Disclaimer: Most of the characters in this story are the property of Disney and are only used for fan related purposes. Any original characters featured are the intellectual property of their creators.
Oubliette
The first time Slips McCoy was thrown into the House of Refuge, he was nine years old.
His name was Tommy then and his mother had just died. At least, he thought she had just died. She'd been sick for awhile, coughing all night while she did other men's washing just to earn a few nickels, and he remembered she was coughing when he fell asleep that last night—but she sure wasn't coughing when he woke up the next morning. She was stiff and cold, a pair of stockings clutched between dead fingers, and her eyes didn't open no matter how hard he shook her.
In the end, he pried the stockings from her frozen, raw claw of a hand and didn't even notice when they tore. It was a stupid, kid thing to do, stealing those stockings off his mother's corpse, but it seemed like he had to at the time. He stole the stockings and ran from the hovel of a room he shared with his mother and didn't stop running until he ran straight into a burly bull with a thick mustache and an unkind leer.
"Where did you get them stockings, boy?" he asked after he'd picked Tommy up by his collar and set him back on his feet.
There no hesitation; there wasn't even a moment to come up with a lie.
"Took 'em," was Tommy's simple reply.
And Tommy McCoy found himself tossed inside the Refuge for stealing a pair of stockings.
The Refuge was a place to put people to forget about them.
He had no family to come calling for him; his only family was a dead woman and a drunk of a father who ran off with some trollop long before Tommy could remember. The cop brought him in, the warden accepted him in with an open palm and Tommy McCoy became one of too many juvenile delinquents without a home, without a future, without any hope but to just do his time, keep his nose clean and maybe make it out of the Refuge in one piece.
It wasn't a prison, but he'd be damned if it didn't seem like one. No, it was a reform school, a place for juvenile delinquents to go and learn how to be a, ahem, a valuable member of society. He was there to be rehabilitated (he was there to be another dollar in Warden Snyder's fat pocket). He was there to make something of himself.
He ended up just being there.
He entered the Refuge a boy called Tommy, but names like Tommy and Billy and John didn't last too long inside those gated walls. Whoever they were before their time in the Refuge was gone, forgotten, almost like they'd never even been. You were remade into something else entirely: first you were a boy, then a number and then you were a nickname.
They called him Slips for no other reason than it sounded better than Stocking-Boy.
The Refuge ages you.
Tommy—Slips—was nine years old, serving a six month sentence for thievery. When they finally let him out eight months later (the guards weren't really good with dates, or maybe they just didn't care), he was ten years old going on twenty.
He learned a lot during his time at the Refuge, hell of a lot more than he would've ever learned from a schoolbook or any lessons. He learned how to lie, to cheat, and to steal (and really steal this time and not get caught, either). He learned how to tell loaded dice from straight dice and how to switch the two without the sucker being none the wiser. He learned how to fake cry and how to talk with a lisp so that, while he felt like an adult inside, he sounded like a lost little boy.
He learned how to go from an unwilling juvenile delinquent to a grown-up crook.
Slips felt old, and he walked out of the Refuge and into a factory job, working six days a week. It was hell, but it was better than being in the Refuge, and by using the skills he'd picked up from some of the older boys, he soon had more than enough money to take care of himself.
He was all he had, and he swore he would never go back.
The second time Slips McCoy was thrown into the House of Refuge, he was twelve years old.
The faces had all changed by then.
He was brought in on a full wagon, three other boys just like him, caught doing something they never should've done. There was Lou—who later became Toothy, 'cause his smart mouth couldn't keep an older kid from knocking his two front teeth out one time—and there was Paulie—who was sick when they dragged him in and didn't even make it long enough for a nickname—and there was a dark-eyed scoundrel called Francis Sullivan who had a chip on his shoulder and a cowboy hat on his head. It was no surprise when the boys called him Cowboy, but Slips thought he'd have been better off as Trouble.
This time Slips really did steal the shoes he was accused of stealing, and the guards roughed him up a little for being caught a second time; Cowboy, a year or two older and caught stealing a loaf of bread, was put in the same room as Slips. It didn't take long for Slips to realize that the kid was either not going to make it, or he was going to be in the Refuge until he turned twenty-one. At twelve, Slips was an old hat at being locked up in the Refuge and he knew about people by now to be able to read them like a book.
It wasn't long until he was proven right.
One night when, after a daunting meal of something better left forgotten, the boy Sullivan jumped up on the table and started shouted for food, real food: meat and potatoes and bread and even sauerkraut, just like they all knew the warden had (though they would never tell). His words incited the hunger and absolute restlessness in the other boys and, suddenly, bowls of lukewarm slop were being thrown around the dining hall, children were picking on children, chairs were being smashed and Slips had to hide underneath a table to keep from being impaled by a broken piece of wood.
In the end, Sullivan's riot landed him an extra three months and earned him the begrudging respect of all the boys in the Refuge.
The Refuge makes heroes of boys.
Jack Kelly never served his sentence, not the first six months he owed or the six months he got tacked on when he first tried to escape (because after his riot meant having the warden's special attention, the only choice he had was to break out). And you know why? Because the second time he tried to escape, he succeeded, and became a Refuge legend in the meantime.
