The harsh electric stage lights burst forth like firecrackers as Medda walked on stage. Lovely as ever in her royal purple ribbons and lace, looking every bit the lady the men all came to see. Gentlemen and laborers alike lined the isles, crowded the balconies to see Medda, the Swedish Meadow Lark. She wasn't too picky about her customers. It beat being a waitress.

Jack and David were sitting above her on the catwalk as she shimmied to center stage and began her number. The one where she got half naked. This always brought the men in. Jack would tease her good-naturedly about it, asking her what time her "classy" number was going to go on. Medda would just smile at him and chuck him under the chin. Her touch could melt a man, as David observed first hand that evening before the show.

The jackals were hooting and hollering loudly already, as she slipped one long pink satin glove off. They couldn't hear the music at all. Sure, it was cheap. It was bawdy. The sign outside "No children allowed" didn't help add to the places' reputation. It was Medda. David stared at Jack and saw the grin on his face. It was love; no, it was infatuation, although Jack did love everything about her.

The other glove came off and Jack was lost in the moment, catcalled down to her. He knew she heard him. It never failed that her Jacky-Boy came to see the shows, straddling the catwalk or legs hanging down over the side of the balcony. He never got tired of her shows. David, however, was not being a sport.

"Is this what you wanted me to see?" He was whining again. Jack clapped a hand down on his shoulder and silenced him with practiced ease. Dave teetered, not used to being suspended so high in the air and grasped the bar of the catwalk nervously.

"Isn't she great?" He called over the brass band. The music -- rhythmic, hollow, and utterly primal -- rose in volume steadily as Medda undid each of the pearly buttons of her bodice. David blushed fiercely and glanced away. 

"I really don't think we should be here." His voice cracked. 

Jack swore under his breath. "God Almighty, Davey, get that stick out your ass." He enjoyed the show. 

After it was over Medda went backstage to get dressed for her next song, Jack blowing her kisses all the while. David's breathing returned to normal, enough so that he could nag Jack some more. 

"C'mon, it's late. Mama's going to kill me if she finds out where I went." 

"Would you calm down please?" It seemed Jack wasn't going to let David ruin this for him. He didn't know what he was thinking when he dragged him to the theater after work. "No one's going to find out. Just shut up and watch. This next part is great. You'll love it," he cut David off before he could argue, "Just shut up, will you?" 

Dave sighed and followed Jack's eyes to center stage, watching with a pained expression on his face. Jack rolled his eyes but gave the show his complete and intense attention as the house lights went down and the curtain parted. Again, and with a pop as one of the bulbs blew, the stage was lit up. Standing center and with an indescribable air of dignity and something that commanded respect, stood "Buffalo Bill" William F. Cody. He was outlandishly dressed in a buckskin fringed suit, wearing a black full-length jacket with silver and turquoise beadwork. His boots and hat looked to be made out of the same dark snakeskin, and both showed off gaudy silver charms that likely blinded the audience. For all his finery, though, David couldn't help but notice his long, greasy, dirty yellow-gray hair that hung down over his shoulders or the deep lines and cracks in the part of his face that wasn't hidden by his hat. 

David glanced over at Jack through the corner of his eye and saw the way his face lit up. His hat had suddenly appeared on his head, tipped forward down over his eyes. He'd told him all about the show the week before, and David had agreed reluctantly to come the closing night, just because Jack seemed so in love with the whole thing. When he described the show to him that first morning after as they both strolled down the street trying to make a livelihood, a strange thing happened to him. He became like a different person, his features tinged with an odd unreadable expression that often puzzled David. He wanted to find out what that was all about, but he didn't know it would take so long. He turned from Jack's face back to the show. 

An old Indian Brave joined Bill on-stage, tired looking and wrapped in a felt blanket. He was wearing scuffed moccasins and his long greasy hair was tied back with a leather thong. There was "war paint" on his cheeks. Jack brought his breath in sharply and looked to Dave for approval. His eyes were shining just like Les's in a candy store. 

See? 

David smiled. 

