Chapter 8 - Everywhere You Go, the Problem Is Gangs
Before the NYPD Special Crimes Unit started tearing things apart, Manhattan was overflowing with gangs, both big and small.
If you had to list the most dangerous groups:
The Gopher Gang.
Formed mainly by the Irish in the Hell's Kitchen area, this gang boasted over 500 active members, including the Baby Gopher Gang, Lady Gophers, Gorillas, and the Rose Gang among its ranks.
Next up was the Eastman Gang, made up mostly of Jewish members.
It originated from the Whyos Gang, which once dominated Manhattan's Lower East Side—essentially, these were the first Jews to wield real influence in America.
The third major force was the powerful Five Points Gang, whose members would one day become the core of the Mafia.
The founder—Italian boss Paul Kelly—was a pioneer who modernized the old gang structure.
Besides those, there were still active groups like the Hudson Dusters, Pearl Buttons, and Marginals.
And while these gangs were actually made up of people from all sorts of backgrounds, they were generally classified as Irish, Jewish, or Italian, based on the heritage of their core members.
What they all had in common was a close link to the Democratic political machine, Tammany Hall, and significant involvement in crimes related to elections and labor union strikes.
"It's definitely not like it used to be."
Gangs battling for control of Manhattan would form alliances or feud with each other—until now, when the NYPD Special Crimes Unit has pretty much torn them apart.
Even I, who read books about all this in my previous life, can't fully untangle how it all happened.
It's that complicated.
Meyer Lansky, though, had a knack for boiling all this down and making it easy to understand.
"Gangs sent out assassins to hit each other, their close associates were dropping like flies, it was insane. Things got so bad that public opinion turned, and even the Tammany Hall politicians washed their hands of us."
This was Meyer's explanation of the current state of Manhattan's gangs, and it matched exactly with what I'd read in the book "A History of Organized Crime in America" in my previous life.
Meyer, however, saw the fall of the gangs not as a disaster, but as an opportunity.
"The Eastmans and the Gophers are pretty much finished, but the Five Points Gang is still going strong. Frankie Yale has taken over everything from Paul Kelly. Actually, we're a unit of the Five Points Gang ourselves."
A unit was a kind of lower-tier satellite organization.
The Italians who'd been extorting protection money from Meyer were also said to be part of the Five Points Gang.
What I could gather from all this was that the balance of power among gangs was shifting from Jewish groups to Italian ones.
"Want to hear something interesting?" Meyer asked.
"Besides the gangs I mentioned, there's another major player across the East River…"
"That's enough. Now that I've got my shoeshine kit, I'm off to work."
"That kit of yours again... Anyway, if you never want to shine shoes for the rest of your life, remember what I told you. See you next time."
Thanks to Irving's meticulous nature, the shoeshine kit was in great shape.
Everything inside was as it should be.
Right after parting ways with Irving and his friends, I finally got started on my actual job as a shoeshine boy. It might sound silly, but my heart was pounding as I laid my hands on the kit.
Of course, reality was much less romantic.
"Hey, get lost and go back to your own turf!"
The territorial attitude of those who got here first was intense.
To avoid trouble, Ciaran focused on shining shoes around Eldridge Street, near his home.
With no other choice, I also moved to my own territory before I started looking for customers.
Carrying my shoeshine box slung over my shoulder, I walked around calling out,
"Shoe shine! Shoe shine!"
Plenty of people passed by, but no one paid any attention.
I wandered over by the fancy restaurants and hotels, trying my luck there.
After about twenty minutes of this, I finally got my first customer. He looked pleasant and, puffing on a cigar, casually stuck out his foot.
"Let's see if you know how to shine these shoes."
"Yes, sir!"
It was my first time, but I felt confident.
Whatever memories or skills Ciaran had, all those hours spent polishing boots in the army were ingrained in my hands.
Swipe, swipe!
I spread out a soft cloth.
"Hey, are you skipping the brush and going straight to the polish?"
Huh?
Instinctively, I set the cloth down and quickly grabbed the brush to dust the dirt off his shoes.
