Chapter 9

When Jack wakes up the next morning, he feels as if he's been hit by a train. He's been working flat out for months, and for what? Nothing. The most important thing in his life has just crumbled around him. He runs a weary hand over his face and forces himself up, shivering in the early morning breeze. This time of year is the worst time to be sleeping outside. And then he remembers. He won't be. Today is the day he leaves the lodgehouse. It's fitting, perhaps.

Jack dresses and then takes his time packing up his meagre collection of possessions. A couple of extra clothes, half of them more hole than fabric, his drawings, Katherine's copy of Romeo and Juliet. He squeezes his eyes closed. He will not cry. Jack's father used to tell him that men didn't cry. He's not cried, in front of anyone at least, since he was seven. His father's funeral. His father would have been disappointed in him. He wraps them all in the thin blanket he calls a bed and ties it off.

He leaves the lodgehouse before the rest of the boys are up. Crutchie will meet him at the apartment later, as they agreed. He can't stand any more goodbyes.

Jack curses the walk for giving him time to think. He doesn't want to think. Whenever he thinks, he thinks about Katherine. It's been less than a day and he's already never regretted anything quite so much in his life. There is an actual, physical pain in his chest that throbs when her face appears, unbidden, in his mind. He wants her so badly and yet she's the one thing he can't have. Who is he kidding? He never had her at all. She was only on loan from high society. Girls like you don't end up with guys like me. The first time she'd kissed him she'd talked about one night. He'd had more than his fair share, he knows that. Guys like him, forever isn't something he gets. He thinks about the cash he has tucked inside the roll of drawings in his little blanket. The bills earmarked for an engagement ring. He's always been a dreamer, but Santa Fe had never raised him so high only to let him fall back to earth. He doesn't blame her – how could he? It wasn't Santa Fe's fault that it was way out west, just like it isn't Katherine's fault that she's too good for him. But seeing her there, playing at that party with a proper gentleman at her side, pearls at her ears. It had brought back to him how foolish it all was. He curses himself for ending it so early, wishes he'd left it up to her to call it off. At least then he could have enjoyed her love a little longer. But she deserves better than scum like him.

The New York air is brisk and cold, the dead leaves on the trees rustling above him as he heads in the direction of the office. He's already in enough hot water with old Joe, these drawings can't be late. It won't be open, of course, the rest of the lazy sods who work there won't be there until at least nine, but he'll post them in and be on his way before the rest of the city is even awake. But as he approaches, he sees two figures. They grow more distinct as he approaches, their outlines sharpening amidst the early morning fog. The Delanceys. Jack curses under his breath, lowering his head and turning up his collar. Usually mocking the two is good sport, but he's tired, and it's two against one, and today is not the day. But as he strides closer, they cross the street to meet him. Shit.

"We's got a present for you, Jack Kelly!" Oscar calls out.

"Oh yeah? I didn't know Santa was hirin' new elves. Ain't you a bit early? An' tall?" Jack plasters on a grin, straightening his shoulders. Oscar, at least, looks like hell, even worse than him. Jack wonders whether it's quite normal to take so much pleasure in that.

"Not from Santa, I'm afraid. This one's direct from Mr. Pulitzer." The men smirk at one another. "See, he says he don't want theivin' scum workin' for 'im no more. Says he wants his book back an' you outta his office. 'Ere." Morris thrusts a piece of paper at him. Jack sets down his blanket package on the pavement beside him and squints at it. Letter of termination. This can't be happening. This can't be happening. "Says he wants us to really… hammer that message 'ome."

Jack's eyes dart to his right, gauging the distance to the nearest alleyway. But before he can do anything, Oscar has shoved him up against the wall.

"Looks like that black eye I gave you is healin' real nice. I's thinkin' we should fix that." Jack tries to lash out at the older man, but with little effect. Oscar has well and truly got him, the bricks behind him tearing into his back the more he struggles. And then Morris starts in on him.

They're insatiable. It starts with his stomach, a few good punches to his gut and he's vomiting up last night's fancy dinner. Then his head. Jack doesn't remember much of the encounter, if he's honest, but when he comes to, he's curled up on the pavement, arms over his head in a poor attempt to shield himself from the blows.

