This is going to be wild from start to finish.

Some interactions will make me laugh, others not as much.

Enjoy! :)

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Warning: Race faces discrimination :(   (featuring a derrogatory term against Italians from the early 1900s)   </3

Race stands in the middle of all the kids, some taller than him, some shorter than him, his facial expression saying it all: that he won't take any of their nonsense. "Alright, I know you guys are smart. Let i miei amici step back, and talk to me instead."

Maybe it was the little bit of Italian, but they let Jack, David, Spot, and Mush, who all have wide eyes, step back, as they all turn to crowd around Race instead.

"Ma che volete?" Race asks them, making hand gestures as he speaks. What do you want?

They answer him in Italian, eyes gleaming that someone speaks their language. Of course, not all of them are Italian--as shown by the ones with more Germanic features--but a good portion of them look like Race, and he hates to think that looking just like him and them is one way to predict that they'll end up in a gang like this.

The conversation continues back and forth in a mix of Italian and English, while Jack, David, Mush, and Spot watch from a distance, astonished by how well Race is carrying out a conversation with them, barely understanding anything that is going on.

Race turns back around to his friends. "It's okay, they're harmless!" He calls out to them.

"We ain't harmless!" the group shouts collectively.

"Oh yeah? What's the worst thing you've ever done? Shoplifted?"

They know he's being condescending, and they hate it.

"For your information, we do more than shoplift."

Race raises an eyebrow. "Oh? Like what?"

They just smile and giggle, like it's some big secret, as if it's so horrendous Race wouldn't be able to stand it.

"You should've seen us when Torrio was still here!" one of the youngest says gleefully.

Race sighs. "Yeah, yeah, I know of Torrio." Good riddance that Torrio is in Chicago now.

Race is done with them and their antics. "You all should leave, find something more productive to do." He eyes one of the smaller ones. "And some of you should still be in school."

"Hey!" the small kid--no, teen--protests. "Why'd ya look right at me?"

"Perché è davvero," Race replies simply. 

"I'll have you know that I haven't been in school since sixth grade," the kid tells him, as if it's something to be proud of.

Race sighs. If there are any gods up above, he prays for just one of them to come help him. His patience and tolerance for adolescent stupidity is wearing thin.

"Uh huh. And how old are you now?"

He takes a moment to answer. "Fifteen."

"Fifteen?"  Race repeats incredulously. And then he realizes. "You were born in 1899?"

The kid looks at him strangely, wondering how that is relevant, and nods slowly.

Race sighs and shakes his head in disbelief. He turns back to his friends. "This kid is fifteen. He was born in 1899!"

They laugh.

"I was helping lead a strike in 1899!" Jack shouts back, highly amused.

"Yeah, and I was in that strike, at age fifteen," Race mutters. He whips around. "Now, I don't wanna hear nothing about any of you'se going on strike. The newsies of 1899 may have striked against The World and somehow beat the bad odds, but nowadays it's a bad idea. The World--and everyone else for that matter--ain't a pushover like they used to be."

The kid opens his mouth, but closes it when he sees Race will shoot him down if he keeps talking about it.

"What's your name, kid?" Race asks him.

He squares his shoulders. "Mi chiamo Al Capone."

Race raises his eyebrows. Capone in Italian means someone with a big head, or someone who is dimwitted or stubborn. Guess this kid was always fated to check every one of those boxes.

"What's your name?" Al Capone challenges Race.

"Nothing that you need to know."

"But it's only fair if you tell him your name after he told you his!" a kid chimes in.

"I don't owe you guys anything," Race tells them firmly. Then, he thinks of something. "Do any of you know anyone with the last name Baletti?"

They all exchange glances. There's recognition on their faces.

Race continues on, more hopeful. "Louis Baletti, or Kid Blink. He had a friend named Kid Griffo."

They all exchange glances, conflicted on whether to tell him or not.

"What do we get in return?" they challenge him.

At this point, Race really doesn't care if they actually know anything or not. "I really don't have anything for you." They probably just saw an opportunity to ask for a deal, trying to swindle Race, and he won't give in to them.

"C'mon guys," the eldest says with disdain, "these guys ain't worth our attention. Andiamo."

"Sì! Andate! Tutti!" Race exclaims. 

And so they all start to walk away.

Except for Al Capone.

