The Bookmaker

by Agovino, Michael J.

• ISBN13: 9780061151392
• ISBN10: 0061151394
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-07-30
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

Marking the debut of a gifted new writer, The Bookmaker teems with humanity, empathy, humor, and insight.At the heart of Michael J. Agovino's powerful, layered memoir is his family's struggle for success in 1970s, '80s, and '90s New York City-and his father's gambling, which brought them to exhilarating highs and crushing lows. He vividly brings to life the Bronx, a place of texture and nuance, of resignation but also of triumph.The son of a buttoned-up union man who moonlighted as a gentleman bookmaker and gambler, Agovino grew up in the Bronx's Co-op City, the largest and most ambitious state-sponsored housing development in U.S. history. When it opened, it landed on the front page of The New York Times and in Time magazine, which described it as "relentlessly ugly."Agovino's Italian American father was determined not to let his modest income and lack of a college education define him, and was dogged in his pursuit of the finer things in life. When the point spreads were on his side, he brought his family to places he only dreamed about in his favorite books and films: the Uffizi, the Tate, the Rijksmuseum; St. Peter's, Chartres, Teotihuacfn. With bad luck came shouting matches, unpaid bills, and eviction notices.The Bookmaker is both a bold, loving portrait of a family and their metropolis and an intimate look into some of the most turbulent decades of New York City. In elegant and soaring prose, it transcends the personal to illuminate the ways in which class distinctions shaped America in the last half of the twentieth century.

Table of Contents

Prologue: The Bronx, 1984	p. 1
The 1960s
Washington, D.C., 1960	p. 9
East Harlem, 1961	p. 24
Brooklyn, 1962	p. 40
The Plaza Hotel, 1964	p. 54
Central Park, 1969	p. 63
The 1970s
Freedomland, 1970	p. 79
Westchester, 1972	p. 91
Italy, 1973	p. 100
Shea Stadium, 1974	p. 113
San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1975	p. 121
Portugal, Spain, Morocco, 1976	p. 131
The City, 1977	p. 148
Nantucket, 1978	p. 166
England, the Netherlands, 1979	p. 178
The 1980s
New Orleans, 1980	p. 197
The Dominican Republic, 1981	p. 210
Martinique (or Boston), 1982	p. 226
Worcester, Massachusetts (or Mexico City), 1983	p. 239
France, 1984	p. 256
Confoederatio Helvetica (or Smithtown, Long Island), 1985	p. 267
Madison Square Garden, 1986	p. 280
Playland, Rye, N.Y. (or NYU), 1987	p. 289
Co-op City (Right Downstairs), 1988	p. 307
Atlantic City, 1989	p. 313
The 1990s
New York, N.Y., 1992	p. 323
Pennsylvania Station (or South Toward Home), 1993	p. 335
Epilogue: Rome, 1995	p. 345
Acknowledgments	p. 355
Selected Bibliography	p. 357
Photography Credits	p. 359
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

The Bookmaker
A Memoir of Money, Luck, and Family from the Utopian Outskirts of New York City

Chapter One

Washington, D.C., 1960

He said this: "Holy Christ."

Then this: "It can't be, no. What are the chances?"

He looked again at the number, the three simple digits: 231, if memory serves.

It was hidden deep in the sports section, in the agate type of the horse-racing results, but you knew where to find it, everyone did. The last three digits to the left of the decibel point of the handle, the racetrack's total earnings. It was known as the Brooklyn Number, not to be confused with the New York Number, which, on the street, they called "the Old Way" or "the 3-5-7."

This was illegal but everyone played—street guys, old ladies, working stiffs, cops, nuns. The illegal number was an institution, especially here, in East Harlem. The racket guys ran it; the people, Italians, blacks, Puerto Ricans, played it. Not the Irish, for some reason, or the Jews—they were gambling crazy, but not for numbers.

If you won, you were paid, fair and square, $500 to the dollar for a straight bet, $250 for a boxed combination. Each pocket of a neighborhood would have its own number runner. You knew where to find him. If you were a regular, he knew your number by heart. Nice touch.

