Chapter 54: His Father's Son

8:36 P.M., May 15th 1962 (Gregorian Calendar) 19th Precinct Lockup, New York, New York

The man peered down at the cards in his hands, fanning them out and holding them carefully close to his chest. He smiled behind his scraggily beard, the faint aroma of alcohol still on his breath. He had woken up in general lockup in a general stupor, his hangover clouding out all memories of how he ended up in jail. That had been over twelve hours ago, and now he had finally found some source of entertainment. Not even an hour ago some kid had been thrown into the cage with them, and the bearded man saw the chance to make the most of his situation. It had not taken much goading at all to convince the teenager to play cards with him.

It seemed now, though, that it had been a mistake. The boy was no normal sixteen year old, standing every bit of 6' 10'', his arms built out of lean muscle, his hair as black as the drunken slumber the bearded man had awoken from. The man had lost nearly every single hand, but now he was sure that he had the kid, his hand revealing three aces. He just had to play it cool.

"Raise you one," he said, sliding a cigarette into the middle of the table.

Jack looked at him disinterestedly. "Two," he said, sliding his own cigarettes over. The boy now had close to a pack and a half on his side.

The bearded man did his best to keep his face neutral, almost succeeding. "All in," he said, his voice croaking on the last syllable. He was confident that the kid would either fold or call it and end up losing the hand, but when he looked up Jack had walked away. "Hey, you going to call it or not?"

"One minute," Jack said, moving over to another table. Another man, closer to his age, sat on the other side of it, holes worn into the knees of his pants and the elbows of his long sleeved shirt. He looked down at the checkerboard, eyebrows furrowing. With a single finger he moved a piece.

"That you move?" the man asked, but before Jack could answer a third man called out.

"I've been waiting on him for five minutes. Come on kid are we going to finish this or what?"

Jack glanced over at the third man who was sitting behind a chess board. "You already lost."

The third man looked down at the chess pieces. "How?"

Jack groaned and walked over. He could not understand how the third man could not see it. Jack moved his queen, quirking an eyebrow at the third man. "See it now?"

The third man shook his head. Slowly he reached a hand out to one of his rooks, but then withdrew it, settling instead on advancing his bishop. Jack moved his knight forward, then walked away from the table. "Checkmate." The third man began scratching his head, mumbling underneath this breath.

From outside the jail cell a guard called out. "John Toren."

"Yeah," Jack answered. He had moved back to the checkerboard, jumping over several black pieces and moving red chip to the end of the board. "King me."

"Ya got a visitor."

"Who?" Jack asked, gliding back to the poker game, going all in as well. The bearded man smiled wildly, revealing a mouth absent of several teeth. He threw down his hand, revealing the three queens.

"It's your cousin."

Jack's head perked up. He laid his hand on the table and walked away. "Straight flush. Also, I know when you're cheating. For future reference it won't help you."

"You putrid little cunt," the bearded man growled. He lunged over the table at Jack, toppling over the cards and crushing the cigarettes. He was stopped when the other two men grabbed him by the shoulders, holding him down. "You accuse me of cheating you twat? You've won every fucking hand, doesn't matter what I've got. You've been cheating this whole damn time."

"No," Jack said, bending down and picking up one of the fallen cigarettes. "I'm just lucky."

The bearded man stopped struggling, staring up at Jack with a blank expression. "You're a goddamn freak."

"I know," Jack said. He lit the cigarette and turned away, only to come face to face with Jake.

Jake motioned his head towards the other three inmates. "I see you're making friends."

"It's what I do best," Jack said, exhaling smoke as he spoke. Already he could feel his tense muscles relaxing. He had been craving a cigarette for the past few hours.

Jake looked at the burning tobacco. "I thought you promised me you were going to quit."

"I'm doing it gradually," Jack said, taking another drag.

Jake shook his head.

"Are supposed to be visiting me?" Jack asked with a touch of concern.

"Don't worry about that. I'll deal with it." He craned his head to look up at Jack's head, spotting the place where he had been bleeding from. "How are you feeling."

"Oh, yeah," Jack said, placing a hand on his wounded scalp. "Stopped bleeding a while ago. I'm fine."

Jake nodded, his gaze now moving to the blood on Jack's shirt. "They're going to charge you with two counts of assault."

"It was self defense," Jack muttered.

"That's not how McMullen wrote it up," Jake said. "He said that you're lucky you haven't been charged with attempted murder. He is going to charge you with assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest."

Jack's eyes widened. "I never touched him. I put my hands in the air as soon as he flashed his lights at us."

"I believe you," Jake said. He pointed at Jack's head. "But McMullen has to explain why he tried to bash your head in. It's his word against yours."

"So I lose," Jack said bitterly.

"A good lawyer will be able to get those charges dropped. It's the two counts of assault that you should be worried about."

"It was self defense," Jack said, irritated. He had said those two words multiple times since he had been arrested.

"And you don't have a scratch on you," Jake argued. "I believe you Jack, but you have to see things the way other people are going to see them. It was two against one, and some how you come out of it without even a bruise while the other two are laying in puddles of their own blood? Nobody is going to see that as a fair fight, and in this city a fair fight is all that is going to matter to a jury."

"I was trying to help someone," Jack said. "I…couldn't just walk away."

Jake rubbed his temple. "Alright. Tell me what happened."

