“IT’S SIMPLE,” MICHAEL said.
“You always say it’s simple,” Tommy said. “Then we get there and it ain’t so simple.”
“It’s a new store,” Michael explained. “Nobody knows us. We walk in, take what we need, and walk out.”
“What do they have?” John demanded to know.
“At least fifty different titles,” Michael said. “Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman, you name it. Just waiting for us.”
“How many work the store?” I asked.
“Two, usually,” Michael said. “Never more than three.”
“When?”
“Afternoon’s the best time.”
“You sure?”
“Follow the plan,” Michael said, looking at us. “It’ll work if we just follow the plan.”
My friends and I were thieves who stole more for fun than profit. We took what we felt we needed but could not afford to buy. We never went to our parents for money, never borrowed from anyone, and never walked into a situation armed.
We hit candy stores for their comic books, toy stores for games, supermarkets for gum. And we were good at it. The few times we were caught, we either talked, fought, or cried our way out of trouble. We knew that nobody was going to send a kid to jail for rounding out a Classics Illustrated collection.
We kept our escapades from our parents. Though most of them were involved in small-time scams of their own, none would have been pleased to know their children were chasing fast on their heels. Still, Thou shalt not steal carried little weight in Hell’s Kitchen. The neighborhood was a training ground for young criminals and had been throughout most of its history.
At the turn of the century, child thieves were called street sparrows. Many were orphaned, all were desperate. Bands of pickpockets roamed the streets, looking for a hook carrying a week’s pay in his wallet. A few of the children were even brazen enough to hire themselves out as assassins, willing to kill for fees as low as three dollars. If captured, no matter how large or small their crimes, punishment was severe. The New York State prison system had little patience for street hoodlums of any age, and often sentenced them to long stretches in upstate hellholes. The children of the streets accepted the sentences, powerless to do otherwise. If they survived their time behind bars, they came out deadlier than when they entered, schooled by older lawbreakers. If one happened to die while in custody, he became just another name on a crowded blotter.
The Russell Sage Foundation was formed in the early 1900s to study the living conditions of the children of Hell’s Kitchen and determine if those conditions led to crime. After months surrounded by squalor and rampant despair, the social workers walked away with a hardened view. In one report, cited in Richard O’Connor’s excellent 1958 history of the neighborhood, the plight of a Hell’s Kitchen child was summed up in this manner: “The district is a spider’s web. Of those who come to it, few ever leave. Now and then a boy is taken to the country or a family moves to the Bronx. Usually those who live here find they cannot get out…. The philosophy of the West Side youngster is practical and not speculative. Otherwise he could not fail to notice that the world in general, from the mother who bundles him out of an overcrowded tenement, to the grown-ups in the street playground where most of his time is spent, seem to think him very much in the way…. Everything he does seems to be against the law. If he plays ball he is endangering property. If he plays marbles or pitches pennies he is obstructing the sidewalk. Street fighting is assault and a boy guilty of none of these things may be loitering. In other words, he finds that property or its representatives are great obstacles between him and his pleasures in the street.”
Hell’s Kitchen had changed physically in the decades since the Russell Sage Commission issued its report. Gone were the elevated trains, the boxcars filled with cattle heading for the Midwest that rumbled past tenement windows. The cows were still shipped by rail to slaughter, only now they traveled on flat rails. The streets were no longer strewn with garbage, but, considering the poverty of the area, clean and well kept. Graffiti was nonexistent and the storefronts and stoops of the apartment buildings were washed down regularly by the building superintendents.
The apartments were painted, by law, every three years, each room the same shade of white. It was not only the cheapest color; many thought the thick, oil-based mixture killed roach eggs and helped drive out rodents. For new occupants, the first three months in an apartment were free, an incentive offered by landlords to attract tenants to unattractive dwellings. It was not an unusual occurrence, therefore, for families to move as often as four times in a single year, sometimes on the same street, in order to live without ever paying rent.
Few could afford phones in their apartments, and so they lined up outside candy stores and bars. If someone did have a phone, the odds were he was either a bookie or a loan shark. No one else had that kind of money or needed to use the phone that often.
There was an order to life in Hell’s Kitchen, one that remained undisturbed by the crime, murder, and madness. A sense of safety existed on those streets and in our apartments despite a diet of gang battles, contract killings, and domestic strife. There was a comfort zone to the violence, an acceptance of it as part of daily life, a lethal legacy passed from one generation to the next.
Money was tight, but there were certain barriers we wouldn’t cross. “We followed the neighborhood rules,” Tommy said one late night. “We stayed away from drugs, didn’t touch booze, and carried no guns. We weren’t interested in that stuff anyway. We didn’t need a gun to get a comic book or pinch a meal in a restaurant. We were smarter than guys who pulled stickups. Maybe we didn’t have the kind of pocket money they did, but we didn’t have to duck into a hallway whenever a cop car passed by, either.”
But we were thieves nonetheless, and working for King Benny emboldened our thievery.
Time spent in the company of made men, their allegiance sworn to a life of crime, led to a desire to flex our own criminal muscles. Where once we were content to walk out of a store with a handful of Green Hornets, we now felt the need to empty entire racks, from Sgt. Rock to the Fantastic Four.
