Trafford Publishing: Diamond In The Rough

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Diamond In The Rough

by James M. Costa

213 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-0138; ISBN 1-55395-775-X; US$18.85, C$21.68, EUR14.70, £9.74

This is the story of a young Italian immigrant who achieves the "American dream" by surviving many obstacles.

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About the book      About the author      Sample excerpts or Table of Contents      Catalogue info

About the Book

Diamond In The Rough is an autobiography of James M. Costa, a young immigrant from S. Italy who survives poverty, war, amputation, corporate corruption and the lure of the Mafia in his journey to achieving the "American Dream".
It is a gritty, sometimes graphic and brutal story that includes gentleness, kindness, and deep love of family, where perseverance and integrity are the shepherds to his success.

About the Author

James M. Costa was born in Fabrizia, Italy. He immigrated to to U.S. when he was twenty-three months old in 1931. He attended schools in Claremont, NH and resided there. He is married and has four children. He entered the service in 1947 and was medically discharged from Walter Reed Hospital in 1954. He was a paratrooper and fought in the Korean War with the 2nd Infantry Division and also with the 187th airborne Regimental Combat Team. He earned the Silver Star and three Purple Hearts among his decorations. He lost his leg by enemy grenades during his last encounter with the Chinese forces on Outpost Zebra.
After his discharge, he worked as a machinist and then became the treasurer and general manager of a machine tool corporation in Vermont, where he worked for ten years. After that, he started his own corporation, Costa Precision manufacturing Corp. in Claremont, NH and sold it sixteen years later and retired. He now lives in West Unity, NH.

Sample Excerpts

     I asked the bartender if he knew where Murphy General Hospital was located.
     He shook his head, saying, "I never heard of the place."
     I felt lost in the geography of the area. Then, an old timer sitting at the bar said, "It used to be down the street. . . but it ain't no longer a hospital. It's now the Army Corps of Engineers building."
     I thanked him for the information and left the lounge, wanting to see the building for myself. Driving along, some of the landmarks were familiar, which made my heart beat a little faster. Pulling into the parking lot of the building, which was located on a little hill, I went up the long stairs and walked in the exact door that the ambulance brought me to in 1953.
     Nothing seemed to have changed. Looking around, there was a receptionist to my right. I thought, "My God, this is the exact spot where they laid me and other wounded patients before a Chaplain came to talk to me while a nurse was taking my blood pressure." There was no mistake about this spot because we were there a long period of time lying on our backs until we were taken to a ward.
     The next morning my leg was amputated.
     I looked up and found myself staring at a huge chandelier; my thoughts drifted momentarily back to 1953. It was a strange, yet, significant and emotional moment.
     The chandelier started to glow when I heard the receptionist ask, "Can I help you?"
     "No, thank you," I replied, I kept staring at the chandelier. I know she must have thought I was some weird person, but my mind was no longer in the Corps of Engineer Building in 1969; rather, in the Murphy General Hospital, August 1953. I saw the faces of doctors, nurses and wounded guys from the Korean War. My heart was beating louder and louder and I was breathing like I had run for miles to get here. The chandelier was like a magnet; my eyes were fixed on it and were starting to tear. I began drifting back into those years that brought our family to this country from Italy.
     Everything began to seem so real. ******
     I am so proud of my parents. To this day, I still think of my mother's courage and her determination in making the trip from Fabrizia, Italy, to the United States. We arrived at Ellis Island, in New York City, July 22, 1931, on the Vulcania . My mother could not speak a single word of English, so it's easy to imagine the difficulty she had when she arrived with three small children. I was barely two years old at the time. My father, who had been in this country six different times before and after World War I, worked on the railroads and other jobs to earn enough money to purchase a home in Italy, where I was born. The exchange of one US dollar was worth at least twenty-five times in comparison to the Italian lira. That difference would make life very comfortable for our family in Italy.
     During one of his return trips to Italy, he was caught in World War I and had to serve in the Italian army. He was badly wounded by machine gun fire on the right side, from his leg to his shoulder. He was a prisoner-of-war when captured by the Turks and suffered a lot because they did not properly take care of his wounds. As he got older, that would become a problem, causing him to suffer great pain in his right hip and the entire right side of his body.
     When we arrived in the United States, my father was already working at a foundry in Claremont, NH. He had not seen his family since he left Italy, when my mother was two months pregnant. She gave birth to twins when I was born; my twin sister died of pneumonia when she was nine-months old. I often wonder what she would have looked like if she were alive. We lived in New York City for a short while and then moved to Claremont, New Hampshire, a small industrial town of 15, 000 people that borders on the state of Vermont. We arrived in the fall of 1933. My parents said that I used to cry like hell for my grandmother. I suppose during those years Italian mothers would be so busy cooking and washing clothes on the banks of the river, that the grandmothers would have to watch over the children. I assume that is the reason I missed her so much at the time.
     Many immigrants came to Claremont in search of a new future in the many foundries and machine tool corporations. Most were of Italian, Russian, Polish and Jewish descent from Europe. These immigrants seemed to live in one general area, which was called "Ward Seven. "To those who did not live there, the area was considered inhabited by a bunch of "Dumb Foreigners. " This was only one of the unpleasant references to the multi-cultural neighborhood. During those Depression years life was difficult and our parents did not make much money, but we were fortunate that our father had job stability since he had worked for ten years in a foundry before we arrived from Italy. Two years after our arrival, my father started his own business - a cobbler shop - a trade he had learned as a boy in Italy.

