CHAPTER 2: THE CRAZY BROTHERS
“IT STARTED LIKE ANY OTHER DAY,” Uncle Dave told us as the family gathered in my grandparents’ living room after a big Sunday afternoon meal. “As usual, I was really hungry. Workin’ out takes a steady stream of calories, ya know. I settled into a booth at this little Italian joint and could hardly wait for the plate of chicken and pasta. But when my food arrived, the chicken wasn’t done.
“‘Please send this chicken back to the cook, it ain’t done,’ I told the waitress. Firm, but nice, I was —the first time.
“‘No problem, sir,’ she says to me, as she took it away. But when the food came back, it was obvious the cook hadn’t done a thing to it.
“‘Send it back again. It still ain’t done,’ I says, but again, it came back undercooked. I began to suspect the cook was just toyin’ with me.
“So, I sent it back a third time!” Uncle Dave exclaimed, pausing for dramatic effect. “That’s when the mob underling who ran the place came stormin’ out of the kitchen, dish in hand, and shoved the food down on the table in front of me. ‘You don’t like my chicken? You tryin’ to start something here? ’Cause I have a gun, and we can figure this out.’
“So I just stood up, grabbed the dish, walked over to the trash can, and tipped the chicken and pasta plate to a full 90-degree angle and let the food slide off into the garbage. I looked straight in the eye of that Italian tough guy and said, ‘Guess what? I got a gun too.’
“But just before it escalated any further, Checkers Smaldone —one of the higher-ups in the North Denver mob family —came over and told the cook, ‘Hey, leave him alone! He’s one of us!’”
Whenever Uncle Dave delivered this punch line to his story, he would let out a loud laugh and get a proud look on his face.
The Smaldones were the organized crime family who ruled the streets of North Denver in the ’50s and ’60s. Although they were not related to the five big mob families of New York City, this notorious Italian family ran a sizable bookmaking, gambling, racketeering, loansharking, and extortion operation. The Smaldones knew my uncles and gave them an endearing —and accurate —nickname: The Crazy Brothers.
When the mafia thinks your family is dysfunctional, you know you have problems.
Although my uncles —the Mathias brothers —were respected by the mob, they weren’t members. They were more into disorganized crime than organized.
The Crazy Brothers weren’t loan sharks, collectors, or drug runners. They just loved violence. They craved it. It was their drug of choice. The adrenaline rush they got from defending their turf, their honor, and each other was a better high than any heroin or LSD they could buy on the street —it was free and readily available.
An unbridled rage was always bubbling just beneath the surface of my uncles’ flexed facades, ready to lash out at anyone who crossed them. To add insult to the possibility of real bodily injury, the Mathias family was freakishly strong, built for fight, not flight.
These guys were always ready for a brawl. Yes, some of it was for the rush, but some of it was out of necessity. We lived in a part of the city that chewed up the weak and spit out the bones. We lived in a section of town that was rife with racial tension as well as crime.
North Denver had two primary neighborhoods, Italian and Mexican. The racism between these two groups was palpable, and it often spilled over into the streets. It may not have been West Side Story, but it definitely was the North Side’s.
The Italians had established their place in North Denver in the mid-1800s during the heyday of the Colorado Gold Rush. There were so many Italians living in this part of the city, it was nicknamed “Little Italy.”
But a century later, things were changing. People of Mexican descent began to move into North Denver. And with each new infusion of Latino blood into the neighborhood, the temperature of the tensions rose.
Denver, and specifically North Denver, was viewed by some as an epicenter of the “American Chicano Movement.” Denver-based leaders like Corky Gonzales and Richard Castro launched “The Crusade for Justice” that triggered boycotts, strikes, and riots in the battle for equal rights for Latinos. Mexican American activism and pride ran high.
But to the Italian Americans, already firmly established in North Denver, the Mexican Americans were seen more as invaders than neighbors. The Italians were bitter that the Latinos were moving into their beloved “Little Italy.” The Latinos were miffed that the Italians didn’t respect their culture and their rights as Americans to live where they wanted.