Swipe, swipe.
I picked up the cloth again, dipped it in the liquid shoe polish, and applied it to the surface.
After rubbing diligently, I flashed a triumphant smile and lit the polish with a match.
A good flame polish is the finishing touch.
Whoosh!
Wait, what the heck is this made of?
It's not coal, but the flames were shooting straight up.
Ssssss.
Startled, I quickly slammed the lid shut to snuff out the fire. The customer looked pretty shocked, too.
"I just about got roasted alive there, didn't I?"
"... Just thought you might be bored, so I gave you a little fire show."
Can't let myself look like a rookie.
I grinned and glanced at the polish.
Luckily, the surface of the liquid polish gleamed like a mirror. (I'd find out later that shoe polish in this era was made mostly of highly flammable turpentine, alcohol, paraffin wax, and so on. Normally, you'd ignite something else then use it to gently melt the polish—never the way I just did.)
I gathered some of the gleaming polish on the cloth and began buffing the shoe gently.
As I was scrubbing away, the customer suddenly let out a sigh.
"At this rate, we'll be here all night. Should I just let you do the other shoe tomorrow?"
Was I too slow?
I started rubbing faster.
Then, as the cloth grazed his ankle, some shoe polish got on his sock. And of course, he was wearing white socks.
Smack!
Without mercy, the customer smacked me on the head with his palm.
"Ugh, I made the wrong choice with you. Last time you did a good job—what's going on today? What about my socks, huh?"
I'd rushed into practicing on a regular customer way too soon.
Back in the army, even if I spent an hour polishing one boot, at least the sergeant would smile in approval.
Damn it, maybe I should just give up.
What am I doing shining shoes anyway?
Swallowing my frustration, I mustered all my effort and kept polishing the shoe as best I could.
Finally, the customer tossed me some coins and shook his head.
"How are you going to make a living with that level of skill? Don't even think about doing any of that fire show stuff again."
"Then next time, maybe I'll try a water shine…"
"I said don't do anything at all!"
Well, at least I made 5 cents.
They say nothing in life is easy. Even shining shoes takes practice, know-how, and skill.
Anyway, I kept searching for customers until sunset. After polishing four pairs, I'd earned a total of 20 cents.
Earning just one dollar is this hard.
As soon as I opened the door to the house, Roa came running up to me.
"Big brother, you worked today, didn't you!? How was it?"
She was probably asking how much I'd made. I couldn't bring myself to answer.
"Son, good job. Hurry up and get settled in."
Mom was preparing dinner, peeling potatoes after coming home from work. I didn't set down my toolbox and carried it with me into the living room. Roa clung to my side, scrutinizing the toolbox closely.
"But big brother, did you get a new toolbox? How much?"
"…One dollar."
"Ohhh. So, how much did you make?"
"…Twenty cents."
Roa stared at me in shock for a moment, then scurried over to Mom.
"Mom, we're going to starve to death."
"But, Ciaran, where did you get the one dollar?"
"I borrowed it from Leo."
And Gary took half of it from me. Of course, I kept that part to myself.
Mom didn't say anything more, not wanting to put pressure on me.
I spread out some newspaper in the living room and placed my toolbox on top. Then, I got out the shoes Mom only wore on special occasions and set them up on the footrest.
"What are you doing, big brother?"
"What do you think? I have to practice if we don't want to starve."
"You've been shining shoes since before I was even born. Want some help?"
"The brush."
When I held out my hand, Roa immediately found the tool and passed it over to me.
She was a perfect assistant, and her sense for the work was impressive.
"Stop, big brother! What was that you just did? Who holds the cloth like that when you're polishing!?"
"…You stretch the cloth tight with both hands like this and wipe—it makes it shine."
"Then what about the part of the sole where the cloth can't reach? You'd have to go over it again, wouldn't you? Seriously, you don't know this?"
I had planned to scrub that part carefully, too.
So that was it.
That's why I'd been so slow.
