**October 14, 1901**
It was his seventeenth birthday, at least, that's what he told people since he had no clue when it really was. He liked October, when the cold came back, and the fourteenth was as good of a day as any. The smell of the cinnamon buns she made to celebrate after their supper hung in the air, heavy and sickeningly sweet. He didn't know why she did it, she knew he wasn't going to eat them. He didn't like sweet stuff, but she made them anyway. He didn't even take one, while the others wolfed them down, licking sugar glaze from their fingers like wild animals. He watched them, disgusted but mildly amused, until a ring of the front bell pulled him away. The boys deserved their treat.
The sun was setting behind the building and the blonde man on the stoop was bathed in golden light, but somehow seemed a faded shadow of a real man. His watery green eyes managed to be soft and sharp all at once as he looked Spot up and down in a way that the boy didn't appreciate. He felt disrespected and challenged in his own home and not a word had been spoken. The man was older, old enough to be any of the boys' parents and he had a worn out look to him, like he'd been left in the sun to fade. Spot crossed his arms over his chest and widened his stance like he did whenever there was a threat and waited with one eyebrow raised expectantly. He would not stoop to asking the man what he wanted, he knocked, it was his move. "You Conlon?" he asked gruffly. Spot nodded once, suppressing a smirk, but letting one hand drop to the came tucked in his belt loop. The man nodded. "Dockside's got your number, kid. Time to make your choice. Tell your housekeeper that Mick sends his regards and says that time is up." Then he turned and walked away. Spot's heart pounded in his chest dully as the man disappeared into the throng of people moving by to get home for supper.
Behind him, next to the desk where they all paid their six cents and signed into the register every night, his backup stood watch with his arms crossed and his thick black eyebrows knitted together. He stood nearly a whole head taller than Spot, and was almost two of the scrappy leader side by side. Trout Cooper was Spot's closest friend. The second longest standing newsboy in the lodging house And the only person Spot not only didn't mind snooping on him, but expected it of him. A second set of ears on things when shit went down was never a bad thing. "Don't say nothing," Spot warned him quietly knowing off of just a glance that his friend was turning the situation over and over in his head. Trout raised a brow, questioning the decision, but was glared into submission. "We'll figure it out later. You know how she gets about Dockside. Let her finish her party. She loves this shit and I don't wanna ruin it for her." Trout's face pinched in silent disagreement, but he wasn't the type to argue. Not with Spot. They entered the dining room as the older boys began to file into the kitchen with their dirty plates and forks and the younger ones went to the school room to start their lessons.
A quick, loud whistle with his fingers in his mouth from Trout got the attention of the second in command, Nips, across the room, telling the tall, lanky blonde to follow them outside. Marta, the house manager of the Brooklyn Newsboy's Lodging house, looked up at the shrill sound and her hazel eyes met Spot's for a moment as she grinned like a child and sucked glaze from her thumb. Her mahogany hair was piled up on her head, save a tendril or two that came undone and her face was flushed with happiness. She loved birthdays and she did everything she could to make sure that her boys, who all had to grow up long before their time, still had those little moments to remind themselves that they were just kids. He rolled his eyes, his mouth bending into a lopsided smile. She was crazy, but that was part of her charm, part of why they were family, because she was crazy enough to care about him.
He waited for the other two, staring up between the buildings at the velvety sky, lit with the last colorful ribbons of a fall sunset, an unlit cigarette hanging between his lips. The scratch of a match striking against the bricks pulled him out of his thoughts. Nips held the flame up for him and he sucked in the smoke before turning his eyes back upward. They gave him his silence, his moment to gather and compile what just happened before Trout gave him a nudge with the back of his hand. "What's going on, Boss?" Nips asked. "You pulled us away, what's the word?"
He pulled in a deep lungful of smoke and took his time pushing it back out in a stream. His brain was loud, too much going on inside his skull. "Dockside is sniffing around," he murmured, taking another drag and blowing a few wobbly smoke rings. "They knew its me birthday. They knew Marta is still here. I ain't letting them get to her. I need you two to keep your ears open. I'm having a bird stick with her, if she needs you, you get there."
Trout and Nips looked at each other, and Nips said, "What about you, Boss? What do we do about Dockside?"
