The noises of the chaotic screaming crowd meshed into nothingness and Spot could only see in front of him the devilish grin of the boy from Harlem. He never knew Jumper was Italian; sure, he had resembled Racetrack in some ways, but he never spoke with an accent or came across with strong Italian features. Come to think of it, Spot wasn't any more Irish than Jumper was Italian. They did not live where most immigrants lived and neither of them sported their backgrounds on their sleeves. It flowed through their veins and that was all.
"On my whistle, boys," said O'Reilly. His red face was slick with sweat as he raised his arm to the room so engrossed in watching the contenders rip each other to shreds.
Spot's jaw was locked so hard that he nearly shattered his teeth. All he could think about what this meant. Jumper was in Manhattan. Was it for good? Was he still a newsie? Why would he come to Manhattan in the first place?
Suddenly the high-pitched whistle blew and before Spot came back to reality, a punch had been thrown to his cheek. The room erupted in unison and the match was on. After a second of blinking his eyes, Spot felt the adrenaline pumping back through his system. His muscles came alive all over, from his shoulders to his toes. He swung and missed by an inch; damn, it had been a long time.
Jumper sent his powerful fist towards Spot's face again. Spot, this time, ducked. He charged Jumper's stomach and shoved him back so he was against a wooden pole. The men scooted back as not to disrupt the fight. They clapped and rooted their arms.
Spot balled up his hand tightly and delivered a forceful clout to Jumper's nose. Blood immediately began seeping out. He grabbed Jumper's chin and reeled his arm back for more damage. Then, Jumper brought his arms up and pushed his way out of Spot's hold; in turn, Spot's strong fist ended up colliding directly into the pole, the bones in his fingers and knuckles shoved back further to his hand. A loud "ooh" sprang from the crowd, feeling Spot's pain.
Ireland paused for a second to cradle his hand in excruciating pain. A simple shove from behind reminded him that he wasn't finished. Spot turned around and dodged Jumper heading towards him. Moving out of the way in the nick of time, Spot ended up behind Jumper. He clenched his left hand into a fist and pounded it into the small of Jumper's back.
Italy fell to a knee with his back arched in reaction. He stumbled to his feet and Spot grabbed him by the arm to yank him back up. As if sudden strength had dropped from the sky, Jumper sent his fist to Spot's stomach, and Spot instinctively wrapped his arm around it, crouching. Jumper grabbed the root of Spot's hair and nailed him in the face.
The room suddenly spun around in Spot's eyes and it became black. His ribs were shattered, he thought. All of them, they felt broken. When he started to come back, after what felt like forever, he was on the floor with his back against the blood-spattered ground. Hands tapped at his aching flesh and men were behind him and above him, urging him to get back up.
"Get up, boy, get up!"
"Don't just lay there, get up and keep fighting!"
But something inside Spot forbade him to get up. There was something inside him that stuck him to the ground. He watched Jumper make his way over on a limp, blood staining his nose and face; he was just as exhausted as Spot. Jumper stood above him and Spot impulsively brought up his leg and locked it behind Jumper's knees. He kicked, and Jumper was sent crashing to the ground beside him.
The men around him cheered, some hissed. Jumper had landed hard on his back, and his head had smacked the floor hard. He was unconscious for a few moments, and Spot saw him weakly raise his head, a dazed look on his face. Soon Jumper was surrounded by his group of Italian backup, and Spot brought his arm up to cover his eyes. The scene faded into a memory.
"Hold still," said Skittery outside the club. He put a strong hold on Spot's wrist with one hand and squeezed his index finger with the other. "This'll only hurt fer a second."
"What are ya doin'…" asked Spot tentatively.
Skittery hesitated a moment and yanked Spot's finger forward with a startling jolt.
"SHIT, Skittery!" howled Spot in pain. "What the hell's a matta' with you!" He crouched over the wooden box he had been sitting on and held his throbbing finger.
"Look, yer bones're all messed up in ya hand," informed Skittery with an impatient tone. "I'm just settin' 'em back in place." He grabbed Spot's wrist again and jerked forward his middle finger.
Spot belted out another wail of pain and followed with a round of curses that would put a sailor in his place.
"Believe me, it's a lot better'n havin' a jacked up hand," reassured Skittery. He gripped Spot's ring finger and tugged hard. Spot suppressed his pain with great difficulty, biting down on his lip to distract himself.
