The Witch had a tiny store on 4th Street and Avenue A. On the shelves of her store, she had almost everything a twelve-year old like me might want. She got the name the Witch because she looked like the evil Witch in the movie the Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland. Whenever we came into her store, she’d warn us not to have sticky fingers. Reinforcing her warning with a long bamboo rod that could reach and hit anyone in the store that tried to shop lift. Once in her store Just as I was about to steal something the Witch hit my friend Patsy hard on his shoulder with her long rod, she saw him take something and stuff it into his pocket. Patsy’s punishment and pain were a lesson for me not to try to steal from the Witch or anybody else.

One night I left the Witch’s store happy as can be with a Barlow pocketknife I’d just bought for fifteen cents. As I walked up 4th Street towards 1st Avenue, I heard shouting coming from behind me. I turned and saw a man running from a gang that was after him. The man tripped and fell, the gang surrounded him and started kicking him. Even after the downed man stopped screaming and crying, they kept on kicking him. I saw someone in the gang stomp on the man’s head with his heavy boot. Frightened by what was happening I couldn’t move or do anything. A woman came up to me, she touched my shoulder and said, “Kid, those guys just killed that man you better get out of here before the cops come you don’t want to be a witness.” She walked away quickly as did everyone else out on the street. I then noticed the people that had been watching from their windows withdraw and turn the lights off in their apartments. There would be no witnesses for the police to question, this most likely would be another unsolved gang killing. Fist fights and beatings were almost every day events on the streets but never had I seen a man kicked to death. Shaken by the killing sleep did not come easily for me for many nights afterwards.

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