter would marry first. Her husband would win the Silver Star for bravery during WWII, and his brother would come within one boxing match of challenging Joe Louis for the world title.

The other daughters' lives would take different paths. All had families of their own as the tides of life ebb and flow. In 1990, Hollywood would write about one such incident in an Academy Award-winning movie loosely based on fact and fiction.

Time transcends over five generations as we learn about loyalty and betrayal, joy and sadness while struggling through dyslexia and autism. Read about all sorts of mayhem and murder. Plus, alcohol and drugs, gambling, bookmaking, and racketeering.

The Gloves starts as a tribute to a remarkable and selfless life. That life belonged to my mother, as she was one of the four daughters. It continues, however, as an autobiography of one not so gifted.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781639850129

Book preview

Copyright © 2022 Michael Silano

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2022

ISBN 978-1-63985-011-2 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63985-012-9 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

To the memories of Helen, Peter, John Christopher, Emily, Eddy, Lucy, Fay, Johanna, Nicky, Susie, Robert, Peter, Angela, Joan, John, Edna, Alba, Randy, Gloria, Marc, Lila, Herman, Bill, Peg, Matty, Sonny, Nicky, Michael, Louis, Marty, Andre, Gordon, Mick, and Aunt Dot

About the Author

Michael Silano is a man born fraught with human frailties. He represents just one unique individual among many fascinating, albeit imperfect Italian family members whose stories he tells as they travel down some dark and lonely byways. Had it not been for the grace of God and his mother, he would not be alive today to tell of her beautiful life.

A Note from The Author:

Please pardon the introduction for being slightly sluggish. It’s only 3+ pages long and right after that, the intensity picks up like the old Coney Island Steeplechase, full of emotions and surprises. Every page is a different story, written very fast, some hardcore, and all old school, with an ever-present Italian dialogue as its overture. It’s all based on fact. You might think that it’s impossible for so much crap to happen to one family and, more so, to one individual.

WELL, IT DID. Enjoy the ride.

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: Jumbo and Edna

Chapter 2: Emily, Lucy, Helen, and Marie

Chapter 3: Pinky and Fay

Chapter 4: Helen and Peter

Chapter 5: The Santoro Curse

Chapter 6: Dem Bums

Chapter 7: What’s a Crocus?

Chapter 8: What’s a Parasite?

Chapter 9: Hotzie Fotzie

Chapter 10: The Man with the Goodies

Chapter 11: Two Girls from Brooklyn

Chapter 12: Sex, Drugs, Alcohol, and Thunderstorms

Chapter 13: Cousin Johanna

Chapter 14: The Three-S Disease

Chapter 15: I Married the Cake Lady

Chapter 16: Here Comes the Foose

Chapter 17: Jaime Naysh

Chapter 18: Along Came Peter

Chapter 19: Mrs. Spic and Span

Chapter 20: Some Things Are Irreplaceable

Chapter 21: Legitimate at Last

Chapter 22: The Italian Theory

Epilogue

Introduction

The Pink Gloves

Edna Tutrani died on May 11, 1945. She left behind four children: Emily, Lucille, Helen, and Marie. Her four daughters were born over five years, ranging about twelve to fifteen months apart. Shortly before her death, she called her third youngest daughter Helen, or Pinky, into the room. Her youngest was Marie, or Fay, but Helen was always considered her baby. One of the reasons was that Helen was the most petite out of her four daughters, standing only five feet, two inches. Fay was the tallest at five feet, seven inches.

Another reason was that Fay, although a year younger, was almost tomboyish compared to prim and prissy Helen. The younger Fay fought all of Helen’s early battles—never Emily’s, though. Emily was five years older and was the darling of the bunch. She never got into any trouble, and for that reason, she was the apple of her father John’s eye.

