My story is like in any other neighborhood where you may have grown up and the realities of living there were remarkably similar. Whether you were from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, Manhattan's Little Italy on Mulberry Street, or the Belmont district of Arthur's Little Italy, where the setting of my tale takes place, I am sure you had your own stories to tell. Some were good, some not so much, some peculiar, some even strange and Bizarre, or unique as mine was! My story is particularly 'unique' in category, because it holds all the ingredients to make it so: passion, aspiration, love, family, betrayal, power, redemption, aspiration, and finally the acceptance of who I am. My story exposed me to a part of the community, as a young immigrant boy, I never thought I could be exposed to. If not for that faithful moment in time, and for the unique encounter with a certain character in my neighborhood, I would never have aspired to do what I did, or what I most dreamed of becoming!
It is possible that the characters would not have done what they did or reacted as they did, had I not been introduced to their lives in the way that I was. It is also possible that my appearance may not have necessarily influenced the events that unfolded, as they could have taken place. Nonetheless, the timing and the circumstantial interactions were instrumental for the events to grow as they did.
My story unfolds in Italy. We had to flee there due to the unfortunate incident that my father was involved in with the Neapolitan Camorra. Because of the situation we found ourselves in, we were afraid that the Camorra would take some type of revenge against my family. During that period, their threats of our very lives started to intensify, and we were in danger of retaliation, so we fled to the United States of America. We ended up in the ethnic Italian/American neighborhood of The Bronx, New York.
As a kid watching American gangster movies, I was in awe of the Hollywood portrayal of their glamorous lives. Still, I was also conscious that 'not all is gold that which shines!' and that the reality was much more than what Hollywood portrayed. I would have never imagined that within that brief time of being in the Belmont district of The Bronx I would have been exposed to some of that glamour and what was hidden and unspoken of. A world that rules beyond deceitful glamour. Whether you grew up in a similar neighborhood, or anywhere else, this story will surely grab your attention and bring you into a time zone which exists no more.