King of the Streets (The Two Moons of Rehnor)
The Two Moons of Rehnor
Novella Collection
King of the Streets
by
J. Naomi Ay
Published by Ayzenberg Inc
Copyright Ayzenberg, Inc. 2012
All Rights Reserved
230412
Cover Design by Amy Jambor
Photo credits: Michey@Bigstock.com and TEA@Bigstock.com
Also by J. Naomi Ay
The Two Moons of Rehnor series
The Boy who Lit up the Sky (Book 1)
My Enemy's Son (Book 2)
Of Blood and Angels (Book 3)
Firestone Rings (Book 4)
The Days of the Golden Moons (Book 5)
Golden's Quest (Book 6)
Metamorphosis (Book 7)
The Choice (Book 8)
The Beginning (Books 1- 3)
Mid Vita (Books 4 & 5)
Novella Collection
Lydia's Dance
Taner's Running Game
Meri
King of the Streets
Diridan's Daughter
Caissa's Favor
Thad's Mistakes
Space Doctor
Big Red
Journey to Rehnor series
The New Planet
Aran's Gift
I remember the rain. It came down in great torrents completely soaking through my thin sweater and running down my back whereupon it soaked the top of my underpants. My good dress trousers were saved from destruction as they hung low about my hips. This was due to the waistband providing several inches more than my own waist required. The cuffs of my pants were not so fortunate as they puddled around my ankles and dragged across the muddy sodden ground soaking up the rain as well as dirt. If Mum was here, she would have insisted I wear short pants. She might also have put out a pair of clean black socks for me instead of the white ones with large holes in the heels which I wore. Probably, Mum would have remembered to bring the umbrella from the stand in the front hall, and would have held it over my head. Her arm would lie about my shoulders, so she might keep me dry and safely nestled against her warm soft body. I wore long pants because Paps said I must now become a man. I wasn't going to be a child anymore. A child had a mum who worried these things for him, and I no longer did. My mum was in the plain pine wood box that was being laid into the ground as we stood there on this grey, wet day in August.
Mum died on the same day as the Princess Lydia purely by coincidence. It was a strange day. It started out warm as summer days are supposed to be with the sun and two golden moons shining in the sky over our heads. My friends and I raced out into the streets to play ball in the empty lot next to the grocer's store on the corner. We had a park on the next block over, but there was only a single rusty swing and a slide that had toppled over on its side many years earlier and had never been righted. The park had been covered in grass at one point, but most of it had died leaving only patches of weeds and gravel with the occasional drug addict's hypodermics poking out of the ground like dandelions here and there. The empty lot had a few of those needles, too, but on the cracked pavement it was easier to see them before we managed to step on them and find ourselves rushed off to the emergency room by a frantic parent. I brought my ball as mine was in the best shape, Mum having rescued it from the charity bin at the Sainted Ladies' soup kitchen only a day before. There were two other neighborhood guys playing with me then, Smirt and Lee, but before noon, we would be joined by at least three others and have a good game going before we were all called in for supper.
By early afternoon, the weather began to change. There were five of us kicking the ball around by then. Smirt and I were on one team with Lee, Byl, and Simon on the other. Smirt and I led seven to two as I was the oldest and best player and Smirt was the biggest even though he was three years younger than me at only five. The other guys were all eight years old like me but of varying sizes and abilities. When the rain started to pummel down on us, the sky darkening as if the sun and moons had suddenly been eclipsed, the other team took the opportunity to call off the game and go home. Someone's mum was standing on her stoop yelling to us. Even the grocer came out of his store and told us to go in. The wind began to pick up, blowing thickly up the street tossing the trash from the gutters into the air and wiping our hair and t-shirts back against our faces. Far off in the distance, a roar could be heard like a city bus but louder.
"What d'ya think it is, Reggie?" They all looked at me, the wisest of our tiny group. I had never heard a sound like this and in my few short years, never recalled a wind that came upon us so quickly or so harshly. It picked up my ball and whisked it down the street sending all of us chasing after it until it slammed into the front stoop of a building. Smirt grabbed it then and proudly handed it back to me, respectful of my position and as always, making every effort to retain his as my chief lieutenant. The other boys' mums now appeared on their stoops yelling at everyone to hurry and come in. The only stoop empty was mine. I quickly mounted it anyway, racing in through the doors of my building as the roaring sound grew so loud, it seemed to rock the building with echoes. I made to go up the stairs to my flat on the third floor, but just as I did, glass came raining down on top of me crashing against the stair rails, cutting my hands and face and sending me into eight-year-old shock. It seemed as if the entire roof was falling. In my panic, I fell back down the few steps I had mounted and under the stairs. I stayed there huddled during the entire strange storm which left our building without a roof as well as the top floor. My mum was carried away by the wind, her body found on the next street over under a pile of wreckage. We buried her two days later, my paps and me, the neighbors and Mum's sister all crowding around the hole dug into the side of the hill. At that very same moment far on the other side of our city, the Princess in her great glass coffin was reduced to ashes, the body of her infant son missing from her side.
