Bucco was a couple months younger than Tony but there were other important differences. At fifteen, Bucco was shaving real fuzz from his cheeks and had armpits full of black shiny hair. Neighborhood girls loved the hair on Bucco's manly chest and whispered secretly about it. Bucco loved to wear his starched white shirt wide open to the waist when the girls were gossiping on the stoop as he'd stroll or swagger by with Tony or other guys from the gang.
Tony could never understand why girls dug body hair just as they did but there was nothing he could do about it. The fact irked him but it also aroused him. He didn't know why. Girls had funny ideas. As they looked him over he felt their eyes burning through his crotch, caressing his thigh muscles, his biceps exposed by his white shirts and tight white gym shorts. Tony was as fond of the bulge in his crotch as he was his handsome features. Tony Conn was the best looking of all the dudes in the Lords.
Girls from other neighborhoods controlled by other gangs would often meet in one of the cement parks. The schoolyard was another general meeting place. This was neutral territory. Here one gang had the chance to meet the girls who lived in enemy neighborhoods and nothing was said. But it was against the law to be seen or take any girl from her turf into your own.
When some dude dared to do this, hell broke loose and the culprits were marked for knifing if not death. Only a week before one of the murderous Apaches had met Bucco's young sister in neutral territory in one of the two candy stores near the high school. His name was Terror and he was feared by all, big and strong, worked out with iron bars, fiery-eyed and a grin that never changed, like a mask.
Carolyn, Bucco's sister, had the secret hots for this cat immediately and she well knew how it would bring down her brother's wrath if news ever got around she was interested in Terror-much less risk going out with him if either of them could have successfully arranged it.
But luck was somehow with them and one Friday night preceding the Sunday war declared by the Lords on the Apaches, Carolyn stole out of the apartment.
After darting up and down side streets in a circuitous route to meet Terror on the sly at the movies near the school in another neutral territory, the two smiled at the success of their conspiracy and entered the movie separately, arranging to meet up in the dark balcony.
This night the movie was almost deserted. Several old men dozed in the balcony. A dim light illuminated the ladies room. Close to it was a small walk-in closet where the janitor kept his mops. Terror had a stolen key to this closet and on a shelf high up the janitor would never examine, Terror and another Apache kept a cache of wine they would sip while they watched the movie.
Carolyn was wearing her short skirt, a dark blouse on purpose with a zipper, anklets and sneakers. Wildly excited she had taken off her panties and brassiere, deliberately leaving them home because she had every intention of letting Terror's eager finger work on her titties and juice up her pussy. Carolyn had been dreaming of this adventure for days. It was just about all she whispered to her best girlfriends, Amy and Sassy.
Halfway through the movie, Terror had her hand down inside his fly and Carolyn was happily squeezing and jerking off Tetror's thick dick, thumbing it and staring sideways into his big brown eyes to see how he was taking it. She had planned every minute with Amy and Sassy advising.
Terror had Carolyn's skirt way up, thighs naked and silky smooth, the young girl sitting on her bare buttocks on the cool wooden seat. Carolyn loved his squirmy fingers and when they were worming around delightfully inside her warm wetness, she was cooing and moaning into Terror's shoulder, nibbling on his ears and neck. She loved the smell of his healthy sweat and his father's after shave lotion.
As they took turns sipping the strong wine, Carolyn got more and more tipsy, giggling as Terror's eyes searched into hers. When Terror led her into the janitor's closet, his hands everywhere on her half-naked body, he pushed her down to her knees, whispering hoarsely for her to take his cock into her mouth.
Suddenly Carolyn lost her nerve and she spat on the floor. Although Terror forced more wine down her throat, Carolyn was fighting back, sputtering and gagging as the Apache tried to shove his cock down her throat. Suddenly she vomited all over his new clothes and fled naked into the empty lobby. Old men were shocked awake, heads swung, eyes focused and as Carolyn dressed frantically and fled down the carpeted staircase, more than one neighborhood person recognized her.
Before Carolyn was in bed after scrubbing her mouth, using an entire tube of toothpaste, word spread like wild fire.
Bucco was awakened by gang whistles and in seconds, wearing only his track shorts, was out on the fire escape and climbing to the roof. Within seconds, he spotted Tony Conn and Zero, both out of breath. In a minute they were joined by Cheese and Lazy, then crashing up the narrow stairs from adjoining tenements and flying over the chasms that separated the building like flying night phantoms, came three other members of the Lords.
With the new mattress spread on the landing, a candle flickering and casting shadows, each brother toking on his own reefer, war was declared on the Apaches and Terror was sentenced to have his genitals whipped until they bled, then his cock and balls burned with fiery hot candle wax.
