Suspension by Richard E. Crabbe

kept them all pretty well fed. With his gramps laid up with the consumption, and the family having to make do on just what his da brought home, he felt he had to bring something home too. Sometimes he felt guilty about eating an apple he had lifted, thinking that his gramps could use it more than he. But his mates in the little gang were pretty much all in the same boat, just getting by, and hungry half the time, so he shared as best he could. Smokes and Mouse were Mike’s two best friends, and they, together with Louie, Vince, and Jo-Jo, were the center of society for him. Suffolk Street, between Houston and Delancey, was their world. Lots of times they would venture over to Essex, or Orchard, but they had to watch it when they were outside their own territory. Almost every
block had its gangs, starting with kids of seven, or eight. Usually the older kids had their own gangs, and they didn’t bother the younger ones too much, because they had bigger fish to fry. They had to watch out for rival groups of their own age, though, and getting caught thieving on the wrong block could earn a kid a beating or worse. His gang defended its territory the same as every other. There were regular battles to claim another corner or another block. Sometimes even a streetlamp or a store would be fought over. These were things Mike had been learning fast since he came to the Lower East Side. It was a confusing place to be a kid, what with all the rules. He had taken a couple of beatings before he had caught on and joined in with a bunch of other boys like him. Mainly they tried to have fun, but they spent plenty of time in petty crime too. Stealing produce was the first thing they all did as sort of an initiation, but they graduated quickly to more ambitious stuff, like lifting goods from an unattended wagon or even picking pockets. Mostly they were just boys with plenty of time on their hands. They laughed, kicked balls, and swam in the river like any kids, and they tried to survive, which was only human.
    Lately Mike’s da had been real worried about something. He said it was a problem on the job. His father told him so he could know to look out for bad men. His da said he couldn’t be certain but that there might be some come around one day. He hadn’t seen any so far. He kept looking, though, because if his da said there were some that might come around, then you could count on it being so. His da was the finest man in all the Lower East Side. Mike would wait on the corner of Suffolk and Delancey every evening for him to come home. If the other boys weren’t nearby, he’d run to him when he saw his da coming, and sometimes he’d have an orange in his pocket. He waited now, on the corner, hoping to get a glimpse of his father. It was three days now since he’d been home. Grandma had said he was just away to visit a cousin in New Jersey, but Mike was starting to worry. He couldn’t remember having a cousin in New Jersey.
    B raddock sat slumped on the downtown horsecar. Listening to the Bucklin’s string of tragedies had worn him down more than he would have imagined. After years of walking beats in neighborhoods like theirs, the people and their tragedies tended to become a faceless blur. Tom figured it was the way cops kept from feeling the pain too much. Almost every cop he knew put up the same shields to keep out the human cost of their job. For reasons he wasn’t even sure of himself, he’d let those shields down with the Bucklins. Maybe it was Terrence’s tintype, and his having served with the Sixty-ninth. Maybe it was Mikey, or the fact that his grandfather was so sick. It was probably all
those things and maybe some he hadn’t put a finger on just yet. Whatever the cause, he felt washed out, drained … tired. He could only imagine how the Bucklins felt.
    The horsecar made a stop and he gave up his seat to a woman in a wide bonnet. She sniffed at him with a haughty