Chapter 5 - A City That Grows on Blood
"So Ciaran had this kind of talent."
"We should have asked him sooner. It's even sharper than when it was new!"
All afternoon, I sharpened twenty kitchen knives.
Every one of them belonged to the neighbors.
So far, I'd made sixty cents.
A dozen eggs cost thirty-four cents, so I could fill Roa's stomach with eggs.
"Big brother, you're the best!"
"Heh."
Funny how something like this could lift my mood.
Encouraged by Roa, I kept sharpening knives in the middle of the living room until dusk.
Mother hadn't returned home yet.
My younger brother Liam got home first.
Liam stepped inside, dripping wet from the rain, and his jaw dropped when he saw all the knives spread out in the living room.
"...What's all this?"
Did he really need an explanation?
The whetstone made it obvious enough.
Come to think of it, this was the first time I got a proper look at Liam.
I gave Liam a once-over from head to toe and realized he looked nothing like me.
Brown hair, pale skin, and freckles.
He looked just like a typical Irish boy.
Maybe that was why he hated being seen with his brother.
Even when he was out shining shoes, Liam never worked alongside Ciaran.
Thinking back, Ciaran always blamed himself for that.
After all, he'd watched his brother get treated differently just because of how he looked, and he'd never really managed to act like a proper older brother, either.
An older brother who wasn't reliable enough for his sibling to lean on.
A timid, hesitant older brother who never really belonged anywhere.
To Liam, that's all Ciaran was.
Regardless of what he thought,
I spoke to him confidently, like a dependable big brother.
"You're late. Go ahead and change out of those wet clothes and get some rest."
Liam stared at me blankly for a moment, then started peeling off his wet clothes.
Rainwater dripped all over the entryway, pooling on the floor.
Roa, wielding a rag bigger than herself, scrubbed at the puddle and chattered away.
"Liam, did you shine shoes today?"
"Who'd be crazy enough to get their shoes shined in the rain?"
"Then what?"
"I told you this morning. I was doing something else."
"What kind of job?"
Liam glanced at me and answered.
"...You don't need to know."
"Hmph! Aunt Mary said curiosity is the beginning of invention, you know?"
"Invention, huh. You need money for that, too. Just filing for a patent costs at least a hundred dollars."
"Geez! I'm going to tell Mom! I'll tell her you stomped all over Roa's dreams!"
Srrrt, srr...
Wait, does it really cost that much to file a patent?
Well, judging by how many people Edison bankrupted just through patent lawsuits, Liam probably isn't wrong.
In the end, if you're poor, even inventing something isn't easy.
"This sucks."
Liam looked at me, blinking as if he wasn't sure he'd heard me right.
I nonchalantly went back to sharpening the knife. Liam tilted his head and spoke to Roa.
"By the way, your vocabulary keeps improving. Where did you pick up a word like 'stomped'?"
"Oh, Jake uses it a lot these days. He's always like, 'I'll stomped over everything!'"
"That guy's a nutjob. Stay away from him."
"Yeah, I think so too."
Srrrng, srrrng.
Listening to their conversation, I checked the edge of the blade under the lamp to make sure it was sharp.
Just then, Liam came over and glanced at the pile of kitchen knives and paring knives.
He picked up one, inspected the edge, and asked in surprise,
"Did you sharpen all these knives yourself?"
"Isn't it obvious?"
"...That's really out of nowhere. Didn't you get scolded by Mom last time for sharpening them all wrong?"
I figured it was time to make things clear.
Switching my gaze between the two, I spoke up.
"Forget about the old Ciaran. From today on, I've been reborn. So if I act or talk differently, just go with it."
"Wow! So is it big brother's birthday today? Wait, if today's your first day, are you younger than me now?!"
"...'Reborn' just means I'm starting fresh in body and mind."
"Oh, got it! Then I want to do that too! Roa wants to be reborn!"
Roa looked like she wasn't really thinking about it, while Liam crossed his arms and glanced back and forth between me and the knife.