Lucy was different from her sisters. Lucy was a loner. While growing up, when the other three girls were always busy messing up the house, Lucy was constantly cleaning it. Still, the four girls were remarkably close, but Lucy did more things with Emily because of age differences, while Helen did more stuff with Fay. That would not be a lifelong attribute as Emily Lucy Helen and Fay would be as close as four fingers on a hand.

When nearing Edna’s death, Helen and Fay, being only thirteen and fourteen, were not as conscious about their mom’s illness as Emily and Lucy were. The younger girls thought their mother had only a cold, while the older two knew more of the truth. Even the older sisters did not understand the full scope of the situation, but they knew it was much more dangerous than the flu, which their father had told them when he last visited.

Their father, John, was not living with them at that time and only stopped by a few times a month to fill up their home with food and supplies. The rest of the time, he lived with his girlfriend, Alba. Being the oldest, Emily coped with it as best she could, but the other three did not understand, especially Helen and Fay. A rift would eventually form as their mom got sicker, changing the way they felt toward their father.

John had money to help them more and even enough to put their mom in a hospital. But he liked a high-fashion lifestyle, which included living with his younger girlfriend Alba, so most of his money went toward enjoying that life. The collateral damage was that the girls and their mom were left destitute, hungry, and sick.

Emily was eighteen and recently married and had a job in the local grocery store. She gave up some of her senior classes to work more hours to pitch in, and whatever extra money Emily made came right home to her younger sisters. Lucy, who was sixteen, would clean other apartments in the Red Hook housing projects where they lived.

Pinky—as her mom called her, would knit or crochet hats, scarves, and gloves that Emily would take to the grocery store, where the owner would let her sell them. He would not take any money for doing this as he knew the girl’s predicament and that their mom was quite ill.

Other people in the projects would come by and bring cooked meals over for the children and their mother and help in any way. Most people loved Edna, dating back to her days as a cook at a local Italian restaurant. Before she got sick, she was an incredible cook and often brought leftover food home to help the needy inside the housing project complex. Edna was very generous; and all her children, especially Helen, would carry that trait throughout their lives.

As the days lingered and Edna got worse, she was bedridden and spent all her time knitting. She knew Emily would be able to sell them at the grocery store, and any little money would help.

Enda knew she was quite ill, but she did not know at that time the extent of her sickness. Her estranged husband had his doctor examine her a few times, but he never divulged what was wrong with her.

What was wrong was that Edna had advanced diphtheria, and she was going to die. If she had received better medical attention or earlier treatment, maybe the outcome would have been different. But never mention that to Pinky or Fay.

Being young and innocent, they believed their mom died from a broken heart. The two younger sisters would have many issues with their father over their mom’s death, his relationship with Alba, and various other things for nearly the rest of their lives. But not Emily—she never felt the same bitterness toward her dad as some of her siblings did.

A few days before Edna died, she completed her last set of gloves. These gloves, however, were unique and not meant to be sold. They were pink gloves, and they were going to her daughter Helen. Unbeknownst to Edna was that Helen would give one glove to Fay sometime after her mom’s funeral. Thus, the unbreakable bond they shared since they were toddlers would become even more robust, and the two sisters would become inseparable.

Enda motioned Helen over and whispered in a raspy voice, her mouth covered by a mask to avoid spreading germs, Here, Pinky, these gloves are only for you. Please do not sell them—never. They are our family. I am the thumb, and you and your sisters are my fingers. Just like a glove is sewed together, we are too. Never stay apart from them. Stay close together always.

Edna died a few days later, and her parents buried her in New Jersey, where she was born. It took about a week to make all the arrangements. During that time, her husband John married Alba. He brought her along to the ceremony. Alba’s presence there did not sit well with Edna’s family nor with his four girls, especially Pinky and Fay.

Pinky and Fay felt betrayed by their father, who did not live home the last few years, especially after their mother got sick. They were too young to understand that he had taken on a new lover. They only knew that once their dad moved away, their mom got worse. She might have gotten sick anyway, but the fact that he was not there during those challenging times hurt.

