Title: Up in the World
Author: RedK_addict
Rating: T
Genre: Drama
Summary: "Scrapper never was much of a leader, in my opinion. And honestly, I was glad for an excuse to bring him down." Spot tells about his rise to power in Brooklyn. Companion piece to Back of the Line.
Author's Note: This is part of the Brooklyn Roots series. It's pretty much Spot's side of the story, what exactly happened to Scrapper, how he became the king of Brooklyn, and why Race had to leave. There's also a lot more of Jockey in this one (which made me kinda happy). Short author's not this time, cuz it's 4 a.m. and I'm really tired. Oh, btw, this is also for newsiesforever[dot]webs[dot]com's Spot week. You should check out the site, join up, post in the forums, etc. We're doing out own fanfic awards too, so... yeah. Anyway, hope you enjoy this, and please review.
Scrapper never was much of a leader, in my opinion. And honestly, I was glad for an excuse to bring him down. That's not to say I didn't have other reasons for doing what I did.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. This story really starts at Sheepshead. Ask anybody involved, they'll tell ya that most stories worth telling usually do. I ran away from home when I was maybe ten or eleven. Of course, the first place I went was the racetrack at Sheepshead Bay. It was really the only place I knew to go, even though I'd lived in Brooklyn since I was born. There were two boys I'd seen there many times, picking pockets for a living. They didn't exactly take me in, but they didn't soak me for hanging around either, so I stuck around.
The older kid, Jockey, he liked to make all kinds of jokes about me. Not that he was much one to talk. We called him Jockey cuz he had this crazy dream of becoming one, even though he was already too tall. His friend Racetrack woulda been better suited for the job, short as he was. He's always been kinda short, but he was more interested in betting on the horses than riding 'em. Jockey and Race grew up at the track. As far as either of them can remember, they'd been there all their lives, picking pockets and doing the occasional odd jobs for a few pennies. And for a while, I was one of 'em. Until Scrapper found us.
Like I said, I don't think much of Scrapper's leadership. Never have, really. I mean, I guess he was some kinda close to half-decent back in the day. After all, he took us three boys in and gave us jobs and a place to stay. But even when I first met him, I could tell he was startin' to lose his sanity. He was a loose cannon, and I could feel all of Brooklyn just waiting for him to slip up. All he needed was a little push.
Brooklyn is arguably one of the toughest boroughs of New York City. In Brooklyn, newsies don't sell together. You sell on your own, you make your share, or you face the leader's wrath. Hawkin' headlines in Brooklyn is a constant competition. Sure, we're one big family and we all stick up for each other like brothers – after the selling day's over. Until then, it's every man for himself, and the older boys ain't above soakin' some kid just cuz they got the advantage of age or size over 'em.
But Scrapper was the worst of them all. Most of us didn't think it was fair that he took a cut outta every newsie's profits at the end of the week. But there really wasn't a whole lot we could do about it, since he usually soaked anyone who refused to pay up. And anybody who didn't sell their share of papes got the same treatment, and was thrown out on the street for the night to "teach 'em a lesson".
Racetrack, though, he always got the worst of it. See, he had a real smart mouth that just never seemed to know when to stop. That, and he weren't really any good at sellin' papes. Not in Brooklyn, anyway. He was always getting beat up by the older newsies, and then when he came home with papes still in his hands, he'd get it from Scrapper too. It was real hard to watch sometimes. I think Race spent more nights on the streets than he did in the lodging house. And there wasn't nothin' we could do about it, cuz Scrapper was the leader, and what the king of Brooklyn says goes.
There was a lot of that over the years. Jockey and I, we managed to steer clear of Scrapper for a long time. We tried our best to help Race, but any time Scrapper caught us helpin' him out, he'd threaten to soak us too. Jocks kept his mouth shut as best he could. He was older, so he wasn't so much of a target for Scrapper. Me, I'm just naturally quiet anyways, so I didn't draw attention to myself like Race did. But the two of us, we was plottin' all the time, watching and waiting. We was planning to overthrow that tyrant the moment he made a mistake worth taking him down for.
It came when Race finally got the hang of sellin' his papes. He was bringing in his share every day, but it just wasn't enough to Scrapper. You could really tell the kid was startin' to lose it about then. Just the slightest thing would make him go off like nobody's business. And there weren't nobody he liked to soak more than Racetrack. Poor little runt never stood a chance. Scrapper, he was big, and he was mean, and pretty soon we found out he was taking a bigger cut from Race every week and soakin' him for absolutely no reason at all.
That's when Jocks and I decided to make our move. We went to Scrapper and told him to lay off Race or we'd give him a taste of it himself. Thought we'd give him a proper warning first. Of course he just laughed in our faces. Told us he wasn't scared of a couple of runts. Next morning we found Race in an alley with his teeth bashed in and a broken arm. So we struck.
Scrapper didn't know there was more than just the two of us. And that's the way we wanted it. We'd been secretly gathering a small army to overthrow his rule, boys from all over Brooklyn who shared our opinions on the current leadership. We cornered him in a deserted alley where there weren't nobody around to help him, and we beat him to within an inch of his life. Then we warned him never to show his mug in Brooklyn ever again.
We didn't kill him. I dunno if anybody actually thought we killed him, but we didn't. We just ran him off. All the same, there was always the off chance that he'd come back and try to get at Race for us runnin' him out. And with Race in the condition he was in, he couldn't stay in Brooklyn no more. He just wasn't cut out for it. So we shipped him off to Manhattan, where we knew Jack Kelly'd take good care of him.
After that, the leadership of Brooklyn was up for the taking. Some of the boys argued amongst themselves for a while before they finally decided that the ones who had organized the takeover in the first place should step up to it. Now Jocks, he never really was one for power and all that. He stayed on as my second anyway, if only to help me out if I should ever need it again. Be me… I knew right away that this was the role I was meant for. I knew Brooklyn inside and out by now. I knew how it ran, what it could do, what it needed.
I knew how to lead her.
I made a lot of changes when I took the throne of Brooklyn. For one thing, I was a lot easier on my boys than Scrapper ever was. A lot of his ideals and ways of thinking were thrown out with him, and for a time things were much better. Brooklyn was still a tough borough, but it was no longer near-impossible to scrounge out a living there. I never demanded a cut from my boys, preferring to earn my own wages, and if I ever soaked a kid, I made sure he deserved it first. But if he did, you better believe my punishment came quickly. There's no room for weakness in Brooklyn. It's always watching you, waiting for you to make a mistake. Scrapper was weak in that he made more enemies than friends. That will not be my mistake.
I wish I could say I never saw him again. Recently my runners have been coming to me with reports that he's been sighted near Queens. Race still sells in Sheepshead, though I can't imagine why. I just don't know how to tell him, though. As far as he knows, Scrapper's not a problem anymore.
Funny thing is, I'm really not as bad a poker player as I let 'em think over in Manhattan. I like watching 'em squirm and scramble to let me have my way. They're all scared of me. They've all heard the story of how I killed a man to get to the top of the toughest borough in New York City. But there's more to it than that. Somehow, Race knows I'd use the excuse to keep him out of Brooklyn. There's something more than the track that's drawing him back there. There has to be. Brooklyn tore him apart.
But for some reason, it seems he'd do anything to keep me from taking it away from him.