When he tries to uncurl himself, a fire relights in his stomach and he only just manages to roll over onto his hands and knees, spewing up bile threaded with blood. It's almost five minutes before his instincts from living on the streets take over and he checks himself. Head first. He raises a hand to his mouth, wincing as his grubby fingers brush a split in his bottom lip. Still, his teeth are all still there, so that's something. His nose isn't broken either, miraculously, but between two black eyes, a split lip, and a gash on his temple where he hit the pavement, he isn't exactly in the best shape. It's only when he tries to stand up that he realises that at least one of his ribs is broken. He heaves himself up, one hand on the brick wall, and closes his eyes, taking breaths as deeply as he can with his broken ribs, until the world stops spinning. Slowly, he lowers his other hand, feeling around before his hand comes into contact with something wet. Oh. Well then. Maybe he is, in fact, in shock. Because, well, there's a fucking broken bottle sticking out of his side. Well, that's going to have to go. Best to get it over with, Jack thinks, rather distantly, before grabbing the neck of the broken bottle and ripping it from his abdomen.

As he doubles over in pain, blood spilling down his side, staining his shirt, his trousers, the ground, he hears the bottle shatter. He grits his teeth and bears through it, thankful, for the first time in his life, to Snyder for teaching him how to bear pain without making a sound. When he looks down, he notices that he's soaked his letter of termination with his own blood. All his worldly possessions, formerly wrapped up in his ragged little blanket, are scattered around him on the ground, save the book that had doubtless been returned to Pulizter by the Delanceys. Probably has his blood spattered across it.

He should probably get back. He'll take the day off, he decides. He probably deserves it.

…

Jack stands in the tiny kitchen of his new apartment, his right hand shrouded in a cloth as he plucks pieces of broken glass out of his side, neck cricked to see the wound in a cracked mirror he has propped against the window. The Delanceys had certainly done a number on him, that's for sure. He winces, tongue stuck out in concentration, as he removes the last piece. It takes all the effort left in him to wrap a piece of cloth around his middle before he collapses against the cabinets and slides to the floor, groaning as the movement jostles his injured ribs. This isn't exactly what he'd had in mind for his first day in his new apartment.

His eyes land on the blood-soaked paper crumpled on the floor beside him. Another problem he'll have to solve. Jack leans his head back and tries to think clearly despite the throbbing of his skull. He's paid three months rent in advance, so he doesn't need to worry about rent immediately. Three months is plenty of time to get another job, he tells himself, not wholly convincingly. But he's graduated from pape-selling now – nobody ever heard of a newsman instead of a newsboy. Maybe he could get a gig drawing for some other paper. But that would take time, time that he doesn't have if he wants to be able to afford to eat. He makes up his mind to head down to the docks the next day and ask if they need any labour. Hauling cargo won't go easy on his broken ribs, but its honest work. He could ask Medda if she needed anything else doing as well – not necessarily painting, but just odd jobs. He could build some sets, hell, he'd clean the toilets if it meant he didn't starve. Sometimes you're too hungry to be proud.

…

The one thing Crutchie wasn't expecting when he unlocked the door to his and Jack's new apartment was a bloodied Jack slumped on the floor of the kitchen. But hey, that's Jack, and that's how Crutchie has ended up on the kitchen floor beside his best friend, frantically pawing at the other boy's neck in an attempt to find a pulse. His sweaty fingers don't manage it, but Jack, at least, registers that he's being touched and opens slow, groggy eyes.

Jack offers to help Crutchie get his things into his room before he offers any explanation. Luckily, Crutchie is having none of it and manages to get most of the slurred story out of Jack before the older boy drags himself to his feet and conducts a wobbly tour of the apartment.

"'S the smaller room," Jack mumbles around a swollen lip, opening the door to Crutchie's room, "but it's the one wi' the fireplace so I was thinkin' it'd be better for your leg."

The room was furnished with a single bed and wardrobe, a cast iron fireplace set into one wall. Atop the bed were several pillows, sheets, and blankets. Crutchie, despite his concern, can't suppress a smile, hobbling over to the bed and setting down his things.

"Did these come with the place?" Crutchie asks, taking a fleecy blanket between his thumb and forefinger reverently. "They's real nice."

"Nah, I bought 'em the other day. Didn't want you gettin' cold – you's got none o' the other boys to keep you warm now." Jack remarks quietly from the doorway, swaying a little. He places a limp hand on the doorframe to steady himself.

"I thinks you's the one who needs worryin' about now." Crutchie rolls his eyes. "C'mon show me your room an' let's get you into bed."

Jack grouses a little about being fine, but takes a few grateful steps across the hall to his room, fumbling with the door handle. Jack's room is a little bigger than Crutchie's, sporting a double iron bedstead with a thin mattress, but it's pathetic. There's no fireplace, no blankets…

"You's bought me all those blankets an' you didn't get yourself any?" Crutchie asks quietly.

