"Family Respect": "Blacky needs to see you!"

by L.J. DeGeppo

Overview

"FAMILY RESPECT" This story of a boy growing up in a tough neighborhood of Brooklyn in the late 1940's, is a detailed account of his unhinged rite of passage, from Altar Boy to Unholy Man. Thomas "Tommy" Dialanti is a good kid born into a fine hard working Italian family. Losing his Father at an early age, his Mother with her parents, offer him a good life, while bringing him up with a solid moral foundation of "Family Respect." However as he grew older, the lure of common gold eclipsed the wealth of his God given soul and his need for "Respect," with a total disregard of how it is attained, overwhelms him. He begins to actively pursue a forged lifestyle which inevitably leads him to another "Family," which will soon methodically and treacherously engulf him. Early on it was gambling that held the major importance in Tommy's life. The winning rewards of money to acquire gold watches, diamond rings, fancy clothes and beautiful women, surely would visibly offer him to others as a man who would be "respected." The possibility of losing never entered his mind but when it became a reality, he found himself willing to sell his very soul to an earthly Devil to overcome its consequences. He then made a tragic error. He would beg Blacky to rectify his debts. But there had been no need to beg. The rewarding of moral depravity by bolstering a man's coward unwillingness to face his own transgressions is truly the foundation of the criminal way of life. Blacky gave easily. For Tommy Dialanti, "there was no turning back, ever" Soon Tommy would become an "associate" in the Organized Crime Family of Michael, "Big Mike" Balaggi. His Devil mentor, "Family Captain" Antonio "Blacky" Reprozzo, would carefully and strictly discipline him in the ways of La Cosa Nostra, "this thing of ours" while aggressively controlling his every waking thought and action. Tommy would be gripped and entangled as a loyal, willing, yet at times non-willing pawn within the world of Blacky's, Reprozzo Crew, from gambling to murder. Then one day Tommy received a short but unsettling message. It read simply, "Blacky needs to see you." The words harmless on their face would prove to be potentially dangerous in their meaning. Eventually he came to realize once he was given a task and began its required implementation and success, he was whether he wanted to be or not, involved in its possibly deadly outcome. As time went on he began to question his own self-commitment, never the sacred hallowed meaning of La Cosa Nostra,"this thing of ours," but only now that his own life and death hung in the balance as La Cosa Vostra, "this thing of theirs," began holding the gun. For "Tommy" Dialanti, his quest for "Family Respect," had come full circle.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940186128069
Publisher:	Divine Ghost Writers
Publication date:	01/15/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	650 KB

About the Author

L.J. DeGeppo, Born Brooklyn New York, 1943. His father died when he was three years old from complications of World War 11. Through his adolescent and teenage years, he was raised by his Mother and her parents. His Mother was born in the United States but her parents had emigrated from Italy in the early 1900's. They were a self made family, eventually owning a highly respected grocery, butcher store, as well as a six family apartment house. In all those formative years, the Author wanted for nothing. In school, he went from, Honor Roll to Optimate Society, then to understanding that Calculus and Latin would not be part of his later life, so he graduated and went into construction. He built luxury homes, for some he thought didn't deserve them. But it was always Brooklyn that had a grip and drew him back. It was in the mid 1970's to mid 1980's when the meaning of Brooklyn New York, and what it held for him, becomes memorialized and dramatized in this book. For many years he wanted to be his main character. He watched from the sidelines as his main character, Tommy and those that impacted Tommy’s life, went on the craziest, inevitable death ride that Coney Island could ever conceive. In the Front Matter of the book it offers among other, the Author's complete evaluation of the book and more importantly of himself... in what is termed as The Brain Dump. This book is 50% truth, 50% fiction and 100% for the reader to determine which is which!

L.J. DeGeppo