Article on Tricycle

A charismatic

ex-con lures at-risk

kids away from

violence.

By Alix Sharkey

Photographs

by Douglas Adesko

t he

heartful

dodger

One bitter night, in the rough end of New Haven,

Connecticut, fifteen-year-old Vinny Ferraro and his friends

were hanging out as usual by the projects, near the corner where

Ferraro sold drugs—mostly coke, but also heroin, hash, and

LSD. His father, a junkie and career criminal, had schooled

Ferraro in the trade. “You’re the man of the house now,” he had

told Ferraro over the phone from prison—meaning Ferraro was

expected to sell drugs to support his mother, also an addict, and

two sisters. In fact, Ferraro couldn’t remember a time before

drugs or the constant, gut-gnawing menace and paranoia that

came with the game: he’d first smuggled heroin into jail for his

old man when he was ten.

Ferraro and his teenage gang ran these streets, ready to

pounce on anybody who didn’t belong. Nothing personal,

just territorial duty. That night, it was a homeless man. They

fanned out and surrounded him before he knew what was

happening. As the gang closed in for the ritual beating—fists,

boots, and bats (nobody would bother pulling a gun on a

bum)—their terrified victim looked directly at Ferraro and

started pleading,“Please help me.”

“Help you?” Ferraro said. “Why should I help you, asshole?”

“You’ve got more compassion in your eyes than any woman

I’ve ever met,” gabbled his prey. It was a crazy, “Hail Mary” line

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by any standards, but it hit Ferraro like an uppercut. He was

unable to continue the beating.

That exchange on a wintry night in 1982 is one that Ferraro continues to relive. But these days, as the Teacher Training

Director of the Mind Body Awareness Project, it’s Ferraro who

is looking into angry young eyes until he finds a glimpse of

compassion. Based in Oakland, California, the MBA Project is

a nonprofit organization that uses mindfulness and...