A Bandit's Tale

by Deborah Hopkinson

  —

  We have now come to the most dangerous but also the most important part of my plan. Because I knew Jacob Riis was right: Without physical evidence, no one would see—or believe.

  Balancing the flash gun against a wall, I hid myself at the corner in the shadows near 45 Crosby Street. I was relying on the fact that Luigi never got back to the den early.

  I didn’t have to wait long. He was alone, dragging his bare feet, probably the last boy in. I could tell by the hopeless set of his shoulders that he hadn’t gotten his full dollar.

  I reached out and pulled him into my corner.

  “Rocco! You came back.”

  “I told you I would, Luigi. And I need you to do something that might be very hard for you,” I whispered urgently. “But Marco’s life depends on it. Yours too. Will you help me?”

  Luigi nodded. “I will! You’ve always helped me, Rocco.”

  “I…I’m afraid I haven’t been very nice to you, Luigi. I’m sorry.”

  “You gave me a whole dollar last time we met,” Luigi said simply, as if that made up for all the times I’d ignored Marco and him.

  I gave him another dollar and told him my plan. I did another thing too: I told Luigi exactly where to find my secret stash under the brick in the alley. It might be the last help I could give him.

  —

  I waited alone for an hour, until I was sure everyone in the rear part of 45 Crosby Street had gone to sleep. No flicker of a gas lamp was visible when I slipped around to the back. I flicked a tiny pebble at a cellar window, then went to stand silently by the door.

  I wished the windows to the cellar were large enough to fit me and the camera, but they were much too small. That meant I had to rely on the exhausted Luigi to stay awake and be brave enough to creep up the stairs and unlock the door for me from the inside. And that would be the hardest part for little Luigi—not falling asleep after a long day on the streets.

  I waited—and waited. Just as I was about to throw another pebble, I heard a slight sound and a fumbling.

  Luigi opened the door. We smiled at one another, like brothers with our matching scars.

  We tiptoed down the cellar steps. It was exactly as I remembered—the damp, cold walls, the awful smell of unwashed bodies and grime, the chill that seeped into our bones.

  For a minute, I felt a ball of panic rise up within me. What would happen if I got caught? Not only would Mr. Riis lose his valuable equipment, but I’d be beaten and locked in here. I couldn’t count on being able to escape again.

  “Grazie, now lie down and close your eyes. Be very still and don’t make a sound, no matter what,” I told Luigi in a whisper.

  I set up the tripod at the foot of the stairs so I could leave quickly. In the dim light of the cellar windows, I could see the boys huddled together on the straw. Still no blankets. My hands were shaking as I sprinkled the powder and got out the matches. I lined up the shot just as carefully as I’d seen Mr. Riis do.

  He had taken photographs of boys sleeping before, curled up together in the corners of alleys, curled up around barrels or steam vents or stairs.

  This, though, was a picture he’d never have been able to get. No padrone would have let him in. Rooms like this were unknown to any outsider. I felt sure even other immigrants from Italy—like the man with the sausage I’d met that first day—had no idea just how bad things were here.

  I’d found out by working with Mr. Riis that many immigrants lived in terrible poverty, in awful tenement buildings that landlords couldn’t be bothered to fix. But these boys didn’t go hungry because their whole family was struggling to eke out a living. These boys went hungry because their master didn’t want to spend an extra penny on food for them.

  It was wrong. And it needed to be stopped, just the way Mr. Bergh and Mary had made the people get off that crowded omnibus.

  Only someone who knew what this life was like and that this den existed could take this shot. This was my picture.

  What would the boys do when their room suddenly filled with light for a few seconds? I didn’t know. I could only hope most were so tired the light would become part of their dreams.

  Miraculously, it worked. A few boys stirred and moaned when the flash lit up the room. In one corner, I heard a rat squeak in dismay and scuttle away. I packed up quickly. Before I left, I tucked my shoes under Luigi, who looked up at me sleepily with a faint smile. I took off my cap and put it on Marco’s dark hair.

