1910 was a different world. The kind of world where the air smelled like coal smoke and horses still out numbered cars. I was just a boy back then, around 11 years old, running the streets of Brooklyn with scuffed shoes and a head full of dreams. Or trouble — depending who you asked.
The city. New York. It was alive — bursting at the seams. Immigrants were pouring in by the boatload, elbow to elbow in the tenements — Italians like my folks, Jews from Russia, Irish, Poles. Everyone chasing the American dream and bumping into each other trying to find it. The streets were loud — push carts, pianos playing through open windows, kids shouting, preachers yelling, gangs brawling.
You learned to fight, to hustle, or you got eaten alive. The country was on the edge of change. Teddy Roosevelt had just left the White House, and Taft was in. But regular folks didn't care much who sat in Washington. They cared about putting bread on the table. Factory work was brutal. Long hours, low pay, and no protections.
You could lose a finger and still be expected to finish your shift. Unions were starting to rise, but so was tension. There were strikes, riots, police crackdowns. The rich lived like kings, the poor like rats, and everyone could feel the pressure building. Technology was creeping in. The telephone was still a miracle to most folks, and cars were rare enough to turn heads when one rolled down the block. But everything was moving fast. Planes had just gotten off the ground, literally.
Movies were silent, short, and black and white, but even then they had magic. A nickel got you a ticket to another world for ten minutes, and if you had a nickel, you were lucky.
And then there was the crime. Oh, it was there, believe me. The big gangs were starting to rise. Not the syndicates yet, not the outfit or the commission, but the seeds were there. Street gangs like the Five Points, the Navy Street Boys, Protection rackets, numbers games, crooked cops looking the other way. It was raw, disorganized, and dangerous. A perfect place for a sharp kid to climb if he had the guts.
The Scar. Yeah, that's the one everyone remembers. Right side of my face. Three deep cuts from my ear to my jaw. That's where Scarface comes from, though I hated that name. Only reporters and enemies called me that. My friends, they knew better.
It happened when I was around 18, working as a bouncer at the Harvard Inn, a joint on Coney Island run by Frankie Yale. I was still green, but already known for having a temper. One night, a guy comes in with a girl. Well-dressed, smug type. I make a crack about her looks. Nothing too cruel, just me running my mouth like I did back then. Full of vinegar and pride. Turns out, the guy's name was Frank Galluccio, and he didn't take kindly to some punk insulting his sister. He got up, pulled a knife, and before I could swing, he slashed me across the face. Three quick strokes, blood everywhere. Yale had to break it up. Galluccio later apologized, even offered to make peace, and I didn't hold a grudge. That's not how the game works. You make a mistake. You pay for it. I paid in blood.
The doctor stitched me up, but the damage was done. The scars stayed, carved deep like a reminder. In a way, they helped. They gave me a face people feared. Made me look like someone who'd been through something, who'd do anything. Even if deep down, I still saw the kid from Brooklyn.
Did it bother me? At first, sure. I'd turn my head in photos, keep the left side forward, clean. But after a while, I learned to wear it like armor. People respect scars. They show you've survived. And me? I survived a hell of a lot.
My wife was Irish, born in Brooklyn like me, raised in a working-class Catholic family. Beautiful, strong-willed, quiet in public, but sharp when she spoke. Had that Irish steel under her sweetness. The kind of woman who could stand in a room full of wise guys and still command respect with a glance.
I met her around 1917, when I was still a kid working odd jobs, bouncing for Frankie Yale, trying to make my way. We crossed paths at a party, not some ritzy ballroom thing, just a neighborhood gathering, music, food, dancing. I saw her standing near the punch bowl, light catching her eyes just right. She wasn't loud like the other girls, wasn't trying to impress anyone. That pulled me in. I cracked a joke, probably a bad one. But she laughed. That laugh —it hit me like a right hook.