"Ya hit that pole pretty hard there, champ," teased Racetrack. "But ya did a good job bruisin' up Jumper a lil' bit…
"Go ta hell, Race," snapped Spot. Skittery yanked his pinky, the last finger to be dislocated and jerked back into place. "SHIT!"
The small group of boys sat a block away from O'Reilly's club near the docks of the Hudson River. The hopes of being a fun night out were instantly broken when the Italian fighter turned out to be a ghost from the past.
"That part 'a my life's supposed to be dead," said Spot suddenly, on the edge of sounding whiney. "And things are already bad. Now he's gotta show up again and make ev'rythin' worse."
"Well, you can't exactly pretend he's not there," advised David. "The past is still important no matter how much you try to forget about it. It's still there, and you're not the type to ignore it, Spot."
Spot gripped his forehead in his hand. It was a pathetic scene: five young adults coming down from their buzzes on a night that wasn't supposed to be remembered the next morning. One sat on a crate box, bruised with dried blood on his face and relocated fingers covering it all.
"This is gonna be tough," mumbled Spot. "There ain't no rules fer this one. Back then, we had rules and meetings…"
This was pure streets.
"I'm goin' home," he added. "I need to think this one out on my own…"
"Spot, we gotta talk about this," interrupted Jack. "Ya know, ya're not the only one affected by this. Harlem happened to me, too. I might not've suffered as much as you guys did, but it still happened. Ya can't forget about that eitha."
"I know, Jack. Just lemme sleep on it, a'right? Jesus…"
Spot knew, as he trudged up his apartment steps, that his homecoming at three o'clock in the morning would be awkward and unexpected. Gabby would probably be asleep, as well as Noah, and in no way would she be happy with it. He summoned up the patience and latched his key into the lock. Ever so gently, he turned the doorknob and crept inside.
The light was on in the living room and Gabby was still awake. She held Noah against her chest, who seemed to be asleep. The two looked at each other for a moment. Spot pressed his lips together, unsure of what to say. Gabby gave him a weird look upon his entrance, but something happened that Spot did not expect; she gasped, not with fright, but with concern. She carefully set Noah down onto the chair and rushed over to the doorway.
"What on earth happened, Spot?" Gabby's voice couldn't help but be worrisome. Her hand flew to her heart as she stood in front of him, looking over his injuries. She led him over to the kitchen table and rushed to get a bowl of water and wash cloth.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
Indifferently, Spot hung his head. Gabby sat down next to him and dipped the wash cloth into the bowl. Carefully, as she held the other side of Spot's face, she wiped away the blood from his cheekbone. A short, oddly shaped cut bled mildly from his skin.
"Things got outta hand," said Spot softly. He looked up at Gabby. Her head shook lightly as her eyebrows knitted faintly. Her face still looked concerned, but also now was a look of shame and disappointment.
"Spot, you're not in Brooklyn anymore…" said Gabby simply and quietly, though her voice had command in it. She wiped his forehead and eyes gently. "I know you like going out, but you need to ease up. You can't come home like this."
Spot looked up at her glaringly. Who did she think she was, ordering Spot Conlon around like this? She finished cleaning him up and looked down at his black and blue hand. With little feeling, she placed her soft palm over his knuckles.
"Please…" said Gabby silently. "You have a child. What's gonna happen if one of these nights you don't come back?"
After a moment, Spot's hand escaped Gabby's light hold, which was starting to feel like a claw to him. He got up and walked away, grazing her side and giving her goosebumps.
"I know what I'm doin', Gabby."
Much later that night as Spot tossed around in his sleep, he returned to the broken city that he always visited. Again he stood in the doorway of the decrepit building that had been mysteriously haunting him for weeks. He looked down and noticed both of his hands were broken completely; they were black and dead and useless. His clothes were tattered to rags and his feet were bare of any footwear. He reached up to his face and felt his nose broken, his lip busted, and his eye swollen completely shut.
All of a sudden, there was the same hand that always grabbed him from behind. A misty fog settled in over the building as Spot hesitated to turn. An eerie, cold mist crept gradually into the building, entering his lungs and turning them to ice. It swarmed all around the room, consuming him and leaving him in a cloud of fear. After a second, he quickly spun and came face to face with what had been plaguing his dreams for such time.
He needed to go back to Brooklyn.