Gangster (29 page)

    The pace of his punches was slowing down, his energy sapped by his explosive assault. I could feel him rocking back on his heels, one hand grabbing the crook of my collar and lifting my head off the ground. He was breathing hard and heavy, his mouth swallowing gulps of cold, fresh air. I leaned forward on my right shoulder and tightened my grip around the book. I turned and swung it against the side of the boy's pudgy face. I caught him flush on the ear, the edge of the book catching a corner of his eye, and sent him tumbling off my back and onto the sidewalk, where he landed on his side. I rose to my knees and began to throw my own punches against the boy's face and chest. One hard blow caught the center of his nose, sending a wide spray of blood flying onto my shirt and face. I reached down to my right and picked up the geography book and brought it down hard against the boy's nose and mouth. I didn't stop until the flat of the pages were lined red with his blood.

    I tossed the book to the ground and got to my feet. My back and shoulders burned and were weighed down with pain. I stood over him, watching as he ran his fingers across the front of his face, his nose red and clogged, blood running out of the corners of his mouth.

    Is this what you wanted? I asked him, surprised at how quickly my own violent instincts had surfaced. I turned away just to make sure none of his friends were looking to make a move against me. They were all where I had last seen them, on the top steps of the school exit, huddled together, the eager smiles wiped from their faces. Is it what you and your pals expected to see?

    He spit out a mouthful of blood and glared up at me. This has got a long way to go till it ends, he said.

    I was breathing fast and shaking with anger. It had gone past the bleeding pudgy boy and his crew of friends. My rage was no longer only directed their way. It was now aimed at all those anonymous faces in all those hallways of all the schools I had ever attended. The ones who pointed at me and whispered words I pretended not to hear. I was a marked child and a focus for their scorn. Many of them came from homes where violence behind closed doors was commonplace. A few were the children of divorce, distanced from one parent because of hatred and discord. A few more were illegitimate but were able to dodge freely past the stigma that often came attached to such births. I was the foster child tossed into their poor puddle and was forced to bear the hatred and fear such a position imposed. Foster children are seldom welcomed into working-class neighborhoods by other kids. They are seen as oddities and threats, not to be trusted and never to be liked. It is why so many foster parents try and keep it a secret. We are not taken in because we are loved or needed. We are taken in because we come with a monthly check attached to our names.

    I released all the anger that had built inside me through all those years as I kicked Michael, ripping into his sides and back with the full force of both legs. My black shoes found their mark with each swing, the round tips cracking against bone or bending into rolls of flesh. No! I shouted down at him after each kick had landed. It ends here! It ends now!

    I heard his friends come down the school steps, walking together, watching as their once brazen leader tried to crawl away and hide in a safe corner, next to a row of garbage cans. I continued to kick at him, the pent-up venom spewing out of me in one rush of pure, unrestrained violence. My body was washed down in a chilled sweat, as a small crowd of pas-sersby stood around me, having stopped to stare, mumble and gawk at the bloody scene that was taking place. I landed a solid kick just under his rib cage and heard him grunt and cough, a bloody trail marking the path he had crawled from the sidewalk to the edge of the school building. I reared back, primed to land another hard blow, when a thick arm grabbed me around the waist and lifted me off my feet and away from the boy.

    You won your fight, little man, Pudge said into my ear. Why don't we just leave it at that?

    I turned to look at him and nodded, watching the sweat drip from my forehead down onto the sleeve of his jacket. I didn't go looking for it, Pudge, I said. They'll probably go and tell the Brothers otherwise, but I wasn't the one that got it started.

    Pudge released his grip on me and walked over toward the kids gathered on the school steps, slowly looking at each of their faces. Pick up your friend and take him to a place where he can get cleaned up, he told them. If it were me in your spot, I would make sure it was a place that knows how to stay quiet about this kind of business. The less anybody knows about what happened here, the more it'll look good for all of you.

