Free This Family of Mine: What It Was Like Growing Up Gotti by Victoria Gotti

him downtown in a few weeks, when the weather gets warmer, and the groomer will fix him up. Trust me, he’ll look just like the poodle he is.”
    Mom believed him; she fell for the story and for the little puppy with the red bow, whom she named “Bitsey.” After a month of theadorable little monster chewing his way through the apartment. Mom took him downtown to a pet salon. She walked in proudly, and holding the scraggly little mutt tightly under her arm, she marched right up to one of the groomers, and asked for a “poodle cut.”
    The groomer summoned the shop’s owner. The two men stared at the dog for a moment, then retreated together to the rear of the salon to talk. Within a few minutes they reappeared, and soon my mother was engaged in a heated discussion with the owner about the type of haircut that was appropriate for this particular animal, which, according to the salon owner, was obviously no poodle. “It’s a mutt,” he informed Mom.
    She did not take this news well.
    “I almost died!” she said. “I wanted to kill your father—the sooner the better. I left the salon so embarrassed; I never wanted to show my face in that part of town again.”
    Within a few days, cooler heads prevailed, and Mom came to the realization that perhaps it was the thought that mattered: Dad had merely been trying to cheer her up. She forgave him.
    As for the dog, he turned out to be a terror. The mutt lasted in the apartment for just a few more weeks before his incessant barking and growling caught the attention of the landlady, who politely reminded my mother that the lease contained very specific wording on the subject of pets: they were not permitted. In the end, Mom found a new home for the dog—she gave it to my grandfather. Mom spent much time trying to get Dad and Grandpa to make amends. A slow process, since Dad was still too resentful of his father.
    For thirteen years, the dog was a loyal and beloved companion to Grandpa. Bitsey went everywhere with him, from the neighborhood social club to the local bar, to the neighborhood OTB parlor. The two were practically inseparable; where you saw one, the other was usually right behind. Sadly, Bitsey disappeared during oneof Grandpa’s all-night drinking binges. Typically Gramps brought Bitsey inside the bar on these sojourns, and had him sit up on a stool, obediently, right next to him. But on this night Bitsey was gone. Someone had deliberately cut his leash and made off with the dog.
    This devastated my grandfather; to this day, I honestly believe he loved that dog more than he loved all of his kids put together. It’s hard to explain or rationalize, but there was something about his relationship with the dog that brought out the best in the old man. And when Bitsey was gone, he fell into mourning, walking around in stunned silence, searching for his “best friend.” He would rail at no one in particular, vowing to get the person responsible for Bitsey’s disappearance. But nothing came of his threats or his efforts to find the dog.
    As for my mother, at least her mood was temporarily lightened by my father’s good intentions. But reality soon intruded. The young couple fell behind on the rent; the afternoon mail brought bills and threats to turn off their utilities. The phone was the first to go; they could live without that, of course, but how would they manage without heat? My father fretted endlessly—it seemed there was no difference between his bleak and depressing childhood and the life he’d made on his own. He just couldn’t seem to dig them out of the hole, and it made him feel like a failure.
    Things were about to get even worse.
    Just weeks before my mother was due to give birth, the landlady served them with eviction papers. As an added touch of cruelty, she pasted the two-page summons on the apartment door for everyone in the building to see. My father walked around in utter despair that day, desperately searching for some solution. His wife and