Joe started through the alley, thinking any moment he'd be called backwith a, "Yo forget 'bout it' or something--but he knew he was about to get "his head handed to him!" As he turned the corner, a thought of fleeing zipped through his mind...."NO! YOU CANNOT!!"...A thopught of prayer...."God ...ugh, I...Oh! God, help me: I'm sorry,...truly! I am!" Entering the alley...Joey and entourage rapidly approaching behind...'GOD!!' he thinks again, as he spies a large chunk of chipped red clay lying upon the ground...Pictures of David and Goliath in desperate battle cross his mind....he bends down...stretching his arm...Joey Esposito turns into the alley...Joe's right hand grips his jacket....Joe's mind screams, "HIT HIM WITH THE BRICK!THE BRICK!...Joe's hand grips the brick and begans to rise...Joey pulls and begins to turn Joe around..Joe's right hand securely attached to the brick, comes 'round and into Joey's view...he speeds up his motion...his left fist...tight..huge knuckles...straining to greet Joe's face...Swinging around with tremendous force...Joe's face cringes into a mass of compressed fear..as the fist approaches...speed of light and...PLOP! Joey slips! His feet fly from under him! ..WOP!.. He hit his head so hard on the paved alley, that it sounds like a pupkin had busted!...'He's out cold!.. Praise the Lord!' Joe pounces on top of him just as the "wannabe wiseguys" come around the corner. A vision of victorious intoxicated, animated Joe greets them--sitting on top of Joey beating him about the head--"So whaddaya think now, punk?" TOTAL AMAZEMENT RULES THE CONER!!!
Joey was a mess. His mother had to be called to take him home. Joe was the herp--at least that's the wasy he saw it the day! The group gave him a leather jacket (three sizes to big) and he became one of them.
Sergio left to go back to Brooklyn, urgig Joe to go with him; but Joe was swept up by the victory. He was a hood! He was with the "Big Guys." He was in!
Pauly and Joe started hanging together on the corner with their new crew.When his old pals came to speak to him, he emulated his new friends in thier taunting and despising of these "pieces of garbage." Over the next few weeks Joe brook all of Bernie's car windows--because his new "friends" he had to show Bernie who was boss!
Joe had arrived. He was now a member of the thugs he once despised. And they, deciding that he would go all the way, gave him an invitation, "Hey, Joe, let's go to Spanish Harlem!"