"Mom! Big brother's acting weird. Maybe his skills switched from shoe shining to knife sharpening! He really is a new person, just like he said—what a disaster, seriously."
It felt like my ears were about to start bleeding.
Come to think of it, I still hadn't given Roa the ribbon hairpin I took from Gary.
Maybe this would finally shut her up.
"I picked this up on the way here."
I held out the ribbon hairpin with as much nonchalance as I could muster.
Roa blinked at it, then glanced from the hairpin to my face and back again.
"Big brother…"
"Try it on. If it doesn't suit you, we can just get rid of it."
"No way!"
Roa quickly clipped the hairpin into her hair.
Beaming, she looked at me and asked,
"How do I look?"
"Well, it suits you."
"Big brother, just get back to your work for now, okay?"
Roa ran straight to our mother, eager to show off her new hairpin.
I never realized before how giving someone a small gift could well up such emotion inside me.
Or maybe I'd just forgotten.
What on earth did I do in my previous life?
I was polishing the sole of a shoe, lost in these bitter thoughts, when it happened.
I could hear ragged breathing outside the door.
There were rough curses too.
My mother, who had been preparing food, stopped what she was doing and stared at the door. Roa and I followed her gaze.
Thunk.
The door opened, and a sturdy middle-aged man stood there, carrying Liam—completely limp—over his shoulder.
My mother's third brother.
My uncle, Larry O'Connell.
My mother hurriedly checked on Liam, who was slung on Larry's back.
"What happened?"
"There was a fight between the Sluggers hired by the company and the labor union. I want to know why this idiot was even there, but… first, let's get him on the bed."
So much for quitting if it rained—Liam must have worked as a strikebreaker at the docks again today.
What a fool.
When I tried to help, sweat pouring down his face, Larry ignored me and laid Liam directly on my bed.
There weren't any significant injuries to his face.
But from his fingers to the back of his hand, his wrist, and up his arm, patches of skin were torn or bruised.
Rolling up his pants revealed the same kinds of wounds on his shins and knees.
"All this trouble over a few lousy bucks, getting mixed up in things like an idiot."
Larry's harsh words made me clench my fists before I even realized it. But despite what he said, Uncle Larry had carried Liam all the way here and already given him first aid.
Cuts and scrapes on the skin can be disinfected, but the real issue is whether there are any broken bones.
We couldn't hope for expensive X-rays only the rich could afford at the hospital, so what mattered now was to splint any suspicious areas to prevent the bones from healing incorrectly.
But Liam already had those emergency measures in place. Construction lumber had been used as splints to keep his arms and legs from moving.
Who else but Uncle Larry would have done that. That's also why Mom didn't snap back when Larry cursed at Liam. She knew it was him.
Larry was a veteran who had fought in the Spanish-American War over twenty years ago. Maybe he'd learned what to do for injured friends during that time.
As I looked Liam over, I spoke up.
"Looks like he got trampled."
Ever since I was born, Ciaran had never been welcomed by his mother's family. Maybe that's why, as he grew up, he usually avoided his relatives or kept to the corners when they visited.
But today, I stood calmly at his side and even spoke up.
Uncle Larry stared at me as if I were some oddity, then grunted brusquely,
"Your idiot brother got caught up in a brawl at the warehouse where he works. Too damned stupid to escape, and that's how he ended up like this."
I could picture what must have happened to Liam at the scene.
A violent clash, and blood spilled, between the dockworkers and the company's sluggers—the strikebreakers. Guys like Liam, who were simply hired as replacements for the money, probably thought only about getting out of there.
In the pandemonium, with his small frame, Liam must have been pushed around and knocked over as he tried to escape. To avoid being trampled, he probably curled up to protect his face and head. The wounds on him were proof of that.
When my mother handed Larry a glass of water, he took it without a word and gulped it down in one go. His face was drenched in sweat from carrying Liam on his back, and his clothes were soaked through as well.
"Damn it, I've been trying not to get involved with your family's mess. This is really the last time."
