This is my first ever story. PLEASE bear with me on this: In this chapter, and some parts in the next chapter, I will have to use "Francis Sullivan" as supposed to "Jack Kelly". "Artistic vision" I suppose. But, when you're done, that button on the bottom that you click to submit a review... please, please, PLEASE use it! I cannot stress it enough. Soon, I'm gonna be writing a lot more, flooding the page with Newsie fanfictions I wrote on my very own! And you all have two choices: let the oncoming flood of writing become better, or deal with my now horrible writing... In short: review.
He had many names: Dreamer, Manhattan's Leader, even Cowboy. He was better known as Jack Kelly by his fellow newsies. However, because his rightful name was Francis, for this chapter, we'll call him Francis.
Let's go back 19 years before the strike. Yes, we're going back to two years before Francis's birth. His parents' names were Jane and Charles. They were in love. No, they were more than in love, they were smitten. They were head over heels for each other. Soon enough, they married each other.
Then, Charles became a drunkard. He became abusive. He became violent. He was, in a word, a mess.
As much as Jane wanted to leave Charles and be with another man, it was considered scandelous to divorce in those days. As much as she resisted the temptation of an affair, it was bound to happen. She became pregnant... with the wrong man...
Francis was born.
God, please forgive me. I know that it was wrong to go behind my husband's back. I know I broke the Commandment, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife." It was just, I'm always trapped. First, my parents. Then, Charles. But, listen, I really needed a baby. Something to say that this marriage was worth it. Apparently, it wasn't considering the fact that I had to make love with another man and not Charles. But I can't make myself do it with that beast; I just can't. But, don't let Charles kill me. Now that he's born, my boy won't stand a chance against him. God, let something convince Charles that the boy was his. Please.
God seemed to answer her prayers. Lucky for Jane, the man wasn't very bright. She convinced him and that was that.
As Francis grew, Jane was as loving a mother as ever. She was very responsible. Unlike most women who stuck at home as a housewife, she worked at a gun factory. She would take a cent or two of the money she earned each week and set it aside for Francis's education. That may not seem like a lot, but considering the circumstances, that's amazing.
Isn't it amazing how responsible parents can be?
Now, as for Francis's father, Charles Sullivan, he was the exact opposite. He was a drunken mess who worked at the same gun factory, earning a smaller wage. He took out a lot of his "fits" on his wife. When Jane's back was turned, he was obliged to give Francis a beating as well. He would waste much of the money he earned on liquor for him to drink. He couldn't care less about the boy even though he was genuinely convince that he boy was his son.
Isn't it amazing how irresponsible parents can be?
You see, this family was any average family in those days; as hard as life seemed, the family, if you could call it a family, would always scrape by somehow.
One day, when Francis was four, his mother was in an accident at the factory. Both of her arms were completely severed. The doctors couldn't do anything about it, and she died in agony. What resulted? Charles could beat his son up as much and as often as he wanted. He could order Jack around, and Jack couldn't do anything about it. Jack, much to his dismay, became a cleaning boy.
And if that wasn't bad enough, Charles did not know how to cook. The poor man was lucky to get a wife before he turned drunk! On one of Charles's better days, he could make some burnt porridge, but that was about it. For the first couple days, Jack refused to eat at all. But, hunger got the better of him, and he settled with the skimpy, meager meal.
Charles wasn't a bad man though! Deep, deep, deeeeeep in his heart, he was a good father. As unconvincing as it may seem, he really cared. On one of his better days, he told his son this: "Francis, me boy, ya should do whateva ya can ta stay alive, ya hear me? Ya can even steal if ya haf ta. Just promise me this, me boy. Promise me that beggin' will always be a last resort, ya hear me?"
You see? He cared enough to say that. So what, the stealing part wasn't very appropriate, but this was Francis's first and only lesson from his Dad: Not to starve.
Soon, at the age of five, Francis started to apply this. One day, he decided that he couldn't take his father's burnt porridge anymore and decided to take a tomato from the market. You know what happened? He wasn't caught! He just took one, and no one complained. He started to do it more and more frequently, getting more and more confident. We all know what happens as you become more confident in something you do. You start to get careless. That's exactly what happened to our hero.
Then, the inevitable—he was caught.
Hope y'all liked it so far! PLEASE review!