Sleepers

BOOK ONE

"This much I do know – there's no such thing in the world as a, bad boy."

- Spencer Tracy as Father Eddie Flanagan in Boys Town .

ONE

Labor Day weekend always signaled the a

Preparations for the race began during the last two weeks of August, when my three best friends and I would hide away inside our basement clubhouse, in a far corner of a run-down 49th Street tenement, constructing, painting and naming our racer, which we put together from lifted lumber and stolen parts. A dozen carts and their teams were scheduled to assemble early on Labor Day morning at the corner of 50th Street and 10th Avenue, each looking to collect the fifteen dollars first prize money that would be presented to the wi

In keeping with Hell's Kitchen traditions, the race was run without rules.

It never lasted more than twenty minutes and covered four side streets and two avenues, coming to a finish on the 12th Avenue end of the West Side Highway. Each go-cart had a four-man team attached, one inside and three out. The three pushed for as long and as hard as they could, fighting off the hand swipes and blade swings of the opponents who came close. The pushing stopped at the top of the 50th Street hill, leaving the rest of the race to the driver. Wi

The runt of the litter among my team, I always drove.

John Reilly and Tommy Marcano were spreading black paint onto thick slabs of dirty wood with color-by-number brushes.

John was eleven years old, a dark-haired, dark-eyed charmer with an Irishman's knack for the verbal hit and run. His clear baby face was marred by a six-inch scar above his right eye and a smaller, half-moon scar below the chin line, both the results of playground falls and home-made stitches. John always seemed to be on the verge of a smile and was the first among my friends to bring in the latest joke off the street. He was a poor student but an avid reader, a mediocre athlete with a penchant for remembering the batting and fielding statistics of even the most obscure ballplayers. He loved Marx Brothers and Abbott & Costello movies and went to any Western that played the neighborhood circuit. If the mood hit him the right way, John would prowl the streets of Hell's Kitchen talking and walking as if he were Ralph Kramden from The Honeymooners, proclaiming 'Hiya, pal,' to all the neighborhood vendors. Sometimes, in return for his performance, we would each be given free pieces of fruit. He was born with a small hole in his heart which required regular doses of a medication his mother often could not afford to buy. The illness, coupled with a frail frame, left him with a palpable air of vulnerability.

Tommy Marcano, also eleven, was John's physical opposite. He had his Irish mother's carrot-colored hair and his father's ruddy, Southern Italian complexion. Short and flabby around the waist and thighs, Tommy loved sports, action movies, Marvel Comics and adventure novels. Above all else, Tommy loved to eat – meatball heros, buttered rolls, hard-cherry candy barrels. He collected and traded baseball cards, storing each year's set in team order inside a half-dozen Ki

Michael Sullivan, at twelve the oldest of my friends, was quietly hammering nails into a sawed-down Dr. Brown's soda crate.

The best student among us, Michael was a smooth blend of book smart and street savvy. His black Irish eyes bore holes through their targets, but his ma

I was busily applying biker's grease onto two stroller wheels taken off a baby carriage I'd found abandoned on 12th Avenue.

'We need a better name this year,' I said. 'Somethin' that slicks in people's heads.'

'What was it last year?' Tommy asked. 'I forget.'

'The Sea Hawk? I reminded him. 'Like the movie.'

'Seaweed woulda been more like it,' Michael said. That was his subtle way of reminding us that we hadn't done so well in the previous race, finishing next to last.

'Let's name it after The Count of Monte Cristo,' John said.

'Nanh,' I said, shaking my head. 'Let's name it after one of the Musketeers.'

'Which one?' Tommy asked.

'D'Artagnan,' I said immediately.

'To start with, he's not a made Musketeer,' Michael said. 'He jus hangs with them.'

'And he's only cool 'cause he's got three other guys with him all the time,' Tommy said to me. 'Just like you. Alone, we're talkin' dead man. Just like you. Besides, we'll be the only ones with a French guy's name on the side of our cart.'

'That oughta be good enough to get our ass kicked by somebody,' Michael observed.

'Go with The Count,' John said. 'He's my hero.'

'Wolf Larson's my hero,' Tommy said. 'You don't see me bustin' balls about gettin' his name on the cart.'

'Wolf Larson from The Sea Wolf?' I asked. 'That's your hero?

'Yeah,' Tommy said. 'I think he's a real stand-up guy.'

'The guy's a total scumbag.' Michael was incredulous. 'He treats people like shit.'

'Come o

'Scumbag or not,' Michael said. 'Wolfs name would look better on the cart.'

'They'll think we named the friggin' cart after our dog,' John muttered.

'We don't got a dog,' Tommy said.

'Okay, it's settled,' I told everybody. 'We name the cart Wolf. I think it'll bring us luck.'

'We're go

'We may lose this race,' Michael a

'He's always there at the end, Mikey,' I said.

'We always look to block him at the end,' Michael said. 'That's our mistake.'

'He stays away till then,' Tommy said. 'He's no dope. He knows what to do.'