A Freak's Journey

By Steven Roberts

In 1890’s London, six-year old Jimmy Stockley’s mum throws him out of their apartment while she services clients. Jimmy runs away and joins a caravan circus. Taken in by a new mum, Jimmy grows into James as he meets the circus owner’s challenge to become a “good freak” by learning a skill that will attract customers to the circus. Success in the Big Top is contrasted with James’ frustration over his inability to learn to read despite his new mum’s best schooling efforts.
As he grows into his mid teens James falls in love with Caitlin, the lion tamer’s daughter. Her father objects and threatens to feed him to the big cats for dinner. James runs from his adopted mum and his love and joins the British Army, fighting for Britain in three theaters of war including the Boar War in South Africa. When not at war, James, once a boxer in the circus side show, represents his regiment in boxing competitions. Caitlin objects in letters but boxing allows James to avoid weekly testing that he would certainly fail. Caitlin finds out James is still engaged in the brutal sport and permanently breaks off the relationship.
Disheartened, James flees to America and a job as a field boss on a Florida tomato ranch. He is a tough boss when controlling the migrant workers but the death of a field hand in a fight brings James under suspicion and he is forced to run again. As the war in Europe heats up, James hears that Winston Churchill, James’ POW cell mate in the Boar War, is going to be meeting with President Roosevelt. James goes to Washington DC to ask Churchill to hide him from the Florida authorities. James is given a job on an Army Corp of Engineer’s dam project outside York, Pennsylvania. When a long lost letter from Caitlin finally catches up with him, James falls in love all over again and returns to England to attempt a reunion with Caitlin.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steven Roberts
• Release date: Jul 29, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465794796

Steven Roberts

Writing: Steve has written eight books, non-fiction books, action adventure novels and an anthology of short stories, poems and songs. He has spoken to groups about surviving cancer, the challenges of entrepreneurship, and writing books, as well as presentations of his books.Community: Steve is currently Chairman of the Dearborn Library Foundation and works with Habitat for Humanity in Florida. He is the founder of authors’ clubs in Florida and Michigan.Personal: Steve worked in the automotive industry in Europe and Detroit, later operating his own management consulting firm. Steve and two partners also built and operated a golf course near Jackson, Michigan. Steve and his wife, Jane, live in Dearborn, Michigan and spend winters at Kensington CC in Naples, Florida. They have four married children and twelve grandchildren.

Book preview

A Freak’s Journey

The Life and Times of a

Six-Year-Old Circus Runaway

A Novel

By

Steven R. Roberts

Copyright 2011 By Steven R. Roberts

Smashwords Edition

All Rights Reserved

First Edition 2010

ISBN 978-0-9844028-0-9 (bp)

ISBN 978-0-9844028-4-5 (dj)

Printed in the United States of America

No portion of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or in any manner, (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without prior written permission from the author, except for short quotations in reviews or essays.

The edition published by:

S. R. Productions Publishing

5 Gleneagles Court

Dearborn, Michigan, 48120

Cover by – Mark Johnston Associates

E-mail address – [e-mail]

Web Site – www.steverroberts.com

This book is dedicated to the memory of David Wood (1916 - 2009). His telling of the true life story of Jim Stockley is the basis for this novel.

James ran from the love of two mothers

and the girl denied him by his own demons.

Table of Contents

The Dam Project

The Borough of Islington

Circus Home

Private Performance

Special Delivery

Training a Freak

A Walker’s Requiem

Bridge and Wheel

Tommy the Terror

The River

Army Default

Caitlin’s Ride

The Boer War

Fight Flight

The Corporal and the Champion

Roads and Rails

A Near Miss

Hit and Run

A Tender Balance

RBBB to York

Mrs. Singer’s Circus

The Circle

The Reader

Acknowledgements

Thanks go first to David Wood, the man who related the story of James Stockley’s life to me over many hours of interviews and record reviews. David was 92 at the time of our discussions and he was a remarkable storyteller. We became friends over our time together and I miss him since his passing in January, 2009. David had a personal sense of integrity and honor seldom if ever seen today.