Someone in the audience booed. It seemed that the men were restless for a show that involved nudity. The pair on-stage ignored it. Bill cleared his throat. When he spoke, it was a young man's voice. What was he, forty years old? He looked so much older to David. The words sprang from his throat like those of an auction-caller, reverberating to the back of the house with a rich, dark ease. Dave could see immediately how audiences could become so enraptured with the man, as his reputation as a showman suggested. 

"Ladies and Gentlemen, you are about to see the most outstanding display of shooting in America. You will be amazed at my marksmanship and skillful speed. These colts," He smoothly produced two shiny silver pistols from inside his jacket holsters, "Were given to me by Bloody Bill Hickock in the days we rode together on the Pony Express." 

A murmur of appreciation went up from the crowd. Bill held up a hand. "I taught the man everything he knew." The crowd tittered. 

The old cowboy made some kind of signal to the Indian, and from years of practice he knew to move the other direction across the stage, about twenty feet. He drew a handful of playing cards out of somewhere in his makeshift cloak, and held one out at arms length, the edge just barely touching his fingers. 

The audience anticipated what would happen next and was silent as the cowboy backed up slightly, cocked one of the shotguns and aimed. The air was thick with anticipation and even David could feel himself tensing on the edge of the perch. 

BANG! 

The card flew from the brave's hand and the audience applauded. Jack almost stood up in excitement and rocked the catwalk back and forth in his frenzy. David held on for dear life. 

"Didja see that? Didja see what he did? Didja see that shooting!" 

David nodded quickly, his face and knuckles white as he tried to keep from pissing himself or having a heart attack or both. He had to admit he was impressed. 

The show seemed to David to drag on forever. There were more "fantastic feats" of marksmanship as Bill shot more cards, matches, and even invited a man up from the audience to defy death and be the target. The audience really loved that. David couldn't help checking backstage to see if Medda was going to go back on soon. He liked Medda, even if he couldn't enjoy her from that high in the air. 

Suddenly Jack was punching him playfully in the shoulder and telling him that they should leave. 

"What? Why?" 

"You gotta get home, right?" Jack was lighting a cigarette and his face was stony as he tried to measure the distance between the catwalk and a solitary rope hanging down to the edge of the curtain. Dave didn't feel like attempting any acrobatics. 

"Yeah, but I thought you wanted to see the rest of the show," David thought he sounded whiny again and clamped his mouth shut. He hated that his fear of what would have been everyday, ordinary events for Jack held him back from really being on the inside with him. They were supposed to be friends, yet David couldn't understand him. 

"Ladies and Gentlemen!" Dave's thoughts were interrupted by the old cowboy's booming voice calling out the next attraction like a carny. "Ladies and Gentlemen, I will now show you why I was called "Buffalo Bill". I will now show you what strength I posses, why during the civil war I could move up to a hundred Buffalo a week to our hungry boys in blue without tiring." 

This sent up a few feeble huzzahs from the audience from veterans. Bill's Indian friend slowly rolled a crate to center stage. 

Jack tugged on David's sleeve. His face was dark. "Let's go." 

Dave was still a little nervous, and now his curiosity was piqued as well. He wondered why Jack was so eager to leave, and he wanted to see how far he could be pushed. "No, I want to see this." 

"C'mon, now." 

"No. I thought you wanted me to see this great performer. Well now I'm enjoying myself." He lied. 

Jack frowned and his eyes dropped to the stage. David's followed. 

Standing exactly in the center of the white pool of spotlight, Bill was lifting the lid of the crate and waiting for the Indian to gather the contents... it looked like birds. Ordinary gray pigeons. The Brave managed to grasp three or four and hold them all in his crossed arms while Bill faced the audience again. He handed him two of the quivering creatures, frightened and blinded by the stage lights. Dave could see their little chests pumping up and down with terror as their heads bobbed. They were beautiful in the stage light -- their iridescent feathers were shining brilliant colors. He wondered if this was what he missed seeing each day of selling. 

Holding both birds on their backs tightly in his palms, the old cowboy raised both high above his head and promptly squeezed. The shrieks from the birds and sounds of their cracking bones were enough to chill David thoroughly, but his location afforded him a view of the shining red drops that sprayed from their tiny beaks as Bill tossed their lifeless bodies to the floor. They fell with a thud, broken feathers wafting down of their own accord and lighting on his shoulders or around the broken bodies. He reached for the other pair. 