"For now? You wait. Keep your ears to the ground and wait for orders."
Trout's heavy brow furrowed and he pointed at Spot. "'I dunno what I'll do," he snapped. "She said they wouldn't come. I gotta get more information. I need time." He glared at the two people he considered friends in the whole world. He didn't trust most people enough to consider them friends. Trout and Nips made the cut because they proved they didn't want anything back.
Late that night, he slipped quietly down the stairs in stockinged feet, his red suspenders hanging down his sides. His eyes were shadowed and heavy with exhaustion but he couldn't sleep. His worry about all the information he didn't have and his need to keep Marta safe kept sleep from finding him and was pulling his pants on over his long johns and walking out the door before he really knew what he was doing. The smell of butter and sugar and cinnamon still hung in the air like a veil. She never slept much, it was one of the few things that time never changed. He padded as silently as he could down the plank floors, knowing where to step to avoid the loudest creaks. He should know them, he'd walked these floors for more than ten years; no one but her, had been there longer than him.
The soft glow of lamplight spilled out from under the door and he paused to listen to her hum to herself. She only hummed when she was sewing, claiming that it was the only way to keep herself from falling asleep during the tedious task. He always liked to listen to her sing, it was the sound that soothed him to sleep as a small boy when nightmares haunted him. "I can see your feet, you know," her soft voice called out. The left corner of his mouth lifted, years didn't change a person so much that she would ever let her guard down. He pushed the door and poked his head in. "Price of entry is one holy sock for me to mend." She pointed at his foot, where his big toe peaked out of his ragged brown sock.
"I think this ones a lost cause, Marta," he answered, sheepishly shuffling his feet back and forth against her worn rag rug, avoiding her hazel eyes. He couldn't look at her, she always knew him better than he knew himself. "There's more darn to it than sock. If you patch it much more, it wont fit me foot anymore."
"Check the basket there for a new one then." She nodded her head to the little basket at her feet. He dug through the scores of socks in every shape color and size, all washed and mended to be recirculated as their fallen brothers made it to her wash and mend pile. She watched him dig with a soft smirk on her tired face. Her skin was still fair, despite years of her youth being spent in the sun and grime of the city. Her peaches and cream skin was improved, not marred by the hundreds and thousands of light freckles that adorned it. "While you're at it, check the bin for some new pants. That pair is too short for you; you look like you're waiting for a flood and I doubt those have anything left to let down in them."
He looked up at her, his blonde hair falling over his still roguishly boyish face and scowled. Those eyes, sometimes steely and grey and sometimes the lightest of blues blazed at her audacity, but she just laughed, her pale cheeks pinking up. "Longer pants. NOW." She gave him her own cool steady look, daring him to cross her. Her dark brown hair was still twisted up loosely on her head, but the length of her day was showing by how much of it fell around her face and neck in wisps and curls.
He trudged over to the pile of mended clothes and found a pair of pants that draped all the way to his toes when he held them up to his hips. "There. Happy?" he grumbled. "Damn woman."
She was out of her chair and standing menacingly close to him before he turned all the way around. "You watch how you talk to me," she warned, her voice suddenly low and soft, a mere murmur, reminding him of exactly who she once was. "I take a lot of shit from you and your boys without a word, but YOU don't disrespect me." The worn but still fashionable cranberry colored skirt and the trim shirt waist might make her look like a respectable middle class lady, and she might wear her hair piled on her head instead of down her back in a braid but she was still Kisser underneath it all. Once upon a time, she was the leader of Brooklyn. Back then, she would never have scrubbed floors or made soup, but she could always be depended on for a kind ear and a scrap of bread in her pocket. The woman and the boy stood, facing off in steely silence. His eyes dropped to the floor first, but he didn't apologize, not ever, not to anyone. Still, he rocked on his heels and picked at his cuticles avoiding her steady gaze.