David Wood worked for two years for James Stockley on the Indian Rock Dam project outside York, Pennsylvania in the late 1930s. David’s patience and perseverance on the job and in after work meetings opened up his uncommunicative boss and thereby unlocked the mystery of James Stockley’s unusual life. Eventually, Stockley included stories of his arrival into circus life at six years old, his boxing days, his time as a prisoner of war with Winston Churchill, his time working in Florida and his appearance on the dam project.

Many thanks are due to Jerry and Cathie Fischer for introducing me to David and for seeing the possibilities of David and me becoming friends and working together on this and other projects.

Thanks also go out to the kind people of the Circus City Festival and the Circus Museum in Peru, Indiana. Special thanks go to Bill Anderson, Director of Circus Operations, for the interview time he granted me for this book.

As usual on one of these projects, it takes a team to bring my ragged prose up to a level suitable for release in book form. I am grateful to Mark Johnston for his insightful story edits and cover design and to Sandra Richardson for her professional editing of the manuscript. The book also benefited greatly from manuscript reviews by friends, Carl Steinhouse, Sir Nicholas Scheele, Mary Anne Linsell and Katie Ogden. It always surprises me what I miss the first ten times I read my manuscripts.

Thanks also to daughter Joan Saynor and my wife Jane for proofreading endless drafts and for their many excellent story comments. Jane, thanks for the many times you let me write when I should have been doing more productive things around the house. Even with all of this help, any errors in grammar, the shifting of historical chronologies or the errant use of circus’ history and practices on both sides of the Atlantic are, of course, my personal responsibility.

Foreword

A Freak’s Journey is based on a true story of the life and times of James Stockley. James was born in 1884 and, at six-years-old, he ran away from his abusive home and joined a circus that came to his London borough. The story was related to me in a series of interviews with an American named David Wood (1916-2009). Wood worked with Stockley on the Indian Rock Dam, a late 1930s public works project building a dam to protect York, Pennsylvania from the Susquehanna River watershed.

Working on the dam project, Stockley was a tough, uncompromising boss despite, and possibly because of, his lack of any apparent qualifications for the job of Chief Army Engineer for the project. Stockley’s aloof and dismissive demeanor on the job changed over time away from the job. Wood invited his boss repeatedly to have a beer after work on the way home. Stockley finally accepted. During the many after work conversations that followed, Stockley gradually related to David Wood the story of his early life on the streets of London as the child of a prostitute, his years with a British caravan circus, and his British Army service including his encounters with Winston Churchill during the Boer War. Stockley also told of the young British girl he loved and lost through circumstance and his own demons.

Conversations with David Wood and reviews of documentation verify many but not all of the facts of the story. I hope you enjoy this novelized, or creative non-fiction, version of this very unusual man’s life.

A Freak’s Journey

By Steven R. Roberts

The Dam Project

Did you ever meet a guy who had a good job and you couldn’t for the life of you figure how he got it? I’m David Wood and I remember well such a man. He was the Army Engineering Director responsible for one of the largest infrastructure projects of the pre-WWII era, the Indian Rock Dam near York, Pennsylvania. With eight civil engineers reporting to him along with the crews of 12 private contractors, the army’s man on the job was responsible for the government’s sign-off on the engineering, cost, pumping, and finishing of 300,000 cubic yards of cement, four times that used nine years earlier to build the Empire State Building. The position was also responsible for insuring the proper installation of the mechanical portion of the project including the dam gates, all electrical and massive dirt movements for the dam’s earthen berms.

While every phase of the project required the Army Engineer’s official signoff, within two days on the job I knew he wasn’t an engineer and couldn’t read a blueprint. Within a week, I was convinced he couldn’t read anything. In another week, I wasn’t even sure he was in the army. It was a mystery how the man was appointed to such an important position.

The Indian Rock Dam project had been approved for $5.1 million, after a lengthy congressional process, to protect the city of York from the kind of flooding that occurred seven years earlier when six to 12 feet of floodwater streamed through the heart of town. The eighth tropical storm of 1933, known in the area as the Chesapeake and Potomac Hurricane, brought 14 inches of rain in four days to the watershed area of the Susquehanna River and its tributaries, causing destructive flooding and deaths in eastern Pennsylvania, including the cities of York and Reading. The work we did that year on the Codorus River three miles north of York is still protecting the city nearly 70 years later.

