Chapter One, In which we learn the circumstances of Bumlets' Upbringing.

The grimy taste of day-old coffee coated my mouth, and through a heave of breath I awoke all at once. When I had a bad dream, the feeling of waking up was much stronger than usual. The emotions and the deeply identifiable terror that rose with them left a stronger impression then the dream itself.

I could never remember just what had happened. Just that when I awoke my senses were on fire. It was then I could smell the sweat, the filth of my surroundings. My own filth. From the bathroom came a different, more unpleasant smell. I choked on a sudden wave of nausea.

Then, a glance to either side, I sat up half-way. Above me slept Swifty, to the sides my other friends surrounded me. Across the way was Jack's empty bunk. He had not returned, and the truth was I would (in all probability) never see him again. It wasn't the pain of missing a close friend, but the pain one must have felt in the death of a president, in the loss of a hero.

For Jack Kelly had been my hero. In all of his fearlessness he had conquered something I could never have imagined. He believed in himself, was a true go-getter.

A whisper came from somewhere, and the voice I knew right away. "You awake, Bumlets?"

While Swifty might have been my closest friend, it was Pie Eater that I had known for the longest time. Upon hearing his voice at this time of morning, I was startled slightly. Sitting up all the way, I wet the dry film upon my lips, hoping to somehow make the taste in my mouth go away. Under me, my bed creaked just slightly and I paused. Though the others were mostly heavy sleepers, I did not want to disturb anyone. "Yeah."

He jumped down quietly off the side of his bed, agile feet hitting the floor with a bare indication of his presence. With a nod of his head, he beckoned me to follow. Better to not talk while the others were amidst slumber. Dreaming was the only time when they were free, and it would not have been proper to take that away.

Heading into the bathroom, past the row of sinks, Pie Eater turned around to make sure that I was coming. The mood was not a stuffy one, and though he seemed eager to talk, it was most likely because we had both coincidentally been awake. He was the exception to the boys, being the one who was quietly cautious, woken with terrible shaking images of childhood.

Years ago, we had often depended on each other in the cold of the night.

Out of the bathroom window and up the metal fire escape, he was up on the roof with me tailing behind. The sun had not quite risen but was on the horizon, giving the mostly-dark sky a halo of pinks and golds. Sitting himself down on some dew-soaked crate, he stretched out. "Care to talk about it?"

The words took me by a sort of surprise, and as I tilted my head he choked back a knowing laugh. "What do you mean?"

"You were having a dream about Jack," the quiet response made my cheeks flush, but Pie Eater did not take advantage of it. A sudden rush of memory hit me. I had been dreaming about Jack, hadn't I? He had gone away and left all the rest of us for suckers. Santa Fe had made him a true man, while the rest of us sat in the lodging house like the children we were.

"I don't really remember," I shrugged my shoulder, swiping my too-long bangs out of my eyes.

Eyes looked upon me more seriously this time, but he drew his mouth out flat, nodding. "I see." The tone was purely non-committal, because he knew me well enough to identify my lies. "I'm worried about him too." Though they shouldn't have, the words surprised me slightly. "We have no leader now."

"I know," glumly, I finally sat next to Pie Eater. The crate was big enough for two, and though the dew soaked into the thighs of my woolen underwear, I was not bothered. "We have to carry on, but..."

Nodding, Pie Eater pulled a cigarette from the pocket of his long johns. "It's going to be different without him. The others won't listen to guys like us. It just isn't in our blood. We're not leaders like him, you and I. We're followers, doomed to serve."

"Upbringing."

The murmur came from me, though I didn't realize I had even said it aloud until he replied. "Guys like us know nothing, not like him." Jack had a family, and despite what some of the New York big shots had to say, they were waiting for him in Santa Fe. He'd asserted that until the end.

"Do you ever wish we hadn't left?" For reasons unknown, I blurted the sentence out, not even having the time to digest it within myself before spewing it upon my dear friend.

Whereas he had been looking at the horizon, Pie Eater turned then to me, eyes studying my eyes, face more serious than usual. Hair was cropped and cheeks a ruddy pink in the dim light. "Sometimes." Something unknown to me flashed over his face and he pulled his glance away, sinking it into watching his knees instead.

"Me too. But only sometimes."

"Yeah," he agreed. "Could have gotten ourselves a different education."

Memories flooded past my eyes, and for a moment I was in a waking dream, unable to see anything else but the images of my childhood. Before my time as a newsboy, with Pie Eater. I had led an entirely different life as an entirely different person. "I suppose the orphan asylum was no place for us."

A hand slid onto my shoulder, comforting and comradely. "They taught you English," the parental tone was not condescending, yet spoke to me on a different level. We did not know our ages, but guessed them to be around the same. However, he had always acted as my guide, helping me out of possible difficulties the best that he knew how.

"You taught me English," I reminded him, which made him pause, and laugh slightly in silent agreement. A pause conveyed my anxiety, and I spoke what came to mind. "And now Jack does not seem any different than the nuns. He deserted us."

Sometimes I could remember them, the nuns. Perhaps they had sometimes offered kindness, but to one such as myself, a young boy who could neither speak or understand English, they had no time for. Had it not been for Pie Eater's kindness I would have been left alone. His aptitude for Italian, and Italian's similarities with my native tongue had allowed us to communicate, had allowed me some slight solace.

Yet, he had not given me the calm he somehow always retained. "He did not desert us. He stayed until he knew we could make it on our own. The nuns would have done the same, had we stayed on. It was us who deserted them."

He had sort of a point, really. We had been the ones to escape the orphan asylum, gone on our own accord. Gone with not even a penny between the two of us.

"And you're going to desert me, someday."

The last reminder caused me to look over at him, more surprised than anything else. "I'd never," I started to speak but as I did, he shook his head. "You the pal of my heart, Pie... my brother in arms." Speaking the words formed a knot in my throat and I could not continue, knowing the futility. I had been turning away from him, ever since beginning to discover my adult self.

He was the crutch that I had supported myself off of for so long. Now, weaning myself away from his grip, it seemed as if I was trying to live without him in my life. We had not talked as such in a very long while. Admittedly, it was both due to my own actions and my new interests. Still, it felt refreshing to be so intimate again.

"Sell with me today?" He was testing me, of that I was sure.

"I promised Swifty..."

Awkward silence rose with the sun. He nodded and let me be, dragging his arm down my back in brotherly defeat before clasping his hands together in his lap. "Yeah. I'm supposed to go with Dutchy and Specs, as it were."

We said nothing more until the stirring of the others below brought us back to life.