Now here's the thing. May was older than me by a couple years, 21 to my 18, and her family didn't like me. They knew who I was running with, the life I was leaning toward. But I wasn't going to let her go. She got pregnant not long after we met, and we got married on December 30, 1918, right after our son, Sonny, Albert Francis Capone, was born.
We married in the church, just like our families wanted. Respectable. Clean. Through everything. The rise, the fame, the blood, the prison. May stayed. She didn't like the life, never pretended to. She kept to herself, stayed out of the papers, protected our boy. And when the world turned its back on me, when even my own mind started slipping in Alcatraz, she never did. She visited. She prayed. She waited. She was loyal in a way most people can't even understand. And no matter what else I did — the deals, the guns, the empire, marrying May was the smartest thing I ever did.
When I first got to Chicago in 1919 it felt like stepping onto a whole different kind of street. A bigger, louder, hungrier street. Brooklyn was tough, yeah, but Chicago? Chicago was wide open. You could feel it in the air. Opportunity and danger, thick as the smoke pouring out of the stockyards. It was rough, booming, lawless in a way that made Brooklyn look like a church picnic. You had immigrants from every corner of Europe packed into neighborhoods. Italians, Irish, Poles, Germans, blacks moving up from the south, all fighting for a piece of the city. Fists, knives, guns. Whatever it took.
I came out there at Johnny Torrio's request, working under his uncle, Big Jim Colosimo, who controlled most of the brothels and gambling joints. Colosimo was a big shot, liked the good life, flashy suits, opera music, but the real brains, the real future, was Torrio. Johnny had plans, bigger than whorehouses and gambling dens. He saw that prohibition was coming like a freight train, and with it, the chance to make millions smuggling and selling booze.
The first thing I noticed, everybody was for sale. Cops, aldermen, judges. You didn't have to hide in Chicago. You just had to pay the right man. You had to be smart, quick, loyal to your crew, and ruthless to outsiders. That was the language of the streets there.
I started off doing muscle work, protection, collections, persuading the stubborn— the usual. But I wasn't just swinging fists. I watched. I learned. I saw how Johnny greased the politicians, how he ran operations like a businessman, not just a thug. And I made damn sure people noticed me, how I handled problems without making a mess.. most of the time. How I moved up.
Chicago had blood in its gutters and gold in its pockets, and I knew from the first step off the train, if I played it right, this city was mine for the taking, and it was for a while.
When I first got to Chicago, I didn't start out living like a king, not even close. I stayed low, stayed smart. Early on, I lived in the south side, near the neighborhoods where Torrio operated. Working class areas, mostly immigrant families packed into flats and narrow houses. I blended in. I wasn't there to show off. I was there to learn the city, get a feel for the streets. But once I started climbing, once the money started flowing from the bootlegging and the speakeasies and the gambling halls, I moved the family into better neighborhoods.
First real step up, South Prairie Avenue in a nice respectable place, middle class, trees lining the streets, nothing too flashy. I had May and little Sonny with me, and I wanted to give them a good life, or at least the picture of one. Later on, as I got bigger, we moved out to Cicero, a suburb just outside Chicago. Cicero was perfect for a man like me. Away from the nosy city cops, under the thumb of local politicians, I could control with bribes and promises. We made Cicero our fortress. I wasn't just living there. I ran the place. Mayors, judges, police chiefs, all answering to the outfit, all answering to me.
I also spent plenty of time at places like the Metropole Hotel downtown. A base of operations when I needed to be in the thick of things, close to the action, easy to disappear into the crowd if trouble started brewing. So where did I live in Chicago? Wherever I wanted, but officially, first the South Side, then South Prairie Avenue, then Cicero, my own personal kingdom.
And every step of the way, the house got bigger, the cars fancier, the guards thicker. Because when you're Al Capone, Home isn't just where you sleep. It's where you build your empire.
Big Jim Colosimo and Johnny Torrio, the two men who shaped the early game in Chicago, their stories tell you everything about how this world really works.
