Publisher's Synopsis
A nine years old immigrant boy living in the North Ward, Forest Hill section of the rough and tumble city of Newark, New Jersey. Loses his innocence to a pedophile priest, and subsequently becomes an incurable, mischievous, miscreant child dedicated to blatant foul language, thefts, and burglaries, into adulthood. By the age of twenty-three, largely influenced by the many Cosa Nostra aficionados that street kid such as he was admired. Ricky has his perception of a life well lived narrowed down to less than five fingered rules. One is, and was foremost, to give vaginas the medieval self-respect anything that feels that good demands. Two, never tell the truth when you can get by with a lie. Three, never buy what can be readily stolen. Four, worry about you first, and others when it was their turn. Five? The mere supposition that a fifth rule existed was highly argumentative among 'city-boys.' Some said there was not a fifth rule and others said there was but they could not remember the mantra. The latter group, city-boys with poor memories. Were tolerated but not universally embraced. Amongst the city wide illegal spectrum of amateur bootleggers, mob loan sharks, bookmakers, thieves, pickpockets, pimps, extortionists, and every other imaginable, cultural destitution. Ricky and the host of city-boys he prefers over a large number of others. Namely the informal, disparate collection of modestly few honest young men and many corrupt ones known in North Newark society as the notorious Muscle Beach gang. Learned early on as boys growing into adulthood that to live successfully in the Brick City, required cunning eyes, and smart instincts if as men they sought to live life in the community as if it was truly their pearl ladened oyster. Ricky, with a litany of character flaws best identified in the languages of psychopathy. Nonetheless, was fundamentally certain of one thing. Somehow, someway, he would ascertain his high social status in the remarkably toughened city of Newark, New Jersey.
