Upton 'Uppercut' Clarke

 Upton “Uppercut” Clarke 

By Paul Davis 

In his day, Upton Clarke, known as “Uppercut,” was a promising heavyweight boxer. 

He was big, strong and fast. Clarke was a huge and ferocious black fighter who was brutal to his opponents. He had a powerful upcut, which often knocked his opponents out cold. He won most of his fights and he was popular with the fight fans. 

But Clarke had a lot of bad habits. He drank, did drugs, got into public bar fights, fought with cops, and got arrested. 

As I sat at Salvatore Stillitano’s grandmother’s kitchen table, we discussed his late father’s involvement with the infamous fighter. Stillitano, the son of Nicodemo “Nick the Broker” Stillitano, had become a federal cooperating witness against other organized crime bosses in the 1980s. After helping to put the crime bosses, who had planned to murder him, in prison, he went into the Witness Protection Program. 

When Salvatore Stillitano returned to South Philadelphia, he contacted me, hoping that I would write his life story. He told me in our first meeting that as I was half-Italian and grew up in the predominantly Italian American South Philly, I would understand him better than most journalists. 

That I was a newspaper crime reporter and columnist who covered organized crime for many years was a clear plus in his eyes. He said he read my columns and magazine pieces, and he was especially fond of an earlier piece of mine in which I wrote about meeting his late father in Palermo, Sicily back in 1975 when I was a young sailor in the U.S. Navy. 

I described Nick Stillitano in the piece some years later as an elderly slim and polite gentleman with dark hair mixed with gray, and large, dark protruding eyes that could, I believe, intimidate people if he had chosen to use them as such. He was intelligent and spoke well. He looked more like a prosperous businessman than a notorious gangster.     

Having previously visited Salvatore Stillitano’s grandmother’s house and interviewed him about his father’s 1960’s rise in the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra organized crime family, Stillitano in this interview session wanted to talk about the early 1970s when as a teenager, he was allowed to shadow his father as he went about doing his various criminal activities. I laid my tape recorder, notebook and pen on the kitchen table. 

Back in the early 1970s, Nick Stillitano was a well-known boxing promoter, gambler, and the Caporegime, or captain, of the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra crime family’s Wildwood, New Jersey crew. Salvatore “Salvy Shotgun” Stillitano was then a teenager who idolizes his father. The son was allowed to accompany his father as he was promoting the sensational boxing match between Clarke and a younger popular heavyweight named Marlon Wilson, known as “The Kid.”      

Clarke was a North Carolina farm boy. The big youngster ran afoul of local law enforcement and his parents sent him to live with his aunt and uncle in North Philadelphia. The city’s black teenagers ridiculed him, calling him a big, dumb black farmer. He endured the taunts stoically, but when one of the teenage hoodlums in the schoolyard pushed him, Clarke beat him and two of his friends brutally. 

The three boys, members of a notorious black drug gang, debated whether to kill Clarke, or to recruit him into the gang. The teenagers put aside their hurt feelings and hurt bodies and invited Clarke to join the gang. As Clarke had no friends in Philadelphia, he agreed. 

His uncle, not liking the way his wayward nephew was heading had Clarke join a local gym and under the tutelage of a former heavyweight southpaw boxer by the name of Arthur “Lefty” Moore. Moore saw real talent in the young man, and he convinced his friend and employer, Gus Frangella to manage him. 

Clarke did not trust Frangella, nor did he trust any white man, but he trusted Lefty, so he signed on with Frangella as his manger and Lefty as his trainer.     

Nick Stillitano often worked out of Rocco’s Passyunk Avenue Gym in South Philadelphia. Stillitano’s partner was a New York mobster named Joseph “Joey Pug” Puglisi, a former professional middleweight fighter. The two promoters ruled the fight game in the late 1960 and early 1970s. 

Stillitano and Puglisi promoted the fights of Upton “Uppercut” Clarke, then a heavyweight contender. Stillitano was able to get Clarke a fight with another up and comer, Marlon Wilson. Wilson, known as “The Kid,” was a glib, good-looking young black fighter. Wilson was lighter and shorter than Clarke, but he was skilled and flashy. 

The upcoming fight was getting a lot of press and fight fans were looking forward to the bout. Newspaper sport writers called the bout “The Beauty and the Beast.” Fight fans and gamblers were betting heavily on the fight. 