Big Jim Colosimo was the original boss when I first came to town. He wasn't a nobody. He was the man back then. Ran most of the city's brothels, gambling houses, and rackets. Dressed sharp, lived large, loved the spotlight. Diamonds, tailored suits, big parties, big opera singer wife. Problem was, Big Jim got comfortable.
When Prohibition hit in 1920, Johnny Torrio sought for what it was. The biggest money train in history. But Big Jim? He didn't want to get into the bootlegging business. Thought it was too risky, too dirty. Said he didn't need the heat. He was already rich. Torrio pushed him to change his mind. Big Jim said no. And in this life, when you say no to opportunity and to your own underboss, you don't stay in the picture long. In May 1920, Big Jim got gunned down in the foyer of his own cafe, Colosimo's Cafe, 2126 South Wabash. Broad daylight, one clean hit. Nobody ever officially pinned it on anyone.
But between you and me? Johnny set it up. Maybe even used me or Frankie Yale's guys to pull the trigger. It was business, not personal. Colosimo was in the way, and Torrio was ready to build something bigger. Now Johnny Torrio, he was smarter. After Big Jim was out of the way, Johnny took the throne and expanded everything, brothels, gambling, and now bootlegging on a massive scale. He made deals with other gangs — Irish, Polish, Jewish, tried to keep peace while everybody got rich. He ran it like a businessman, not a bloodthirsty thug. I learned more from Torrio than anybody else alive. But in 1925, after a few bloody wars with rivals like the Northside Gang, and after getting shot multiple times in an assassination attempt outside his home, Johnny got the message. It was time to retire. He survived the hit. Barely. When he got out of the hospital, he packed up, handed the whole Chicago empire over to me and moved back east. Lived quiet, invested his money, stayed out of the papers.
Johnny died decades later in 1957 from a heart attack. Not a bullet, not a prison cell. That's how smart he was. Big Jim, flashy, stubborn, dead at 42. Johnny Torrio, smooth, patient, lived to old age. Two paths. One lesson. In our world, you either adapt or you get buried.
How did I land in Alcatraz? Simple. They wanted to break me. Let's back up a little. After they nailed me on income tax evasion in 1931, I got sentenced to 11 years in federal prison. They sent me first to Atlanta Federal Penitentiary in 1932. Atlanta wasn't a country club, but let's just say, if you had money, if you knew how to grease the right palms, you could make life there a little easier. Better food, better work assignments, some breathing room. I had pulled, even inside. Problem was, the papers found out. The public found out. They didn't like the idea of Al Capone, the public enemy number one, living easy behind bars while they were scraping through the Depression. The politicians? They needed to show that nobody was above the law, not even me. So in 1934, without much warning, the Bureau of Prisons decided to make an example out of me. They yanked me out of Atlanta and slapped me on a prison train under heavy guard.
Destination. Alcatraz. The Rock. The government's brand new fortress in the middle of San Francisco Bay. Built to house the worst of the worst. The guys they didn't trust anywhere else. Alcatraz was different. No favors, no payoffs, no sweet-talking guards, no influence. They stripped you of your name. You were just a number. Mine was 85AZ. Meals were silent. Cells were tiny, cold, lonely. And the wind off that bay? It howled all night, like a reminder that escape wasn't just impossible. It was unthinkable. And if that wasn't enough, the syphilis I caught when I was a younger man started eating away at my brain while I was locked up. Slowly, piece by piece, I slipped.
The man who ruled Chicago was reduced to a prisoner fumbling through simple tasks, picking at a banjo to pass the time. I practiced every day. It gave me something to focus on, a rhythm, a shape to the time. I learned by ear, slow, and stubborn. No one taught me, and no one needed to.
I wasn't trying to impress. I was trying to remember who I was before the world hardened me. Music didn't judge. It didn't ask questions about blood or business. It just waited to be played. So what was my relationship to music? It was the only thing in my life that didn't want something from me. Not fear, not loyalty, not money, just my attention. And in return, it gave me peace, even if only for a few minutes at a time. I wasn't no professional. Don't go picturing me on stage in a suit. But I got decent, played with feeling. I'd sit in my cell after hours plucking out old folk tunes, bits of blues, even some Italian melodies I remembered from my mother humming in the kitchen.