Because they had no time to waste and it was the strategy of the Lords that they struck at once, did what they had to do immediately and repaired to await counterattack, the rumble was scheduled for that following day, a Sunday. Tony might have to give up church but it would be for good reason. Revenge on Terror for what he'd done to Bucco's little sister, no matter how uninnocent she might be, was deadly serious business.
All that night, Tony had gone in and out of fragmented dreams and walking images of a smiling Carolyn down on her bare knees, her naked titties ripe and jiggling as Terror with his hands pressing her head down, thrust his hairy loins into her pretty face.
Tony could imagine Carolyn's horror-stricken eyes wide as the Terror's big knob forced its way between her pearly white teeth.
These images made Tony shudder and despite his horror and anger, plus a mixture of jealous emotions he was becoming used to when he felt things just weren't right, he felt a trembling in his loins. He was afraid to glance down under the covers to see what state his cock was in. Tony was never sure if his cock was really hard until he glanced at it or felt it with his fingers through his pants. Lots of times when he thought it was erect or should be, he was very disappointed and chagrined to find it wasn't.
As he walked toward the staircase housing on the roof of Bucco's tenement, he stopped to peer over into the distance. Suddenly a thousand memories flooded, making his young body tremble.
Since he'd been thirteen he'd been fighting in the streets, wrestling with his enemy, bludgeoning his gang's foe with clubs and slashing knee caps with tire irons. All of a sudden it dawned on him that usually every single situation, every rumble regardless of how serious, had something to do with a girl. Why was it always over a girl his gang went to war?
Either the gang was fighting to protect what they thought was the family honor, the family respect of one of their gang brother's or sisters or cousins, or the fight was over one of the queens belonging to another gang.
Seldom did the issue deal with anything else. When it did, it had to do with nonsense things that got exaggerated all out of proportion, issues each gang took very seriously that in retrospect had no meaning at all.
Crossing into another gang's declared turf was a deadly unforgiveable offense. Stealing in another gang's neighborhood, ripping off a newsdealer or a candy store were other serious offenses, but nothing was more important in any assault, any attack than the manifestation of interest in any female, no matter how good looking she was, who was the sole property of one gang.
"You see, these broads, they belong to us, our property," was muttered more and more in the dark cellars where the Lords would be busy making their war weapons, sharpening their knives, polishing tire irons, fashioning spears made from iron fences, making zip guns out of toy pistols with electrician's tape and coiled springs stolen from hardware stores.
Once Tony said, "but shit, man, that Clarice, she ain't worth a real shit to none of our brothers, why the fuck should we have to go to war with the Goblins on account of her?"
She lives on our turf, don't she?" came the quick answer from a snarling Ringo, already high on cheap Guinea Red as he sat dealing himself a hand of Solitaire. "Ain't that enough reason?"
Tony didn't think so, but he didn't reply. Ringo was never in a good mood. He had a reputation for whipping his enemies on their bare ass until they were literally shitting. He'd grab them around the neck in a strangle hold that more than once came close to killing. He was famous for knowing how to make guys unconscious.
Tony sat quietly on top of the landing waiting for Bucco to climb up. He heard him silently close the door of his apartment, then the soft firm tread of his feet as he flew up the staircase.
"Hey man, you all ready? Hey, I got no sleep. It's gonna be murder for them cats, especially with that guy Terror!"
Bucco was brandishing a long knife he'd lifted from a local butcher shop and honed it to a cutting edge so sharp it could shave the fuzz off a peach.
Tony took a cigarette Bucco offered, lit it and sat leaning back against the wall. Together in monosyllables they went over their plan, Tony doing the listening because Carolyn was Bucco's sister. He was in command.
"You dig she's still sick from what that fuckin' dude did to her. It burns my ass, man. Him trying to shove his fat dick down her throat."
"She didn't ask for it nohow, huh?"
"Hey man, just whatta you mean by that?" Tony's eyes met Bucco's and held.
"She goes into that janitor's room with Terror, don't she, Bucco? Don't she let him take down her pants? No? Ain't she with him locked in there with the wine like she was born and her hands wasn't tied?"
"Yeah, man, but there ain't nothin' really wrong in doin' that kind of girl shit, man. Hey it was him gettin' her down on her knees and him forcin' his big dirty dick into her little mouth. Had it'd been me I'd bit his cock off!"
When Bucco said this, Tony felt a distinct throbbing in his own dick, but he shook his head to shatter the lewd images dancing through his brain. More than once he'd had his own hots for Carolyn. But he never confided this to Bucco. Carolyn was always showing off her sweet little titties. Once she and Tony were alone in the candy store pretty late. She was high on wine as he was, bending over for some reason and he was looking right down inside her blouse. And Tony knew she damned well knew he was looking. He remembered his eyes widening, his cock swelling up.
