Friday 13th June 2000, was the day that I would realise the meaning of real money. At least that was what my papa told me. He would always nag about lack of business, and only eight months after he had taken over the business; he was suffering a set back. We only had enough money to live on, but as we had a lot of help from our cousins we were able to weather the shortage.
My papa began to rebuild the business. This was fortunate for him because the Sicilian army needed a new supplies of guns, for now this was ok, considering the war wouldn’t last long. The reason he worried so much about money was, he said, “I’ve got a deal and if it goes through all of will be living on a permanent vacation in England!”
The big day arrived. We got up at the normal time and did all the regular morning chores. I went off to school while my papa and older brother went to the family business, with the big deal in mind at 8’o clock.
My papa and my brother had talked about the so-called deal, the night before in the spare room, which was based next to the toliet. I could hear voices throughout the night as I lay back in my bed; staring into the thick blackness of my room. I heard them mention the Italian Mafia a few times, and began to realise what was going on between my father and the mafia. He was going to do a deal with them. How stupid could they be not to relise what they were going to get themselves into? Weird thoughts began to flood my head, monstrous images, coming home from school and finding my papa dead on the floor with in a puddle of thick red blood. Eventually I drifted into a deap sleep.
Once at school I never really thought about the deal at all. I was feeling happy because this could be my last day at school, although I would miss most of my classmates and, most of all, my best friend Fernando. My first lesson at school was Italian, which I throughly enjoyed because my mother taught me at home and I knew everything the teacher was going to tell me. During break I swapped a game for my Playstation console. It was a game which I had waited for. It was the latest game on the Playstation. Fernando’s mother had bought it and I had swapped it for ‘Smackdown!’ when we were in the dining room, which was two doors away from our classroom. First it was our form room which was based on the languages corridor. Next to this was the Spanish class which was Mr George’s class. This was a pine door with a silver plated sign that read ‘Mr George’, next to this was the English room. And the teacher in this class was Mr Antonio the door was similar but read the name of the teacher. After break the day went fairly quickly because we had PE and soon it was lunch. For lunch I had pasta, sweetcorn, tuna and a can of ‘Coca Cola’. Then it was time for English, which lasted all afternoon. After school I ran all the way home, not even stopping for a breath of fresh air. I felt extremely excited and satisfied with the Playstation transaction.
As I swung open the gate to my house I encountered an Italian man. He was extraordinarily tall; he was probably thrise my size, with a big black moustache. He grabbed me by the back of my neck, squeezing his fingers tightly around my neck in a firm grip. And using his other hand directly covered my mouth so I couldn’t shout, he dragged me inside where all my family were sitting, except my papa and my older brother. No passer-by would see me struggle because of the long, brown, high, wooden fences around the house.
As I entered the house I was met by my mother,who was sitting on the green sofa which reminded me of relief or the fact I was comfortable in the space of my home with my family. The sofa matched the carpet and the wall paper. There were also two other men in the room. They all looked similar, wearing long black leather jackets that went down to their ankles and black, flat shoes. The most distinctive thing about them was that they had moustaches. They were so covered with the colour black that if they were outside on a dark night no one could recognise them.They looked very similar to my papa but if they were my papa’s friends, then why were they holding or treating us like this? Perhaps they were the people doing a deal with my papa?
Then after a nervous five or ten minutes wait, they began to speak English to my mama. I wasn’t fluent at English and the only few words I did pick up didn’t make sense. I could only speak Italian like many of the people in this part of Italy. As the man was speaking there was a knock at the door. One of the men mumbled at the other, who went to open the door. As I heared the crooked wooden door open there was a silence which was suddenly broken by the loud cracks of two gun shots. The other man who was standing next to me hastily ran out of the room while the other made a sprint at mama he grabbed her to protect himself. To use her as a sort of sheild. While all of this was happening I ran out of the room through a small arch way which joined the two rooms together. I rushed upstairs with my younger sister to protect her. She was just so small; she wouldn’t understand anything in this big evil world. Once I was upstairs I ran into my parents room, rolled under the bed grabbing the cover so that it consealed the side so they would not see me.
I waited. Presently, I heard gun shots. I could imagine the living room area with bullets flying every where each one like a rocket being launched into space.
Suddenly I heard my papa shout ‘NO!’ it reminded me of Agentinian fotball when a footballer scores the commantator shouts ‘GOAL’; the cry seemed to last an age and filled me with terror so I ran downstairs with my baby sister in my arms. As I got downstairs I saw three men lying dead in a puddle of blood. The colour of the blood was like a lake which had a dark red dye mixed into it. As I looked further to my amazement my mama was also dead; she had suffered a blow to the head to the head. You could clearly see where the bullet had entered as there was a black mark on her forehead. My brother also had a blow to his head, but you could her him breathing perhaps his last breathes. My papa, in a state of grief and distress, told me to dial ‘911’ for my dying brother. After I had made the call I collapsed in tears as reality sank in. My mother was dead; she was innocent. She had been caught in the middle of all this bloodshed and evil. My inner being cried out,“this is unjust!”
My voice shook as I asked my papa what had happened. Pausing frequently to dry his eyes, Papa explained that the big deal was with the Italian Mafia which I had gathered from the night before. And they had given him a message that said,“We will give you your money later”. When he had refused they decided to take it out on us. As I heard the words ‘Italian Mafia” I understood the fact the three men had been dressed this way.
The police charged my papa with murder as he had killed the three men. He is currently serving a sentence in a prison in Rome. My brother suffers from permanent brain damage and will live in a private nursing home for the rest of his life. My younger sister and I are living with my grand parents in London, England. I suppose I still got to live in England, although it was all for the wrong reasons.
As far as the business is concerned it was set alight by the Italian Mafia, as was the house we lived in. My cousins and relatives in Italy have since all moved out of the area because of ‘The Gambino’ reputation.
I don’t know whether the remainder of my family will get away from the Italian Mafia, or whether the Italian Police can ever put a stop to this violence and the suffering of innocent people.
The story may make you understand why I hold these views about the Mafia. I always wonder at night about whether they will come for my sister and me but as these people or, should I say animals, have torn my family apart I don’t suffer in fear of them. My only fear is whether I will ever see the remainder of my family again.