But a few weeks before the fight, Clarke got drunk in a North Philadelphia bar and  knocked out the bartender when he refused to serve the intoxicated boxer. Two of the bar’s bouncers came to the bartender’s rescue and Clarke knocked them out as well. The crowded bar’s customers moved away from the fight and huddled together into corners, fearful of the huge, crazy drunken fighter. 

Someone called the police. Sergeant James Monroe received the call as he happened to be talking to an old friend, Detective Bill Bartlett. Bartlett, then-Mayor Frank Rizzo’s bodyguard, stood at 6’3 and weighed over 200 pounds.

Bartlett was quiet and dignified, but he was a powerhouse when he had to be. 

Many people in Philadelphia and beyond considered the former police commissioner and populist mayor to be a racist. But others pointed out that the so-called racist mayor was guarded by two black cops. 

“Rizzo don’t hate black people,” Bartlett often told people who asked him how he could work for Rizzo. “He hates criminals, be they black, white or whatever.” 

Although Bartlett was off duty when Monroe received the call, he accompanied his old sergeant and friend to the bar. 

When Monroe and Bartlett entered the bar they saw the unconscious bodies on the floor, people huddled in corners, and Clarke in the center of the bar threatening two patrol officers. Bartlett stepped in front of the patrol officers and made a show of pulling out his “sap,” a five-inch leather pouch that covered a lead pipe. 

Clarke looked at Bartlett and then looked at his sap. He suddenly sobered up and decided that he didn’t want to fight the big cop. Clarke turned and placed his hands behind his back, allowing one of the patrol officers to place handcuffs on him. Without further resistance, Clarke was taken to the local police station. 

One of the arresting officers called a reporter at the Philadelphia Daily News and told him about Clarke’s arrest. The other news outlets in Philadelphia and across the country picked up the story.        

 

A week later, Nick Stillitano called Clarke to a bar after closing time. With Stillitano were his teenage son, Puglisi, and Stillitano's two constant companions. Anthony Gina was a small man and former welterweight known as “Tony Ball-Peen,” as he hit like a ball-peen hammer. He was known to use the real thing on people after he retired from the ring. 

Stillitano's other constant companion was Dominick “Dom D” Demarko. Demarko was a big, fat former heavyweight who retired after he found out that eating was preferable to fighting in the ring. Both former boxers worked for Stillitano. Also at the meeting were Clarke’s trainer and manager. The men at the table watched Clarke stumble into the closed bar and restaurant. They could see clearly that Clarke had been drinking.

Stillitano, who was seating at a large round table with the other men, pointed to an empty chair and told Clarke to sit.  

“Uppercut, I’ll come right to the point,’ Stillitano said. “It has been decided. You’re going to go down in the fourth round with The Kid.” 

“Shit, fuck,” Clarke responded, slow and angry. “I can beat that punk boy. I’m the heavy favorite. Put your money on me, man.” 

“Uppercut, you’re trouble. It’s all over,” Stillitano said. “You had a good run. We’ll put money down for you. You’ll come out well.” 

“Fuck no, I ain’t gonna do it.” 

Gina stood up and leaned over table, “Listen you big, dumb…” 

Stillitano made a motion for Gina to sit down.   

Clarke looked at Moore and Frangella. “Ain’t you two got nothing to say?” 

Both men sat there still and did not respond. 

“Uppercut, Tony and Dom here were my fighters, and I took care of them,” Stillitano said in a calm voice. “Ask them. I’ll take care of you as well. Do you want to own this bar and restaurant? It’s yours. 

“We can set you up here, have all of your boxing photos on the wall. You can greet the customers and play the tough guy and big shot. You can have a good life. But you’re done as a fighter. You drink. You’re loud. You act crazy. You make newspaper headlines. We can’t have that anymore. So, this is your payday."

"C'mom," Clarke pleaded. "Gives me another chance. I can whip that young boy's ass."

"Uppercut, keep in mind that I have partners. I have bosses," Stillitano responded. "It has been decided. You will lose to The Kid.” 

Clarke hung his head and nodded meekly.

 

The Kid won the fight, as planned, and the mobsters in South Philly and New York cleaned up. Clarke took his last big payday and Stillitano opened the bar and restaurant in the former fighter's name. 

Upton Clarke went on to live a life of alcohol abuse and later became addicted to heroin. Moore found Clarke dead in his apartment. His death was ruled to be a drug overdose. 

