Memoirs of a Scab

I don't know why I'm doing this. I guess it's just because I've got something to say. A lot of you have heard of the newsies strike in 1899. A couple of guys got really famous that summer. Jack Kelly, David Jacobs, Spot Conlon - they're heroes now. They and the other newsie strikers went up against the most powerful guys in New York. They were fighting for the freedom, and against all odds, they won. Lots of people know that story. Now, I've got every respect for Jack and them. I do. But when they or the other strikers tell the story, it comes out wrong. The strikers, they come off perfect golden boys. They soaked scabs, but that was only because the scabs were cowards, too weak to stand up to Pulitzer, or else greedy, caring about money more than freedom. Yeah well, maybe some were like that, but not all. I know. My name is Chris Thompson, but most people called my Rails back then. I was a newsie in 1899, and the strike changed my life. Not like it changed everyone else's life though. You see, I wasn't a striker. I was a scab.
They called my Rails because I had ridden the rails to New York from Chicago without getting caught once. Well, that might be a bit of an 'improvement', as the Cowboy would say, but it's mostly right. I was pretty good at hitching a ride on trains and trolley cars. I was born in Chicago, but I'm an orphan. Don't really remember much about my parents, so they must not have been all that important. I never understood those orphans always sniveling about their dead parents, missing them and stuff. Maybe those kids knew their parents better. Anyhow, one day I decided to get out of there. It was a kind of a spur of the moment thing. I didn't have a real good job, and I didn't own anything but the clothes on my back, some change, and a grubby pack of playing cards in my pocket. So, I was walking by the train station one day and saw a couple people jumping on the train. I can't really explain why I followed them. I saw them jumping, and I figured 'why not. Not like I've got a lot here', so I jumped too. Eventually I found out where the train was going, and just kept jumping from train to train, riding the rails, until I ended up in New York. Once I got to New York - that was in 1896, I think - I took up being a newsie. Kind of a funny story. I saw Dutchy trying to sell by the train station. He wasn't doing too well, so I kind of made fun of him. We got in a fight, and he bet me I couldn't make it one week as a newsie. Well, I made it, if by the skin of my teeth. Somehow, one week became two, and two became three, and so on. Next thing I knew, I was a regular at the lodging house, and had my own selling spot. Guess where - yup, the train station.
Now, I'm not saying that I settled down just like that. Nope, with the train station as my selling spot, it was too much for me to just stay in one spot while the people on the trains moved on all the time. Being in one place, while the world leaves you behind…that ain't my thing. Sorry, it isn't my thing. If I'm going to tell this, I guess I should tell it right. With the nice grammar and all that. The world's going places, and I aim to go with it. Just sitting there, watching the train go off, smoke coming behind it…well, sometimes it's all right, doesn't bother me too much, but sometimes it's the worst pain I know of. Just sitting there, being left behind, while everyone else is moving on to better things, bigger things. It was like a disease sometimes, or a compulsion maybe. It was something I couldn't help. Like, I had to get out of there, or I'd go crazy, end up like that old guy with no teeth who screams at people down by Bottle Alley. I think I heard somewhere it's called wanderlust. I knew a guy who called it the Itch. Anyhow, I'd get all wanderlust itchy, so, I'd hop a train, travel around, go wherever. It wasn't so important where I was going, just that I was going somewhere, that no one was leaving me behind anywhere. The funny thing was that even though I'd leave, travel all over the place, I'd always come back to New York. I'd always come back to being a newsie. It was weird. I guess this place was home, because no matter where I went, I'd always find myself on a train headed to New York when I got tired. I'd never done that before, never had a place I'd go when I wasn't feeling to great. I'd made friends other places, more like acquaintances really, but I'd never found nothing - anything - to make me stick around. But here in Manhattan it was different. I could be gone for weeks, and then one day I'd show up in the morning to buy my papes, and Dutchy or Specs or somebody would smack me on the back, say 'nice to see ya, Rails', and it was like I'd never left. There was always a bed for me at the lodging house - the same one. I never thought about it at the time, but Kloppman and the boys, they must have saved it for me. I always came back, and they'd always know I was coming back. That's what I home is, right?
I'm not quite sure how I should start this thing out. Should it be when I came back from the South? Or when David came to be a newsie? Or when me and Specs pulled out Bumlets' bad tooth with a length of string tied around the door of the lodging house? Man, he wouldn't talk to us for days after that. Well, maybe he couldn't talk at all. Yeah, maybe I'll start with pulling out Bumlets' tooth. It was the same day that a boy named David Jacobs and his little brother Les had decided to be newsies, and about a week after I'd gotten back from the South, so I was trying to tell Specs, Dutchy and Bumlets about the southern girls I'd seen.
