Bobby "Z" danced with the Devil AKA Dad Yes indeed i did dance with the Devil, who was dear old dad, when i was 6 years old me my brother and mother were shipped off to Unclesville, Conn. to a Uncle's farm, because dear old dad was serving 3to5 at Danbury Prison. We returned to Bayonne, two years later, but he was not released, but instead sent to the Prison at Snake Hill in Secausus NJ. for aN additional senTance. He was there with his partner in crime, Frankie Di Gillio who was Johnny Di Gilio's father.
When he got out we moved to various furnished rooming houses in Jersey City. When not robbing others, he washed dishes in various restaurants. When i was about ten, he would take me to his favorite hunting ground the Bowery on New York. So while other fathers were taking their kids, fishing or to a ball game, dear old dad took me to the Bowery to teach me how to Roll the wino's who were passed out on the sidewalks, from to much Sneaky Pete Wine. When i did not get enough, he would get mad and smack me, and leave me alone and with no money, so i would have to find a sleeping wino, and hope he would not wake up, and have enough change in his pockets, so i could get enough to take the subway back to Jersey City. Yea, dear old dad, wanted his first born to be just like him, but that never did happen. He always wanted to take my younger brother who looked exactly like him, but i always said i would go, so as to protect my brother. We eventually moved to a cock a roach infested dump on Central Ave in Jersey City, We use to get a very large egg crate every year for Christmas from Uncle Ted, which always contained Timex Watches, because dear old dad would steal them from us and also steal our radio's, and many other things, during his once in awhile visits to our dump. Once he grabbed Uncle Ted's box, before we got it, and he stole it, and sold everthing at the corner bar. We informed Uncle Ted, and sent another box, and dear old dad did not get that one. Me and uncle Tommy had a couple of paper routes and we would give Aunt Maryann, pennies to buy candy, she instead put them in a old baby food jar, and said she was saving them foe the poor people, she had no idea that, that was what we were. Well during one of dear old dad's visit, he stole the jar of pennies from Aunt Maryann. Then there was the time that me and uncle tommy bought a TV from the Jew that came to the house once a week. because that is all that was available on those days, because there was no big stores in those days. Well dear old dad, AKA the devil, happened to return home after a long absence, and as always, he immediately started fighting with Grand Ma, and as always i got into the middle, and just as dear old dad, was getting ready to give me a long over due beating, he see's the TV. He stops on me, grabs the TV and out the door down to the corner Bar, and sold it, and we had to pay for it. Many years later, i was in the bar one nite, when in walks Freddie who o always suspected of buying the TV. When i confronted him, he said he bought it, and i was ready to beat him, whem Mike the bartender tells him to leave. Mike proceeds to ask me, where does your brother live, and i say, he has a nice home in Woodbridge. Then he asks where my sister lives, and i say she has a nice apartment in a Townhouse complex. He then asks me, and i say i have a nice home in the Heights on Bleecker St. Mike then says, that Freddie still lives in the same Cold Water Flat, and that his son is hooked in drugs and his daughter is a unwed mother. So you see Bobby Freddie payed for buying that TV from your father. Eventually we moved from central avenue to Laidlaw Ave, and dear old dad had no idea where we were. It was now 1961 and i was 20, and my mother informed me that she had heard from dear old dad, and was being released from prison again, and that she was taking him back in a couple of weeks. I said i had enough, and went to the Army Recruiting Center on Journal Square and joined the Army. It took only a couple of days, and i was sent to Fort Dix for Basic Training. When i arrived at Fort Dix i was 6FT 2in and weighed 155 lbs, and in 31/2 months i was now 195. After two months i got a letter from Uncle Tommy, that dear old dad was up to his old tricks again. Uncle Tommy had a leather coat that his then girl friend, who eventually became Aunt Bernadette had got for him, every day when he came home from work, he would wear it. Well one day he came home and the coat was gone, because dear old dad was up to his old tricks, and had taken the coat down to the corner bar, and attempted to sell it, What he did not know was that the bartender was Aunt Bernadette's father, and that he had gotten the jacket that had fallen off a truck, for her, so she could give it to uncle Tommy. When they questioned dear old dad about the jacket, and he said it was his, which was a lie, and the bartender and some of his customers started to take the jacket, and beat the shit out of dear old dad. Later that nite Aunt Bernadette returned the jacket to Uncle Tommy. So as you can see, i not only danced with the Devil, i lived with him and he was dear old dad. It would take many many pages to describe all the evil things that he did, and the poem i wrote about him titled Rest In Hell, surely should say's it all. Others were sent to schools, to be prepared to survive in later years, where as i was trained by the Devil, which allowed me to survive in a very evil corrupt world. The Army was the best thing that ever happened to me and allowed me to achieve goals that i would never had the opportunity to achieve, if i did not join. The Military opened my eyes, and made me realize, that just because i lived with and Danced With The Devil, i did not have to be like him, and i did not. Later on in life, i realized that dear old dad was not the only devil, and that the world had many other devil's, but i was well prepared to dance with them and i danced with many of them, and made it to 80, Married for 53 years, and 4 great children. But unlike the Johnny Cash hit song, a boy named Sue, where as he named his boy Sue so he could make it through the tough times of life, dear old dad never intended to prepare me for anything, he was just a no good evil monster. Bobby Z the JYD I may have danced with him, but did not become like him.
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