During the ceremony, John announced that he would break the girls up in prior discussions with Edna’s parents. Emily was recently married, and she would keep Lucy with her. Lucy had been living with Emily since she eloped six weeks back. Helen and Marie (he hated calling them Pinky and Fay) would move permanently with Edna’s parents in New Jersey. After all, John’s new wife, Alba, could not raise two precocious teenagers.

Chapter 1

Jumbo and Edna

Edna Santoro was born on April 9, 1907, the fourth daughter of five children, all of whom were girls. Her mother Camille, or Cammy, was also one of three sisters herself. Her father, Tony, was the only male sibling with three sisters too. Yes, two families dominated with female bloodlines.

Antonio and Camille owned a diner located a few yards from a busy Hackensack, New Jersey, railroad depot. That was where Edna first discovered her cooking skills. Edna had an uncanny way of cooking to taste and scent. She never wrote a recipe down. Yet every meal was delicious.

The Santoros were poor, as were most people from their area. Tony opened every day at 6:00 a.m. for an early breakfast, worked right through lunch, and closed after dinner. Back then, there was a thing called the Sunday blue laws, which kept him from opening that day; otherwise, he would have.

Fifteen hours a day six days a week would equate to ninety hours, and Tony never left the joint. The kids would help after school most days, but still, they were children. Before Edna began cooking, she would walk with her sister, Victoria, to make hot food deliveries if they were not too far away. Anita was the only one old enough at sixteen to ride a bicycle, so she made the most deliveries. The other sisters just delivered up the block or around the corner.

It was a different time and generation then, and children seemed safer. But still, they were not allowed to ever venture too far from home, which was right atop the diner or too close to the train station. That station was the last stop before the ferry in Fort Lee, which brought you into the city or, more importantly, the first stop away from it. Tony did not like that—he swore that Manhattan was no good and that nothing good would come from it. So he warned his children to be careful of strangers and to never converse with anyone in the station, especially strangers coming west from the city.

Like her three older sisters before her, Edna graduated from Saint Rita’s Roman Catholic High School in 1925. But unlike her sisters, she was planning a different kind of celebration. All the friends were going into Manhattan that night. She knew that her father would not allow it, so she lied and said that her friends were taking a bus to Fort Lee and then down the Palisades to see the Manhattan skyline from late at night.

The Palisades were hills overlooking the majestic Hudson River, and during the night, they had a dramatic look into the big-city lights. To the poor folks from New Jersey who never went past Fort Lee, it was like being on a ride. You would stroll up and down the small rolling hills of the Palisades and dream of anything. Of course, Edna had no plans of strolling the Palisades that night. And Fort Lee was not their destination—it was only a transfer. A ferry was waiting there to take them across the river.

*****

Jumbo John Tutrani immigrated from Rome, Italy, with his parents, plus two brothers and two sisters, into Ellis Island in 1910 at the age of four. Ten years later and barely fifteen, he was already running numbers for the Manhattan mob. People there were all poor, so playing the daily number was a way to hit it big. John would see those folks interested, and they would hand him a slip of paper with the number they wanted (three digits) and the amount wagered (no one ever bet more than fifty cents).

After all, the odds were five hundred to one, so even if you bet a dime, you could win $50. Whoever bet, what you had to do was hit the last three numbers of the daily posted mutual handle at the racetrack, published in all three newspapers the next day. It was a big thing back then, and all the people from all walks of life tried to win it every day.

John would start walking the ghetto streets of Hell’s Kitchen every morning by 9:00 a.m., when his parents thought he was attending school, and made sure to finish before 5:00 p.m. The races were over by then, but the bookmakers wanted the money and the slips accounted for beforehand. Despite the newspapers not being published until the following day, the local bookies knew that someone could know somebody who worked for the track and something shady could happen, so they took no chances.

John was always sure to be back before 5:00 p.m. And when all his money and slips matched up evenly, he would get his 5 percent. The money he handed in had to match the ticket amounts, or he would get into big trouble—big trouble as in getting a broken kneecap, or something worse, compliments of his bosses.

