October 19th, 1891
Crutchie awoke to someone shaking his shoulder and he started up in confusion before coming to his senses. He was safe. This was the lodging house. And Niner was standing over top of him poking him awake.
"Hey kiddo, sorry for the early start. Thought I'd let you have the first chance to wash up, and run you through some things before the rest of these bummers wake up and start causin' a commotion," Niner explained.
Crutchie nodded and rubbed his eyes before starting to pull himself out of bed. He grabbed his bookbag and crutch from beside the bed and stood carefully, holding onto the bunk bed to keep his balance. Niner pointed him in the direction of the washroom with instructions on where to find everything, then went back to his bunk to gather his things for the day. A bell sounded outside, and it didn't take long for Jack and Niner's combined efforts to get the rest of the boys moving. Crutchie joined the others as they ventured downstairs and fell into step next to Niner and Jack in the back of the group.
"Where are we going now?"
"The distribution center – it's where the World brings the newspapers – papes, we call 'em – so they can get loaded on the wagons and we's can pick up ours for the day. Mr. Wiesel's the fella in charge of the operation."
"He's a rotten scoundrel," Jack interrupted with a contemptuous scowl. He handed Crutchie a chunk of bread as his breakfast. "Likes to pick on the new kids; tries to scare 'em off, let 'em know that he's in charge. You best steer clear of him, Crutchie."
Crutchie frowned and slowed down so he could stay behind Niner as they approached the distribution floor, now with serious second thoughts about this whole Newsie business. "How come? What's in it for him to be mean."
Niner shook his head pulled Crutchie forward to walk with them again. "Jack's exaggeratin'. He ain't that bad, just a bit prickly." He leveled a tired look at Jack. "He was just the muscle for a while, the same level as any of us, just around to throw newspapers onto the wagons and hand out papes. But the old supervisor quit a while back, and he got the promotion. It went to his head, an' he thinks he can boss us around anymore. Jack makes 'im out to be scarier than all that. Just keep your head high and you'll be fine."
Crutchie nodded his understanding as they came down to the gate and crowded before it, waiting for the floor to open. Race and Albert shouldered their way to the front and he joined them, looking eagerly out at the space. They greeted him with good morning hellos and introduced him to a few new faces he hadn't been able to meet the night before. Soon enough, a gruff man wearing a bowler and carrying a chain of clanking keys approached and began to unlock the chains that kept the gate closed. A few of the other newsies heckled him with comments about his tardiness as they escaped into the distribution floor. Andrew gave the man a half-smile as he passed, hoping he wouldn't notice him hiding behind Jack.
A hand clamped down over the back of his vest, and he found himself being pulled backward. He stumbled into the gate and grabbed it to keep his balance before spinning to look at Mr. Wiesel who was glaring down at him.
"Who do we have here? Another new kid?"
"Hey! I's been here a whole month, I ain't new no more," Albert fired back. Race stuck his tongue out beside him. Weisel turned distractedly to swat at them, momentarily forgetting the younger Newsie.
"And Crutchie here is with us," Jack added, pulling Crutchie out of the way of the older man. He brushed Jack off and smiled winningly at the newsboy's antagonist.
"Mornin' Mr. Wiesel," Crutchie said, touching his cap. "I'm looking forward to working with you."
"Yous gonna be a Newsie? With that bum leg of yours?" Wiesel asked skeptically. He scowled at Niner who gave him a mischievous smile and a smug then joined his boys where they stood to the side of the floor as they waited for the day's wares to be brought down.
"Sure. My voice works, doesn't it?" Crutchie answered. Jack grinned at him. They'd won this match.
Wiesel muttered something under his breath and tossed an old bag at him before barking orders at the others hanging around the floor. They disappeared into the back and brought out pallets of papers bound in twine. Finally, Wiesel set a little locked wooden box on top of one of the stacks, and slapped it once before announcing, "PAPES FOR THE NEWSIES."
Crutchie watched as the troop of boys lined up in front of the window, jostling and teasing each other as they bought their morning papers. He caught snippets of conversations and various nicknames, each odder than the last: Pockets, Blue, Skip, Checkers, Wink, Pitch, Niner (who they also seemed to know as Cap or Capitain) and Race, of course. And despite all these colorful monikers, some of them went by ordinary names too: Jack, Henry, Albert, Mike. His own nickname was self-explanatory enough, but some of them seemed entirely random. Despite his best efforts to find a match between the other's names and their appearances, he couldn't find any real correlation and decided to brush the question off until he'd successfully made his way through the line. He rejoined Jack, and they broke off from the others to begin "carrying the banner" as they called it. Jack's purposeful strides carried him ahead of the smaller boy as he searched for a good corner to start the day.
"Hey. Hey Jack!" He stopped and turned to look back at Crutchie before realizing he'd nearly lost his younger friend and pausing to let him catch up. "Thanks for waiting up. I just got caught up by the crowd; sorry for slowing you down."
