The Streets

It was a cold winter night in San Francisco CA, during the date of 1896. European boats were arriving at the main sea port; most carrying hundreds of internatinal immigrants. There were irish mobs all the way to slovakian and italian mafias; it was a corrupt time in the United States, especialy here in SF where we had not only these dangerous mobs in the streets but also vicious chinease groups in the gold mines, not to mention thieves and prostitutes lurking at every corner in the downtown area.
An event like this one, (when the ships harbor at the decks and hundreds of immigrants storm out frantically inorder to be allowed into this country) reminds me of my first time stepping into this country: i was 8 years old and accompanied by my mother and father, we were only allowed to carry one small bag for the three of us. We were lucky, i remember being told by my mama, right before sailing off into America;we would finally get a fair chance at receiving a good life; my dad was a simple blacksmith and my mother a midwife for the rich women in Dublin.
I remember thinking while walking down the wooden ramp and at last touching the american soil,
that all these people speaking in tongues and with distinct physical appearances would each have a chance to live happily.
I was a naive young lad back then, but this past decade in the streets has made me wise, my family and i have been through more than what we bargained for; we knew it was going to be hard, but we didnt expect disease, death and purgery to mold our future lives.
My dad got infected with smallpox while working endless hours at a coal factory, he died when i was 13, my mother had to then find a job of her own to sustain me and my 6 yearold brother (born in America). She had degraded herself so much by becoming a prostitute, that it took me a long time to be able to meet both our eyes at the same time. At age 15, i started pick-pocketing the people in the streets, that is how i was introduced to the whole corrupt system that was hidding beneath every shop in SF. One night, coming back from Mr. O connors shop 2 blocks from my place, i saw a muggling, i knew both the victim and the thieves, i used to spend a lot of my free time with this guy, we used to play hooky from school and go fishing, then later we hung out at the pub. The victim was my mothers neighbor lady, who took care of us while my mom was out during her long night shifts in the streets. It all happened so fast, all i remember seeing was Patrick pulling on the womans purse, and the woman not giving it to him, they struggled for a minute and all of a sudden Pat took out a small barbers knife, he cut her right in the belly and ran off droping his weapon and taking her purse. Im sure she didnt even have a penny in there, but i knew that most of the peoples situation in this town was that bad, enough to reside to stealing, but in my mind i couldnt think of killing nor hurting anyone.
That night i was about to run off and leave poor mrs. Anya laying half dead in the ground, but something stopped me, something made me care enough to see how she was (thank god, at that moment i decided to reverse my style of living, and with that a new American Dream was forged).
-to be continued