Bucky: Sentenced to Wiltwyck at age 10

I got sentenced on my 10th birthday, in June of 1973. I'm trying to recall the exact date of the actual incident. I want to look up the story that made the front page of the Daily News and every NYC television channel when it happened. I will write about that soon and what led up to it, but it's another story altogether. I was in the fourth grade at the time, and my two co-defendants were both in the third. The father of one of the kids was a familiar face on local television commercials, and well to do. He painted me as the ringleader, the bad influence, and I guess I was. The other kids were from the west village and we went to school together at P.S. 3 on Hudson street. I would walk to school from the East village each morning, after transferring my old school, P.S.188, on Houston and Avenue D. I transferred schools because I was getting bullied I think. I didn't want to go to P.S.188 anymore, but after I got into P.S. 3 I actually became a bully. Ironic much? I was a little punk, always giving my mother a hard time. I was sent to speak to a psychologist more than once, and I would do crazy shit like pretend I was gonna poke myself in the eye with a pencil. If they asked me to wait in the hall while they spoke to my mom, I would run away and get home on my own, then act like nothing ever happened. She would just be happy I was safe, and continue to love and protect me as my behavior continued to get worse. I would describe what I had as an emotional disturbance, and it wasn't until I was an adult that I realized I just wanted all of my mother's attention and love. I wish I had known how to say it at the time, I made things so difficult for my mother, myself, and my family.

We lived on the corner of 2nd avenue and 3rd street, around the corner from the Hells Angels clubhouse, which to this day is on 3rd between 1st & 2nd Avenue. Our apartment had a view of 3rd street as the guys came and went on their Harley Davidson's. I can't even start to explain how loud it was when they all drove up the block together. The most famous Angel leader in the early 70's was Vinny, a bad motherfucker who has been documented in all the old stories about the Hells Angels. We used to play with his kids. The Angels owned a lot directly across from the two buildings they owned on East 3rd and they put on a huge fireworks show every 4th of July. I have quite a few good stories about the Hells Angels but I don't want to make this all about them right this minute. They always had members from other places visiting from as far away as Oakland and San Francisco with bad ass custom bikes and they would throw big parties for themselves. They used to beat people up for fun, especially if they weren't from the block. I remember an out of town member handling a rattlesnake on the sidewalk with a broom one day. We all stood around and watched from a few feet away as it rattled its tail. It wasn't uncommon for them to hit someone with a bike chain or stab them, either on our block in broad daylight or in or around the neighborhood bars at night. they were rough dudes for real. In addition to the hardcore bikers our neighborhood was also home to The Dynamite Brothers, a black gang, and the Young Katos, a Puerto Rican Gang. They would rove in packs and fly their "colors" or ride bicycles together. Gangs were as prevalent on the Lower East side in the 70's as they were uptown in the Bronx, as was was graffiti. 

Up 3rd street between 2nd Avenue and the Bowery, and also in view of our windows, was the "Muni", short for municipal something or other. It was a men's "flophouse", and soup kitchen, now known better as a homeless shelter. A huge building six or eight stories tall, the building is still there today, although it seems rather low key these days. Back in the early 70's the block was bustling with street bums, who also slept in doorways around the neighborhood. It wasn't uncommon for bums to fight each other on 2nd Avenue directly across the street from our windows, in front of the liquor store. One day I watched a bum break a bottle over another bums head, yet they still kept fighting. A different day,two bums were fighting each other, and the cops jumped out of a cab and drop kicked one of the guys before they even knew what was happening, and then beat them both up to break them up and then not even arrest them. The cops in each precinct had cabs and undercover vans, and the 9th precinct was no different. I remember the cops in our neighborhood being pretty mean, and also feared.

Me and my friends played stick ball in the park across from the 9th precinct so we could get PAL t-shirts (Police Athletic League) because they were a commodity to have. We also wrote graffiti on a huge wall in the same park, in full view of the precinct. The cops never had an issue with it, at least not at the park on 5th street. One day a big riot broke out at the Muni and people were all fighting in the middle of 3rd street until the cops showed up with their helmets on. From the view in our front room I watched a cop crack a man over the head with a nightstick with brute force, and I burst out crying. I was so disturbed by it. I'm pretty sure the incident is one of the main reasons I have been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, aside from other events, and growing up in long-term poverty, which is another cause of PTSD. Aside from a lot of drama in our neighborhood I have really fond memories of living on 2nd Avenue. I had my first girlfriend, Jenny, who used to sit on my lap and make me feel all weird inside, but in a nice way. She also tried to teach me how to kiss but I don't think I was very good at it, yet.

I had my graffiti name, Bad Buck 3, spray painted with Red Devil or tagged in Dri Mark magic marker on almost every truck in the East village, from hitting up the truck yards in Chinatown after they were parked for the night. This was kind of a big deal, because the trucks drove all over Manhattan all day long. I also had my tags in every doorway for a few blocks in every direction from our apartment, with a big "B" that spelled out "Bad" at the top of the B, and "Buck" at the bottom of the B, and a roman numeral "3", for my block, 3rd street. I was doing pretty damn good for myself, especially for a 9 year old. That is, until I got sentenced to the Wiltwyck School for Boys in June of 1973. That would change everything.