Cornerboy

Particular locales were bound up with cornerboy membership and activities.[…]Street cornerboys articulated with Mafia clubs, or “horse rooms”, which functioned as outposts for the administration of syndicate business and control.

When the cornerboys saw that no one was coming out, they pelted the dorm with rocks and broke windows. They shouted that if no one came outdoors, they were going in. A cornerboy who wore a headband threw what looked like a lead pipe.

My cornerboys jumped in saying, “You got him, man. This is fair-ones, you got him.” In fair-ones, once you beat a guy, the fight is over. I was now a full-fledged cornerboy.

The buyer walks past the old men at the lot, the family on the stoop, to the cornerboys, as I thought. One cornerboy takes the buyer aside and palms his cash, the second stands still, watching up and down the block, the third goes to the family on the stoop, has a word with the woman with the baby.

Father O’Flaherty taught Irish, or, to be more precise, spoke Irish with the country boys who already knew the language and insulted, cuffed and punched the contemptible town cornerboys who knew only English. If a cornerboy made an especially grotesque mistake, as often happened, Flah took the soft flesh of the boy’s cheek between his finger and thumb, violently shook the boy’s head till he gurgled, roared in disgust, ‘Are ye goin’ to give us yer breakfast, ye slabber?’ and slammed the head into the partition (the classroom was part of a prefabricated hut divided by wooden partitions).

‘I haven’t had time to get to know you all yet – but mark my words – I’ll remember you two – I’ve never seen such a display – rolling in the earth like cornerboys.’ I had no clue what a cornerboy was, and Beth and I hadn’t been rolling around on the earth anyway, but it didn’t look like Mrs Gallagher was up for a reasonable debate.