• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 2011 0

anniversary, he had already purchased a sixty-thousand-dollar home for them in an exclusive residential section of Fort Lee. His mother had promptly filled it with brand new furniture, another gift from Frank. The principal adornment in her living room was an artificial Japanese cherry tree surrounded by plaster statues of the saints, small founts of holy water, photographs of Pope John XXIII, Ava Gardner, Pope Paul, and Dean Martin, plus an autographed chair from Sammy Davis, Jr. That house on Abbott Boulevard, which was firmly situated in Bergen County, the most prosperous part of New Jersey, was the culmination of all Dolly Sinatra’s dreams of upward mobility. Thanks to her son, she was now wearing the fur stoles, mink coats, and pearl brooches that other, respectable women of Bergen County wore. Her reputation as “Hat Pin Dolly” was far behind her.

In honor of their fiftieth anniversary, Frank bought Dolly a $25,000 diamond bracelet from Tiffany, which was delivered to her home in an armored truck. He also obtained a Papal Blessing, which he sent to his parents in a letter, saying, “The sands of time have turned to gold, yet love continues to unfold like the petals of a rose, in God’s garden of life.… May God love you, through all eternity. I thank Him, I thank you for the being of one. Your loving son, Francis.”

For the evening of February ninth, he reserved the large dining room of the Casino in the Park in Jersey City, New Jersey, for a champagne dinner for three hundred people. It was to follow a special high mass at St. Augustine’s Roman Catholic Church, where Dolly and Marty were to renew their marriage vows.

Frank had sworn his mother to secrecy on the party and threatened to leave if there was press coverage or any photographers allowed inside. He had left the invitation list up to her, so Dolly invited most of Hoboken. The notable exception was her sister, Josephine Monaco, Frank’s favorite aunt, to whom Dolly had not spoken since 1957, when Look magazine quoted her as saying that Dolly turned over the rearing of young Frankie to her mother, Rosa Garavante. In that article, Josie also punctured the cherished myth of Frank’s nearly dying the day he was born and being saved by his grandmother, who held him under the cold water faucet until he came to life.

“I never could understand that story about Frank’s grandmother saving his life,” Josie said. “She wasn’t even there during the delivery.”

Also missing from the invitation list was Frank’s Irish godfather, Frank Garrick. Even after thirty years Dolly and Frank still nursed a grudge against the former newspaperman for firing Frank.

“My son is like me,” Dolly was fond of saying. “You cross him, he never forgets.”

Frank dreaded returning home and facing relatives and the friends of his youth. His relatives said that he was so nervous about going back to Hudson County that his stomach started turning flips and he had to take a tranquilizer.

“He’s a coward when it comes to Hoboken,” said his cousin. “He just can’t cope with it. When he sees somebody from his childhood, it seems to bring back everything and he tries to ignore it.”

The night of the party the jovial Dolly, wrapped in mink, arrived leading her husband, Marty, by the hand. They were quickly surrounded by news photographers and television cameramen.

“Get all your pictures now, boys,” yelled Mrs. Sinatra, posing cheerfully, smiling and waving to the press. “There won’t be any later because Frankie will be here and you know how he feels about you fellas. So snap away now.”

While his parents were being escorted through the front entrance of the restaurant, Frank arrived at the side door with Paul “Skinny” D’Amato and Henri Gine, a former adagio dancer who had worked with Sinatra for years, attending to his parents, running all kinds of errands. They were escorted by mounted policemen and sixty security guards. Two men from the sheriffs office dressed in tuxedos were to accompany him all night so that no one could approach him.

Staring straight ahead, Frank strode into the room and did not stop