La Mafia

Now, I’m going to write you a blog that you can’t refuse to read. There are many truths and myths about the above captioned organization, most of which are perpetuated by the media. Yes there is a Mafia, but very few Italians are actually involved. There are many different crime families throughout Italy and the US and the media, both in Italy and in the US, paint all crime organizations with the same brush. They are all referred to as La Mafia. The truth is La Mafia only exists in Sicily.

Let’s use another term when referring to these organizations, “Organized Crime”. La Mafia exists in Sicily and all members are blood Sicilian. La Mafia is a hierarchical society. That is, there is a organization with “ lesser capos” both on the bottom and the higher rungs of the organization. However, there is also a “Capo de Tutti Capi” and he is the supreme head of all. It is a pyramidal organization.

In Naples there is a completely different organization called “La Camorra”. La Camorra is a loosely knit group of gangs that do not necessarily work together all the time. They in some ways are more dangerous than La Mafia in Sicily. They are always fighting one another for control of whatever it is that they want to control--the docks, drugs, garbage, you name it. Actually, I would say that La Camorra controls much more of Italy than does La Mafia. If you have any interest in La Camorra, there is a book by Roberto Saviano called “Gomorrah”. There is also a subtitled movie of the same name that points out the brutality of this group. Roberto has been under protection of the Italian government for several years now because of the threats on his life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camorra


Further down the peninsula from Naples in Calabria there is another brutal group called the “Ndrangheta”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/'Ndrangheta. I would say that this group is more like the Neapolitan Camorra than the Sicilian Mafia. All of these organizations are equally dangerous and grew out of the extreme poverty of the South.

Of course in the United States we are fortunate :) enough to have our own group, "La Cosa Nostra”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Mafia Again, as I previously mentioned , there are very few Italians that actually belong to these organizations, but there are a lot of “wantabes”, people that act as if they are Mafiosi but are what we call “”Guidos and Guidettes or Cugines”. To be sure not all Guidos, Guidettes and Cugines are Mafia wantabees. I’m going to leave this for another blog.

What we have is the following:

1. Mafia Sicilana
2. Camorra Napolitana
3. Ndgrangheta Calabrese
4. La Cosa Nostra Americana

I don’t know how many of you have come across anyone from the organized crime world, but as a teacher in a Prep School in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn in the late 70‘s and early 80‘s, I came across many relatives of such mobsters. I know this to be true because some of the parents of the students that I taught were convicted and sent to jail. In fact, I had a student who was a great nephew of the famous Paul “Big Paulie” Castellano http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Castellano who was murdered by John Gotti. To be sure all of these kids were very intelligent and did not go into a life of crime.

I have a funny story concerning wantabes or actual mobsters, I don’t know which. But before we get into the story I want to give you some important terms and their definitions. First and foremost is the word “Cafone” or in dialect “cafon” or “gafone”. This is a very important word that in Italian means a bumpkin, as in country. We here in America have refined the meaning and it can be used in several ways. As a noun as in a lowlife uneducated person usually with money, which is a bad combination. As a verb as in “he gafoned his food down”. You can imagine what that means. Also, an adjective describing something, as in “a gafone house or a gafone car”, meaning something over the top, ostentatious.

The next word is a great one also, “Citrullo” or in dialect “gitrul”. This means dim wit in Italian and in dialect it is a cucumber or cetriolo. My father used to call me a gitrul all the time, but who cares.

Now we can continue with the story. For some years in the 80’ and 90’s I was the Director of Real Estate for Carnegie Hall. In that capacity I had many men and women that worked for me. Also around that time and actually for the last 110 years or so there was a famous Italian/American restaurant in Harlem called Raos. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raos It was famous for not being able to get into. They once turned down Madonna and that made a big splash in the New York papers.

As I said before, in my capacity at Carnegie hall I had many people working for me. One of these was a doorman who happened to be very interested in food and restaurants and we would speak often about such things often. One day in November I walked in the building and he asked me if I had ever heard of Raos. Of course I said its famous but you can’t get in. He comes back with this statement, “Do you and your wife want to go sometime? I can set it up” Flabbergasted, I said of course. The next day when I came into the office he says that it’s all set up for February 20th. That was four months in advance but I said I would take it. I rushed home to tell my wife Sharyn the news and she, being a restaurant maven, pissed her pants in excitement. I think that was the longest 4 months in her life but the day finally came, we were going to Raos.

I was told by my doorman to go in, ask for Frankie and tell him that Joey sent me and that I was supposed to see Nickie the Vest. We went in and we were approached immediately by two cafones in suits looking menacingly at us, as if to say what the hell are you doing here. I meekly told them exactly what the doorman had told me and one of them yelled over to the bartender, “ Nicky, there’s someone here that said Joey sent em”. Nickie, thinks for what was the longest 30 seconds in my life, and then says, “Oh yeah they’re ok let em in”. Phew, we made it and from that moment on they treated us as if we were family. The deal in the restaurant is that every table is reserved forever and the only way you can get a seat is if the reservee is not coming that particular evening.

Frankie Junior, who is Frankie Senior’s* nephew, took charge of us and explained how they do it at Raos. The table is yours for the night so you can sit any time you want. Usually what people do is go to the bar, get a Manhattan and smoke a cigar. (This was when smoking was allowed) As I looked around I noticed that this place was full of CAFONES, cafoning their food down. I swear they filmed the Godfather there. There were no menus. Frankie tells you what they have for the night. Basic Italian/American food, which was no better or no worse than any good place in Brooklyn or Queens.

However, they do not take credit cards and I only had $200 in cash with me. I was sweating it out fantasizing that I wouldn’t have enough to pay and they would string me up on a rack in the back room . Fortunately the bill was $164.00 with tip. I was home free. Did I mention that you could park your car right in front of the restaurant and leave the keys in it. Keep in mind this was Harlem in the 1980’s. Were they gangsters or what? I don’t know.

We went back several times after that and I remember one of the times we brought a very attractive woman with us. She caused quite a stir with the cafones at the bar, each vying for her attention. She loved the flirting with them and asked one of them for his “Business Card” which he promptly gave to her. The problem was that it only contained his name, nothing else. She demurely asked what business he was in and he answered, “In Raos you never ask anyone their business”.

Some years later, splashed all over the New York Papers was the story of a murder at Raos. It seems that one of the cafones at the bar who was also a citrul, got into an altercation with another cafone and killed him. One of the regulars, I guess with one too many Manhattans in him, decided to serenade the patrons with opera. The person who was killed didn’t like the singing and let it be known in a loud manner. The killer took umbrage with this person’s remarks and when the guy went to leave he shot him in the back and killed him, much to the chagrin of all the workers and patrons. The killer calmly walked out of bar and told some policemen who were outside that there had been a killing inside. One of the workers alerted the police who this person was and the guy was arrested. He’s in jail now and Raos is even more famous.

Now this cafone who did the killing is the classic definition of a citrullo. He was 66 years old at the time and still stupid enough to pull off such a crime. I can truly assert that there are no cafones or citrullos in my family, at least I hope not.

Although the Italian culture is one of the greatest in the world, we do own, for better or worse these groups. Although a minority, they sometimes define us, which is unfortunate. But to deny that they exist is also unfortunate, it makes them harder to weed out. Ridding Italy of organized crime is a tremendous problem, as it is in the Unted States. They are entrenched in the culture. Read Saviano's book.

* Frank Pellegrino Sr. is also an actor and played one of the FBI lawyers in "The Sopranos"