"So with some dough we wouldn't have to hang around here this summer, we could do other stuff?"

"Was that so hard?" Dolan asked. Sixteen-year-old Jimmy Dolan was a kid that always looked for the easiest way out. Intellectually gifted, he should have been a success in any endeavor.  But success demanded some form of work and he simply didn't have the patience for it.  For him the payoff took too long, and there were simpler ways to achieve a goal.  In high school he passed all his subjects-the work came easily to him-probably too easy, but that was all; he passed.  He excelled in nothing! That was the strange thing about him; he had an inquisitive mind, he could speak knowledgeably and convincingly on many subjects, but schoolwork bored him. For him it all went sooo slow! The teachers stood there and blathered on and Jimmy would soon drift off into another world.  A world where his 'old man' wasn't a truck dispatcher and sometime driver, where his mother didn't work full time at some stupid job at nearby "Idlewild Airport", and where his little brother wasn't a pain in the neck. A world where a kid could get some new clothes once in a while, where every penny didn't have to be begged for; a world where a whole segment of society didn't feel alienated and unwanted.

"How come you askin' me?" J.B. questioned.  "Any of the other guys gonna' bein on it, too?"

 "Nope.  Just you and me."

"Why did you pick me?"

"Cause you have the gun."

"We all got guns.  I made 'em for everybody."

"Zip guns won't do it.  The guy we're going to stick up won't even know what they are.  We need a real gun."

The gun that Jimmy Dolan was referring to was the twenty-two-caliber rifle that J.B. had hidden under his porch.  He had come upon the rifle when he and 'Little Ritchie' were ransacking some garages over on 116th street, and he had claimed the prize as his.

J.B. might have been a little slow on the uptake but his practical mind saw a flaw in Dolan's plan, “Rifle's too big to carry around.  What are we goin' to do; wrap it up in a towel, or something?"

"No, stupid,' Dolan said, "that'll just look like a gun hidden under some towels.  We're gonna' cut it down.  Hacksaw off most of the barrel."

"Like a sawed off shotgun", J.B. interrupted.

"Right.  Like a sawed off shotgun.  We cut the barrel and we cut the stock, you know, until it will fit under a jacket. You dig?"

J.B. had no idea about the rest of the plan, but whatever it entailed, he found the whole thing enticing.  This would prove to be exciting and no matter what was involved; he had confidence in his friend, Jimmy.  And a stick up, man, a real stick up, just like in the movies. Petty crime was not something that Jimmy Dolan, J.B., and the rest of their crowd were unfamiliar with.  They stole bicycles, rifled cars and garages, and they shoplifted.  They did it for the small sums of money they "earned', that was true, but for the most part they did it for the challenge and excitement.  There wasn't a lot going on in southeast Queens in the mid fifties, but a stick up, J.B. thought, that was big time.

"What if we get caught?"  He asked Dolan.

"First of all, we ain’t gonna' get caught.  I got this all figured out.  But even if something goes wrong and we get busted, what are they going to do? We're only fifteen, and the only thing they can do to us is put us on probation for a while.  Big deal!"

"Yeah', J.B.'s face lit up when he said: "Like Curatolla.  And he was seventeen."

"See what I mean?  That dumb wop stuck up a drug store and they nabbed him a block away.  But all he got was probation." There was no downside to it as J.B. saw it.

"Count me in."

II

The plan had come to Jimmy Dolan as he sat in a stall in the Boys Room, quietly smoking a cigarette.  He had cut fifth period English.  They were studying "The Odyssey" and he had already read it two years before.  So rather than be bored to tears as the teacher tried to make Greek literature interesting to a bunch of dopes, he simply stayed away. He had just finished his cigarette when he heard the bathroom door 'swish' open.  He thought it might be a teacher checking for room passes so he raised his feet and sat there quietly. It wasn't a teacher, but it was two kids that he knew, "Piggy" Pagano and Ralphy DePrisco.  He knew them, but he didn't like them.  They were both members of an insipid street gang called the "Rebels" and they had a clubhouse of sorts in the neighborhood.  The clubhouse, located in a converted garage that Piggy's uncle owned, sat far off the beaten track. Because of this the uncle rented it to the "Rebels" for a moderate sum. The "Rebels" called it a clubhouse-Jimmy and his friends called it the "Shithouse".

Piggy was talking when they walked in: ".I don't care!" he was saying, "It's rent time.  Everybody wants a clubhouse but nobody wants to pay for it.  If I don't have it by Saturday my uncle'll kill me."

"But why on Saturday," Ralphy complained, "it's only the second of the month?"

"How many times I gotta tell you?  He collects the rents on the first Saturday after the first of the month.  He spends all day doin' it.  We're the last one he hits - about nine o'clock-and if I ain’t got the rent he's gonna be pissed and tell my old man."

"It takes him all day to collect rent?  How many places does he own?"

"Damned if I know.  He's got a bunch of stores up on Liberty Avenue and they have apartments above them, too."

"He old, ain’t he?"

"Shit yeah."

"Man, when he kicks you're gonna' be rich."

"I'm gonna' be dead if I don't have the rent."

