Scrapyard

Dinah Denton had seen a lot of men on the street lately. Not the kind without a place to sleep, but men branded by vigilantes, like the bite marks of the Hyena. She’d seen them knocked out, or tied up, waiting to be dragged away by the cops or some other form of justice. The Italian mob was eating itself — the young turning on the old — and the bootlegging and bank robbing upstarts who thought it was a good time to strike were met with quick resistance. That left all the other criminals — the petty, vindictive, local kind, the kind that stole candy and cigarettes and baskets of eggs and apples from kids or old ladies. The bottom-feeders of the local food chain were hungry. Dinah’s blunt but imprecise solution to the problem was cracking heads.
That’s how she found herself in an alley, circling a man with a knife. His friend had left, run off in shame after getting belted in the nose by a girl. His blood was still dripping down her face, and she broke out in a grin whenever she remembered how he’d squealed. Don’t fuck with me, you bastard.
“So, you gonna try it? You’ve got a knife, I’ve just got two fists. And like you said — I’m just a girl. A skinny girl in some old ratty clothes. So what are you afraid of? You don’t even have to kill me. One good cut and you could get away. Or, you could just run, rather than face the fists that broke your friend’s face,” she said. She ducked into her favored stance, both fists up in front of her head and her spine curved. She’d never been formally trained — like anyone would teach a girl to fight, right? — but she’d watched the guys in the gym and on the street and figured out what worked for her. And it was working — she’d only lost a few fights, without taking any permanent damage, so far.
The guy with the knife lunged at her and, despite her bravado, made contact, slashing at her left shoulder. She wasn’t quite the invulnerable badass she pretended to be, and a pained grimace flashed across her face. She was exactly as stubborn as she seemed. She swung her right fist up and it collided with his chin. She heard some of his teeth crack like cheap plates, and ducked backwards as he stumbled around.
She could wait for him to drop the knife, or make a quick exit. Nah. She lunged forward again, grabbed his wrist and twisted it until he dropped the knife and then punched him hard in the head, knocking him off his feet.
“Tell your friends not to mess with anybody around here,” she said, trying to sound tough before wincing as the feeling of hot iron flooded both of her hands. She could throw a great punch, but caught probably half of the pain she dished out like some old-fashioned witch’s curse. Rather than continue boasting, she hopped away, picking up the knife and dropping it down the sewer.
“I’m not saying anything, you stupid bitch! Watch yourself!” he said. She’d heard that tone of voice, and words like that, many times before.
Her shoulder was bleeding quite a bit more than she would have liked. She could go home and try to clumsily stitch it up herself, or ask a friend for favor. But it would be tough with one hand, and all her friends were sick of being asked. If she was lucky, maybe she could just make do with a nasty scar. But you didn’t want to chance things like this, she knew. Her coat — her only coat — was already looking like it would have a permanent dye job. She needed to fix this.
“That’s one nasty cut, girl,” said a voice from somewhere on the fog-drenched street. She spun around until she could figure out where it was coming from. It was an old man, with deep, dark skin and bright white hair, what was left of it. He was in a suit, the ragged kind that had been repaired again and again, probably for decades. Tailored to fit a thinning, frail frame, but still nicer than anything Dinah owned, or had ever owned. He was standing still, resting on a cane, watching the proceedings like a lighthouse keeper.
“You a doctor? Or at least a barber? Cause otherwise, I don’t see the need to comment,” she said. She’d seen him on this street a few times, always shuffling off to his next destination, quiet and reserved, but dignified.
“Not a doctor, but I’ve done some doctorin’ in my day. You need help?” he said. He said it in the tone of someone hoping to hear “no.”
Dinah paused. She certainly didn’t give a hoot about skin color — poor was poor, and the neighborhood was the neighborhood, as far as she was concerned. But going with any strange man was always a little risky. She decided to trust her gut when it came to the old-timer.
“Yeah, I need help,” she said. “It’s still bleeding. I been cut a few times before, but never quite this bad.”
The old man inhaled deeply. “You held yourself damn well. Two men, one knife, one little girl. The odds weren’t in your favor,” he said.
The cut was far from Dinah’s mind for a moment. “You saw me fight?”
