MORTY
The first time Morty saw Rudy after the big snowstorm, he still had black and blue marks on his face.
“What the hell happened to you?” Rudy stared at Morty and frowned. “You walk into a door or something?”
Morty considered lying, but Rudy was his best friend, so he told him the truth.
“Geez, Morty. If you had told me and Paulie, we would’ve got the gang together and gone after that Joey’s father.”
“Are you kidding?” Morty said. “You know who he is? Big Al Simpson’s a big shot in the gangs. My father said he’d as soon kill you as kiss you.”
Rudy thought for a minute. “That’s why you gotta be in a gang. That way you always have backup, and guys like Big Al don’t go after you so fast. You could have justice.”
Morty considered this. “Maybe, but what they call ‘justice’ is killing. They kill each other. One gang does something the other doesn’t like, and bam, they’re shooting each other and turning up dead bodies in alleyways.” Morty wasn’t making this up. Brownsville, like other Brooklyn neighborhoods, was full of hoods vying for top of the block. Sometimes Morty heard shots late at night, if he was out on the street with his friends, and once he had seen a dead body, or just the legs and feet of the man, sticking out from a narrow alley between two stores.
“Yeah, but you gotta be smart too. Otherwise, you might turn up dead.” Rudy shrugged, like he didn’t care if he turned up dead.
Morty stared at him. “Doesn’t it scare you?
“Nah. If you’re dead, you’re dead. You don’t even know it.”
Morty shook his head. He didn’t know if Rudy was cool and smart or just a dumb fifteen-year-old. He seemed to enjoy fighting and bullying boys who were frightened of him. Morty had seen how excited Rudy got when he was pushing around smaller kids, laughing at them when they stuttered in fear. Morty would never admit it to anyone, but for the first time he understood the elation that came with dominance. He had felt it when he was pummeling Joey Simpson, shocked at the momentary pride that swelled his head. Afterward, even before Big Al Simpson had come after him, Morty felt ashamed of himself. He almost thought he deserved the beating Joey’s father had given him. He wondered if a man became more callous the more he lorded over another person. Morty did not want to become like that. He thought he would just stick to his own plan. School, work, school. Repeat.
But still, as Morty watched Rudy inching his way into Mickey Adler’s gang of hoodlums, he felt a little envious. Rudy acted like he was having more fun than anyone else. Daytimes, when they cut school, Rudy and Paulie hung around Solly’s Corner Candy Store, where the street corner was owned by Mickey Adler’s gang, who could be found sitting in the back booths of the candy store. If you hung out on their corner, you were beholden to them.
“I don’t get it,” Morty said to Rudy on one of the rare days when his friend came to school. They were eating lunch in the cafeteria. “What’s the big attraction to standing around on the corner all the time?”
“You’re kidding, right? Where else am I gonna make the kind of dough I want? Last week I made fifteen bucks. And it’s not for standing around the corner.”
“If it’s so great, why aren’t you there now?”
“Are you nuts? Have you looked out the window? It’s raining cats and dogs out.”
Morty looked out the big window on the side of the room. It was streaked with rainwater, the drops sluicing down the grimy glass. “So go inside Solly’s.”
Rudy shook his head. “Can’t do that yet. Have to be invited to hang out in the booths with them. They talk there, and you gotta be invited, or you might hear something you shouldn’t. When they’re back there, no one else is.”
Morty thought about it and realized it was true. Although he had often been inside Solly’s, he’d never been there when Adler’s gang was. If he walked into the candy store and saw them in the back booths, he either sat at the counter in the front or left the store entirely. He stared at his friend. Now he noticed that Rudy was dressing better than he used to. None of his shirts were mended, and he wore nice leather shoes. If he’d made fifteen dollars, Morty guessed he could afford to buy himself some clothes. But he wondered what he’d been paid to do. “What’d you have to do to make fifteen bucks?”
“I’m a runner for Adler’s boys. You know—messages, packages. I’ll do anything they ask. When I started, they were tossing me and Paulie quarters and fifty cents. Now it’s dollar bills. One time I made ten dollars just for delivering a package to someone’s apartment three blocks away.”
“What was in the package?” Morty asked.
“No idea. You don’t ask questions like that. Questions like that could get you killed.”
Morty stared at Rudy. “Just to ask a question? How do you know what was in the package? Maybe a gun. Maybe someone’s finger. I read once they cut off someone’s finger just to prove that they could do it.”
Rudy shrugged. It seemed to Morty that nothing he said to Rudy could dissuade him from hanging out at Solly’s and mixing in the business of the gangs.
“You’re a patsy,” Rudy told him. “Why work so hard all the time? You can make twice, three times the dough you make at Hansen’s with some smarts and a little muscle.”
“The smarts I got,” Morty said. “It’s the muscle part I don’t like.”
“Why not? You’re a better boxer than me. You’re one of the stars at the Boys’ Club.”
“That’s different. There’re rules there. You can’t jump anybody. Or bully them. There’s a ref to make sure. They match you with guys the same size. It’s a fair fight.”
Rudy shrugged. “The stronger guys get ahead. The weak ones don’t.”
“Yeah, well, when a big guy beats a small one, it’s no contest. I’m not gonna be like Big Al and pick on someone half his size like me.”
“Maybe someday you’ll have to. You never know.”
Morty shook his head. “Not me.” He looked at his friend. “Would you really do it? Beat up little guys?” He stared at Rudy. His friend was changing. He walked with a swagger now. Once Morty had seen him almost push aside a man walking with his daughter because Rudy wouldn’t step aside. The man and his daughter had moved out of the way just in time. It reminded Morty of when he and his father had met Abe Reles two years before.
Rudy glared at Morty. “You don’t have to beat them up if they do what you say.”
Morty didn’t answer. For a minute the memory of his shameful elation when he was punching Joey Simpson came to him, but he pushed the memory away. He didn’t want to think of himself like that. But it helped him to understand Rudy’s behavior a little better. Sometimes Morty thought the gang members were glamorous too. They dressed so well and had beautiful women hanging on their arms. But mostly the gangs scared him, and he didn’t like the way they acted, even around each other. Morty didn’t know what was happening to his best friend, but he was pretty sure that whatever it was, he wished it wasn’t happening.