Chapter 1

Excerpts from Harper’s Weekly Magazine – September, 1877

Titled: THE LADING OF A SHIP

“The longshore-men are among the most ignorant and brutal of men. Their work is very laborious, but requires little skill; their surroundings and associations are all such as tend to degrade them; their pay is smaller than that of almost any other class of workmen, and their prejudices are easily excited. It thus happens that debauchery and murderous fighting are constant among them; extensive strikes against reduction of wages or some fancied imposition are of frequent occurrence; and some of the bloodiest riots New York has ever seen, originated among them. Intemperate and brutal in every respect, yet hard workers, and consequently muscular, no class of men gives the police so much trouble as the longshore-men.”

(Several pages later in the article, the tone changes from contempt in the previous paragraph to one of awe at the ability of the longshoremen to move heavy cargo... )

“The ease with which exceedingly heavy bodies are handled by the stevedore’s men is remarkable. The hatchways are often just large enough to let the package through, and frequently the space between decks is so circumscribed that men have hardly room to move, yet by skillfully landing the hogshead, or boxed piano, or granite monument, or huge piece of machinery, as it is lowered to them by tackle, by bringing it up and twisting it over with iron bars, pulling it with cotton-hooks, and pushing with brawny hands and shoulders, sitting down four and five in a row, against a bulkhead shoving with their feet, they slowly work the unwieldly mass into a corner and brace it firmly by wedges; until its successor is placed.”

(Originally posted at: http://www.maggieblanck.com/occupations/Longshoremen.html)

During the Victorian era of the mid-to-late 1800s, New York City was rocked by an epidemic of gang violence. Crime was especially rampant in the Manhattan neighborhoods of Five Points, Hell’s Kitchen, The Fourth Ward and The Bowery, where back alleys and crowded tenements were infested with hustlers, thieves and street thugs. These groups trafficked in everything from cocaine and heroin, to robbery, prostitution, and murder. The names of the gangs could strike fear into the hearts of even the most crime-hardened city dwellers. From river pirates to knife-wielding adolescents, Manhattan’s Lower East Side was ruled by notorious street gangs.

Leonard Jerome Vagassé, my father – God rest his soul – was a longshoreman on the Red Hook Docks in Brooklyn for twenty-odd years until his untimely death at the hands of the street gang, The Whyos.

As I recount the story of my younger years, from weakened remembrances – it was this act of violence which set my life onto such an evil path. The journey in itself nearly bringing a brutal end to me, such as the one my father – God rest his soul – suffered.

“Leo, ye can be anything ye wan’ta be in this land if ye’ll work at it. Ye can be a merchant, a tiller of the lands, a butcher, a baker, a policeman, or a barrister in the courts ... Yet there’s one thing I ne’er wan’ta hear of ye doin’ and that’s bein’ a longshoreman or a stevedore on the docks of New York. Ye’ve always been damn good with your schoolbooks. Ye can talk with the educated men on any subject and ye can figure numbers in ye head as well as a politician. Use ye God given talents and abilities and not ye broad back ta make a dollar.”

My father, a large, big-boned man of German and Irish descent, could lift a buggy horse into the air with all four of its hooves clear of the ground.

The first time he came home from work and saw me with a black eye and a bloody nose, he took me to the boiler room in the basement of the apartment building. Then each day until the day he died, he gave me lessons in how to defeat a man with my hands, fists, elbows, feet and head. He never called if self defense, or even fighting – he called it learning to survive.

My father – God rest his soul – could defeat any man who confronted him on payday, as they oft did many working men in our neighborhood. The one thing he could not do, was defeat more than two dozen of the street gang, The Whyos. They killed him at our front stoop, stabbing him ten times in his kidneys, heart and lungs. They took his pay and took his gold watch and chain which his father had given him for good luck on the day he and my mother sailed for America.

I was twelve years of age at the time of his death.

Born on Delancey Street in the Bowery neighborhood of Manhattan’s Lower East Side on January, 25, 1900, I was destined to either die violently on the streets, or learn to survive.

My mother – God rest her soul – a sickly woman all the years I knew her, died of pneumonia within a year of my father’s death. I was alone and I needed a job. I took to the streets to make my living and I made a damn good one at it. I paid the rent, the utilities and kept the two room apartment up by working the streets.

My close friend, Lucky Luciano, took me to task and taught me the ropes, beginning at age thirteen. His biggest contribution to my livelihood, was introducing me to his friend, Al.

By my fourteenth birthday, I was as tall and broad-shouldered as my father had been when he died, tipping the scales at one hundred and eighty pounds. I was also well schooled in survival on the streets around The Bowery.

Al’s biggest contribution to my life on the streets, was my first brass-knucks. They were his and he gave them to me the day he put me to work. They were bright and shiny and the knuckle points were deadly.