"What did you think of your first morning? Good job sticking up to Weasel." Jack answered simply. They started walking again but Crutchie noticed the taller boy intentionally falling into step next to him and smiled.
"I gotta ask what's up with all the names. Is it an inside joke or something?"
Jack shot him a puzzled look. "Whadda mean? I can call ya Andrew if ya still want."
"No that's not it. I want to know how the others got their names. Race? Niner?"
"Race is short for Racetrack for one."
"Racetrack?!"
"Racetrack– because I found him next to Sheepshead an' that's where he normally sells." Jack shrugged. "Checkers always beats everyone at checkers, so that's that. Pockets can't keep his money since it always just burns a hole in his pocket. He'd rather have them full of food and trinkets than coins. I don't know about Blue or the rest of 'em."
"And Niner? You two seem close."
"He's the one who brought me into the lodging house so you could say that. His real name's Sam, but when I met him, he was all but two steps from toppling into the Hudson while running from trouble. It's a long story, but he's had so many close calls that we started calling him a cat on his ninth life."
"That's ridiculous!" Andrew stopped short in the street, trying and failing to hide a grin at the absurdity of that picture. "Don't tell me he lands on his feet after falling from roofs too."
"Yes! I've watched it!" Jack stopped too and looked over the street as Crutchie laughed in disbelief. They'd made their way a few blocks uptown from Newspaper row, "This is good a place to start as any. Yeah, anyhow, he thought that joke was such a riot, he kept the name Niner. I guess I haven't done anything crazy enough yet to get a nickname, but Jack Kelly is just fine for me."
"You seem to give out the nicknames like the papers," Crutchie joked. He turned around, looking for a good place to rest, and settled down on the doorstep of a building before pulling his bag around him and reaching for the first of his day's wares.
Jack made an indignant face, "I don't give out papes. I sell papes." He grinned, turning on his heel to face the crowds. "And I'll show you how it's done."
Crutchie grinned as his friend took a few steps out onto the street, and without even glancing at the headline for the day, threw his arm into the air and shouted out, "EXTRA! EXTRA! TERRIFIED FLIGHT FROM BURNING INFERNO! YOU HEARD IT RIGHT HERE!"
This would be fun.
October 27th, 1891
Crutchie stirred at the light of dawn and sat up in bed, blinking bleary-eyed at the early morning sun streaming through the window of the lodging house. If he hurried, he'd have enough time to make it down to the washroom and get first chance at breakfast before the others woke. He reached for his crutch and vest and hat. Jack rolled over on the top bunk and hung upside-down over the edge of the bed.
"Where are you goin'? Morning bell ain't rung yet. Go back to sleep."
"Can't." He shivered and looked in his bag. Had he brought a coat?
Jack pulled himself awake now and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. "In that case, get dressed quickly. I wanna show you something." He pulled on his vest and shoes before jumping down from the top bunk and reaching for a coat. Crutchie nodded and hurried to pull a jacket from his knapsack. Jack tossed a scarf to him, then led the way to the door to the fire escape. Crutchie winced as they stepped out into the biting cold. Jack helped him up the rickety metal stairs, then clambered onto the roof ahead of him. Crutchie balanced on the top step, considering how to reach the final distance up. Jack motioned for him to hand over his crutch, then pulled his friend up after him. Once safely up, Jack smiled and gestured to the shimmering skyline. "Ain't it nice?"
"Yeah." Crutchie paused for a minute. "You come up here often?"
"Sometimes. More often in the summer, though."
Crutchie laughed, and the cold air hurt his lungs. "Yeah, that seems like the better time to do it."
"There's a cool breeze even in July," Jack answered.
Crutchie smiled in response. "Thanks for showing me your hideout."
Jack didn't answer or turn around from the view. "Are you going to head down? I wanna beat the other fellas to the street." He turned back toward the fire escape. "You know I ain't been walkin' so good."
Jack groaned and turned back to him. "Quit gripin'. You know how many guys fake a limp for sympathy? That leg of yours is a gold mine."
Crutchie rolled his eyes at the now-familiar sentiment the others constantly threw at him and finished tying his other shoe. "Yeah, but I don't want anyone getting any ideas that I can't make it on my own. You've warned me about the Refuge enough. Be a pal, Jack. Help me down."
He made his way over to the fire escape, sat on the ledge, and set his crutch to the side so he could start down. The first step looked like the worst – just a little too low for him to make comfortably – it would be a risk to jump down to it. He glanced back at Jack rubbing his eyes and shifted his weight down. His foot slipped on the icy step, and he made an involuntary cry of surprise as he struggled to catch himself before tumbling down to the landing below. Jack lunged across the roof and grabbed his arm, then pulled him back onto the rooftop.
"You wanna bust your other leg too?"
"Nooo," Crutchie made a face at him. "I wanna go down."
Jack ignored him and walked to the edge of the roof to look over the sight of the city. "You'll be down there soon enough," he said absentmindedly, "Take a moment to drink in my penthouse. High up above the stinking streets of New York."