“I sure did. You got some real spirit,” he said. “I haven’t seen fighting like that since… well, in a while. This may be the most damn fool thing I ever said, but… if you want, I’ll patch you up.”

# # #
They shuffled in through a back stairwell, the old man checking the hallway before pulling Dinah into his apartment. It wouldn’t do for any single man to take a young girl up to his room, she figured. Her being a young white girl only made that more of an issue, for some reason. She didn’t understand it, but she knew how people were.
Once she was inside, he gathered supplies. It was a tenement house with a shared bathroom on each floor, so he filled a few jugs with water to prepare. He had Dinah hold a thick, absorbent towel to her wound while he boiled some water on the stove.
“Now, I’m going to disinfect this needle and patch this up. It’s just a regular sewing needle, and although I can do it, I’ve never been acclaimed for my handicrafts. So I can’t promise you’ll be free of a scar,” he said.
“I already have a few,” Dinah said.
“You’re one tough cookie, girl. What’s your name?” the old man said.
“Dinah. Dinah Denton,” she said.
“Have you always gotten into fights, Dinah Denton? You’ve got the arms to make it work,” he said. “If you’re gonna keep hitting people, you might wanna practice on a punching bag.”
“I’m sure the palookas at the local gym would love that… enough about me. What’s your name, old timer?” Dinah said.
He looked at her for a second, as if to divine her intentions, and then kept working. He had on a pair of glasses that looked like they’d been bent in and out of shape several times, with scuffed-up lenses. Hopefully he could actually see through them.
“Sidney J. Straw,” he said. He pulled the towel away and began to clean her shoulder wound with a wet cloth. She decided to trust that he knew what he was doing. He held her shoulder still so he could insert the stitches.
“Ffffuck!” Dinah said, the word emerging despite her best efforts to keep it locked down.
“Where did a girl like you learn to talk like that?” Sidney said.
“Where did an old man like you learn to do all this?” Dinah said.
“I wasn’t always old, you know. We start out just like you. Well, not exactly the same…” Sidney said. “I mostly learned while I was at sea. When I was a little older than you are now, I served on a merchant vessel for eight years. Small crew. Very active.”
Dinah tried to think of a response, but she just winced as the needle went into her skin again and the stitches tightened. “A little older than you are now,” he’d said. He looked old, but well-preserved. She estimated he was about seventy at the youngest. She did the math in her head, and wondered what it must have been like to sail the world as a young Black man in the 1880s, what romantic and terrible sights he might have seen.
She looked around Sidney’s apartment while he worked on her shoulder. His apartment was small, like a shoebox. The only notable item was a bare wooden desk with a typewriter. The kitchen table she was sitting in front of, she realized, was a repurposed wooden crate with fitted pipes for legs. A foot away was a musty chair with a large footlocker in front of it like a coffee table. “You must have lived an interesting life, to end up here,” she said.
Sidney made an ambiguous, quiet noise, an exhale of breath she could barely hear, while focused on the last few stitches. “What makes you say that?”
“You served on a ship for eight years, and you learned to do things like this,” she said, gesturing to her shoulder. “What did you do after that?”
Another ambiguous breath. “Perceptive. Well, to be honest, if I told you? You wouldn’t believe me,” he said. “For most of that time, I was an accountant. I still am, although I also do a little writing.”
“What kind? Like pulps and all that?” Dinah said.
“No, no. I’m not opposed to the idea, but… hell, you can’t compete with the papers when it comes to adventure stories, nowadays,” Sidney said. “I write for the Sword & Scabbard. You might not have ever heard of it… it’s a colored paper.” He finished her stitches and poured a capful of alcohol over it as disinfectant before winding some cloth around her arm.
“You leave that for a while, and come back in about two weeks so I can take ‘em out,” he said. “And if you get into any more fights… disarm the guy first.”
“You got it, boss!” Dinah said, with a mock-salute. She smiled a genuine smile. “Thank you, Mr. Straw.”
She was getting up and carefully getting her coat on, the blood stain on the shoulder still very obvious, when Sidney stopped her.
“I want you to take these, and tell me what you think,” he said. He handed her a small stack of folded newspapers. In bold black letters at the top was the title Harlem Sword & Scabbard. “I think it might prove educational. And keep it quiet that I helped you, if you don’t mind. I don’t need any extra attention.”