As a young graduate civil engineer, I was working as the cement superintendent for the largest outside contractor. In my new job I came in daily contact with the on-site Army Engineering Director, James Stockley. The army boss was an imposing man, around 5’ 10 in height, stout in body and rough in manner. He carried a rolled-up blueprint in one hand each day and walked heavily up and down the dam site. Squinting his eyes and maintaining a facial expression of disappointment in what he saw, the Boss," as we called him, seemed to find things each day that made him madder than hell. The younger superintendents on the job joked that it must have been a technique the older man used to stay awake after lunch. Whatever the rationale, Stockley would often find a reason to yell at one of us or one of our workers at least once a day over what seemed to be an incident that could have been better handled in a calmer tone. He had a vertical scar down the right side of his forehead that turned red when he worked himself into a frenzy.

One day the boss noticed that a crew was double wrapping the junctions where the rebars crossed. This actually held the rebar more stable while the cement was poured, but a single wire wrap was specified.

What the hell are you doing? he shouted at the supervisor one afternoon, as one of the men told me later. This is not a Goddamn craft project. There’s a process for doing the job. Do it! There’s a line of guys waiting at the union hall that can follow a simple process chart. You got that?

Stockley was said to have paused and grabbed his hat, slapping it against his thigh, and narrowing his black-eyed stare at the tall slender supervisor standing a foot in front of him. You’re not trembling! he sputtered. If you value your job I suggest you learn to tremble when I talk to you. With that, the wide-awake army boss turned and walked down the berm toward his truck.

I don’t give a damn, he said in another of his rages later that month, whether it rained for five days last week. I don’t care about the lorry of rebar being hit by a rubbish collector. And I don’t want to hear that somebody’s bitch dog died. We’re going to pour every day. Lads, I’m not going back to Washington telling them we made a cock-up of this job.

I guess I forgot to mention, it was clear that our American army boss appeared to be from someplace other than the U.S., possibly Britain or maybe Australia, we thought. We doubted he was a U.S. citizen but we weren’t about to ask.

Good morning, I said one overcast day in late September as the boss climbed up the face of the earthen berm we were finishing. I was standing with Roy Kelly, another young civil engineer, the superintendent of the earth moving and landscaping part of the dam project.

What the hell are those scrapers doing this morning? We were used to the lack of any form of greeting from the boss. Have you seen the east end of the berm? I guess not. Well it stinks, Stockley said, looking at Roy and me as if he didn’t know which one of us was in charge of the earth moving work.

The scrapers were responsible for bringing dirt up to the earth berm and spreading it two feet thick to hide some of the cement buttresses in back of the dam. Stockley didn’t agree with the way the scrapers were doing the work. Without another word to us, he walked over and waved down one of the scrapers.

You’ve got the whole berm screwed up, Stockley shouted up to the driver. You’re dumping too much dirt on top of the dam.

Hey, you ain’t the king? the driver said. He worked for one of the contractors we were using and he hadn’t met Stockley. I’m spreading according to the instruction Kelly gave us this morning. The driver’s sizable upper left arm was making a statement as he leaned over the side of the open window and looked down. I don’t work for you. In fact I wouldn’t work for somebody so stupid. I’ll do my job and you do your so-called job, whatever the hell that might be, the driver said as he restarted the engine.

Lad! Stockley shouted over the sound of the engine. If you’ll step down off that cat I think I can straighten out this little misunderstanding.

The driver laughed as he switched off the engine, turned from his seat and jumped down. He landed very close to the shorter man, causing a cloud of dust to rise around them.

The instant he hit the ground Stockley reached back and threw a full-force right fist to the guy’s heart and the driver went down hard. He looked shocked and suddenly out of breath. The driver jumped back up and threw a punch. Stockley ducked and ran a haymaker into the driver’s belly and he doubled over and went down again. Looking stunned and breathing hard, the driver crawled over to his rig and pulled himself up next to one of the tires. The other drivers were idling their rigs to watch the scene. This was the first time they had seen a job boss deck one of the drivers. One of the other drivers jumped down and hurried over to the scene.

