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Made Man -
Chapter 1
by
Matteo Calvi
From the day I could understand what a gangster was I wanted to be one. I don't know what it was that appealed to me. Maybe it was the power, or the money. It didn't matter, for some reason it just fit for me. I was born to a full Italian family, in 1974. My parents were right off the boat. No other nationality was acceptable to me. You get all these other kinds of animals who murder for drug money and don't even know who their families are. It is never that way with Italians. Families stay close no matter what. That's the way it should be.
I was born as the second boy in my family. My parents were Maria and Alfredo. We were a family of four and we stuck close. Especially me and my brother, we were closer than anyone else. My family was made up of ideal Italians. We ate big Sunday dinners with pasta and all the rest. Family members were like brothers to everyone. Everyone drank wine and told stories about the old country. Nothing could be better.
I first learned about gangsters through my own family. We lived in a big house in a nice area, which didn't seem affordable for us. It just didn't work out, my dad was a garbage man, but we had all these nice things. So I went and asked my uncle and he told me everyone needs to make something on the side, this is how Italians do it. He told me someday I would understand, but I never thought I would.
I finally began to realize what it all was though. One day me and my brother are walking down the street and we see cousin Vitto beating the living hell out of this guy. We hid and watched on. He beat him to a pulp and took a big wad of money from him. Now most kids would get scared of this, but we didn't. It interested us; we wanted to do that, show people who was boss. From that day we vowed we would be like cousin Vitto and the rest of the family. It was something we would carry out.
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