The internecine
rivalries continued throughout that interval, and it was hard to keep track of
who were friends and enemies without a scorecard. One week it would be the
Reyeses against the Yodels, the next it was John and I against Harold and
Kenny. A particularly amusing scenario occurred when the Reyes boys ran afoul
of Bobby Yodels, the second-oldest of the brothers. Physically he was the
smallest of the Yodels, something which frustrated him to no end. He made up
for this with a glib-tongued con artistry which gave way to violent rage when
provoked. On this particular evening, a verbal exchange led to the Reyes boys
whipping Bobby with their garrison belts. Bobby proceeded over to the trusty
old hellhole across the street and brought back a length of timber, at which
point Lydia’s new beau Nelson rushed to intercede. Bobby continued his charge,
sending one and all running for their lives.
SLEDCART was the
first time my fantasy world ended on a crash course with stark reality. Kenny,
Georgie and I had been smitten by The
Man From UNCLE, an espionage TV series following hot on the heels of our
beloved James Bond flicks. I decided that we were going to form an anti-terror
organization when we grew up, with me as Director and the Reyes boys as my top
agents. I came up with the acronym, which stood for Supreme Law Enforcement and
Defense against Crime and Regional Terrorism. Not bad for a kid with a head
stuffed with fantasies.
As fate would have
it, the Butler Aces had broken into an insurance office in the vacant buildings
across the street, resulting in a neighborhood visit by detectives from the 76th
Precinct (which had relocated to Union Street). They came across Kenny and
Georgie, and shortly afterward I found myself breathless in becoming involved
in a criminal investigation. We invited the detectives to my home and brought
them to my room with little ado, as my parents were out drinking. I was intent
on using the occasion to get revenge on Robert Tal and Kevin Mahr, but Kenny
and Georgie began spewing names like a fizzing bottle of pop. Before I knew it,
he had the names of half the Aces, with Kevin and Edward atop the list. Sure
enough, when the cops left the house, they walked right into Kevin, and the
Butler Aces were on the road to extinction after that.
Tal and Mahr were
two of the peripheral figures in the Aces’ hierarchy. Tal was an ugly bastard
who resembled Alfred E. Neuman from Mad
Magazine. Mahr wasn’t much better looking, a mean character who never
smiled. They would cajole me into hanging out with them, then use me for target
practice by spitting on me. After reducing me to tears, they would apologize
and convince me to tag along until the next gobbing session materialized.
Tal made a brief
appearance in Ducky Boy history over a decade later when I spotted him on
Butler Street and we began talking music. He told me he was studying flamenco
guitar and was working part-time for RCA as a studio tech. I brought him by the
house to hear “Year Zero” and he said he thought he could make a connection for
us. I accompanied him to Midtown one afternoon, and we were in and out of a few
buildings as he made phone calls to set appointments. He kept telling me that
his contact was out of the office, and finally I gave up. After a while I realized he was calling his
drug connections and planning to use Big Turk as backup. Regardless, he
continued to drop in now and again. The last time he did so, a can of tuna fish
I had on the kitchen table disappeared. Class always shines through regardless
of time or place, I suppose.
Going back to
yesteryear, the day after the detectives’ visit, the Butler Aces were on the
street in force and came as a lynch mob to where the Reyes-Nieves clan sat on
the steps next door. Kenny and Georgie pled innocent, leaving me holding the
bag, with my parents out drinking again. The word on the street was that I was
going to have my prepube nuts cracked, and I was in mortal terror until Mom got
wind of it.
Bear in mind that,
with her Irish blood and Texas heritage, when she was tipsy she was ten feet
tall and bulletproof (something that would vex me up until I left home). She
roared out of the house one evening as the Aces were congregating on the street
and swore a blue streak that, if I was touched, she would ‘hang [the offender]
by the balls’. She took offense to one poor bastard named Matthew, who lived
elsewhere, and began hurling bricks from the demolition area across the street
at him. This pretty well took the steam out of the Aces, and getting even with
me was now on the back burner. There were a few running jokes about Mom, but
all were careful not to let anything get back to Manny, who spent his early
evenings after dinner during the week smoking Luckies and reading the paper
while sitting at the front window. He still had a legendary neighborhood rep,
was in fine shape and was never in a cheery mood. In their wildest dreams, they
might have overcome Mom, but Manny…nobody needed that in their lives.
I felt badly about
how things went with the O’Connors after that. They were identified as the
ringleaders and probably got slapped on the wrists at best, but things began
falling apart for them from then on. Edward hated my guts, even when his baby
brother Danny started hanging out with my crowd after the Aces disbanded.
Kevin started using drugs and lost most of his prestige in the ‘hood as a
result. We got back on good terms though one time he went into a drunken tirade
on how he and the Aces would have stomped my crotch in back then. I let it go;
in time I saw less and less of him. The
last time I saw him was on Wall Street. I was dressed in a suit and tie and he
was in jeans, probably as a messenger, and his face was full of resentment. I
didn’t even try to greet him; some things are better left alone. If any of the
O’Connors read this, all I can say is, it wasn’t me.
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