Son, Stockley said, narrowing his dark eyes and face into a grin, you don’t have to get hurt if you turn around where you stand and get back on that cat. If you decide to participate in this discussion, I will break your nose. Then you’ll have to take the rest of the day off trying to get it reassembled. I’d hate to lose you for the day.

The second driver decided to help the first man back up into his rig. Then he returned to his vehicle and led the scrapers to the equipment holding field where they took a break for lunch. It was 10:15 in the morning.

This surprising capability for violence only enhanced the boss’ mysterious presence on the job. Just 24 and fresh out of college, I was anxious to put my civil engineering degree to work. He appeared to be in his late 50s and bent on employing a management style of humiliation and intimidation. James Stockley was a certified playground tough who didn’t play well with others. Over the course of the project I would learn to survive Stockley and, in some ways, appreciate his intentions if not his methods. Little by little I would also discover the path that led him to his seemingly unusual station in life.

A few weeks into the job, Brian Hilliard, one of the other superintendents and I were having a beer at the Yorktown Bar after work when Stockley walked in and sat down on the stool next to Brian.

How you doing, Boss? Brian asked.

Not bad considering I hear from Washington every day, Stockley said in his usual abrupt manner of speaking.

What’s the problem? Are they checking up on us? I asked.

I don’t know, Stockley said, ordering a beer. I think they have to move a ton of paper a week and 30 pounds has been allotted to me. The boss looked straight ahead and took a drink of his beer. He was quiet for a while and we tried to think of something to say. Conversations on the job had always been one-sided, coming straight at us.

Have you dealt with the Army Corp of Engineers before? I asked. It was admittedly a question all of us had wanted to ask for several months. He was like a man with no past to those of us who worked for him. The boss didn’t answer, continuing to stare straight ahead as if studying himself and his beer in the mirror behind the bar.

The three of us worked our way through one beer with only a few words said and those were directed at the bartender. After the beer we all left and walked to the parking lot.

How often do you guys stop here? Stockley asked.

Only a couple of times a week, usually on Tuesdays and Fridays, I said, wondering if he would think that was excessive.

Okay, he said, getting in his car. I’ll see you then.

What was that all about? Brian asked, after the boss pulled away.

I don’t know. Who knows anything about this guy? I asked.

Brian and I continued to stop for a beer or two at the Yorktown Bar twice a week after work and about half the time Stockley joined us one beer later. He didn’t have an agenda and he certainly didn’t have much to say other than the occasional remark about the job.

I assume you’re from England? I asked one night, not knowing what else to say or whether the boss would favor us with a continuing stare at the bottles and the mirror across the bar, or a response. He paused and attempted a smile, looking at me in the mirror he responded.

Yes, I was, he said flatly, but that was a long time ago. I haven’t been back in many years.

What was it like growing up in England? I asked, too curious now to stop.

My innocent questions seemed to catch the boss off guard and he turned to me.

It was pretty bad, he said, in a quiet voice we’d never heard at the job site.

You were poor? I asked.

Yes, I guess we were but there were bigger problems than not having enough money. It was so bad that I ran away and joined the circus at age six. He turned back to the mirror, having said all he was going to say that night.

Over the course of many nights and weeks that summer at the Yorktown Bar, however, Stockley filled us in little by little on the wild ride that had brought him to us. Some nights he had a lot to say and some he didn’t move the story forward an inch. By spacing our questions carefully, we eventually learned about his journey from his early days in London to his days in a British caravan circus, to his boxing career and appointment as the U.S. Army’s Chief Engineer in charge of the Indian Rock Dam Project.

Through it all, we got the picture of a troubled man carrying some heavy burdens and some self-inflicted stab wounds that refused to heal.

The Borough of Islington

Jimmy ran full speed toward the other three, looking back over his shoulder with full fright on his face and crying No, No! Five feet short of the group he tripped and fell, rolling into Max, his teacher. At eight-years-old, Max, a skinny kid living most of the time on the streets, was as close to a father figure as Jimmy had known. For the final bit Jimmy looked up with his wide eyes, brushed his long mop of brown locks out of his eyes and said, So very sorry, Sir.

