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Ben skips down the front steps of the school and onto the school yard for the first time after two weeks suspension for breaking Adam Breuer's nose. Despite the stern lecture he'd gotten from Mrs. Woods and his mother's resigned sigh, Ben couldn't really bring himself to regret flinging his fist into that kid's face, the delicate bones and cartilage giving a satisfying, wet crunch as it connected. Served him right for calling him "Bugsy" and the fact that Breuer happened to be two years older than Ben was just a plus.
Nicky waves at him from the far corner of the yard. The rest of the boys in Ben's gang are already there, tucked in between the fence and the outer wall of the woodwork classroom. The air there smells of sawdust and the smelly oil they use to treat the wood, which hides the smell of stolen cigarettes. But most importantly, the little corner they've commandeered is a blind spot for the teacher supervising recess while giving Ben and the other's a perfect view of the whole yard. Most of the boys are older than Ben but Ben has the advantage of being tall and strong for his age which together with his friendly face and charm wins him a lot of friends.
When Ben plops down on the ground together with the others, accepting a half-smoked cigarette from Zach, he playfully punches Pete in the thigh. He stares incredulously as Pete grimaces and moves gingerly to the side, out of range for any more punches.
"What's the matter, Pete? Gone soft while I was away?" A quiet snicker spreads among the boys gathered and Pete glares at them, grabbing fistfulls of grass from the ground that he intently stuffs through the wired fence.
"Show him, Pete!" Zach tells him.
"Yeah, show him, Pete." The others join in gleefully, leaning in closer.
Pete sighs and meticulously brushes grass of his hands and lap before he rolls up the left leg of his shorts. An angry, red scar runs from mid-thigh to the very top of his knee and all the boys hiss appreciatively at the sight. It's thin and completely straight, Ben notices with a sense of appreciation as he imagines the sure, confident hand that must've held the knife.
"Who did this?" He's not entirely sure what he'll do with the knowledge yet; break the kid's arm in three places or recruit him. Maybe both.
"Sid Rothman." Pete answers shortly, "But it doesn't matter, Benny, let's just leave him alone."
"Who the hell is Sid Rothman?" Ben wracks his memory of all the boys in school and from the neighboring school districts but can't put a face to the name.
"He's new. Transferred just after you got suspended." Zach informs him, leaning in even further to get a good look at the scarring. "We figured he'd be an easy target for some extra cash-"
"We were just playing around," Pete insists, his voice rising in indignation, "and then he goes pulling a knife on me!" He waves towards his injured leg. "Shoulda seen his eyes, Benny. Kid's crazy."
"Did you tell anyone?"
"I'm not a rat!" Pete glares at him and looks about ready to start a brawl, red-faced and worked up as he is. Normally Ben would be up for a scrap but today he's more interested in the kid who apparently wields a knife and doesn't hesitate to use it. Ben can prioritize when he wants to, despite what everyone says.
"And where's this Rothman kid now?"
Nicky cranes his neck to look around the grounds and points towards a part of the yard where some trees create deep shadows that move with the light breeze. Leaning against the trunk of one of the trees sits a scrawny looking kid with a dark mop of hair. Ben scoffs.
"You're all a bunch of little girls," he says and pushes himself off the ground.
Rothman doesn't look up from whatever he's doing when Ben crosses the yard but Ben can see him put his feet more firmly in the ground and change his position against the trunk to get more leverage if he has to spring into action.
"Hey," Ben says and steps in under the tree, close enough for the shadows to hide whatever they're doing from the teacher and definitely close enough for Rothman to feel crowded. If Rothman has a knife, Ben can't see it now and that should probably worry him more than it does. He sticks his hand out instead, giving the kid his most charming smile, "I'm Ben. Ben Siegel."
"I know," Rothman says, staring up at him with dark eyes and not taking his hand. He's just as skinny as he'd seemed from across the yard, but in a wiry, angular way rather than delicate. A sharp nose and pronounced cheekbones twisting his face into something dangerous in the shadows beneath the trees.
"So what's your name?"
"Sid Rothman." He puts his right hand on the ground by his foot and looks for all the world like he's fiddling with a dry leaf but the movement reveals, perhaps on purpose, the silhouette of a pocketknife tucked into his sock.
"How'd you hear about me?" Ben asks, pretending not to have noticed.
"I sit behind that guy you punched, Adam, in class." Sid answers and uses his thumb and index finger to pinch his nose, "He talks like this now." The words come out nasal and heavy and Ben laughs, delighted. Sid shoots him what has to be the smallest, most vicious smile Ben has ever seen and he decides then and there that Sid is going to be his friend. He mirrors Sid's smile and sees how he relaxes, just a little, burying his hands in the grass instead of hovering close to his ankle.