John was sure that the money was 100 percent accurate all the time. He would have to hand out receipts to the folks who gave him the money as proof that they placed the bet. But everything always matched up correctly, so John would always hand in between $40 on a slow rainy day to $150 on a Wednesday or Friday when most folks got last week’s paycheck.

If you do the math, John Tutrani made $2 a day on slow days and $7 to $8 on busy ones. While most people were earning fifteen cents an hour, John was making nearly $30 a week.

In contrast, Antonio Santoro would work ninety hours a week for less. Maybe it was true, what Tony Santoro believed? Perhaps New York City was no good after all.

Legend had it that in 1924, John got into a brawl with the Snyder Family Bakery over a betting numbers dispute. Sidney Snyder, or Big-Sid as he was known because he was six and a half feet tall, claimed that he gave John a bet for fifty cents but that John only wrote the receipt for a quarter. They argued back and forth until Big-Sid became enraged and charged John with a rolling pin he used in the bakery.

When a six-foot-and-six-inch-tall man charged you with a rolling pin, you better beware, even if the rolling pin was dipped in cake batter. A tremendous fight ensued, and while some people claimed that Big-Sid slipped on butter, others argued that it was a fierce left hook that floored him. Either way, it took a big man to knock down Big-Sid, and that was how the name Jumbo got its origin.

No one knows the truth behind the story, but isn’t that the way most tales start? Big-Sid lost a couple of teeth and a little girl’s birthday cake, while John Tutrani got nicknamed Jumbo for knocking the big guy out while also ruining the day for an eleven-year-old waiting on her buttercream pink iced birthday cake from her parents. The legend of Jumbo John was born that day, and the nickname had remained ever since.

By June of 1925, Jumbo John got promoted within the mob. Jumbo was now a button man. That meant doing many things for them—some worse than others. If you owed a debt, Jumbo would collect. If you could not pay, Jumbo would still collect. To this day, no one knows just how far Jumbo went in collecting his debts. He also ran illegal liquor to the speakeasy.

Jumbo left Hell’s Kitchen and came uptown that same warm June night with at least $50 on him, while, in contrast, Edna was coming across the Hudson River on a ferry with the twenty-five cents that her father gave her an hour earlier. It was still the same quarter as her friend Carmine paid for the ferry into Manhattan.

The Santoros got their roots from even farther up Northern Italy. The family had the most beautiful blue eyes imaginable, and it was those same eyes that Carmine Gallo was staring right into as they made their way through the waves of the Hudson River. Edna was not flirtatious, and she did not believe she was leading him on. She simply thought she was saving five cents. And a nickel at that time was proper justification.

When the boat docked on Thirty-Ninth Street, all the crew exited together, and none could believe their own eyes. No one present had ever seen a building more than a few stories high in New Jersey, but now they were staring at hundreds. Some were at least five hundred feet high. And the tallest building Edna ever saw was the steeple in front of Saint Rita’s Church.

Carmine tried in vain to clutch Edna’s hand as they walked up Broadway, but she managed to keep dusting it aside until he got the hint. After twenty minutes and ten blocks of trying, he finally gave up. When they passed the Shubert Theater featuring the blockbuster Jerome Kern musical Show Boat, Carmine assured her to make sure she saved a nickel for their boat trip back.

After strolling past all the great Broadway shows, they headed back down to Times Square. That place was legendary, and all of them wanted to say they were there. Unbeknownst to all of them, besides the beautiful lights and theaters, there was another part of Times Square that they didn’t know existed—a place filled with smokers, and drinkers, and, more importantly, gamblers. It was these same gamblers that led Jumbo down there that night too.