Many people in the fight game and the press believed that someone had given Clarke a “hot shot” of heroin and murdered him

'Missing Muster'

 Missing Muster

 By Paul Davis

As we were nearing the end of our WESTPAC (Western Pacific) 1970-1971 cruise, the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk was on station in the Gulf of Tonkin, launching aircraft that performed combat sorties against the North Vietnamese. 

On the deck just below the flight deck, I was shifting through copies of message traffic at my small desk in the Message Processing Center. I came upon a copy of a message to the carrier’s captain that solved a mystery that had haunted the officers and men aboard the carrier since the beginning of the cruise in November of 1970. What happened to Seaman Moore? 

Seaman Martin Moore was one of only a few casualties we had suffered on the cruise. Thankfully, all of pilots had returned safely to the aircraft carrier after bombing raids over North Vietnam. Unlike some of the pilots from our sister carriers, our pilots hadn’t been shot down and killed or taken prisoner. 

As I read the message, I recalled the frantic search for Seaman Moore as we sailed from Hawaii to the Philippines prior to reporting on “Yankee Station” in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam. 

Aboard the ship at sea, sailors were gathered periodically in groups and attendance was taken in what was called “musters.” Musters were held at various times to account for all of the nearly 5,000 crew members and airwing personnel. On the third muster at sea, it was reported that Moore was missing. He had been accounted for in the first two musters held while the carrier was at sea.   

On the assumption that he had fallen accidentally overboard into the sea, aircraft was launched to scan the Pacific Ocean and look for the missing sailor. The ship was also searched, compartment by compartment, looking for the sailor. It was thought that he was perhaps dead or dying somewhere or he was hiding on the carrier to avoid work. 

When two Marines showed up at the Message Processing Center, Chief John Helm would not allow them into the center to search for Moore. Despite the order from the carrier’s captain to search all spaces aboard the ship, the chief stopped the Marines from entering the center as they did not possess the proper clearances to do so. The chief was backed up by LTJG Albert Moony. 

As the Marines, Chief Helm and LTJG Moony had a standoff in the passageway outside of the top-secret center, a call was put into the Marine commanding officer, who in turn called the ship’s captain. Commander Thomas Larkin, an officer on the captain’s staff, showed up along with the Marine commanding officer. 

Chief Helm was adamant. 

“These Marines are not cleared to enter the Message Processing Center,” Helm said. “We can’t allow them in.” 

“The chief is right, Sir,” Moony added. “This is a high security area.”  

Larkin told Helm and Moony that he was cleared to enter the center. He offered to go in and search in lieu of the Marines. Helm, Moony and the Marine commanding officer agreed. Chief Helm punched in the four digits on the security panel that opened the door to the center.    

Larkin entered the Message Processing Center and walked around with Moony and Helm, holding a photo of Moore. He showed the photo to the sailors in the center and asked us if we had seen him. 

I glanced at the photo and noted that Moore looked a lot like Alfred E. Neuman, MAD magazine’s goofy cartoon character who sprouted “What me worry?” 

Moore, like Neuman, had a mop of reddish-brown hair, gap buck teeth, big ears and a silly grin. 

Satisfied that the missing sailor was not in the center, Larkin thanked Helm and Moony and left the center. 

As the captain ordered, the entire aircraft carrier was searched. Moore was not found, so he was reported as missing at sea and presumed dead from drowning.

 

But according to the Naval Investigative Service report I was reading, Moore was alive and well in Honolulu.                       

According to the NIS report, Moore had deserted the ship when the carrier sailed from Pearl Harbor in Hawaii to Subic Bay in the Philippines. 

With images of World War II naval combat in his head, with sailors being killed from Imperial Japanese fire and sailors drowning as ships were sunk, Moore was frightened that he would die aboard the carrier in devastating combat with the North Vietnamese. 

Apparently, he didn’t know that the 7^th Fleet aircraft carriers operated in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam in a battle group. The carrier was not only protected by the ship’s aircraft, the carrier was also protected by destroyers, a submarine and other defenses. The North Vietnamese shot at the carrier pilots flying over North Vietnam, but they didn’t dare try to attack the aircraft carriers at sea. 

Moore did not discuss his great fears with anyone. If he had, they might have told him this. By all accounts, Moore was a dim lad. 

The NIS report stated that as Moore was a loner and did not have much of a social life, so he was able to save a good bit of money. As the Kitty Hawk was preparing to leave Pearl Harbor, Moore failed to report back onboard. Wearing civilian clothes, he checked into a cheap Honolulu hotel and hid out. 