Blimey, Jimmy, you’ve got to put more spit into the game, Max said to his young foil. Let’s see your lower lip quiver when you look up at the target. London streets is ripe with targets but ya’ gotta sell your soul in this bit, Jimmy, or it bloody-well won’t work a lick. I’m not lookin’ for anythin’ queer here me boy just sweet innocent fear in those soft black eyes. Max, with his dirty yellow hat sitting back on his head, was exasperated at the results of his first training lesson with six-year-old Jimmy, the gang’s newest recruit.

James Northway Stockley was born in the near north side slum of London known as Islington. He and his mother Renee lived in a tiny one-room apartment on the third floor of a building on Childerditch Lane just off Liverpool Road. The four-story buildings stood in long rows close to each other each apartment had one small window for ventilation. Landlords were taxed per window. Typical for 1880s London, the apartments in their block had no water and no toilet facilities. Renee carried water from a pump located about 150 meters down the street from their building. There were pumps located all over London in those days and they were open only certain times and certain days. Lines were typically long at the pumps to fill the families’ pots and jugs. Families who ran out of water while the pumps were closed had to use the water in the rivers, which were also depositories for the neighborhood’s garbage and human dung.

Because the latrines on the ground floor of the building were dank and putrid, most upper floor residents kept a copper chamber pot in the corner of the room. When the pot filled for a day or two and the smell in the apartment became unbearable, it was emptied out the window. Richard II, who had become King of England back in 1377 at age 10, later issued a writ that, no one is to dump dung. Further, there were penalties, still in effect, for hitting a person with anything, especially dung, thrown from a window. It seemed such restrictions only encouraged tenement dwellers. By the end of the day the streets below the tenement windows were ankle deep in human waste and ripe until the next rain washed it down the gutters toward the rivers. The appearance of the buildings suffered in that a yellowish brown stain quickly developed below each window. Apartment dwellers kept their windows closed despite the occasional hot day to avoid dung spilling in from above.

Jimmy’s mother worked afternoons and nights as a prostitute walking the streets bordering the boroughs of Islington and Heringey, where she competed with women stationed on several other street corners. Jimmy’s first memories of his mother were of her wearing pretty dresses and sparkly bracelets with her blonde hair pulled back and tied, running down her back. He remembered her ruddy complexion and sad loving eyes as she got ready for work. On many nights there were no customers in their dark district but she needed to be there just in case.

Come to Mommy, Jim Bo, she whispered as the toddler ate stale bread she’d found thrown out the back door of the bakery. Jimmy looking around the table for more. Things will be better, Jim Bo, just you wait and see. In those early years, Renee worked from 3 to 5 pm with Jim in her arms, then took a two-hour break to fix dinner. Before reporting back to the corner, she wrapped her son in a blanket and rocked him in a chair that didn’t rock, gently smoothing his little brown infant curls. Renee spit on her fingers and cleaned her son’s face of the grime of the day. She sang him to sleep with a lullaby, a fantasy of unrealistic hope. Somehow it had been very real when her mother had sung it to her many years before. Jimmy grinned, looking up into his mother’s eyes as she rocked and whispered the song more than sang it.

C u r l y Locks, C u r l y Locks

Wilt thou be mine

Thou shalt not wash dishes, nor feed the swine

But sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam

And feast upon strawberries, sugar and cream

Renee sang it again with tears slowly ruining her heavy makeup. She placed her son in the top wooden drawer of a beat-up dresser that served as a bed before locking the door and leaving him in the apartment while she went to work. If the night went well, she’d be back a time or two, accompanied by a friend.

At three years old, James walked to work with his mommy in the afternoons and played along the streets while Renee sat on a broken bench with Sadie, a partner prostitute with dark orange hair. Sadie nursed her newborn baby girl, Marilyn, who she called Pookie. The baby, with a shock of wavy auburn hair and big blue eyes, was a happier miniature version of her mother. Sometimes one of Sadie’s regulars walked by and stopped to talk. James couldn’t hear what was said but a few minutes later Sadie stopped the feeding, slid her breast inside her blouse, and declared the baby fed. She stood and handed Pookie to Renee for a while as Sadie and the customer walked toward her flat. James sat down at his mother’s feet and played in the dust. Renee put the baby down next to her son.

