Plenty of Work Even Without the Gang
The Marginals and the Hudson Dusters — two crews that, if they ever crossed paths, could draw knives and no one would bat an eye.
"Hey, you fringe rejects!"
"What, dust mites? You strut around like you're something, but one puff and you'd blow away."
Marginals meant those on the edge, the social misfits. Hudson Dusters meant the dust-sweepers of the Hudson River — the ones who cleaned up around its banks. Both sides were locked in a childish spat over their own gang names.
It was more than a little embarrassing.
I kept my distance from Gavin and Corey. Leo stood beside me, shaking his head.
"Shit, feels like I came just to watch the circus. Should've stayed home like Marcus."
Would a German immigrant really show up at a place where people had gathered to thrash Germans? That was Leo's thinking — but knowing Marcus, he was probably somewhere around here anyway. Hunched, watching his surroundings, just like those German men lined up far off at the registration desk.
While I scanned the crowd for him, Gavin and Corey's voices dropped off sharp. The Hudson Dusters had closed in, and the sheer numbers seemed to cow them.
"Fuck, if we just had the numbers…"
"That's a weak excuse, Gavin."
A man shoved forward and clamped Gavin's shoulder hard enough to pin him. Mid-twenties, a full head taller than me, hands like iron lids.
"You scared of a crowd that size? And you call yourself a Marginal?"
"Aagh— I'm not scared, Oliver!"
Gavin made a show of dying of pain. Oliver snorted and let go. Behind him stood three more hard-faced men — all Marginals.
"Oi, Hudson trash. If you've got something to say, pick up a tool first."
"Playing tough. You know we can't scrap here, so quit the bluff."
"Bluff or not — after this, alley next to Terry's Bakery. We settle it there?"
"Fuck you."
Neither side crossed the line. Cops had gathered at the registration office to keep order.
Leo had drifted well back. The big man, Oliver, pointed at me.
"Who's the kid?"
"Strike slugger. Rookie Boss Tanner assigned this time."
"The boss did?"
Oliver stared me down.
"What'd he stick a scrawny stick like you for?"
"Looks can deceive."
"Sure they can."
I wasn't even a full member yet. My presence wasn't big enough for Oliver to care. They fell into talk of the army and the war and took their place in the line outside the registration office.
Parents and relatives of the men signing up crowded the schoolyard. There were kids like me who'd come purely out of curiosity too.
I was heading toward Leo when Salvatore of the Five Points Gang approached me alone.
"Guess you decided not to pay the ten cents. Seeing how you joined the Marginals."
"That's how it went."
"Figures. Not many places would take you. Should've just gone in with the Chinatown tongs. Suits you better."
Salvatore sneered, needling me. I pointed at the registration line.
"You're not lining up?"
"Sadly, I'm still twenty."
"Liar."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
It means you look older, you bastard.
When I didn't answer, Salvatore flexed his fist.
"Meyer told me. You found Johnny Spanish's body together, right?"
"We did."
"Johnny was hunting you. Even got grabbed by other shoe-shine boys and still ran — then he walks into a garment warehouse?"
How the hell did he know all that in such detail? I was still fishing for the right answer when Salvatore delivered his verdict.
"Dumb bastard. With a head like that, you won't last long in a gang. You'll be wearing irons or dead soon enough."
"Thanks for the advice."
"Advice?"
Salvatore gave me a look of pure contempt, left a parting "I'll be watching," and walked off.
"Weird guy."
I couldn't figure why he'd bothered coming over just to spit empty words.
By the time I reached Leo, he was still staring after Salvatore.
"Didn't look like a chance meeting on the street. The way he talked to you — doesn't seem like you two are strangers."
"Yeah. I'm wondering the same thing. Why's he like that?"
"Either way, you need to be careful. That guy's something else — I've heard he gets pinched by the cops and slips out almost every time."
Assault, illegal gambling, robbery. Roughly twenty-five arrests, nearly all of them walked.
"That's why I should watch out?"
"Means his head's sharp and he's slippery. Means and methods are good too — plenty of kids follow him."
"What's he doing now?"
"Pimp."
Connecting prostitutes with clients, managing them — that was a pimp's work.
"Watching you today… you didn't flinch once around those gang types."
"We've worked together a few days already."
"Back then you had a scarf over your face. Now it's just Kieran, plain as day."
The slugger work, the trips in and out of the patent attorney's office — it had drawn us closer. Leo almost seemed envious.
"Think I could get like that?"
