My Crooked Family

By James Lincoln Collier

Sneaking into the majestic house on Park Row last night and unlocking the door for the well-dressed stranger had been exciting. Still, Roger knows that what he did for Circus was wrong, especially when he learns from the newspaper that one of the inhabitants was killed. But the fifty dollars he earned is a fortune! His mother never seems to have any change left over for dinner after she buys her daily supply of liquor. And his father is in the hospital, recovering from a gunshot wound. With fifty dollars Roger can buy those yellow trousers he's been admiring and a decent dress for Lulu, his younger sister. Now Circus is asking him to pull another job. In spite of the temptation of easy money, Roger vows he won't listen to that fast-talking redhead. Too many unanswered questions buzz through Roger's mind. Who shot his father? Why does Circus take such an interest in his father's health? Why does his father ask questions about a redheaded man? And what is Circus' connection to his father? My Crooked Family is both a gripping mystery and a powerful coming-of-age novel about a fourteen-year-old's decision to enter a world of professional crime.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
• Release date: Mar 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781620646908

James Lincoln Collier

James Lincoln Collier is the author of more than fifty books for adults and children. He won a Newbery Honor for My Brother Sam Is Dead, which he cowrote with his brother, Christopher Collier. Twice a finalist for the National Book Award, he is also well known for his writing for adults on jazz. He lives in New York City.

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1

I STOOD IN THE DOORWAY to the all-night drugstore, watching for Pa to come out. It had rained just around the time it had got dark. The sidewalk was still wet, and the water was soaking into my socks from the holes in my shoes. I’d put cardboard over the holes before I went to school that morning, but it had worn out where the holes were.

I wish I had sense enough to ask Pa for some money before he went out. I should have known he had some. I wouldn’t have found out, either, but Lulu saw him counting some bills just before he went. If I’d known about it I’d have got some of it off him. A buck maybe. A half a buck, anyway. With a half a buck we’d have had supper. You could get a fair-sized bucket of rice and fried pork from the Chinaman’s for a half a buck. Enough for me and Lulu anyway, and even Ma, if she ever woke up.

Oh boy, I could taste that rice and fried pork, and smell it, too. I loved going to the Chinaman’s, for it always smelled wonderful in there—pork and chicken and onions and all those spicy things. It was like breathing a Christmas tree.

I wish I dared go into the saloon to hit Pa up for some money. But I knew better. I’d done it once, and he’d picked me up, carted me outside, and belted me across the puss. Then he told me what a lot of nerve I had to show him up in front of his friends like that. So I stood in the doorway of the drugstore, waiting for him to come out, and hoping that he’d have some money left when he did.

The saloon was called the Golden Eagle, but there wasn’t anything golden about it—just a ratty old dump with about ten years’ worth of dirt on the windows and the gold all flaked off the eagle except in the eyes, which were deep set and out of the weather more than the rest of it. I’d only been inside the place just that one time, but I’d peeked through the window often enough looking to see if Pa was inside.

They had an old guy playing the piano and a girl in boots and a short skirt who got up and sang sometimes. I thought about crossing over and looking in the window to see if Pa was getting ready to come out, but I decided not to. It might show him up again, and then there wouldn’t be any hope of getting any money out of him. So I went on standing there, watching the sights.

The District wasn’t an ordinary neighborhood. It was special, for it was filled with saloons, gambling joints, dance halls, and the parlor houses where the whores were. There was always plenty to see in the District. Even after dark, horses pulled wagons thumping along the cobblestones. Here and there among them were motor cars—more than you were likely to see in other neighborhoods, for the swells like to drive into the District to have some fun. Every few minutes a trolley car went through clanging its bell, stopped in front of me, and let people off and on.

Along came a big cop, his buttons all shined up, his badge polished, swinging his billy like he was boss of the place. I was afraid of cops, even though I hadn’t done anything wrong. They were running dogs for the plutocrats, Charley O’Neill always said. Charley’s pa was treasurer of the Brotherhood of Bricklayers Local No. 12 and Charley was always fired up against the plutocrats. Along came a whore with a dalmatian on a leash. The whore was wearing a pink blouse with beads on it and a red hat. The dalmatian had on a tweed coat. A young fella wearing a bowler stopped to look her over. She smiled at him, but went on walking. The young fella tipped his bowler hat, but he didn’t follow her.