Race sighs. "Che cosa vuoi, bambino?"

"Y'know, someday, I'm gonna be known everywhere," Al Capone tells him. "They're all gonna remember by name. And when mio amico Torrio invites me to Chicago, we'll be unstoppable. Just you wait. Tutti l'America will know il mio nome."

Race chuckles. At least the kid has dreams. "Okay, bambino."

"And by the way," Al Capone continues, "we don't know where Kid Griffo is, but we do know his and Kid Blink's friend Big Jack O'Brien works at a saloon right down the street."

Well, that's something. Race smiles. "Grazie, bambino."

Al swiftly nods, and with nothing more to say, he runs off with the rest of the James Street Boys, who are probably off to commit petty crime somewhere if Race didn't get it into their thick skulls that they should be doing literally anything else.

He's about to shout to his friends that the coast is clear, that they have a lead, but a man with graying blond hair and blue eyes and wealthy clothes comes up to him. Race clenches his fists. There are only so many ways this can go.

The man glares down at him. Race stands still.

 "Take your mob somewhere else," the man snarls. "We don't tolerate the mafia here."

"Would it surprise you if I said I wasn't a part of the mafia?" Race returns evenly, standing his ground the best he can.

"Then who were they?" he gestures to where the Jame Street Boys had ran off.

"Kids who are young and stupid and aren't connected to me in any way whatsoever."

"That may be true, but you're all wops who need to go back to your own country," the man sneers, then walks off.

Race can feel his fingernails digging into his palms, but he doesn't care.

Tentatively, his friends approach him. He stays still as a statue.

Jack reaches out to put a hand on Race's shoulder. "Race..."

Race flinches away. He doesn't want them to come any closer, doesn't want them to see how shaken he is from the encounter.

That's when Jack realizes that he never asked Race what name he's going by now. "Should I call you by your real name?"

He's met with silence.

But he still wants to reach Race. "Antonio...?" That doesn't feel right. Jack had been pretty sure that that was his name, but now he's not sure.

"Don't!" Race snaps. "DON'T call me Antonio. That's not my name, never was." It had been a name passed down in his family, but it still was not his first name.

That's when Jack remembers. "Ed...?"

Race shakes his head violently. "Don't call me Ed. It's either Racetrack or Race to you."

This is the first time that Race has shown any temper since Jack had found him. So this is what it takes to get Race's guard down, leaving him vulnerable, but still trying to hold up the walls.

Jack bites his lip. How does he convey how much he cares for Race, and that he just wants to help?

Before Jack can do anything, Spot hugs Race tightly. Though tense at first, Race falls into the embrace.

Mush adds on to the hug. Then Jack and David, putting Race in the center. Race can honestly say he hasn't been surrounded by people he cares about like this in a really long time. He cherishes every second.

Finally, when they break apart, Jack asks the question. "What was that term that that man used?"

Race sighs. "It's a derragotory term. Older Italians who had been in America for a while would call younger Italian immigrants the term in a playful way, but Americans took the term and turned it into something else." For six years now that word has been following him around, haunting him. "Anyway, it doesn't matter."

"It does matter," Spot tells him softly. "He shouldn't have done something like that."

"You know how Americans are to immigrants," Race returns. "Doesn't matter where they're from, nor how long they've been here. American-born people hate us all."

"It's always been like this," Jack points out ruefully. "I mean, growing up Irish at the turn of the century..."

Race lets out a dry laugh. "I'm Italian, and Irish. Regular Americans have a lot against me." And quietly, he mutters, "yet they can only see me as a no-good Italian."

Jack wants to say something, anything to try to make it better. And yet, there truly aren't any words that can make it better.

None in English, that is.

"Níl tuile dá mhéad nach dtránn," Jack says at last, looking straight ahead.

Race looks up at him.

Jack looks at Race and smiles. "It means There is no flood, however great..."

"...That does not ebb away," Jack, Race, and Spot finish together.

"You know what that saying means?" Jack asks.

Race nods, continuing not to say anything. Gratitude shines in his eyes.

"All bad things will pass eventually,"Jack continues. "So remember that no matter how long it takes to reach eventually, it will happen, and all these bad things will pass."

Race is still skeptical, but he appreciates the sentiment, and decides to give in and hope for the best. He lets Jack hug him again.

