The Melting Pot of Races, Manhattan
The early bird catches the worm.
If you wanted to snatch even one more wallet, a pickpocket needed that same diligence.
Gary the Early Bird hit the streets at dawn.
His targets were the half-asleep workers hurrying to their jobs, or the pockets of kids on their way to school.
Working with a crew made things easier, but he had no intention of waiting around for those lazy bastards who only crawled out once the sun was high. Besides, he hated splitting the take.
So he hunted alone, sizing up prospects, until he spotted a familiar back at the scene of a murder.
“Found you, you half-breed bastard! Yell and you’re dead.”
The moment he saw Kieran, Gary clamped a hand on his shoulder and dragged him into a secluded spot.
About a week ago, wasn’t it?
He’d taken the kid’s shoeshine box, and the half-breed—usually so meek—had come after him with a rock in his hand. Of all places, the little shit’s stone had smacked Gary right in the thigh.
It barely hurt. Didn’t even leave a real bruise. But getting hit by a rock thrown by a mongrel was pure humiliation. His friends’ mockery—“Couldn’t even dodge that?”—only fanned the rage.
He’d beaten the kid half to death that day, yet the anger still hadn’t burned out. Seeing him walking around just fine made it worse.
Gary stood a full hand shorter and scrawnier than Kieran. Didn’t matter. In the Manhattan jungle he was a wolf, and Kieran was nothing but a grass-munching fawn. The fact that the kid let himself be hauled off so obediently with cops right nearby proved it.
But the moment they reached the shadowed alley, the unexpected counterattack came.
Thud!
Without warning the Kieran walking ahead whipped his elbow around and smashed it into Gary’s temple. In the same fluid turn he drove a knuckle-protruding fist into Gary’s throat.
The ruthless flurry didn’t stop there. Kieran kicked out the knee joint, collapsing Gary’s stance; the second the kid hit the ground on his knees, an arm snaked around his neck from behind and a hand sealed his mouth.
It happened in the blink of an eye.
Gary, stunned beyond words, felt his breath clog in his throat.
“…Hhk—hhk!”
“Stop thrashing. You’ll snap your own neck.”
A flat, cold voice without a single rise or fall.
The instant it reached his ears, a shiver raced down Gary’s spine and goosebumps erupted across his skin.
Did I grab the wrong guy?!
His heart clenched at the thought that this might not be Kieran at all—some look-alike he should never have touched. The uncanny sense that he was facing a completely different person bloomed into pure terror.
Face drained white, Gary rolled his eyes toward the alley mouth.
Goddamn it!
Not a single passerby so much as glanced their way.
Then something pressed hard against his eyeballs.
“Who told you to roll those eyes?”
Kieran’s fingers dug into both of Gary’s eyes with crushing force. The pressure felt like the orbs would burst.
“…Uuph!”
What finally drove Gary into raw panic was the sudden, almost manic lift in Kieran’s voice.
“Fuck, this is it. This is me! Feels like I’ve finally got myself back!”
He babbled in a language Gary had never heard in his life, then burst out laughing. After that he leaned in close and muttered like he was reciting the Lord’s Prayer straight into Gary’s ear.
“If I’d met you at night I would’ve twisted your neck clean off. Next morning the cops would’ve carried you out on a stretcher. You’d be a corpse, so of course you wouldn’t know a thing. Picture it. You’d never go hungry again.”
This kid was not right in the head.
Had the beating a few days ago cracked him? Or had he already been crazy the day he chased after Gary with that rock?
Either way, Gary wanted out of the madman’s grip.
He started thrashing just as the fingers crushing his eyes vanished.
A blurred face stared straight down at him.
“You think you got caught because you let your guard down, don’t you?”
Gary shook his head frantically.
Guard down or not—he was just thinking the bastard was insane.
Did the kid buy it?
In an instant the pressure on his throat vanished.
Finally free, Gary braced both hands on the ground and coughed violently. Only after the purplish flush left his face did he dart his eyes around the alley.
