© 2026 Robert Sickles
In the movies, when they need an ethnic thug character and they don’t want to wear out the bad-guy stereotypes of Slavs, Italians, or Latin Americans, the obvious choice is the other stereotype, the Irishman. We are supposed to know that there is certainly something richly believable about a street-tough borstal boy who grows up to be a ruthless crime boss, constantly f-bombing in his quaint Irish accent. Fookin’ loovly, is he nawt?
Well, I had my run-in with a couple of Irish thugs—I’ll call them Pat and Mikie Mulroney—who ruled a territory of my hometown with an especially cruel hand. Not so much with Irish accents, but they had the tough part mastered. They were older guys, maybe 11 or 12, who enjoyed picking on little kids like me. For a year or so, I was one of their favorite victims. It took me a while, but I handled the situation decisively.
When I wanted to go most anywhere, I had to cross the old bridge on Savage Road over a lazy stretch of the Rockaway River. There was a public beach there I liked, near the Little League field. Back then, it was not much of a beach really, just a broad, flat riverbank that had fresh sand trucked in now and then. The beach and the bridge were the turf of the Mulroney boys and their gang. They drew a lot of attention to themselves by cussing noisily, jumping into the river off the bridge, and dominating kids on the beach. A nearby trail through the woods, a remnant of the old Morris Canal towpath, was also part of their domain. I made the mistake of finding the gang’s secret fort in there.
If I was having a lucky day, I could climb trees, pick wild grapes or crabapples by the canal, or play with my pals at the beach without a care. But the Mulroney gang was always on the lookout for a kid to bother, and I was caught a number of times either in the woods or at their “checkpoint” on the bridge.
The ritual varied from time to time, and was pretty simple. When they spotted me coming, one of them would call out, “Hey, here comes that kindergarten baby!” (Hey, I was going into the 3rd grade!) I would be stopped with a little pushing and shoving, and interrogated while restrained in a choke hold. I was supposed to demonstrate that I knew the nasty words for a girl’s or boy’s private parts, or asked whether I’d ever seen or touched a naked girl, or had a beer or smoked a cigarette. Of course, I didn’t know what the heck they were talking about; things were very different back then. It was my time of innocence, 1957, and I was only 8!
They joked about me having “virgin ears.” I had no idea what that meant, and misunderstood that they were calling me a “virgineer.” I’d heard of engineers, buccaneers, and Mouseketeers, but I just couldn’t understand why they were calling me a “virgineer.” Then they laughed while threatening to steal my bike or clothes and throw me over the bridge. I had to promise never to cross the bridge or go by the canal again unless I could say their dirty words, or bring some adult magazines or beer. That was a typical encounter with the hooligans in my neighborhood. I usually went home in tears and beat up my pillow.
Dad saw that I was glum, and got me to admit that some bad kids were picking on me. But I don’t think he grasped what I was up against. He told me that I shouldn’t let them get under my skin, that I needed to be strong and stand up for myself. He wasn’t very specific about that, and I thought he meant I should haul off and slug ‘em! Good talk, Dad. Sure, I’ll march right down there, all by myself, and throw some punches at two or three of those big dopes. Wait… I have a better plan, Dad, how about you do it?
Instead, my idea was to avoid the bridge and ride my bike the longer route down Morris Avenue to see my friends or go downtown. Morris wasn’t very safe for bicycles, though.
Seething with rage, one day I’d had enough. I set my jaw and mounted my bike. Gripping the handlebars until my knuckles were white, I rode toward the bridge, come what may. And there he was, Mikie Mulroney, standing right in the middle of the road, taunting me to chicken out. An insane energy rose in me, my vision went to whiteout, I pumped the pedals harder and steered point-blank into him, knocking him to the ground. I don’t know which parts of him I was running over when I felt the tires under me thump twice, almost bucking me off the bike. Somehow, I kept my balance as I sped away; his cussing and crying ringing in my ears long after I was far away. I couldn’t look back to see what damage I’d caused or if the other guys were coming after me. I just knew I had to get the hell out of there, adrenalin keeping me peddling wildly all the way to town and beyond. I wanted to lift off and see Earth from way out in space!
I really needed that to be the end of my days of being their kindergarten baby! Nevertheless, I avoided crossing the bridge for the rest of the summer. For a long time, I lived with guilt and fear that I’d crippled, castrated, or killed Mikie; Or worse, that I hadn’t. In fact, I never knew one way or the other, and can’t remember if I ever saw Mikie or Pat after that. But since the cops didn’t come to my door, I suppose he survived. Heck, maybe I drove the Mulroneys out of town! Was it a violent way of dealing with the problem? Yeah, but revenge felt so uplifting!
There is an old joke about a mother who’s running out to the car, in a hurry to get to work and she can’t find her car key. She calls up to her son in the top floor window, “Pat, honey, could you throw my key out the window?” Pat grabs his brother Mikie and throws him out the window.
I’ve always liked that one.
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Enjoyed this one, especially the ending. I too spent time swimming at that little beach on the mighty Rockaway River as a kid and recall it fondly as it no longer exists.