"I'm sorry to beak up the mood," Mush says apologetically after a few moments, "but I'm hungry."

"Yeah, I think I am too," Spot adds.

"It is probably close to noon," David comments.

"Alright, anyone got anything in mind?" Jack asks them.

"I'm thinking pizza," Spot says with a smile.

"That's a good idea!" Jack responds. "How about Lombardi's?"

Race, with his eyes averted, smiles. He knows that they're doing all of this in a very exaggerated way, trying to make it sound normal, but they're all terrible actors. He knows that it's all to get him to feel better.

And yet it works.

"Sure," Race says, still smiling. "Let's go to Lombardi's."

"Great!" Jack puts a hand on Race's shoulder. Spot holds Race's hand.

"Oh!" Race exclaims as they start walking. "I think I got a lead on where we can find Kid Griffo!"

"Excellent!" Jack exclaims. "First we have lunch, and then we continue the search!"

And so they're off, spirits high, feeling better about this wild goose chase than they did before. And throughout it all their bonds are once again strengthening.

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Awww.

I love wholesome endings.

Like I said, this chapter is wild start to finish.

I did a lot of research.

So I knew that Al Capone was alive in this time, and so I wanted to do some research on him to see if it all checks out. And it does--he was fifteen in 1914, born in 1899, and in New York at the time. And ... I don't know, I wanted to include him in the story haha.

Some of you may have noticed that there's a picture of him in the cover of this story.

I put a lot of detail into the covers of my stories. I hope you all appreciate them.

Fun fact: Al Capone is actually the reason why we have expiration dates on milk.

Italiophobia ... I really don't want to talk about it, but I did this to myself, so. I hate the fact that there is/was so much discrimination against Italians throughout time that Wikipedia has a whole-length page for it (I know to use other sources besides just Wikipedia, but it still is where you can find a lot of information.). 

The term wop came from the Italian word guappo or the Spanish word guapo, which had meant "dandy" (or in Spanish is used to call a person hot). It's been used by all kinds of people. Older Italian immigrants to younger, newer Italian immigrants; Southern Italian immigrants humorously referring to one another as guappo; and then white Americans picked up on it and used it as a derogatory term for all Italians and Southern Europeans.

Let me tell you, there is very little that makes me angrier than when I learn about how white Americans have treated anyone who wasn't/isn't an upper class white American. I hate discrimination. And I hate how much discrimination exists in the world in the first place. I wish everyone would stop hating each other and start trying to get along and celebrate all the diversity that exists on this vast and wonderful planet of ours.

The thing that gets me about anti-Italianism in the 1900s is that my Sicilian great-grandfather was born in 1898, and so growing up in the 1900s as a Sicilian American must have been really really rough. I keep learning about all these awful things happening to Italian Americans, and my first thought is how it all would have affected my ancestors. And in the attempt to be more like "normal" Americans, they had to Americanize their names, and my great-grandfather never spoke Italian. So many cultures are lost just trying to fit in to a set of messed up standards, and the people are still disregarded anyway.

Alright, I think I got that rant out of the way. I mean, it will never truly end, but this is already almost at 2200 words and I shouldn't keep you all too long.

...How did this reach 2200 words haha.

Anyway, Lombardi's opened in 1905, and as much as I would love to infodump about Lombardi's and the origins of pizza, I need to say it again, I've already taken too much space haha.

Oh, the Irish phrase came from an article called 25 Popular Irish Sayings That Give All The Wisdom The Emerald Isle Has To Offer, which gives the saying, the translation, and what it means. There are some pretty good ones.

I think I covered everything.

Oh right right right right Ed vs. Antonio.

So yeah, Ed Higgins was the name of the Real Racetrack Higgins, and Antonio/Anthony is his fanon given name. Antonio is wrong both in historical canon and movie/musical canon, and supposedly came from a really old fanfic (as did Spot's name Sean) that supposedly is really bad for a multitude of reasons, so I'm trying to acknowledge that yes, it is a big part of the Newsies fandom, it still isn't actually historically accurate.

Now I think I covered everything.

And so the search continues.

And the plot will thicken.

Please, no homophobia, profanities, hate etc in the comment section at all times.

Best,

~Your Beloved Author (who really wishes that all forms of stereotyping and discrimination end for good)