"You boys wouldn't believe it," I'd said, pulling whatever details I couldn't remember about being there from this dime novel I'd swiped off the trolley in Virginia, or barring that, my own imagination. "The girls there, they ain't like the girls here in New York. In the South they're all in these big hoopy skirts that are in all different colors, so when you look at a bunch of them from far away, it looks kind of like the garden outside the mayor's house. They have these big hats too, so big that you can't see their faces. Their skin is real white, too. They powder it every day with this special powder that they've got to buy at this one hoity-toity general store that don't let anyone but southern ladies in it. The girls, they're all real clean too. They smell like they just got out of a bath or something. And they ain't called girls, they're called debutantes."
"Why don't they just call'em girls?" asked Dutchy.
"It's too common, dumb ass. Only street girls are called girls in the South. Everyone else is called a debutante, and carries around these little umbrellas called Paris Salts, -'cuz they got'em in France, see - and they have these silk handkerchiefs, and if they like you, they drop it, and you're supposed to carry it next to your heart."
"Why the hell would anyone want to do that?" demanded Specs.
"Well, they ain't like us normal boys down in the South. In the South everybody's afraid of you if you're from up beyond Virginia, and so they don't want to talk to you, and they definitely don't let any of their debutantes marry ya, so you got a lot of cousins marrying cousins and stuff. All that makes'em kind of weird in the head, ya know?"
Dutchy nodded sagaciously, like he knew all about Southern inbreeding. He didn't notice that while he was acting all wise, Specs was stealing a spoonful of his soup. It didn't taste to great, though, because he ended up spitting it out all over Bumlets.
"Phew! How can ya eat that stuff, Dutchy? It's too spicy!" exclaimed Specs, downing all of Bumlets' water in one gulp.
"You get what you deserve, you little thief!" shouted Dutchy, pulling his soup away from Specs, as if he didn't trust him.
"Ya think I want more of that stuff? Jeez, you're crazy." Complained Specs, turning away from Dutchy so quick that he banged into Bumlets, who let out a kind of muffled groan.
That's when we noticed that despite all the abuse he'd been through, Bumlets hadn't said anything the whole conversation.
"Hey, Bumlets, you okay?" asked Dutchy.
"mffle mof mumble." Answered Bumlets, holding his jaw.
"Huh?" I asked.
"My tooth is rotted out." Moaned Bumlets.
"Have you got any money? There's this dentist I know 'bout who can pull it out for not too much." Commented Dutchy.
"Aw, we don't need all that! It's just one tooth, right Bumlets?" Bumlets nodded a yes to Specs, and so Specs continued "Well then, we just need to tie some string round the bad tooth, tie the other end to the door, slam the door, and it's out just like that!" Specs snapped his finger for emphasis.
"You guys ain't dentists, ya don't know what you're doing." Pointed out Dutchy, the voice of reason.
"Aw, how hard can it be? If that greasy haired guy…what's his name, Dr. Stevens…if he can do it, then it can't be much. 'Sides, I knew a guy who pulled out twelve bad teeth this way, and it didn't end up so bad." Countered Specs.
"Rails, tell'em he's being crazy." Demanded Dutchy.
"It works!" insisted Specs.
"Well, I dunno…"I said, looking at Bumlets' miserable face.
"You don't know what you're doing. If you go to the dentist, he'll do something to you so you don't feel nothing when he pulls the tooth. Can you do that?" That was Dutchy, of course.
"Yeah, well, we could…um…"
"If you put some ice on your mouth for a little before we pull it out, it should be okay." I offered.
"Yeah!" Specs voiced his enthusiastic support.
"Whaddaya say, Bumlets?" I asked, getting swept up in Specs' plan.
"Bumlets, this dentist will see ya for five bucks…"
"Five bucks? Come on, why would he do that when he can get us for free?" insisted Specs.
"'Cuz he knows what the hell he'd doing, unlike you clowns."
"It sounds like it'd work to me. Come on, Bumlets, what do you want? You gonna pay five bucks to some crazy with a pair of pliers, or let your good friends do it for free?" I asked.
Well, after that, Bumlets' choice was clear. Ten minutes later Dutchy had left, calling us the craziest idiots he'd ever met, and Bumlets was sitting in a chair at the lodging house, ice held to his jaw, and string tied at one end to the bad tooth, and tied to the door at the other end.