Though Al had a notorious reputation, he was the one who eventually helped turn me away from my life of crime.

Alphonse Gabriel Capone, took a liking to me the day we met. He knew of me, but I had never seen nor heard of him before. He was a year younger than me, but he was the smartest, yet meanest-minded man that I ever knew. He always had a big roll of money in each front pocket and he showed me how to make more money than I ever dreamed of. He had connections with City Hall, the police, the politicians and the shop owners up and down the streets of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. He also recruited me into Paul Kelley’s, Five Points Gang.

“I’ve seen you fight even without the knucks, Leo. There’s not five men on The Bowery crazy enough to take you on with their bare fists, one at a time – or all at once. I need a good man like you at my side and at my back.”

For the first time since my father died, I had a friend, I was friend, and I belonged.

At age fourteen, I started out as a bouncer at a whorehouse ran by The Five Points Gang. Al would come by and check on me regularly, slipping me an extra hundred dollars, telling me that he had a good run of luck the night before.

The one thing I remember most about Al Capone – he always had a plan. He never did anything without planning ahead – eliminating obstacles before he put his plan into action. No matter how big or how small, Al planned the events of action down to the smallest detail. “Never take a chance on things going right, Leo. Make your plans ahead of time, then make sure things happen the way you planned them.”

It was at the whorehouse that I lay with my first woman – My first fifty women if the truth would ever be learned about me. Over the next five years, I became known as a hired killer, a bruiser and a striker on the streets – thanks to Lucky and Al. They made sure I was well trained in handguns and long guns. We had many wild-west shootouts on the streets of Manhattan with our rival gangs. I learned to plan my attacks just the way Al had taught me. As young as I was, I was the leader of the pack, simply because I was prepared for whatever our enemies threw at us.

I had my revenge on The Whyos during those fights. Then later, The Whyos gang broke up and the stragglers were inducted into the Five Points Gang. From one of the members, I took back my father’s watch, after I killed him with my bare hands. Broke his neck, I did. Snapped it like a broom handle. He was a fool to pull out that gold watch and chain in front of me. Just before I turned his head around to face backwards, I made known to him, my name and my father’s name ... The man he killed to take the watch.

I made thousands of dollars a week, in the ever growing murder-for-hire business, and as a striker and a bruiser. In the first year I made over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

For beating a man until he agreed to pay his debts, I would earn fifty dollars. For beating him to death using my brass-knucks, I was paid seventy-five dollars. For the big one – assassination – I was paid one hundred dollars.

By 1921, the public was screaming to the politicians and the politicians were screaming to the police about the violence on the streets of Lower Manhattan. The police were coming after us. The gang was no longer fun and money was playing out.

The day Al Capone left for Chicago, he came to see me at the whorehouse, at 4:00 in the morning. He was in a bitter mood and though he smiled when he set a heavy suitcase beside my feet, he looked me in the eye and handed me a train ticket.

“Be on this train, Leo, or I will come after you personally. You are a better man than I am. A better man even than our friends, Lucky Luciano and Johnny Torrio. Get the hell out of New York and get the hell out of crime. I’m headed to Chicago myself to get a clean start on a new life. There’s not room for a good man the likes of you in that evil town.”

“Al, why the sudden change? I thought we were friends.”

“We are friends, Leo. That’s the reason I’m telling you to get the hell out of this place and go make a new life for yourself.”

I looked down at the train ticket to see the destination.

“This has Yuma, Arizona on it... Why would I want to go to a place in the desert and start a new life?

“Because you will end up dead if you don’t leave straightaway. My man at city hall sent word to me an hour ago, that the police are coming for you at daylight Leo. They know your name and they know where you live. There will be over one hundred of them coming to hunt you down like a wharf rat – dead or alive. You will either spend the rest of your life in prison or be killed. I don’t like those odds for you, Leo.

“When you get to Yuma, look up a land agent by the name of Luther Street. Last I heard of him, he was still living there. Let him know you are a friend of mine and he’ll help you buy a small piece of land to build a house and raise a family.

“Here is your new name with an official certificate of birth showing you were born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. Go now or I will personally put what’s left of your bloody ass in a sack, tie it in a knot and throw you on that train myself. The train leaves the station in thirty minutes, Leo. Be on it ... I’m saving your life.”

“Les Savage?” I asked as I opened the envelope and saw the papers.

“The night clerk at city hall helped me change the spelling of your name from Vagassé to Savage. I like the sound of, Savage. It fits you well. But, you had better learn to be less savage when you get to Arizona or I’ll come hunt you down like a rat, myself.”

“I’ll need to go pack a few things first, Al.”

“You have everything you’ll ever need in that suitcase, Leo. Don’t you dare go to your apartment ... they are waiting for you. Don’t you even dare open that suitcase until you’re in a hotel room in Yuma ... alone.”

