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Hell is a Sober Crawl	By : Glitter_Ink Category: M through R > Newsies Views: 499 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Newsies. Otherwise, names, characters, business, events and incidents are the products of my imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Chapter List
- 6
- 7
- 8
HOUSE OF REFUGE, 1897 - WEEK 3
By week three, Jack noticed Alexei had stopped eating altogether.
In the gloomy dining hall, Jack sat in the middle of a long bench of boys, dressed alike, in jackets and trousers of dark, thick cloth. He looked at the others' plates, the small hunks of unappetizing meatloaf staring back at him. He was relieved his punishment was over, and he could finally eat again, but at what cost? He noticed Alexei across the table, staring at his untouched plate, like a hawk eyeing its prey, yet refusing to touch it.
As if not eating would somehow absolve his secret, crippling craving for opium. He did not appear to know Jack was watching him.
While the others around him ate, Alexei poked and picked at his food. He met Jack's eyes, and Jack looked down.
Alexei pushed his plate away, averting his gaze. He had been on a hunger strike, as Cards referred to it, since the week before.
When a girl came around to collect everyone's plate, Alexei handed his over, full, and untouched. Out of nowhere, Alexei gagged and grabbed at his stomach, doubling over at the table. He got up and tried to walk away but fell to the floor, coughing and dry heaving as his stomach attempted to force up bile.
The boys at the table rushed over and struggled to help.
"I'll die," Alexei had admitted that night in the dormitory, his blue eyes now bloodshot. "I don't want to die here, but I will."
"Alexei, stop it. You're not going to die. Not here, anyway," Tide whispered.
Grim gave Alexei an extra blanket from his bed.
"I will." Alexei looked so weak, so pale that Jack thought he might die for real. "Just wait."
"We're all going to die," Tide said with a shrug. "You don't have a monopoly on mortality."
"I shouldn't be here," Alexei whispered, throwing himself into another rant. "I didn't do what the cop said I did. I've been here long enough. I won't stay any longer. I'm going to get out, somehow. I'm going to be free and go where I want."
That was Alexei's qualm. There was a sense of injustice, in some way done to him, and it was revved up to anger by a longing for the freedom to smoke opium. Jack, too, wanted out. He hated being shut in, with no means of escape, left to dream of the world he was missing. And he was sure every boy in that dorm could say the same.
"Alexei," Grim said, steadying him. "You can't get out. There is no way out. And even if you could, how would you get to the mainland? You can't swim for it, it's too far."
"Hell, I couldn't swim for it," Tide added.
"And if you got to the city," Grim went on, "your uniform would give you away, and the bulls would catch you and send you back. It's no use."
"I'll get out, though," Alexei said. "I swear. I can't stay here anymore." And he added, in his hot and angry rave, "I've been here a whole year, and I shouldn't have been sent here in the first place. I didn't do anything. I don't care what the judge said. When I get out, though, I can't go back to the lodging house. That landlord hates me, I know it. His wife didn't, though. She was kind. She tried to keep me from being sent here."
They were quiet for a moment until—
"I want my Mama," Jack heard Alexei say, his eyes glazed with tears. "I know it's stupid, but I wish I could see her."
Jack winced. Oh God, not this again. First Calico, now Alexei. That shit was contagious. He didn't want to think of anyone's mother, he didn't even want to think of his own. That was too painful. Jack knew as well as the others that Alexei's mother was dead. He wondered whether Alexei meant he wished she were alive, or if he wished he were dead, too. Either way, Alexei's painful admittance to missing her was chilling. If someone like Alexei could crack, then Jack wasn't far from next.
"If only she could see what I've become," Alexei continued, sniffling. "I don't think she'd want me anymore."
"Don't say that," Tide admonished, shifting over on Alexei's bed to make room for Grim. "And she wouldn't want you to starve yourself for opium."
Alexei muttered something in Russian, defeated. "I'm not starving myself to smoke opium," Alexei admitted. "I know Snyder won't let me. I'm doing it so I can be with my Mama."
Jack exchanged a look with Grim and Tide.
"Alexei, look at me," Grim bent his head to meet Alexei's downcast, reddened eyes. "I don't think your mother would want—"
Jack flinched as Mr. Whalen cleared his throat, his presence into the dormitory changed the general mood. This time, Warden Snyder was with him. Whalen looked at his pocket watch and cleared his throat. Every boy stood still in his tracks like a well-drilled soldier.
