Wave A White Flag
Characters—Disney. Song—Elvis Costello
To Skitch, 'cause this was all basically your idea and prompting in the first place.
Take off your shoes, hang up your wings
Stack up the chairs, roll up the rug
Savor the things that sobriety brings
Drain in the last from a jug
A chocolate cake, a few warm smiles and polite conversation hid the battering ram three ring circus of nightly Jacobs family life from the oblivious masses. Anytime the children dared to bring home a friend for supper, something they did when they needed a respite from the yelling and pounding or screaming silence, false grins found their way onto faces and Mayer had a birthday the next day.
Esther Jacobs made the cakes obsessively, soaking in the therapy of rhythmic cooking to distract from real life. Sarah's doilies were Esther's chocolate cakes; she avoided harm if she stayed out of the way, and avoided heartache and guilty conscious if she kept herself busy drowning in the baking mix of sugar, eggs, milk, flour and cocoa.
That's how it always happened: Sarah would sew, Esther cook, David study and Les played. Before Les was born, David would play. The walls of the house echoed the faces of the women—quietly unassuming, as if they knew nothing of what would happen when the clock struck seven, and weren't shocked at all when he returned from work and the beating came.
Not every guestless night transpired on the same twisted schedule. Sometimes he would come home clean and distanced. All anyone had to do was put food on the table and stay out of the way, and he'd wander through the house as if he didn't see anyone.
But when I hit the bottle there's no tellin' what I'll do
'Cause something deep inside me wants to turn you black and blue
I can't resist you, I can't wait
To twist your loving arms 'til you capitulate
Mayer Jacobs' psyche resembled one of Jekyll and Hyde, save for one dissimilarity. His non-raging form consisted of a near-wordless disapproving creature, who wouldn't fume if provided with what he desired, but nonetheless offered no warmth or compassion. David never could decide which form of his father's he feared and loathed more.
At least the drunken Mayer supplied some conversation, tidbits of life philosophy he'd offer in lecture while resting to let the stinging fade from his palms. Instead of the frosted insults, Mayer instructed his son on the ways and workings of the world. In such sessions David learned not to lie or accept charity, especially from strangers.
He followed the advice for years, knowing nothing else. School taught him quick arithmetic and vocabulary, not how to really live life. Too absorbed in survival, David rarely took notice in the freedom of other children. When he did, he couldn't find courage to attempt real living for himself. Years before his father beat any bravery out of him.
Beat me in the kitchen and I'll beat you in the hall
There's nothing I love better than a free for all
To take your pretty neck and see which way it bends
But when it is all over we will still be friends
What courage David could muster he channeled into protecting Les. The family never did find out if Mayer would have taken to his other son. Whenever the patriarch showed signs of swaying Les' way, David distracted him with a smart retort, sometimes even with a head-on tackle in the chest. If David was stoic but smart not to attack others without reason or any other alternative, he'd learned such caution from his nighttime defensive offenses. He always ended up waving the white flag, giving up to save himself.
His father didn't take well to David's fighting back, though it served its purpose in wiping Les from his mind. As Mayer reprimanded David with punches and kicks, he informed his son that provoked physical violence solved nothing. What he did to David, he said, wasn't violence, a foolhardy attack made out of anger. He was instead teaching his son endurance, giving him strength. David would understand if he ever grew up. Mayer wouldn't strike women, he found it dishonorable. Beatings built character in men.
Thus David never did well defending himself in a fight, having never gotten far enough with his father to learn. As he entered young adulthood, David sensed from the smiles on other kids' faces that what went on with his parents was wrong. Life didn't work that way, with his mother merely a figure in the background providing food and his father a cruel tongue one night and a cruel fist the next. Once David discovered this, he couldn't figure a way to taste real life for himself until one sweaty day in late July.
Wave a white flag, put away the pistol
Too many people just can't get kissed
But if there's nothin' I can do to make amends, baby
Hope you don't murder me
Over the years, the snatches of a real family David garnered from bringing home friends had become a bittersweet taste so sickening David risked stomaching it only when he needed a night to think. He brought home Jack to mock his parents, letting them know he'd found one with the ability to really teach him about life. Jack was the true family, a brother and almost father all at once.
David paid for it later, after Jack left. He would later grin at the irony—Jack didn't stay because his sore heart couldn't spend more time around a real family, and David wanted him there just so he'd have the peaceful guise of a family for one night.
Even with one arm—an accident caused by a desperate David, not a factory—Mayer taught his son well. David wore hot long sleeves for a second day the next morning, hiding the black, blue, and finger prints stretching across his arms and legs. At least his father rarely touched his face, saying his son needed clear eyes to stare strong and proud at others. Swollen faces equaled the type of sympathy Mayer wanted his son to never have, the kind the softened him. The kind David grew up entirely without.
Oh, was it all right, or was it okay
I'll make it all up to you someday
Oh, but you didn't have to laugh that way
Oh, no, you didn't have to laugh that way
"See, son, this is all for your own good! Associating with kids like that will erase all that I have taught you! And I do not want to make my lessons harder to make up for lost time…do not scowl like that! What is that glint in your eye? What have I taught you…"
David most feared the effect all this had on Les. He wanted to spare his brother as much pain as he could. David saved Les from the physical pain, but could do little for the emotional. He often took his brother aside, clench his teeth and lie, explaining that their father did this to him because he was the eldest, that Mayer didn't expect the same things out of his younger song.
David also did all he could in encouraging his brother to socialize and make friends, but Les struggled with this for the same reasons David did at that age. Neither had many friends because most kids at school couldn't relate. Instead, the Jacobs boys drew inside themselves and learned to live as best they could.
The newsies were the best thing that happened to David. He refused to go back to school if he couldn't be a newsie simultaneously. They provided Les with friends, kids he could play and interact with that shared experiences similar to or as scarring as his own. David himself found purpose, family and life.
That's why he didn't take Les back home the night they won the strike. Or the next night, or next. They stayed at the Lodging House. David left Sarah to explain the situation to Jack, whose soon knowing glare silenced the questions of any who probed at the appearance of new members in their Lodging House family.
Hoping Jack would save Sarah too, David settled into a new routine. He may have to fight for food each day, but finally he could live. He was accepted, befriended, encouraged and supported. Without knowing they did so, the newsies slowly broke down the lessons Mayer pounded into his son, building him up with lessons of their own. In turn, David imparted to them lessons from school, teaching he now realized as valuable in their own way.
On the day when Mayer Jacobs stood, threatening, in the Lodging House threshold, David felt for the first time in his life the ability to truly face and confront his father.
Wave a white flag, put away the pistol
Too many people just can't get kissed
But if there's nothin' I can do to make amends, baby
Hope you don't murder me
Gee, baby, hope you don't murder me
End.