This fic is respectfully dedicated to Shane Halligan and to every other kid who has ever been desperate enough to take their own life. RIP.
David was thought by most to be a good kid. Dependable, easy to talk to, smart as a whip. The driving force in the newboys' strike of the year before. The power behind the throne of Jack Kelly, the famous newsie who lead the Manhattan newsboys. Well-liked by most, respected by all.
So it was a shock to everyone when at 7:39 on the morning of December 12, 1900 David Meyer Jacobs took out a gun and shot himself in the head.
It was a cold morning, and the newsies were huddled together for warmth in the distribution yard. Les and Jacob had shown up as usual, laughing and joking as they waited in line for their papes. David had been carrying a bag over his shoulder, but no one really thought this was unusual as he was starting school again that day. True, most kids had straps for their books, but Davey had always been different. He probably had a cache of gigantic tomes hidden in there, waiting to be devoured to sate his never-ending curiosity.
It wasn't until after David had brought his newspapers - twenty, a distant echo of the first day he had been a newsie - that anything strange happened. He walked down the steps and threw down the papers, causing almost every head in the courtyard to turn towards him. He opened the bag at his side quickly, and before anyone could reach him he pulled out a gun and fired two warning shots into the air.
"Everybody down!" he yelled, his voice carrying over the shocked silence.
The newsboys all dived for the ground immediately. It was clear the Walking Mouth had finally snapped, and no one was willing to be killed trying to save a loony. Well, almost no one. Five figures stood alone among the prostrate bodies.
Racetrack Higgins started speaking almost immediately.
"Davey, Davey. Look, whatever's wrong, we can talk through it, right?" He asked cajolingly. "Look, Davey, just set down da gun and -"
He swore loudly in Italian as David turned towards him and fired a warning shot past his head. Deciding the odds were definitely in the other's favor, he shut his mouth, but stared at him disbelievingly. David refused to meet his eyes.
Kid Blink came to his rescue.
"Hey Davey, don't pick on Race. Give 'im a break, he's Italian. Dey never know da right things to say. Now whadda ya say you put dat gun down and come sell wit' me an' Mush. We'll have a good time, I promise."
David turned in his direction and, without ever looking at his face fired a warning shot past him too. Blink subsided as Mush took up the argument.
"Yeah Davey, me and Blink knows all the best sellin' spots. You'll have the time of your life. Maybe we'll even go down to Brooklyn -"
He didn't get to finish. Apparently Brooklyn was not the best word to use around David for the moment. The bullet fired past Mush was the closest to anyone yet.
Jack finally spoke up. In contrast to the others, he seemed almost angry.
"Look, Davey, listen here. You was supposed ta be da most respectable one of any of us. You was goin' ta go ta school and get smart and be a doctor or a lawyer or a senator or even da president. Now don't you dare throw all dat away. As co-leader of Manhattan, youse got a responsibility ta all dese boys. All 'a dem, you hear me? And what kind of leader turns his back on his boys and blows hisself away? Now you listen ta me, Davey. You are gonna put down dat gun and slap yourself back together, and then we're gonna pretend none of this ever happened."
That was the wrong thing to say.
If Jack Kelly had stopped before he had gotten to that sentence, he might possibly have convinced the other boy. Certainly, David had been softening up till Jack had spoken those words. But now his eyes became hard, and though he didn't meet the other's eyes, when he shot at Jack he didn't miss.
Jack looked down at his bleeding arm in shock. Then, lips tight in anger, pain and disbelief, he looked at David and said:
"I thought better of ya, Dave. I really did."
Then he clamped his mouth shut.
Les, the last of the five boys not to hit the ground when David had originally yelled for everyone to get down, the nearest to the psychopath, looked up at his brother. His brown eyes were huge and frightened as they strived to meet his David's, his only brother. The one who had taught him to play marbles, and scraped and saved for weeks to get him the cowboy hat he just had to have for Christmas last year. The one who had comforted him when he woke up with nightmares, and who had afterwards promised not to tell the girls in the house. The one who had talked Spot Conlon, the great leader of Brooklyn, into not just helping Les make a slingshot but learn how to shoot it. The one he secretly wanted to be like when he was older even more than he wanted to be like Jack. The one who told him to never let the world beat him, and most of all never to cry.
"David." he whispered. That was enough.
Looking his younger brother squarely in the eye, David raised the pistol to his chin and gave him a sad smile, then whispered two words that reverberated around the distribution yard.
"I'm sorry."
He fired three shots and was gone.
It turned out that David Jacobs didn't have everything together as much as most people had thought.
It turned out that he was in trouble.
A lot of trouble.
Had gotten a girl pregnant.
Owed a lot of people a lot of money.
Had been frequenting brothels and opium dens.
It was some small comfort to his former friends when they found out that the saint hadn't been so perfect after all. Most of them cursed him, when they bothered to mention him at all. They tried to forget.
But they couldn't. Five boys in particular.
Racetrack Higgins always privately thought of him as being loaded dice. No matter what, what had happened would have happened, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. You just had to accept your losses and move on.
Kid Blink Parker went into mourning. He rarely smiled or cracked a joke anymore. He became depressed, not bothering to talk to anyone other than Race or Mush anymore. And then one day he disappeared. Left a note saying that he couldn't stand it in New York anymore, and was going to take his chances out West, maybe even in Santa Fe.
Mush Meyers was more obvious about his sorrow. He openly and unashamedly cried for days afterwards, turning to Race and Blink for comfort. He clung to vestiges of normality, making a point of asking Jack how he had slept every morning. When Blink left, he said goodbye to Race and went after him as soon as the note was found. He left Manhattan and never came back.
Jack's way of dealing with the tragedy was to abuse David's memory. He cursed him up and down, said that he had always been unstable and that he had never trusted him. He began drinking heavily and staying out later and later. When he would come back to the Lodging House in the small hours of the morning he would wake the whole bunkroom up as he slandered his dead friend. But he never fooled anyone with those obscenities but himself.
And Les . . . Les survived. He took David's place in his grief-stricken family as best he could and hid all of his feelings inside, where no one could see how much he was hurting.
He wore his cowboy hat.
He comforted himself when he woke up with nightmares at night.
He didn't just not ever let the world beat him, he grabbed the world and swept the floor with it.
And he never ever ever cried.