On May 2, 1921, I left New York City by train. I was twenty-one years old.

I was alone again without a friend to call my own. I knew all along that Al was right. He was always right when it comes to his connections at city hall. Al Capone always had a plan, and now, he had a plan which would save my life.

Five and a half days later, I stepped off the train in Yuma, Arizona, and it looked as if I had walked right into the middle of a Tom Mix cowboy movie set.

I saw two Ford cars parked on the street, and nearby was a beat up Ford truck with a ragged tarpaulin top. There had to be at least twenty wagons pulled by teams of horses or mules. I saw twenty-odd, one seat and two seat buggies hitched to horses. There were saddle horses tied up everywhere. I mean – everywhere.

On my way to the hotel, I heard a sound like small animals suffering in severe pain. Many, small animals, and they were behind me.

I had seen pictures of a sheep once in a magazine, but I had never seen a live one. For sure, I’ve never heard that pitiful bleating sound before. I walked up the steps of the hotel and stood on the boardwalk, watching an old man and a young woman herd the sheep past me.

The man and woman looked up at me as they passed slowly by, following their sheep.

I had never in my life seen such a look of forlorn sadness in anyone’s eyes as those two had. Not even on the street bums of The Bowery. Both of them looked at me as if they were silently pleading for help.

When they passed me by, I walked out into the street and watched as they herded their sheep into some pens near the railroad. I was still looking down that way when the young woman stepped back out of the gate, and looked up the dirt street to where I stood.

She hung her head before walking to the corner of the pens, then she looked back one last time before she walked out of sight around the corner. I stood looking that way for a few minutes. I couldn’t get the sight of her and the old man out of my mind. She was young, she was dark and she was very pretty.

When I turned to walk into the hotel, I stepped into a pile of sheep shit and it stunk worse than anything I had ever smelled in my life. I wiped my shoes, scraping them on the steps, then scuffed them in the dirt, and even then, I still smeared sheep shit all over the steps when I stepped upon the boardwalk again.

I needed a room and I needed a bath in the worst way. But first, I needed to buy some clothes. All I brought with me was the clothes I wore, and the suitcase Al had given me, which I had yet to open.

I did have, in my pockets my brass-knucks and all the money I’ve saved over the years. The only reason I had it, was because I always carried my knucks with me and I learned early in life, carry every last penny of my money with me if I was to keep it. That was the only way a man like me could keep his money safe. I’d earned all this money the hard way, on the streets of Lower Manhattan.

I stepped up to the man at the hotel desk and spoke to him as he looked at me in disgust.

“I need a room, Sir.”

He was holding a handkerchief over his nose as he told me, “You, Sir, need to go out and wipe your feet. You have sheep manure on your shoes and you are causing a terrible stench in my hotel.”

“I wiped them until I couldn’t see any more, uh ... manure.”

“Then please, leave your shoes near the door until you’ve had a chance to wash that terrible odor off them.” He was pointing to the front door when he spoke.

When I returned to the desk in my stocking feet, I signed his ledger and asked where I could find a men’s clothing store.

He was still looking at me like I was a bum, when he spoke, “There is a men’s haberdashery in the building next door. You’ll find men’s clothing there more suited for this climate, and this less modern part of the country – than those city clothes you’re wearing.” He spoke to me as if he was looking down on a street beggar or a drunken wino.

I had about all I could take of his snotty attitude, even if I did track sheep shit into his hotel. I had already paid him for my room and he’s about to piss me off. I told him just what I was thinking too.

“Mister, all I needed from you is a room and a hot bath. I have paid you for both, and though I’m an outsider here, I’ll not take a tongue lashing from you or anyone else while I’m in this town.”

He took a step back from his desk, then looked down at the register before he spoke a little more politely, “I apologize, Mr ... uh, Savage. Perhaps I spoke a bit rude to you, but you did track sheep manure into my hotel. If you like, I can have your bag carried to your room while you make your clothing purchases next door.”

“No need to bother, I’ll keep it with me ... And, I accept your apology, Sir. I’d like to offer one of my own for tracking sheep shit into your hotel lobby. I want to make a better impression upon you and your town than I have so far. I’ve decided to stay in Yuma and make a life for myself if there’s an opportunity here for a young man from St. Louis to do so.”

“By all means, Mr. Savage. There are plentiful opportunities for a young man’s future in our town. Would you be looking to purchase real property? Or, are you looking to start a business?”

“I’m only looking for a small parcel of land to begin with, I suppose. I haven’t really decided.”

“The reason I asked was, there will be a real estate, livestock and farm auction beginning at noon tomorrow in front of the courthouse. Here is a listing of the land parcels which will be sold. Here’s a map of Yuma County also, showing where each property is located.” He handed me two sheets of paper and I was glancing down at them when I slipped my stinking shoes on and walked into the clothing store next door.

Chapter 2 »