Jack leaned close to the wall, cupping his hand around the match to make sure it didn't go out. The end of his cigarette glowed brightly as he lit it and he inhaled deeply.
"So ya like dat?"
"Oh, I loved that. I loved it. It was great." David mused.
Jack chuckled a little at the far off look in his eye. Medda could do that to a person. He knew.
"She is beautiful. How do you know her?"
The question stopped him short and he took another drag on his cigarette, stalling for a few precious moments of thinking time. He knew David was an unusually sharp boy. He had already proven that. The answer to his question was a long story; one he didn't want to tell, but he knew that not just any white lie was going to fool David.
"She was a friend a my fadda's." He said casually.
He could see disbelief in David's eyes.
"Come on Les, youse wanna shine my shoes for me?" He threw out, changing the subject.
His dragged on his cigarette again. He hadn't thought about it for a long time.
* * *
" 'eya Jacky-boy."
Jack froze, his arm still hung absurdly in the air holding a paper aloft. His mouth was open. He had just been about to shout the day's headlines, well at least his version of them. His eyes slid shut and his mouth closed and grimaced. He knew that voice.
He turned on his heel to face Oscar Delancy. There was a smirk on his face. He was standing just a little in front of his brother Morris. They were older than him by a few years. They were mean, bullying boys that worked at the distribution center where he just started buying his papers only a few weeks ago.
Jack was tall, but skinny for fourteen. He was no match for them really. They knew it. It was probably why they picked on him. Well, that and he was new. It was probably something they usually did whenever there was a new newsie.
" 'eya boys." He greeted them with a matching smile.
He wasn't exactly afraid of them. He figured they were the type to soak the shit out of him, but only if they could catch him and he was a fast runner.
"Dat ain't no way to greet ya superiors, is it?" Oscar growled at him.
"Hope youse don't mean tha pair a youse." Jack said putting on a surprised expression, pointing back and forth between Oscar and Morris.
"Yea he does, ya lousy little shrimp." Morris shot.
Jack grimaced. He hated it when people called him a shrimp. His father had called him that, and he had hated his father.
"I ain't a shrimp." Jack said, taking a step closer to Oscar.
Oscar looked at his brother with a mock-scared expression. They elbowed each other and laughed.
Maybe it was their taunting that set him off, but before he knew what he was doing he had sunk a fist into Oscar's stomach. He saw Oscar double over; saw the darkening of both their faces. He saw Oscar grab at his stomach and wince. Jack had been proud of that punch and the pain it had caused Oscar for one second. Then Oscar had grabbed him by both shoulders and they had dragged him sideways into an alley.
The next few minutes had been a blur to Jack. He had been right in thinking he was no match for them. They were clumsy, neither of them were very good fighters, but there were two of them and only one of him. They were bigger than him too and weight always made a difference in a fight.
Jack stumbled from the alley a few minutes later. Their laughter and taunts still rang in his ears as they had soaked him. Every inch of him felt tender and sore. His ribs hurt especially and his right eye. His nose felt like it was broken and his head throbbed and spun.
People on the streets were avoiding his eye. No one was going to help a street rat. So he walked. Stumbled probably would have been a more accurate word. He didn't know to where. He just kept putting one foot in front of the other.
He tasted something thick and irony in his mouth and leaned down to spit blood on the sidewalk. The taste of it made him nauseous. There was a doorway to his right. It was set deep in the side of a building, sheltered from the street. He slipped inside.
His head was spinning worse than ever and his vision was blurred. He had no idea where he was, but the silence echoed in his ears. He sat down heavily against the wall just inside the door. His ribs ached and his lungs heaved at the effort of the short walk. His eyelids became too heavy to keep open and he passed out against the wall and slid sideways.
* * *
A gentle shaking awoke him. He wished it hadn't, sleep had been a blissful respite from the pain. It all came flooding back to him now. His ribs, his nose and his head began to throb all at once. A short moan escaped his lips.
"Are you alright?"
He opened his heavy eyelids. A woman with a pale heart shaped face, bright green eyes and curly, ringleted red hair stared at him. She was beautiful. For a moment, he thought he had died. Was she an angel?
"Can you hear me?"
"Yea." He croaked. His voice sounded dry and rough, even to himself.
Before he could really understand what had happened, she had gone. Maybe she had been an angel. He felt his eyes slide shut again. He wanted to remember that face.
Seconds later though, she was back and shaking him gently again. She offered him a glass of water and set a pitcher on the floor next to him.
"You look like you've had life almost beaten out of you." She said as she arranged herself neatly on the bottom-most step of a set of stairs nearby.
He nodded and then wished he hadn't. His head still hurt terribly.
"What happened?"
"Jus' some bullies, ma'am." He managed. "I can handle dem."
"Ah, well. You're method of blocking punches with your face doesn't seem to have been very effective, Kid."