For many months, he ate little, bought little, and spent his days on the Waikiki beach, watching the pretty girls in bikinis. He watched the girls, but he was far too shy to approach them or dare to speak to them. 

Moore had not contacted his family back in Boulder, Colorado. He didn’t know that the Navy had reported his presumed death to his parents, as he had not given a thought to how the Navy would respond to his missing status.  

Moore’s stay in Honolulu ended after two local thugs beat and robbed him. The thugs punched and kicked him and ripped his well-worn shirt. They took the money he had in his shirt pocket. They left him on the beach unconscious. The police took him to a hospital and as he lay unconscious, the police checked his pocket and found his Navy ID. 

The Honolulu police reported the incident to the NIS and the NIS ran his ID and discovered that Moore was listed as missing at sea. When Moore awoke, he saw two NIS special agents at his hospital bedside. They questioned him, and he confessed that he had not reported aboard the Kitty Hawk prior to the ship's sailing out for the Philippines.  

When he was released from the hospital, Moore was taken into custody by the NIS and charged with desertion.  

Who reported Moore present in the first two musters, or why, remained a mystery.  

A Night At The Americano

 A Night at the Americano

 By Paul Davis 

As the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk was departing “Yankee Station” off the coast of North Vietnam in 1971 and sailing towards the U.S. Subic Bay naval base in the Philippines, Salvatore Lorino visited the Radio Communications Division’s berthing compartment. 

I just got of watch in the ship’s Message Processing center and as I entered the compartment, I saw Lorino talking to Mike Hunt, Dino Ingemi and a couple of other radiomen. Lorino jumped up from his chair and hugged me, South Philly style, as he called me his goombah, which in South Philadelphia Italian means a good friend. 

Although Lorino worked in the Deck Division, he often visited me and the other friends he made in my division. The radiomen in my division got a kick out of Lorino. His South Philly swagger, his perpetual lopsided grin, and his rapid, raspy voice amused the sailors. 

I was 18 years old at the time and Lorino was a couple of years older. Lorino, six feet tall, lean, with black hair and rugged features, was a meth dealer on the ship, and he had a couple of radiomen as customers. I had asked him not to deal drugs in my division, but his brief response was "Hey, business is business." 

It was not meth business, called “shabu” in Olongapo, that brought Lorino to the berthing compartment this time. Rather, he wanted to see me. He wanted to ask me to accompany him to the Americano bar in Olongapo when we docked in Subic Bay. 

I said no, as I enjoyed the Starlight bar and the company of Zeny, the beautiful Filipina hostess that I had been seeing. 

Mike Hunt suggested that I should visit the Americano to see what it was like there. 

“Scout it out for us,” Hunt said. “If you liked the bar, we’ll all go there.”  

“I’ll tell Zeny that you got the duty on the ship,” Ingemi said. “I’ll buy Zeny and Marlena drinks. That’ll keep the other guys away from Zeny.” 

The first night in port at Subic Bay, Lorino met me at the enlisted brow, and we walked together down the brow to the pier. Lorino was wearing a black T-shirt, jeans and black cowboy boots. Ever the clotheshorse, I was dressed in a black knit shirt, tan slacks and Italian black loafer shoes.  

We walked out the naval base’s gate, walked across the bridge over “Shit River” and strolled down Magsaysay Drive until we came to the Americano. 

When we stepped inside, I heard the Filipino house band playing country music, imitating a popular American country group. Although the Filipino band was quite good, I wasn’t a fan of country music. I preferred rock and R&B dance music. 

As we stood in the entrance, a hostess rushed up to Lorino and hugged him. 

“This is Jade,” Lorino said. “She’s got a friend for you.” 

Jade took us to a table, and we sat down and ordered San Miquel beer. Jade waved over another hostess, and she introduced me to Tala, a pretty young girl with an oval face, black marble eyes, long dark hair, and a slim figure. Tala sat next to me. 

The Americano’s manager, Maxwell Walker, a heavy-set and nearly bald man in his fifties, came over with the waiter who delivered our drinks. The retired U.S. sailor was known as the “Chief.” 

“How’s my favorite guy?” the Chief asked Lorino. 

Lorino replied that he was great, and he introduced me to the Chief as his South Philly home boy. 

