Because That's How Jack Chose It — Chapter 7 — The Operation
Two stalls, one Jack. The math doesn't add up until it does.
Nobody ever asked. So he never told. Now he tells it — laughing, the only way he'll do it.
Two stalls, one problem: I'm not in two places at once.
So I started hiring. And hiring, on the street, has a catch.
Half the kids I put to work with me I'd already traded punches with.
Marélia is small for someone who walks it all day. You fight some kid on a corner over nothing, and three months later that same kid is hungry, needs a hustle, and you need hands. The street throws people together and pulls them apart fast.
I hired them anyway. Hunger doesn't care about ex-enemies, and neither do I.
The training was short. I'd say it without raising my voice:
— You know who I run with. And better yet: you know who I am. We've already gone at it, you remember how it went. If you rob me, there won't be a corner brawl. There'll be something else. Choose right.
I never had to say it twice to anyone.
And I paid fair — so almost nobody had a reason to want to test it.
Paying fair isn't kindness, it's math.
An underpaid kid becomes a kid who robs you, and the hole costs more than the fair wage would have. Simple.