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I wrote a Jack & Crutchie story for @loiteringandlurking re: his post about Jack who is an amputee.
In the circulation yard, Crutchie watches the new kid with the knotted-up shirt sleeve, watches how he holds the top of his bag open with his stump and then shoves the papes in one-handed. Crutchie knows that dance; he's got two good arms himself, but one of 'em's always occupied. It ain't as easy as it looks.
Kid says his name is Jack. He's straight from a factory job -- by way of the charity hospital on Hudson Street -- and can't hawk a headline for shit, but he can tie a bootlace real tight, a hard-won skill he's clearly proud of. First, he does up the dangling lace on Crutchie's bad foot. Then he tackles the other side for good measure. Double knots on both scuffed boots. And Crutchie lets him. For once, he don't care who sees him getting help because it makes the guy so happy.
Crutchie lets Jack follow him around, too. Teaches him the ropes. Why not?
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August in the crowded dormitory bedroom, hot and airless. Most of the boys have stripped to their undershirts, including Jack, sprawled out on his bottom bunk. Crutchie glances quickly away from the place where his right arm ends, the scar still red and angry, and looks down at the sketch slowly developing. A nighttime scene in a desolate place, a wolf howling next to twin pine trees, mountains in the background, a crescent moon riding overhead. Jack scratches his pencil along the wolf's back. His neck flushes with frustration. He still ain't used to being a lefty.
"Looks real good," Crutchie says quietly.
Jack spits out the rubber eraser he's been holding in his teeth. It lands on his pillow and Crutchie waits for him to say something mean. But he only uses the eraser to rub at some of the smudges. "Not every day you gets to see talent like this up close, huh?"
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Someone sends word that Jack's old man is doing poorly, so he stops by with a carton of cigarettes he bought. The place is a tenement on Mulberry, prostitutes coming and going. Jack insists that Crutchie wait on the stoop to protect their pile of newly bought evening Worlds. He's back in less than ten minutes, looking slightly out of breath.
"If he lives so close, how come you don't stay with him?"
"Well, I used to," Jack says, though that don't answer the question at all.
"He hit ya?"
"Nah, never." Jack seems to realize he's walking too fast and slows his pace. "Sorry. I think maybe ... I think seein' me makes him feel bad. So I just don't go by there too much."
Crutchie knows exactly what Jack means, and it makes him mad. He stops in the middle of the street to call the headline to an old woman in a kerchief. Jack waits, lighting a cigarette one-handed, while Crutchie juggles his crutch to make change. "You're still a kid. Your pops should be helpin' you out. If he ain't gonna do that, the least he could do is be proud of how good you is doin'."
"He don't need to be proud. I's just livin my life," Jack says. "Not everybody's gonna understand." He slings his good arm around Crutchie's shoulders. "But I got you."
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Ladies like Crutchie. They always have. They want to help him; they buy his papes and sometimes they gives him food and things. But it's girls that like Jack Kelly -- girls their same age.
And Jack seems to like them back, too. He'll pick someone out special to pass the time with, take her to the music halls -- he can sell a hundred twenty papes on a good day and always burns through his money -- draw pictures for her, tell her all about the Wild West. When the boys at Duane Street tease him, Jack tells them to shut up: this is the one.
Somehow, none of them girls ever is. But when it ends, Jack don't seem too heartbroken. Nothing bothers Jack, nothing Crutchie has ever seen.
Maybe he is the wolf in the picture. Maybe he is the moon.
::::
When Jack talks about New Mexico, Crutchie can't help but worry. He's been working to support himself ever since he was eight, but he's only ever done the kind of jobs people think a cripple can do. Who says anybody would hire guys like them them for farm labor?
Jack hooks his right arm over the top rung of the fire escape ladder and reaches his hand down to take the crutch. He says, "Well, we'll show 'em, pal. We can find a way to do most anything we wants to. Can't we?" And he pulls Crutchie up behind him.
They stand together on top of the world. No mountains, no majestic pines. Just them and the buildings that crowd all around them, the landscape of the city where he was born. Life ain't fair; he's always knowed that. But in this moment, Crutchie thinks what Jack says might be true.
Because he ain't never felt sorry for Jack, not for a minute. Why would he? Maybe there is folks out there who won't feel sorry for him neither, who will see him for all that he is.
FIN.