After a few days, we arrived at port New York Harbor, it was a city beyond my imaginations. There were so many vehicles, trains and huge buildings. It was a dream for me, that place was looking way better than Sicily. But I still miss those old days with Luca. Anyways, my language was a big problem. I didn't know English, just Italian. But after meeting father John Adams, me and Flavio learnt English, not too fluently but understandable.
During that period, we were working as goods loaders at a port. That was never a good job, Derek Smith was the owner of the port. He was very cruel, his mind never changed to show mercy to the poor workers. At that time, around 1880 to 1925, people from various countries immigrated to the United States; the reasons were simple—they immigrated because of war, famine, epidemics and when their own country refused them to stay there. Polish, Italian, German, Irish, European people immigrated to the United States. It was a lot of chaos in the beginning, but still, most of them tried to make their colonies legally and succeeded.
There were some things I always managed to do with Flavio, like roaming around the whole city in father Vertigo's Ford V8; those wheels were so nice and that reminds me of watching girls out of their dorm. Going for movies like David Copperfield, and just messing around.
One night, when I was taking groceries to home, I saw two greasers, guys always in leather jackets, who were following a dorm girl and teasing her. She was looking uncomfortable; I wanted to go home as soon as possible, but after watching that, I parked the car near a gas station. It was snowing heavily, I was wearing a woolen coat. There was a drunk cop sitting on the stairs of a motel. I was helpless, but I chose to do it the hard way—or you can say, my way. I moved towards the cop and took his pistol, coat and hat. After wearing them all, without being seen by anyone, I started to move towards greasers, who got pale after seeing me with a gun in my hand. I said out loud "Hey!! Why at this time of the night are you both fellas chasing a lady?" They were really afraid; I wasn't in that much light that they could see my face. But few more steps of mine made them go all the way back.
That girl was standing there; I thought that she wanted to thank me, but without caring anymore, I started to head towards my car.
But my luck wasn't with me, as the cop woke up from his slumber and yelled, "Stop there! Who are you and why are you in my uniform and with a gun?" I was thinking, "Why in the world did I even choose to help someone". But suddenly I heard a sweet, angel-like voice behind me which said, "He is my friend, officer. He wore your uniform to save me from those greasers."
The cop agreed with her in a very polite and humble manner and said, " Yes!! Miss Elena Miller, as you say." and then he took his things and measured his own way. She thanked me, I moved my head around, and there was a real angel, the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. I was amazed and stunned by her glow; I also thanked her to save my back. She introduced herself by her name, Elena Miller. My name is Jake but I never used any surname ever, but went with how Flavio and others used to call me. I introduced myself as Bello Jake. She laughed very respectfully... her laugh became one of the precious moments of my life. She replied, "Sì, you are really handsome." At that moment, it became clear that she was also an Italian. And yeah, Bello means 'handsome'. I don't know even if I was handsome or not, but her words really touched my soul, and all the pain of my previous life just got buried somewhere I couldn't find and wouldn't find, even if I tried to. After reaching home, my whole night was spent just thinking about her.