The place was littered with every kind of trash—plenty of things that could serve as weapons. A long length of scrap lumber caught his eye.
That was it. The weapon to cave in the crazy bastard’s skull!
The terror on Gary’s face twisted into something vicious.
He surged up and lunged for the board, snatching it up.
“Yo, you murderin’ fuc—”
The second he started to swing, the sole of a shoe filled his vision.
Thud!
A brutal impact exploded across his face and his body reeled.
He didn’t go down. Kieran seized a fistful of hair and hauled him upright by force.
“See? Told you. You’re still thinking you only got hit because you were careless.”
Fuck, no I wasn’t…
This time Kieran’s open palm cracked across his cheek without mercy.
Slap! Slap!
The stinging cheeks went numb; his brain simply rattled inside his skull.
For the first time in his life Gary thought about dying.
The Kieran he had known was no longer a fawn. He had become a savage predator.
“Tsk. Got a little too worked up.”
Should I go back and apologize?
Return the fifty cents I took, and that hairpin that looked like something he’d stolen for a girlfriend… no, that one was for Roa.
On the walk home, my second life already felt thoroughly fucked from the starting line.
I’d meant to rough him up just enough and walk away, but once the fists started flying I couldn’t rein in the rush. By the end I’d beaten him, threatened him, and walked off with both his cash and the pin.
With the PTSD gone, going that hard on a punk kid was overkill…
Was I being influenced by the dead Kieran’s memories and emotions? Something like residual hatred for Gary steering my hands?
Yeah. That had to be it.
That was why I’d gotten so fired up.
Either way, a clash with Gary’s crew had been inevitable. The bastard who’d nearly beaten Kieran to death felt zero remorse and was already planning the next round of torment.
I had no idea how Gary would come at me next, but if he did, I couldn’t promise how far I’d go either.
“Still need to be careful, though.”
Seventeen years old, infinite possibilities ahead.
No sense screwing the whole life up on day one.
I shook the thoughts off in a single breath and kept jogging.
I was just reaching the tenement steps after cutting past the Canal and Eldridge Street intersection when a boy spotted me and waved.
Leo—the ridiculously loyal kid who’d carried me nearly three kilometers home a few days earlier.
“Damn, Kieran! You were croaking like you were about to die, and now you’re already fine? What the hell were you doing out this early?”
“…Got some exercise.”
“Exercise? Exerciiise?!”
Leo’s voice climbed in pure disbelief.
“You out of your mind? What if you run into Gary’s crew again?”
“Funny you mention it—I just did.”
“Who?”
“Gary.”
“Y-you met him?!”
“Had a little chat.”
Leo sucked in a sharp breath and scanned me from head to toe, checking for bruises or broken bones first.
“You threw a rock at him, right? He was swearing he’d kill you if he ever caught you. And you’re saying you had a conversation?”
“It worked out.”
“Worked out my ass! One look and I can tell you ran.”
Suddenly Leo narrowed his eyes at me.
“You give up on life or something?”
“I’m seventeen. What life is there to give up on?”
“Your face is just… way too chill, like someone already halfway to the next world. You used to be one gloomy bastard.”
“…Well, I did take a trip to the next world. While we’re on the subject—I got reborn, so forget the old Kieran.”
“…You sat in the house too long and actually lost it.”
Leo shook his head with a long sigh.
“Whatever. If you’re healthy enough to leave the house, first thing you should’ve thought about is making money. You gonna let your little brother and sister starve? And what about your shoeshine box?”
Was he always this much of a nag?
Still, he wasn’t wrong.
My old shoeshine box had been stolen by Gary’s crew; I needed a new one.
Future knowledge crammed into my head, and I was still shining shoes for a living.
It might sound ridiculous, but that was reality.
Everyone knew Ford and Coca-Cola stock would explode someday. The problem was I didn’t know the day-to-day swings, and “someday” didn’t mean it would multiply fiftyfold in the next week. More importantly, right now I was flat broke. No capital to invest.
So why shoeshining?
