Chapter 29: Tranquility Interrupted

It was a quicker adjustment for Lily than for me. Her home in Tuscany was in the country. Of course, what I think of as a Tuscan countryside with vineyards and olive groves and the Mediterranean sun is not the same as pig manure, corn, and mosquitoes.

In 1970, twenty-five grand could buy a pretty decent house. We weren’t stupid about it, though. Flinging around that much cash could pull too much attention to us. We opened a bank account with ten thousand and set about looking for a place to live. We chose a new development east of town that had nice schools and had a selection of decent home designs that weren’t too opulent but had conveniences Lil never had in Italy. Then we set about starting a family.

It took us a while to get the first seed planted. It was almost a surprise when she found out she was pregnant. Our home was finished and we moved into it in the fall of ‘70. It wasn’t until the next summer that we realized Lil was pregnant.

We never told our daughter how she got her name. The first television show Liliana saw when she arrived in the US was Bewitched. And she was. She wanted us to have our own little witch and insisted that we name the baby Samantha. It was a good idea. In both of our cultures, child naming followed two patterns—the names of saints and the names of family members. That also makes it easy to track people. I talked to Little Joe on a regular basis and once a month I took the South Shore Line into Chicago.

Ostensibly, it was to meet Little Joe and head up to our Reserve Training Camp for the weekend. The trips often extended a few days to take care of business for the Union. That business was usually just accompanying Little Joe to a meeting as security or acting as a courier for documents. And then disappearing again.

Joe didn’t just inherit the union from his father. We were still young. He threw his support behind one of the other bosses and showed why his father had depended on him so much. He was a calming influence when tempers started to rage. My role was mostly just to stand in the shadows and watch. That seemed to have a calming influence as well.

By the time Samantha was a year old, my reserve duty had ended. I was glad. I’d seen increasing corruption in the government and that always crept down through the military command structure. In some places in the United States, simply putting on our uniforms marked us as targets for dissidents protesting the Vietnam war. With Nixon ordering the bombing and occupation of Cambodia, it looked like it would never end.

My own opinion was that I served my country and went where they sent me. I didn’t massacre innocents at Mỹ Lai, and was disgusted that US soldiers could go so out of control. But the command structure in Vietnam was totally FUBAR. It didn’t surprise me that someone would issue that kind of order.

Perhaps I killed innocent people. Like most foreign wars, they all thought they were defending their country from invaders. But that was what the people of the United States sent me there to do.

We continued to use non-family names when our second daughter was born. Alexandra and Samantha were destined to keep us busy. Perhaps the combination of Italian and Spanish blood made them even more fiery in their dispositions. Mama Maria and Mama Sofia came to stay with us for a month after each of the babies was born. Of course, Liliana’s parents had returned to Italy, so Little Joe’s mother was in loco avia. We enjoyed their visit but were glad when we could send them back to Chicago and settle in with our daughters.

And my sister when she came to visit with her son—Sylvestro Cortelli.

We discovered there was a big business in providing personal and corporate security. Labor disputes were beginning to settle down but Joe seemed to have contacts all over the country. I traveled to event venues to assess security measures, designed security teams for traveling politicians, and even consulted on how to set up security for popular entertainers and sports figures.

Occasionally, I accompanied one of those persons myself if it seemed to be important. But overall, I managed to stay out of sight—the way we had been trained.

We had a peaceful country or suburban life. I had a beautiful and loving wife and two lovely and lively daughters to keep us on our toes. I played with my children and showed them I loved them. Of course, the hard work of raising daughters was Lily’s. She seldom missed a school event, accompanying the girls’ classes on field trips, baking cookies for classroom celebrations, becoming an officer in the PTA. She got her US citizenship before the girls started school and openly stated that she was proud to be married to a former US Soldier.

So it was a surprise to me to return from a business trip and find such an upset in our home.

“Your daughter is a puttana!” Lily screamed when I got home. She was beside herself. My daughter was thirteen and near the end of seventh grade. Oh! I’d instantly assumed Lil was referring to Sam. I looked around and eleven-year-old Lexi was trying to disappear into the kitchen woodwork with her eyes as big as saucers. Yes, Lily had to be referring to Sam. Suddenly, she was my daughter.

“Calmly, my love. You can’t possibly mean Samantha was selling sex on the street corners.”

“I caught her!” Lily had been working herself up all day and there was no calming that Italian blood. I was beginning to get upset myself.

“Liliana, if you are accusing our daughter of selling herself, you need to present proof to me before I get my gun. Now sit down and tell me what happened.” I seldom spoke so sternly to my wife. I’d agreed to be her partner, not her boss. But if your child is stepping in front of a bus, you don’t wait permission to rescue her. What I needed were facts before I went hunting. I led Lily to the living room and sat her in a chair so I could face her. “What happened?”

“That boy, Simon, that she talks about constantly. I walked out to the garage to get meat from the freezer and he was there, kissing her!”

“I’ll talk to her—and to him—but that doesn’t make her a puttana.”

“His hand was inside her shirt fondling her!”

Okay. I was ready to get my gun. I could make that boy disappear and no one would have an idea about what happened. But I wasn’t ready to condemn my daughter. She was a victim until proven otherwise.

“Where is Samantha?”

“In her room.” I turned to leave and Lily started to follow me.

“Stay!” I commanded. She fell back into her seat with a look of shock on her face.

I stopped in my study and removed my jacket and shoulder harness, locking my gun in the safe where it stayed when I was not working. Then I went to see my daughter. When I walked into her room, Samantha rushed to me and wrapped her arms around my waist, sobbing.

“I’m not! I’m not! I’m not!”

My heart broke.

I picked my daughter up and carried her back to the living room. I sat in my chair with her held in my arms. Tears were on my own cheeks as well.

“Tell me, Samantha, my good little witch. Tell me everything that happened and don’t leave anything out.” I was shocked at where she started.

“I’m an ugly hairy beast. Everyone makes fun of me.”

The world had changed since I grew up in the fifties and sixties. We were heavily influenced by the hippie scene, even in the military. Our icons were natural earth mother types. Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, Carole King, Joni Mitchell. You expected them all to have long hair and to eschew the niceties of shaving. Even Liliana had never shaved her legs until our wedding when it became popular to wear panty hose. I never paid a moment’s notice to the faint shadow on her upper lip. For my part, hair was a symbol of masculinity. I shaved twice a day and kept only my mustache on my face. But my chest hair often stuck out the top of my shirt collar because you simply have to stop shaving somewhere.

But the icons of the mid-eighties were Cindy Crawford and Christy Brinkley. Fashions were sleeveless with exposed armpits. Skirts were short with bare legs. And my little girls had both inherited the hair of their Italian and Spanish ancestors.

“They call me an ape. I can’t shave every day and girls in gym make fun of how much hair is between my legs.”