“Oh, uh. You got it,” she said. She tucked the papers into her interior coat pocket and left through the same back stairwell where they’d come in.

# # #
A few hours later, when Dinah finally had a moment’s peace, she laid out some of the papers on her bed. She wasn’t sure, exactly, what Mr. Straw wanted her to see. She took her time reading, trying to make sense of stories with seas of names and institutions, few of which she recognized. It was both pleasurable and upsetting to explore a world that was so like her own, full of joys and tragedies that she would never fully experience. A life divided from hers by an invisible wall, erected by long-ago strangers who had never asked for her opinion. Dinah wondered if she was doomed to rage against a world that would never make sense.
Her attention was drawn to one half-page, tightly-packed with text and a strange illustration crammed into one corner. It was a drawing of a figure in a something like a metal welding mask, a scarf, gloves, and a long brown coat. The figure held two guns and seemed to look directly at the reader, like he was staring into Dinah’s eyes. She darted back up to the top of the page:

NEGRO HEROES OF THE PAST The “Masked Men of Mystery” Who Fought For Their People In This installment: The “Scrapshooter”

Those of a certain age will remember well the legend of a famed hero of the West, who intervened on behalf of colored men and women, as well as Indians, Poles, Germans, and all poor and downtrodden folk. The “Scrapshooter” got his name from his homemade pistols and armor, supposedly made with scrap metal from wagon wheels and oven doors. For twenty-odd years, he was spotted as far West as California and as far East as Chicago, and even, legends say, made appearances in Europe during the “Great War” in 1914. Scrapshooter became the bane of land barons, rustlers, bandits, and especially purveyors of racial hatred, who were spared no mercy upon a visit from the “Whirlwind of the West.” Could today’s modern cities use a “Scrapshooter” of their own? Your editors and writers implore the young people of today to take the lesson of the Scrapshooter and his fellow “Mystery Men”: those with only a few resources and the greatest determination can make all the difference.

At the very bottom of the piece, Dinah read the text: “Written by Sidney J. Straw, purveyor of accounting and financial services.”
“Holy cripes,” Dinah said, alone in her bedroom.

# # #
“My old man blew his top when he saw me reading a Negro paper…” Dinah said, back at Sidney’s kitchen table for her follow-up appointment. “Well, that’s what he called it. I said, a paper’s a paper, right? Don’t you want me reading? And he just got angrier and angrier.”
“Your pop doesn’t hurt you, does he?” Sidney said, carefully beginning to pull the stitches out of Dinah’s shoulder wound.
“Not anymore,” she said, and sniffed as she recalled the memory of one of her first-ever fights. Technically, it was more of a draw, but she considered it a victory.
“You’re gonna get yourself into big trouble, one of these days…” Sidney said. “So, what did you think of it? The Sword & Scabbard, I mean.”
“Real informative. To be honest, I never really thought much about, uh, color, I guess,” she said. “I never understood what the big deal was. I still don’t, but I’m glad I can know a little more about, um. What people go through.”
“Yeah,” Sidney said. “You care about people. You want to help. It may sound crazy, but you remind me of me. Why I did all those damn fool things I talked about.”
“About that… I did notice something,” Dinah said. “Your name is in those papers.”
“You noticed that, huh? I write a few articles here and there, and I get my ads in. I don’t get paid much for the writing, but the ads go a long way. People like to know their dollars are going to other colored folks. You know?” he said.
“Yeah, I do…” she said. “I’d settle for knowing my money isn’t going to those Sicilian bastards. The, uh, the criminal ones, I mean.” Ever since she’d done her reading, Dinah had been thinking more about how she talked about people.
“They’re still busy killing each other, it sounds like,” Sidney said. He sighed. “You really wanna make a difference, don’t you?”
“You mean I wanna bust some heads?” Dinah said.
“No. I think you’re fixin’ to fight for something real. You use your fists because you’re damn good with ‘em,” Sidney said. He took a long inhale through his nose. “What did you think of my articles?”
“About the old mystery men? Well… I found it pretty intriguing, Mr. Straw. Pretty damn intriguing,” she said.
Sidney nodded slightly, hiding the hint of a smile as he finished unspooling stitches from her arm and cleaning the now-healed injury. “A bit of a scar. A badge of honor, we used to say,” he said.