******

     My father and his nephew "Tetsie" - as we affectionately called him - always made two barrels of red wine in our cellar every year. The rule in the house by my father was that the children could drink wine with our meals only if poured by my parents. One tiny glass. . . period!
     Like kids do, that rule was prone to violation. When I was in junior high school, I poured two jugs of wine from the cellar and a bunch of us went to a park and got a little drunk on the wine. We were singing and acting up when this guy who knew my father approached us, saying, "Where did you get that wine?" We didn't pay any attention to him. Then he warned, "If the police see you kids drinking, you will get into trouble." I got home about midnight and silently opened the door and crawled into the kitchen. I hoped to slip to bed without waking my parents. There was a long string we used to pull on and switch on the kitchen light. I got up slowly and yanked on the cord. There was a severe " sting" on my ass. Then another. Another.
     My father had heard about the park and waited for me to come home. His razor strap was his favorite means of punishment when we made a royal screw-up. Man. That hurts!
     I took the strapping like a man because I knew I deserved it. After several sharp slaps, my mother rushed out of the bedroom and told my father that was enough! It was enough. I ached for days after that.
     But I had broken the rules.

******

     Some of the guys had close ties with the "Wise Guys" in Brooklyn, and I would join them quite often on their excursions. We hung around President Street, where I first meet the mobster Joey Gallo. His nickname was "Crazy Joey." The first time I met him I knew he was really smart and not crazy. He could talk a mile-a-minute, all the while sizing a person up. He was street smart, and I could tell he liked me right away. He had a deep respect for people who were Italian, and more so for those like myself who were born in the "old country."
     When I first met him he looked more Irish than Italian. He had piercing eyes and it seemed that he was looking right through me all the time. He was really funny at times. No one gave him any crap. One night we left this poolroom owned by one of his friends. We started hanging around this corner and a car drove by very slowly. The men inside kept staring at us. Joey got off the curb and started waving his arms all around and told them to keep going, saying to them, "Who the hell do you think you're fooling...you bunch of assholes!"

******

     The attack lasted about eighteen minutes, but it seemed like hours. My mouth was dry and there was so much gunpowder in the air, it was as though I was chewing on rubber.
     Dead bodies were strewn all over the battlefield, giving the place a surrealistic pall of death and destruction. It seemed like nothing was real and we were acting a part in a movie rather than the real thing. It was at night and the darkness was brightened by flares, giving the place a haunting, ghoulish appearance as the shadows moved wildly across the ground.
     My first encounter with the Chinese came suddenly at the crest of a hill, where a Chinese soldier sprang at me. I passed only inches from him. When he grabbed me, I could not fire my weapon and we both hit the ground together. I pulled out my knife and shoved it deep into his chest. I left it in there, picked up my BAR, and fired a burst of rounds into his chest.
     I still don't recall if I saw him with his rifle when this happened. He may not have had it and could have already been wounded. I started to move forward again and two groups of Chinese - four to five in each group - came running down the hill like maniacs, shouting, and charging straight at me. I dropped to one knee, and emptied, one, then two, then a third magazine into them. They fell like bowling pins. After each reloading, I had thrown a grenade to fill in the gap of the time to reload.
     Days later, I thought of the dead enemy and, like those moments in battling them ,thought of them being dead never bothered me. I was alive.
     Our unit suffered thirty-four KIA's from both companies and I counted at least sixty Chinese bodies lying on our side of the hill. I'm sure that there were many more on the rear slope of the hill that I could not see and I would not dare to look because it was mined. With all the mortar and artillery fire dropping on their position, it only stands to reason that the body count was much higher than what we could see. Many were probably killed trying to escape down the hill to their lines, having to run through mine fields while pursued by artillery and mortar fire.
     Such a strange sight in the early morning, watching the sunrise over all that carnage. Very weird. We were also relieved.
     No one was talking; it was so quiet we could hear a whisper. There was almost a sense of guilt among us, like, hell, this should never have happened. Especially when you looked at all the dead enemy, and thirty-four of our brave young men.