"You ready, Bumlets?" asked Specs, who was chief surgeon, and manning the door. Bumlets nodded.
"Okay, you take hold of his shoulders, Rails, so he don't jerk forward. We just want the tooth. Ready guys?"
"Ready!" I answered.
Bumlets grunted that he was ready too, and clenched the sides of his chairs.
"Okay! One. Two. Three!" shouted Specs, slamming the door shut with all his might.
It was a good thing I was holding on to Bumlets. His whole body jerked forward when Specs slammed the door, but I held on, so only the tooth was pulled out. Bumlets let out this huge scream, and the tooth came out with a bunch of blood. And you know what the first thing that bum did was? He turned around and slugged me in the arm! I told him that he was being a jerk, and that it was Specs' idea anyway, and that he didn't have to go along with it in the first place, but he hit me anyway because I was closer. Specs thought it was all real funny. He would, now that Bumlets was sort of curled up on the floor, holding his jaw, and didn't look like he was about to hit anybody.
"Well hey, the tooth's out, ain't it? And Jesus, does it look bad. Lookit, Rails, it's all yellowish and lumpy."
Specs held out the tooth for me to see, and it did look pretty bad. I'm glad it wasn't in my mouth. I was about to take it from Specs to get a better look when Bumlets grabbed it and sort of lurched away. I feel kind of bad about it now, but me and Specs laughed a lot. It was funny at the time, you know? Anyhow, that was about lunch time, and we had our papes to sell, so he head out to find Dutchy, his selling partner, and I went off to the train station.
The train station is a good place, especially for selling papes. To tell you the truth, I don't know how I got it. It's probably because there were more than one station in Manhattan, and the one I was at was the smaller of the two. Even so, it was a good selling spot, and whenever I got back I almost always had to fight off some other newsie selling there. It wasn't as violent as it sounds. I guess I'm kind of big for my age, and that scared a couple of my replacements off. A lot of the times the boys would get behind me and tell the other kid to sell somewhere else, so no one ever hit anyone else. Sometimes both me and another kid would end up selling there, but the regular travelers at the station always bought from me because they knew me. Sometimes people I didn't even know would buy from me over another guy. I never knew why. A girl once told me that for all I'm too big, I have an honest face, so maybe that's it. Anyhow, if you hang out at the train station, you get to know people that are always hanging around there. Not just ticket sellers or conductors or the guys who work on the tracks, either. There are some guys - some women too, actually - that must have the same wanderlust disease I've got, because they were always at the train station. They were always going someplace or another from that station, and they knew me, they recognized me as one of them. Another guy who's never content where he's at, and has to always be going places, and not all of them good. Some of the guys felt pretty paternal. There was one guy named Mike who was traveling all the time. I mean, the others traveled a lot, but I saw Mike all the time, once a week even. You see, Mike wasn't a rich guy, and he didn't take long trips. Sometimes he paid for his ticket, and sometimes he jumped on the train, but either way the trip didn't last long, and he was back at the station again. I liked Mike; he was a decent guy. He always looked kind of lost, though. I guess that's what happens when you travel that much. I wonder if that's how I look to people who just meet me. I asked him about it that day.
When I got there, a train was just coming in - from Memphis, I think. After I'd done my rounds, selling to passengers and stuff, I turned around, and there was Mike. He looked like he'd traveled a long way - his hair was all messed up, and he needed to shave - but he clapped me on the back. He reached into a guy's pocket who was in too much of a hurry to notice, and paid me enough money for one newspaper.
"So, I thought you were going to try it down South for a while, Rails."
"Yeah, I did. It was good for a while, but too hot. Where you been?" I asked.
"You know, boy, I don't much know. That's the way things are, sometimes."
He gave answers like that a lot. Sometimes I thought he must be fall-down drunk when he was talking to me, but he never slurred his speech, and could always walk all right.
"Mike, you know that don't mean nothing." I said.
Mike sighed, looking up at the smoke clouding up the sky.
"Boy, I'm going to give you some advice. Come on, walk with me." He put his arm around me, and we sort of walked along the platform till we got to the end, and then turned around and walked back again.
"You probably wonder why I'm going to give advice to you, boy. Well, I'll tell you straight out, I see some of myself in you. You're never content where you are. You can be content, happy even, for a time, but eventually the Itch catches up with you."
"The Itch?"