By the time I arrived on the scene in 1965, geographically, there were two North Denvers —North Side Mexican and North Side Italian. My family lived on the Mexican side of the geographic divide.
And because of where we lived, our family stood out and had to stand strong. Although my family was Welsh, we looked and acted Italian. And we, unlike so many others in our part of North Denver, refused to be pushed out by anyone.
My uncles were big and hard to budge anyway.
Three of them were competitive bodybuilders, and all of them loved the push, pull, lift, and grunt of the weight room. Long before Arnold Schwarzenegger ruled Gold’s Gym, the exercise guru Jack LaLanne ruled the airwaves.
Exercise was about health, fitness, flexibility, and strength, not unnaturally big, drug-induced muscles. Steroids had not yet been injected into the bodybuilding scene. It was all about natural strains and gains. Aspiring bodybuilders strained their muscles in the gym and gained them back, and then some, in the kitchen.
The Crazy Brothers were early adopters of the weightlifting, bodybuilding culture. As a result, family gatherings were full of pose downs and showdowns.
Phrases like “check these babies out” and “take a look at these guns” would fly back and forth across the room like a medicine ball in a game of catch between Goliath’s brothers. One uncle would flex his biceps or triceps or whatever-ceps in the direction of his testosterone-fueled brothers, and they would reciprocate with their own pose.
But their muscles weren’t just for show; they were for go. They worked out for strength and power more than flash and flex. When they hit someone, they wanted it to rattle their ancestors.
Half the fun was the fight. The other half was telling and retelling the story of the fight to the rest of the family.
As a kid, one of my favorite things was listening to my uncles tell stories. And every funeral, wedding, and family reunion was an opportunity to hear them recount their fighting stories, some of which were in the distant past and others of which had just happened. From the time I was old enough to understand, I’d position myself as close as I could to the big table so I could hear their amazing exploits. They were like superheroes to me. Scary superheroes.
The adults pulled their chairs up around my grandparents’ huge kitchen table, encircling it like a tribal campfire. We kids were relegated to silence in the nooks and crannies of the background. On this occasion, four of my five uncles were there, plus some new people who had just been introduced to the Mathias family. Fresh ears meant the best and bloodiest exploits would be shared. I scooted in closer, eager to absorb it all like a sponge.
Dave, the fourth of the five brothers, kicked off the storytelling time. His curly brown hair and tall physique combined to give him the look of a gunslinger in an old western. But when he spoke, he sounded like he was from Jersey, not Colorado.
Uncle Dave was a Golden Gloves boxer, as well as a black belt heavyweight judo champion. Dave fought in the streets even more than he did in the ring or on the mat. He was not a bodybuilder or powerlifter, but he could take you out just as quickly as my other uncles with a strong right hook or a judo choke hold.
Before he could launch into his first story, Uncle Bob threw out a prompt. “Tell these folks ’bout the time you got bayoneted!”
Dave looked down and stared intently at his strong, gnarled hands that lay folded in front of him on the table. A lot of his friends had died during the Vietnam War. He was the crew chief of a rescue helicopter, and he and his team went on a seemingly endless array of dangerous rescue missions. They would fly into hot zones where bullets and bombs were still flying so that they could rescue the wounded and load dead bodies onto their copter to ensure they received a proper burial.
After a moment, Dave pulled himself back to the present and launched into his story.
“We were flyin’ into a hot zone, and as the chopper was landin’, I saw an American soldier bein’ taken into the jungle. As soon as we touched down, my boots hit the ground, and I ran into the dense jungle where they’d dragged him.
“Before I knew it, three Vietcong soldiers had tackled me, took my gun, and stood on me. Two guys stood on my arms, and one guy straddled me with his AK-47 and bayonet pointin’ at my gut. These guys were laughin’, ’cause they knew they had me.
“So this guy plunges the bayonet into my gut and starts cuttin’ upward.” Dave pulled his shirt up to show the five-inch gash in the middle of his stomach.
Our visitors gasped in horror. If they thought Dave had been stretching the truth up to this point, their doubts vanished. The jagged ugliness of the huge scar served as corroborating evidence.
