My Grandfather the Goodfella

He had all the connections, but not the right ones

One of my all-time favorite films is Goodfellas, based on the late real-life mobster Henry Hill in New York City from 1955 to 1980.

It details his involvement in the mafia, beginning with him as a youngster running small errands for big-time mobsters, and then progresses into Henry’s adulthood, showing how he became an infamous mobster and, in the final scene, a federal informant.

While watching the film for the first time, I pictured my paternal grandfather, who reminded me a lot of a gangster or a goodfella.

Joseph was born in the North End of Boston but moved to Avolina, Italy, at the age of two; and, he stayed there until age thirteen before moving back to Massachusetts for good.

Astute in more ways than one, he was a shrewd businessman who owned a nightclub, a shoe-shine place, and a bar in Everett, Massachusetts, called The Brass Rail.

He never really did much honest work though. Once a Navy man and an amateur boxer — friends would later nickname him “Joe Bananas” because he was a little off-center from his boxing days — Joseph ran numbers illegally at The Brass Rail, with some of the local cops tipping him off and running numbers there, too. At times, he even had my grandmother taking bets.

He was a womanizer, according to those who knew him, and wasn’t always the best father to his children. He could clear off the table with one fell swoop if dinner wasn’t to his liking. But boy did he dote on his grandchildren, namely, me, a young boy at the time whom he called “Davidu.”

“Come have some ‘vino’ with your Grandpa,” he’d say, and little old me would hop on his lap and take a sip of the bitter wine he had made in his basement.

Making his own vino by buying fresh grapes and crushing and fermenting them, just like they did in the old country, gave him real pleasure.

I remember how he used to sit at the kitchen table drinking glass after glass of vino. Granted, I was not yet a teenager and he was offering me wine. My grandmother would be slaving over a hot stove as he sat there in the corner chair, indulging in his liquor.

At The Brass Rail, Joseph was the bartender who knew all the customers by name. With my grandmother, Mary, a tall and austere woman, in the back room making the pizzas, the place was a local hit.

In my early twenties, I visited The Brass Rail for the first time. At that point, it was a mostly vacated old building and all that remained inside were a few bottles of hard liquor, some barstools, and a couple of tables.

I tried to envision what it would have been like to run a tavern. Then, when I recalled the bar scene in Goodfellas, I created that image in my head. Just like Henry Hill, I could see my grandfather calling the shots and kicking the crap out of other guys.

Incarceration was not a concern for him, either, as he simply paid off policemen and anyone who posed a threat to his independence. The police got to know and admire my grandfather so well, in fact, that they would notify him every time they were going to make a bust.

He had that mobster mentality, often using Italian slang and even dressing the part by invariably donning a long trench coat and hat when out in public. He had a husky build, but it was all muscle. Brawny, Joseph stood five foot ten, with a rugged face and short, jet-black hair.

He and I had a very good relationship. I really looked up to him. I guess I admired his tough-guy image. Despite that image, though, he always treated his grandchildren with the utmost respect. He taught us what it meant to be an Italian-American, and how proud he was of that.

Of course, I shared some memorable times with my grandfather. When I was a young kid, he would take my brother and me to the North End of Boston to buy some of the best meats, cheeses, and breads. We would spend the day walking around, visiting with some of his old friends. He always introduced us, his grandchildren, with the highest regard.

However, my grandfather’s lifestyle was a complex one. He had so many things going on in his life, and, as mentioned before, much of what he engaged in was illegal. This really didn’t have an impact on me though, as I wasn’t allowed to see that part of him. He kept his family life and business life very separate.

But, Joseph chose that type of lifestyle, and I don’t suppose it is how one should live their life, as a participant in organized crime, essentially harming others with their actions and always in fear of getting “pinched,” or worse, even killed — it was alleged that the late notorious mobster Joseph “the Animal” Barboza once put a gun to my grandfather’s head.

Joseph was a self-made man, as they say, and what he chose to do in life was his business. As I became a teenager, I saw how that lifestyle affected my grandmother. She was always looking out for him. I wouldn’t want my wife to have to bear that type of burden.

You make your living earnestly and honestly, which is a moral imperative if you want to have any kind of successful, honorable life.

My grandfather Joseph truly encapsulated what it was to be like a goodfella. I guess that’s just how it was.