CHAPTER ONE

            August in New York City is not the most pleasant time of year.    August is not that great in many places but in Little Italy in the fifties it was sweltering, suffocating and oppressive.  Perspiration poured down wrinkled cheeks and itched scalps and tired people crouched on their stoops in the late afternoon, fanning themselves with folded newspapers and chatted and gossiped with neighbors, usually those of the same ethnic origin, and the intense heat subdued even their companionable laughter.  It was on an afternoon such as this, with heat waves undulating upward from the pavement, that another Italian-American male baby was born, screaming his way into the hot world, emerging from his red-headed and fiery-tempered mother’s body as if he really didn’t have time for babyhood or childhood.  He was in a hurry to accomplish wonders. 

Late in the afternoon on August 14, 1955, the Torino’s Taxicab slid to a stop at the curb in front of the brownstone in the South Village, near Houston Street, in an area populated mostly by first- and second-generation Italian immigrants.  From the back seat of the cab, the grandmother of the baby, Katherine L. Petrocelli, the matriarch of the clan, helped Veronica, the new mother, out of the vehicle.  The baby boy yawned and stretched his tiny fists straight up, as if to say, “C’mon, world, I’m ready for you!”  Veronica adjusted the receiving blanket around the infant’s down-covered head and smiled proudly at her neighbors on the front stoop.   They stood up respectfully, all smiles themselves, and formed an aisle for her to walk through, as she slowly made her way inside.
 
This was a close-knit neighborhood, truly an extended family.  Many of the people living then and all of their predecessors had come to the United States on what they humorously referred to as “The Linguini Express.”  They formed a firm and steadfast support system with other Italian immigrant families.  They converted the entire area into their “Little Italy” with the aromas of redolent Italian cuisine permeating everything, with garlic and basil reigning as the most discernible, just beneath the gusts of carbon monoxide from auto exhausts.  People spoke loudly and laughed often, their old world accents still thickly audible and they made no effort to lose that part of their identity.  Most of the women in the neighborhood dressed neatly and all the mothers pushed their babies in strollers as proudly as if they were royal children visiting their subjects.  Men wore fedoras and strolled with canes, stopping often to peek at the babies, pinch cheeks, tip their hats and smile as they walked on, secure in their superior position as male chauvinists.  They frequently kibitzed as the impromptu “Stoop Ball” games took place;  pre-teen boys were full to overflowing with a surplus of testosterone as they bounced the balls off concrete steps and brick walls and played stick ball in the alleys, using garbage can lids as bases and they knew, without a doubt, that summer would last forever.

In the neighborhood, everybody knew everyone else and there was tremendous security in that familiarity, even though many of the younger women complained about “nosy old women.”  There were two or three storefronts on every street, devoted to local clubs, behind which everything and anything transpired.  Many of those had sloppily-painted windows to keep prying eyes from seeing inside where men sat for hours playing cards and shooting the bull.  Pinnacle and poker games went on all night long in the smoke-filled rooms; the local bookies ran their numbers games like a silent swarm of fire ants covering every possible source of sustenance.  The stores along the sidewalks, such as Jake and Pop’s candy store, the Pergamo’s fruit stand and Luigi’s Lasagna (home- cooked fresh daily), were places where kids and young adults could hang out, and where the store-owners knew the family members as well as their own relatives did.  It was a different world then and even with the slightly illegal business of hiding thousands of smuggled-in cartons of cigarettes, which the kids sold later, it was still considered a safer place than most.  The cops walking the beat here loved it; they got free coffee, free fruit, free pizza slices, free canelloni and free gelato from Jimmy’s Italian Ices and as many smiles as they could return.  In exchange, the beat cops overlooked minor infringements as often as they could.  Everybody was happy and the world was a good place. 

The Petrocelli patriarch was John J. Petrocelli, Sr., who liked to tell stories of his father and his grandfather and even earlier generations, explaining they came over from Italy over 150 years ago and were some of the first and oldest immigrants in this country, of any nationality.  The grandfather of John William Petrocelli II was a tough, barrel-chested man, with a thick shock of pure white hair.  He had the voice of a trained Italian operatic singer, which could be heard even over the roar of the gigantic truck engines working the Brooklyn waterfront.  He was what they called a “dock boss” with a heart as big as Italy.  He conducted himself according to the strictest of business and personal standards and woe be unto anyone who even suggested falling short of his standards or skating a customer or being “bought off” for money under the table.  If anyone around him tried anything unethical, all hell would break loose.  He was a fair man but he was as strict as they come, regarding correct behavior.  He was the namesake for John William, his grandson.

Ronald J. Petrocelli was the name of the young John William’s father and he followed in his father’s footsteps as a plan clerk on the Brooklyn docks.  He was a master of the finite details involved in shipping and could analyze any ship’s cubic storage feet  in hull space, fore and aft, and could draw freehand a set of blueprints so accurately that when the ship was loaded it would balance perfectly, even in the roughest seas, out beyond the protection of the harbors.  All the experienced sea captains of ocean-going vessels requested Ronald’s services.  They knew he had an amazing ability to visualize a loaded ship and calculate accurately the extent of every bit of cargo storage space to be utilized, with the weights carefully placed for the safest balance possible for a voyage across the Atlantic.  He was one of only a rare few who moved up the ranks from working-class stevedores to the enviable level of a world-class expert concerning the best way to move anything by ship.  He knew not only how to place cargo, but also how to rig pulley systems and winches, how to operate overhead booms and direct cranes, anything that had to do with shipping containers or products, from customized Volkswagen vans with flared running boards to the heaviest of machinery.  He also knew the unions and the operators of the waterfront piers from the inside out, better than anyone else.  It wasn’t long before he was appointed vice-president of Research and Development, then after that, he became Director, and subsequently was appointed the head of the American headquarters of a Spanish shipping company.  