Songs like Home on the Range. Soft, slow, made me think about a freedom I never had. Swanee River. Sad and sweet, full of longing, like the past reaching out. You Are My Sunshine. When I wanted something light to chase away the dark.
And every now and then I'd try to pick out Neapolitan love songs, the kind my folks played when I was a kid, just to hear my own blood sing again. But the song that stayed with me, the one that dug the deepest into my chest, was Rose of Picardy. It wasn't loud. It wasn't about power or pride. It was about love that lingers, even when time, war, and distance tear everything else away.
I wasn't playing for applause. I played to remember who I used to be before the headlines, before the blood. Music reminded me that I wasn't born a gangster. I became one. And in those quiet moments, plucking strings with fingers that used to grip pistols, I felt not innocent, but alive. So yeah I could play. Not Carnegie Hall good, but good enough to make a prison cell feel like a back porch in Brooklyn. And when you're locked in a cage that means more than gold.
In Alcatraz nothing came easy. You didn't get favors for your name you had to prove yourself like everyone else and I did. I eventually begged the warden for permission to form a small band. And to his credit, the warden allowed it under strict conditions. We called ourselves unofficially the Rock Islanders.
The group had about five or six of us. I played the banjo and mandola, alongside a saxophone, clarinet, guitar, drums, and sometimes piano. We weren't just passing time. We were trying to remember what it felt like to be men again, not numbers. We performed on Sundays during chapel services. Nothing fancy.
Just quiet music in a stone room filled with silence. For a few moments, the other inmates weren't convicts and we weren't criminals. We were just human beings listening to something honest. Playing with other inmates, guys I didn't talk to on the tier, guys who'd killed, stolen, betrayed.
We came together for one thing that didn't belong to the past or the crime. Sound. Harmony, rhythm, no lies, no schemes, just the truth that comes from strings and breath and beat. We weren't saints. Hell, most of us weren't even decent. But in those moments, when the chapel filled with music instead of silence, it felt like the bars faded just a little. We weren't trying to escape the island. We were trying to escape ourselves.
So how did I feel? Grateful. Grateful for every note, every broken melody, every stolen second of peace. Because when the music started, I wasn't Al Capone the gangster. I was just a man, still capable of beauty.
I was born Catholic, baptized confirmed, the whole thing. My mother, Teresa, made sure of that. She didn't miss mass. She didn't miss a prayer. In our house in Brooklyn, the church was a presence. The crucifix on the wall, the smell of incense still clinging to our Sunday coats, the way my mother muttered prayers under her breath while cooking or cleaning. It was the air we breathed growing up. You didn't question it. It was part of who you were, like your blood.
Now was I a good Catholic? Not by a long shot. I bent a lot of rules. Broke even more. I lived by a code. Loyalty, family, respect. But it wasn't always the church's code. I ran saloons. I sold liquor during prohibition. I ordered hits when business needed it. I knew the difference between right and wrong. But in my world, sometimes wrong paid the rent. Still, the church never left me. I always considered myself a believer.
I donated a lot of money to Catholic charities, to churches, to hospitals. Quietly. I wasn't trying to buy forgiveness. I guess deep down, I wanted to stay connected to something pure. Something bigger than me. Even when I was doing the devil's work by day, I still made the sign of the cross at night. I still taught my son to pray. I still asked God for protection. for my family, for myself.
When I got locked up, first in Atlanta, then Alcatraz, the faith I grew up with came back stronger. There's something about a prison cell that strips you down to what you really are. When the lights went out, when the cold crawled up through the floor, I'd lie there whispering Hail Marys into the dark. Not bargaining. Not begging. Just trying to remember who I was before the streets hardened me.
So how close was I to the Catholic religion? Close enough to never turn my back on it. Far enough that I always knew if there's a final judgment. I got a lot of explaining to do.
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