Chapter Text
On October 8, 1898, Skittery got an excruciating punch in the gut from the universe.
On October 8, Skittery ditched the last of his afternoon papers, despite the catchy headline that damned the Spanish for the Maine. It was a cold and dreary day, though plenty of people were scouring the streets for a newspaper. It was the first time he’d given up with twenty newspapers left. He told Bumlets he wasn’t feeling well, giving him the rest of his papers to sell with an offhanded mumble of ‘keep the change.’ Bumlets figured his friend would return to the lodging house and sleep whatever it was off. His friends got sick all the time, usually nothing serious, and most of it was brought on by sleep deprivation. The younger newsies got fevers and flu. The older newsies got strung out and hangovers. But not Skittery, not on a random Saturday afternoon, not in the middle of work, not without apparent symptoms. Not without Pie or Snoddy or Bumlets knowing the matter. Not possible. That’s what made it so odd.
Skittery marched to the beat of his drum but wouldn’t march right out of peak-selling time for no reason. No one would describe him as reckless. He was nebulous, with swoopy hair that needed a trim and a voice that sounded like gravel. He was like an oversized t-shirt of a guy, soft and worn, tucked away and forgotten about but there when his friends needed him. Jack Kelly once described him as an empty alleyway, the kind you go to at midnight to be alone with your thoughts, flickering gaslights, whispered secrets, maybe a cigarette at 2 am. No one knew what that meant, but Skittery figured it was an apt compliment.
That was who he was. A desert without a name, a street that didn’t appear on a map. A runaway train. He was the kind of guy who would crawl with his friends on hands and knees through hell when they experienced a wave of dark, debilitating sadness. But if it ever hit Skittery the same way, he’d swallow nine shots of cheap vodka, all while keeping dead eye contact with God, and show up to the distribution center the next day as if nothing happened.
On October 8, in the cold afternoon, Skittery was in Central Park, sitting on a bench, getting higher than the Statue of Liberty with a self-rolled hash cigarette – courtesy of Sketch Calhoun, Jack’s predecessor and Skittery’s older brother by two years. He’d ‘moved out’ six months ago. He’d forgotten about his secret stash when he left. Skittery wasn’t all surprised to see his brother go. Kloppman had given him an ultimatum after he found out Sketch was smoking hash: either clean up his act or leave. Skittery figured it was probably gentler than that, knowing Kloppman. Now, hash was an extract of the hemp plant cannabis sativa, consisting of dried resinous exudates of the female flowers – which was a fancy way of saying it was potent as shit, with a THC content averaging between 10 and 20 percent. Because Kloppman was unfamiliar with the drug, he was frankly afraid of it.
But Sketch was eighteen, so it wasn’t unusual for guys his age to leave the lodging house, no questions asked. Plus, Sketch was still in Skittery’s life. They got dinner together occasionally, though such meetups had become rarer and rarer.
Of course, there were other factors contributing to the brothers’ tension. Nothing new. There was the emotional disconnect, the jaded relationship, and the miscommunication. Skittery knew about Sketch’s hash habit but also speculated he’d moved on to other things. He was the adrenaline junkie, in direct opposition to Skittery’s reserved nature. Sketch wanted out for several reasons. He was the problematic brother, and Skittery was the good brother.
That all changed once Sketch left. The shift was dramatic. Just as Sketch started getting his life together, Skittery’s took a turn for the worse.
October weather is in full gloom swing, leaves scraping the pavement beside him, and a distant vaudeville tune is spinning on repeat in his brain. Skittery couldn’t care less about one of Hearst’s articles on this Evangelina Cosio, though he had to admit she photographed beautifully.
Goddamn, I should’ve kept a copy of that edition.
When he returned to the lodging house, his fellow boarders were ablaze with monotony, and Skittery’s eyes were red and watery. He looked like he’d cried. Talk about a dreadful day to look like a teen who’d gotten baked off his ass. Skittery was a cautionary tale for Reverend Parkhurst and one of his electrifying sermons. Mush Meyers stopped him in the hallway and asked if he was okay, mistaking his intoxication for devastation.
Skittery didn’t process the question right away. At least, not while he’d overheard kids talking at the foot of the staircase. The question haunted him for the rest of the day. Was he okay? Even he didn’t know anymore.
When his mind clicked, Skittery’s emotions turned to spin-cycle. His fight or flight came rushing in at full swing – not that there was an imminent threat to contend with. Skittery wasn’t one to fight, ever. He wasn’t one to flee either, for that matter. He froze. And that’s what he did to defend Kloppman’s question: “I’m good.” He threw in a reassuring, lop-sided, half-blazed, open-mouthed smile for insurance. It just came off strained.
When Skittery heard the others whispering in the standard room, he signed himself in the ledger for the evening, absently tracing over his signature six times until he ripped a hole in the page with the pen. Bumlets was out in the hall, talking with Kloppman, looking like a reporter live on the scene. He didn’t say anything to Skittery about quitting halfway through the day.