Jack swallowed hard. How long had they been standing in the doorway?
"I want silence!" Whalen's clear-cut voice commanded in that instant, taking a ring of keys from his pocket. He ferret-like eyes moved as the boys walked to their respective beds. "Be advised, you are still being punished for that act of senselessness last week. And that kind of disrespect will not be tolerated so long as I'm around," he said.
Flustered, he elbowed Cards, Lion, and Shakespeare out of the way as he walked down the aisle of beds, a contemptuous scowl on his face.
Jack sat up in bed, his blood running as cold as the East River.
Alexei hugged his pillow, still sniffling, trying to hide his tears.
But it was too late, Snyder had noticed.
"How old are you, Morozov?" Snyder asked in mocking insinuation, deciding to pounce on this moment of vulnerability from the stoic boy. He stared at Alexei, waiting for an answer. Alexei's wide, tearful blue eyes were focused on a crack in the floorboards as he gave his reply.
"Eighteen, sir," Alexei said in a shaky breath, wiping his runny nose.
"Eighteen-years-old," Snyder repeated, his voice lowering. He continued glaring at Alexei with a scornful frown. "And are there other boys in this dormitory who are eighteen?"
"Yes, sir."
"Are there boys in this dormitory who are nineteen?"
"Yes, sir."
"Are there boys in this dormitory who are seventeen? Sixteen?"
"Yes, sir."
"And do they refuse to eat at mealtimes? Do they demand opium at all hours? Do they cry for their mothers?"
Alexei fidgeted in his bed, resting against the frame.
"Because I can tell you right now that boys your age do not do such pathetic, childish things," Snyder spat at the Russian. "Or do you think otherwise?"
Alexei bit his lip and shook his head, looking from Snyder to the floor again, appearing as if were restraining himself from a complete breakdown. "No, sir," he answered, shaking his head.
"Then why is it you fail to keep restraint?" Snyder asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I don't know, sir," Alexei pursed his lips, balling the edge of his blanket in his fist and releasing it.
Jack could tell he was bracing himself for whatever humiliation Snyder had planned.
"You don't know," Snyder nodded, looking as though he found that statement amusing. "Well, do you need to be put with the babies? Is that it?"
"No, sir," Alexei said in a whisper. "I'm not trying to cause trouble. I can't help—"
Snyder tilted his head. "Do babies cry for their mothers?"
Alexei said nothing.
"Are babies allowed in this dormitory?"
"No, sir," Alexei repeated without meeting Snyder's imposing stare.
"No, they're not," Snyder affirmed, and he gestured to Alexei's watery eyes. "And yet there is a baby in this dormitory. Because you said it yourself, babies cry for their mothers. And I heard you crying for yours. Am I wrong?"
Alexei looked away, resigning to silence, holding in his delirious and exhausted tears.
Snyder remained staring at him, unsatisfied with the lack of answer. "I said, am I wrong?" Snyder leaned down and barked the question into Alex's ear, enunciating the words.
Alexei closed his eyes and reopened them, as if trying to string a coherent thought together. "No, sir," he replied.
None of the boys said a word. They all blended into their surroundings.
Jack looked to Grim who met his gaze and shook his head as if to say, 'don't try anything stupid, not now.'
"Pathetic," Whalen sneered.
Alexei continued his blank stare, as if he hadn't heard Whalen. "I miss her is all—"
"Enough," Snyder snarled.
"Do you understand the Warden now? She's nothing more than a corpse in Potter's Field." Whalen turned to the rest of the boys. "With all the other disease-ridden gutter harlots of this city! And it's their doings what put them there!"
Jack winced. He knew Whalen had aimed that insult at all of them, and even if it weren't true, it hit Jack in the gut.
"Just like your mother," Snyder added pointedly to Marquette, who looked as though he'd heard it all before. "Mr. Whalen can attest to her escapades."
Marquette looked elsewhere, his expression bleak and promising rage if he didn't redirect his focus.
Alexei was still caught on what Whalen had said, not wanting to accept the boldfaced lie as the others had. "My mama wasn't—"
"Your mama was a little minx. How many times do I have to say it?" Whalen grabbed the thick strap he carried out of his coat pocket and bent it, giving it a few loud snaps. "You're a stupid, stupid, stupid boy!" He shouted, throwing the strap onto Alexei. "Stupid! Stupid!"