  Grabbing the equipment, with the cold, filthy floor under my bare feet, I climbed the stairs to the street.

  —

  I hung in the shadows of an alleyway until the street outside the reporters’ office was empty. Then I ran over, unlocked the door, and made my way in, bulky equipment and all. A gas lamp on the street gave some light, and I carefully put everything back where Mr. Riis kept it.

  Mr. Riis is probably so angry and disappointed in me because he came back and found his equipment gone. I’m sure he thinks I stole everything, I thought. But that couldn’t be helped. Tomorrow he would find out why.

  I sat in Mr. Riis’s chair. There was a pencil and a reporter’s notebook on the desk and just enough light to see. I concentrated hard as I wrote my first letter in English.

  Dear Mr. Riis and Max,

  I am sorry I took the camera.

  Here is a glass plate. I hope the picture will come out.

  The picture shows a secret place.

  I stopped to shake my wrist. Holding the pencil so hard made my hand hurt.

  I thought a minute. Mr. Riis kept careful records of where he took pictures, and often these became the captions for his photographs. The first one I helped him with was called, simply, Elizabeth Street Station—Women Lodgers.

  What should this one be named? Bending to the paper again, I kept writing.

  I think a good title for the picture would be: Child Den, 45 Crosby Street, where a padrone keeps boy street musicians like slaves.

  Then I finished my letter this way:

  I am sorry I lied about everything. I am going to try to make it right.

  Rocco

  —

  I left the office without being seen. I’d lost track of time, but thought it must be close to midnight. I shivered. I didn’t have a jacket. It was only early April, and a chill breeze caught at my shirt. I felt a few drops of rain. A storm was coming.

  “I just hope it’s not another blizzard,” I mumbled to myself. I wasn’t sure I had the courage to go ahead with the rest of my plan if it involved snow.

  I was glad for the darkness, though it didn’t mean I was out of danger. I turned my steps back toward Broadway. I’d head uptown now. I could follow Broadway for blocks and blocks. It might take me an hour of walking to get to Central Park, but even with bare feet, nothing would be as hard as the day I’d escaped from Randall’s Island.

  Then I came around a corner and walked straight into the Prince of Bandits’ Roost.

  CHAPTER 30

  What I owe the donkey; Saint Rocco and me

  Now, as you will recall from the beginning of this tale, I blame the start of my troubles on that bad-tempered donkey. But if there’s one thing I’ve found in all my muddled wanderings, it’s that we learn from our misfortunes just as much as from the good things that happen to us.

  I cannot tell you exactly why, at this crucial moment, I should suddenly have thought about Old Biter again. Maybe it happened because as soon as Tony saw me, he grabbed hold of my left ear.

  “Ouch!” I cried.

  And at that moment, I had what you might call an insight into what had happened so long ago. And I realized that perhaps everything hadn’t been the donkey’s fault. I, too, was to blame.

  You see, there are some things about donkey behavior that are well known. Donkeys will not back down if they are threatened. Nor do they like their ears being mishandled. After all, those ears are rather long. No wonder they’re sensitive.

  So, like the rest of us, donkeys get gr
umpy when they’re annoyed. And when Old Biter got grumpy, he did what came most natural to him: he bit.

  And what had I done that night in the landlord’s yard? Impatient with the stubborn beast, I had thoughtlessly (and stupidly) pulled on Old Biter’s ear to get him to move.

  I deserved what I got: a stern warning—and a firm, hard bite.

  —

  Now Tony pushed me against a building and pulled my ear again.

  “You little liar. We had a deal. You were going to get us the blacksmith’s cash,” he hissed.

  He pinched my ear hard. “That’s what you promised.”

  I gulped. How am I going to get out of this?

  “Well, what do you have to say for yourself, Rocco?” Tony’s mouth was so close I could see his jagged tooth. “Have you forgotten all those days when I fed you, all the things that I taught you? I thought you were one of us.”