"You want to be a gangster?"
"Honestly, shining shoes feels pretty dull these days. I've been thinking hard about your offer."
"Offer withdrawn. You don't need to join a gang and take on dangerous work."
Leo looked at me, wounded.
"That… stings more than a little. Still, with you…"
A commotion erupted at the registration desk. It started when a German man tried to put his name down.
"Shouldn't we stop spies from enlisting?"
"Watch your mouth — I'm an American citizen same as you!"
"Bullshit. Who knows if you'll put a bullet in our backs once we're at the front!"
"German spies, get the hell out!"
Anti-German feeling in America was at its peak. Registering your name side by side with citizens of an enemy nation, in a climate this raw — it was a fuse all by itself.
The papers already painted German immigrants as spies and poured out articles questioning their loyalty to the United States. With America's entry into the war had come the Liberty Knights. And the ghosts of white supremacy that had been crushed after the Civil War had resurrected the Ku Klux Klan, pouring oil on the anti-German fire. Both extremist groups had no qualms about kidnapping, beating, and even executing German immigrants. So far it had mostly been out on the western frontier and in the countryside — but the extremes were starting to reach the big cities.
"Anyone who keeps making a racket gets hauled off! Quietly register your names!"
"If these bastards shoot us in the back on the battlefield, are the cops taking responsibility?! This isn't something you just brush off!"
Did they think anyone was registering for fun?
On the faces of the German immigrants I could see the injustice and the rage. The federal government had made its position clear: refuse to register or fail to cooperate, and German immigrants would be arrested as spies or deported. So they came to register — and got cursed out for showing up. Who wouldn't be furious?
Even with the police stepping in, the noise wouldn't die. Then the gangs started throwing their weight around just to show they existed. It turned into pure chaos.
Bang!
"From this moment, anyone who makes a scene on site gets arrested!"
A cop finally fired into the air, and the situation settled. Some of the German immigrants were sobbing. Once their names were down, they hurried away from the scene.
A little farther off, I spotted a German watching it all in secret.
Marcus.
I walked over and tapped his shoulder. He jumped a full foot, face white with shock. When he recognized me he clenched his teeth and made like he wanted to hit me — but it was only a gesture. The fist never came.
"Nearly gave me a heart attack."
"So what are you doing here?"
"If you want real information, you come yourself. I don't trust the papers."
"Bullshit. You're always reading the papers."
At Leo's jab, Marcus told him to shut it and ignored him. Then he turned to me with something weighty in his voice.
"I want to join a gang too."
"…"
"Impossible, of course. Change my last name all I want — who would take me? But one way or another, I want to work with you."
What he'd just watched at the registration office seemed to have hardened his resolve.
In the early days of the Great War in Europe, America had stayed neutral, so being German hadn't meant much discrimination. Things turned when the munitions depot on Black Tom Island in New Jersey blew up in 1916. Then, a year later — this past January — the Kingsland munitions plant in New Jersey went up. German agents had carried out terror attacks on American soil to disrupt war supplies, and anti-German feeling exploded. To escape it, German immigrants began changing their surnames to American ones. Marcus's family had done the same — and after the change, they became even more obsessed with information.
What finally made Marcus reach out was this:
"I was waiting for a German gang to appear. That hope's gone."
Even if one formed, it wouldn't last long between the Irish, the Jews, and the Italians. Race and country of origin were that ruthless.
Marcus and Leo both watched my mouth. Both of them had already left the shoe-shine business behind in their hearts.
"There's plenty of work even if you're not in a gang."
"…So you're saying find something else?"
Disappointment was plastered all over Leo's face. Marcus looked just as let down.
I smiled and shook my head.
"I'm saying there's plenty of work I can do with the two of you outside of any gang. I need you both."
At the registration office, Asians, Black men, and Hispanics were in line too. When the white men mocked and condemned the Germans, most of them had kept quiet. In any case—
"You can't choose your country. But you can choose your friends and your colleagues."
Marcus and Leo's eyes went wet.
Even if I work you both like dogs from here on out, we're friends — so it'll be fine, right?
The day of the draft registration.
According to the papers, more than ten million men had finished putting their names down, and every last one of them had been given a unique number. Their fates would be decided a month later, on July 2nd, at the lottery in Washington, D.C.
Garment District.
The day after the nationwide draft registration ended, the strike resumed. And on the sixth day of protests, a dramatic change arrived.
The news came near the end of the demonstration, through a member of the ILGWU.