It was an odd thing to yell at Alexei, a boy who had taught himself English and had been the most enterprising newsboy. Before the opium, that is.
Alexei struggled to breathe as he was hit, trying to block the blows with his arms.
Jack could tell that Whalen was making up for all the times Alexei had attacked the guards in his withdrawal rages, making Crazy Cohen look like a sane, upstanding citizen in comparison.
"Has he had enough?" Snyder yelled to the wide-eyed inmates in their beds. "Has he?"
Whalen stopped hitting Alexei with the strap and grabbed the boy by his blonde hair.
Jack said nothing, and neither did anyone else, not even Grim.
Whalen looked to be in a kind of murderous frenzy, like he wasn't above killing anyone who crossed him, and Jack believed he'd do it, too.
Snyder would cover-up any of their deaths to avoid a scandal.
With no response, Snyder nodded, and Whalen threw Alexei to the cold floor and kicked him in the ribs, the stomach, the legs, anywhere he could.
"You see that?" Snyder continued. "None of those boys are saying anything. They're not coming to help you because they know. They know you're lying. They know you're weak."
Jack saw Tide and No Name look away.
Lion touched the medal around his neck, uttering a prayer.
"Your mother was a dirty, no-good, unwed Slavic whore!" Whalen was shouting, landing blow after blow onto Alexei. "I'll beat the devil out of you yet!"
Jack could hear that Alexei was begging now, pleading for Whalen to stop, saying he'd do anything.
"Warden Snyder," Grim managed to say from his bed, trying to keep his voice even. He sounded shell-shocked. "Warden Snyder, sir—"
"Quiet!" Snyder yelled, not bothering to see who'd said his name. "Or I'll give you something to cry about, too!"
"Warden Snyder," Grim's voice was urgent, his eyes flicking from Whalen's violent movements to Alexei's motionless form, all the while Snyder stood by. "He's—"
"Shut up!" Whalen seethed.
"Please," Alexei begged, covering his face as best he could as another blow came. "Anything. I'll do anything."
Whalen, again, lifted him by his hair, forcing Alexei to his knees. He grabbed Alex's jaw in his hands. Alex's mouth was bleeding, spilling out from the corners of his mouth.
"Mark my words, Morozov," Snyder spat, as Whalen caught his breath. "I have dealt with worse than you. I know all the little tricks, all the acts. Well, I won't fall for it. You don't miss your mother. You just want your fix. You're a hop fiend, and that's all you'll ever be. Once you get out of here, you'll be back to the dens and basements until you die alone with nothing except that pipe in your hand and that smoke in your lungs. It's pathetic."
He let go of Alexei, and the boy fell back to the floor. Stepping over his beaten body, Snyder turned back to the looks of absolute horror that awaited him. "Anyone else with a comment?"
Silence as the two left the dormitory, locking the doors behind them.
Jack opened his eyes, a lump in his throat.
Lion finished quietly praying, as it was all he knew to do.
Atlas had been under his blanket, as if hiding. From the reddened eyes, Jack guessed he'd been crying.
After a pause, as if to collect their thoughts, Doc, Shakespeare, Tide, and Cards got up to help Alexei back to his bed.
Tide gave Alexei water from the washroom, Cards cleaned the blood, and Doc reset his broken nose.
Alexei cursed in Russian as his nose snapped back with a crunch. He tipped his head back, holding a cloth to soak up the blood.
"I told you I'd die here," Alexei muttered, wiping his eyes.
"You did, but you won't," Tide replied, helping Doc dab at the wounds.
"Grim?" Jack whispered.
Grim peeked at him, helping Alexei lay back. "What?"
"I…" Jack couldn't steady his voice. He was afraid he might breakdown right there. "I want…I want my Ma, too," he whispered. "I'm sorry…" His voice quivered, and he tried to look elsewhere. "Fuck."
"Jack," Grim sighed, looking as though he was too exhausted to deal with another crying kid. He just didn't have it in him. "She's in a better place now. You'll see her again," he said off-hand. "Don't cry."
Jack nodded, letting out a strangled whimper through pursed lips, trying as hard as he could not to burst into tears.
Grim glanced at him, seeing how close Jack was to falling apart. He exchanged a look with Tide, and then stared back at Jack with an expression somewhere between resigned stoicism and near-panic. "Don't you dare cry. Please. You'll see her again."
