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As the Governor rode to an Albany inn to address a conference of police- union officers earlier this year, his staff counseled him not to bring up the death penalty, which he passionately opposes and has vetoed four times. In the middle of the speech, however, he put aside his notes, leaned across the lectern and said, "I know what people say. This mushy-headed liberal Cuomo, who read a book once. These macho guys who want to burn people, fry them." He drops his voice. "I know how you feel." He does. Cuomo's father-in-law was paralyzed by a mugger's attack. "Look, my mother wants revenge." Cuomo does not. He tells them that he is for life without parole. "I'd say, 'That's it, Charlie, you're going to be by yourself for 100 years.' " The policemen applaud.
Later, at his office, Cuomo dials a familiar number. After several rings, a low voice answers. "Mamma," Cuomo says, "I've been talking about you." He begins to tell her about the speech, but his mother interrupts, talking furiously in Italian. Cuomo translates for a reporter. Three women had been murdered the day before in Brooklyn. Animals, she calls the killers; they deserve to die. The Governor manages to calm her, then says an affectionate goodbye in Italian.
Andrea and Immaculata Cuomo came to America by boat from Naples. They had little money and no English. Mario, their fourth and final child, was born in the urban equivalent of a log cabin, the room behind his father's grocery store. Cuomo has turned his early life into a sepia-tinted parable of a polyglot neighborhood of hard work and love. He can spin out stories about everyone on the old block: Lanzone, the baker; Kaye, the Jewish tailor; Kelly, the Irish scrap dealer.
Cuomo remembers his father working, always working. The store was open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Young Mario often helped out at night, preparing sandwiches for the early-morning construction crews. "All he thought about was working for his family," Cuomo says of his father, who died in 1981. "I talk and talk and talk, and I haven't taught people in 50 years of life what my father taught by example in one week."
Mario was the studious one; he would perch himself on some milk crates in the back room and read late into the night. When he was 14 he switched from Jamaica public schools to the more demanding St. John's Prep, and began an educational love affair with St. John's that has lasted for more than 25 years, from prep school through college, law school and 17 years as an adjunct professor of law. Every morning, without fail, Cuomo slips on his heavy St. John's class ring.
As much as the turning of a fresh page, young Mario loved the clean connection of ball and bat. He was a natural athlete. Baseball was his calling; he was a centerfielder, a more compact, combative version of his idol, Joe DiMaggio. Cuomo was good enough for the Pittsburgh Pirates to sign him for a $2,000 bonus to play in their Class D Georgia-Florida League. A scouting report prepared at the time singled out Cuomo for his talent and his aggressiveness: "He is another who will run over you if you get in his way." Once, when a catcher muttered an ethnic insult, Cuomo turned and punched him in the face mask. Apart from his temper, Cuomo had a problem: he could not hit a curve ball. He knew that there was more to life than playing ball.