Meanwhile, the Jersey crew was having a grand enjoyable time as they walked west down the immortal Forty-Second Street toward Eighth Avenue—one theater after another, one light show after another, and then one club after another. None of them drank alcohol before, and this wasn’t going to be their first time. But it was merely a little commotion that drew them near a hidden illegal speakeasy. A small crowd of people gathered around, playing these odd games. It looked like they were guessing on which shell a coin was hiding under it. They were wagering money on it.

Edna did not want any part of it, but Carmine bragged that he could figure the game out and win plenty of money and buy everybody there a nice souvenir for the trip. They all reluctantly watched on as Carmine participated in the game of chance.

Lo and behold, sure enough, he was right. First, he won a nickel, then a dime, then a whole quarter. Carmine won forty cents in less than a minute. I guess he did figure this game out after all. They agreed to take a chance, so they all gave him their last pennies, knowing he could double it. They gave Carmine their own money to add to his previous win. Now he had $2.50 on the table. Soon they would have $5 and be able to buy all sorts of souvenirs.

The big smile that was there thirty seconds ago just disappeared as Carmine picked up the wrong shell. What happened, and how could he lose? More importantly, how are we getting home?

As they hurried through all their belongings, they managed to find twenty-four cents but not enough to get them all home, so Carmine talked them into another shot at the game. And once again, he lost.

When you’re alone with no money in a strange place, it can be terrifying. And when that place is Times Square in Manhattan at 9:00 p.m. and you have never been more than a half mile from home before, now you’re frightened. Because of this, no one was thinking correctly.

When one of the men hosting the game suggested something, the innocent crew from New Jersey listened carefully. Let me take this pretty little lady into the speakeasy and buy her a drink, and I’ll give you guys back fifty cents, he bragged.

It will only cost thirty-five cents to get the seven of you on the ferry, so you’re making out well. Just let me take this pretty little thing into the bar for a drink as he clutched Edna’s hand.

Edna, frozen in fear, did not even realize what was going on until the man grabbed her hand. When he forced her body close to his, he took his other hand and placed it around her backside. With that, she screamed, as would any graduate of Saint Rita’s Roman Catholic High School, as she felt this stranger’s hands approaching an area where the nuns warned that men may never go.

To his credit, Carmine heard her screams and went to protect her but was knocked off his feet by one of the man’s friends. Then, out of nowhere, three more thugs came running over and began punching him and the other two boys as Edna and the girls cried out for help. She saw the blood spew from their faces and screamed even louder.

Right about then, Jumbo and his three friends were leaving another speakeasy across the street. Suddenly, he heard screams, so he ran by to investigate. John just made a money pickup for the mob. Despite Edna’s screaming, John was taken aback by her beautiful blue eyes. He fell for her in an instant, and then a moment later, he and his friends began beating the hell out of the guys hitting Carmine and the others.

Jumbo’s crew helped the boys up and even bought them a Coca-Cola and some bandages. They were genuinely nice to the other two boys but not so much to Carmine. John took Edna to the side and handed her $10 for a cab to the ferry and home. Edna had never seen a $10 bill before. She knew who the president was on it because she went to a catholic school.

John was willing to go to New Jersey with them to make sure everything was all right, but Edna sensed the animosity growing between Carmine and John and did not want Carmine to get hurt. John agreed but insisted that Edna call him tomorrow at his office before 9:00 a.m. to let him know she was okay. She decided to go along because she knew a pay phone was next to her father’s diner at the railroad station.

She could sneak there and call; that would not be a problem. She would have to lie to her father, but it was only a tiny lie or, as the nuns at Saint Rita’s preach, just a venial sin. What amazed her most was that John had a telephone. She thought only important people had a phone. What she didn’t know was that she was calling a bookmaker’s club where John worked. Of course, John led her on about this, where the phone was and what exactly he did.

Before they hopped into the cab, Edna bought all her friends the souvenirs that Carmine promised earlier. She bought Carmine a Mr. Potato Head doll. When the taxi arrived, Edna took all of them to a diner across the street. Even after buying all the souvenirs and paying for dinner and the ferry ride, she still had $5.16 left. That became a significant number in all their lives.