 Jimmy heard all this and it started him thinking.

III
 

"You got the gun?" Jimmy asked J.B.

"Right here," J.B. answered as he held out a shopping bag for Jimmy's approval.

Jimmy looked into the bag and was happily surprised to see the gun heavily wrapped in newspaper.  Before he had the opportunity to comment on that J.B. said: "I wrapped it up so in case anybody looked inside they wouldn't see nothin'."

"Good thinking.  That's a good idea."

It was seven thirty at night and they were sitting on a bench in a little triangular park up on Rockaway Boulevard.  Jimmy had chosen this as their meeting place not only because it was close to the "Rebels" clubhouse, it was also far enough away from their usual haunts that the prospect of meeting some of their guys was remote. This was a new thing that he and J.B. were about to do, and while he trusted his friends implicitly, there was no sense involving anybody else in this enterprise.  With a good possibility that he and J.B. might make a large score here -maybe hundreds of dollars - if the rest of his buddies knew about it they might want in, too.
At eight-thirty they hopped on their bicycles and rode to within a block of their target.  They stashed their bikes behind the overgrown hedge of an abandoned house, and as casually as they could, they entered an alleyway directly across the street from the clubhouse.

The lights were on in the converted garage but the windows and front door were covered with some old sheeting, so it was impossible to tell how many people were inside. "What if he comes out with some of them?"

Jimmy shrugged.  "Nothing we can do about it.  Maybe we can follow them until he splits off, and then get him.  But we gotta' be careful.  We can't let anybody see us.  Anybody gets so much as a glimpse of us and this whole deal is off."

"Can't we just wait 'til next month?"

"No way," Jimmy answered, "they're bound to remember seeing us this time and put two and two together."

J.B. changed the topic.  "So how much do you think we'll get?"  There was an eagerness in his voice like that of a child speculating on his upcoming Christmas gifts.

"I don't know, a couple of hundred, I hope."

"Each?"

"Could be, I guess."

"Man!"

The sight of an old man trudging slowly down the sidewalk interrupted J.B.'s reverie.  The street, heavily wooded with ancient oaks and their newly regenerated leaves, blocked the dim light from the streetlamps.  The two nascent holdup men all but held their breath as the old man paused in front of the clubhouse.  The light was better there and they could see that he was dressed in a rumpled, lightweight topcoat with an equally distressed immigrant cap, and in his right hand were the straps from the briefcase that he loosely carried.

"That has to be him," Jimmy Dolan whispered, and a soft murmur of agreement answered him. They watched with barely contained excitement as the old man walked into the building.

The plan had been to sneak up on the old man when they had the opportunity, and to stick the gun in his back.  They intended to say something like: "Keep quiet or we'll shoot you", take the money and run off to where their bicycles were stashed. But now, in view of the old man's obvious frailty, a new plan was born.

 "We don't have to stick him up," J.B recognized, "all we gotta' do is run by him and grab the bag, Right?"

"It looks that way."  Jimmy whispered.  Both he and J.B. were dressed all in black for the evening's adventure.  Everything they wore was black, including the sneakers on their feet.  "The old man won't even hear us coming if we do this right."

"Right."  J.B. had been standing there with the sawn down rifle held tightly in his grip, but now he relaxed and tucked the gun into his waistband. They waited.  Jimmy, by nature a patient kid, appeared almost laconic to a fault.  That was what distressed so many of his teachers.  He had talents, natural abilities, but whenever they spoke about his lack of motivation he would just shrug.  If pressed by some of the more caring teachers, he would often  blurt out: "Look, I don't care.  Can't you just leave me alone?  I didn't do anything wrong, did I?" The teachers would be forced to admit that he hadn't done anything wrong, only that he wasn't applying himself.  But the more they spoke the deeper Jimmy would fall into a sulk, and soon their patience would be exhausted. Nobody could understand Jimmy Dolan, least of all Jimmy himself.

J.B. was another animal altogether.  He had no patience.  While Jimmy stood stolidly and awaited the old man's exit, J.B. became all excited and fidgety.  He shifted his weight from foot to foot and tapped a rough staccato beat on his thighs.  "A couple of hundred bucks, a couple of hundred bucks", he sing-songed at a barely audible level, but  still loud enough to set Jimmy on edge."Knock it off, will ya'?  Just stand still."

J.B. did as he was told, but only for a short while.  It wasn't long before Jimmy caught him rocking side to side in tune to some interior melody.  He was about to chastise him again when the old man emerged out onto the sidewalk.

But the old man wasn't alone.  He was with 'Piggy'.

"Shit!" J.B. murmured.

"Quiet!" Jimmy ordered as he pulled his friend deeper into the shadows.

"They aren't moving," he whispered, "they're just standing there talking. We'll give them a minute and see what happens.  But be quiet.  If they see us the whole deal's off!"