"Everyone! The bereaved families have dropped the sewing-machine lawsuit!"
More precisely: the families of the dead boss and the moneylender wanted to negotiate instead of pursue the suit. They were looking to save uncertain legal costs and, if they had to hand over ownership, at least scrape a little something off the top.
The ones pushing them from behind were none other than the garment manufacturers. Johnny Spanish's death — the slugger they themselves had hired — and the sewing-machine contracts found on his body had put the bosses in a corner. On top of that, the longer the strike went on, the more women workers joined. Hiring Johnny to stop the strike from spreading had only tightened the noose around their own necks, exactly the way they'd feared.
And one more thing.
Yesterday's headlines — ten million men registered for the draft in a single day — had almost certainly moved the manufacturers as well. Labor shortages from the draft, and the growing influence of the women who would replace them. The bosses wanted a settlement before the strike could spread any further.
Before the ILGWU and the WTUL sat down to discuss it, I coordinated in advance with my mother — who had become a central figure among the strike leaders and would have a seat at the table.
"Just a thought, but those two organizations might want the strike to keep going."
"We're scraping by day to day as it is."
The manufacturers' terms: they, the ILGWU, and the WTUL would each put up three hundred dollars for the bereaved families, and ownership of the machines would go back to the workers. In exchange, the strike would stop immediately.
"So the manufacturers want to kill the strike for a hundred dollars apiece."
"They did drop the lawsuit, though. Doesn't seem like a bad deal."
"You're right."
The strike itself wasn't what mattered. But for the women's labor groups, the strike was the point.
"What matters is that because of the strike, the bosses came to the table first and set a precedent. And right there, you talk about the vision."
Not selling the sewing machines for a quick cash-out — a vision of a sustainable business.
"…While showing them the brassiere?"
"It's all women. What's the problem? Anne Morgan will definitely be there. Use the chance to make your pitch, and give them the confidence that this will become a success story."
"…Alright. I'll try."
The next day the strike continued as usual while, off to the side, the back-channel talks began. I only learned the result that evening when Mother came home.
The ILGWU and the WTUL had accepted the manufacturers' deal. For both organizations, achieving their goals through the strike carried real weight. They planned to turn the win into a major publicity campaign.
"That's none of our business. There's something more important, isn't there?"
Mother gave me a meaningful smile and held out a sheet of paper.
An investment contract.
Three thousand dollars total as investment capital, principal to be repaid within three years. No interest — but in practice it was closer to a loan than an investment.
What mattered was who the contracting party was.
"Anne Morgan bit after all."
"Honestly, she didn't seem that interested in the product itself. More like, why would anyone wear something like this…"
"And she still signed?"
"She said something that didn't match the look on her face."
I'd like there to be more women who succeed on their own ability — not just on money they inherited from their parents.
"Right. There should be more of them."
"She said she wanted to hear the business plan in detail, but she was short on time — so she signed right then. Something about having to deliver relief supplies herself at the French front."
The scale really was different.
I nodded and clapped. Roa, who had appeared at some point, gave Mother a thumbs-up too.
"Roa wants to be like that lady!"
"Then your father would have to be J.P. Morgan. Pretty sure that ship has sailed."
"Big brother can be Morgan! Don't you have dreams? Roa can make them for you!"
No — you dream too big.
Still better than Liam, who was mindlessly destroying his lower body again today.
Either way, Mother had pulled in three thousand in investment capital. Add what I'd taken so far and we were looking at roughly five thousand dollars. More than enough to start.
The strike ended the next day.
Mother and I signed a lease with the tenement landlord for the basement workshop at ten dollars a week. We also finished registering the business with New York City under her name.
At the same time we cleaned the dank basement workshop and slapped on a fresh coat of paint, changing the whole feel of the place. For that job I drafted Leo, Marcus, Liam — and five Marginals who suddenly had nothing to do once the strike was over.
"We're a gang. Doing this kind of work doesn't change what we are!"
"Got it. So finish fast and we'll grab a drink."
A few days later, carts pulled up in front of the tenement. They were loaded with the sewing machines that had gone all the way around and finally come home.
When everything was ready, Mother and her coworkers shared tears of pure relief and joy inside the workshop.
While that was happening, a man with a fedora pulled low over his eyes came looking for me at the tenement.
"What brings you here?"
"Strike day off today."
"Even the strike gets a day off — and you're taking another one?"
"…Different concept. Want me to explain?"
"No."
Tanner Smith and I headed up to the roof.