“What did you do?” one of the visitors asked.
“I prayed to God and kicked him in the groin.” The entire room burst into laughter. “It was the weirdest thing. Both soldiers jumped off my arms, and the guy I kicked dropped the gun. When he did, the gun spun out of his arms and landed perfectly into my now freed hands. So I shot him, killed the other two guys, rescued the American soldier, and flew another six hours after that.”
“What about your gash?” someone asked.
“I duct-taped it. When my shift was over, I had the surgeon stitch it up,” Dave explained.
Our guests sat in stunned silence for a moment until Bob broke it by launching into the next story. “Yeah, Dave could handle himself,” Bob said admiringly. “We all could handle ourselves.”
Uncle Bob was the baby of the group, but he was one big baby. At six foot three inches tall and north of 230 pounds, he was a beast who looked more like an offensive lineman than a bodybuilder. For decades, Bob worked as a pipe fitter and regularly lifted 500-pound pipes as part of his job. He had brute natural strength that other men coveted. As a bouncer at one of the toughest bars in Denver, his fighting skills were honed on the meanest and strongest bad guys in the city.
But that night, Bob didn’t talk about himself. Instead, he bragged on his absent brother, the second oldest, Richard. “What always surprised everyone was what a good brawler Richard was,” Bob said, by way of introduction.
Uncle Richard was a bodybuilder, street fighter, and entrepreneur. Nicknamed “Elvis” by some, he was the most suave and handsome of the Crazy Brothers. Unlike most of my family, Richard had a knack for making money. Long before I was born, he’d moved to Phoenix to start his own business and make his fortune. But despite his good looks and money-making skills, Richard could throw fists with the best of them.
“Do you remember that night when a group of gang members who knew where we lived drove down the alley right next to the house on Irving Street callin’ us out?” Bob asked the brothers, glancing around the table.
“Which time?” Uncle Jack yelled. Howls of laughter erupted.
“The time when Richard screamed ‘Fight!’ and ran out the door, chargin’ full speed toward that car.” It was obvious by the looks on their faces that they not only remembered the situation but were reliving it with relish as Bob retold it.
Bob continued. “That crazy Richard dove headfirst through the open car window, totally shockin’ ’em.”
“That’s Richard!” Uncle Jack bellowed. “He surprised everyone with how tough he was. And once he got in the car, he punched and kicked at everyone he could . . . and they punched him back!”
Commandeering the story back from Jack, Bob continued. “It must have shocked them, though, because they squealed their tires out of the alley and onto the street. They sped away, but Richard must have grabbed the steering wheel and jerked it a few times.”
“Yeah,” Dave joined in, “that car swerved and weaved until it finally banked right and hit a parked car.”
“Then we all ran down the street,” Jack said, taking over again, “and pulled those suckers out of the car and beat ’em.”
Uncle Tommy, the oldest, least violent, and most respected of the uncles, looked directly at me —which was a rarity, since my uncles seldom acknowledged a child in their midst —and added, “Your mom, not one to be left out, grabbed her baseball bat and, in nothing but a bathrobe, sprinted down the street and joined in the fun, too. Do you remember that, Shirley?”
“You bet I do,” Ma shot back, sending a stream of cigarette smoke across the table.
While Tommy could fight too, he generally preferred not to. At his core, he had a gentler soul than the rest of my uncles. He would rather be a peacemaker than a jawbreaker. Perhaps it was because he was the most secure of the group. He had won the most bodybuilding awards, and as the oldest and most mature, he had nothing to prove. But that didn’t keep him from admiring the fighting spirit in his siblings. Turning back toward me again, Tommy told me something I already knew. “Your mama sure can fight.”
The brothers howled in agreement.
Jack finished the story. “We beat those guys until the cops showed up,” he said. “Thank God they were all wanted.”
“Yeah,” Bob shot back. “That was one of the few times the cops showed up and you didn’t get arrested, right, Jack?”
“Right!” Jack said with a laugh.