Jack chewed on the inside of his cheek to hold it in. "Do you promise?" he managed.
"Yeah," Grim said, rubbing his bloodshot eyes. "She's an angel. In heaven." He said it like he wasn't convinced. Like he was only saying it for Jack's sake.
"My mother wasn't Christian," River Markowitz spoke up from his bed. "Snyder said she's in hell."
"He said that about mine, too," Rails Westwood offered in a quiet voice.
"Bullshit," Grim shook his head. "They're angels. I'm sure of it."
"Why?" River asked.
"Why the hell not?" Grim replied without the usual reassurance. Jack could tell the older boy had checked out for once.
"I don't remember mine," Crazy admitted. "But I remember my old man. Wish I didn't."
"My father didn't want me," Shakespeare said, with a regretful laugh.
"Never knew either of my parents," No Name shrugged.
Jack closed his eyes, hating this conversation. It reminded him of what he'd lost.
"Why did Snyder say that about my mother?" Marquette asked, as if remembering the Warden's remark in a moment of clarity. "Is it true? Did Whalen sleep with her?"
"Don't believe a word Snyder says," Tide said, watching Grim bury his face in a pillow.
"Can we stop talking about dead people?" Muggs called from his bed, his eyes closed. "Oh, and Marquette? Whalen never fucked your mother."
Marquette rolled over to face Muggs. "How do you know?"
Muggs squinted his eyes open in the darkness, glaring at the French boy. "Because he was too busy fucking mine."
A few others turned to stare at Muggs. Shocked. Confused.
Muggs met Jack's gaze. "She actually was a whore," he mumbled.
"Oh," Jack whispered. "I'm sorry."
"For what?" Muggs raised an eyebrow. "She's dead."
"I don't know," Jack replied, scrambling for words. "I'm just sorry."
No one said anything.
"You're not sorry," Muggs said with a small chuckle, flipping over in bed and hugging his pillow. "You're just relieved it wasn't your mother."
Jack leaned against the bed frame. He was sorry and relieved.
An hour later, in the darkness of the dorm, Jack woke up with a start. He glanced toward Muggs, fast asleep on his back.
Turning on his other side, Jack noticed Calico, sitting in his bed. His vacant eyes were focused out the window, watching the snowflakes stick to the windowpane.
Jack shifted, creaking the bed, and Calico turned with a somewhat startled expression.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," Jack whispered.
"It's okay," Calico replied, fidgeting with his hands, drumming his fingers, appearing restless.
Jack observed his movements, recognizing his pattern.
He knew Calico was aching for a cigarette. He heard from Lion that Calico used to smoke 20 or more cigarettes a day until he got sent up, despite an endless series of persistent heart problems that were exacerbated by smoking, and numerous attempts at quitting.
"Can't sleep?" Calico asked in his terse accent, sounding more declarative than in interrogative.
Jack nodded. Calico offered something of a smile. "Nightmares?"
Jack shrugged. "No."
"Could've fooled me."
"I'm worried," Jack mumbled, "about my sister." All Jack could think of was Sophie, half-frozen and barefoot, without anywhere to go. The idea made him sick.
"I have a feeling she looks up to you, even if she doesn't show it," Calico added. "It's a funny thing with family. I bet you're a great brother."
Jack smiled brighter than he wanted, feeling he didn't deserve the compliment but accepting it, nonetheless. "Thanks," he answered.
There was a pause as Calico pulled his blanket, looking over at Jack. "I had a little sister, too," he continued. "Viktoria. She's, well, she's..." He trailed off, averting his eyes.
Jack looked at him and nodded, sensing Calico didn't want to disclose anything further on the matter.
"Do you think Snyder will come back?" Jack asked, changing the subject.
"Oh, I think we're the least of his worries at the moment," Calico replied. "Roosevelt's coming this week to inspect the place."
"Are you feeling better?" Jack blurted without a second thought, noticing Calico had stopped coughing.
Calico shrugged. "Not really. I'm dying for a smoke though," he replied. As soon as he said it, a fit of coughs caused him to double over in pain, burying his mouth into the sheets until the spell was over.
"Still want a smoke?" Jack asked.
Calico took a few deep breaths. "More than ever."
When he pulled back, Jack noticed a splatter of blood on the spot where Calico had covered his mouth.