J.B. mumbled something but Jimmy didn't catch it. 'Piggy' was doing most of the talking an it seemed he was trying to convince the old man of something.  His gestures were emphatic but the old man only nodded in silent reply.  It's funny how body language can speak volumes, Jimmy recognized.  Even from across the street he could see the weariness in the old man, a weariness that hung heavy on him like an unforgiven sin. Finally the old man simply threw his arms up into the air, said something, and turned from 'Piggy'.  'Piggy' stayed for a minute with his arms akimbo and his head down, and then he shuffled silently back into the clubhouse Jimmy felt J.B. stir and he grabbed him roughly.  "Wait until he gets way down the block, away from the shithouse.  We can catch up with him in no time".

IV

The thing that Jimmy hadn't planned for, that he couldn't have planned for, was the direction that the old man took when he left his tenant.  Jimmy had no idea where the old man lived or how he intended to get home.  He hadn't told that to J.B., he could only hope for the best. It worked out for the best for the two desperados.  The old man walked east on 133rd Avenue.  If he had continued in that direction, once he crossed 120th Street, he would have to walk past a block-long empty lot, now shrouded in total darkness.  Jimmy felt his heart race as the old-timer approached the intersection, and then cross.

"Now!" Jimmy spat out in a stage whisper. He and J.B. slid from the shadowy alleyway and darted from tree to tree in quiet pursuit of their quarry.  Once they passed 120th Street they silently crossed over to the other side where they were a scant one hundred yards behind their victim. "Ready?" Jimmy asked.

"Let's do it."  J.B. responded. Now the old man approached  the lot-the darkest spot on the block-and they raced toward him unconcerned about the sound of their footfalls.  At the last second the old man heard them coming, but it was too late.  Jimmy was in the lead and he snatched the briefcase from the old man.  J.B., running just a little bit behind and off to the side of him, brushed past the old man, but it wasn't enough to unbalance him.  The old guy stumbled but he maintained his balance. Not so, Jimmy.  The sidewalk that fronted the vacant lot was cracked, broken, and in some spots raised high by the roots of nearby trees.  It was one of those high spots that Jimmy tripped over.  He went down hard, sprawling only a few feet from the dazed man.  He regained his composure quickly and J.B. helped him to his feet.  They stood there for a brief second eye to eye with their prey.  It was dark, very dark, and both Jimmy and J.B. had taken the precaution of wearing black ski masks as part of their outfit, so they weren't concerned about being identified later.  But they were concerned about the noise!  If the old fool began screaming now he might attract some attention before they could make good their escape.

But the old man didn't scream.  "You bestids", he squeezed out between his pursed lips, his Italian accent now thickened by his anger.  "You fuckin' bestids!  I'll show you who not to rob."

The two boys stood there transfixed by the old guy's courage.  But then the old man reached into his pocket and it became obvious that he was going for a gun.  Jimmy was frozen in place, but J.B. reacted swiftly. He reached into his waistband and pulled out the sawn off rifle.  The old man's gun had just cleared his pocket when J.B. fired!  He had no time to aim; he just sort of pointed the gun.  "Crack!" and the small caliber bullet tore a furrow along the old man's side.  It hurt, but it didn't deter him.  He had his pistol clear of his pocket then and he was raising it to shoot, when J.B. fired again.  Again there was a sharp "Crack!" but this time the bullet struck bone.  The bullet caught the old man in the right elbow and the pain was enough to force him to lower his gun.  But he still managed to hold on to it. By now Jimmy and J.B. had regained their composure and they ran for all their worth down the street.  Just as they approached the corner there was a huge explosion as the old man let loose with his ancient .44.  It wasn't like in the movies-they didn't hear the bullet 'whiz' past them-but they did hear a solid 'Thwack!' as the bullet ricocheted off a nearby tree and skipped down the street until it embedded itself in the side of a parked Chevrolet. The boys ran fast, very fast.  They retrieved their bicycles and were well on their way home before the police were even notified.

V

The "incident", as the boys jokingly referred to it later, was reported in the local paper, "The Long Island Press".  It told the story of the robbery and the subsequent shootings, and it also said that the old man survived. He had sustained two bullet wounds but fortunately neither of them were serious. The police, the article continued, were looking for two holdup men, both in their early twenties.

J.B and Jimmy waited four days before they retrieved the satchel from beneath J.B.'s porch, where they had stashed it the night of the robbery. Aside from the brief report in the newspaper there was little talk of the robbery in the neighborhood, so they felt it safe to do so then.

On Tuesday night they dumped the contents onto the workbench in J.B.'s garage.  After they had separated out the checks and money orders for later disposal, they were thrilled to see that they still had a little more than seven hundred dollars left over.  It was a fortune!

"You know we got lucky," Jimmy said to J.B.

"Lucky?  The old prick had a gun!  He coulda' killed us."

"That's why we were lucky, he didn't.  And that's not all.  And it's my fault.  We got lucky when he walked past the vacant lot, and we were lucky that our bikes were stashed where they were.  Imagine if we had to go back towards the 'shithouse', who knows who might have seen us?  We were lucky."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," J.B. conceded.  "But man, look at all this dough.  We could work all year if we had a job, and never make this much money.  Next time we plan it better.  Next guy we frisk first."

"You got that right, “Jimmy Dolan said,

"you got that right."