"You know the Itch. I can see it in your eyes. It's when you're walking down a street in a town one day, and you feel that you can't stand it any more. The world is moving, but you're staying still, and you can't take it. It's like an itch underneath your skin where you can't scratch it. You come to hate everything about a place, from the slow, stupid people who sit on the street corners to the horses running down the streets who think that they're going so fast but are really going excruciatingly slow. You want to just scream - sometimes people say it, but they don't mean it. When I say it I mean when you really want to scream, when you can feel the scream sitting there in your throat, pushing to come out. It wants out so much that you can actually feel the muscles in you throat bunching, can feel it coming out of you till you want to choke on it because, you know what, it's not a real scream. That's when you've got to get out of there, feel like you're going somewhere. Melville said you've got to go to the sea, but, well, there aren't a lot of whaling ships around nowadays, and the sea's too slow for me anyway, so we settle for what we've got, and we hop a train out of wherever we are. That's the Itch. It's what makes us who we are, what makes us hop a train at three in the morning when we can't sleep without even saying goodbye. You got that, Rails?"
"Yeah," I answered slowly, "Yeah, that's what I got."
"Well, you just be careful of it, you hear? It's a curse is what it is. I…believe it or not, Rails, I used to be rich. Real class, you know? I was learned, and I read, and I had a college education."
I couldn't help but laugh at this. Mike? A class gentlemen?
"Yeah, you go on and laugh, Rails. I know I'm not much now. Hell, I know I haven't got enough to buy one of your damn papers straight up now, but I wasn't born that way. I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, I'm telling you. But the Itch ruined that all for me. It cost me my money, my family, the girl I was going to marry…everything, just because I couldn't stay in one place too long."
"How'd it do that?" I asked. I'll admit it, I was spellbound at that point. I wanted to know how the Itch, the wanderlust, could do that to a guy.
"Well, I'll tell you, Rails. I was a real rich guy, a gentlemen of leisure. That means you're so rich that you don't even have to work. Problem was, I had the Itch. At first it wasn't a problem. My family had lots of homes. I got sick of my home, I'd pack up for the summer house. Got sick of that, head for the villa in Europe. I had a whole track of places I'd go. It got on people's nerves, you know. My family, they thought I couldn't stand to be near them. It was true, too, but it wasn't because I didn't like them. That wasn't it at all. It's just when I got the Itch, I couldn't stand to be near anybody, even the people I loved.
'There was a girl, a high class girl in Europe. I was supposed to marry her, Rails, and I loved her. Her name was Josephine, and I'm telling you, just the thought of her…I can't…I just…I don't know. I loved her so much I could scarcely breathe when I saw her. I stayed in Europe for five years when I was with her, you know that? That's the longest I ever stayed in one place since I was old enough to move on without my folks. She eased the Itch a bit, just touching her hair, or breathing her scent…she settled me. Then the Itch came again. I was so mad, Rails, I thought it was gone for good when I met Josephine, I really did. When it came, I couldn't believe it, and I fought it. I'm telling you Rails, I fought it with all I had, but then one day it got so as I couldn't even look at her any more. I loved her, and I couldn't look at her. She knew something was wrong, she was a good girl, but I couldn't stand for her to touch me. It wasn't her, I loved her, but the Itch got so bad that I couldn't stay there any more. I told her, but she didn't believe me. She was an idealistic little thing, believed that our love could conquer everything, even the Itch. She was always saying things like that, that love and friendship and right could always win against everything."
At this point he let out a hollow laugh. "Rails, people like you and me, we know better than that, don't we? Those damn idealists who think that if they just believe in something enough, they'll succeed in whatever damn crusade their on. People like you and me, though, we know that isn't true. We know that there are some battles that are lost from before you even start, like the battle with the Itch. I tried to fight it, Rails, I really did, but it was no use. I came to hate her and her blind idealism. I hated my family with their helpful comments, with their reassurances that it was only cold feet. Cold feet! God damn it, it wasn't cold feet! But the night before the wedding I snuck out at three in the morning, I bought a ticked to a steam liner back to America, and I haven't talked to Josephine since.
'My family, they followed me, they told me to get back to Europe and to Josephine or they'd disown me. Well, I couldn't do it. The thought of going back there…the Itch was too strong, Rails. Too damn strong. No matter how much I loved her, wanted to believe in her, I knew we couldn't stand the Itch. There are some things that you just can't stand up to, Rails, and you're a damn fool if you try. I was a damn fool to try. The Itch punished me, you know. It's been worse since I left her. I used to be able to stay a year in one place, a month at least, but lately…it's been a week, two weeks, a month if I'm lucky."
