Free The Amboy Dukes by Irving Shulman

Frank,” he said quietly. “I don’t think much of gangs.”
    “Maybe it’s because you never belonged to one.”
    “I did”—Stan stretched his legs and placed the basketball between them—“but I got out. You ought to ditch the Dukes while you can. Do you want me to walk away while you put on your jacket?” he asked suddenly. “I guess you’ve got one of those homemade pistols in the jacket and I’m in your way.”
    Frank stared at him. He didn’t know what to say or do or how far he could trust Stan Alberg. Stan was tall and slender with narrow shoulders, but his body was lithe and supple as a well-strung bow. He wore thick-lensed glasses that were firmly supported by his prominent nose, under which grew a thin brown mustache. His cheekbones were high and added to the sardonic twist of his lips. Stanley Alberg looked like, walked like, spoke like a scholar and, what was most surprising, was a scholar. But for years he had been unable to secure a teaching job. The civil-service lists of New York City had been jammed full of young men of similar accomplishments who had eked out a meager existence by working in temporary positions as ticket agents at the ferry terminals, as proctors of civil-service examinations, and as delinquent-tax investigators.
    Now he was at the Jewish Community Center on Bristol Street and feeling that he was doing a worth-while job. Every juvenile he was able to interest in the gymnasium was someone who made his day a success. It was a tough job to go out and drag the boys off the street corners and make them want to meet in the Center gymnasium instead of the poolroom, make them want to meet in the Center clubrooms instead of the corner candy store, and make them want to go out and recruit their friends to join the athletic teams instead of the gangs.
    The neighborhoods of Brownsville, East New York, and Ocean Hill were infested with gangs. The Pitkin Giants, the Amboy Dukes, the Sutler Kings, the Killers, the D-Rape Artists, the Zeros, the Enigmas, the Wildcats, the Patty Cakes were just a few of the gangs that fought, slugged, and terrorized the neighborhood. They fought for the sheer joy of bloodying and mauling one another, and no insult was so slight that it could not be used as an excuse for a mass riot and free-for-all. Every day and night Stanley was faced by new problems of organization, but there was the belief that he was doing something worth while, and each member he gained for one of his teams and clubs was a personal victory.
    One of Stanley’s great problems was money. He needed money to purchase the athletic equipment which had become increasingly scarce since 1942, and he had to operate on the niggardly prewar Center budget which governed athletic activities. He pleaded with the superintendent in charge of athletic and club work but was always palmed off with the same excuse: the Board of Directors was doing the best it could; people were not contributing to the Center because they could see nothing but the opportunity to purchase luxury items for which they had starved for years. That was why the Center had to get along on its inadequate budget and why the juvenile predatory gangs of Brownsville and Williamsburg and Harlem grew larger and more dangerous. It made Stanley sick with anger, and once or twice he thought of quitting the job at the Center, but Reba, his wife, had asked him to stay, and he knew she was right.
    Now he watched Frank squirm as the kid looked at his jacket and wondered what to do about the gun.
    “Go ahead,” he repeated, “put on your jacket. I don’t care either way.”
    Frank slipped his arm into the sleeve and dropped the pistol into his jacket pocket, where it sagged and bulged. “So you know about these.” Frank laughed nervously. “I bet you think you’re a smart guy.”
    “No”—Stan shook his head—“not so smart. But smart enough not to carry one of those.”
    “Aw, they’re nothing.”
    “I know.”
    “I wouldn’t