4:45 P.M., May 15th 1962 (Gregorian Calendar) Hell's Kitchen, New York, New York

It was the sound of scuffling that brought Jack to the alleyway. The sounds of fists cracking against bone. He had been let out of school several hours ago, but instead of taking the bus ride home he had decided to walk, to try to clear his head from the near constant barrage of thoughts that wrestled with each other inside his mind. Jack had figured out long ago that his mind worked differently from everyone else's. There was not a single thing he could not remember, every memory ranging from his first day of school to what he had for breakfast five years ago rattling around inside of him. Taking walks helped him organize his thoughts, a large file cabinet appearing within his internal eye, each newly created file slipping inside. Neat, organized, or at least that is how Jack tried to keep it.

He was wearing his school uniform, a black and red stripped tie wrapped around his neck, tucked underneath the collar of his white shirt, a black blazer over top with two buttons in the middle. On his right chest was Trinity's coat of arms, a white rose, in the middle of which was a purple heart with the symbol of a silver cross over top of it. On top of the cross in scrawling gold letters was written Fide Et Consilio. The sigul itself was surrounded by a golden circle.

Jack entered the alleyway and stopped in his tracks. At the end of the alley was a kid, black, and no older than him, blood seeping out from his busted lips and tricking out of his nose. He was being held up against the brick wall by two kids of similar age, and Jack recognized them immediately. They were, after all, wearing the same school uniform as him.

Daniel and Henry turned around, recognition also appearing on their faces. "Jack," Daniel said with a wide smile, letting go of the black kid who fell to his knees against the wall. "What are you doing here in the old neighborhood?"

"Let him go," Jack said, nodding his head over to the bleeding kid.

"Can't do that," Henry said. "Hell's Kitchen is for the Irish. The nigger knew better than to come here."

Daniel nodded. "We're just doing our civic duty. Cleaning up the neighborhood. It was starting to become respectable after your whore of a mother left."

Beside him Henry chuckled. "Is it true what they say about her? How she only knew a guy for a few hours before taking him up to the apartment and spreading her legs for him?"

"Way I heard it the whole neighborhood could hear her moaning like a slut." He grinned devilishly at Jack, satisfied at seeing the heat rising to the other boy's cheeks. "That's probably how you came about. Your mom only said that your dad died in the war because she was too embarrassed to tell the truth. She probably got pregnant with you trying to pay the rent."

Jack slid his backpack off and it landed with a hard thud on the ground. He undid his tie and unbuttoned his blazer, setting both on top of the back pack. Across from him Daniel was doing the same. He held a hand out to Henry. "Stay back. I want him to myself."

Daniel raised his fists at Jack who did the same. "I've wanted to knock the pretentiousness out of you for a while Dutchy."

He jabbed at Jack with his left fist, then hooked with his right. Jack dodged both, and Daniel's head suddenly snapped back as Jack's fist collided with his forehead. Daniel shook off the dizziness, momentarily surprised at how hard the punch was. He moved his feet, attacking forward and throwing punches, hoping to knock Jack off balance. At last Daniel saw an opening, swinging his right fist to knock Jack senseless across the cheek. Daniel's fist only hit empty air. Jack had crouched down faster than Daniel could track him, and punched him hard in the stomach. Daniel doubled over, coughing and wheezing as he struggled to fill his lungs back up with air.

Jack stood over him. "Don't talk about my mother."

"Whore," Daniel managed to croak out, and Jack kicked him in the side.

The hairs stood up on the back of Jack's neck. He turned around, a glint of steel thrusting towards him. He caught Henry's wrist with his right hand, and knife held tightly in the fist. Jack rabbit punched Henry in the kidney, the boy's knees buckling once he did. Jack let go, but Henry came at him again, swinging the knife at Jack's face. Jack dodged the first swipe, and caught Henry's arm on the second, twisting it hard.

Too hard.

Henry let out a blood curdling scream, his arm breaking underneath's Jack's grip. The splintered white end of a bone burst through the skin, blood spraying out in its wake, coating the front of Jack's shirt in red.

Jack let go, backing away from Henry, his eyes, once confident, now filled with fear.

"What the fuck did you do to him?" Daniel asked, pushing himself back up.

"I didn't mean…" Jack stammered. "I wasn't trying…"

Daniel yelled incoherently at him, lunging forward meaning to tackle Jack by the waste. Jack side stepped, instincts taking over. He grabbed the back of Daniel's head, and slammed him face first into the brick wall. The boy's nose broke, his body giving out as he slumped down to the ground. Jack backed away several steps, looking in horror at the two bloody bodies on the ground in front of him. He had not meant to take it this far, never intending to hurt them like this.

Jack walked up to Henry, trying to help him, but as he knelt down the boy began crawling away. "Get away from me you fucking freak."

A siren flashed once at the end of the alleyway towards the street, and Jack glanced around behind him. The black boy was gone, had ran away as soon as the cop pulled up. Jack could not blame him. Daniel and Henry had been right about one thing, the boy had been the wrong skin color.

Jack stood up, raising his hands into the air as the cop approached them, just as Jake had taught him to do.

"What in Christ's name is going on?" The cop took out his night stick and poked Jack in the stomach with it. "Give me your name."

"John Toren."

The cop swiveled his night stick towards Daniel. "What's yours?"

"Daniel," He said, his voice coming out in low squeaks as he held his hand up to his broken nose. "Daniel Greene. My father is…"

"I know who you're father is," the cop said. He looked down at the boy with the broken arm, then back up at Jack. "Son, you have no idea how much trouble you just got yourself into." He jabbed the night stick into Jack's stomach. It hurt, but not nearly as much as the cop intended it to. Still Jack played along, falling to his knees and holding his stomach. The next blow did hurt, the night stick whacking Jack upside the head with a dull crack. Dark spots flooded his vision, and Jack was dimly aware that he was now on the ground. The cop was saying something, but it was coming in muted. He closed his eyes as the cop slipped the handcuffs on to his wrists.