Tony knew that Carolyn was really no dummy in that she knew about cocks and she knew what she was showing off. No girl ever fooled Tony Conn. None could; he was too alleywise about girls, which had nothing to do with having street smarts. Anybody could have street smarts. Alleywise meant sex-like big fat tom cats always in heat, sniffing and licking, fucking cunt, the bitch cat with her wet ass high up in the air waving it around, begging, moaning for any cock in the alley.
Being alleywise meant you had a good idea of what girls were really like deep down inside, how they played around with themselves like boys did, how they had as many dirty thoughts as any guy. Girls teased their own pussies and used their fingers on their titties too. Girls looked into mirrors and were always talking or thinking about their titties and their sweet pussies, whispering how their pussy hair was growing; and they'd show it off to other girls in the shadowy hallway or on the stair landings, in the smelly school toilets.
Tony never kidded himself about girls. But he kept what he knew to himself. He knew. Although he had no sister to watch, he had lots of time to waste watching other girls. He loved to sit just apart from them, just out of hearing to listen to them rap on and on, giggling, whispering about this dude and that dude's hairy chest, his hairy thighs. If one gal managed to see a dude's bare naked cock, they'd go crazy talking about what they saw. Why girls loved body hair so much, Tony could never figure and this was one thing, his own lack of it, that bothered him and made him shy.
"Maybe it was all that long black greasy hair that Terror's got that gets Carolyn hot in her pants? You ever think of that, Bucco?" Tony asked. He was staring absently watching Bucco sharpen his knife. From the inside pocket of the expensive leather vest Bucco always wore when he went out on a rumble, Tony saw the broken tips of sever 10< kosher candles he knew what Bucco was going to use them for.
"Yeah, maybe, but when I get done with the cat, he's gonna wish he never seen my sister." Bucco stomped out his cigarette.
"Hey, come on, man, the other kid's waitin'."
At the far end of Warren Street in the musty dark empty basement of the tenement on the comer near the candy store, a lone candle flickered, casting dancing shadows. Suspended by his chained wrists from an overhanging sewer pipe, Terror of the feared Apaches hung stark naked, his white stocking feet and black Sunday patent leather shoes a striking contrast to the ugliness. Bound and gagged, a greasy blindfold that had been smeared with dog shit across his eyes, the youth struggled and twisted helplessly.
Facing him were nine members of the Lords, passing around reefers and a bottle of expensive wine bought for the occasion. As one Lord whipped Terror's naked buttocks, Bucco held the burning candles over his genitals and when Terror would lunge out with his feet, flailing and kicking, Bucco would shower the fiery hot wax across his lower body.
As Terror screamed and his muffled howling escaped from the gag that had been soaked in human piss, two of the stronger Lords gripped their victim by his waist so Bucco could drop the wax right on his genitals. A terrible silence settled into the dark cellar as Bucco began to bum off Terror's pubic hair with the crackling candle flame.
As Tony watched from the shadows he couldn't deny the excitement that set his blood ablaze. Neither could he understand the fierce light burning in Bucco's bright eyes and the unmistakable bulge he could see easily in Bucco's crotch. As he began to whip Terror's naked genitals and the acrid stench of burning human hair was permeating the cellar, one of the Little People handed Bucco a thin leather girl's belt that had spent the night soaking in a stolen barrel of Jewish dilled pickle brine.
When this stinging punishment was over and word to end it came from a quiet but husky voice concealed in the shadows of a coal bin where earlier Tony had heard the silly giggle of a young girl in the arms of an older gang member before Terror's torture was begun, the Apache was cut down. He was left to lie in a broken heap, further humiliated because he was lying in a pile of human feces collected by the Little People.
At a given signal, the Lords filed silently into the empty Sunday street, moseying off quietly in different directions.
"Hey man," asked Bucco, "where you goin' now? What's you up to, hey Tony?" He passed his friend a fat reefer.
"Hell man, you know what day this is, right?"
"Yeah, sure. What of it? Sure, yeah, like who don't know that?" he grinned, slapping Tony's shoulder.
"So I gotta go to church, right?" Tony laughed softly, showing his fine white teeth.
"Yeah, hey, yeah, I guess you gotta do that, Tony," came Bucco's reply. "But somehow," he added, "after what we just did to that motherfucker, it don't seem right."
"The two got nothin' in common," Tony said, passing the reefer. He waved his hand and grinned. "Church got nothin' in common with nothin' else, man."