Sidonya Hakimi

Professor Hoffman

IDC 1001H

5 December 2017

The One That Got Away

1914

“the name James. jus turn 10. stol a book from the place with a whole lot of those things in der place near me. don tell pa, hell be mad for sher that im her ritin dis.”

That was my first entry, back when I hid my journal from Ma and Pa when we lived in the slums of lower Manhattan. So here’s my story. It begins as grim as any other. I was born in the Bowery, in a tenement building where I would live for another decade or so. The entirety of my family, the O’Connors- including my three younger brothers, two older sisters, parents, auntie Janine, and ol’ Grampa Tim- lived in our two-bedroom apartment.

I was born into a family adept at pickpocketing. We weren’t taught how to read, write, and think, rather how to cheat, lie, and scheme. No one in that tight two bedroom tenement apartment had a legitimate profession; we each took on various roles as the years progressed in order to see how far we could ‘milk’ our customers until they realized we were delinquents. As the eldest brother, I was responsible to teach our way of life to the younger in line- my sisters taught me nearly everything I knew on how to make some change until the age of 10. Nancy, the eldest, was the best of them all. I remember years ago when Nancy and Sara, the second oldest, would create their elaborate pick-pocketing schemes. They stole money from the wealthy New Yorkers walking on the streets using every method in the book. Nancy would approach a woman dressed up in obvious attire only someone with money would be wearing and share her tale of her sick, dying mother who needed medical attention to survive. While she was babbling on about her story, Sara would scout the potential gains- check for jewelry, a visible wallet, fur coats, the works. While the woman finished listening to Nancy’s sob story, she would proceed by leaning over to scrummage through her bag for spare change, and at this point, Sara would bump into the unknowing woman. At the moment where the woman was caught off guard, Sara would proceed to snatch the nearest item in her purse, preferably a wallet, while the woman regained her composure. Most times, the victims would proceed onward without knowing something was missing. Other times, when the girls were not so sly, they would end up running off together, with an adult chasing and hollering behind them. After, the girls would trade their trinkets in for cash, or sometimes a meal if they were particularly malnourished.

As a kid, I was encouraged to make a living for myself in the same way; I picked up on all the best tricks. For my first heist, I recall being around eight, when I asked some old lady for cash for a chocolate in the nearest candy shop, showcasing my best innocent smile. After she took her purse out I snatched the leather case and made a run for it, all the nine blocks home. With every bound forward, my legs seemed to be getting heavier, however not due to fatigue. I felt this strange sense that perhaps I should turn around, and give the white-haired lady back her purse. But the voices of Nancy, Sara, and Pa all urged me forward, and I shoveled the thoughts to a place in the back of my mind, where I thought they would remain. Later, I discovered that the guilt I felt would only grow and fester as long as I denied it. When I reached our tenement building, the glee and approval on the faces of my family members was enough to give me the satisfaction I immediately craved. Later on, when I mentioned the strange feeling I felt to Pa, he informed me that those who dressed ‘pretty’ had ‘too much,’ and it was our duty to make things fair by taking from them what they ‘did not deserve’.

1922

“18 now. My English better. My full name be James O’Connor. I heard of place. People learn in room, with someone teaching. I wish to learn. One day.”

At this time, the family business changed. It was the time of the prohibition. We transformed into bootleggers, illegally distilling alcohol in our bathtub- primarily rum. Later we produced more whiskey, gin, and our very own moonshine concoction. In the area, we had most control over the alcohol production. The six of us siblings were responsible for smuggling our beverages to speakeasies and wealthy buyers. Pa was the fist behind the operation. Everybody knew that he was a force not to be reckoned with. If we heard of any business trying to rise in competition of our existing practice in Bowery, Pa would take his bat and switchblade out at night on his ‘stroll’. On these nights, he may have returned with a couple of bruises or scrapes, but nothing in comparison to the damage he had caused. He left a trail of warnings behind. One particularly brutal story I heard the next day was of a Jimmie Johnson, who was mercilessly murdered in his Tenement building for rumors were blooming that he was smuggling spirits from oversees to compete with our business over land. The O’Connors were not welcoming of anyone who attempted to come along and obstruct their profits.

Although the future for my family seemed to finally be looking up in the midst of the Roaring Twenties, I felt the strong sense that this lifestyle was not for me. Bootlegging in lower Manhattan was extremely lucrative. My sisters both got married were busy with their growing families and drunkard husbands; Pa expected me to carry on the family business. In the upcoming years, I discovered that I would be able to learn, as I had wished- and escape the life of pick-pocketing and bootlegging through the only way I knew possible- education. I had already taught myself how to read and write from snatching books and newspapers here and there. In order to attend school in Manhattan, I needed to remain quiet about my unpopular occupation and aspirations. I continued bootlegging alongside my younger brothers and showed them the ropes. We kept flasks in our boots during daytime smuggles, while our larger rum-runnings occurred in the safety of nighttime as a dark blanket to conceal our identities.