David shuddered suddenly, his eyes glued to the twin carcasses at the man's feet. 

"Let's get outta here." Jack's voice suddenly seemed far away and David could hardly feel the hand on his shoulder. 

"I can't. I'm going to be sick." It was a promise. Jack surprised himself with the speed at which he guided David to and over the side of a rope ladder hanging off of the end of the catwalk closest to the exit. His feet firmly on the ground, Dave found his ears were ringing from the audience's wild applause. 

They ran into Medda in the darkness. Her feather fan tickled Jack's face and her perfume almost made David wretch. 

"Oh! Jack, are you leaving already?" 

"Yeah, well, David's gotta get home..." 

On the ground, David could look over his shoulder and see the showman reaching for yet another pair of the cooing birds, much to the excitement of the audience. 

My goodness, what a handsome strong man. 

He had bright blue eyes. Like David. 

Medda nodded knowingly, her eyes showing for all her years the mother that she may have been. 

"You need a place to stay tonight?" 

"Naw, I've got it taken care of. See you Medda." He kissed her quickly and dragged David out the back door. In the cold night air David calmed down enough to get his bearings. Jack lit another cigarette and handed it to him before disappearing back inside. He stared at it for a moment, then threw it away into the darkness before sitting back in the shadows of the building. David had never cared much for those things. 
 

Once when David was nine and Les was three, they'd been sitting out on the fire escape of their old apartment above the street reading aloud from a storybook so they'd both keep out of mother's way as she and Sarah did the laundry. It wasn't the most exciting thing in the world and David soon found his attention wandering. He was like that. One couldn't keep his attention with menial tasks. 
 
So he noticed when a crooked old woman hobbled into the street and threw a tied burlap sack into the middle of it. A few moments of broken reading passed before Les dropped off to sleep with his head in his lap. David took a chance and crept down into the street so he could satisfy his curiosity as to what someone would tie up in a sack and throw into the street in broad daylight. 

By the time David reached it, it was caked in mud and the usual filth of the streets of New York City. It had been run over by carriages a few times as well and was crumpled and smashed in most places. When David grasped it by the knot on one end he was startled to hear tiny mewing sounds coming from within. He rushed up the steps of the fire escape, hauling the sack which was half as big as he was, and into the window and almost on top of Sarah and Mrs. Jacobs, scaring them half to death. 

"David! I told you to watch your brother!" The woman scolded him, surprised and covered in suds from the washbasin. 

"Mama," David ignored her, "Look what I find in the street. I think there's an animal in it." 

Mrs. Jacobs looked surprised for a moment, then without hesitating cleared off a space on the table by pushing a heap of ironing to the floor. David placed the sack down, carefully, and watched as his mother ripped a hole with a kitchen knife. 

The stench made them all reel. It was blood, warm, sickly-sweet and very fresh. Sarah ran to the other side of the room to hide under a bin of lace. David vaguely wondered if Les was still asleep. It couldn't have been safe for him to be out on the fire escape all alone... But then his mother was cutting back a seam of the sticky burlap and pulling it back. What they saw made them both take a step back. 

Kittens. Five or six; David couldn't tell because their bodies were so mangled. Some of the tiny heads were smashed flat from carriges, others had limbs missing from where the wheels had severed them. The soft downy fur was matted with blood and other body fluids. David couldn't even tell what color they were. All of them were still and unmoving. The mewing had been silenced seconds earlier. 

David felt a tightening in his chest and the room began to spin. Before he knew what was happening his mother was pushing him out onto the fire escape and shutting the window quickly, then pulling the curtain shut. David looked helplessy from the window to Les, still curled up in a ball and sleeping so peacefully, his thumb stuck in his mouth. Suddenly David was very, very angry. He sat down on the steps and cried as hard as he dared without waking Les. The younger boy slept on, blissfully unaware of the miniature tradgey that had just played out in his own home. 
 