Then Pa came out of the Golden Eagle. I hoped he had some money left. A half a buck, anyway. I could feel that fried pork all crunchy in my mouth. Pa stood there outside the saloon, his hands in his pockets, frowning and staring down at the sidewalk. He had on his cloth cap and his sweater, but no overcoat. I figured the overcoat was in the pawn shop. Being as it was April, it wasn’t that cold, anyway. I hopped out of the doorway. A trolley car came clanging down the street and stopped in front of me. I waited until it had gone off again. Pa was walking down the sidewalk. I raced across the street through the traffic and caught up with him.

Hey, Pa, I said.

He stopped and looked at me in that puzzled way he had, like he couldn’t exactly figure out what I had to do with him. What’re you doing here?

We don’t have any money for supper. We need a buck. I figured I’d shoot high; with a buck we could have pie for dessert.

What’s the matter with your ma? How come she didn’t fix your supper?

She’s asleep. She got drunk.

He frowned. What business did she have of getting drunk?

I don’t know, I said.

Where’d she get the money?

She got five dollars from Grandma.

He puffed out his cheeks and looked around. She ought to have told me that. She has a lot of nerve holding out on me. She got any left?

I don’t know. She’s asleep. I knew she didn’t have any money in her purse, because I’d searched it, but she might have hidden it somewhere.

Nuts. He kicked out with his foot. She buy a bottle or did she go out?

She wasn’t there when we got home from school. Maybe she went down to visit Mrs. O’Brien. She came in after a while with a bottle. Pa, we need some money for supper.

I haven’t got any. I thought your ma was fixing your supper.

I didn’t know whether to believe that he had any money or not. Pa could be jolly when he felt like it, but he had a mean streak in him. Sometimes he would get tough with us for no reason. So it could be that he had money all right but wanted us to go without supper. He might figure it would serve us right to go hungry for a while. I hated it when he got like that. Please, Pa. We’re starved.

He went on frowning. Your ma’s supposed to feed you. What do you think I give her money for? You shouldn’t have let her start drinking.

Everything was always my fault. Pa looked at it that way and so did Ma. I couldn’t help it. Please, Pa. Give us half a buck. Lulu’s probably crying already. Lulu was nine and pretty scrawny. She was hungry all the time.

I told you, I don’t have any money. There’s no use begging me. It wouldn’t do you any harm to miss a meal once in a while. You’ve had it pretty soft all your life. When I was your age I was working twelve hours a day on my old man’s farm upstate, and got whacked on the fanny if I took two minutes off to spit. Life isn’t any bowl of cherries, Roger. It’s time you began to earn your keep. I didn’t go beyond the sixth grade and I never saw the need for it.

When Pa was fourteen my grandpa whacked him once too often. Pa knocked him down and ran away to the city. He didn’t know if his folks were dead or alive and didn’t care, he always said. Sometimes I wondered about them. What were they like? I knew my other grandma and grandpa— Ma’s folks. They lived right in town and we used to visit them a lot, until they told Ma she couldn’t visit unless she quit drinking and left Pa. They would have liked for me and Lulu to visit, but Ma wouldn’t let us unless they changed their mind about Pa. I wished we were able to visit at least one of our grandparents. Maybe I could visit Pa’s folks when I got older. The last time Pa saw them was when he ran away. That was twenty-five years ago—1885 or something.

I got things to do, Pa said. You go on home and see if your ma’s got any money left.

I don’t think she has.

She must have. She couldn’t have drunk up five dollars that quick.

Pa—

I said you go home. He raised his hand to whack me.

I jumped back. Just a half a buck, Pa.

Go on home, Roger, before I give you something you won’t forget. I gave up. I turned around and headed on back home. Why couldn’t he have given us a half dollar? He made me so sore I felt like crying, but there were a lot of people all around and what would they think of a kid walking along snuffling to himself?

We lived on the sixth floor, right under the roof. Ma always complained about the stairs, and Mrs. O’Brien always said it was like to kill her when she came to visit Ma. But I liked living up there. In hot weather me and Lulu would go up to the roof and catch a breeze. Sometimes on real hot nights we’d drag a mattress up there and sleep on the roof. In winter we’d go up and make a snowman. I’d rather have made a snow fort and had a snowball fight, but it wasn’t any use having a snowball fight with Lulu, for sooner or later I was bound to hit her smack in the face, and she’d cry and go back to the apartment. So we made snowmen. You couldn’t do that on the street, for the gangs of Italian kids would come along and bust it up before you even got it finished.