******

     It is hard to explain the incredible cold in Korea during January. Despite the freezing temperatures, patrolling continued. On one other mission, we reached our second checkpoint, and we had three more to go but couldn't because our weapons were completely frozen. We could not move the cocking levers more than an inch.
     It was a pitiful sight to see the guys with ten days growth of beard; their whiskers had little icicles dangling from the hair like frozen stalactites. I still thank God I was so young and not yet a heavy shaver at the time.
     The temperature must have been 12-15 degrees below zero with the wind-chill factor - making it worse. Lieutenant Reish called Jones on the radio, telling him, "I'll meet you at the bar at....and buy you a frozen Mint Julep." He was trying to tell Jones that his BARs were frozen and he and his men would meet him at Check Point One, using the check point's code-name, whatever it was at that time. Jones understood and met us with a bunch of his men, and we all got back safe. Funny thing was, we never should have been on that damned patrol, even though we had thoroughly lubricated our weapons. The Chinese were smart, and did not go on patrols in that kind of freezing weather. They knew it was just too damned cold to fight!

******

     The rice paddy had probably not been used for years and was becoming a quagmire. We had to go through the mess to get to our assigned location, the way lit by the constant burst of overhead flares turning night into day. This made us bright, illuminated targets for enemy gunners. Mortar and artillery fell ferociously around us, spewing shrapnel and shard ;one piece whizzed past my head, nearly decapitating me. Then, I turned, and saw the most horrible sight and shouted, "Oh my God." One of the soldiers in my platoon - seconds ago alive and following in trail - now lay in two separate, distinct pieces. His body had been severed at the chest; his upper and lower torso, cut in half, lay floating in that filthy paddy.
     I had seen a lot of action; however, none previous could match this nightmarish patrol. I said aloud, "God, all I am asking you is that if I am to die now, please wait until we reach that dry spot up ahead. Please. That's all I'm asking. I don't want to die in this shitty rice paddy!"
     I wasn't pleading for my life. No way! That would have been very selfish in light of what happened to my friend. If I was going to die...I only wanted to die on dry ground!
     Finally, we did reach the dry spot, and we were given mortar and artillery fire support from a battery of the 38th Infantry Regiment. Then, it stopped as quickly as it started. With all of this shelling, it was a miracle that we made it back to our lines without losing another soldier. In all, we had two killed, and four wounded. None missing in action.
     It was a horrible mission, one that sticks to me to this day: Whenever I pick up a knife, I get shivers thinking about the Chinese soldier; whenever I see fireworks go off in the air, I think of my friend lying dead in that shithole rice paddy under all the flares that lit the sky during that patrol.

******

     I went down the hill and, sure enough, there was a squad of Chinese soldiers moving in groups of three. They would run about ten feet, drop to a squatting position, and wait until joined by other groups. I watched until a few groups formed, carrying mortars and bundles of ammunition on their backs. I fired at the first bunch on their second run and killed three. I could see the dust flying off their clothing as they were hit.
     The second group was picking up and moving when I turned my BAR on them and fired, killing two more and wounding a third. Somehow, he got up, jumped over a hump of dirt and escaped. I started to move back to high ground when - suddenly - I turned my head and could see a hand grenade flying toward me. Then another. And another. They were "potato mashers," long grenades that flip end over end. The "device" was popular with the Chinese, much like the type used by the Germans in World War II. Three explosions followed, one after the other, lifting me and my BAR into the air. Everything was so quiet! I couldn't hear a damn thing and didn't realize I had been wounded. My BAR was not in sight.
     Then I could see my left leg was dangling, nothing more than mangled meat and bone below my knee. The back of my head, my other leg, my back, my arms, and my hands were all wet with blood from pieces of the shrapnel. Strangely, there was no pain. Suddenly, a young Chinese soldier had his "Burp" gun pointing at my head..I said to him,"No. No. No." I was waving my hands and pointing to my leg. He stared and that is the last thing I remember. I saw white blotches - protruding bones and tendons - then lost consciousness.