I organized some of the biggest smuggles my family had conducted so far, before I turned 20. I planned out a location to meet with the clients and used precautions to avoid the police. I even got good with a policeman in the neighborhood to help keep us under wraps, given that I provided him a gallon of rum every month. None of my family members were as careful in planning as I was, and I knew that I had potential to help our family business grow to new heights. Rather, I quietly kept enough of the profit from numerous sales in order to save up for school. I had always been good with numbers and counting, so I knew how to steel from my family so they wouldn’t miss it- I learned from the best.

I wanted to be a respectable human, like those men and women in proper attire that us kids had stolen from in our youth. I wanted a real job. At night, I found classes to take in order to learn how to be a bookkeeper with the money I had slowly saved up. My most recent fling with Alice, a neighbor around my age, was my excuse for being out most nights. One night, when I came home after class and hid my books under the staircase as usual, I didn’t realize my Ma and Pa standing cross armed waiting for me at the door, with none other than Alice by their side. When she came looking for me, my parents knew my nights spent with ‘Alice’ were falsified. Pa yelled and even hit me when I couldn’t give him a straight answer. He had transformed into an angry drunk over the years, however I had managed to avoid his wrath until then. I sobbed some excuse about how I was with another girl that night, losing Alice in the process. My parents seemed unconvinced, and Ma said it be best if I left. I snuck into the classroom I had been learning in twice a week, now empty, and finally uneasy through the remainder of the night in one of the wooden desks.

1940

“Now I am 36. This may very well be my final entry. I have an unknown disease. Some say you get it from sleeping with others, but some say its from an animal. Whatever the case may be, I have only a little time left.”

You may be wondering what ever happened to me, James O’Connor. That night was the last time I saw my family for a decade. When I woke up to a woman batting me with her shoe the next morning, screeching at me to leave before the next class arrived, I took this abrupt awakening as a sign to restart my life. For a time I lived on the streets in a way I never had before in lower Manhattan when I finished my bookkeeping classes and began to work for a family practice, they offered me a room in their home for the work I did at a lower price. Eventually, I earned enough to rent a room in an apartment, where I did the landlords’ taxes. I helped him organize his finance so that he could spend less and make more profits. He was so thankful for my help that he gave me the room I was staying in for good. I was living in midtown. The Roaring Twenties were a time of economic boom leading up to the stick crash in ’29. I was lucky enough to avoid the impacts of the Depression- I hadn’t invested up until then and I continued working here and there off the books.

Since 1932, the prohibition era has ended and the amendment was repealed. The Great Depression swept over the land, however my family was impacted more by the legality of alcohol than the economic downturn. Their bootlegging ways were not needed in the 1930s any longer. Some of them, I heard, were out on the streets, resorting to begging as the only way to get by. I had known their little illegal fortune wouldn’t last long. The rise of automobiles and the creation of highways due to Robert Moses led to expansion outside of the city. It was the age of suburbanization. Some of my family clients began making the move to the place known as Long Island, on the outskirts of the city. I began slowly investing here and there.

My life had reached the place where I dreamt I could be some day. In my late 20s one day, coming back from work late, I decided to go get a drink at the nearest pub. As I made it inside, the rain had began picking up. Sitting down on the bar, I witnessed a girl with wispy brown hair and light eyes tumble into the pub. Drenched in the downpour that had picked up outside, the beautiful girl seemed to be escaping some harmful force. I had learned in life to remain away from evident troubles such as these. But I felt the innate need to protect this woman. My body over road my brain and my legs dashed to approach her wild eyes. Without word, I grasped her arm and took her to the back, out of sight. Right after, an angered man ran in, and after a couple minutes of furiously searching, he left. I learned her name to be Mary Finley. Immediately, I knew this woman had stolen my heart­– that cold thing I had managed to put away for so long. I would have done anything for her, right in that pub when I first laid eyes on her. So I asked her on our first date.

Me and Mary started a family together later that year, when we got married. We both agreed that we had to leave the restrictive bounds of the city. Both my family and her former partner were living there, which we wished to escape. My little bit of investing paid off when one of my riskier stocks skyrocketed. With our little fortune we were able to move out to the open, grassy suburbs of Long Island. I gained some more education here and there so I could work as an accountant in larger firms. My wife had two beautiful children, one of each. Just as my life was seeming to get started, I knew it had to end. I had escaped the cycle somehow, but it was as if fate was trying to get back at me for getting out of line. I suppose I was the one that got away. From the poverty and cheating. But I could not escape disease, and no sum money could help determine what was wrong with me. Health was the one factor no man had the power to run from.

“I’m grateful for this life I have lived. May little Annie and Benjamin relish in the wonders of knowledge, and never soak their palms in the dirty waters of dishonesty, like my family before me. Love you Mary. Take care,

James.”