“Who’s we?” Dinah said.
That slow inhale followed by a ruminative noise again. “You got anywhere to be this afternoon? It might take a while to explain,” Sidney said.
Dinah smiled. “Where am I gonna go that’s better for me than right here?” she said.
Sidney pushed the foot locker turned coffee table back towards where Dinah was sitting and popped it open.
“Let’s start at the beginning. Before there ever was a Scrapshooter or any other masked vigilante — well, any that I know of, at least — there was a lonely kid with a head for numbers,” he said. He pulled out a faded framed photo, one of the old tintypes, of a large family, posed in a field somewhere.
“That short fella on the left is me,” he said, handing it over. He was a cute young man, no more than a teenager, with round glasses and wearing what clothes that had been taken in. What looked like visible seams might have been creases from the age of the print. Dinah turned it over and saw written on the back in pencil: “Mr. and Mrs. Straw and family, of Trenton, NJ — July 4th, 1875.” She felt her eyes sting with the stirring of tears, but she didn’t know why.
“I moved out west. It seemed like the place to go for adventure. I didn’t know what I was getting into. I ended up at sea… to be honest, that’s a tale for another time. You wouldn’t believe the half of it. But it’s relevant, because it’s where I saw something new. The other side of the world,” Sidney said.
“You mean you went to Shanghai or wherevers else?” Dinah said.
“Oh, sure, we went all over. But no, that’s actually not what I mean…” he said. “It’s hard to explain until you’ve seen it. If I told you that the world is far more complex and strange than you’d ever imagined, would you believe me?”
“You’ve already taught me some strange — and important — things, Mr. Straw. So yes, I would believe you,” she said. “I don’t understand what you mean, though.”
“No… No, you wouldn’t. You don’t know the half of what’s out there. And in some ways, I envy you. Because it can be scary, and confusing, and when you face off against it, square in the eye, honest-like? You know you’re fighting a losing battle. But I was lucky enough to have friends who decided to do it anyway,” he said. He reached into the foot locker and pulled out another old photo. Just having multiple photos of yourself at the ready was pretty impressive, Dinah thought. She didn’t even have baby pictures or nothing.
The photo was an array of unusual-looking characters on a dock next to an old wooden sailing ship. It was a group of youngish men and women of various races, ethnicities, and body types. In front was a short fellow with bronzed skin and a big smile. There were a couple of beautiful women in what looked to Dinah like bathing suits, but could have been regular walking-around clothes in some parts of the world. There was a tall guy in a top hat in the back, and a few others behind him that were indistinct in the bright sunlight. The handsome younger Sidney looked almost regal with two beautiful guns in two holsters and lots of ammo worn in bandoliers strung across his chest. Most striking of all though was the guy next to him. He was a severe-looking Asian man in similar casual attire and with swords on his belt and other weapons worn on his back.
“These were some of the best friends I ever had. And with them I learned about… well, I call it ‘the secret world.’ The same thing I was writing about in those articles. The world of adventurers and explorers and fighters. People who dwell in the impossible. But that world can’t remain a secret forever. Before long, the two worlds will be side by side. And some people will need to be in one, or the other, and may not be able to handle it as they realize that the secret world, and the straight world, are one and the same. And there’s no running away from that. People might realize it tomorrow, or in a hundred years. But it’s coming. And those of us who have seen it, visited it, lived it? Well… I can only speak for myself. But I say bring it on,” he said.
Her eyes stung again. What was this reaction? She never cried. She prided herself on not crying, not being overwhelmed with emotion. Here, an old man she barely knew was telling her things she couldn’t understand, and her reaction, her instincts, were to sob, to grip her head in a sort of profound relief. A relief that someone said it, in a way she could really believe: There was more to the world than just this.
She managed to hold back the reaction. “Mr. Straw?” she said. “How did you know the Scrapshooter was Black?”
That tiny smile again. “Well… it was just sort of the accepted wisdom, at the time. He covered his face and his skin completely, even in the burning desert sun. And he always intervened for Black folks. Killed Klansmen, ex-Confederates, people of that ilk,” he said.
“People who deserved it,” Dinah said.
