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Only in March 1909, when he had finished his military service, he returned to San Giorgio.

He had not even had time to rejoice at the safe return of his loved ones when hunger and the crisis forced his father to embark him for America in May of that year.

After 29 days spent between Messina, Naples, and the Atlantic Ocean, he arrived in New York on 26 June 1909.

He was 20 years old and, arrived in the New Continent, had been admitted to the quarantine area of the Ellis Island Immigrant Reception Centre for a month because of suspected bronchopneumonia.

During those long days as a prisoner-sick man, he had met some shady Sicilian emigrants, who had hired him for some ‘special commissions’.

A few revolver shots he had dodged, a few others he had fired, and he had thus created a ‘respectable reputation’ for himself, thanks to his charisma and cleverness in smuggling whisky.

After six years, he was called up as a soldier in Italy because of the Great War. If he had stayed in America, he would have been considered a deserter and couldn’t have returned to Sicily any more.