Harlem, My Harlem

...Butch, Kidd, and Danny were all at least four years older than I was, and for many years we had all lived in the same tenement building...

...I wanted nothing to do with drugs, but the problem was very disturbing...

...It seems that many of the people who I once thought were merely waiting for something to happen to them, have made things happen...

...When I played hookey I would either go on a stealing tour of the city or sneak into a movie...

...My frequent appearance in juvenile court was beginning to bother the judges...

...The yellow truancy card in the mailbox meant that if I went home that night, the razor strop awaited me...

...I'm shot...

...As a result, I was usually back on the streets of Harlem within two days, from wherever the court had placed me...

...SOME INTERESTING changes have occurred in Harlem during the past few years...

...I would look in the mailbox and could always tell if there was a card from the school...

...I had also become well acquainted with many of New York City's teenage criminals...

...These were the people I admired and wanted to be accepted by...

...As the pain began to ease up, I started thinking how lucky I was to die this way...

...ing lots of money selling drugs...

...Three weeks later I was in a backyard stealing some sheets off a a clothes line...

...Often a real or apparent overture or insult to one of these girls will serve as the pretext for a rumble between opposing gangs, during which the girls sometimes serve as gun carriers...

...Sol was much older than Butch and had been stealing much longer, but he had been caught while Butch had not yet been "busted...

...I never gave a second thought to Turk's question when he bent over me as I fell to the floor, and asked me if I were going to tell the cops that he was with me...

...They all had their "pieces" and were ready and anxious to shoot somebody...

...When I entered colIege there were no more Iaughs...

...But The big changes in Harlem are in in Danny's case the admirable feat was the people I know who have changed his being able to kick an eight-year my sympathy to respect and admiradrug habit, and then make the stuff tion...

...Danny would say "a cat should never know that you have a knife until he has been cut or stabbed...

...And I knew a large number of the latter...

...Yeah, compared to him I was really lucky...

...It was Danny who had taught me most of the street ways...

...Butch had taught me how to hitch rides on street cars and buses...

...Stealing had become a part of me and I became very adept at this art...

...In my opinion that made Butch the better thief...

...For the next three months—at the end of which I got "busted"—I did a pretty good job of emulating a Harlem "hustler" who was doing good...

...In place of commonly accepted values a different code is substituted, some of whose features—wanton destructiveness, personal violence, and a disregard for society—at times cause serious trouble...

...I was about six years old when I first heard about "hookey" and I pleaded with Kidd to teach me the game...

...The last time I saw her she was profitably engaged in one of Harlem's more legal vices...

...When we had been in the backyard for about fifteen minutes, Turk shouted, "Foot it, Sonnyl" I stood there waiting to see what he wanted to run from...

...There is explaining to him the strategy of our nothing remarkable about a guy mak-next "rumble...

...Turk...

...THINGS WERE SOMEWHAT different now...

...to get off the poison kick...

...He also taught me not to run when I stole something...

...I think they preferred that I steal it from them...

...I didn't have to steal for money, because Butch, Kidd, and Danny were doing good, "pushing horse," and money was mine for the asking...

...Most of my spare time was spent in Harlem, taking the ribbing and laughing that my attending evening high school evoked from my old street corner cronies...

...My favorite fence was Miss Eileen...

...Following a thirty-day psychiatric observation period in Bellevue Hospital, I was ordered out of the state by a juvenile court judge...

...There were many things I could teach them, such as how to pick locks, how to rob a subway slot machine, how to pick a woman's pocketbook, how to bargain with the "fence," and how to roll "pot...

...Once I learned how to play hookey, I seldom went to school, and this often led to staying away from home...

...Any thief will tell you, they are all a bunch of crooks...

...But Miss Eileen had such a nice way of robbing me...

...He can't And his presence in Harlem is most leave the world entirely, so for him to encouraging to other junkies who become master and dispenser of the dream of kicking their habit and be-thing that had ruled him for so long coming pushers in turn...

...Wiltwyck is an interracial institution which accepts delinquent boys from eight to twelve, committed by the courts of New York or by social agencies...

...After enduring what seemed at the time a miserable year on a small farm in South Carolina, I returned to New York...

...Less than two months later I was standing before Judge Bolyn diligently trying to look pathetic...

...Perhaps that's why I began to spend more time with my new gang and less time with my old cohorts...

...Either I could continue my relationship with my old cohorts or get in with a younger gang of delinquents, my own age...

...The dope fad had hit New York, and all of my old gang were using heroin...