Calico looked at the stain.
"Oh," Jack mumbled as Calico gave him an anxious look. "That's not good."
Nodding, Calico stared at the snow flittering outside. "Jack," he whispered, still looking outside.
"Yeah?"
Calico swallowed hard, grimacing, and Jack could see how watery the boy's eyes were in the moonlight. "I don't want to die from this. I'm not afraid to die, but I don't want to die."
Jack didn't know what to say. All the boys had been musing the horrible possibility after that long night when they'd almost lost him the first time. But no one could say it aloud, and now it was evident that Calico felt it, too.
"You won't die," was all Jack managed.
Calico looked over at him, a lone tear escaping. "Promise?"
Something in Jack told him not to make that promise, but he couldn't help himself. "Yeah, I promise."
"I don't have anyone in the world. Everyone I love is gone," Calico admitted, lying back in bed. "You have your sister. I have no one. You guys are the closest thing to family I've got," he said, gesturing to the others.
"You're not going to die, I promise," Jack repeated. He couldn't think of anything else to say.
But Calico already came to his own conclusion about his fate. He looked as though he were about to reply, interrupted by a loud cry from a bed near them.
Alexei shivered in his bed, mumbling about opium once again, tearing at his hair in distress. Not this again. It was a disturbing occurrence that Jack couldn't get used to. Those cries were only met with indifference from the guards. He needed opium to feel something, a good something. To Alexei, opium might as well have been the stone of immortality.
Jack could empathize. Laudanum, after all, was opium combined with alcohol – a mixture that the sixteenth-century Swiss physician Paracelsus called "something to be praised." Jack's laudanum-soaked brain wouldn't forgive Paracelsus for that. There had to be some justification for his life of stubborn suffering, for the damaged dreams, aspirations, and chances at what might have been a virtuous life.
For a time, Jack used to think, in part, the justification for this evil lay in the escape from misery, the tapping into something deeper, something higher, and the many delights supplied from the tincture. But all laudanum had given him was severe grief, utter gloom, the floundering of his mind, the collapse of his rational and self-control, and the ever-present and unfathomable pessimism of a living hell. For years, that's how it went for Jack: 1 grain of opium to every 25 drops, or 1 grain of opium to every 13 measured drops, minimum. Not that Jack would ever tell anyone, but he had taken as high as 7000 drops in a day.
He'd seen others on the streets take more. It got to where he needed half a pint every morning, keeping his supply hidden from Kloppman and the others while at the Lodging House. Without it he was unfit to converse, let alone sell papers.
He wondered why Alexei wouldn't settle for laudanum or paregoric to get through the withdrawals at least. If anything, laudanum hit quicker. Alexei said he didn't like the amount of alcohol contained in such a preparation. That, and he didn't want to die from paralysis if he were lucky enough to live past middle age.
Jack didn't think the distinction between the two was strong enough for Alexei to be reluctant, but he figured to each addict his own addiction.
In that gentle but insistent way of his, Doc had recommended that Jack ask Snyder for chlorodyne instead of laudanum after the first time Jack had procured a spoonful.
"Your body's exhausted," Doc said, watching Jack pace one evening in the washroom. "Should've asked for chlorodyne. Gives you the same effect for a smaller dosage. You wean yourself off that as well, replacing it with flavored treacle by degrees. An ounce lasts three days before you know it. But be careful what Snyder gives you."
Doc went on to tell him about a girl, fifteen, on the island who, in a fit of desperation, snuck into Snyder's office and took an ounce of the tincture of cantharidin, supposing it to be laudanum. She soon fell into seizures of a violent kind, but recovered with Doc's help, and after a few days appeared to be well. A few days later, she was dead.
"Chlorodyne has a smell, and it tastes sweet," Doc explained. "Cantharidin doesn't smell like anything. Know the difference."
Jack took Doc's advice, asked the Warden for chlorodyne instead of laudanum, and within a week, the vomiting had ceased.
Jack felt life draw back into him, a resurgence of energy.
The nausea hadn't stayed away, and he still craved laudanum, but he was in far better condition than Alexei.
He slept better, his eyes were their normal color, and his palms were no longer dry.
Jack hadn't tasted laudanum for six weeks, and while it felt good to be free from the terrible habit that had enslaved him, he couldn't help but mourn the euphoric sensations.
- 6
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Hell is a Sober Crawl