Lorino had told me all about the Chief, the Old Huk, and the other Olongapo criminals he had been dealing with when we were at sea. He was proud of his Olongapo connections, although I cautioned him.     

“Go say hello to the “Old Huk.” You know he loves you,” the Chief said, pointing to a table in the corner where an old, wizened man and a skinny younger man wearing large sunglasses sat. 

Yeah,” Lorino said with his lopsided grin. “He loves the money I bring in.”  

Lorino took my arm and took me over to the table.   

“Hello, my friends. This is Paulie, my goombah from South Philly,” Lorino said to Amada Camama, the Olongapo crime boss known as the Old Huk, and his assistant Jackie Sicat. 

“Paulie’s a writer.” 

Lorino called me a writer based on the three feature articles I wrote for the ship’s newspaper back when we were both in Special Services. I doubt that Lorino actually read the pieces, but he told me he was impressed. Back in South Philly, the only writers he knew were number writers. 

Most guys in the Navy addressed each other by their last name, and a couple of sailors abbreviated Davis and called me “Dav.” But because Lorino and I were both from the same South Philadelphia Italian American neighborhood, Lorino called me by the diminutive of Paul, my first name, like they do in South Philadelphia.  

“Paulie’s also a boxer. I seen him fight, so don’t fuck with him.”  

Amama just nodded, but Sicat lowered his sunglasses and gave me a curious look. 

When we walked away, Lorino told me he built me up to impress his partners in crime. 

“Great.” I said. “Now if something happens, they’ll shoot me first.” 

Lorino laughed.         

After a few drinks, Tala pulled me to the dance floor during a slow number and I danced with her, holding her close to me. Amama and Sicat passed by us as they headed out the door. 

Even with the band playing loudly, we all heard gunshots from outside the door. Lorino was up and running towards the door and I followed in his wake. 

Amama was crouched in the doorway, and Sicat was firing a pistol at two other Filipinos who were firing back from behind a jeepney. Lorino stood in front of Amama to protect him, and I stood off to the side. 

The gunfight on Magsaysay Drive only lasted a minute. Sicat shot one of the gunmen, and he collapsed in the street. The other gunman took off running down the street. 

Amama patted Lorino on the back and then he and Sicat stepped into a jeepney and drove off. Lorino and I went back into the bar. 

The Olongapo police and the American Shore Patrol showed up and began asking questions. The Chief, his bar employees and the bar’s patrons all told the police and the Shore Patrol that they didn’t see or hear anything. 

The dead gunman in the street was carted away by the police. Inside the Americano, the band began playing again and the sailors went back to dancing with the bar girls. 

As we sat back at our table, Lorino in a low hush told me about the street war going on between the Old Huk and another drug gang.         

 “You better break away from these shady characters and the shabu business,” I told Lorino. “You’re out of your league here. This isn’t South Philly. You’re going to end up dead or in jail.” 

Lorino just gave me his lopsided grin and shrugged. 

 

Later that evening, Lorino, Jade, Tala and I took a jeepney to Jade’s house in the Barrio. The house, no better than a shack, was clean and comfortable if rustic. 

Jade gave us a beer and Tala took my hand and led me to a bedroom. 

The next morning Lorino and I headed back to the ship. There were no jeepneys around, so we walked through the Barrio village towards Magsaysay Drive. We came to a rickety small wooden bridge a few feet above a muddy creek. 

At the other end of the bridge was five teenage shoeshine boys. The shoeshine boys were notorious thieves and violent criminals. Lorino swaggered towards them and waved hello. 

One of the shoeshine boys came forward and said, “Hey, Joe! You want a shine?” 

“No,” I replied firmly. 

The shoeshine boy threw a ball of mud onto my left shoe. 

“How about now?” he asked with a grin. The other shoeshine boys laughed. 

My reaction was immediate. 

I punched him in the face, and he dropped to the wooden floor of the bridge. 

We then heard a series of clicks as the other shoeshine boys whipped out Batangas "Butterfly" knives. I pulled out my own pocketknife and we squared off. 

Lorino pulled out a wad of Pesos and tossed them into the muddy creek. 

The shoeshine boys all jumped into the creek to retrieve the Pesos. 

“Look at what that fucking kid did to my shoe,” I said in anger. 

“Come on, let’s go,” Lorino said to me and pulled me away from the bridge. 

We caught a jeepney and we drove back to the naval base’s gate. 

“Gotta love Olongapo,” Lorino said.