Factory or construction work meant twelve-hour shifts minimum—no time left for anything else. And the pay? If you weren’t a full adult you were lucky to scrape a dollar a day. Liam, stuck doing casual labor at the docks as “replaceable muscle,” was living proof.
All things considered, freelancing as a shoeshine boy was still the best option for the moment.
I nodded at Leo.
“Time to get ready.”
“What, you planning to kill somebody and steal their box? Why the grim face?”
“Anyway, tomorrow I’ll get a box and start for real—”
“No need. Who’s your big brother?”
Leo grinned and patted his own shoeshine box.
“Notice anything different?”
A standard shoeshine box was just a wooden crate with a footrest on the lid. Leo’s looked the same.
Damn it, what was supposed to be different?
“Wow, you really can’t tell?”
Leo pouted and pointed at a small square metal piece attached to the box.
“Ohh… you put a lock on it.”
“Nice, right? Now I can just sling it around without the lid flapping open. No more worrying about somebody swiping the polish either.”
The way he acted, you’d think he’d just bought a brand-new car. Or maybe it just showed how dead serious he was about shining shoes.
Leo rattled the box with pride while I stared at it with quiet melancholy.
“Hey, no need to look so jealous. You know Irving, right?”
From Kieran’s memories I easily pulled up the small but scrappy Jewish immigrant kid.
“He quit shining shoes. Joined a gang, apparently.”
Gang? My last memories from the previous life surfaced and a curse slipped out on its own.
“Fucking gangsters, mafia…”
“Mafia? What the hell’s that?”
The word itself was still unfamiliar in this era.
“So what’s Irving got to do with it?”
“He was shining shoes over on Lafayette Street for a while, then it looked like he got pulled into the local crew. Probably because of you.”
Meaning after I got stomped by Gary’s bunch, something in Irving had shifted.
Leo’s voice turned bitter.
“Honestly, what’s the point of working hard? Bastards like Gary never leave you alone.”
That was the times we lived in.
Immigrant kids raised in crushing poverty and constant crime looked up to successful gangsters as role models. After the confusion and restlessness of late adolescence, most of them eventually dipped a toe into the underworld. Joining a gang was simply the easiest option.
Of course the majority still lived ordinary lives. The cautious kids who preferred the safe path never seriously fantasized about becoming gangsters.
“Anyway, Irving said he’d sell you his old box. You know how Jews are—ridiculously practical. He keeps everything obsessively clean, so you could start using it right away.”
“How much does he want?”
“Said he’d let it go for a clean dollar. You got it?”
Just one lousy dollar.
I didn’t have it.
The money I’d earned sharpening knives had already gone to food and rent. The fifty cents I’d taken off Gary was everything I owned.
When I shook my head, Leo clapped my shoulder like he’d expected it.
“You haven’t worked in days, so of course you’re broke. Want big brother to lend it to you?”
I stared at him, speechless.
He’d carried my half-dead body home, and now he was offering to lend me money too. That was just who Leo was.
I held out my hand without a word.
“Friendship forever. Just fifty cents, please.”
“What the hell? When’d you get so slick?”
“I told you to forget the old me.”
“Sigh… whatever. Pay me back inside a week. And since we’re talking about it, go see him now. You really gonna take a whole day off?”
Today was carrot day.
I borrowed the money from Leo and headed for Irving’s usual spot.
The Lower East Side had plenty of bad blocks. Step outside it and there were even more. To the west it butted up against Little Italy; farther south was Chinatown. That was why most people stuck to the crowded main avenues and avoided the side streets.
I did the same. I was just turning a corner on the Lower East Side when I saw them.
A whole pack of punks already gathered this early in the morning.
That was Manhattan for you—walk a few blocks and it felt like you’d meet every thug on earth.
Gary alone had been no problem, but these guys had numbers. Worse, they were Italian toughs on the rise in Manhattan—dangerous enough that you couldn’t write them off as ordinary street trash.
A man needed flexibility. Pride could go to hell.
I gave them a quick once-over and instinctively dropped my gaze, trying to slip past like a defeated southern soldier with no fight left. Of course it didn’t work.