In the neighborhood, the gaze on us intensified with each small job we pulled. The old-line hoods would glance our way, an acknowledged nod toward a new generation, as active in their recruiting methods as any Ivy League headhunter. We were the promise, the raw rookies who could one day hold the neighborhood together, score the deals, and keep the illegal traffic moving.
There were many roads a young man could travel on the streets of Hell’s Kitchen. None promised great rewards. The majority turned into dead ends.
Career criminal was simply one such option.
MICHAEL WAS THE first one in the candy store.
I followed soon after. Tommy and John—Butter and the Count—waited outside, close to the front door. The entry was curved and narrow, a hardwood candy stand running down the length of the counter. Two men worked the place, both middle-aged, both smoking. A small electric fan, pennant strips attached to the rim, whirred in a side corner.
Michael walked to the comic book racks, reached for a Batman, and handed it to me.
“Read that one yet?” he asked.
“No,” I said, looking over my shoulder at the two men cutting open candy cartons. “It’s new.”
“Want it?”
“Not today,” I said.
“What is it, Shakes?” Michael asked, racking back the Batman.
“Let’s not do this,” I said, lowering my voice to a whisper.
“Why not?”
“It just doesn’t feel right.”
“We’re here now,” Michael said.
“And we can leave now.”
“Don’t crap on me now, Shakes. We can do this. You and me.”
“It feels different this time,” I said.
“It feels different every time,” Michael said.
“You sure?” I asked.
“I’m sure,” Michael said.
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I hesitated, then I nodded my compliance. “Make your move,” I said.
Michael pulled three comic books from a top rack, well aware that the two men were staring in his direction. I took four Sgt. Rock comics from a lower shelf, put them under my right arm, and followed Michael farther down the aisle. Behind me, one of the men lifted the countertop and began to walk toward us. He was tall and thin, thick dark hair sitting in clumps on the sides of his head and a large, circular scar resting below his left eye. He had a small iron pipe in one hand.
Tommy and John came into the store, pushing and shoving as per the plan. The man behind the counter stared at them between puffs on a fresh cigarette.
“No trouble. No trouble in here,” he said, his voice thick with a foreign accent, his cigarette filter clenched between stained teeth.
“I don’t want trouble,” John said to him, pushing Tommy against the newspaper trays. “I want candy.”
“That’s the last time you push me,” Tommy said, picking up a paper and throwing it at John.
“Stop it!” the man behind the counter shouted. “Outside. You like a fight? Go outside.”
The thin man facing us turned and walked away, moving toward Tommy and John and the front of the store. He walked slowly, slapping the base of the pipe against the palm of his hand.
“Get out, punks,” the man said, giving John’s shoulder a shove. “Get out!”
John turned and faced the store owner. Angrily, he put both hands on the man’s shirtfront and pushed him back.
“Don’t touch me,” he said, watching the man tumble backward, the pipe falling on top of discarded editions of the New York Post.
Things immediately got out of hand. The man jumped to his feet, his face red with embarrassment, and rushed John, catching him around the chest and dropping him to the ground. He straddled John’s upper body and gripped his face with one hand while the other formed a fist.
Tommy ran up from behind. He threw one arm around the man’s throat and shoved a knee into the base of his spine.
Michael and I made our way to the front of the store, the sides of our jackets filled with dozens of comic books. We kept our eyes on the man behind the counter, watching for him to make a move. He never looked our way, frozen by the sight of his partner in a scrap with two boys.
John now freed one arm and landed two short blows to the man’s stomach. Tommy scored with a steady torrent on the side of the man’s head, causing his ear and temple to flush. The man fell to one side, tumbling off John, the bulk of his weight resting against the candy counter. One arm was dangling, free, inches from the iron pipe he had moments earlier dropped.
“We ain’t ever comin’ here again,” John said, back on his feet, shouting at the man behind the counter. He reached over, picked up a copy of the Daily News, and threw it down on the head of his fallen enemy.
Michael and I moved past Tommy, John, and the two men and walked out of the store, our stolen gains snug in their place.
John turned and followed us out. That left Tommy alone with the two men.
And before any of us knew what was happening, the man on the ground grabbed the iron pipe and came to his feet swinging, mouth twisted in rage.
“I kill you, punk!” he shouted. “I kill you!”
The blows landed in rapid succession.
The first blow glanced off Tommy’s shoulder. The second found a spot above his right eye, drawing blood. The third landed on the hard edge of Tommy’s left wrist, the bone immediately giving way.
Tommy, his knees buckling from the pain, inched his way out of the store. A fourth shot caught him on the back of the neck, sending him crashing against the door and out to the street. Tommy fell to the cement, his eyes lifeless, his body limp.
John was the first to reach his side. “I think he killed him,” he said, staring up at me and Michael.
“Then he’s gonna have to kill us too,” Michael said.
“I no fight you,” the man with the pipe said, his anger receding, his arms by his sides. “No problem with you. No problem!”
“Yeah you do,” Michael said as he nudged his way forward. “Your only problem is with me.”