At Larry's words, my mother brushed her face with her palm, as if to quickly wipe away her fatigue. She didn't sob or snap in anger. I wondered if her resigned reaction was the same as when Leo carried me home a week ago.
Roa must have been scared of Uncle Larry—she disappeared into her room and didn't come back out.
Moving over to the small dining table, Larry spoke again. Maybe aware of the tense atmosphere, his tone softened, and he let out what sounded like a weary admission.
"As soon as the rain stopped, the company brought in the gangsters like they'd been waiting for it. Those bastards will do anything for money. It wasn't like this in the old days."
Larry's lament shifted into criticism of the gangs, comparing them to the past—perhaps thinking of himself.
"Still, Noah and I fought for our rights. At one time, we were all workers fighting against the company side by side. But these days, gangs just flip sides like bats as long as someone's paying them."
Noah is my second uncle. He and Larry were both involved with a gang at one point.
You could say they were part of the early history of American gangsters.
The Irish who came to America during the Great Famine had to protect themselves from discrimination and violence by the existing settlers.
That's how those groups were formed—first as protective organizations, and eventually as full-fledged gangs.
Like Larry said, back then, at least there was a basic justification—they were trying, in some way, to defend themselves.
But as companies grew in size and labor unions emerged, gangs started to be used as tools to enforce the will of both sides.
When Larry talks about "bats," he means those who go back and forth between the company and the union, working for whoever pays more. In recent years, these bat-like gangs have become more common.
Larry criticized the gangs hired by corporations, but unions also join hands with gangs just as much as companies do.
As a result, specialized companies have even started popping up just to break strikes. A perfect example was when Paul Kelly, the original boss of the Five Points Gang, became the vice president of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA).
He was now deeply involved in a massive ongoing strike with over ten thousand dockworkers participating.
I'd learned this from a book I read in my previous life.
"Damn gangs are a problem no matter where you go."
I muttered this offhandedly, and Larry let out a snort.
"Trying to get revenge for your brother?"
"If only I could."
"You? Give me a break. That's enough. Even if you pull up weeds, they just grow back."
At that rate, you'd have to use pesticides, but no matter how strong the poison, they'd probably never disappear.
That's what gangs were like.
"I'd better get going."
As Larry got up, my mother grabbed his arm.
"Stay for dinner. I'll set the table for you."
"Are you crazy? Why would I eat in a place crawling with these Jews... No, forget it, everyone's waiting for me at home. Make sure you and the kids eat well..."
Larry glanced at Liam, shook his head, and headed home.
Only then did Roa come scampering out of her room. She approached Liam and blew warm breath on his body.
"You'll feel better tomorrow, big brother."
No, you won't.
Not for a while.
Anyway, it seemed Mother still hadn't gotten all her wages, and Liam was in that sorry state.
If I wanted to put food on the table, I'd have to take some drastic measures tomorrow.
After dinner, I made up my mind and combed the alleys of the Tenement House, picking up a board.
On it, I wrote a message with white chalk.
[I'm not shining shoes, I'm polishing your future.
내가 빛내는 건 구두가 아니라 당신의 미래입니다.]
If I wanted to make real money, I needed to polish shoes somewhere bigger.
Even in my second life, chased by circumstances, this was the only thing I could do.
The next morning, after dropping Roa off at the neighbor's house early, I was grabbing my shoeshine kit when—
"Hey, brother."
Liam, just like the old me, had woken up much earlier but had simply been lying there with his eyes closed.
"I'm busy. Just lie down and rest."
"…I have to pee."
This brat, huh? Well, to be fair, he's helped me out before too.
I brought over a funnel and a bucket so he could relieve himself.
For a moment, I wondered how Mother must feel.
In just a week, both her sons had ended up in this state, one after another.
Once he finished, I dumped the bucket's contents into the sewer and was about to leave the house when—
"…Sorry, brother."
I didn't ask what he was sorry for.
There were probably a lot of things mixed in there.
Leaving Liam's quiet sobs behind, I walked out of the house and made my way towards Wall Street, about two kilometers away.