She stood, all of the barbs in her stance dropping and she smiled as she realized that they were the same height now, roping him back in with her calm voice. The years taught her exactly what volume to use to snare their attention without fail. "Never ever forget where you came from kid," she said, the Brooklyn drawl coming out thick. It was natural to her, the clipped tone and biting accent. She always spoke correctly, never using the street slang, but there was no taking Brooklyn out of her. "You and I know better than most what happens when Brooklyn newsboys get cocky. They get noticed. Trust me, you don't want to be noticed. You got a great knack for being invisible when you want to be, and this is a time when you should want to be. You're seventeen now, if they're going to come, it will be soon." His eyes grew wide and she reached her hand out to push his shaggy hair out of his face, smiling at the way he shoved her away. She was the the touchy one, he hated it, but she still tried. "I wont let it happen all over again, so you watch yourself, Spot."
He shook himself out of the stupor she put him in and flopped down, sitting cross legged on the floor. "I ain't gonna end up like the rest, Marta."
"Aren't you?" she asked, gracefully lowering herself back into the rocking chair and picking up a shirt to begin mending. "Can you really say that with all of this 'King of Brooklyn' bullshit?" Something else flashed across her face, something like fear when she said 'king of Brooklyn.' She kept herself so guarded, especially from him that he couldn't decipher the look and it was gone as quickly as it appeared. It drove him crazy. "You know they watch you, you've always known. Why would you set off the flash pots and cherry bombs to let them know exactly where you are?" Her eyebrow raised piously, but she never looked up from the shirt. She taught him everything she knew about finding out what people were hiding, and knew exactly how to hide what she didn't want him to see from him.
He looked up at her from his place on her floor, "What do I do?" His voice was small and lost, not at all the arrogant bark the boys upstairs were used to hearing. She was the first person who ever gave a damn about him and thought he could be something more than just another street rat.
"I can't tell you what to do," she answered simply, gently tugging thread through the eye of a needle.
He snorted, "Really? Never stopped you before."
She tried to hide her amusement behind a scowl but failed miserably. After a deep breath she explained herself, "You have to decide what you want. I can't pick for you. If you want to be the immortal King Of Brooklyn, then you change nothing. But, if you don't like the idea of having to turn against everything you know, everything you believe in because the man slipping coins in your pocket says you believe otherwise, then you slow your roll and calm your swagger a bit. You soak who you have to to keep your boys safe, but otherwise you keep your nose clean and save your pennies so that when its your time to go you can go anywhere you like, free as a bird, and escape this hellhole." Another flash, another expression he couldn't read because she wouldn't let him.
"Why didn't you go?"
For a long while she din't answer, pretending to be very absorbed in choosing a patch for the elbow of the shirt that she had yet to put a single stitch into. He looked back down at his hands and chewed his fingernails, black with printer's ink, to the nubs. "Scat made his choice and I made mine. Now we both have to live with that," she finally whispered, her voice wavering with emotion long since bottled up and fermented over the course of time.
"I'm not gonna be like him, Marta," he said, his voice fiercely determined. "I won't let you down."
She smiled sadly again. "You can't do it for me, or for the boys." She rubbed her eyes and let her statuesque shoulders slump. "You have to make yourself proud of the man the man that you are." She gave him a good once over. He was still scrawny, still angry, still hungry just as he was when he was the little boy permanently attached to the pocket of her trousers. She stood, and placed her basket neatly next to her chair, but then cocked her head to one side and stared at him thoughtfully. "You were prowling outside the door earlier when I caught you. Did you ned something?"
"Nope," he answered, fighting a smile and an embarrassed flush to his cheeks, "Sometimes, I just need to hear you yap before I can sleep." His face went stony as he realized what he just admitted. "But I'll deny it and tell everyone you's going senile if that leaves this room."
"Senile!" she laughed. "I'm not even thirty, and you act like I'm some old crone!" Thirty was an age where people had jobs and families, it was a lifetime away from selling papes and running territories. When he was thirty, he wouldn't have gang bosses blowing smoke up his ass. He'd beat them at their own game, just like she did. "Your reputation is safe with me, no one will know that Spot Conlon is a big softy."
"Shaddup," he growled, standing up with his new pants and new sock thrown over his narrow shoulder. The room smelled like her, like her hair did when she tucked him in at night as a small boy and her thick braid would fall over her shoulder onto his face and he stood, digging his toes into the rag rug breathing it in, the presence of the only comforting person he'd ever known. He reached out, letting the linen of her shirt brush his knuckles before changing his mind and pulling back. He had to keep his distance for now so that he didn't hurt her more when he did what had to be done.