The Legend Of Black-Eye Charlie

In Manhattan, two newsies, older than all of the Shiners, sat on the roof of a boarding house. Along with them was a former newsie, now learning the trade of running a boarding house from the owner of this one.

“Race, how old’re you now?” Jack Kelly was for some reason obsessed with ages nowadays. Racetrack and Crutchy dismissed it as a phase.

“I’d say near seventeen about now, why?”

“Dunno. What about you, Crutch?”

“Well, maybe seventeen, maybe eighteen. I never kept real good track.”

“How old’re you, Cowboy?”

“Nineteen. Old enough to do lotsa stuff, I guess.”

“Jack?”

“Yeah?”

“Why’re you all da sudden thinkin’ about ages all da time?”

He shrugged an answer. “I guess cause my mudder was about my age when she had me. My dad was just a bit older.” He paused for a long moment. Neither of his friends dared interrupt. Jack had never mentioned his father, his mother only twice that they had heard. “I was only ten when he killed ‘er. I don’ even remember why, I just know I was sittin’ in de kitchen, eatin’ dinner. He comes home, pulls a gun and shoots her right in de back. Never even looked at me. He shot her and went down ta da bar for a drink.” Jack’s eyes were in the past, watching every event of this period of his life again. “Da lan’lady hoid da noise, thought it was me playin’, bein’ a nuisance. She came up, I was just sittin’ dere, starin’ at my dead mudder. She called da bulls, dey axed me who did it, an’ I said my dad. Dey axed what his name was, an’ I told ‘em.” Here his tone turned bitter, he had almost forgotten that he was telling his tale to an audience; he was too far in his memories. “I told ‘em his name, da one he gave me. Francis Sullivan.” Jack spit the words out as if they had a bad taste. “I had ta use da same damn name he did. I didn’t want ta have nothin’ ta do with him, so I changed it. I knew my muddah’s maiden name was Kelly, an’ I liked Jack.” He sighed. “I didn’ know what to do, so I just started walkin’. I fell asleep on da step of dis boardin’ house. Been here evah since.”

The three boys sat in silence for a while, until an unspoken mutual agreement roused them all from their perches and got them to bed.

---

At the Shiner’s hideout, another story was being told, a much happier one. Shot Toby was reenacting the earning of his name, with great dramatics.

“Well, dis was back ‘bout a year ago. Just afta da strike, so da boroughs was interactin’ more easily. I’d just become a Shiner, an’ we was still lookin’ for a place to stay. Somebody came up wid da genius idea to look in Brooklyn…”

One year previously

Charlie and her small band, four in all, walked quickly. They were all in a line, Tel leading and Charlie taking the rear. Toby McGee was only eleven years old, and had been inducted as a Shiner fairly recently. He was nervous; he’d heard stories about Brooklyn, stories from an older brother who had disappeared one day. Mamma had said that he’d gone out west somewhere.

As they trekked in the streets of New York, the light faded to a dim twilight. Toby reached to his back pocket for his sling-shot, fingering the well worn wood and soft leather rock pouch as if they could reassure him. The Shiner Gang, almost not a gang by size standards, had until recently stayed in a small alleyway, huddled together for heat and comfort. But another gang, one who Toby was unfamiliar with, being much bigger than the Shiners, had ousted them from the semi-warm spot. Winter was coming rapidly, gang leaders were determined to settle in one spot of territory before the winds and cold rushed in. It was an unspoken rule that territory wars only were fought in summer, or at the very most early fall.

Fingers walked in front of Toby, with his hands in his pocket. He looked nonchalant, but Toby was certain that he was as nervous as the rest of them. Peace between gangs or no, Brooklyn was still a dangerous place to be if you were not under the good graces of one of the leaders of a Brooklyn Gang. There were only three main gangs, and while Spot Conlon’s was not the most powerful, it was as large as any two Manhattan Gangs. Not necessarily in number of people, but all of those newsies were at least fourteen, and much bigger then any of the Shiners.

Toby knew that if they were jumped it could be bad. He had his sling-shot, Charlie was a good a fighter as any, and Tel was almost as good. Toby also thought that the older, taller boy had a knife, but he wasn’t sure. He looked again at Fingers. The quiet young man hadn’t shown much interest in learning how to fight when Tel and Charlie took Toby aside, but that could be because he was already good. Toby shrugged. He felt that they could at least fight their way to safety if they really had to. Desperation tended to lend strength and speed to fighters, and it was a great weapon.

He felt again for the pouch of smallish stones he had tied to his belt loop. He hoped he could get to it quickly if the need arose.

Unexpectedly Tel stopped. He peered into a space between a crate and a wall, then nodded.

“Hello, boys. We don’ want no trouble, just somewheres to sleep an’ then we’ll leave youse alone. Ya got my poisenal guarantee.”

A form glided out from the shadows, followed by three other wraiths. If wraiths were the size of an ape, Toby thought, holding back a nervous gulp. Charlie came to the front of the small group.

“Ya gonna let us trou or we gotta go see Conlon? We ain’t got all night, we's gotta get ourselves ta warm place ta sleep.”

The tallest figure, the one who emerged first, seemed to consider.

“A’ight. We’ll take youse ta Conlon, see dat ya get a good night sleep. In da morning he c’n figger dis out. C’mon.”

The ragged band fell in with the three older newsies, darting through alleyways and scampering over rooftops. Toby knew that both Charlie and Tel would be memorizing their route, or at least doing their best to in the dark. They fairly flew through the dark, ending up standing in what was commonly referred to as “Conlon’s Court”.

Toby found himself surrounded by Brooklyn newsies, most holding sling-shots or clubs. The ones that didn’t have weapons didn’t need weapons, Toby mused, they were weapons. Spot Conlon, easily the smallest of his crew, sat on a stack of three crates.

A/N: I promise that the rest of the chapters will be longer, and filled with more content. This and the next chapter will have a lot of background content. Sorry. As always, let me know if the characters get too annoying. Thanks to my beta, Wiley Card!!

Also, I’ve changed the summary after seeing that it was not really all that good. I changed the rating to T for later swearing, nothing too bad. Now please people, reviews make me happy! Happy authors write better chapters!