John and I walked to the counter and stood next to Joey Retard. Joey was fourteen, with an honest face and a ready smile. He was always well-dressed and was friendly with everyone in the neighborhood. He spoke slowly, stuttering his way through difficult phrases, his manner gentle, his eyes dark as olive pits.
Joey was adopted, taken out of a West Side orphanage by a childless Irish couple. He went to a special school on Ninth Avenue and earned pocket money washing cars for King Benny. He was shy around girls, loved pizza with extra cheese, cheap horror movies and sewer-to-sewer stickball. Every Halloween he walked the streets dressed as Stooge Villa from Dick Tracy.
'What's doin', Joe?' John asked him.
'Good,' Joey said. 'I'm good.'
'You want anything?' I asked. 'John's buyin'.'
'Where'd you hear that?' John said.
'No,' Joey said. 'Thanks.'
John ordered and I asked Joey how school was.
'I like it,' Joey said.
'Am I really payin' for this?' John asked me, watching Mimi take the pizza out of the oven.
'You got money?'
'I'll take the Fifth,' John said.
'I'll buy tomorrow,' I said, grabbing a paper plate with a slice.
'Swear,' John said, reaching a hand into his jean pocket and pulling out two crumpled bills.
'Swear,' I said, taking my pizza and soda back to the table.
'Grab the change for me,' John said, patting Joey on the shoulder, reaching for the second slice.
'Can I keep it?' Joey asked.
'Knock yourself out,' John said.
Joey was on his second slice when the burly man walked through the door.
He stood at the counter, hands in his pockets, ordered a large Coke and watched Joey dust his pizza with black pepper.
'That's not too smart,' the man said, taking a sip from his soda. 'It's gonna taste like shit.'
'I like pepper,' Joey said, shaking some more on the crust. 'I like pepper a lot.'
'There's enough on it,' the man said, reaching for the pepper shaker.
'No!' Joey said, pulling back, still holding the pepper in his hand. 'My pizza.'
'Lemme have the pepper, you fuckin' retard,' the man said, grabbing Joey's hand until the shaker came loose.
'My pizza!' Joey said, his voice breaking from the strain, his eyes blinking like shutters. 'My pizza!'
'There's your fuckin' pizza,' the man said, pointing to the counter. 'Nobody touched it.'
'I want pepper!' Joey said, his words coming in short bursts, his hands by his side. 'I want pepper!'
The burly man smiled.
He looked over at Mimi, frozen in place behind the counter, and winked. He unscrewed the top off the pepper shaker.
'You want pepper, retard?' the man said.
Joey stared at the burly man, his body quivering, his eyes filled with tears.
'Here,' the man said, pouring the bottle of pepper out over Joey's pizza. 'Here's your fuckin' pepper.'
Joey started to cry, full sobs rising from his chest, his hands slapping his sides.
'What's your problem now, retard?' the man asked.
Joey didn't answer. Tears ran down his cheeks and over his lips, snot ran out of his nose.
'Go on,' the burly man said. 'You fuckin' retards turn my stomach.'
Joey didn't move.
'Go,' the man said. 'Before I slap the shit outta ya' and really make you cry.'
Michael walked past Joey and stepped to the counter, next to the burly man. He reached for the salt shaker, loosened the top and poured the contents into the man's soda.
'You can leave now,' Michael said to him, stirring the drink with his finger. 'You and Joe are even.'
'A tough little punk,' the man said. 'Is that what I'm lookin' at?'
'A dick with lips,' Michael said. 'Is that what I'm lookin' at?'
Tommy put an arm around Joey and moved him from the counter. John stood behind the burly man, hands in his pockets. I was across from the burly man, arms folded, waiting for his move.
'Four tough little punks,' the burly man said. 'And a cryin' retard.'
'That's us,' Michael said.
The burly man lifted a hand and slapped Michael across the face. The blow left red finger marks on Michael's cheek and an echo loud enough to chill.
Michael stared at the man and smiled.
'The first shot should always be your best,' Michael said. 'And your best sucks.'
'I'll show you my best, punk,' the burly man said, moving off his feet and taking a full swing at Michael. 'Your fuckin' teeth are gonna be all over the floor.'
Michael ducked the punch, throwing his body against the burly man's stomach. Tommy and John jumped on the man from behind, pulling at his hair and neck. I grabbed the pizza slice with all the pepper on it and rubbed it into his eyes.
'Take it outside!' Mimi screamed.
John chewed on the man's ear, his bite hard enough to draw blood. Tommy started pounding at his kidneys. I took a red pepper shaker and rammed it against his face.
'My eyes!' the burly man said, trying to shake us off. 'My fuckin' eyes.'
Michael picked up a counter stool and started ramming it against the front of his legs. John had grabbed his thick hair and was knocking his head on the edge of the front door. I kept hitting him with the red pepper shaker until it broke above the bridge of his nose. Shards of glass mixed with blood down the front of his face.
The pain brought the man to his knees, one hand reaching for the counter.
'Never come in here again,' Michael said, kicking at his crumpled body. 'Hear me? Never!'
Mimi ran from behind the counter and grabbed Michael around the waist, pulling him away.
'You no wanna kill him,' he said.
'Don't be too sure,' Michael said.
Our lives were about protecting ourselves and our turf. The insulated circle that was life in Hell's Kitchen closed tighter as we grew older. Strangers, never welcome, were now viewed as outsiders bent on trouble. My friends and I could no longer afford to let others do the fighting.
It was our turn to step up, and we were led, as always, by Michael.
Outside events meant little. In a society changing radically by the hour, we focused on the constants in our own small, controlled space.
It was the sixties, and we watched the images scattered nightly across TV screens with skepticism, never trusting the players, always suspecting a scam. It was the way we were taught to look at the world. Life, we had been told, was about looking out for number one and number one didn't waste time outside the neighborhood.
On television, the young protesters we saw spoke about how they were going to change our lives and fix the world. But we knew they didn't care about people like us. While they shouted their slogans, my friends and I went to funeral services for the young men of Hell's Kitchen who came back from Vietnam in body bags. That war never touched those angry young faces we saw on TV, faces protected by money and upper-middle-class standing. They were on the outside yelling about a war they would never fight. To me and my friends, they were working the oldest con in the world and they worked it to perfection.
Civil rights had become the battle of the day, but on our streets, it was a meaningless issue. There, gangs of different ethnic backgrounds and skin colors still waged weekly skirmishes. A growing army of feminists marched across the country, demanding equality, yet our mothers still cooked and cared for men who abused them mentally and physically.
Students would be killed on the campus of Kent State University in Ohio. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator Robert F. Kennedy would be shot dead. Governor George Wallace would take one in the spine.
Whole sections of American cities were about to burn to the ground.
The summer of love was set to bloom.
Drugs would go beyond the junkie.
The country was on a fast-ticking timer, ready to explode.
For me and for my friends, these developments carried no weight. They might as well have occurred in another country, in another century. The mating call of a new generation, one whose foundation was to be built on peace, love and harmony, simply floated past us.