An October in Libreville
It is early autumn, cold, October 1919. The world is recovering from war and the Spanish Flu. In national events, President Wilson suffered a stroke recently, and we have entered those last glorious months before the introduction of Prohibition. Scant weeks from now the Palmer Raids will visit mass deportation of leftists and radicals, part of the ongoing strife between the working class and the elites (represented in part by the likes of Willard Arthur Crump in the microcosm that is Libvil). The Libreville Sanitarium has just opened its doors for business, there's a new club opening downtown off what the locals call "Jazz Alley", and the mayoral elections are nigh. Oo-ray, oo-rah, the Roaring Twenties are upon us, friends!
Miles Cressbeckler has a busy day ahead of him: another set of young delinquents to work his print shop on Earle Street, all hailing from St. Regina School. Anxiety fills him; only half of the last group worked out.
"Ah crud, what a mess," he groans, stepping in a pile of chewing gum, ruining his new leather shoes.
"And how!" answers a passerby, gone before Miles can look up. Now he's angry.
He rounds the corner, just in time to hear the chapel bells as St. Regina lets out for the day. Right on time, as always. Mr. Bradley, the Physical Education Teacher, sees him and beckons to a group of young men, shiftlessly hanging back, all stern and unhappy expressions.
"Here is Mr. Cressbeckler, you boys. Don't talk back to him, now, and get going with him! You remember: better to work than to rot!" Bradley growls, his face pinched.
"My thanks, Steven," Cressbeckler offers distantly, his mind still on that damned gum. It was probably one of these very boys. Well, they'd get what was coming soon enough.