Cobblepot’s Happy Life (Part 2)

Cobblepot had been having a rough time lately—or, from another perspective, a very good one.

Oswald Cobblepot had been born into the Cobblepot family, one of the four major Mafia families in the East End. His family had been fairly well-off during his childhood.

However, when he was young, the family’s main pillar—his father—died of pneumonia, and the family had declined ever since.

Now, the era of the four major Mafia families in the East End had passed. He and his mother lived cramped together in their old house on a street near Living Hell.

His father had made some money in his youth, and Mrs. Cobblepot had largely lived off those savings.

As he grew older, the household expenses gradually increased. Through favors owed to her late husband, Mrs. Cobblepot got young Cobblepot a job with the Muni Gang.

The Muni Gang had once been the largest gang in Living Hell, but now their boss, Fish Mooney, was a hot-tempered woman whom no one could defy. Cobblepot was short and timid, making him deeply unpopular with Fish.

Because of that, Cobblepot was often sent away to serve as a doorman or umbrella boy at businesses on other streets.

It was not a good job. Being beaten, cursed at, and mocked by customers was routine, and the money he earned had to be handed over not only to the gang controlling the business’s district, but also to the Muni Gang. Very little remained for Cobblepot himself.

At work, Cobblepot was frequently humiliated and ridiculed by others. He could only hide off to the side with a gloomy expression, trying not to draw their attention. Yet his small stature and lack of strength still often angered customers, earning him beatings and scoldings from the foreman. Whenever he returned home, he looked like a drowned rat.

Cobblepot had originally thought he would have to endure that kind of life for a long time, but to his surprise, Gotham changed almost overnight.

Construction began everywhere. The entire city was hiring, and every industry needed workers. Since that change began, Cobblepot had worked as a bartender, sweeper, counter, waiter, and in all sorts of other jobs. Whenever he walked through the streets of Living Hell, someone would ask whether he had work.

Before that, he had been a waiter at the largest night market around Living Hell. Calling him a waiter was generous; he had really just been an assistant at a roadside barbecue stall, washing grill plates and opening beer bottles for customers.

Though the work was not easy, it was much better than being a doorman. It paid more, for one thing, and he often got to eat the leftover scraps of barbecue.

The customers were usually drivers, and they were always in a hurry. They would order barbecue and beer, eat, and leave without lingering. They had no time to make things difficult for the waiters, and he occasionally even received a tip.

Cobblepot had originally been fairly satisfied with that life. At least he had taken a major step forward. But the changes that followed were even more unexpected.

Later, the renovation of Living Hell began. Though Cobblepot did not live within Living Hell itself, he lived nearby, and he watched with his own eyes as the crowded, dilapidated district transformed.

Then the rhythm of his entire life changed.

Because of Living Hell’s redevelopment, many gangs set their sights on this juicy prize. The Muni Gang could not fend off so many opponents alone. More gang forces poured into the poorest district and divided it among themselves, leaving the Muni Gang with only a small patch of territory at the southernmost end.

After the renovation was complete, the gangs began setting up management systems there. But then a problem arose: where were they supposed to find enough people capable of managing Living Hell?

Though it had been renovated, the area was still a tangled maze. These outside gang bosses could not even make sense of the terrain themselves, much less collect protection money.

Cobblepot was half a local. He often went into Living Hell to buy things, and he had originally belonged to the local Muni Gang. A gang boss took notice of him, and Cobblepot began working for them.

At first, he was responsible for counting items at the entrance to the freight passage. Then the minor boss in charge of shipping noticed that he was good at math. Even after counting manually all day, he never made a mistake, so the man introduced him to the commercial district in Living Hell to collect protection money.

Because he had worked at a night-market stall before, Cobblepot quickly became familiar with the owner of a restaurant in the commercial district and took responsibility for delivering ingredients to that restaurant.

By then, Cobblepot’s life had already improved considerably. At the very least, he counted as a minor boss.

Cobblepot had not even reached adulthood, yet he was already personally responsible for procuring ingredients for a restaurant. Anyone could tell there was plenty of profit to skim from that, and that was rare in Gotham.

But that was not all. Cobblepot had received a good education as a child and had even lived in the Affluent Area in the south. As a result, he could write neat English script, had a talent for mathematics and statistics, and could even perform mental arithmetic. In Gotham, that made him rare talent indeed!

Before long, a leader from a major gang noticed him and transferred him to Living Hell’s water management department.

The so-called water management department was responsible for connecting and maintaining running water, then collecting water bills.

They were called water bills, but they were really protection money. Once a gang acquired a section of Living Hell, residents paid their water fees to them, and the gang took responsibility for maintaining the water system.

However, Living Hell’s water supply after reconstruction was nothing like the few wells it had before. The modern water system was complicated, with water pipes running in every direction, all kinds of pipes and valves, and several types of water meters. The gangs had no idea how to handle any of it.

Once, while collecting water fees, the gang clashed with local residents. It was Cobblepot who glanced at the water meter reading and stopped what might have become a gunfight.

That was right. Cobblepot was the only person in the entire water management department who could read a water meter.

Thus, he was promoted to become the person in charge of the water system for North District 2 of Living Hell.