  I was silent. I wasn’t trying to be obstinate on purpose. I just had no idea what to say. I had no idea what to do.

  “I thought you could be trusted,” Tony said. “I was wrong about you, Rocco.”

  The words sounded familiar. Signor Ferri had said much the same thing.

  “The thing is, Tony,” I said at last, swallowing hard, “I never really was a pickpocket.”

  —

  Yes, I had seen Signor Ferri’s jacket hanging that night, his pocket bulging with cash. But I had passed it by. And then I had heard that noise.

  It was Rosa, fumbling with the landlord’s jacket.

  “What are you doing?”

  She turned around, her face desperate. Signor Ferri’s money pouch was in her hand.

  Her dark eyes fixed on mine. “Rocco, please.”

  We stood still.

  Then, and I swear this is absolutely true, I felt a gentle nudge, pushing me toward Rosa.

  I turned my head, astonished, but Old Biter appeared to be innocently dipping his head to pick up a mouthful of hay.

  “Take the money—but give me the pouch. And go,” I whispered then, holding out my hand and moving toward her. “I’ll take the blame. You have my word: I will tell no one.”

  And I never had, even when my act brought shame to Papa, even when it led to my banishment. Like Saint Rocco, I allowed myself to be falsely accused.

  Signor Ferri was so enraged that I’d taken his money that he forgot about Rosa and her mother. He never connected the theft to her.

  And I made sure it was easy to blame me. I let myself be discovered the next day holding the evidence: the empty pouch.

  Looking back, I wonder if I could have done it differently. Maybe, if my heart had been as strong as Mary’s, I could have stood up to him. I could have raised my voice. I could have changed things.

  I would try to change them now.

  —

  Tony leaned over and pinched my ear even harder.

  I cried out. And then, suddenly as angry as my old friend had been, I reacted. I bit Tony on his arm so hard he screeched and stumbled back in pain. He reached up to punch me, but I was already free, ducking and pushing past him as hard as I could go.

  I’d lost track of how many times I had run today—of how long I’d been running from my padrone, from the House of Refuge, from the pickpockets I once knew, from the burden of the secret I had promised to keep for Rosa.

  The only people I wasn’t running away from now were the meddlers of this great city.

  This time I was running toward them.

  CHAPTER 31

  In which, at last, I put everything right and the history approaches its end

  By the time I got to Central Park, it had begun to rain hard. I pushed as far as I could under a bush—but there wasn’t much shelter. Trees and shrubs were just beginning to leaf out. I shivered. I was already missing Tim’s cot in the stable.

  As I’d trudged along, block by block, I’d repeated the same words: “The other half. The other half.”

  Jacob Riis had explained his work through an old saying: “One half of the world doesn’t know how the other half lives.”

  He wanted to change that. And now, so did I. The other half of the world needed to see—to know about boys like Luigi, Marco, Giuseppe, and the rest. Neighbors in the tenements tried to help one another, I knew that. But so many were struggling just to live and feed their own families. As the man with the sausage had warned me that first day, no one in Little Italy would question the authority of a padrone like Signor Ancarola, just as no one in Calvello had questioned Signor Ferri.

  But maybe I could bring the story outside Crosby Street and into the pages of the newspapers. Maybe Max and Mr. Riis would tell the story of a runaway and use my photograph so people could see how boys like Luigi and Marco lived. It was the only way I could think of to try to make things right—even though it meant giving up my freedom.

  No. To get people to pay attention, I had to bring the story of boys like Luigi and Marco (and me) to the outside world, just the way Jacob Riis was trying to do. That was why I had come to Central Park as a runaway, and why I intended to stay here until someone found me.

  And maybe, just maybe, the plight of one lone, bedraggled boy might be—what was the word I’d heard Max use sometimes? Newsworthy. It might be worthy of a story, and capture people’s attention in a way that crowds of poor children did not.

  I was doing this the hard way, I knew. I could have told Max and Mr. Riis the truth about my life and asked them to write the story, and use the picture I took with it. Why didn’t I? I was embarrassed. I was ashamed too, about how long I had lied to them and to Mary and her father.