"I's got a blanket." Jack wheezes, producing the one he carried his things in from off a hook on the back of the door and stumbling toward the bed, toeing off his boots as he goes. The bed suddenly looks immensely inviting and although he knows he doesn't deserve it, he's acutely aware that, with no job, he could very well be homeless again soon. He might as well enjoy it while it lasts.

…

Once Crutchie has slipped back into the room and surreptitiously draped a few of his new blankets over Jack's sleeping form, he limps into the kitchen and lights a coal fire in the little stove in the kitchen, setting a small black kettle he finds in one of the cupboards atop it. He pulls a stool close and perches beside it, warming his hands at the merrily burning flames. This is the nicest place he's ever lived, but he can't seem to concentrate on the wonder of being in a place that has four rooms for just two people when Jack is sleeping, bruised and bloodied, across the hall.

It's then that his gaze lands on the crumpled, bloodstained piece of paper on the tile floor of the kitchen. Now, Crutchie ain't a snitch. And he ain't a nosy bastard either. But Jack hasn't been himself for a while now, and so he picks it up and unfolds it. Well.

…

It's not until the next day that Crutchie goes to confront Jack about it. He isn't worried – Jack has never let him down. Even during the strike, his brother had always been there for him. He knows that Jack will figure something out, he always does – he can rely on Jack to keep both of them off the streets. But this? Surely Katherine couldn't know about it. She'd have strangled Pulitzer with her bare hands if she'd have known. When Jack isn't awake by seven, Crutchie knocks on his door and, receiving no answer, walks in. That's the moment that he realises something is wrong. Very wrong.

"Jack?" He hobbles over as quickly as his leg will let him and presses his hand to the forehead of his unresponsive friend, pulling back instantly. Jack is scorching hot. He's also not waking up.

Crutchie tears the extra blankets off the bed and has to swallow down the bile that rises in his throat. The thin mattress is soaked through with blood coming from Jack's side. With a gulp, he props his crutch against the side of the bed and sets to work unbuttoning Jack's shirt to get a proper look at the situation. Jack is usually the one who stitches up all of the injuries at the lodgehouse, but Crutchie is sure he can return the favour. That is, at least, until he manages to peel the shirt away from the wound. The shirt drags with it a thin twist of cloth that was presumably a makeshift bandage. Jack's entire side is swollen around several deep gashes, his skin an angry red, a mixture of blood and pus oozing out of him.

This, Crutchie knows, is beyond him. So he goes to the cleverest person he knows.

"So what exactly is it that's so urgent that mother gave me permission to go with you, rather than go to synagogue?" Davey grouses, coming out of the run-down apartment building to meet Crutchie and fiddling with the clip for his kippah.

"It's Jack." Crutchie says, immediately swinging around and setting off with surprising speed.

"What about him?" Davey asks, struggling to keep up.

"He's hurt."

…

"It's infected." Davey pronounces, pressing gently on the wound. Even in unconsciousness, Jack's body reacts, shifting away from the touch.

Even just perching on the end of the bed, Davey can feel the heat radiating off Jack's sweat soaked body. He's rebandaged the wound and changed the bedsheets – nothing he can do about the mattress, that is a lost cause – but Jack is still asleep, if one can call it that. The sleep is restless and spasming, his hair matted to his forehead with sweat.

"What do we do?" Crutchie asks, his voice quiet.

"Um." Davey thinks for a moment. "Garlic. And honey. That's what my mother did when my uncle's wound got infected, she packed it with those."

"And he got better?"

Davey doesn't answer, only looks at him, his dark eyes level and solemn. Crutchie's bottom lip trembles.

"Hey," Davey stands up, awkwardly clapping a hand on the younger boy's shoulder, "Jack's a fighter, he'll come through. Why don't you stay with him while I go and get those, eh?" Crutchie just nods and hobbles over to the bed, sitting down and clutching Jack's hand between two of his own.

Davey walks with steady, even steps until the door of the apartment is closed behind him, then breaks into a sprint, down the stairs and out onto the street, weaving through the crowds to the market. His mother hadn't let him see his uncle when he got that infection in his leg, but he remembers the wailing that came from the back bedroom of the house when he had passed away. There's something inhuman about a wail of mourning, something that stretches back to a time before there was the language to express grief – if there even is now. Davey doesn't want to hear Crutchie or any of the other boys make sounds like that. He doesn't want to let out those sounds himself.