It sounded absurd, but that was the truth. Cobblepot’s promotion had gone so smoothly not because the underage little Penguin was especially formidable, but mainly because everyone else was so awful.

Once he became department supervisor, life naturally became easier. Cobblepot no longer even had to wander around Living Hell himself. As long as someone copied down the readings from the water meters, he could accurately determine how much water each household had used and how much protection money they owed.

However, that life did not last long either. The gangs realized that relying on a genius like Cobblepot, the kind who appeared once in a hundred people, to maintain the operation of the entire system was not enough.

So they began making grand preparations to establish vocational schools.

According to Gotham’s Second Law, only after the school site had been selected, the personnel assembled, and even the teachers found did the gang bosses realize they had no students.

The gang bosses themselves certainly had no time to learn such things. They already had enough to manage.

As for the gang’s middle ranks, most of them knew nothing about anything. They could misspell their own names, and they all smoked, drank, and gambled. Their brains had not worked in years, so sending them to school would have been pointless.

Thus, the gang bosses could only choose from the children of gang members—either the children of young minor bosses, preferably in their teens. Strange hobbies were fine, so long as alcohol or drugs had not fried their brains.

Even with such lenient requirements, they could not scrape together twenty students.

With no other choice, the gangs cast a wide net. Even street orphans were dragged in to attend school, so long as they seemed remotely suitable.

Thus, the well-rounded Cobblepot became one of the vocational school’s first students, and the moment he entered the class, he became its top student.

He had received a good education as a child. Not only did he have neat handwriting and excel at math, but he could even play a little violin. In an environment where the average student had received prenatal education at best, he stood head and shoulders above the rest.

But it was also true that his life was not going well.

Though he had come to school, the water system in his territory still depended on him for maintenance. Cobblepot studied during the day and worked overtime at night. For the past few days, he had simply lived in his office without even getting the chance to go home.

He was no longer miserable like a drowned rat, but he had become a heartless overtime machine.

The defining theme of Cobblepot’s recent life could be summed up in one word: busy.

Because the water system in his district was well maintained and earned more than other areas, the gang boss planned to place District 3 under his control as well.

Though this gang was large, it was far inferior to the Twelve Families. It lacked the means to hire professionals, and the entire system depended on Cobblepot alone.

Cobblepot had learned for the first time that office work was no easier than working outside in the wind and sun.

But it was also true that he was doing well.

Cobblepot now fully understood what it meant for knowledge to change Destiny.

Because he was good at math, he had risen all the way up. Forget being bullied as a doorman—he now managed more than twenty gang members under him.

Because Cobblepot did not need anyone to help him calculate, the others only needed to run errands. They also received a commission from the water fees they collected, so many people liked this job. They relied on Cobblepot to make money, and naturally treated him with great respect.

Cobblepot now even had a small territory of his own. If he saved a little more money, he and Mrs. Cobblepot could move out of that gloomy old house and find a decent apartment.

Moreover, most of the teachers invited by the gangs were deeply troubled by the situation. Before arriving, they had never imagined their students would be like this. In such an environment, the fast-learning and focused Cobblepot seemed especially lovable.

A gloomy face? What did that matter? Look at those little bastards—having fewer than ten metal rings in their entire heads made someone a conservative.

A hooked nose? He had not strung a row of nose rings through it, so he was already paying considerable attention to his appearance.

Short? That was still better than having ants in his pants and bouncing around the classroom all day.

The sort of student teachers liked generally shared the same temperament, and Cobblepot happened to possess it.

He seemed somewhat timid and spoke little. His peers saw that as being unsociable, but teachers and professors saw it as the mark of a well-behaved good student.

The facts proved that the future Penguin, who would earn a place on Gotham Big Stage and compete alongside mad geniuses like the Joker, was naturally exceptional. The vocational school’s courses not only failed to hold him back, but gave him ample room to shine.

Even Victor viewed him somewhat differently, calling Cobblepot "lettuce in a carrot patch."

Hearing Victor’s assessment, Schiller did not know whether to laugh or cry. It was hard for someone who had read the original comics to describe the strange feeling of hearing Mr. Freeze call Penguin a genius.

He did not know whether it was some unseen arrangement of fate or mutual appreciation between villains, but in any case, Victor and Cobblepot gradually began to admire one another.

In Victor’s eyes, Cobblepot became a studious genius who remained unstained by the mud. In Cobblepot’s eyes, Victor became a good teacher who treated every student equally and did not discriminate against him.

As for Schiller, after finishing that lesson, he dumped all the work of maintaining classroom discipline onto Victor. He spent every day slacking off and drinking coffee in his office at Gotham University, infuriating Victor enough to call him an old hand at loafing.

And Cobblepot had certainly not forgotten that Schiller was the unusual customer he had met back then.

At the time, Schiller’s manner and bearing had already given him a favorable impression of professors. Now Victor had also proven that people who read more books really were different.

Cobblepot even began to wonder whether he should take the university entrance exams. The moment that thought appeared in his mind, he found it absurd.

University entrance exams? For every person at the bottom of Gotham’s society, that was something unimaginably distant.

But what the future Penguin lacked least was ambition.

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