Edna never bought a souvenir for herself that night because she had a real-life hero as a new friend. His name was John, and he was a knight in shining armor. How quickly naive little New Jersey girls can get fooled? Even if they did graduate from a Roman Catholic High School.

The next morning, Edna walked down the block from her father’s diner to call her hero John. The phone booth only took nickels, so she brought a whole roll. They talked for over half an hour or about twenty cents’ worth. That call was more money than anything Edna had never spent in her entire life before last night.

She had never been on a pay phone for more than five minutes because she never had more than a nickel. But after one night with John, she had more money than she could dream. It was a nice feeling and one that she would not mind feeling again. Plus, John was a perfect age, one year older than her and good-looking too.

John wanted to see Edna all the time, but how could she sneak into Manhattan? What would she tell her parents? John told her to say that she got a job in New York City as a receptionist in a firm. John said he would pay her the money for doing nothing and that her father would never know. Edna knew that she could not say Manhattan because her father would object, so she told him it was Hoboken. Hoboken took as long to get to as Manhattan did, so she doubted that anyone would ever venture down there.

Weeks passed, and Edna made $3 a day as a receptionist in an oil refinery in Hoboken. John knew the foreman there because he owed him money loss while gambling. John told him he would forgive most of the debt if he could forge some credentials that Edna could show her parents where she worked.

It all worked like a charm as Edna worked full-time and made $15 a week. That was hard for Tony to understand because the unofficial minimum wage was twenty cents an hour, which equated to $8 a week. I guess not only was his daughter beautiful, but she was smart too.

A year passed, and Edna kept her fine-paying job. She even got a raise of $4 a day. Tony and Camille could not believe their lucky stars. Edna made more money than her three older sisters combined. She even helped pay for her older sister Anita’s wedding that summer.

Anita was incredibly thankful; so when Edna asked her if she could bring a guest, naturally, her sister said yes. Edna brought John with her and introduced him to Tony as an acquaintance from work.

Tony liked him at first until a drunken Carmine Gallo picked a fight with John. Luckily, he was too drunk to make sense, so no one listened to his antics. Even luckier because Carmine was ranting about meeting John in Manhattan with Edna and the others. The thing that Tony didn’t like about John was the way he beat the hell out of drunken Carmine. One punch would have sufficed, but John kept wailing away on the fallen drunk.

The next day, Tony told Edna that John was a bully or a thug and shouldn’t associate with him. Edna agreed and told her dad she wouldn’t see him anymore. Tony believed her at first but decided one day to go to her job to see for himself. Naturally, he wouldn’t tell her because he wanted to make sure that she heeded his advice. Also, he wanted to see what she was eating down there because she was putting on so much weight.

That August, Tony went down to the oil refinery in Hoboken. It took him an extra three hours after getting lost on the trains. When he arrived, he found out that his daughter never worked there at all. No one even heard or knew of her.

The news only got worse because when he came home, Camille told him that Edna eloped with John. They went to Atlantic City to get married. They got married with a justice of the peace and not with a priest from Saint Rita’s. Tony could not understand why but soon put it all together. A few months later, Emily was born.

John and Edna moved to Bensonhurst in Brooklyn but not before getting married by Father Thaddeus in Saint Rita’s Church. Sixteen months later, their second daughter Lucille entered the world. When Lucy was born, Jumbo was making over $100 a week for the mob still doing whatever. Edna was delighted in their lovely apartment with her two girls. She had a handsome devoted husband (or so she thought) and plenty of money, which she willingly spread to all her less fortunate friends and neighbors.

Tony fumed but left things alone. It wasn’t until child number 3 came along that he finally accepted John. I guess it was the sight of those bonnet blue eyes on that newborn (what else) baby girl. Yes, another Santoro girl came into the world, this one with the most incredible blue eyes—bluer than Tony’s and even bluer than Edna’s. Hers was the bluest ever.

