Author's Note: Written for the Bottle Alley Lodging House

The Mighty Mister Kelly

By ShoeGoil

"David, as in 'David and Goliath?'" Jack asked me that night, raising an eyebrow. "Who or what is Goliath?" It was after my family had had dinner, and the two of us were out walking on the darkening streets of the city. We had spent the day visiting various boroughs and lodging houses, spreading the news of the strike. Bottle Alley Lodging House for girls was our next stop.

"Goliath… the giant in the Bible?" I said, my voice lifting at the end with surprise that he was unfamiliar with the story.

"Never heard of him," Jack said simply, with a shrug.

I went into an elaborate explanation of King David, my namesake, who, as a boy, bravely faced a 9-foot-tall enemy of the Israelites. "None of King Saul's soldiers would step forward to battle the giant, Goliath. Then the boy David stepped forward and said he would take up the challenge. Saul dressed him in his armor and helmet and gave him his sword, but David felt completely unnatural. There was no way he would be able to fight anyone, let alone a giant, dressed in the bulky and heavy armor that didn't fit him.

"So, instead, David took off the protection and faced the giant with just his sling shot and 5 perfect, white, round pebbles." I let that sink in, searching Jack's face for the same sense of admiration that I had for David.

"Not a smart guy," Jack commented dryly, filling in my silence. "He's got no brains."

"Are you kidding?" I gasped. I stopped in my tracks, staring at Jack. "Jack. David was a great leader. He was a leader who courageously stayed true to his self in the sight of adversity. He used his own strengths when others might have seen them as weaknesses. He was very wise, indeed."

"He sounds like a moron… a little kid, facing a giant without any sort of armor or protection? What kind of a person has that much stupidity?"

"I guess I do, Jack." I started walking again as Jack followed behind me.

"You?"

"Yes… after all, Bryan Denton WAS referring to me as David from the 'David and Goliath' story, Jack." I spoke a little more sarcastically than I had meant to. "I must be at a least a little bit like him."

"But that's ridiculous. You aren't facing a giant."

"Joseph Pulitzer is a giant in the Newspaper world."

"Well… okay," Jack conceded without sounding convinced. "But I can't see how this David kid's story should inspire me. It just sounds like a cruel way to die."

"But, Jack. David won the fight," I told him abruptly, increasing my brisk pace as we kept walking.

Jack gaped at me. "He won the fight? This little kid won the fight against a giant, with nothing but a slingshot? No magic?"

"Magic, Jack?"

"Yes, magic. Like in the 'Jack and the Beanstalk' story?"

It was my turn to look at Jack blankly. "Beanstalk?"

Jack grinned. "You aren't the only giant-slayer, Davey." He went into details about the story of the young boy Jack, who was conned into selling his cow for 5 magic beans. "But these magic beans actually grew into a beanstalk reaching up to the land of the giants! And Jack stole the magic harp and the goose that laid the golden eggs, so that he and his mother never were hungry again!" His face was bright and young-looking after explaining the fairy tale.

I gave Jack an incredulous look. "A magic harp and golden eggs? Just HOW does that story have anything to do with our fight against Pulitzer?"

"It has everything to do with it," he said after a moment of quietly thinking. "Jack ends up rich after stealing from the giant. Just imagine getting our hands on Old Man Pulitzer's money…"

Leave it to Jack.

"There's a reason Denton didn't say to you, "Jack as in, 'Jack and the Beanstalk?' when he met you. The giants we're fighting aren't innocent bystanders who are being trampled by our greed. That's not what this strike is about at all."

"There's nothing wrong with gaining a little something on the side," Jack started to say before I cut him off.

"Jack… money isn't the sole producer of happiness," I started to explain. "You aren't in this strike for the money, are you?"

"Well, sort of, yeah…"

"You are not! You are striking because it is wrong of Pulitzer and the others to raise the newspapers' prices." I took a breath as we arrived at the front door of the Bottle Alley Lodging House, but he cut in right as I knocked firmly on the door.

"You think your David downed the giant just to do the right thing? You think he didn't realize what a stud he was going to seem like, after he did the heroic thing? NO one does things like that without some ulterior motive. We're striking because a tenth of a cent means more to us than it does to those big-shots. So yes, it's true: this strike is about the money, more than it is about having a fair shake."

I stared at Jack for a moment. "Since when did you become The Walking Mouth?" I asked after that long speech of his, but he didn't have a chance to answer as the door swung open. I smiled at the girl in front of us, an average-sized blonde.

"Kelly?" she said with a welcoming smile.

"We're just your average giant-slayers," Jack said. "And we need the help of the Bottle Alley Lodgers, Shoe."

"Anything for you, Kelly." She smiled like she meant it. "We know you'd do the same for us."