Michael opened the front of his blue denim jacket and reached a hand into one of the inside sleeves. He pulled out four folded, stolen comic books and dropped them to the ground. Then he yanked four more books from his other sleeve. When he reached both hands into the back of his jeans and took out three more, dropping them all at his feet, the man moved toward him, stepping over Tommy’s body.
“I kill all of you,” he said with teeth clenched.
“You’re gonna have to,” Michael said, balling his hands into fists, an arm’s length from the pipe.
“This is bad,” I remember saying. “This is so bad.”
The man left his feet and swung the pipe, missing Michael’s head by inches.
My eye caught John, his arms around Tommy, sweat streaking down his forehead, concern etched on his face. As a crowd collected, I looked at the faces surrounding me, the men focused on the action, most of them smoking, a few offering Michael free advice.
No one ever broke up a fight on the streets of Hell’s Kitchen, no matter who the combatants were, regardless of the weapons used. A street fight was a respected ritual and no one dared step in.
Fights took place for any number of reasons, from unpaid debts to three-way love affairs gone sour, but the overwhelming majority occurred because they were the fastest and easiest way to settle a dispute.
Great street fights were talked about in the same nostalgic manner in which old boxers were recalled. The more street fights somebody had, the higher the esteem in which he was held.
Short of murder, nothing proved manhood more.
Michael swung a sharp right and missed, grunting loudly as the punch sailed over the man’s head. A fast follow-up left also failed. Large sweat circles formed on the back of his jacket and under both arms. As the crowd drew closer, the man moved to narrow the gap between the two. He took three steps forward, flashing the pipe, holding it low, squinting against the overhead sun, staring at Michael’s face.
He swung the pipe, short, fast, and hard, landing one across Michael’s hip. A second blow caught him on the side of the face. Another quick swing, this one grazing Michael’s jaw, sent him backward, hands reaching for the ground, his head just missing the side of a fire hydrant.
The man walked to where Michael lay and raised the pipe over his head.
“You no steal from me again,” he said in a voice meant for everyone to hear. “Nobody steal from me again.”
Michael’s arms hugged the hydrant, his eyes cloudy, thin streams of blood streaking down his lips. John stood next to Tommy, his face emptied of all emotion other than fear. Butter still had his back to the candy store wall. There were tears running down his face.
I couldn’t move. I stood there, shivering in the afternoon sun, my legs heavy and numb, my stomach queasy, looking down at the beaten body of my best friend.
The crowd sensed a finish and closed the circle even tighter, breaking off any chance of a quick escape.
The street wanted someone to die.
“Drop the pipe!”
The voice came out of the shadows.
It was confident and webbed with the threat of violence. The man with the iron pipe took two steps back when he heard it, panic invading his macho veneer. I turned my head and saw King Benny standing there, a cup of espresso in one hand, a copy of Il Progresso in the other. He was flanked by two men, dressed in black, arms at their sides.
“Didn’t hear me?” King Benny asked.
“Yes,” the man said, his voice breaking. “I hear.”
“Then do it,” King Benny said.
The pipe fell to the ground, loud enough to echo.
“You wanna finish this?” King Benny asked, looking down at Michael.
“Yeah,” Michael said, pulling himself up against the side of the hydrant. “I do.”
“Then hurry,” King Benny said. “It’s gettin’ late.”
Michael was up on shaky legs. He turned and faced his opponent.
“Fight me,” Michael said to him.
“No,” the man said, his eyes on King Benny.
Michael charged the man, both of them falling to the ground, arms and legs in full swing. He landed two hard punches against the side of the man’s head and then threw a crushing elbow to the base of his nose.
The man swung once and missed, a steamless punch thrown more in frustration than anger. Michael answered with two more closed blows to the face, the second drawing blood. The men in the crowd whistled and applauded each landed punch.
“Kid’s got him now,” a fat man in an oil-stained work shirt said. “Couple more, the bastard’ll be done for good.”
“Too bad he ain’t got a knife,” a short man lighting a pipe said. “He could cut him for sure.”
Michael landed three more punches, all flush to the man’s face. He jumped to his knees, slamming an ankle against the man’s throat. Two more punches to the neck and a quick kick to the chest brought it to an end.
Michael stepped over the man, ignored the pleas of the crowd to finish his foe, and walked to the comic books strewn on the ground. He bent down, picked each up, and went back to where he had left the man. He stood over him, staring for a minute, and then dropped the comic books across his face and chest.
“You can keep your comic books,” Michael said. “I don’t want ’em anymore.”
11
AS WE GREW older, the violence around us intensified. The moment a boy’s age hit double digits, he was no longer a mere nuisance to the older neighborhood kids; he was a potential threat. The most minor infractions could easily escalate into major street brawls.
We had now also reached an age where we were targeted by outsiders looking for quick scores.
Puerto Ricans coming down from San Juan Hill in upper Manhattan would jump a kid, lift his money, and head back home. Blacks from Inwood, near the Heights, would cross the designated racial divide of Ninth Avenue. Traveling in packs of a half-dozen or more, they would swarm, attack, and leave before any retaliation could be mounted.
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