******

     A few days before Christmas, General Heaton, the Surgeon General came onto the ward to examine the patients. He stopped by my bed and looked at my medical chart for quite a long time, and noticed that I had fever and my stump was swollen and red. He wanted me up and around for Christmas, and also knowing my parents wouldn't be visiting me, decided that he wanted me on the operating table within a couple of hours and would personally drain and clean the stump. He instructed the nurses not to give me any more morphine because I had too much since I was wounded. He was very upset about the number of shots I had received. I had three operations since I left Murphy General and my shot records took a long time to catch up to me at Walter Reed.
     General Heaton was worried that the amount of morphine I had been taken in the last four months had taken its toll and I was now dependent on the drug. He did the drainage that day and I felt better and my fever went down. I was able to see the Christmas show featuring Kate Smith, but couldn't sit more than a half-hour, if that. I had to go back to the ward and ask the nurse for a shot. The nurse refused me a shot and I made such a fuss about it that she got the Head Nurse, who explained the seriousness of why I could not have an injection. She told me that my shot records were lost and finally caught up with me and after reviewing what I had been taking, it was time to worry about me. She was honest with me but not saying what I wanted to hear.
     I wanted a shot of morphine!
     I kept twitching and moving around in my wheel chair, going in circles, hoping I could get a shot to ease the agony in my body. She felt real bad and sat on my bed; in a real soft voice, she pleaded with me not to think about getting a shot. I could see her eyes were moist with a tear and I felt bad. She said that she would give me a pill to help me. I got the pill, but it didn't work. I had a terrible night, and many more for the next several weeks. It would take time for the drugs to empty from my system.
     It was tough, but I managed to do it, and was proud that I had the will to overcome the addiction. I had prayed to God for many nights to help me get over the morphine, never imagining I might end up a dope addict. Now, whenever I read about, or see young people taking drugs, I really can relate to that gigantic problem. It's so easy to start; a nightmare to stop. One really can use the help of God at that time.

******

     I received a call in August from one of my pals in Brooklyn, who said he and three other guys were coming up to visit me. One was Joey Gallo, whom I hadn't seen since 1950. They came in a long black car; my mother answered the door and asked, "Lei chi e, per favore ?" (Who are you please?) They replied, "Gumbas. For Jimmy...your boy." My mother called me, we shook hands. I invited them in, and my mother went to another room. I walked by her moments later, and she whispered, "Mala Vita." "Black Hand," the 'underworld' to her. I told the guys what she said and they laughed like hell. She said that Joey was "Bello," which means "cute" in Italian. She thought he was clean cut but didn't care for the other three. They looked like Mafioso to her.
     Joey was the terror of the bunch, that's for sure, and my mother pegged him wrong. He would later make himself a big time reputation in the Mafia. One of three brothers in the Colombo family, which had around 275 "soldiers" in Brooklyn, it was alleged he was part of the "hit team" that assassinated Albert Anastasia at the Park-Sheraton Hotel on October 25,1957. Anastasia was a ruthless Mafioso who became the head of the Gambino family. It's suspected the murder was commited by the Luciano Family, on Vito Genevese's orders. The killing was a grave violation, since it did not have the approval of the Mafia's national commission. Of course, Joey was a rebel and did not take any crap from the big guys. He had a lot of balls. In 1962, Joey was sentenced to nine years in Attica State Prison for extortion.
     Joey was killed in the early morning at Umberto's Clam House in Little Italy on April 7, 1972, while celebrating his 43rd birthday. He was with his bride and her young daughter and a close friend.