"Reggie," Paps said, putting his hand on my shoulder as we began our long trek down the hill and back to our flat. "I need to be telling you something, lad. You can grieve for your blessed mum as much as your heart needs as she was a good and Saintly woman for taking you in."
"What does that mean, Paps?" My head and heart were reeling from all these tearful goodbyes, and my underpants had soaked completely through making my legs chaff against each other as I walked.
"Well lad, the truth of it is, though we loved you like our own, we picked you up at the Orphan Home when you were just a wee little thing. Your mum as you knew her was not your true mum. Perhaps, now that she's gone and buried, you might want to be searching for the other."
I wasn't sure what to make out of all this as not only was I now motherless, I had been motherless once before. On top of that, our flat had been destroyed so Paps, and I were living on the street. All we had left were the clothes on our backs, and the ball I had taken to the park. Paps still had his job although he missed work today which meant he'd have no money for the pub tonight except for his charity mourner's coins.
"Maybe I should return you to the Orphan Home even. D'ya think they'd take back a boy of eight?"
"Paps!" I clung to his leg. "I want to stay with you. You're my dad!"
"Aren't you hearing me, Reggie? I'm not your dad at all, though I enjoyed having you around. Yes, I did."
"Then why can't I stay? Why are you sending me away? I thought you loved me. I'm not a bad kid."
"Ach, Reggie," he sighed and gently pushed me away from him. "You see, lad, everything's now changed. I don't have a wife anymore. I don't even have a home. I think I'll just go drink away my sorrows. I won't be a good dad to you. I can hardly take care of myself. You'd probably
be better off out on the streets." With that, he turned his back and headed into the nearest pub to spend his few coins on as many drinks as they would buy. I stood in the street in my baggy used clothes even wetter than before trying to think of where to go or what to do next.
I trudged along in the direction of the Sainted Lady's store figuring I could at least change my trousers for some that fit better. If I had really come from the Orphan Home, they might recognize me and take me back. They might even have a bed for me to sleep. I was willing to work. I wasn't a scofflaw. I was big for eight, and I thought pretty smart. I was hungry,too, and that became my first priority as I didn't have a single coin or anything eat. I passed many beggars on my way, some who looked hungrier than me and I hurried through a large box city that was nestled against the crumbling remains of a building. It was filled with dozens of families crowded in cardboard box houses, some barely big enough to fit a single man. Babies cried, and people yelled while others called out to those on the street begging for coins.
"'ey Reggie." Smirt ran up from a box somewhere within the midst. He tried to sound street-tough which was hard for a five-year old. "What're ye doing out 'ere, me mate? Did you bring your ball to play?"
"Sorry, Smirt. I'm heading back to the Sainted Ladies where I'm hoping they'll take me in. They might even give me a job. It seems I'm an orphan again as my paps doesn't want me anymore, so I don't have anywhere else to go."
"You think they'll take me, too?" Smirt wiped his snotty nose on his already filthy shirt. "My paps gone away, so now it's just Mum and Sis. They won't mind if I live somewhere else."
"I dunno." I didn't really care if he tagged along with me. In fact, I kind of liked his company.
"Maybe we should find yer real mum," Smirt suggested. "Maybe she lives in a palace by the sea?" I didn't tell him that was too stupid to believe. Why ruin his dream of a place better than these streets?
"Maybe I'm the lost prince," I suggested as we trudged along. "And you'll be my Royal Guard and protect me with your life." He laughed and started chatting about lightswords and guns, dreaming of a world far different from ours.
It seemed like we walked for miles and miles and maybe we did because I got lost. I thought the store was on one street while it was in a different direction entirely. Darkness fell, and the gas lamps hissed frying insects that flew into their light. Smirt and I sat down on a corner, our legs tired, our toes blistering from walking many miles in torn socks and bad shoes. Our bellies growled hungrily, and I was thirsty for a drink.
"I want to go home," Smirt whimpered, "but not to the box. I want to go back to my flat, which isn't there."
"Me too," I agreed, holding my chin in my hands. "I want my mum to make me some soup and a tall glass of milk that's cold from the fridge."
"I want a cake with frosting on top, and I don't care if it's chocolate or vanilla."
"I want a sausage, and I'll eat peas even though I hate stuff that is green."
"I want anything!' Smirt cried, his eyes dripping and his nose oozing all kinds of yellow pus.
"You want a job?" a man asked or maybe he was just a kid. In any case, he was big and a lot older than us. "I'll give ye some coins if ye deliver me box to the Chester in the speeder one block over."
"That's it?" I asked, trying to temper my excitement. It might be this guy was up to no good.
"Just carry a box?" Smirt jumped up. "I can do it myself. I'm big even though I'm just five."
"No, we'll both do it." I grabbed the box from the guy at the same time as Smirt. We played tug-of-war until Smirt remembered I was the boss of business conducted on the street.
"Now listen, mates," he said. "You'll do as I say. You hold the box." He pointed at me. "And you'll make sure that no one else is about on account five-year olds have the best eyes. Now run over there real quick and when ye come back I'll give ye your coins, one for each. It shouldn’t take ye, but three minutes to do this job."