It all happened the night of the governor's big visit. It was Teddy Roosevelt himself, lowering himself to visit the House of Refuge and maybe give some of the lost, lonely delinquents some fatherly guidance and advice to put them back on the right path. The warden had been preparing for weeks, cleaning up the garbage in the rooms, serving halfway decent meals so the "students" didn't look so hungry, hell, he even gave the guards instructions to strike where no bruises would show. And that wasn't all. Snyder made sure to threaten the boys with extra time (and that was the least of the warnings) if they didn't behave, not that that stopped most of them.
It didn't stop one boy in particular.
It didn't stop Francis Sullivan—or Jack Kelly, as he was calling himself to his friends now—from busting out.
Slips didn't know how he did it, and then, when he finally got out again and heard the rumors on the street, couldn't believe half the stories, but every street kid, in the Refuge or out, they'd heard of Jack Kelly and how he rode out of the House of Refuge in Teddy Roosevelt's carriage.
And he thought: some fellas have all the luck.
The Refuge finds a way to bring you back.
He was working as a newsboy, an honest job for a not-so-honest wage. Being a newsie was like being paid for being a liar. You lied to the customers, told them exciting news stories they wanted to hear, and laughed to yourself as they forked over their hard-earned pennies.
Until those rich bastards, Hearst and Pulitzer, started rising prices and gouging the little guys. An extra ten cents per hundred, too, just when Slips was feeling settled enough not to feel his fingers tingle and his palms itch. He never wanted to go back to the Refuge, but once you're out, it's only too easy to find a way back in.
There was a rally and some of the boys he sold with decided to go; they'd heard tell of a strike and it sounded like a good idea. They were nice fellas too, they lent him a bunk when he needed it, shared any crumbs of bread they had left over, and Slips liked feeling like one of the guys. He'd been on his own so long that it was really something just to be included. So when his new pal Southie invited him along to see what this strike business was all about, Slips decided to go with the rest of them.
Of course, the fact that the rally was being held at Irving Hall—Home of Medda, the Swedish Meadowlark—didn't hurt at all…
But when he arrived and saw the charismatic leader out front on the stage, in his glory surrounded by his fellow newsies, being cheered, Slips started for the door without even listening to half of what was being said. He remembered that voice, he remembered that confidence, hell, he even remembered the red bandana tied surely around his neck and the cheap cowboy hat perched smarmily on his head. That was Jack Kelly, that was, and where Jack Kelly went, trouble followed.
He just hoped he made it out of there before trouble caught up with him.
The third time Slips McCoy was thrown into the House of Refuge, he was fifteen years old and spitting mad.
He hadn't been quite quick enough. Besides, he ran right into a big, burly cop—and old friend of his—just outside of Irving Hall. The cop was more than happy to make room in the paddy wagon for Slips. It was over that quickly. He didn't even get a sentencing from that crooked judge Monahan, either, not like those Manhattan boys. He was back in the Refuge before Jack Kelly had even been taken into custody.
They brought him—Cowboy—to the Refuge, too, the big hot-shot strike leader, and Slips wasn't surprised when he was given his own cell this time—Jack Kelly (or Francis Sullivan, as the warden insisted he be called) was what every young, stupid juvenile delinquent wanted to be, and he already had one miraculous escape under his rope belt. No doubt Snyder didn't want to give him the chance to add a second.
Turned out, though, Snyder was worried for nothing.
The bummer didn't even last more than a day or two on the inside again. One day he was there, his friend with the crutch bringing him extra potatoes, the next he was out, wearing a fancy, ten-dollar suit and selling papers for old Joe Pulitzer himself.
Slips made sure to snag the potato off the warden's plate that night for his own dinner. It probably earned him another month or two when he got caught, but what did it matter anymore? At the way he was going, he'd be the one stuck in the Refuge 'til he turned twenty-one, not that fink Cowboy.
And then Teddy Roosevelt came around again and this time it was Slips' turn to get a ride out of the Refuge.
The Refuge doesn't let you forget.
It was in one of those damn paddy wagons, but he was so damn tickled to be going out rather than in, Slips would've taken a piggyback ride back into the Lower East Side if he could've. Anything to leave the gloom and doom of that jail for kids behind him.
He wanted to be let out as soon as the Refuge was out of sight, he might even have been able to pick a few pockets and earn a penny or two to buy the evening edition of the paper to sell (strike or no strike, a fella had to eat and there was no way Slips touched any of that Refuge grub). But the driver had a different idea and Slips McCoy found himself being trotted out in front of a crowd of more people than he'd ever seen together in his life.
He didn't understand why the warden joined the two coppers on the trip, sitting between the two men as if they were guarding him. Even when the wagon stopped, the door was opened and freedom beckoned, Slips wasn't too sure why the warden was brought along—until the boys inside the wagon were let out and, wearing the sort of grin Slip wanted to slap off his mug, the warden was led right inside.
Warden Snyder was his own prisoner, now.
He wanted nothing more than to slam the door in that rat Snyder's face himself, but if anyone deserved to do it, the gimp definitely did. The paddy wagon slammed closed, Warden Snyder was taken away and even then, Slips knew that there was no way he'd ever forget. The Refuge didn't let you forget—but there was no way in hell Slips McCoy was going back there.
And you know what?
He never did.
Author's Note: This is my entry for Laelyn's Fall Story Challenge. Blame this on watching Labyrinth too many nights in a row and trying to create a new OC for a Newsies one shot :)
- stress, 09.30.10