...The problem of these gang girls, who are on occasion no less troublesome and dangerous than the gang boys, is interwoven with the problem of male conflict groups...

...A year earlier, I had acquired the habit of staying away from home for several days and nights which occasionally lengthened into weeks...

...He would always say that Sol was the best because Sol had taught him many things about stealing...

...People like Miss Eileen and my other teachers from the streets of Harlem...

...Kidd had taught me how to play hookey from school...

...The last time I saw Danny, I could not 38I help but admire him...

...I remember him showing me how to get the knife out of my belt without my opponent seeing it...

...Even more important, membership in a gang offers them a shield for their own insecurities and guilt feelings and nourishes an open hostility to society...

...As I lay on the floor of the dirty joint, my fear of dying began slowly to diminish...

...Fortunately, I had not seen whoever it was that shot me, and could tell them no more than I had told the police...

...For three years she was very successful in the "horse trade," but gave it up and did seven years for her troubles at the insistence of the Narcotics Bureau...

...They laughed for three years...

...However, during my travels through New York City while truant from school, I had become exceptionally well acquainted with the city subways...

...He taught me by cheating me, taking me along on "scores," and showing me my mistakes whenever I lost a fight...

...This included wearing thirty-dollar shoes and giving frequent handouts to old friends who had become junkies...

...If you've ever known a junkie work for him...

...From Interim Report, see page 338...

...Within two weeks, the word had got...

...First Butch would beg me to tell him who had shot me, then Danny would start while Kidd threatened to kill Turk if I died...

...Only children are considered who can profit by its program of individualized treatment in the regulated and planned environment of a children's community...

...Danny is the only re-for any length of time you'll underformed junkie I have ever known to stand the struggle he has to go through stay reformed for any length of time...

...Danny, one of my favorite old tutors in the ways of the street, had now become my favorite junkie...

...The Board of Education would tolerate my numerous absences from school, and even my fighting with teachers...

...In a few weeks I became uncomfortably aware of not being able to fit in anymore...

...The number of these girls in New York City has been estimated at several thousand, ranging in age from twelve to their early twenties, although generally between fifteen and seventeen years old...

...It was they who had taught me how to steal, how to live in the streets of Harlem...

...While roaming the streets at night with one or two other boys who were also afraid to go home or disgusted with home life, I was often arrested for breaking into stores and stealing...

...Less than three months after my release, I was arrested for gang fighting, but was released in my mother's custody...

...Having no alternative, however, I set out to reestablish myself in the old community...

...But I kept running even after I felt the blood streaming down my leg and realized I had been shot...

...All forms of authority are scorned and reviled...

...The younger group was stealing and making much less money than my former partners...

...These girls are usually the girl friends of individual gang members and not infrequently have "deb" organizations which parallel the male gang...

...He was always ready to do whatever I suggested...

...Danny, Butch, and Kidd arrived shortly after I did...

...By JUNE 1946 I had been expelled from not less than six public schools in New York City, and refused acceptance by as many others...

...I FOUND myself wishing that mama would stop jumping up while she cried, because she was shaking the shabby floor and it made me feel the bullet more...

...Due to my skill at living in the streets, it would sometimes be many days before my parents learned of my unofficial departure from the places to which I had been confined by the courts...

...This is inspiring has become one of the world's leading also...

...ten around that I had the best pot in town...

...Where else can one find so many heavyweight fighters, explain how he people in such pain and so few crying would beat his next opponent...

...Following two more trips to Warwick, I moved out of Harlem and got a job...

...I was then thirteen...

...My first court sentence was actually not a sentence at all, but a commitment to Wiltwyck School for Boys for an indefinite time...

...the "numbers" racket...

...School officials, recreation leaders, and settlement house workers are similarly rejected...

...I stayed at Warwick for nine months...

...and so destructively is a great achieveI saw Turk yesterday and we talked ment...

...BUTCH was the most loyal guy I knew, and also the best thief...

...I recalled how frightened he looked when they grabbed him, and I recalled his terrified screams as he went over...

...Upon my return to Harlem I no longer cared to steal or partake in gang fights, but I had to steal a few things to show my gang that getting shot had not unnerved me...

...She was not the highest paying fence...

...By spring of 1946 I had been placed in four juvenile detention centers by the Manhattan Domestic Relations Court...

...Among my many customers and associates were prostitutes, pimps, dope peddlers, stick-up artists, professional thieves, and other petty criminals with great ambitions...

...That cold night in December, when I said to Turk, let's go steal some sheets, he seemed to be waiting for the suggestion...

