Author's Note: Just some short Skittery drabble. Don't own Newsies, shockingly enough.
It's days like these when I truly despise being a newsie. Late November, ice on the streets, a harbinger of the bitter winter days to come. My hands ache from the cold, throbbing and bright red, as I'm sure my nose is. My fingers are permanently marked with newsprint. The fine motor skills required to handle nickels and pennies are weakened by the temperature. An important-looking man is impatient with me as I fumble with his change. I hand him the pape and he takes off with out another word.
I stand on the corner, shivering. I've lined the inside of my coat with yesterday's leftover newspapers in a vain attempt to keep warm. I guess that sounds like a ridiculous practice, but it isn't uncommon to see us Manhattan boys running around with that sort of extra insulation under our jackets. It was Racetrack Higgins' idea, actually. He's a clever kid, that Racetrack. Fucking smart-ass too. He's the one always making the gibes about my pink long johns and the queer jokes about Jack and Davey or Blink and Mush, or any of the rest of us. For the record, I don't like pink. It's a girly color.
It's a bad headline. "No New Information from the Capitol!"... Seriously, why even report on that? It only means there's not a lot of business for a newsie like me. That makes waiting out in the cold such a delight.
A mother with her two children round the corner, passing by me without a second look-- or a first look, for that matter. I can't say I blame them; the little family has their heads bowed against the wind, obviously trying to get home as soon as possible. The little kids look funny. They're all bundled up so's they can hardly walk. They sort of totter along like penguins, with their arms sticking straight out with all the layers they wear. I saw I photograph of a penguin in The New York World last week. I'd never seen one before. Penguins look stupid. I watch the kids disappear into the winding streets of the city. Watching them wander back home.
A home is where you feel safe and warm, surrounded by family. Yeah, I don't have one. And I hate being the rotten little orphan boy who complains about being alone in the world. Complaining gets you nowhere. This is my life, like it or not and whining about wanting a hot meal and adequate parents won't help me. It's such an old song to hear the pitiful orphans bemoan their grievances. Like Jack. I love the boy dearly (Okay, get your licks in: Nah-nah! Skittery's a queer! Hahahaha. Got it out of your system? Fantastic. I love him as friend, thank you very much; you can stop acting so juvenile.) But the kid is so hung up on finding a family. I don't understand it. He needs to wake and realize he's sharing a lodging house with twenty other orphans. Orphans! He's got no one.
The little kids would disagree. Boots, Tumbler, Slider, all of them. They're full of that shit about the newsies being a family. It's cute and naive, I suppose, but let's be real. Some family we are! Yeah, I bet you could tell from our close resemblance that me and Boots are brothers. But why listen to me? I'm only the cynic after all, according to Racetrack and Mush.
I'm not a cynic. I'm not.
Damn. It's cold... obviously. I don't know you and I don't know what you want to hear from me and I don't know what I want to tell you. I'm a newsie, I tell you what's written in the smudgy black ink. Or I'll tell you some outrageous lie, if that's what it takes to sell you a paper. That's why I'm standing out here on this miserable day. Make yourself useful. Take a pape.