  No, it was time to start again from the beginning and atone for all the wrong I had done. I had deceived Officer Reilly and run away. I had stolen from people. I had let Luigi and Marco down. I wanted to do something right—for Papa and Mama, and Saint Rocco. And me.

  There was something else too.

  In my heart, I knew this had to be a real story. I hoped (and it was just a hope) that whoever did find me would be shocked—and would want to speak out and tell the world. I wanted to show people the truth the same way Mary and Mr. Bergh had tried to get riders to see how horses suffered in a storm.

  And then once the story broke, I knew Max and Mr. Riis would keep on writing, would publish the picture I had taken, and would try to make it right.

  That, at least, was my plan.

  By the second day, I was hungry and very thirsty. I wandered up and down the park’s pathways, not trying to hide myself from passersby. It seemed strange that after working so hard to get free from the House of Refuge, now I was waiting to be caught.

  Then, the next morning, I woke to see a man with a shovel peering at me as I lay curled up under a bush. I was covered with dirt. I hadn’t slept much because of the cold drizzle.

  “Hello there. Don’t be scared,” said the man in a soft voice, as if he was talking to a skittish colt.

  I stared at him and shivered.

  “Um…do you speak English, boy?” He reached into a knapsack and held out a roll. I grabbed it with both hands and tore into it hungrily. I didn’t have to fake being hungry.

  “Sì, I speak English. I ran away from a bad padrone,” I said hoarsely. “I am a street musician. I am made to play a triangle for money. If I don’t get a dollar, I am beaten.”

  I saw the horror on his face.

  “Help me, please. I am scared to go back to Forty-Five Crosby Street.”

  “I’ll take you to my boss,” said the man. “He’ll know what to do.”

  That was the beginning. As I would later learn, in the next few days, the story broke in all the newspapers. An ambitious young reporter named Max Fischel, with the help of the increasingly well-known photojournalist Jacob Riis, wrote of boys kept like slaves in a cellar at 45 Crosby Street. There was even a horrifying photograph to accompany the story—a photograph that was, I might add, in perfect focus.

  The New York Times picked it up under the headline CHILDREN AS SLAVES. In part, the
article told how “young Italian children are now suffering the greatest cruelties at the hands of task-masters, or owners, who…cruelly and maliciously beat and ill-treat them daily should they not bring home enough money every night to satisfy their greed.”

  The paper described how the only food served was a three-inch square of black bread and how the children were sent out in all weather. Each child was told “not to come home without having at least a dollar to give the padrone, and if he was not successful enough to be able to hand over so much, after staying out until sometimes after midnight, he was cruelly beaten and tortured to make him say if he had spent any pennies during the day.”

  —

  Of course, there was a second part of the story, which didn’t make the newspaper. Once the authorities had my name, it didn’t take them long to figure out I wasn’t just an innocent street musician.

  Officer Reilly showed up to escort me back to the House of Refuge. He shook his head when he saw me. “I should be mad as a hornet at you, young Rocco. But to be honest, I’m just glad to see you’re alive.”

  “I’m sorry, Officer Reilly. I really am.”

  He patted my shoulder and handed me a lemon drop. “Come on. I’ve got the launch waiting. And wasn’t that blizzard something? You can tell me all about your adventures on the way back.”

  —

  One Sunday a couple of weeks later, I got word that I had two visitors. I was led to the visitors’ room at the House of Refuge to find Max and Mary waiting for me.

  It was all I could do not to cry. I was too embarrassed to look them in the eye. We sat awkwardly in chairs with a table between us.

  “Mary’s father wanted to join us, but he’s home catching up with things. And Mr. Riis is home with his family. But they both send their best wishes,” began Max. “They’ll be up to see you soon. Mr. Hallanan says to tell you he didn’t realize how much work you were doing until you disappeared.”

  “Thanks.” I snuck a glance at Mary, but she wasn’t smiling.