...Danny is mak-seems like only yesterday when I was ing money by the fists full...

...She appeared to be a woman devoid of any emotions, especially pity...

...Butch would never admit that he was the best thief in the neighborhood...

...Whenever I lost a fight Danny would always say you should have stabbed that punk...

...I had to get away from it and when I reached the street, the first person I saw was Turk...

...There were many new vices to learn, but somehow I just could not pick up where I had left off...

...I ran into a fish-and-chip joint where I collapsed...

...When I arrived in Harlem on August 10, 1947 I was also returning to a familiar way of life...

...I too began to dream of the day when I could sell her something for a piece of loving, but to my regret I never got the chance...

...Kidd had also taught me how to sneak into a movie...

...I would have chosen my old friends, but I was handicapped by parental restrictions...

...At my house there were festivities taking place because mama had hit the number...

...After pulling enough scores to get up one hundred dollars, I bought a half pound of pot and went into business...

...To Danny, everybody was a punk...

...So I became leader of a gang of fellows mostly my own age...

...From Judge Bolyn, to whom I am deeply indebted today, I received my first sentence...

...Many times when I came to her house at night she would be in her slip and a new husband would be there...

...They fought the bigger guys who tried to bully me...

...Harlem still has a much greater of his next fight...

...I thought she was the prettiest lady in the world, I think she was the first woman I ever knew who had red hair...

...So, that's how I usually got it...

...Following a two and a half years stay at Wiltwyck, I returned to my dear old Harlem...

...I didn't see anybody, but after the first shot was fired I decided to run...

...The police, both as a symbol of authority and as a law-enforcement agency, are hated and feared...

...It about it...

...A year later Miss Eileen went to jail for three years, and when she came out she wasn't as pretty as she used to be...

...in fact, there is no such thing...

...WHAT THE CONFLICT GANG OFFERS The gang offers these boys an opportunity to act out their repressed feelings and serves as a release for their pent-up frustrations...

...At the age of nine I had already acquired the reputation of being the worst boy in the neighborhood...

...As a result, she changed her "game" to selling drugs...

...I panicked and started yelling, "Turk...

...As time went on I heard the older fellows talking about selling Miss Eileen something for a "piece of loving...

...I thought about the boy whom I had watched two members of my old gang throw from the roof of a six-story building...

...Turk, a member of my new gang whom I had become "tight" with, was with me...

...He promised me he would teach me on the first day I went to school...

...These guys whom I considered to be "big time," were like older brothers to me...

...She would put her arm around me and beg me in a very sexy tone while she played with my ears...

...Two days after I came home, I received my first real pistol, as a coming home gift...

...But they refused to have a boy in the school system who had attempted to push another boy out of a five-story window...

...This was all very normal in Harlem where somebody was always getting shot, stabbed, or his throat cut...

...I only stole items that I could sell to my private customers or to one of the neighborhood "fences...

...However, I found it disturbing to have it happen to me...

...While I lay on the rolling stretcher in Harlem Hospital emergency ward, I thought the police would never stop questioning me...

...And in my neighborhood this was no easy accomplishment...

...Miss Eileen was also something more than a fence, and I would have discovered this much sooner had it not been for my youth...

...While the conflict gang is primarily a phenomenon of male adolescence, teenage girls often associate with gangs...

...By the time I reached the top of the stairs leading from the backyard I was feeling unusually tired...

...Turk's favorite words were "Sonny, what are we gonna do...

...For many of its more disturbed members, affiliation with a conflict group compensates for their own sense of inadequacy in studies and sports and for their inability to get along in normal social activities...

...Three weeks after my two week stay in Harlem Hospital, and while the surgeon who had operated on me was still marveling at what he and God had done, I was sent to New York State Training School for Boys at Warwick, New York...

...This promise had to wait until the second day, because on the first day my mother took me to get me registered...

...Membership in a group like the Egyptian Kings or Sportsmen not only develops an ego-building "rep" but also provides protection against rival gangs...

...And this is usually the way it was when he stabbed a guy...

...I would always give him a "nickel bill" to get a fix...

...Also, I knew how to organize a gang fight and hold a gang together...

...Behind the mask of swagger—this braggadocio of insecure youth—lies a gnawing feeling of nothingness...

...It was an inspiring number of the miserable than any experience for me to hear Turk, who place else I know...

...It was Danny who had first taught me how to use a knife in a street fight...

...When I returned to Harlem, I had learned many new ways of crimes...

...After Wiltwyck I felt lost whenever I was not stealing or "rumbling...