In a family full of black sheep, Uncle Jack was the blackest, the meanest, and the most volatile. Like Ma, down deep he had a generous heart, but unlike her, he wasn’t just ready for a fight, he was looking for one.
Jack looked like a beefed-up version of the Marvel Comics character nicknamed the Wolverine. The long lambchop sideburns that grew down his square jaw met his Fu Manchu mustache at the ends of his snarling lips. Even his shaving habits gave him the look of a man not to be trifled with. But more than his facial hair, his oversized biceps and forearms, covered in jailhouse green tattoos, ranged in design from a rattlesnake coming out of a skull to a flying eagle.
Jack went to jail a lot in his younger years. The family sometimes speculated that he would have been even more prone to violence and criminal activity if he hadn’t met and fallen in love with his wife, Earlene. Once, when Jack was asked to describe his early years of continual run-ins with the law, he explained it like this: “I was born on skid row in Denver. I lived in jail in the fifties. When I met Earlene, I was on an indefinite sentence of probation. I introduced Earlene to my probation officer. He says, ‘Gosh, Jack, that’s the only good girl I ever seen you run with. When are you going to get married?’ I says, ‘Not until you let me off this probation.’ He says, ‘You’re off.’ I’ve been married to her ever since.”[1]
But even with Earlene in his life, Jack went way farther than even the toughest guys typically dared. As a kid, I heard story after story of Jack’s violent outbursts.
Like the warm summer night he and Earlene went to Lakeside, an old-style amusement park just north of our neighborhood. The way Earlene told me the story, Jack had just bought her a new coat.
“Thank you for the coat, Jack! I love it!” she said, wearing it with pride that night, despite the July heat.
“I think I’ll put some mustard on it to balance the colors out,” Jack joked, pretending to squeeze the hotdog stand condiment bottle in her direction. My uncle may have been rough and tough, but he had a sweet and comical side to him as well. This usually came out when he was around Earlene.
Earlene beamed as she sported her prized coat, a treasured gift from the rough-around-the-edges, muscle-bound man she loved. But that changed when a passing tough guy hurled an insult her direction: “Nice coat! You idiot, don’t you know it’s July?”
Like a shark rolling its eyes into the back of its head when attacking, my relatives’ eyes always darkened whenever their attack-mode switch was activated. All the members of my family seemed to have this switch. Ma had the switch. Jack had that switch. And when the switch flipped, it was over.
Jack’s eyes turned black with rage. In a flash, he lunged at the guy and had him on the ground. Over and over, Jack pounded the guy’s face, and with each punch of his huge fists, the back of the guy’s head bounced against the concrete. Jack beat his face into mash.
The Lakeside cops on duty came running up to Jack and pushed him off the man. Realizing that this most likely meant more time in jail, Jack made a run for it. But my family is not built for running. So when the two police officers caught up to him, Jack pulled out his signature move and grabbed each of them by the throat —simultaneously, one in each hand.
Technically, it was their windpipes that he grabbed.
Jack had a fully developed philosophy about how to choke someone, which he loved explaining to me again and again. “When you choke a guy,” he’d say, “never grab him around the full neck. There’re too many muscles there that they can flex. And that’ll keep you from chokin’ ’em out. Instead, grab ’em by the windpipe, and grab ’em hard. You can cut off their air completely and, if you do it right, they’ll black out in seconds.”
The two cops never had a chance. But reinforcements were close behind. When the other police officers arrived on the scene, they whipped out their billy clubs and beat Jack senseless. Then they arrested him.
So much for a fun night at the amusement park. Instead, Jack spent the night in jail.
When Jack and Earlene finally had kids, it seemed like a ray of hope might finally be shining through. Jack adored his two daughters, Tammy and Jackie. Out of all the things he had screwed up in his life, his girls seemed to be turning out all right. Still, his propensity to violence was always there, like a tiger ready to pounce at the slightest provocation. He sensed that it was only a matter of time before another violent outburst landed him in jail . . . once again.
But as Uncle Jack told us later, all of that changed the day a man nicknamed “Yankee” rang his doorbell.