“Hey, you gutless chink!”
The industrious little bastards blocked my path for sure.
“This ain’t the way to school, is it?”
“I don’t go to school, and I’m not Chinese.”
“Looked kinda funny—so you’re mixed, huh? Come with us for a second.”
“We’ll talk in the back.”
Three kids my age surrounded me and marched me away.
Alleys really were that dangerous.
*
Luckily I spotted a familiar face in the alley.
Irving—the exact kid I’d come looking for—was right there.
When our eyes met he looked startled, eyes going wide as if to say What the hell are you doing here?
I tried to look just as surprised and happy to see him.
Except the little shit was getting shaken down too.
That made the whole trip useless.
So he’d joined a gang, huh? Three Jewish kids were getting cleaned out by Italians. Not surprising—there was a ten-year-old brat standing next to Irving. The kid looked scrappy enough, but what could a pair of tiny fists actually do?
Looking at their lineup, it was no wonder they were getting rolled by the Italians.
I decided to pretend I didn’t know Irving.
Just as I made that decision, a guy roughly my size shoved me against the alley wall.
“How much you got?”
“…Nothing.”
“If I find even one cent on you, that’s one punch per cent.”
I had a whole dollar in my pocket.
A hundred punches. Great.
“Then I’ll pay ten cents going forward.”
Right then a clear voice from the kid standing next to Irving cut through the alley.
Ten cents? Installments were an option?
I casually rolled my eyes that way.
“Now that’s someone who knows how to talk. What’s your name?”
“Meyer. Meyer Lansky.”
The boy called Meyer standing beside Irving closed a deal with the oldest-looking guy in the Italian crew—someone who could almost pass for an adult.
Maybe I could…
Wait a second. Meyer Lansky?
I’d heard that name before.
I didn’t even have to dig hard. The name floated straight up from my previous life’s memories—specifically from a book I’d read in jail called Mafia Lineage.
Meyer Lansky, a Jew, would later be known as “the Accountant of the Mafia,” making monumental contributions to the construction of the Mafia empire…
I turned my head toward Meyer, only for the guy in front of me to grab my chin and force it back.
“The fuck you looking at? This punk’s got no manners. How much you got, you little shit?!”
“I’ll pay ten cents too.”
“What?”
Every guy in the alley turned to stare at me, then burst out laughing.
Bastards. At least explain what ten cents means before you mock me for it.
The man who’d just dealt with Meyer Lansky strode over. Up close he was clearly three or four years older than me.
“You even know what ten cents means?”
“…No.”
“You don’t know and you still run your mouth, you chink bastard?”
He flexed his fist, ready to throw.
The first real tension I’d felt in a while.
I flexed my own fingers in answer.
That was when Irving suddenly cut in.
“His mother’s Irish. Father’s Korean or something.”
Maybe he felt safe now that his own negotiation was finished; his voice wasn’t cowed.
“We used to shine shoes together, so I know him. He’s not a chink. And not long ago he got the living shit beat out of him by ‘Early Bird’ Gary over on Eldridge Street.”
“So?”
The man glared at Irving, and the kid’s voice immediately shrank.
“So… he’s not with those guys…”
“Irving, that was completely unnecessary.”
Meyer beside him scowled at Irving.
I could guess why it had been unnecessary just from the reaction of the man in front of me.
“Fucking Irish? Shit, you know who we’re fighting right now?”
The enemies of both the Italians and the Jews were the Irish gangs who had sunk roots in Manhattan long before either of them. The discrimination they’d suffered had kept the hatred burning since the earliest days of immigration.
The unfair part was that my blood was closer to Joseon—no, the Korean Empire—but these ignorant bastards only ever cared about the mother’s side.
In the next heartbeat the man closed the distance and threw a fist straight at my face.
Thud.
And I caught it.
Pure defensive instinct, no thought required.
“……”
The man staring at me flushed deeper red by the second, lips twitching.
Maybe I should’ve just taken the hit.