"Don't say weird things. What's the deal with that knife anyway?"
"Desperate times call for desperate measures. I can't just keep working as a shoeshine boy forever."
"That sounds a lot like something I've said to you before."
Liam had a bored look on his face.
Usually by seventeen, people leave shoe shining behind to find better work, but Ciaran, with his stubborn ways, had always stuck to what he knew.
Liam, always frustrated by this, used to ask as if it were his catchphrase, "How long are you going to live as a shoeshine boy?"
Liam definitely had a more mature side compared to Ciaran.
At least, he used to.
"But, Ciaran,"
Liam asked, looking unusually serious.
"Why did you do something so out of character? It's not the first time you've lost your toolkit, is it? So why did you chase after Gary's Gang to get it back? And I heard you even threw a rock at them?"
Ciaran's shoeshine life was basically a history of his toolkit being stolen. It was a regular occurrence for it to be taken away or stomped to pieces.
When it keeps happening, some people eventually stop getting angry and just accept it.
That's how Ciaran was.
But sometimes, when all that bottled-up anger finally reaches its breaking point, even the quietest person can snap.
A few days ago, Ciaran did just that.
He completely lost it.
It all started because of Roa's birthday present.
He'd saved up and bought her a hairpin for twenty cents—a real splurge.
But Gary's Gang stole the entire toolkit where he'd put the hairpin, and then they laughed and mocked him about it.
"Do you think that's funny? Is tormenting others entertaining to you!"
That day, something inside Ciaran just snapped.
He grabbed a stone, ran after Gary, and threw it at him.
And in return, he got beaten up.
The boys he used to stand up to as a kid had grown older and a lot bigger, and their strength had grown with them.
Getting punched wasn't something he could just brush off anymore.
They were turning into men who could be cruel enough, ruthless enough, dangerous enough to kill someone.
And that's how Ciaran ended up beaten to death.
In a way, doesn't that seem a lot like how I died in my previous life—charging into a Mafia den and getting killed?
Ciaran did it for his little sister's present.
But I...
What was it that I risked my life for?
"Hyung, why aren't you answering? You knew Gary's gang would beat you up, so why did you still go after them?!"
Liam raised his voice.
He's clearly got Korean blood, you know.
How dare he speak to his older brother like that.
"Sometimes people just snap. That day was like that."
"What kind of answer is that? I heard Gary said that if he sees you're up and about, he won't let you off easy. Wouldn't it be better for you to just get a job at a factory or something? How are you planning to keep living like this?"
Liam bit his lip hard.
At least he still thinks of me as his older brother.
Quick-witted Roa kept her mouth shut, puffed out her cheeks, and just rolled her eyes.
I felt kind of bad for making the mood so heavy.
I poked Roa's cheek with my index finger.
"Piiiu~ng."
"Alright, let's leave it at that."
"Tch, who knows what'll happen if you run into Gary's gang again. For now, don't even think about going outside."
"I'm not planning to leave the house either."
It wasn't really me who got beaten up—it was Ciaran.
To be honest, I wasn't angry enough to want revenge.
Someday, I'll have to face them, but I can worry about that when the time comes.
I started sharpening the knife again.
Liam didn't say anything more.
"My babies, you must be really hungry, right? "I'll have dinner ready soon."
Mother came home from work.
After quickly changing her clothes, she started chopping vegetables.
She kept expressing her delight at how sharp the kitchen knife was, clearly pleased with it.
"I can't believe you've been hiding this kind of talent all this time."
Dinner time.
We sat together at the table, heads close.
We're not religious, but I joined in the prayer.
I put my hands together and closed my eyes.
God, how are we supposed to go on living.
The prayer ended, and we began to eat.
But as he chewed his food, Liam suddenly pulled some coins from his pocket and held them out.
"This is the money I earned today."
It was a whole 90 cents.
Mother stared quietly at Liam.