    The boys slowly made their way past Pudge, fearfully avoiding his gaze, bent down and lifted Michael to his feet. The front of his shirt was a wet sheet of blood and it stuck to his skin like tape, his head hung down and off to the side, and he had trouble putting weight on his legs. I watched him being dragged away and now, with my anger dissipated, wished I had walked away from this fight much as I had so many of the others before it. I looked down at the ground and saw the thick blotches of red that were the only remnants of what had happened. The crowd around us had quickly dispersed, moved along as much by Pudge's menacing presence as they were by the end of the action.

    Pudge tapped me on the shoulder and nudged his head toward the scattered books behind me. You better pick those up and follow me out of here, he said.

     I'm sorry, Pudge. I didn't mean for any of it to happen the way it did. He was just looking for a fight and I was stupid enough to give him one.

    Pudge stood above me and watched as I picked up my books and shoved them back into my school bag. He was the one that was stupid. He came out looking for the easy mark and by the time he figured out how wrong he was, he was running a couple of quarts low on blood.

    He'll get a few stitches and some bruises, I said. Then the worst is over for him. He lives here in the parish. Nothing more can happen to him. That's not true for me. I'm a foster. Soon as they find out who beat him, I'll get tossed out of school and be living in another place by the first of next month.

    Don't be too sure about that, Pudge said, walking alongside me toward Tenth Avenue. People keep their talking to whispers around here.

    It's happened to me before, I said, my head down, the pain in my neck and shoulders radiating to my back. At one school I went to it wasn't even over a fight. I got invited by one of the kids in class to go over and watch TV at his place. His mother sees me there and freaks out. She goes in to see the principal the next day and tells him I'm causing problems for her son. Since they gave money to the church regular each Sunday and my fosters were looking for an excuse to dump me, out I went.

    That's old news, Pudge said with a shrug. You weren't with me and Angelo then. You're not alone anymore. We'll make sure nothing like that happens here.

    I stopped and turned to Pudge, dropping my book bag by my feet, the knuckles of both my hands red and swollen. Why? I asked him. Why do you even care about somebody like me?

    Pudge put an arm around my shoulders, ignoring the painful grimace on my face. Because long before you came around, little man, somebody found me and Angelo and took care of us. Maybe now it's our turn to do the same.

    Well, I hope you're getting something out of it.

    Pudge lifted his hand off my shoulder and pointed a finger across the street at Maxi's Pizzeria. I love pizza but I hate to eat it alone. So with you around, I don't see how that's going to be a problem anymore.

    We both crossed the street against the rush of the oncoming traffic, the smell of oven-fresh pizza filling the air while the memories of a brutal street fight slowly faded.

14

____________________________

Summer, 1965

I SAT AT the center of the small kitchen table, wedged in between John and Virginia Webster, the three of us sharing a fried steak and tomato dinner. We ate in silence, our eyes focused on the new white portable television set in the corner that was tuned to the evening news. The Watts section of Los Angeles had erupted into a full-scale riot as ten thousand African-Americans burned and looted a five-hundred-square-block area and caused more than forty million dollars worth of property damage. Fifteen thousand cops and National Guardsmen were called in to bring a halt to the rage, and by the time it was brought under control there would be thirty-four people left dead, four thousand arrested and two hundred businesses whose doors would never again open.

    The scene played out before us like an eerie horror movie as the TV cameras panned angry black faces shouting slogans or tossing rocks and bricks into burning buildings. On the other side were stoic white faces desperate to do whatever was necessary to stop the killing of a neighborhood. I sat there, riveted to a moving portrait of an America I could never imagine, listening to the muted commentary of the off-camera reporters, wondering what could drive an entire section of a city to such a level of hate.

    Only a damn nigger would go out and set fire to his own home, John mumbled, chewing on a mouthful of steak, staring at the TV screen. And then they go after the stores and shops right where they live. They don't care and they never did. You give them half a chance, they'll burn the whole damn country down and blame us for doing it.

