He sees it: Eddie Spano howling, rolling on the ground, eaten alive by flames.

He knows it won't be like that: the Spanos will never go near Paulie again. But if they did? Jimmy watches Tom, Tom's hands peeling the bark from a stick, digging with his thumbs where it doesn't want to come off.

But if they did, Jimmy thinks. Whose job would it be, then, to put that fire out?

Tom looks up at Jimmy, almost like Jimmy said what he was thinking out loud. Looks at him, but doesn't answer the question.

Tom snaps the stick, throws it away. Anyhow, he says. This way Paulie gets to keep his lunch money. The only one in trouble is Eddie, and he started it. The important thing-and now he grins, that great grin that makes them all feel good, all feel part of everything-the important thing, Dad don't get smacked by Sister Joseph.

The kids all laugh.

But there's something else Jimmy sees, sees and doesn't forget. What Tom wanted was to make the Spanos stop. Tom makes Jack part of it, what Jack will want is to beat the crap out of anything that moves. Kids fight, it's no big deal, not big enough for Sister Joseph to call anyone out. Except the way Jack fights. Jack gets in there, everything blows up, everyone's in trouble.

Tom looking out for little Paulie the way he did, Jimmy knows, that way instead of a different way, is also Tom looking out for Jack.

From the New York Tribune, October 24, 2001

A HERO'S LEGACY

by Harold Randall

Today was a happy day in Pleasant Hills.

This Staten Island hamlet of modest homes on sloping, tree-shaded streets is a town that lives up to its name. Kids ride bikes past well-tended flower beds on their way to the schools their parents went to. Main Street runs a short three blocks, lined with mom-and-pop shops. The Post Office is on the eastern end of Main Street, and the parish church of St. Ann's anchors the west. Between them, in the symbolic heart of Pleasant Hills, stands Engine 168, one of the first firehouses on Staten Island and still in use.