"Can you tell me what kind of work you did?"
"I just filled in for someone else."
"...Was it at the docks, by any chance?"
Liam nodded silently.
Mother bit her lip and let out a quiet sigh.
As I chewed my potato, I tried to understand what her sigh meant.
The word "docks" brought only one thing to mind.
The massive New York harbor workers' strike that had started not long ago.
Three years ago, in 1914, the European Great War broke out, forcing dock workers into punishing labor. With the transport of wartime supplies, they had to endure brutally long hours.
But far from a wage increase, the war pushed prices sky-high, and real wages plummeted.
While the government and companies enjoyed enormous profits from the war boom, workers were pushed into deeper poverty.
That anger quickly turned into a massive dockworkers' strike in New York and New Jersey.
Demanding higher wages, shorter hours, and safer working conditions, the union entered negotiations with both the federal government and the companies.
But the companies didn't just rely on talks.
To minimize losses and crush the strike, they brought in replacement workers.
The union had a name for those replacements—for those traitors: Strike Breakers, or "Labor Sluggers," or "Scabs," a word meaning "skin disease."
And today, Liam was among those traitors.
The problem was that strikes often turned violent.
There was a real danger he could get caught up in something.
There was another issue, too. Mother's older brothers—the two O'Connell uncles—were dockworkers participating in the strike. Mother didn't have a good relationship with them.
"Liam, you didn't run into your uncles, did you?"
"Never."
"If you're going again tomorrow…"
"I know, I won't get caught."
Mother managed a faint smile, but her face remained clouded with worry.
After dinner, Mother went around to our neighbors to return the knives I'd sharpened.
The collected payment came to $1.50.
That was more than I could earn shining shoes all day.
"At this rate, we're going to be rich!"
Mother beamed as she walked back in the door.
With the money Liam and I earned together, we could look forward to a weekend meal with meat and eggs.
No one was happier about it than—
"Roa's so happy! My brothers are the best!"
It rained for days on end.
The day after I started sharpening knives, our business quickly peaked and then the requests dropped off sharply.
Today, not a single person brought over a knife.
I'd expected this.
There was only so much we could rely on Mother's connections and Tenement House customers.
So, should we go out and expand the business?
If I did that, I'd end up roaming the neighborhood and getting into fights with other knife sharpeners. After all, this was a matter of survival.
Looks like I'll just have to go back to shining shoes once the rain stops. Until then, I'll focus on working out at home and building up my body.
"Twenty-two... twenty-three... twenty... damn it, four."
Even doing thirty push-ups felt like it was going to kill me.
My muscles were screaming in protest.
But what choice did I have?
If I didn't want to get beaten to death, I had to do it.
I put together a more systematic workout plan.
Even though the location and equipment were different, I followed the same exercise routines from my old Special Forces days.
To make the most of the cramped space, I started with bodyweight exercises: planks, burpees, lunges, crunches, and leg raises. I worked my legs with wall push-ups and squats using the wall for support.
In the evenings, Roa would try to copy me.
"Hup, hup! I can do it too...!"
"You're going to end up needing to poop again if you keep that up."
"Roa, I've just been reborn! Forget about what happened earlier! Let's go, let's go!"
Liam, who worked as a strikebreaker, would collapse in exhaustion whenever he came home.
Work at the New York docks must've been pretty tough, yet he'd see his brother doing weird things at home. Lying on the bed, Liam looked at me as if I were completely hopeless.
"Seriously, are you out of your mind? What's even going to change if you keep doing that?"
"A lot will change. You'll see if you try it too."
"If you've got that much energy to spare, why don't you go get a job? Instead of wasting your time, think about ways to actually make money."
"Weren't you just telling me not to go outside?"
"So what, are you planning to stay like this forever?"
The kid was surprisingly practical and cynical.
I got it—he was only fifteen, but there was no way not to grow up fast in an environment like this.
Besides, to him, seeing me work out at home must've seemed unfamiliar and ridiculous at the same time.