David hadn't thought of that incident in years. Mostly he remembered his mother's no-nonsense expression as she pushed him out of the room and shut the window, not casting a single glance back at him. He had been so angry at her for not letting him tend to the baby kittens as he would have saw fit. Later, of course, he realized there would have been nothing he could have done. They were already dead. Sarah, who had hidden and watched the entire time, told him that their mother had spent several minutes afterwards trying to single out each individual kitten and check for signs of life. When she found none, she threw a quick blessing on the bodies and wrapped them all in a clean pillowcase before taking them downstairs into oblivion. She was trying as best she knew how to protect him. 

Jack came back outside and wrapped his arms around himself as the cold night air bit into him. His breath froze as he leaned down to talk to David. 

"You okay?" 

David nodded. He looked up at Jack and smiled crookedly. "Thanks." 

Jack helped David to his feet and patted him on the back, then threw away the finished cigarette stub. They walked without speaking for a little while down the dark narrow streets toward David's home. It had been raining but the clouds had cleared off while they were inside. The slick black streets were lit up with the few stars that were visible, sparkling under their feet. It was one of the rare days in a New York autumn when the wind was purifying and the air smelled clean, instead of just biting cold. It was David who finally broke the silence. 

"Why'd you go back?" For a desperate second he insanely hoped it was to gather up the dead birds and dispose of them properly. 

Jack hesitated for a moment, throwing him a long sideways glance before reaching into his vest pocket. "To get one of these." He showed David one of the playing cards that had been shot from out of the Indian's hand during the show. Peering through the darkness David could see that it was a five of hearts. The bullethole in the middle was neat and expert. Bill did a clean job. Shooting, anyway. "You know, to show the guys." 

David nodded. It seemed that Jack had dismissed the entire episode. He had a very selective memory, as David recalled. He anticipated that Jack would add the card to his pile under his mattress at the lodging house and forget all about Davey's volitile reaction to the torture of small animals... either that or have a good laugh over it with his friends. Suddenly he didn't care. It was just as much as he expected from Jack. 

They reached the apartment. All the lights were out save for a single lamp on the table that meant Papa was still up waiting. David was in trouble. The two stood together on the fire escape, staring at the glow from behind the curtain. 

Jack cleared his throat. They spoke in whispers. "I'm sorry about this. Getting you in for it, I mean." He stared up at the brain-colored water running off of the rain gutter. 

David nodded. "I am too." 

Jack glanced at him wearing that unreadable expression that puzzled David so much and reached into his pocket. He held the card out to David carelessly. 

"Here. You keep it." 

David opened his mouth to refuse, but Jack shoved it into his hand. "I figure I owe you." 

That shut him up real quick. Jack Kelly owed him. Jack had never even let that thought exist between the two of them, but now he'd said it out loud. David stared down at the peace offering. It seemed that Jack wanted to forget this time. As far as David was concerned, he'd just erased all debts. He smiled and stuck it in his pocket. 

He stared at the window as he tried to formulate the words he wanted to express, but when he turned back he found that Jack was suddenly gone. That was another of his talents. 

The empty dark streets below were enveloped in stillness. Not a sound, not a clue to suggest Jack had ever been there. David wondered if he'd ever see him again, then dismissed the thought. Of course he would. Tomorrow morning when he and Les made their way to the distribution stand, they'd be greeted with the Cowboy's often dissappointing grin and life would go on as it had for the three of them since that summer and the strike. That was his safety net. Never mind that Jack had big dreams of a life out West. Who needed dreams when you got friends like the newsies? Dave thought suddenly of Buffalo Bill and wondered whether or not he had a good friend to drag him down when he was young and ambitious. 

For a moment he stared up at the stars, savoring the peacfulness of it all. The whole night seemed almost surreal, but he could feel in his pocket the evidence that it had actually happened. He found himself singing softly what he knew of the song Medda had performed that night, his favorite. Jack didn't know it was his favorite. He'd never told him. Maybe he would, and then what would Jack say to that? David grinned, imagining the Cowboy's reaction. He knocked on the window. 

Sometimes, David decided as he tried to assume a look of repentence before the window flew open, he just thought too much.