That's all it took, three minutes or less as there was only one speeder on the street parked beneath a lamp. I couldn't see who waited inside as the windows were darkened glass, but a hand was held out awaiting our box. I handed it over and then Smirt, and I ran. Now, we each earned a coin that we used to buy dinner. That night, we slept in an empty, condemned building with a bunch of street boys who were all abandoned or orphaned just like us.
"We'll keep ye busy every day," our new boss informed us. "We always have packages to deliver, and coins to collect. Ye little guys have the quickest feet and the most innocent faces. 'Tis lads like ye that keep us in business and out of jail."
It seemed like a good idea. We had a place to live and coins to spend. I even got a new pair of trousers that weren't quite so big. The work was easy and more fun than school. We learned a lot about living on the streets. This would benefit us later in life or so we were told as the basic rules we followed could be applied anywhere. Keep to the shadows when a copper passes by and if he sees you run as fast as you can. Don't look in the packages or at the customer and if they speak, turn your eyes away. When you carry the money, never keep a coin for yourself as you'll get your reward when you get home. Pack a blade until you're taught how to use a gun and use them both to make sure that you get paid. Smirt and I worked as partners every day without fail as the buddy system was necessary to survive. If one of us got in trouble, the other helped him out. Those who worked alone often disappeared. Some went to the clink, and some ended up as dead. Others wandered the streets wasted and stoned, their drug blown brains searching only for their next fix. It was a nasty business we were in, but it had its rewards, so I worked the system and clawed my way to the top.
****
By the time I was fourteen and Smirt eleven, we had a good sized territory that covered eight square city blocks. It encompassed the center of Old Mishnah, bordering the Farmer's market and the shopping plaza. I owned the drug trade in the oldest part of the town which was the largest and most profitable piece of the city. Twice I had spent some time in the clink. Once it was for a week and the second for two. I was let off with good behavior although the coppers told me to change my ways. A smart kid like me could turn into somebody else. I didn't want to be somebody else, to tell you the truth. I was making good money and working as my own boss. My profits were high and my taxes were low, and none of my employees demanded benefits.
One day in the middle of winter, business was slow as the snow was keeping everyone home. Smirt was shooting up Horkin, laughing and rolling around on the floor while I just sat by the window smoking a cig. I wiped my hand across the glass that was all fogged up and glanced down at the street to see what was new out there. As the window fogged again, I spied a boy heading this way, a big brown dog loping along at his side. Having nothing better to do, I put on my cloak and boots, and strolled out into the street to find out what was what with this little guy.
"Hey," I called to the kid who stopped and regarded me with the strangest eyes I had ever seen. They were a bright and flashing silver that seemed to bore right into my brain. My head felt warm, and my mind got a little fuzzy. It was almost as if I had been using some Horkin. As quickly as it came, the sensation disappeared and I was just standing in the street staring at the kid. "Hey," I called again in the language of the street as I made an effort to sound like a native. "Me name's Reggie. Are you looking for a job? Mayhaps, you need coins to buy some food?" The kid shrugged and turning away, he continued on his path, his oversize cloak dragging tracks across the snow. "Do you need a place to stay?" I offered. "We've got room for a few more boys. I can put you to work delivering packages."
"I'll think on it." He shrugged again and lighting a cig, he disappeared around the corner of a neighboring building. I reached into my pocket for a cig myself. The air was frigid and had turned my lungs to ice. My pocket was empty, no cigs or any coins although I was certain I had both before I came outside. If the kid was a pick-pocket, I wanted him on my staff as that was the smoothest nicking job I'd ever seen.<
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"Hey," I ran after him. "Hey kid, I've got an idea for you." I didn’t see him anywhere in that alley.
I forgot all about that strange kid as I had a business to run with employees to manage and more to hire. Lee, Byl and Simon had joined our small crew, and were very adept at making deliveries in the dark. I expanded my trade to include protecting the ladies as both Smirt and Byl were enormous and made good body guards. The girls from the old neighborhood and some new ones off the street signed up for our security services as we were the cheapest rate around. We kept half of the take, not including our bonus and perks, so I never had a problem assigning boys to this detail. My business grew quite rapidly in both the drug and whoring trades so by the time I turned sixteen, I was known as the King of the Streets. I lived in the penthouse of a condemned building surrounded by all my minions who showered me with their attention and ran to do anything I required. The city cops recognized my rule and sought out my favor and my coins. They let my boys go and charged less for my girls as they knew I ran a clean and profitable operation. I paid them weekly taxes to look the other way when I came to collect whoever was in the clink. After bailing out my employee, I'd stay for a poker game, so the coppers had a chance to double their money. Always, I let them win although I gave them a challenge until the last pot and then I'd fold my hand and shake my head.
"I've no luck at all," I'd sigh dramatically. "You coppers beat me every time."
"Ach Reggie," they always said. "How can ye be such a good businessman when yer completely lousy at playing a game of cards?"
"I don't know," I always replied looking forlornly at my empty stack. "I guess you city coppers are just too smart for me. See ya next time fellahs." Then I'd wink and let myself out, smoking a cig and strolling home on my city streets.