“People who were... on the other side. Because the secret world isn’t just open to good-hearted people. There’s real evil out there that wants power. And they will use it. We just can’t let them,” he said.
“There’s that word again. ‘We,’” Dinah said.
Sidney let out a long sigh. “I think I trust you,” he said. “Do you want to be trusted? Because you still have a chance. The secret world probably won’t find you for a long time if you say no. You can live a nice, quiet life, if you want.”
Dinah looked at him for a while, and looked down at the picture of him and his old friends. She’d never seen so many different types of people all in one place, each one looking like they had not just their own story, but a thousand stories, ready to burst forth at any moment. These strange people from decades ago looked more alive than almost anyone she had ever met.
“Nah,” she said. “I’m in.”
“You asked how I knew the Scrapshooter was Black. …” he said. He returned to the footlocker and pulled away a thick blanket, sending what looked like a lifetime of dust into the air. He lifted something and put it on the table directly in front of Dinah.
She struggled to fully understand what she was looking at. It looked like a welding mask, with a fabric hood and a leather strap in the back. The “eyes” were dark-glassed goggle lenses. It had an almost organic shape with unusual textures and curving lines worked directly into the dark gray metal. Dinah just looked at it, and slowly turned it from side to side. Her new friend looked on the odd object with what she took to be pride, and she respected it accordingly. There was one large dent and scrape on the left side, like it had been hit by something.
While she was admiring it, Sidney returned to the foot locker and pulled out something else. “Here they are,” he said. “These old girls. It’s been a while.”
He pulled out two brown leather holsters, beautifully carved with images of the southwest like cacti and steer skulls. Inside were two revolvers made of polished metal, with long barrels and pearl handles. They were bigger, grander, and more impressive than any policeman’s sidearm or sneak-thief’s pea-shooter.
“Pick one up. They’re not loaded, of course,” Sidney said. Dinah lifted it — It was so heavy! She was strong, but lifting these gave her wrists an instant workout. She imagined what it would be like to pull them from her side for trick shots like Tom Mix. She tried, but couldn’t even spin it on her finger.
“What do you notice about them?” Sidney said.
“That’s it? You’re quizzing me instead of telling me the story?” Dinah said.
“I want to know what you see,” he said.
Dinah looked closely at all the objects in front of her, studying each one closely and carefully. They glinted like gems in the light of the bare bulb over the kitchen table. The more she inspected them, she noticed some of the same curves and textures in the metal as she saw in the helmet.
“They have these same patterns. Almost like they were handmade, handforged… the helmet is the same, but it’s a different texture and color. Maybe a different metal altogether,” she said.
Sidney breathed deeply. “You’re perceptive,” he said. He took the gun from her and held it in his hand, feeling the weight for a moment, before spinning it as she’d tried to, expertly and flawlessly. He opened the cylinder and spun it quickly. He looked rather satisfied with how well it still worked.
He put the gun down on the table and looked serious. “I know they were handmade because I made them,” he said. “I learned forging in my time on the Phaethon, our ship. That desk over there is made from a piece of her mast, by the way.”
“You… made the Scrapshooter’s— oh my god. You were the Scrapshooter!” Dinah said, pointing.
Sidney tapped the cylinder of the pistol back into place and then returned it to the holster. “I still am. Just retired,” he said.
Dinah clutched her skull as more stories flooded into her head.
“Why did you stop?” she said.
“Oh, I got old. I was taking too many risks. This helmet helps, but it wouldn’t have saved me from getting trampled, or from a few loads of point-blank buckshot,” he said. He touched the dent in the helmet. “They almost got me, a couple times. I was ready to move on. I headed east. I had a few more adventures, but… it was time.”
“And that’s it? You just left the secret world behind?” Dinah said.
“It never really leaves you. Once you know where to look,” he said. “No matter what job I got — accountant mostly, reporter sometimes — I find myself in that world again and again.”
“But weren’t you ever tempted to pull these girls out again?” she said, touching the holsters. “There’s plenty of characters on the streets here that could use some of the old Scrapshooter justice.”
“Of course. But my bones are weak, my muscles are frayed worse than my clothes. A few of the hits like you’ve taken and I’d be out for weeks, or worse,” he said.
