Page 19 of By Any Means

Laurie relaxed. “Yeah,” he admitted. “Pretty much.”

“It’s my only night off. D’you understand?”

Laurie nodded sheepishly. The man threw down his cig onto the threshold and stomped it.

“So, you can do me a kindness and tell me what you really wanted from this. Saw you eyein’ my union badge. And your name.” His brows rose. “’Cuz I can tell you’re not lyin’ about bein’ New York Scotch. And what if we’re related.”

Laurie laughed. “We’re not.” He paused. “You from Ulster county?”

“Naw. Farther upstate. Olean.” He pointed to himself. “Irving Sawyer.”

“Laurie.”

Irving’s eyes were keen. “Laurie…?”

Laurie shrugged. It was a popular name. He was one of a hundred reporters at the Appeal, out of perhaps thousands in New York City. Even so. Another small piece, irretrievable.

“At least I got that much. You like givin’ it instead, Laurie?”

Laurie stared. “No.”

Irving smiled wryly. “No hope for my redemption, then. Shame.”

“I…” Laurie coughed. “…wouldn’t say that, exactly.”

Irving held the door open. “You wanna coffee?”

The night hours dripped slowly into Saturday dawn. They made conversation over coffee until about a quarter to six, when Irving stood from his round dining table and invited Laurie to accompany him to the newsies. Laurie would never turn up a chance to see what papers a man read on the regular, so he put on his cap and left down the fire escape the way he’d meant to hours before. After a prudent round-the-block, he rejoined Irving on the corner. The man had put on a bowler and an elbow-patch jacket in the meantime.

Thankfully for the newsboys, the rain had stopped. Irving stood in their cloud of humid tobacco smoke and chatter and plucked a paper from a freckled boy who greeted him by name, and whose familiar stack teetered on a bicycle.

“You’re an Appeal man,” Laurie said, half-approving, half-alarmed, as he approached.

Irving grinned, stuck the paper beneath his arm, and yawned. “’Cept the mornin’ edition’s my evenin’.”

Laurie bought a copy himself. Number 495, fresh off the presses, rain-dampened: Call to Arms to the American Plutocracy: The Address to the National Manufacturer’s Assoc., May 16th. Heavy stuff.

“Brutal shift, you have.”

“Six on, six off, on workin’ days.” Irving shrugged. “Suits me, though. I can take all kinds of odd jobs.”

Laurie remembered his dark eyes across the bar and laughed. “I’ll bet you can.”

Irving smiled and bought a second paper from a different paperboy, today’s National Police Gazette, a less intriguing choice—except that it had a wrestler in very tiny shorts on the front page. Fancy. He might buy a copy for himself.

Irving jerked his head in fresh invitation, and they left the newsies.

A policeman came briskly toward them on the sidewalk, baton twirling. They split automatically to let him through, rejoining farther apart than before. Laurie might playact at being white-collar for Sam and his cohorts, but uniforms were centerfold fantasies of privileged queers. Coppers weren’t remotely Laurie’s idea of masculinity made ideal.

Nor, he suspected, Irving’s; the man didn’t so much as take a second glance. He unfolded the wings of the paper, opening straight to advertisements. Typical.

“So, what’re you reportin’ on now, Lawrence Tulley?”

Laurie missed a step, stumbled over an upheaving brick. “Sorry?” he choked. Jesus, he hadn’t expected that. “When⁠—?”

“I’m not gonna ever out you,” Irving said quickly. He twitched a newsprint wing. “Just now. Looked like it scared you. And you wouldn’t say your surname, hmm? Tulley’s Scots.”

Laurie sighed. He should’ve gone with a pseudonym years before. And he apparently needed to fix his face. Maybe there was something to Hiram’s insistence on using his real name. “Yeah. Got me.”