"Is that why you look so lost all the time?" I asked.
"Yeah, that's why. I don't have a home any more, can never stay in one place long enough to get a steady job, a steady paycheck. Rails, this is the advice part. The Itch, it's bigger than everything else. For people like me, people like you, I think, the Itch is God, lord, and master. You've always got to answer when it calls you. It's like the bottle for some men, or women for others. The Itch…Rails, you'll think I'm insane, but you'll understand later on. The Itch, it's a real jealous thing. You need all the time and strength you've got to fight it. People like you and me, we don't have time for girls, for close friends, for idealistic crusades. We aren't like normal people. You get too involved in something, then the Itch comes with a vengeance, and if you try to fight it…well…I tried to fight it, and look what it came back and did to me.
'Rails, you listen to me. I know I sound crazy, but you listen to me. We're the slaves of the Itch. We can't have too many people, too many things, tying us to one place. The way I've seen you come and go it doesn't seem that you've got many things keeping you in one place, and that's good, that's real good. I'm just warning you, you've got to keep it that way. As you get older, people will try to tie you down, to rope you into things…hell Rails, this doesn't even have to be about the Itch any more. There are some fights that you can't win, and people try to rope you into fighting them anyway. Josephine and my family tried to make me fight the Itch even though I knew that it couldn't be fought, and look what happened. It just came back and hurt me more. Someday, Rails, people are going to try and get you to fight some fight that you know is impossible too, and I'm telling you now, you don't go along with it. Maybe it's fighting the Itch, maybe it's fighting something else, but don't you go along with it, Rails! It always comes back to get you, always, always, always! Do you understand me, Rails? You don't go on those damn crusades, don't fight those unfightable fights, don't be like Josephine! Don't be like me, or it'll come back to get you! You hear me? People, they say they're your friends, your family, that they love you, they understand…they don't understand. Nobody understands what you're going through but you, or maybe others with the Itch, and we're few and far between, thank God.
'Josephine, she tried going with me for a bit before I settled down for those five years…she hated it, she couldn't understand why I had to go just when she got comfortable. She didn't understand, couldn't understand my world, just like I couldn't understand hers. So Rails, these people that say they understand…they don't. They don't have the Itch picking at them every second, don't have your problems. People like us, people with the Itch hanging over them, we can't have any real friends, any real lovers… the Itch catches up with us if we do, and the Itch is a real jealous bastard. Do you understand, Rails?"
"Yeah." I said, even though I didn't understand at all.
"No, no you don't, damn kid. But you will. I see it there, in your eyes, hiding, waiting…I'm telling you now, you belong to it. You don't have a choice. Don't fight it, kid, it'll always win, and hurt you worse for fighting. Don't get too attached to one place, Rails, or it's just the harder when you've got to go."
"All right." I said.
A train whistle pierced through the train station commotion, and Mike looked at the approaching train like it was a magnet drawing him to it.
"Listen to what I've said, Rails, and take care. I'll see you later, maybe."
With that he jumped on to the train. No one saw him even though he was doing it in the middle of the station, in the middle of the day even. It was the sort of luck that never comes more than once in a blue moon. I remember thinking that maybe it was a sign, maybe it was someone saying that he was right, saying 'Rails, listen to this guy. Yeah, he sounds crazy, but he's older than you, has lived with this Itch, this wanderlust, longer than you have, and understands it better'. Maybe the Itch did control everything. I'd never tried to fight it. The way things were, I'd never had any friends keeping me to one place before I'd come to New York, and now that I was here, they weren't the kind of friends that expected me to stick around forever. But maybe Mike was right. I couldn't see Dutchy or Specs trying to rope me into anything that would pin me down, but maybe they would. I knew one thing. I didn't want to end up like Mike with that lost look in his eyes. I didn't want the Itch to get vengeful at me. I wouldn't get involved in any stupid crusades, any fights that couldn't be won.
I didn't know how soon that resolution would be tested.


