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you an identity and a sense of belonging. They afforded you a group you could trust that extended beyond the bounds of family. The home lives of most of the children in Hell’s Kitchen were unruly and filled with struggle. There was little time for bonding, little attention given to nurturing, and few moments set aside for childish pleasures. Those had to be found elsewhere, usually out on the street in the company of friends. With them, you could laugh, tell stupid jokes, trade insults and books, and talk about sports and movies. You could even share your secrets and sins, dare tell another person what you thought about important childhood issues such as holding a girl’s hand.
    Life in Hell’s Kitchen was hard. Life without friends was harder. Most kids were lucky enough to find one friend they could count on. I found three. All of them older, probably wiser, and no doubt smarter. There is no memory of my early years that does not include them. They were a part of every happy moment I enjoyed.
    I wasn’t tough enough to be part of a gang, nor did I care for the gang members’ penchant for constant confrontation. I was too talkative and outgoing to be a loner. I lived and survived in a grown-up world, but my concerns were that of a growing boy—I knew more about the Three Stooges, even Shemp, than I did about street gangs. I cared more about a trade the Yankees were about to make than about a shooting that happened three buildings down. I wondered why James Cagney had stopped making movies and if there was a better cop in the country than Jack Webb on
Dragnet.
In a neighborhood where there was no Little League, I worked on throwing a curveball like Whitey Ford. Surrounded by apartments devoid of books, I pored through the works of every adventure writer the local librarystocked. Like most boys my age, I molded a world of my own and stocked it with the people I came across through books, sports, movies, and television, making it a place where fictional characters were as real to me as those I saw every day. It was a world with room for those who felt as I did, who hated Disney but loved Red Skelton, who would take a Good Humor bar over a Mister Softee cone, who went to the Ringling Brothers circus hoping that the annoying kid shot out of the cannon would
miss
the net, and who wondered why the cops in our neighborhood couldn’t be more like Lee Marvin from
M Squad.
    It was a world made for my three friends.

    W E BECAME FRIENDS over a lunch.
    Word spread one afternoon that three pro wrestlers—Klondike Bill, Bo Bo Brazil, and Haystack Calhoun—were eating at a Holiday Inn on 51st Street. I rushed there and found Michael, John, and Thomas standing outside, looking through the glass window that fronted the restaurant, watching the large men devour thick sandwiches and slabs of pie. I knew the guys from the school yard and the neighborhood, but had been too intimidated to approach them. The sight of the wrestlers eliminated such concerns.
    “They don’t even stop to chew,” John said in wonder.
    “Guys that big don’t have to chew,” Tommy told him.
    “Haystack eats four steaks a night at dinner,” I said, nudging my way past Michael for a closer look.
“Every
night.”
    “Tell us somethin’ we don’t know,” Michael muttered, eyes on the wrestlers.
    “I’m gonna go and sit with them,” I said casually. “You can come if you want.”
    “You know them?” John asked.
    “Not yet,” I said.
    The four of us walked through the restaurant doors and approached the wrestlers’ table. The wrestlers were deep in conversation, empty plates and glasses the only remnants of their meal. They turned their heads when they saw us.
    “You boys lost?” Haystack Calhoun asked. His hair and beard were shaggy and long and he was wearing bib overalls large enough to cover a banquet table. The wrestling magazine stories I had read about him put his weight at 620 pounds and I was amazed that anyone that big could slide into