Warning: Rated R for language.

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It was a good night to drink. Jack Kelly and a few of his boys had stopped by Brooklyn for the night, bringing with them bottles of cheap whisky and rum. It was a celebration—Swing Ivanov and Steve Downing had backed down from threats of attack, just a month after the success of the Strike. I don't know the details; I had just started hanging around the newsies' scene only a couple weeks before, and wasn't privy to that sort of information yet. Or, more truthfully, I hadn't quite mastered the art of eavesdropping and snooping, essentials that I developed later on in the game.

Being a girl, it had taken quite a bit of time before Spot would even accept the idea of me becoming a newsie. I had endured weeks of sleeping outside near the Paper Distribution Office to prove to the boys that I was serious about the job. Spot finally allowed me a bunk in the Lodging House three nights before this celebration—something to be proud of, considering there are only a handful of girl newsies in New York and only two before me in Brooklyn since Spot took over. Those girls—the legendary Flips Coughlin (as tough as Spot, could've been leader, had she been born a male), and the clever, scheming Pitch Taylor—were long gone by the time I showed up. It didn't really matter since I was nothing like either of them. I was sincere, and slow to realizing that my naïveté and trust in Spot and his boys were exactly why I appealed to them—not because they liked me, but because they liked the vulnerability I possessed. I was an easy target, in more ways than one.

Out on the docks, it was getting noisy and very, very drunk. It was a warm summer night, and boys were stripping off their outer clothes and jumping into the water, or playing cards out on the dock. Racetrack Higgins, one of Kelly's boys, was leading a particularly loud, rambunctious game of poker, and by the sound it, he was winning. There were a few other girls there aside from me; Jack Kelly had even brought this classy girl—David Jacobs' sister, I'd heard—along for the party. She was sitting on his lap and sharing sips of whisky with him. Kelly was grinning and laughing and showing off, like he normally does when he's hanging around Spot; even Brooklyn was drinking, he was in such good humor.

"It looks like your girl here can hold her liquor better than you friend can, Cowboy," he mused, nodding towards a very intoxicated and unconscious David Jacobs at the edge of the dock. "Not three shots and he's out."

"Poor Davy. He might have to stay over in Brooklyn tonight. I ain't risking his retching on me by carryin' him home."

"The way you've been drinking, I wouldn't be surprised if you ended up passed out right along with my brother," teased the girl. Spot and Wolf Adams (Conlon's right-hand man) roared with laughter. Jack grinned and downed another shot, never one to get out of sorts with any girl, especially his girlfriend.

"You gonna let her talk to you that way, Jacky-boy?" I watched as Spot cocked his eyebrows in mock-disbelief. I knew from experience that although he didn't mind if Kelly's girl mouthed off—"if that's what he wants in a bitch, then hell, let him have it," he'd been fond of declaring—if any girl had the gall to speak that way to him, it'd be a straight ticket to a backhand across the face, or worse.

"Hey, I ain't lettin' her do anything. She says what she does. An' anyway, nobody can beat me at mouthing off." A goofy grin floated from his face to hers. Spot groaned.

"Pussy-whipped, that's what you are, Jack." Wolf nodded his agreement. I wasn't about to say it, but if Jack Kelly was pussy-whipped by David Jacobs' sister, then maybe the proper term for Wolf would be dick- whipped—by Spot Conlon. If the fucker had ever voiced a disagreement with Brooklyn, I've never been alive to hear it. Dick-fucking-whipped.

Spot reached toward the whisky bottle to pour himself and Jack another shot, and frowned. Empty. He sat back with an irritated sigh, and that's when his blue eyes caught my brown.

I was sitting not more than ten feet away, listening to the drunken conversations around me for entertainment. See, I didn't have many friends, and the only person who'd bothered to talk to me that night was David Jacobs—before he had passed out, that is. He'd stumbled over, said "hello, I think I'm going to be sick," handed me a half-empty bottle of rum, and staggered off towards the embankment to fulfill his promise. Since he'd left me in possession of his liquor, I took the liberty of emptying most of it's contents in a few body-shuddering gulps that left me feeling good—and drunk.

I looked away from Conlon's stare, not wanting him to know that I'd been eavesdropping for a good half hour or more. I took another swig of rum and threw the now-empty bottle into the water. "Hey, girl." I didn't know if that was Spot talking to me, so I ignored the call. What the hell would he want with me, anyway? Nothing, of course, I reasoned. I think it's time to find more to drink. I started up, but again, I heard him call. "Girl. Doxy." I whipped around.

"It's Roxanne. Randuch. Roxie Randoch." I corrected, quite loudly. Now not only was Spot looking at me, but Wolf, Jack, and David Jacobs' sister, too. Spot and Wolf leered at me. I was the new activity, since Jack and his lovely girl became boring. I knew it right then.

"Well, you look like a doxy. So you're fuckin' Doxy." I flushed. He was insinuating, of course, that I was randy. A prostituite; whore. Doxy. "Now get the fuck over here." I stood up, a little unsteady. That last drink had hit me hard, but I was determined not to show it. I was not a whore, I was a newsie. And I told Spot as much as I headed over.

"What you are is shitfaced, little girl." Wolf sat back, condescension loud in his tone. So much for not showing it.

"Doxy," Spot twirled his cane leisurely, as if he was uninterested in me already. I reddened. "Get me another bottle of whisky."

I paused. "Where?"

He looked up at me, his eyes boring directly into mine, and "I don't care where. Just do it." Even in my drunken state I knew it best not to argue or object, so I started off toward Racetrack Higgins' poker game, where there was bound to be at least one Jack Daniels left, if not more. And as I hurried off, I heard Spot say to Jack, quite calmly, "now that is how you're supposed to handle these cunts, Jacky-boy."

"Put 'em in their place, right boss?" Wolf agreed gleefully.

Jack laughed uneasily. "I don't know, Spot. I think it's better to treat 'em nice, like ladies."

"That's why you're pussy-whipped." Spot repeated, sounding disgusted. Jack let it go.

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Author's Note: I thought I'd explore the realm of sexism in this fic; I'm sure at least some of these boys back in 1899 must have had an inclination toward this kind of attitude. All too possible, since I know some people in my life that are this bad and it's the year freakin' 2004. Anyway, we'll see where this goes. I have an idea.