Dinah stood up and circled the kitchen. She looked down at the footlocker, and saw a lifetime of dreams and memories. Stories she couldn’t begin to imagine. Things that were so far outside of her life, outside of this neighborhood and its petty problems, she’d never imagined even their shadows. She was seventeen years old and had yet to meet a man worth her time, let alone her hand in marriage. She looked down at her bruised knuckles, and the worn skin on her palms.
“What if I did it?” she said. “My head’s small, I bet the helmet will even fit. I don’t use guns, but… you still know how to work this stuff? Maybe you could make me, some, ah, what do you call ‘em? Knuckles.”
“Brass knuckles,” Sidney said. He looked at her seriously for a moment. “I’d love to tell you what a damn fool idea that was. A mistake I’ll remember forever, getting myself mixed up in all this again. But I’d be lying. And I never lie, Dinah. Never.” He stood up, pulled a small paper box out of his coat closet, and slid it over to her.
“I think these should fit. I had to make a guess on your size,” he said. Dinah opened it and found inside a pair of gloves — gauntlets, really, threaded with metal rings and rivets, with a set of raised brass knuckles built in. They were on a hinge, so they could be slotted into place when needed. Maximum strength and maximum flexibility. They were cleaned, polished, meticulously built. Dinah thought they were beautiful
Dinah put one on and flexed her fingers. It was heavy, and would take time to get used to. She also knew just how damaging it could be. She’d be knocking out more than teeth if she used these with the same abandon she used her fists now.
She showed it off like it was a new piece of jewelry. “How do I look?” she said.

# # #
Moonlight shone through sewer grate steam on a dark street. Two hoods in flashy-cheap suits walked out of the shadows and found a chicken ripe for the plucking. The leader didn’t waste time, pulling out a knife. The silver glint shined like a signal flare.
“Whoa, I don’t want any trouble, fellas—“
“Too bad! You got it! Your money, now, tubs,” said the main hood. He pressed his knife into the belly of the big guy, who fumbled with his wallet and pulled out some crumpled dollar bills.
“What else you got, fatty? You think this is enough? Why shouldn’t we gut you like a pig?” said the sidekick.
The big man was about to answer when a loud metal clang came from the other end of the empty street. The two hoods and their victim returned to the work at hand, only to be interrupted by another clang, then another.
Finally, the less-flashy of the two hoods shouted back. “You want something? We’ll take your dough too! Come on out and give it to us!” The two hoods laughed.
Three clangs. Call, and response. The flashier hood with his knife pressing into the big man’s belly gave a nod. “Why don’t you drag him out,” he said, to the other.
“Sure, boss…” he said, weakly. He pulled his own knife, a little stiletto number, from his pocket and walked forward into the shadows with quiet footsteps. Two clangs came back.
“What the hell is that—“ the boss said, barely able to get the words out when something emerged from the darkness, surged forward, and collided with his underling. The hood went flying backwards, landing on the pavement past them. It was shocking enough that the boss left the fat man for a moment to look. The underling’s knife dropped to the sidewalk, bent into uselessness.
“What the fuck…” he said, looking at his one and only toady laid out on the concrete, clutching his face, blood streaming from his mouth. It was only when he got close that he saw the bloody, chipped teeth on his chest. Before he could say anything, he felt a tap on his shoulder. Instinctively, he turned around.
He didn’t see what happened, or who hit him. He didn’t see a thing. He just felt the sharp cold metal and the hammer blow to his own jaw, pain worse than he’d ever felt, worse than the ear infection back when he was a kid. He was knocked cold to the ground, lying next to the closest thing he had to a friend. He tried to talk, but could only groan through a limp, busted jaw.
“Go home,” Dinah said, voice muffled by the mask. The big guy ran off in a panic.
“What the fuck is this shit?” said the underling. Their attacker stepped forward, and for the first time, the two hoods saw Dinah clearly in her helmet, scarf and coat.
“This is the new normal, bucko,” Dinah said. She wrenched the big knife from the hand of the leader, put it on the ground, and crashed a fist into it. She leaned down to get close and tapped her knuckles together once. Clang.
“Do me a favor. Tell your friends you met the Scrapper tonight,” she said. Clang, clang. “Tell your bosses. Hell, tell the papers. Just tell them what happened. Tell ‘em how much it hurt.” Clang, clang, clang.

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