Helen Tutrani was born on May 16, 1931, and was a Santoro, true and blue. Edna always thought the date extra special because that was the same amount of money she had when she returned home from that fateful night she met John in the city. Tony and Cammy fell in love with her from the first time they saw her in Brooklyn, and Tony was the one who started calling her Pinky. That was because she was as tiny as his pinky.

Edna was unaware of what her husband did for a living, but he was a good provider. During their early years of marriage, he was also a loving father and showered her and their children with gifts. She had some doubts, but he took Emily to work with him many times.

She knew he had to be somewhat legitimate to take a five-year-old to work. What she did not realize was Emily waited outside in the car while John did his dirty work. Unbeknownst to Emily and everyone else was that she acted as a lookout of sorts. Her dad even instructed her to honk the horn at least twice if she saw a gathering or any other unusual commotion and honk three times if she saw any policemen.

It wasn’t peculiar or indifferent to see a child sitting alone in a 1924 Ford in those days. People, and even the police, figured she was waiting there while her parents did their shopping. In a way, Emily was a lookout and an alibi. She never asked why her father sometimes came out of his accounts calmly and why he sometimes ran like a crazy man.

A couple of months later, Edna was pregnant again when John started not coming home at night. Early in her pregnancy, it was only once a week but soon it became two, three, or even four days when he just stood out all night. Before her due date was near, he was out more than he was home.

Marie was born in August 1932, and nothing was ever quiet again. Fay was short for either Phyllis or Marie or Felicia. No one knows for sure. Her father always called her Marie, but Edna and the girls still called her Fay. The midwife who helped deliver her never recorded the birth name correctly, and John was out of town in Pittsburg doing his work.

When John got back home, he bribed a local clergyman to name Marie on the baptismal certificate because that was his mother’s name. Edna claimed she told the midwife the baby’s name was Felicia after her aunt and godmother. The midwife claimed Edna told her Phyllis. This would be the first mystery in a life that would feature many.

Chapter 2

Emily, Lucy, Helen, and Marie

The bombs fell on Pearl Harbor that fateful day during the Christmas season in 1941. Helen was only ten, but she was still old enough to be frightened. When the news came across on the radio of what happened, Edna took her four girls and ran to the church a few blocks away. Many people migrated there that day as scared folks sought refuge in the sacred house of God.

The five of them stood inside the church for eight hours while never knowing where their father was. It was now quite common in the Tutrani household these days as John could vanish all day and sometimes all night. Things had not been the same for some time now. But Edna was happy with her four girls, so she never minded it too much. Still, how could John desert them on the day of Pearl Harbor? Where in God’s name was he?

As Edna prayed and cried in church with her children, Jumbo John was out doing his thing. Even though bombs were flying and brave soldiers were dying, people over here were still getting into trouble with gambling debts and loan-sharking overdue payments, so Jumbo and his crew were dropping bombs of their own all day too. Jumbo would later brag that he caused a bigger explosion in a Brooklyn brothel that night than the Japs did on Pearl Harbor.

John didn’t come home that night either as Edna and her frightened children slept together in one bed. The following day, their dad entered with bags of fruit, fresh eggs, and recently baked biscuits. The aroma of food soon engulfed the room, and the girls quickly forgot how scared they were moments earlier.

They were hungry too, and tasty food had a way of suppressing all other emotions. Edna was upset with John, but for the girls’ sake, she said nothing. After the hearty meal, John went into the bedroom and slept away most of the day.

It was Monday, but there was no school because of what happened yesterday. Most people were too afraid to leave their homes and waited patiently by the radio for news. Finally, that afternoon the president of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, spoke. His words were etched in everyone’s memories forever.

After hearing his fearless speech, everyone there felt a little better. Emily ran into the bedroom to wake her dad and give him the news. She was fifteen then and understood more than her younger sisters. When she awoke her dad that afternoon, his response was a snore, a fart, and then a rollover.

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