Read Online Gangster by Lorenzo Carcaterra - Free Book Online

up to his face. He heard Banyon's heavy footsteps walk off in the distance. He felt dizzy and nauseous from the loss of blood. He heard men walk past him, speaking a hard English he didn't understand, and knew none of them would stop to help. They were either too afraid of Banyon or too indifferent to his plight. He stayed there and stared up at the sky, unable to cry, not wanting to move. In the distance, he heard the horns and whistles of a large ship pulling out of the harbor, heading for a country far removed from the one his father had chosen as the place to build a better life.
       
         *     *     *
       
    JOSEPHINA COMBED BACK Angelo's black strands of hair with a wet comb. She was careful not to go near the blood-spotted bandage that covered the gash above his right eye. It took a dozen stitches to seal the zigzag wound and a full day to convince Paolino that revenge against Carl Banyon was not for him to take.
        He should die for what he did to my boy, Paolino said.
         And then what will happen? Josephina said. You end up in prison and Angelo loses his father.
        At least then he would have a father he could respect, Paolino said.
        You are to do nothing, Josephina said. In time, revenge will be had. Only it will not be dealt from your hand.
        If not me, then who? Paolino asked. Josephina turned away and did not answer.
       
         *     *     *
       
    WHO IS THIS man Ida wants me to meet? Angelo asked, the starch of the tight white shirt chafing against his neck.
        He is a boss, Josephina said. He has the power to help you.
        Help me do what?
        To not be like your father, Josephina said. Paolino is a weak man. And this is a country that gets strong off its weak. A man like McQueen will teach you the things you need to know.
        Papa teaches me things I need to know, Angelo said. Things he says will help turn me into a good man.
        You will be a good man, Angelo, Josephina said. But one who lives his own life in his own way. Not someone who must work until his body can no longer stand.
        Will this man love me the way Papa does? Angelo asked.
        You don't turn to a man like McQueen for love, Josephina said. But he will teach you about loyalty and such lessons bring with them a much heavier burden. Love enters and leaves when it wishes. Loyalty stays forever. And for you that means until the day McQueen dies or is no longer a boss.
        And then?
        And then we will see how well you have learned your lessons, Josephina said.
       
         *     *     *
       
    GANGSTERS ALL THIRST for power and will do all they can to achieve and keep it. That is their real code, the only one they truly adhere to. Loyalty, faith, friendship are all tools used to keep control of the power. The need to grasp at the power is planted in them during their childhood years when, surrounded by poverty, they seek out the one who has risen above it all. In poor neighborhoods, especially in the early years of the twentieth century, the one who rose the highest and accumulated the greatest power was almost always a criminal. There was no romance to the notion of being a gangster, Mary said. Angelo would be the first to tell you that. It was just a refusal on his part to live his life at the mercy of men like Carl Banyon. Watching his father get kicked and be treated in such a heartless manner hurt Angelo much more than that cut from the razor. That was the deeper wound. The cut was merely a reminder of what he had seen. And what he needed to never forget.
         *     *     *
       
    PUDGE TOSSED THE rubber ball against the side of the dark brick wall and caught it with one hand. Angelo sat off to the side, his back wedged between the rear entryway into the tenement building, his arms wrapped around his legs. Pudge bounced the ball on the cracked concrete, the shade from the heavy strands of laundry hanging off the