When he got up to the nearly empty bunkroom, having greeted Kloppman again on the way in, he threw his newspaper satchel under his bunk and tripped over the strewn-about laundry. “Oh, fuck,” he groaned, remembering the floorboard next to his bed was loose. He didn’t know how he’d fix that. It had been loose for years. The shrieks and laughter of Boots and Snipeshooter and a handful of younger ones shooting marbles on the opposite end irritated him. Damn, the crimes he’d commit for his room. Some lodging houses had those, whereas Kloppman’s did not. The old man said something about it being ‘too enabling.’ There used to be several private rooms for a steeper rent, but Kloppman always had a skeleton key. Last year, he’d caught a newsie selling various elixirs out of a private room, having buyers come up through the fire escape, including several young women, and that was all Kloppman needed to ban non-communal living. Not that he believed any of his other boys would try anything like that.
Skittery hated that story. He hated it. All it did was remind him what a complete fuck-up his older brother was. Some newsies saw him as a legend for that – something to look up to and aspire to be like. Skittery, on the other hand, was just embarrassed to be related to him.
The overcast sky cast eerie shadows along the furniture and walls, spilling through the windows like ghosts.
The rest of the day felt off. By the late evening, Skittery was in a daze. He didn’t know how his older brother did this every day. The come down just felt…earth-shatteringly devastating.
The wind was chanting as he finished his evening edition—a strange ringing, a vibration, in his ears. Out of nowhere, a street dog jumped a few feet before him, barring its teeth like a feral wolf. Freezing in his tracks, Skittery’s boots scraped against the cobblestone, inches from the frightened dog. Its fur was wet from the light rain, slightly shivering as it stared back at Skitter with large eyes. After a few seconds, the dog continued to the other side of the winding street.
A bit shaken, Skittery stood there for a minute, running a hand through his hair. Get it together. Why was he so jumpy?
Then he saw her again – standing across the street with her basket of hot corn, barefoot and ragged as usual. The rosy-cheeked, dark-haired, shy little creature who stood outside the Equitable Building’s yellow-tinted rotunda daily for years, selling ears of hot-roasted corn. If he had to guess, she looked a year or two younger than Skittery. Maybe that was due to a meager diet. He’d first noticed her six years ago when she first took her stand with her basket of hot corn in front of that big business palace.
Skittery didn’t know her name, but he’d been working up the courage to introduce himself properly. He’d been working it up for six years, and still, no dice. He imagined wistful scenarios in his mind, walking up to her and swearing his undying love, that he’d been watching her for a long time, that he was obsessed with everything about her.
No, no. God, no. That would scare her, Skittery decided. She’d have to approach him first. That was the only way any progress would be made. He’d noticed her, but had she ever seen him?
Then again, Skittery reasoned if she were to hit on him, nothing would come of it. Even if he wanted to, he wouldn’t believe she was genuine. It wouldn’t register. He blamed his cynicism – it prevented him from entertaining the idea of anyone giving a good damn about him. Her words would only go in one ear and out the other.
Last month, Snoddy tried to set Skittery up with his girlfriend’s best friend – some Brooklyn floozie who’d been Spot Conlon’s girl for a while. Caroline-something-or-other. By the end of what he deemed a painfully awkward date, she asked to see him again, somehow still on board with his potential. Caroline said he was cute, sweet, and nothing like the boys she’d gone out with. Skittery had blushed, mumbled a “thank you,” and never talked to her again.
Voicing her interest didn’t do anything to boost Skittery’s ego, even if he feigned flattery. He’d been checked out for a while now in his own world. His rejection was cold and indifferent, even if he hadn’t meant it. When she let out with that “you’re nothing like Spot Conlon” bullshit, Skittery had forced an uncomfortable laugh, furrowed his brow in doubt, turned her down clumsily, and then searched for the nearest exit.
Inwardly, he was surprised. Oh, no, he thought. You don’t know what you’re saying. You don’t want me. I don’t even like me. Run. Save yourself.
But in that same breath, his heart cried out, But dear God, please don’t leave me. I need you.
It was irrational, but in Skittery’s mind, it made sense. Somewhere deep down, he’d melted at her compliment, but at that point in his life, he was high on some pessimistic philosophy, fueled by misanthropy, aching to get out of that situation.
Skittery had passed up on the thing he’d craved the most. Snoddy called it self-sabotage, the self-destruction his friend was prone to. He’d lost interest in Caroline the moment she said she liked him. And Skittery was terrified the same thing would happen if that pretty hot corn girl showed interest, too. Skittery wanted to feel loved, but he wouldn’t allow himself to have it. It took a lot of convincing, but he eventually confessed to believing he didn’t deserve that feeling.
That all changed at two in the morning, on October 9, during one of his customary existential walks, when he stumbled upon a cold dose of reality.