Still, I didn't stop. My pull-up bar was just a metal rod I'd hammered into the wall above the door—though I'd gotten a smack on the back from Mom for putting it there. Instead of dumbbells, I used a potato crate, a bucket filled to the brim with water, and even put heavy stones in my bag to use it as a backpack weight, working every muscle in my body.
After days of steady rain, it finally stopped. We hurried through breakfast, and the family scattered in all directions.
"Big brother, you're going to work today, right?"
I had no intention of working yet.
I'd been going up and down the building's stairs until now, but today, I planned to go outside for a run.
Stepping out of the house and onto the street, the sky was just starting to brighten with sunrise, streaked with red and gray.
The narrow street lined with Tenement Houses was muddy from the days of rain.
From a bakery that had opened early, the smell of fresh-baked bread wafted out.
I began to run, passing old buildings made from red brick.
Some people, late to wake, leaned out of windows, and one person picked up the morning paper.
Another, yawning, lifted a coffee cup—flashes of daily life I sped past.
As I left the alley, the broad avenue beyond was already bustling with people hurrying up and down the street.
They pressed onward alongside horses and carriages, or the clattering 1910 Ford Model T—the horse-drawn vehicles still outnumbered the iron cars for now.
Pushcarts lined the street, mobile stalls already selling fruit, vegetables, and fish from early in the morning.
One laborer swept an enormous pile of refuse that had gathered overnight into his three-wheeled cart.
The scene looked like a black-and-white film newly colored in. I took it all in as I ran.
My body was brimming with energy.
It wasn't just because of the feeling of suddenly going from forty-seven years old back to seventeen.
For someone who had nearly died and come back, my recovery was extraordinary, and whenever I exercised, the results were far better than I expected.
Was this body just naturally gifted?
Even when I was seventeen in my previous life, I didn't have this kind of stamina.
Sometimes, in the heat of battle, there are moments of intense excitement.
In those fits of madness, you start to believe bullets can't touch you, or that even if they do, you won't die.
But with this body, I sometimes feel that way just from exercising.
Is this some kind of gift from God?
Maybe an apology for dropping me into the gutter?
Regardless, seeing my body change day by day, I can't bring myself to stop working out.
It was around the time I'd sprinted three blocks.
I caught sight of a boy already hard at work that morning.
He was a pickpocket, running off after stealing from a pushcart vendor.
The crime was organized.
Three kids blocked the stall owner, distracting him, while another swiped goods from the now-unattended pushcart.
Why am I focusing on all this?
I was already running in place, but now I picked up the pace again.
Soon after, I was passing the intersection of Canal and Mulberry Street.
A crowd had gathered in front of a shop, and in front of them sat a wagon that looked like a combination of a Ford car and a horse-drawn carriage.
"Move aside, move aside!"
The onlookers parted to the sides as the police appeared.
They were loading a body onto a stretcher and then into the wagon.
I stopped running and looked at the corpse being carried away.
One ear had been cut off, and the shirt was soaked in blood, riddled with holes—stab wounds from a knife.
A complicated debt dispute? A personal grudge?
What really caught my attention was the crowd's reaction.
Some people were pointing and laughing at the body, making jokes. Others frowned at the gruesome sight but still scanned the corpse with curious eyes. Even children not yet ten years old were there.
It was oddly reminiscent of what I'd seen in civil war zones in Africa and on battlefields in the Middle East.
People shot or stabbed to death, dying from disease, crushed when mines collapsed, or mangled by factory machines.
In places where death becomes routine, even another person's tragedy turns into a spectacle.
A city that feeds on blood.
A jungle ruled by the law of the strong.
New York, Manhattan, the Lower East Side—danger lurked everywhere.
And sometimes that danger appeared suddenly, without warning.
Just like now.
"There you are, you mongrel bastard."
Gary, the one who had beaten Ciaran to a pulp.
He pressed down on my shoulder, growling.