Our apartment wasn’t much—two rooms and a kitchen. Ma and Pa slept on a daybed in the living room. Lulu and me had the back room. We ate in the kitchen. There was a bathtub in there. The toilet was out in the hall—we shared it with the people in the front apartment. They were always complaining that somebody had peed on the seat. It wouldn’t have mattered to have a bigger apartment for we didn’t have enough furniture even to fill that one—the daybed and an old easy chair with the springs sticking out of the bottom, so that when you sat down you were practically on the floor. In our room all we had was the bed, a chair, and a little bureau, one drawer for Lulu, one drawer for me, and an extra drawer if we ever needed it.

We spent most of our time in the kitchen, anyway. There was a white enamel table with black showing through in spots where the enamel had chipped off; the kerosene stove; the ice box, which we hardly ever used since half the time we didn’t have ice. I did my homework at the kitchen table—when I did it. For decoration Ma had put up two pictures in the living room—a scene of a street in Paris, and one Ma painted when she was in art school a long time ago. Ma’s picture was of a naked lady drawn in some kind of crayony stuff. It was the only one she had left—the others had got lost over the years, what with the number of times we moved. We were always moving—once a year, or every two years at least.

When I got back Lulu was huddled way down in the old easy chair, with her arms wrapped around herself, shivering like she was cold, although it was warm enough. Where’s Ma?

She went out. Did you get any money?

No. Pa said he didn’t have any. Where did Ma go?

She went to the drugstore. She didn’t feel good.

How was she going to pay for the medicine?

She said she would have to charge it.

What are you shivering for? It isn’t cold.

I just feel like it, Lulu said. It makes me not so hungry.

How can shivering do that?

It just does. I’m so hungry I could eat a rat. Ma had fixed us bread and jam sandwiches for lunch. Then she’d gone up to Grandma’s to borrow some money but had started drinking instead. Our grandma and grandpa had an apartment uptown. Grandpa worked for Bell Telephone, putting out the classified ads. He’d saved his money and was going to retire soon. He wore a gold stickpin and a bowler hat, and he carried a walking stick with a horse’s head for a handle. I always like feeling the horse’s head, for it was worn as smooth as silk. Grandpa had a trick of taking a nickel out of your ear and giving it to you to spend on candy. Only he hadn’t done it to me for a while, ever since he decided not to let Ma come home anymore until she quit drinking and got rid of Pa. Ma said if that was the case he couldn’t see his own grandchildren, either. I wished she hadn’t pulled that, because I liked to visit them. They had a maid and their house was neat and clean and had plenty of furniture in it. Sometimes Ma would go up there to visit Grandma when Grandpa was at work, but she didn’t take us.

I’m so hungry, Lulu said.

I’m hungry, too. Boy, would I love some rice and fried pork.

Don’t talk about food, Roger.

You were the one who brought it up.

I mean don’t say kinds of food. Maybe we could get the Chinaman to give us some if we begged hard enough.

I don’t think it would work. The Chinaman was tough and kept a sharp eye on things. Once he chased a robber out of there with a cleaver, even though the robber had a knife. I didn’t see it happen, but everybody knew about it.

We could try, Lulu said.

That meant I could try. I was her big brother and was supposed to take care of things. The idea of going into the Chinaman’s and begging something to eat made me nervous. Why would he give us anything? But I could taste that fried pork in my mouth all hot and chewy and covered with that sweet glop they put on it.

We could tell him Ma’ll pay him tomorrow.

That was a little more sensible. But still I didn’t want to do it.

Come on, Roger.

Why were things always up to me? If I didn’t do it for her, she would blame me for being hungry. Could we get into any kind of trouble for it? I couldn’t see what the harm was in asking. Still, it made me nervous. Well, all right, Lulu. We can try it. But I don’t think it’s going to work.

It might.

Maybe, I said. Maybe if you look little and cute he’ll feel sorry for you.

I’m not so little.

I didn’t want to get into an argument about whether she was little or not. She stopped shivering