The women worked in pairs so one could watch the children and hold the position if a customer showed up. Sometimes Renee would grab Jimmy’s hand and hurry behind the nearest building. Jimmy noticed that Sadie picked up Pookie and did the same as a black carriage rolled by on the rutted street. Renee mentioned to Sadie that the constable was getting to be a pest with his weekly patrols. Sadie didn’t say much because sometimes the constable winked at her and she walked away with the constable.

The girls were always on the lookout for fancy carriages with skinny-legged horses entering their street. Well-dressed gentlemen from the wealthier boroughs sometimes rode up in carriages providing the girls with a chance for income for the evening.

Here comes a carriage, Mommy, Jimmy said, as the women dozed, leaning into each other, back to back on the bench.

How many in the team, Jimmy? Renee asked, opening one eye then the other.

Looks to be two horses, Mommy, her son reported proudly.

Come on Sadie, Renee said. Put the baby down and get up. This could be dinner for one of us. As the carriage approached, the women stood, brushing back their hair, smoothing their dresses and smiling. The carriage passed by with a look of disdain from the dark occupant inside. Some days it seemed the rich had better things to do, and all the four souls on the corner got for their trouble was a smile and a wink from the driver.

The following year James passed the summer playing with Pookie. They ran from one end of the street to the other, stopping in between for a hug or a playful spank from their mommies. It was another year before James sensed a change in his mommy. They were sleeping together by now in the only bed, but somehow there was a growing distance between them. His mother never looked happy at work and for no reason she seemed irritated at him much of the time. Some days she didn’t say more than "Morning’’ when she got up, and that was all she said until noon.

Mommy, are you mad at me? James asked one afternoon as Renee got ready for work.

God no, Jimmy, she said. Mommy’s just tired, I suppose. She fell silent, looking away with nothing more to say.

Jim Bo, come here, she said, reaching out to hug her son. You know I love you and want what’s best for you. I’ll tell you what. I’ve got something I’ve been meaning to give you, Renee said, digging in the bottom of her bag.

Jimmy, she said, kneeling down to her son’s eye level, this is a ring my father made for me with my initials carved inside, a year before he died. He made it from a piece of mahogany he’d stolen and gave it to me on my seventh birthday, Renee said, holding her son and resting her cheek on his head. Her hair hung loose and it covered their faces like a soft silky shield against the world outside. I grew out of the ring some time ago, she said. And I have been meaning to give it to you. You are growing up fast Jimmy so I think it’s time.

Does it mean we’re married, mommy? Jim asked, squinting to see the carvings in the blur of the light in the apartment. Renee slipped the ring on his finger.

It is given in love, Jimmy, so I guess it can mean whatever you want it to mean.

Thanks, Mommy. I love my present and I love you.

Renee smiled at her son and lowered her eyes. She had carved her son’s initials inside the ring next to those carved long before by her father.

Jimmy didn’t really know or care how poor they were. He played along the street and helped his mother in any way he could, including standing in line at the pump to get water and emptying the chamber pot each evening. By age five, however, Jim began asking questions.

Pookie, why do they sit all day on that bench? he asked. Now she’s making me stay in the hallway for hours when she has a friend come into the apartment.

I don’t know, Marilyn said. Maybe the friends don’t like little kids. Marilyn was two years younger than Jimmy and didn’t yet suffer from the same level of curiosity. Chase me, Jimmy. Come on and chase me, she persisted. His little friend loved to run and scream as Jimmy chased her down the street.

When guests stayed all night Jimmy had to move out of his mother’s bed to the floor across the room. She explained that the visitors were friends who came to the flat to drink and visit with her. He couldn’t help but wonder if they were really friends and uncles, as she sometimes said, and why they never talked to him. They just looked at him and went back to visiting with his mommy. Most of all he wanted to know about the fights that he could hear and feel across the dark room. He noticed his mother would use extra makeup on her face after a night of visiting with some of these friends. Seemingly irritated by her son’s curiosity, Renee sent him out to play on the streets during the evenings, instructing him to stay away from the corner as well as the apartment. James wondered if her sudden preference for working without his assistance was because she was somehow ashamed of him.

