"When you kill a king, you don't stab him in the dark. You kill him where the entire court can watch him die." – Amsterdam Vallon, Gangs of New York.


Do you ever get this feeling deep inside your bones that something is about to go horribly wrong? The kind of feeling that follows you around like a bad smell you can't quite place, that sticks to your insides like molasses – heavy and gooey and kind of nauseating. It always pops up, no matter how happy you might be. When you're practically hanging off the side of the Brooklyn Bridge, the wind rushing through your hair and through your thin clothes straight to your skin, laughing until your sides hurt – it shows up there. The laugh catches in your throat and the wind now feels like it's taking your very breath from your lungs. Or when you're stripping your sticky-from-sweat clothes off and diving into the Hudson River on an unbearably hot summer's day, feeling the water rush over you and wash off that specific heat that New York City has in July after no rain for weeks – it shows up there, too. You suddenly feel the weight of the water and a certain pressure in your chest like a boulder is sitting on top of you and it's all you can do to get your head above water and greedily suck up air like you're never going to be able to breathe again.

Do you know that feeling? It ain't a fun one. But it's how I could see this moment coming from a mile away.

The feeling first came on a boring September afternoon. We had just finished selling papes for the day and me and some of the boys were lounging around on some of the crates next to the dock. The sun had lowered past the skyline and the heat of the day had lifted so it was pretty pleasant outside. Things had been pretty quiet in the newsie world, with the strike having been over a year ago. There had been a couple of gang-like uprisings but they were pretty easy to squash, especially in Brooklyn. But things were overall good and quiet – and I think that's what brought the feeling on. Maybe it's because I don't know how to appreciate anything good in this life because it always seems to go to shit somehow, but before I knew it that feeling came and settled inside the pit of my stomach like it had lived there all it's life.

I saw it coming.

At first, I didn't think much of it. But after a couple of weeks, I started to get irritated. And after a month of it, I cracked. I waited until around dusk and then I grabbed one of my newsies by the arm – Dodger. Dodger was one of the newsies I had known the longest, and trusted the most. You could call him my second-in-command I guess, but he wouldn't ever take the position of leader if I wasn't here, it just wasn't his sort of thing.

"'Ey, Dodge, gotta minute?" I asked, but didn't really give time to answer as I pulled him away from the others on the dock.

"Shoah, Spot, what's on yoah mind?" Dodger replied, shoving his fists into his pockets as we made our way down the street past the Lodging House.

"I need to talk about somethin' kinda serious, Dodge," I said as I lit a cigarette and took a long drag. That feeling had me all kinds of shaky and I needed something to calm it down. Dodger didn't say anything, just stared at me confused. I continued, "You ever get this feelin' in the pit of your stomach, like somethin' bad's about to happen, but you don't know what?"

Dodger stared ahead, a look of deep concentration on his face. "Shoah. Me ma always called 'em premonitions."

"What?"

"Y'know, premonitions. Like fortune-tellers, psychics, premonitions – that kinda shit," he said.

I left that conversation thinking I was having a psychic vision without the vision part, which, no fault to Dodger, didn't exactly help the feeling that was spreading to every inch of my body.

It was a couple of weeks before it finally clicked. That I was going to die. As soon as it hit me, the feeling changed. It was still there, but it was different. Instead of that pressure, that stick-to-you-like-sweat-clings-to-your-skin kind of feeling, it became more of a buzz. Like this sort of electricity was constantly running though me, starting at the top of my head and going all the way to my fingertips and toes, and then circling back again. It made the hairs on the back of my neck and on my arms stand up.

I should have seen it coming.

It was a chilly October night when I pulled Dodger away from the others again, this time not even saying a word as I towed him down the street. He shook his arm loose from my grasp, almost fearfully, as he looked at me in concern. "'Ey, uh, Spot, you don't look so good."

He was sugar-coating it, I know. I had barely slept in weeks, the bags under my eyes becoming a more intense blue every day as the rest of my face turned a sickening pale. My hair was even starting to fall out from the stress of constantly looking over my shoulder expecting to see the Grim Reaper coming for me. I looked even worse than when I had caught the flu back in '97 and was practically in a coma for a week.

"I know what's going to happen Dodger," I said, sounding breathless as I spoke. But no matter how many deep breaths I took, I couldn't seem to catch my breath.

Dodger just looked at me with more concern and more confusion. "What Spot? What's gonna happen?"

"I'm going to die."

"Well, yeah, if you don't get some sleep-"

"No, I mean I'm going to be killed. Someone's going to kill me Dodger. I know it. I feel it." I'm glad I couldn't see myself right now, because I'm sure I looked like some sort of crazed mental patient.

Dodger did his best to calm me down, told me to just stay in larger groups of people, to always make sure a couple of people were with me everywhere I went, like the King of Brooklyn needed a babysitter.

Why didn't I see it coming?

It was the last week in October when the feeling left. It was an unnaturally warm, sunny day, so all us newsies were out on the dock soaking up the last bit of sun we could get before winter came. I wasn't up in that little tower of mine because I honestly didn't have the strength to climb up there. I was worn down – nothing but skin, bone, and shot nerves. So when the feeling left, all I did was feel empty.

I never saw it coming.

I sat up slowly as Dodger walked towards me, a grin on his face. "Probably met some broad," I thought to myself.

"Hey Dodger," I said as he came up to me. "I don't-" I stopped, suddenly gasping for breath. The blood rising in my throat made it hard to breathe. I looked down at my stomach, at the growing red spot on my stomach from the knife, at the knife plunged in my stomach, at the knife held by Dodger, and I looked up again at Dodger's grinning face.

I began to fall forward and he caught me, his hand on my back and my head on his shoulder. He whispered, "Didn't think I had it in me, didja? Y'know what they say, 'When you kill a king, you don't stab him in the dark. You kill him where the entire court can watch him die.'"

I had known all along, I just didn't want to believe it. My friend. I drove myself crazy trying to come of with some explanation – anything else – but I all along I knew.

I had seen it coming from a mile away.


A/N: This was mainly a writing exercise for me based on the Gangs of New York quote. Please feel free to leave constructive criticism!

Disclaimer: I don't own Newsies or Gangs of New York.