The rest of the day kind of went by in a gray colored blur for me. Maybe it's cheating to say so. Maybe I'm supposed to remember everything I did or else it isn't a good memoir. The problem is, I really can't remember. I think that Dutchy, Specs, and I played poker (Bumlets still wasn't speaking to us). We were playing for real money at first, but then Race wanted to be dealt in, and we told him we were just playing for these old peanut shells. We none of us felt like losing our life savings right then, you know? Race played anyway, though. That boy's always been up for a game of poker, even if it's not even for money. It's the thrill of the game, I guess. Maybe it's kind of like the Itch for him. He mostly jokes around, but he gets this look in his eyes sometimes, this desperate, hungry look…but that's not what I'm supposed to be talking about, is it? Anyway, he mopped the floor with us. I did badly in particular because I was so caught up in thinking over what Mike had said to me. At one point I think that I looked around me and saw all the boys sitting there, laughing or smoking or playing cards or whatever, and it all felt so warm. Like a family or something, you know? Then I remembered what Mike said about none of them being like me because they didn't have the Itch, and it was like someone put a wall up. They were laughing and happy and warm, but I wasn't. I was alone from them. I had the Itch, and they didn't, and it would always be like that. I was surrounded by all these people, but I was completely alone. It's an intense feeling. I guess I was looking kind of weird, because I remember Dutchy shaking me and telling me I looked tired, and maybe I should get to bed. Specs made fun of him, said he was acting like a mother hen, but I took Dutchy's advice. The boys were being loud, but I got to sleep. I just sort of stared at the ceiling till I drifted off, and next thing I knew, Kloppman was swatting me upside the head because it was time to get up, time to carry the banner.
I was kind of slow that day on account of feeling so apart from everyone. All the boys are real alive most mornings, jumping and fighting with each other, and some boys sing. Anyway, everyone's real alive and…rambunctious, I guess is the word for it. I felt like I was in a glass ball - there was a news story once about a boy who lived in a glass ball because he was so allergic to something called germs. It said that soon everybody was going to have to live in glass balls because of these germs. I hope that don't happen, because if it ever does, then you'd never be able to touch nobody - anybody, I mean - unless you were in the same glass ball. And you'd get sick of hanging around somebody all the time in a glass ball. And it would make travel real hard. You'd have to sort of roll yourself places, and there's no way you could jump a train in a glass ball.
Anyhow, I felt like I was in a glass ball, and even though everyone was all shouting and happy around me, it didn't penetrate the glass. It was like they were all underwater or something. They weren't real. I think that's why I didn't get it right away when Kid Blink started going crazy when we got to the distribution center. It took till about the fourth time he shouted "They jacked up the prices on us! Why would they do that? They jacked up the prices!" for me to get what was going on. When I did get it, I got even more shocked that I was already. I mean, I felt apart from everybody before, but after I understood that…it was like there was a rushing in my ears, like when a train's coming, and I couldn't really hear nobody no more. Aw, I messed up my grammar again, didn't I?
The boys were all a mess. Blink kept shouting, and some of the boys were swearing, punching walls and stuff. I thought one of the little boys was actually going to cry. I felt kinda bad for him, so I put my hand on his shoulder. Of course, I didn't really know him that well, and he just sort of glared at me and moved away. Nobody likes to be treated like a baby, even if he doesn't look a day over seven. After the little boy moved away, I saw Bumlets. He still looked kind of in pain from hat we did to his tooth, but he put it aside for long enough to point to the DeLancy's, who were making fun of us in the distribution office, and shake his head sadly. Dutchy and Specs came up then. Dutchy was kind of quiet. For a second I thought he didn't know or something, but he kept pushing his hand through his hair. It was a pretty normal thing to do, but it wasn't something he usually did. Then I noticed that his foot was tapping real nervous like. He wasn't really paying attention, and accidentally knocked his own glasses off. Specs caught'em before they hit the ground, and gave them back to Dutchy. Specs was acting weird. Bumlets had a sort of quiet grief going for him, and then Dutchy was getting really nervous and anxious. They were acting sort of how I expected them to. Specs…I sort of expected Specs to act like Blink, and be loud and emotional. It seemed to fit with his character. Well, I guess I didn't know Specs as well as I thought. He and Dutchy were sort of switching places. Usually Specs was doing stupid things, and Dutchy was the one looking after him, but now Specs was sort of calming down Dutchy. It was weird to see. People act weird when they're upset. It's kind of interesting to watch.
Specs saw me then, and I guess I looked like I was in shock or something, because he asked me if I was okay. Like I said, I was feeling kind of like a train was going by, and I didn't quite hear him, so he repeated himself. He kind of shook me by the shoulders, and I snapped out of it. That's not a figure of speech, either. It was really like one minute everything was roaring and I felt like I was in a bubble, but then Specs shook me, and I heard a kind of pop in my mind, and everything came in focus again, and I could hear that the rushing was everybody's voices, and not a train at all. I can't explain it any better than that, and if you still don't understand, well, I don't understand it so good myself.