With his mom sleeping (and healing from the prior night’s visits) during the day and welcoming new visitors at night, James was glad to get outside to play and he began to stay out all day. On one occasion, returning at night, he interrupted his mother and a visitor James had seen earlier in the week. The man his mother called Walter, yelled at Jimmy to get out. Walter grabbed Jimmy’s arm and whipped him against the wall.

Walter, stop! Renee pleaded. You’ve got to leave.

Somebody’s leavin’, Love, but it ain’t likely me, Walter said, his eyes sparkling even in the dark. Renee stood up and grabbed Walter around the neck, but he knocked her back into the bed with an elbow to the ribs, followed by a slap to the face with the back of his hand. Jimmy could hear his mother yell in pain as she fell to the bed sobbing. He was trying to stand and go to her when Walter made a drunken lurch in the dark, kicking Jimmy across the room into the chamber pot which emptied in his lap.

Get your stinking ass out of me sight, Walter shouted, bending to grab Jimmy by the hair, before I choose to throw ya out the window.

Instead, he threw Jimmy out the door where he crashed into the wall with a crack. Jimmy lay against the dark hallway wall in more physical pain than he’d ever felt in his short life. The stench of his own clothing, never close to fresh, made him lose the small chunk of cheese and bread he’d had at dinner. Jimmy took off the offending trousers and threw them down the stairwell, spending the night curled up leaning against the door for warmth and a sense of connection. Jimmy slept in the hall on the nights Walter visited. His mother put some bread and cheese in a tin for her son and set it in the hall next to the door each night. The second night the boy interrupted a small mouse who was halfway through eating Jimmy’s dinner.

Lying in the hall, trying to get warm enough to go to sleep, Jimmy thought of the disapproving looks from those who passed by the corner in their carriages. At first he didn’t understand, but guessed it was obvious: his ragged clothes and the layers of dirt on his face made him very different from those riding in the carriages. He planned to walk down to the New River at the south end of the borough and jump in to get his clothes and face sorted out a bit. The next day there was a rare streak of sunshine coming down on Islington so he headed for the river. If the sun stayed out awhile, his clothes would dry a bit on the way home. He hoped Walter would be gone by the time he reached the apartment. It would be another year before James began to understand his social position, and a lifetime to fully comprehend his mother’s life and her change in attitude toward her only child.

Renee never said much about Jimmy’s father except that he was from the Midlands. James asked where his father lived but Renee avoided the question, eventually saying he was a man who stayed at the house for a fortnight and then for some reason disappeared into the London mist. When Jimmy persisted with his questions and wondered if he would ever see his father, Renee said he was a sailor and she had heard he had died at sea.

A few months before Jimmy turned six, Renee’s business dried up and she kicked him out each morning to find his own food. What money she made was increasingly going to drink. Jimmy met other kids sentenced to foraging on the streets of London and began to run with three lads around his age. Twin boys, seven-year-olds Kenny and Kerry, were the first to befriend James after he had gone three days without knowing how to find food. The third boy in the group was a skinny eight-year-old kid named Max, a dark complected boy with darting brown eyes and a quick idea for every problem of living on the streets. All of the kids were escaping similar hostile home environments. To survive on the streets, the gang of small boys searched for food in rubbish bins and stole fruit from local vendors. They eventually developed a sometimes profitable pickpocket business with young Jimmy as the foil. Even at five, his big hands and stubby fingers made him a lousy lifter of wallets and jewelry, so others were assigned to do the actual lifting while Jimmy played the shill.

No, Jimmy shouted, running down the street looking behind him in fright. With his ragged clothes flapping and fear on his dirt-crusted face, Jimmy had developed a convincing act. On cue, just short of the target, he stumbled and fell rolling into the feet of a well-dressed stranger.

Most sorry, Sir, James said, looking up into the