The Balls, the Baby, and the Bastard

My life is like a movie. I’m sure anyone reading these words might have the same thought, but I’ve come to realize that most people just think their life is like a movie. My life is not just a made-for-TV movie of the week that might air on Lifetime, but a full feature film filled with lies, betrayal, celebrities, the mafia, the FBI, broken thumbs, jail sentences, missing fingers, passion, romance, and sex, drugs and rock and roll.

My parents were married for 31 years when my father died of a heart attack in 1977. My father was a macho Italian standing six feet tall with dark hair, green eyes, arms of steel and hair covering most of his Aramis cologne-soaked body. None of us knew what my father did for a living besides roughing people up but we know for sure that he worked as a bodyguard for numerous celebrities including Paul Anka and Frank Sinatra.

My mother, an Irish-mix blonde bombshell, was a dancer who was engaged to Jack Carter, lived with Morey Amsterdam, and left a trail behind her that my sister and I are only beginning to uncover. She married my father in 1946 and was madly in love with him and all the machismo that came with it. Together, they had charisma to burn. My parents were once described to me like this: The party started when your parents arrived and ended when they left.

I’ve been told that I am a combination of my parents; that I have my mother’s smile and charisma and my father’s balls. Yes, his balls. Since I was a little girl this label was bestowed on me. “Toni Ann has some big balls,” my father would say with pride. While my father screamed and threw things across the room, I would stand in his face yelling.

I learned early on that if you wanted my father’s attention, you had to get on his level. And so, at 3 feet 2 inches tall with my little tan body and blonde hair waving in my face, I yelled, screamed, and cursed my way right into his heart. I can remember as a toddler sitting outside in the hot Miami sun smashing red ants with a plastic shovel while yelling, “You goddamn ants” as my father cheered me on. This set the stage for my life. If I wanted something, I’d have to squash someone to get it or smother them with my charisma.

My brother, a mild-mannered sort, is 10 years older than me and never quite fit in our family. He resembles my mother, fair complexion, brown eyes, hairless body. He is quiet, reserved and rarely fights back. When the yelling started, he would retreat to his room or cower in a corner. My father saw his passive nature as a sign of weakness. “Stop being an oogatz,” my father would scream.

I remember my brother once asking my mother if she was sure he wasn’t left on a doorstep. She would just laugh and pull out a photo of my father’s brother and comment on how much he looked like his uncle.

I never quite understood why she carried that photo around in her wallet.
I also never understood why my father would scream at the television set and threaten to kick it in whenever Jack Carter was on the TV screen. The story of the bastard is just beginning to unfold. And then there is my sister, the baby of the family. And so our story begins…