That's when I noticed that Jack was there. I wasn't that close to him like some of the others were, and I didn't worship him like some others did. All the same, I'd heard of him. I mean, everybody's heard of the Cowboy. I respected him too. You gotta respect somebody who can hitch a ride on Teddy Roosevelt's carriage, right? So, it was being passed through the crowd that Cowboy was thinking of a way to fix this, and so that gave us a lot of hope. I mean, if anyone could figure out how to get us out of this fix, then it was Jack Kelly. Now, I wasn't right up there with him, so if you want to know exactly what he and that David Jacobs said, well, you'll have to ask somebody else. It shouldn't be too hard to find somebody who knows. If you go by the way they tell it now, the whole newsie population was right there in the front row when Jack Kelly decided that we oughtta go on strike.
Well, I'll be honest with you. I don't much remember what happened. I mean, I've been giving you some other scenes word-by-word, but I can't do that now. I know, I know, this part is important, but what I remember is feelings more than anything else. Besides, most of what I heard was second hand. But I'll try my best, okay? I guess David made some joke about going on strike, and Jack took it serious. David started saying that we couldn't go on strike because we weren't a union, and Jack said that if we went on strike, that was all we needed to become a union. Everyone was sort of laughing at Jack because it was such a ridiculous idea, and I was too. I thought that Cowboy had gone a little off his rocker, you know? But next thing I know he's jumped up on that old Horace Greenley statue and is shouting at us. This bit I do remember. He looked at us and he said "You know, Davey's right, Pulitzer and Hearst are some really important fellas, and they ain't gonna listen to a bunch of street kids like us." Well, I felt kind of bad about it. I knew it was truth, but I felt bad all the same, you know? And then Jack says "Then the choice has got to be yours! Are we just going to take what they give us, or are we going to strike?"
We were all quiet then. It was a tense time, you know? I felt like I was walking on a tightrope, just like they do at the circuses. I think we all of us were balancing there on that tightrope, and on one side was striking, and on the other was not, and we were all balancing there on that tightrope so that the smallest breeze could knock us over. Well, this little kid - it was actually Les, David's brother, now that I think on it - he shouted out "Strike!" That one word, that one little shout from one little boy, it was the breeze, and it knocked us all off the tightrope and into the strike. I still can't figure out how one little boy shouting one little word started this whole thing.
We were a lot of young kids, and we were angry because the world was unfair, and we wanted to do something about it. I think there are a lot of people like that in the world, but they don't know what they can do. We didn't either until Jack came up with this strike. It's the natural thing for young kids to feel like they can change the world. I mean, lots of stuff got started that way. Wasn't it a bunch of young guys who thought they could change the world that dumped a bunch of tea into a harbor in Boston, and they sort of started the Revolutionary War, didn't they? I saw a monument for all the young guys who thought they could change the world in the Revolutionary War. It was in Philadelphia, I think. I know we won, and I know we beat England pretty bad, but I remember wondering just how any of those guys could have thought it was a good idea. Yeah, let's go dump tea in the ocean. Let's go tell these big guys that have been the boss of us for who-knows-how-long that we ain't colonies no more. We're states, we're our own country, and we're sick of you King George, so take your soldiers and your guns and your cannons and go home. Yeah, that sounds real smart, don't it? I saw this cemetery one time - I think it was in Boston, but I don't quite remember. There were these graves that were for little kids who had died back in the Revolutionary War. I couldn't read it at the time, but this old lady who was planting flowers said the kids were my age. They died for that. So when I was looking at that grave I remembered the monument, and I wondered why any of them thought it was a good idea. Well, now I know. They must have felt the same way I did when Jack got on that Horace Greenley statue and made that speech of his.