******

     When I got home there were some articles in the Boston paper about them. I found out that Jerry Anguilo was the #1 man in the Mafia in the Boston area. I showed the article to my wife and she said that I better be careful of them. Then, it dawned on me. I said to my wife that there was no way that I could have had a flat tire. I was parked on a clean street with no debris around. I said, "Now that I know their reputation, I bet the FBI let the air out of my tires so that they could film me to see who I was and why I was visiting the Anguilo's."
     I had told them I had a ski-lodge in the mountains in Unity, New Hampshire. My wife said, "It's not a lodge. It's a hut and it has an outhouse about thirty yards away from the hut in the woods." She then said, "I hope you told them that." I had said that I had a lodge in the mountains. Ingrid knew that I was not trying to impress them because she knows that I always substitute a word for another if I cannot find the right word. In this case it was "lodge" instead of "hut." I really didn't worry about what I said because I figured they would never come up here to visit us anyway...
     Well...they did!
     Nick called my shop and told me that his wife, two women, and his daughter would be visiting us on the following weekend and wanted to ski at my ski area and see the lodge at the same time. I promised him that I would get his daughter all the ski equipment she needed for skiing and I would even get an instructor for her so she could learn how to ski, since she didn't know how.
     They arrived on a Saturday morning wearing expensive clothes, dark glasses, diamonds and rings, and long leather boots that went almost to their knees.
     They immediately wanted to go to the ski lodge.
     When they arrived I could see that they almost had a shit hemorrhage. They looked at this hut that was about twenty-five feet by forty feet, and only had a wooden stove. It was cold as hell and I had to start it up. They wanted to know where the bathroom was and I pointed to the "out house" in the woods. They almost shit a brick. My home was not built there at that time, only the "hut" was there. They opted for a motel in Claremont, and I can only imagine what Nick Anguilo's wife Janet, told him over the phone when she called him.
     It was the funniest thing that ever happened to me. It was purely an honest mistake on my part. Here's these beautiful Italian women, decked to the hill, expecting a chalet with marble floors and all the good things that one can enjoy at an expensive ski lodge, and they have to jump start the wood stove to warm up, and relieve themselves in an outhouse!
     They probably said to Nick that I was a "shit kicker" from New Hampshire. It was funny and I still laugh to this day about it. And I never heard from any of the Anguilo's again!

******

     "Now,as we try to regain our balance and get back into the slow-slow-quick-quick-slow routine, I catch sight of my parents. And then I catch my breath. I realize Guy and his bumbling bride are not the stars of this dance. They are. I am transported for a moment.
     And so I watch.
     "Catch a falling star..." I imagine forty years ago when they were dating, dancing to this song at the Moody Hotel while out with their friends... "Put it in your pocket...." Or as newlyweds in their first apartment on School Street.... "save it for a rainy day..." Maybe they heard it on the radio coming home from the hospital with one of their four children... "save it for a rainy day...." Or maybe they played it when they made up from a fight....I know it was played at their 20th wedding anniversary party, because I was nine, and I remember. This has always been their song.
     "My mother's bent arthritic knees sway with weightlessness and her familiar hands clench my father's square shoulder as he physically lifts and supports her around the waist. My father himself balances on his only one good leg, as the other was left behind on a Korean War battlefield. Glistening with perspiration, his weathered face fits comfortable above my mother's shoulder. His eyes are closed. They have forgotten the heat. They have forgotten their age. They have forgotten the aches and pains that never seem to leave them. They simply spin and sway to the gentle rhythm. Predicting each other's movement. Never missing a step. Others watching might see a cute elderly couple dancing happily at their daughter's wedding. But I know better. I see a magical performance more rich and graceful than a flawlessly choreographed ballet. Two young lovers only forty short years after taking their own vows are not following any routines, but they are somehow more rhythmic and natural than the "quick slow" methodical count taught by our little dance instructor.
     "I look back at Guy. The temperature no longer matters. My dress is forgotten. We smile together and hold each other a little closer.
     "Most importantly, we stop counting the beats."
     While reading Heidi's e-mail, I was laughing quite a bit and then started reading the part about my wife and I dancing. Before I was finished, tears were running down my face. The older I get, the more emotional I become. No apologies offered here. Years ago, this would not happen. I would only think about it for days and appreciate it in my own mind.
     I got up from the chair, e-mail in my hand, and walked to the computer room where I knew my wife had already read the message. I approached her as she was sitting in the chair in front of the computer and stood next to her. She turned to me and looked into my eyes and we both could see the tears running down from our cheeks. I bent down and kissed her and said nothing. We both understood the message better than anyone else would.

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