In New York, when it was cold it was cold. The organ grinder's breath hung like white garlands in the air. Spot couldn't see the monkey. It was too cold for monkeys. It was too cold for everything. He didn't have any gloves. He'd gotten frost bite three times in his life and he was nearing a fourth. The boy tucked the newspapers up under his arm and paused in his yelling to cup his pale hands over his mouth. It didn't do much, blowing on his palms. His breath was as frozen as the rest of him. Spot let his hands drop but held them in front of him, still cupped. The tips of his fingers were an alarming grey color. He'd seen that exact color earlier in the morning. The homeless died in droves in weather like this. Spot had passed one curled in a closed doorway on his way to the distribution center. Spot's fingers looked like those of a corpse.
It was too cold to snow. What little snow they had gotten was the dark soot color that belched out of the factories North, in Queens. Anything that dropped to the street remained there, fixed to the cobblestone on impact. Everywhere he looked was smashed fruits, vegetables bled of their color, horse shit and worse. Brooklyn. Where garbage froze in the street like the iced treats sold out of a wagon on a hot day in July. He'd called the city home for six years. Everyone else had stopped calling it a city a year ago, but Spot hated the word borough. It was a city, his city, the city. In Spot's mind, the word Manhattan was always heralded by a vehement fuck. Fuck Manhattan, fuck consolidation, fuck changing times and shrinking territories.
The newsie withdrew the papers from under his arm and scanned the sparsely populated street. Who was he kidding; no one would be out in this cold. He'd bought twenty papers thinking he could use a little extra, just in case. Spot hadn't actually needed to sell papers for two years. He didn't need to now, but hadn't had anything better to do on an arctic day in February. Spot didn't deal in papers anymore. Spot dealt in power, extortion, threats. A gleeful smile curled his lips and he ducked his head, a pantomime of humble embarrassment at the thought. He wasn't one to brag, but Spot was no longer the overblown boy hero of a ragtag bunch of Brooklyn newsies. After the strike, offers had started to come in. Political groups wanted him, The Dead Rabbits, Tammany Hall, they all wanted him. He was Irish, he was fierce, and he didn't have what one might call "up-standing morals". Spot dealt in voting fraud, protection, harassment, black mailing.
One of the newspapers crinkled dryly in his hand as he started toward docks. He wondered vaguely if he'd ever be in those pages again one day. He hoped not. Spot could earn fame one way, and one way only. He turned eighteen in a few weeks. Things got messier when you were eighteen. People started using words like "responsibility", "intent" and "tried as an adult". If he could manage it, Spot would rather stay out of the papers from now on. He would leave the photographs to Jack Kelly. He would continue to work for Tammany and he would continue to make money.
He got a few acknowledging nods as he made his way toward the water. In the winter he couldn't smell the river like he could in the heat of summer. Much of it was iced over, but lower down; towards Jersey and Red Hook and Rockaway it was still clear. Some boys held competitions to see who could stay in the water the longest. One of them got hypothermia the week before but Spot didn't know if he'd lived. It had been one of his gang, but it didn't worry him. There would always be more where he came from. As long as ships kept steaming into Ellis Island, there would be more where he came from. The Great Unwashed, he'd heard them called once. He liked it, although he knew he was supposed to be offended. It took a lot to offend Spot. If you offended him it meant he cared a rat's ass what you thought of him, but that didn't happen much.
He was under The Bridge now, the sprawling shadow of it enough to blot out the icy midwinter sun. He liked The Bridge, despite what it reminded him of. Before it there had been nothing to tie Brooklyn to Manhattan. There was the ferry, but everyone knew that belonged to Brooklyn. Before The Bridge, Brooklyn was still its own city with its own identity. Manhattan had stolen that, but Spot couldn't bring himself to blame that on the bridge. He looked up at the massive stone and stretched one hand up as though he could touch the underside of it. A conflagration of pride burned suddenly in his chest and Spot smiled. His bridge, built by his people. He liked that.
He motioned silently to a smaller boy, selling to the women who came down to buy fish, and handed his papers over. He wasn't going to try and sell anymore. A few free papers might do the kid some good, might help him survive another bitter night. The kid scampered off with a squeaked "thanks" and Spot turned to look out over the half frozen water. He decided, as he shoved his hands into his pockets in a futile attempt to stave off frostbite that he wouldn't bother to buy papers anymore. It was something he had been clinging to, perhaps one last attempt to hold onto the frivolities of his childhood. Spot had enjoyed being a kid, despite his chronic homelessness. He'd still been relatively care-free, watched over by the older boys of Brooklyn. But that was done now. Spot dealt in back alley deals, violence, paid-for-loyalty, not papers. He wrinkled his nose against the stiffening of his skin and turned from the water, bound for the center of Brooklyn.