The shipping industry’s shining star, Ronald J. Petrocelli, was the son of Kitty Petrocelli, who was respected and known as an independent thinker and a special person in her own right.   Her husband, John W., was wise before his years, confident enough in himself to strongly support his wife, Kitty, in all she wanted to achieve.  He gave her the freedom to share her heart, her work ethic and her belief in the goodness of others and the capabilities of the human endeavor.  Grandma Kitty was the power and strength behind many entrepreneurial efforts whether raising money for charities or as a city director, second in charge of the Board of Elections in New York City, trusted by both parties which was proof enough of her ethics.  When a Franciscan priest named Father Arthur from the Pennsylvania backwoods was assigned to the local parish, Grandma Kitty was immediately drawn to his wiry energy and wasn’t in the least daunted by his buzzard-like appearance with his prominent nose and flapping ears.  He wore a perpetual sneer giving him the appearance of haughty superiority and many thought he was deliberately taunting them as he rushed around, always leaning forward with his skinny shoulders hunched as he went about his busy-ness.  Grandma Kitty perceived his nervous energy as something she could harness to accomplish miraculous feats and through their partnership, the first and largest Italian street festival ever seen in the country was presented as St. Anthony’s Feast in Greenwich Village.  It became an annual fund-raiser and ten-day celebration that attracted attendees even from distant parishes.

After he became more firmly ensconced as a person of authority, thanks to John Petrocelli’s grandmother, Father Arthur locked horns with local criminal figures.  He was courageously undaunted by their scurrilous and frightening reputations, inasmuch as they were furious the all-night poker games occurring at the parish celebration were taking the mob’s gambling profits.  They sent a couple of their most threatening thugs to tell the priest to stop the gambling during St. Anthony’s Festival or he would  be “presiding over his own funeral,” but he just turned his usual sneering visage in their direction and kept right on working to make the festival bigger and better than ever.  The mob’s henchmen backed off, but it wasn’t because of the skinny, wild little priest; it was the little five-foot two-inch Italian cyclone that was Grandma Kitty that sent them scurrying back into their holes like the rats they were.  She became more powerful as the woman she was than most men twice her age ever got to be.  She was the first female party leader of a Republican Club in New York City and the phone at the Petronelli home never stopped ringing and most of the calls were for her.  Everyone that knew her or had even heard of her called her for advice, from old ladies in the street to powerful political figures who had the good sense to know she had her capable finger on the pulse of the voters.  None of this adulation and obsequious respect, however, caused her to change her first priority, which was her family.  Her family came first, no matter which political parties or which mob bosses were pressuring her for endorsements or assistance.  Grandma Kitty loved to cook and she adored cooking for her family, as most Italian mothers and grandmothers do.  She also had a reputation as a fearful taskmaster, but that also included the postscript that after one confrontation with her righteous indignation, the offender learned a hard lesson and never got in her way again – or veered from the straight and narrow in business or personal matters she knew about. 

Grandma Kitty’s son had married a redheaded beauty named Veronica Hunt, whose nickname was “Ronnie.”  She was almost as strong-willed as her mother-in-law, Kitty, but they decided early on it would be more beneficial for them to be on the same side of the fence than antagonistic to one another.  Ronnie’s family lived on the other side of the Village, in West Village, which was a quieter area than Little Italy grew to be.  It  became the hub of the homosexual community around Christopher Street, with pubs such as The Underground and The Vault known as the favorite men’s pick-up bars, but Ronnie and her family lived in an older building, a brownstone walk-up, where tenants bathed in a large porcelain tub in the kitchen, which became an eating counter when it wasn’t uncovered and filled with water from the kettle and the tap.  There were pull-chain toilet rooms outside and down the hall which served all the tenants on each floor and the women took turns cleaning the well-used facility. 
Ronnie was not like most of the tenant women there in West Village.  She had an air about her, as if she was soon to be discovered and would leave on the arm of a prince or of someone who deserved a woman of her beauty, and beauty she was.  Her hair was the color of a chestnut mare, shining with brassy gold highlights in the sunlight and her turquoise-blue eyes fringed with long amber lashes never missed a thing.  Her freckles were like imprints of fairie kisses thrown all over her face from some ancient Irish elf’s blessing when she was born and her figure rivaled that of a curvaceous movie star, such as Marilyn Monroe, and she knew it.  On top of looking like Everyman’s idea of his dream girl, she was a proficient and deliberate trouble-maker.  She was uninhibited, spoke her mind, and knew how to make a memorable entrance every man, and most women, in the room remembered.  She was capable of sweet-talking using a soft tone of voice and an hour later, the other person would realize he or she had been manipulated by a masterful puppeteer.  This was how she kept family members controlled, the ones she knew she could.  She kept her distance, however, from Grandma Kitty, concentrating her powers on a smaller circle of people, her husband, her children and her own mother and father, who were never considered important enough to worry about. 

This, then, was the familial environment the newborn John William Petrocelli entered that steamy August afternoon in 1955.  These strong personalities were the sources of the genes that became the cast of the die forming the parameters of his own individual evolvement.