One more time he looked. It was still there, 231, glaring at him in eight-point type. "Oh, Madon'," he said this time in East Harlem, Neapolitan dialect.

He wasn't a number runner, but when you're from 115th Street—a hun' fifteenth—and Second Avenue, you know someone who knows someone who knows a racket guy. That's just how it is. Say the brother-in-law of your second cousin is made. Say you grew up with a kid, a nice kid, a bright kid, pretty good athlete—let's call him Patty or Fish—who made a decision to go a certain way in life, a different way. You don't make moral judgments—that's not your job. They do what they do, you do what you do. Mind your business.

Live in East Harlem, things overlap, and you may be called upon—familiar face that you are, no stool pigeon you—to do someone a favor. And so he was asked, by this one guy—can't even remember his name after all these years, just that goddamn number. "Ay, Hugo, would you do me a favor," the guy said, didn't ask. "Put in this number for me, will ya: 231, twelve dollars straight."

Hugo says, "Yeah, all right," reluctantly. He's an agreeable guy and takes the twelve dollars. He's thirty-three, has a job, single, without commitments, outgoing, always at the Stadium or the Garden, laying a few bucks, more than a few, on Whitey Ford or some college basketball game. So the day gets away from him. Hugo doesn't see the number runner as he normally would; he doesn't play the number. He forgets. An honest mistake.

But this guy—let's call him just that for now "This Guy," as memory is fickle and selective, and fades—he's a little smarter than a high-grade moron, and he knows bad people. Who else plays a number for twelve dollars straight? Who would have such brass ones?

Hugo was in hot water now, six thousand dollars' worth, enough to be made an example of—with one in the back of the head, nice guy, nice family or not, honest mistake maybe. He sought immediate counsel from Tommy, his cump—dialect for compare, friend, comrade, you know it as goomba—who used to work for a number bank himself, one of the bigger ones, and his best friend Bence, irascible, some thought insane, but fiercely loyal. Tommy knew the street and happened to be deft with numbers. He told Hugo—who was also Ugo, Ugolino, Hugh, Hughie, Vincent, from his middle name, Vinny, Vin, or Aggie, from his last name, depending on who was talking, family or friend or foe or something in between, their mood, if they were Italian, Irish, Jewish, black, Puerto Rican, and what the situation was, the provenance being Hugo Vincent—"to invoke." Invoke, meaning mention the name of a made guy. No, better still, physically approach the made guy, explain the situation, say it was an honest mistake, which it was, and This Guy and his people can't touch you. If your life is at risk, now it would be saved.

This shouldn't be a problem. Hugo knows Louie a little bit—let's call him Louie I—and he's a higher-up in Fat Tony's crew. But Louie I is out of town, in Vegas on business. He was good friends with Sinatra, you know.

No problem, not a problem, there's always Patty, a close associate to Louie I, and an even closer connection to Hugo. They grew up together and were friends. He was an ex-Marine, Patty, in World War II, blond curly hair when he was young, six feet tall. How he goes and ends up in this kind of life, I'll never know. You never ask. But Patty is in jail, doing a short stint—railroaded, of course. This leaves only Joey, Patty's kid brother. Hugo and Joey never got along. Hugo would hate to ask him for a favor, but this was life or death, seriously. So he found Joey and explained. Joey put the palm of his left hand on his forehead, like this: Madon'. He had the ribbons at the various number banks checked. No, 231 wasn't played; yes, it was an honest mistake. If he found the number was played, and Hugo was out to keep the money himself, Joey wouldn't have been able to help.

Joey reaches out to This Guy and his people—turns out This Guy's cousin was made—and told them he could vouch for Hugo, that it was a mistake, that the debt would be paid, on the installment plan. If Hugo were dealing with one of the Brooklyn crews, the Sicilians, who knows? They were real primitive, these Brooklyn Sicilians, believe me when I tell you.

The Bookmaker
A Memoir of Money, Luck, and Family from the Utopian Outskirts of New York City. Copyright © by Michael Agovino . Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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Excerpted from The Bookmaker: A Memoir of Money, Luck, and Family from the Utopian Outskirts of New York City by Michael J. Agovino
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.