The Art of Making Money by Jason Kersten

the catwalk was stunningly beautiful. “She was wearing a white outfit. Slacks with a white shirt, and a white coat. And I didn’t even realize it was her at first. I thought, ‘Wow, that’s my sister. ’ A whole crowd of cameras went off, click click click . I remember her looking at me when she came to the end of the runway. She turned and the jacket dropped to her arm; it was beautiful. I remember how proud I was of her, because she just had it .”
    Once Wensdae moved out, Malinda quickly followed suit. Sick of the city altogether, she headed back to Texas, leaving Art enough room to bring in Karen and the baby. For the first time since becoming a father, he finally had his own family under one roof, but he soon learned that escaping the Bridgeport Homes would require more than geographical separation.
    The Thirty-second Street Satan’s Disciples were not enthusiastic about Art’s move. Now twenty years old, he had risen to become one of the top lieutenants and moneymakers. At first he continued to visit his old friends at the Homes and show up for the Friday meetings, but after Karen and the baby moved in he decided it was time to end his involvement in the gang. Knowing that the gang’s leader, Marty Arbide, wouldn’t be too happy about one of his top lieutenants jumping ship, Art chose a passive exit strategy: He simply stopped attending meetings in the hopes that everyone would understand his new situation. But a few days after he failed to show up, he ran into two SDs on the street and realized it wasn’t going to be so easy. They immediately asked him where he’d been.
    “You know I love you guys, but I’m not about this anymore,” he told them. “I have to look after my family now.”
    “You gotta show up, Arty,” one of them replied. “Even if you’re not out there anymore, you gotta pay your respects.”
    “Hey, I respect you, but I don’t know what else to tell you, man. I’m steppin’, I gotta move on,” he said, and told them he had somewhere he needed to be.
    After Art failed to attend the next meeting, he started missing the camaraderie of the Disciples, and decided to drop by the playground the following Friday for a visit. Marty was there, along with his three biggest attack dogs: Danny, Porky, and Redhead Jerry. When Art greeted them with his normal enthusiasm, he realized right away that he had made a mistake. “They kind of rolled up on me, gave me the silent treatment,” Art says, “and I knew something was going down.”
    “You have a violation coming for not attending the last two meetings,” Marty flatly told Art. In Disciple-speak, that meant that he was now expected to submit to three gang members as they beat him for thirty-two seconds—because they were from Thirty-second Street. If he resisted, more seconds would be added according to Marty’s whim.
    “I’m not taking it,” Art told him. “If you start swinging, we’re fighting.”
    “That’s the way it is, then,” Marty said, and before Art knew it Marty and his lieutenants were charging him.
    Art was standing with his back to a brick wall, and the first to reach him was Danny, who opened up with a wide, wild right. Seeing it coming, Art sidestepped left and ducked. An instant later, he heard a crack followed by a scream, and was amazed to see one of Danny’s wrist bones sticking out from the skin of his right hand; he had struck the brick wall instead of Art. That turned out to be the only heroic moment for Art, because after that the other three boys moved in and beat him senseless. As he lay on the ground, knotted up and bleeding, they reminded him to be at the next week’s meeting.
    The indignation of the beating only solidified Art’s determination to get out of the gang, and sure enough, he refused to turn up the following Friday. He didn’t hear anything from the Disciples for three weeks, and then one evening he heard a knock on his front door. Thinking it was probably one of Karen’s friends,