His Father Would've Killed Him Anyway

Sniper's First Day

Bonsoir, here comes Vil!

A while back on newsies_square (my Newsies page on Instagram), I posted The Story of Sniper Wah. In that I talked a bit about how he first met Finch, Tommy Boy and Smalls. I needed to turn it into an actual story, so here it is.

Disclaimer: No, Smalls is not a boy in this. Boysie Smalls is a crime. You'll see why she's a boy in the first half of this as you get to the vital point.

Jeffrey Wah. The self-sufficient son of Sam Wah, who was relatively known in part of Manhattan for owning the Wah Laundromat. This boy had no friends, no other family than his dad and nothing to do in his free time but earn money for his own food by working at the laundromat. One might say that the chances of living a better life than Jeffrey were anything but slim. Especially once the money he earned at the laundromat proved not to be enough to keep him healthy.

The damn fast metabolism...

Jeffrey's legs trembled on the way to the circulation gate, both out of nervosity and because of his lack of strength. Over the last few weeks, he'd experienced a drastic weight loss, for what had at first seemed like no reason. What he'd been eating had suddenly simply not been enough, and he'd lost more weight than he'd consumed in food. One unfortunate thing led to another, and he hadn't had enough energy for his job at the laundromat. His father had of course blamed him, saying "You're being lazy! Get up an' help that woman!"

Passing out from low blood sugar wasn't a pleasant experience. Once again, Jeffrey had been put to blame, and was told it was his own fault.

Now he was walking towards the very first day of his new job that he was going to have in addition to the laundromat. The nerves were building up, only teasing his already existing weakness.

His father had been furious to find out about this new job of Jeffrey's.

"No son of mine's goin' to be acquainted with those filthy newsboys!" was what he'd said. Yet his only son was about to be exactly that.

From what Jeffrey had seen, the newsies of New York City all seemed to know each other in one way or another. Completely escaping interaction was not a possible thing to do. For the millionth time in his life, he would be yelled at.

If only he'd been more careful when looking up newspapers' circulation gates. Then he'd have been able to lie and say that he was going somewhere - anywhere - else. Somewhere Sam Wah would approve of. Sadly, Jeffrey hadn't had any choice but to look up the way to the circulation gate of the nearest newspaper: The World, multiple times. Had he just walked without directions repeated to him several times, he would have gotten lost, and ended up in if possible even more trouble.

Even with the multitudes of instructions - "turn right there," "take a left after passing Duane Street," "go forward at Worth Street" - he was pretty sure he'd taken a wrong turn. Having not taken a turn when he was supposed to was also a possibility. Either way, none of the instructions had mentioned walking down Jay Street.

Then, from one second to another, he went from being lost to not being alone on this street he wasn't supposed to be on. Two boys walked around the street corner, hand in hand. They quickly spotted him. He must have looked confused, because they walked straight up to him, and the taller of the two said: "Are ya lost?"

Jeffrey looked around for one final confirmation that he didn't know where he was.

"Yeah." He sighed at his own misfortune, having done exactly what he'd tried to prevent by looking up directions four times. "You... Youse don't happen ta know where The World's circulation gate is?"