Gangs of New York Monologues

In 1862, Amsterdam Vallon returns to the Five Points area of New York City seeking revenge against Bill the Butcher, his father's killer.

I'm forty-seven. Forty-seven years old. You know how I stayed alive this long? All these years? Fear. The spectacle of fearsome acts. Somebody steals from me, I cut off his hands. He offends me, I cut out his tongue. He rises against me, I cut off his head, stick it on a pike, raise it high up so all on the streets can see. That's what preserves the order of things. Fear.

At my challenge, by the ancient laws of combat, we have met at this chosen ground, to settle for good and all who holds sway over the Five Points: us natives, born right wise to this fine land, or the foreign hordes defiling it.

Here's the thing. I don't give a tuppenny fuck about your moral conundrum, you meat-headed shit-sack. That's more or less the thing. And I want you to go out there... You, nobody else. None of your little minions. I want you to go out there. And I want you to punish the person who's responsible for murdering this poor little rabbit. Is that understood?

I know your works. You are neither cold nor hot. So because you are lukewarm, I will spew you out of my mouth. You can build your filthy world without me. I took the father. Now I'll take the son. You tell young Vallon I'm gonna paint Paradise Square with his blood. Two coats. I'll festoon my bedchamber with his guts. As for you, Mr. Tammany-fucking-Hall, you come down to the Points again, and you'll be dispatched by my own hand. Get back to your celebration and let me eat in peace.

The Priest and me, we lived by the same principles. It was only faith divided us. He gave me this, you know? That was the finest beating I ever took. My face was pulp. My guts was pierced, my ribs was all mashed up. And when he came to finish me, I couldn't look him in the eye. He spared me, because he wanted me to live in shame. This was a great man. A great man. So I out out the eye that looked away, I sent it to him wrapped in blue paper. I would've cut them both out if I could have fought him blind. And I rose back up again with a full heart… and buried him in his own blood. He was the only man I ever killed worth remembering.

My father gave his life, making this country what it is. Murdered by the British with all of his men on the twenty fifth of July, anno domini, 1814. Do you think I'm going to help you befoul his legacy, by giving this country over to them, what's had no hand in the fighting for it? Why, because they come off a boat crawling with lice and begging you for soup.

Everything you see belongs to me, to one degree or another. The beggars and newsboys and quick thieves here in Paradise, the sailor dives and gin mills and blind tigers on the waterfront, the anglers and amusers, the she-hes and the Chinks. Everybody owes, everybody pays. Because that's how you stand up against the rising of the tide.

We hold in our hearts the memory of our fallen brothers whose blood stains the very streets we walk today. Also on this night we pay tribute to the leader of our enemies, an honorable man, who crossed over bravely, fighting for what he believed in. To defeat my enemy, I extinguish his life, and consume him as I consume these flames. In honor of Priest Vallon.

He ain't earned a death! He ain't a death at my hands! No, he'll walk amongst you marked with shame, a freak worthy of Barnum's Museum of Wonders. God's only man, spared by the Butcher.

Ears and noses will be the trophies of the day. But no hand shall touch him. NO hand shall touch him! He'll cross over whole. With honor.

When you kill a king, you don't stab him in the dark. You kill him where the entire court can watch him die.

It's a funny feeling being taken under the wing of a dragon. It's warmer than you'd think.

In the end, they put candles on the bodies so's their friends, if they had any, could know them in the dark. The city did this free of charge. Shang, Jimmy Spoils, Hell-cat, McGloin, and more. Friend or foe, didn't make no difference now. It was four days and nights before the worst of the mob was finally put down. We never knew how many New Yorkers died that week before the city was finally delivered. My father told me we was all born of blood and tribulation, and so then too was our great city. But for those of us what lived and died in them furious days, it was like everything we knew was mightily swept away. And no matter what they did to build this city up again... for the rest of time... it would be like no one ever knew we was even here.

There's more of us coming off these ships each day. I heard 15,000 Irish a week. And we're afraid of the Natives? Get all of us together, we ain't got a gang, we got an army. And all you needs is a spark. Right? Just one spark. Something to wake us all up.

…And no matter what they did to build this city up again, for the rest of time, it will be like no-one even knew we was ever here.

Lord, place the steel of the Holy Spirit in my spine and the love of the Virgin Mary in my heart.

The past is a torch that lights our way. Where our fathers have shown us the path, we shall follow. Our faith is the weapon most feared by our enemies. For thereby shall we lift our people up against those who would destroy us.

Our name is called "The Dead Rabbits" to remind all of our suffering, and as a call to those who suffer still to join our ranks. However far they may have strayed from our common home across the sea. For with great numbers must come great strength in the salvation of our people.

That was the Five Points alright: hangings of a morning, dancings of an evening.

It wasn 't a city really. It was more a furnace where a city someday might be forged.

Ah, the Five Points! Murderer's Alley. Brickbat Mansion. The Gates of Hell.

Every year the Reformers came. Every year the Points got worse. As if it liked being dirty.

Some of it I have remembered. And the rest I took from dreams.

For every lay we had a different name. An Angler put a hook on the end of a stick to drop behind store windows and doors. An Autumn Diver picked your pocket in church. A Badger, gets a fellow in bed with a girl and then robs his pockets while they're on the go.

Every year the Natives celebrated the killing of my father all over again. At Sparrow's Chinese Pagoda in Mott street. The chinks hated the Natives worse than we did. The drum rolls and the Butcher drinks a glass of fire.