He gaped at her and she smiled a dazzling smile. She looked around and plucked a red bandanna from inside a black cowboy hat nearby. He seemed to be in some sort of prop room. He watched her wet the bandanna in the pitcher of water and then lean forward to press it against his mouth, rubbing gently at the dried blood there.
"You know, bullies just don't want anyone to show them up. You don't really have to fight them to win." She said a little off-handedly.
"Ma'am?"
"They're probably not too smart either, are they?"
"No ma'am."
"Well, you just use your brain then. Out-smart them. You'll have muscles enough to fight them were you're a little older. You look tall. You'll grow into it."
A smile spread slowly across his face. She smiled back at him, tilting her head.
"I'm going to have to leave you." She said, getting to her feet. "You stay there as long as you like. If anyone asks you, tell them: Medda told you that you could stay."
"Will it be alrigh' ma'am. If I stay?"
"Oh it ought to be," She said lightly as she dragged a heavy velvet curtain to him, throwing it over him like a blanket. "I own this place."
"You come back and see the show sometime too." She said with another radiant smile as she whisked away.
* * *
"Fifty pape's."
He had been one of the last to get his papers that morning. It had been two days since he had been to the distribution center. Medda's place was enthralling. It had been hard to tear himself away, but after two days his growling stomach reminded him he had to work for a living. He had taken the cowboy hat and bandanna with him. Sort of a souvenir. He didn't think Medda would have minded.
He sat down on the edge of the ramp to read one of his papers. His brain improvising 'improved' headlines as his eyes scanned.
" ey, I've seen youse around hea before, ain't I?"
It was an unfamiliar voice. One of the newsies, a short, dark Italian boy with a cigar in his mouth grinned down at him.
"Yea."
"Youse new?"
A few more boys joined the Italian's side. One of them had curly brown hair and he leaned against the Italian with his arm propped up on his shoulder. At the Italian's other side was a skinny, blond boy. He wore an eye patch. Behind them, four or five other boys shuffled nearer.
"Guess youse could say dat."
"What's wit' tha shina?" The Italian scoffed a little.
"Oh, dat would be tha Delancys." Jack admitted, slightly ashamed.
"What 'bout us Jacky-boy?"
Jack sighed and got to his feet. Oscar and Morris had just exited the office behind them.
"Oh, I was just tellin' tha boys hea 'bout how tha two a youse cornered me in an alley, instead a fightin' like men." Jack said, hoping he sounded braver than he felt.
He heard a few of the boys behind him chuckle. Oscar's eyes narrowed.
"S'matta, Oscar, youse don't want me ta tell dem dat youse had ta two-on-one me ta beat up a fourteen year-old?"
There was a shout of laughter behind him and he saw a few of the boys backhand each other and grin. Jack palmed his black cowboy hat up onto his head and smirked at Oscar. He could see the wheels turning. Slowly. Very slowly. He could see them both realize they were being made fools of. Just before the fist swung out, Jack jumped back off the ramp and took off running.
He heard the shouts echoing after him and the laughter and jeers of the boys watching. He made a quick right turn out front of the gates of the distribution center and ducked down a nearby alley. It was narrow and filled with abandoned crates and empty cartons. As he neared the end of it he heard Oscar and Morris steam-rolling their way through it.
Down the next street and back around towards the center he ran. The boys were still in the street outside, gripping each other's shoulders with laughter and pointing the way they had disappeared. He made for them. He grabbed the boy with curly brown hair by the collar and dragged him toward the gates with him.
Just inside he stopped. Quickly, his fingers set to work at his waist, untying the heavy rope he used as a belt. He knotted one end and then the other. The boy looked at him questioningly, but without a word Jack placed his own cowboy hat on top of the boy's set of brown curls and pointed.
"Go dat way. Hurry!"
The boy didn't argue, but ran. He seemed to be a little dim and used to following instructions. Jack was thankful. He grinned to himself as he heard more shouts and laughter. They had seen the other boy and they burst through the gates at the same time.
With a shout Jack had lassoed them both, like a real cowboy. The Delancy's uttered curses and the boys laughed. Jack smiled and threw the lever next to him. The machine did the rest.
Normally, it opened and closed the heavy wrought iron gates at the distribution center. Today it dragged both Delancy's across the ground with un-opposable force. They both hung there, a few feet from the ground. Their legs kicking and their arms pinned to their sides, back to back and helpless.
Jack smirked up at them and the newsies, their heads and arms poking through the gate cheered, jeered, laughed and pointed.
"We ain't gonna forget dis Jacky-boy. Youse is gonna get it for dis." Oscar growled.
The boy with the curly brown hair ambled slowly back towards him. Jack plucked his hat off the boy's head and set it back on his own.
"Dat's Cowboy ta youse. And I ain't gonna forget it either."