"Wanna come with us to Penn street after school? They robbed a post office and you can see the bullet holes and everything."
"I have to get back to the shop and help my father."
That's okay, Ben thinks. He can work for it.
So he waves goodbye to the rest of the boys when school is over and walks Sid home. Well, he tries. Sid skillfully dodges him at the gate and then proceeds to walk on the other side of the street all the way to his building, only a block from Ben's.
Sid's face the next morning when his mother calls him down, telling him that "his friend" is waiting for him to go to school is priceless. Confused at first and then resigned. Ben shoots Sid's mother another sunny smile and flings an arm around Sid's shoulders and drags him off. She'd seemed happy when he said he was there for Sid, her dark eyes lighting up in a smile very different to Sid's sharp-edged one. Sid doesn't have many friends, she'd told him, opening up to him just as easily as anyone Ben has ever turned his charm on, and he doesn't have any siblings to play with.
It goes on like this for almost two weeks, Sid and Ben walking home on opposite sides of the street and Ben knocking on Sid's door every morning to drag him off to school. The other boys don't get it. To them Sid looks just like any other scrawny kid in Brooklyn, scuffed shoes and clothes in fading colors. But they haven't seen the sharpness of Sid's smirk when someone gets hurt, the way his thin lips twisted to show just a hint of teeth and tongue when Mike feel down a tree and bit through his tongue two days after Ben's first week back from suspension. He wonders briefly what it means that he's the only one who can see it.
Their mothers push them together too. Sid's for fear of her child being lonely and Ben's, after having met Sid one day when Ben had managed to charm and bribe Sid into coming home with him, in hopes of Sid's seemingly calm demeanor rubbing off on Ben. They even arrange so that Sid will join Ben for violin lessons with Mr. Eisberg's which has Ben's immediate approval because the lessons might be less boring that way. Or, at any rate, Mr. Eisberg will have someone other than Ben to yell at.
To Ben's dismay and Mr. Eisberg's delight, Sid turns out to be a natural. He'd showed up at their first lesson together looking sullen but curious and at the end of the lesson he was wrapping his clever fingers around the neck of the violin and wielding the bow with more confidence than Ben ever could. Sid is good with his hands; he builds furniture in his father's shop, carves beautiful patterns into the backs of chairs and he pulls beautiful sounds from his violin. There is a quiet calm in Sid that allows him to build and create with total focus. And he appreciates skill and craftsmanship in a way that Ben never quite manages, his mind preoccupied with his future and the dream of another life.
Ben has plans. Big plans for his life, big plans for Sid too if he wants. He tells them all to Sid on their way to school, at school, on their way back home from school, whispered quietly when Mr. Eisberg turns his back. Sid never once tells him he's never gonna make it.
They're leaving the park one evening, Sid playfully walking a few feet in front of Ben instead of on the other side of the street, he skips around the street corners and disappears only for Ben to turn the same corner to see him waiting with his head cocked to the side ten feet ahead.
Sid has just disappeared around the third corner and Ben already has a smirk ready to meet Sid's as he closes in. But when he's a few feet from the corner, three older boys step out from a doorway, blocking his way. He vaguely recognizes them from the catholic school three blocks away before they back him up against a wall.
"Do we have a problem here?" Ben says, pulling himself to his full height and squares his shoulders, staring straight at the tallest boy who seems to be the leader.
"You're in our street, Siegel." The boy says, crossing his arms.
"You're a long way from home, choir boy. How about you let me pass and I won't tell my pal Capone you're opening your own racket?" The mention of Capone's name makes two of the boys draw back slightly, looking between Ben and the tall boy who doesn't make a sign of backing up. They don't move at all for a few seconds as the taller boy seems to weight his options and then the boy on the right is on the ground, howling and holding his knee. Sid who's appeared from around the corner stands above him with a victorious smile and brings his heel into the boy's stomach. Ben grins and bares his teeth to the boy in front of him before he punches him in the face.
Afterwards, they laugh and watch them limp off, half-carrying the boy Sid kicked down. Ben thinks that he's never seen Sid as pleased with himself as now, with a split lip and a streak of blood down his chin. Ben is quite pleased himself, having finally found the perfect spot for Sid in his big plans.
"We make a good team, don't we, Sid?" Ben asks, sliding down against the wall, idly prodding the inside of his cheek with his tongue, where his teeth has cut into the soft skin.
"I guess." Sid nods, sitting down beside him.
"I want you to be my right-hand man. And we'll always have eachother's back, just like now."
"Okay."
"The others will never see what hits them." Ben grins and reaches out to take Sid's hand, pulling them both up. In the future, if anyone asks, Ben will tell them that this is where his empire started. On a dark street in Brooklyn, with Sid by his side and the both of them smiling with blood on their teeth.