Crutchie gave him a confused look and stood to join him at the edge. "You're still dreaming."
"Because I like a breath of fresh air? 'Cause I like seein' the sky and the stars?" Jack asked. Crutchie waited silently for him to continue. The view was beautiful. Smoke rose from the chimneys of the clustered buildings below them and curled into the air to join the wispy clouds that brushed the horizon.
"Used to watch the sunrise with my Da like this," Jack murmured. He reached for a pencil and scrap of old paper in his back pocket and started to doodle the skyline.
"Where is he now?" Crutchie ventured to ask, not expecting an answer. His friend insisted on staying a mystery the past few days, and it bewildered Cruthchie to think that after taking him in without a second thought and helping him through his first week of being a Newsie, he still didn't know much about Jack's past. They'd talked, sure, but the older newsie never dropped more than a hint, here and there, leaving Crutchie to fill in the rest of the blanks.
"Them streets down there sucked the life right out of 'im," Jack answered finally, surprising Crutchie enough that he turned to look at Jack. His expression was soft and sad as he continued sketching, occasionally glancing up at his reference material. "Years of rotten jobs. Stomped on by bosses. He always tried to keep me out of it, but when they finally broke him, they tossed him to the curb like yesterday's paper. About… a year ago now." He scribbled in a dark line for the street below them. "Well, they ain't doing that to me."
Crutchie's face fell as he heard Jack's story, and something told him that the great exaggerator wasn't telling any tall tales this time. He searched for something helpful he could say, thinking of his own family making the long trip across the sea, before finally turning back to the city. "Funny that everyone wants to come here."
"New York's fine for those that can afford a big strong door to lock it out. But there's a whole different life out there. You know." He set the pencil down and stared into the distance. "Da used to tell me all sorts of stories about what it'd be like out in Santa Fe. All clean and green and pretty." He shook off his melancholy and turned to Crutchie, resting back on his elbows against the railing. "You got folks there, don't ya."
Crutchie's face fell and he reached for the letter in his pocket to make sure it was still safe. "Maybe there, Maybe nowhere. I don't know. Didn't get far enough to find out."
"When did they leave?"
"End of July. I was too sick to go with 'em."
"Sick from what?"
"Polio. That's how come my leg's bad."
Jack looked from his small friend to the sight of the uncaring city and back again as he mentally tallied the months between July and when he'd found the boy shivering on the streets. Something in his story didn't add up. "How'd ya survive without folks for three months?"
"Don't need folks when you got friends," Crutchie answered, with a warm grin to Jack, but he would say no more on the subject. Jack returned the grin.
"Hey. How bout you come with me? No one worries about no gimp leg in Santa Fe. You just hop a palomino, and you'll be riding in style!" He mimed riding a horse and Crutchie laughed at the tall tale.
"Feature me, riding in style," he repeated.
"I bet a few months of clean air and you'll be able to toss that crutch for good!" Jack exclaimed, his worries forgotten in the excitement of the moment, in spinning a new story for how their lives would be one day, together.
"We'll work the land!"
"Swim the Rio Grande!"
"Watch me run…" his voice trailed off as the memories flooded him and he turned away from Jack. Memories of his first failed attempt to walk, of his reaction when he first got news from his family's letter. The hope of the new crutch. Clara helping him walk again. The kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Lemay. The overwhelming homesickness, not for a place but for the people he cared about, people who were now scattered to the wind, always just out of reach. All his finely laid plans melting around him in the street, but the hope of a helping hand. A weight on his shoulder and feel of the crutch under his arm brought him back to the present as Jack turned him around to look at him.
"Hey, hey. You might not have your old family now, but you's gots us. No way I'll let you down, ok?"
"Ok."
"Just hold on, kid. Together, we'll make it to Santa Fe." Crutchie gave him a sad smile as the peal of the morning bell cut through the quiet of the early morning. Jack sighed. "I guess the time for dreamin's done."
Crutchie laughed and moved toward the fire escape again as Niner's voice came from downstairs, rousing the other boys awake. "I don't suppose you'd let me down, at least to the street?"
Jack laughed. "Alright, come on. Those papes won't sell themselves."
A/N: Hello all! I hope you liked learning some more information about a pre-canon era lodging house, since I know a few of you were curious to hear more about Niner and the other older Newsies so I hope this answers some questions! I also noticed upon re-watching the Santa Fe Prologue, there's a strange disconnect between Jack calling Crutchie "family" and in the same song asking him about his past as if they'd just met, so this is my attempt at reconciling that by moving that particular scene to earlier in the story.
A small announcement in terms of scheduling: This upcoming week is finals for me, culminating in a major exam and essay due next Sunday, and with it also being Mother's Day weekend, I'm not sure if I'll have the chance to post the next chapter on time. If it doesn't go up Sunday, it will be up by Monday or Tuesday. Thanks for your patience, and good luck to anyone else who might be taking finals too :)
Thank you for reading!