I could never remember the exact words that he said, and that's a shame, because I want to know what words could make a group of kids go crazy like that. There was a lot of shouting "The World will know!" and I could never figure out if he meant the paper or the actual world. Jack kept saying that Pulitzer and Hearst thought we were nothing, the world thought we were nothing, but we weren't, and we were going to show them, and then The World would know that we weren't gong to take being stepped on all the time. I don't remember the exact words because they didn't seem so important. It was the feelings that swept me up. I can't explain it right. It's like…it's like I was on fire or something. I mean, I think everyone wants to change the world, wants to think that they can do something that matters, and here was Jack saying we ought to do just that. It felt real good, you know? It feels good to be part of something that's bigger than just yourself. And I was bigger than myself. The boys around me, it was like they were all part of me, or I was part of them. Like I was just a finger or a toe on this big giant that was the Strike, and it felt good. I couldn't really think of anything outside of how we were going to stick it to that Pulitzer guy, and how he was going to wish he'd never messed with the newsboys. It was like all those emotions that everybody has but usually has enough sense to ignore welled up inside, and started pushing my sense away till they filled up all of me, and then when there wasn't enough room in my body to keep all them emotions, they pushed their way out. I was jumping and shouting, trying to get all those emotions out. I tried later to think what emotion is was exactly. I think it was anger more than anything else. Anger's not quite the right word for it though. Rage maybe. But it wasn't a bad rage, it was a good one. It was like, we were angry at how Pulitzer was screwing us over, and angry at how the whole world had always stepped on us, and we knew we were right to be angry about it, and now we were going to do something about it. It felt real good. I know I'd never done anything my whole life that made me feel as good as standing in that crowd shouting "Strike!" did. I felt like I could change the world, and I should change the world. It was exciting.
So, you're probably wondering if being a striker felt so good, why'd I sell out and become a scab? Well, it's kind of a confusing thing. I was jumping and shouting in that crowd, and I felt damn invincible. I felt like those young guys dumping tea in Boston Harbor must have felt, like God and right was on my side, and I could fight against anybody - King George, Pulitzer, anybody- and anything, and I would win. The problem was, I thought those words. Up till then I'd been thinking in…in…hell, I don't think I was really thinking at all. Jumping crowds of shouting boys don't usually think much, do they? I wasn't thinking at all until that thought crossed my mind - 'I could fight against anybody and anything, and I would win'. That thought is what killed me. I remembered Mike's face, his lost and said eyes, and I remember what he told me.
"Those damn idealists who think that if they just believe in something enough, they'll succeed in whatever damn crusade their on. People like you and me, though, we know that isn't true. We know that there are some battles that are lost from before you even start, like the battle with the Itch. I tried to fight it, Rails, I really did, but it was no use."
I was being one of those damn idealists, wasn't I? I was thinking that just because I believed in Jack and the other boys, just because I believed that we had what it took, we could beat out Pulitzer himself. The idea was crazy, absurd. Why was I doing this?
"There are some fights that you can't win, and people try to rope you into fighting them anyway. Josephine and my family tried to make me fight the Itch even though I knew that it couldn't be fought, and look what happened. It just came back and hurt me more. Someday, Rails, people are going to try and get you to fight some fight that you know is impossible too, and I'm telling you now, you don't go along with it. Maybe it's fighting the Itch, maybe it's fighting something else, but don't you go along with it, Rails! It always comes back to get you, always, always, always!"
I thought of what Mike said, and the fire went all out of me. My sense took over again, and I felt like I was different than the rest of the mob. I was one of them before. I felt like I was attached to them, part of them, we could fix the world…but I wasn't one of them, was I? I had the Itch, and they didn't. They were roping me into fighting Pulitzer, just like Mike had warned me. Wasn't that what Mike had said?
"Nobody understands what you're going through but you, or maybe others with the Itch, and we're few and far between, thank God. These people that say they understand…they don't. They don't have the Itch picking at them every second, don't have your problems."
They thought I was like them. They thought I was going to be able to stick around here with them, thought I was going to be able to fight these stupid fights with them. Mike had told me though, he'd told me that you've got to leave those unwinnable fights unfought or else they come and get you. He'd warned me about this, and then he'd gone and jumped a train in broad daylight in the middle of a crowded station. Now, it was illogical, but seeing him jump that train like that…it moved him up in my eyes, you know? And so then, standing there in the middle of the mob, I saw him as some sort of guardian angel or something. He was someone who had been sent to warn me about this, and then he'd made that unbelievable jump - broad daylight, middle of the station, and no one saw…I still can't believe it - to show that he was right. It was a sign or something.
I was thinking of that sign, of that warning, and I decided that I didn't want this idealistic crusade to catch up with me. The fire was all out of me now, and I saw the strikers as a bunch of stupid kids who were heading to disaster, and I was lucky to get out now. I had seen them as friends and brothers before, but now…now I knew that I wasn't like them. I had the Itch. So even if I wanted to be a finger or toe in that great monster Strike, I couldn't be. I slipped away, and there were so many others in that giant Strike that they didn't notice my slipping out any more than you would miss a single hair if you got a haircut.