    Who's us? I asked, turning away from the set to look across the table at my foster father. John Webster was a big man, two hundred forty pounds packed solid on a six-foot frame, with a quiet manner and a perpetually sullen demeanor. His outlook on life was mostly negative, finding blame for his own economic plight not on his lack of education or initiative but on the encroachment by various ethnic groups into what had once been an all-white workforce.

    Who do you think us is? he said. White people. They do all the burning and we get all the blame. Like it's my damn fault they were born the way they were.

    Maybe they got good reasons for being as angry as they are, I said. My eyes were on the small screen as I watched a supermarket get swallowed up by the flames of lit torches, as young black kids in T-shirts and jeans ran from the police, smiles of victory on their faces. You just don't do what they're doing without holding in a lot of hate.

    I don't want to hear any sorry talk about those people at my table, he said, an angry jolt in his voice. They were born no good and that's how they'll die. You want to come up with excuses for them, do it someplace else. I won't allow it under my roof.

    I turned away from the set and stared at my foster mother who, as usual, stayed quiet and distant, locking whatever thoughts and feelings she might have deep inside her sad and shriveling body. I pushed my chair back, stood and began to clear my place at the table. John lifted his mug of beer and downed it to the suds and looked at me and smiled. If you're that fond of them, maybe I can make a call down to social service and see if they got a family of niggers that's willing to take in a white trash boy who spends all his spare time running errands for gangsters. I bet even a dumb nigger's got enough sense to stay clear of a loaf of poison like that.

    I saw Virginia grimace at her husband's harsh words, but still she stayed silent. I placed my dishes in the sink and ran cold tap water over them, my back to the simmering anger of John Webster and the relentless violence that was still exploding off the small television screen. I thought it best, for the moment at least, to try and ignore both since there wasn't much I could do about either. I had no respect for John Webster and, in the months I lived in his apartment, under his forced care, he never gave me reason to show him any. He was a bitter and angry man, using the hardships of his life to justify the bubbling hatred he only occasionally allowed to surface. I never saw any of those emotions in either Angelo or Pudge. They seemed at ease with who they were and looked no further than themselves to solve the problems they confronted. Unlike John Webster, Angelo and Pudge didn't have the time or the wasted desire to break the world down into a black and white confrontation. Instead, they glimpsed it from a distance, allowing access only to those few they could trust and putting up barriers to all outsiders. They didn't look to the color of a man's skin to decide whether or not he could be trusted, but rather they sought out the tone of his intentions before they even bothered to acknowledge his existence.

    It's not smart to be a racist, especially in the rackets, Pudge once told me. In fact, it's just the opposite. The bulk of organized crime, at least when me and Angelo first got in, was made up of Italians, Irish, Jews and blacks. Four groups that were forced down this country's throat at one time or another. And there are still a lot of people who wish we would just disappear. We know what it's like not to be wanted, to get tossed aside. The difference is, when you're a gangster, people may still hate you and want you dead, they just don't say it out loud. They shut up because they're afraid of what we'd do to them. So believe me, little man, if you're looking for a racist check out the banker down the corner or the guy taking in millions on Wall Street. Don't look to us. On that score, more often than not, we plead not guilty.

    As I scrubbed my dishes clean, I also wished I could better comprehend the reasons for the riots, find some justification for the destructive actions that were taking place, but I didn't quite know how to put into words what it was that I felt in my heart. I understood what it was to be weighed down with excessive amounts of anger and resentment and to be deemed insignificant by those around me. I didn't know if I would ever let my inner hatreds take me down the same road the rioters were now embracing, but I did know that if I didn't find my way out of the Webster household, that I, too, was capable of a violent explosion.

    Are you finished eating? I asked John Webster, reaching over to scoop away his dinner plate. While I had washed my dish and the cooking pans, he had finished another beer and changed the channel on the television away from the riots, tuning instead to the week's choice for The Million Dollar Movie, Godzilla with Raymond Burr.