Author's Notes: Every once in a while I like to write OFC…it gives me a break from slash, and this idea has been poking at me for two weeks now. Not only that, I've always wondered if the powerful newsgirls you see in fics ever have any real regrets about being who they are, or how they got that way. It might be a little melodramatic in places, but I guess that's okay. All I know is that it's not Mary Sue. Thank you, as always, to Vinyl for giving it a read through ::heart::
Whole and Half-Truths
They call me Queenie. Now, don't you dare go assuming that's 'cause I'm in Queens, 'cause it ain't. I ain't ever even been to Queens; I'm leader of the Bronx newsies. I got boys and girls alike under me, all ages, though there ain't very many like me.
The new kids look at me and wonder how I'm the leader of them. And the truth is, I don't blame them. I'm pretty scrawny. I mean, my height's not bad, but I'm real bony and I don't got a lot of weight on me. I ain't got much of a mouth, either. The legend of newsgirls is that they curse and backtalk like nobody's business. It ain't as true as the legends say. I don't think I've ever cursed more than a few times in my life, and even then, I turn real red from it. I don't talk trash to the other kids, so I don't end up picking fights. My body ain't set for being that kind of weapon.
So, why am I leader, you ask?
Like I said, I don't do fistfights, 'cause my body ain't that kind of body. But there's a different kind of fight I did to get where I am. It's been an uphill battle most of the way, using my body as the worst kind of weapon.
In the beginning, it was just boys, and then came me. I know it sounds like a stale story, but cross my heart, it's true -- I was the first Bronx newsgirl in a long, long time. They liked me well enough, probably because I didn't try to fight 'em and I didn't cuss them out like the girls who came later tried. I guess they saw me as a little sister or something. Probably more like one of those princesses I used to see pictures of in books, because they say that's why they called me Queenie. I wish I knew more about those kinds of girls, but I can't read. All I knew at the time was from the pictures and that they were always pretty, and that made me happy. Some of the younger girls know about 'em now, and now I know that those kinds of royal girls are the kinds with special circumstances and end up with a happy ending. I ain't got the heart to tell those girls that the stories lie to them. I knew a long time ago that I wasn't ever gonna get a happy ending.
Like I said, for a while, I was the girl, and they were the boys, and then I started growing up and getting ambition. I wanted to be the leader, and when I told Mox, who was the big man in charge at the time, about it, he looked at me and laughed real long and real loud. Told me I couldn't ever be leader, that he'd choose Gimps, who was two years younger than me at thirteen and had a missing leg, as leader over me any day 'cause I was a girl, and that I should just stop trying right then and there. But when I insisted, I learned there's always an extra circumstance.
I insisted, and he gave me a long, thick look. I've learned to hate that look since then. He kept looking at me, and when I finally caved and uncomfortably demanded, "What!?" he said the words I wish I'd never heard:
"I t'ink we kin make an arrangement, Queenie."
Like I said, I use my body as a different kind of weapon. Mox showed me how. Back then I was still pretty, I guess, and I was still wiry and wispy, which he liked. He liked it enough to tell me that by sharing a bed with him, he'd make me leader. He'd step down and give the whole thing to me, and would hold me up as long as he stuck around. He'd even give me a second-in-command to make sure I got kept as leader after he was gone. And then he laughed, said I had too much sense to listen to a guy like him.
But I wanted it so bad, I shook my head and asked, "Ya mean it? You'll do all that fer me?"
He was stunned, but after a few long moments he said yeah, he would.
It all took place in the bunkroom, and he said he'd kick 'em all out for me, if it would make me feel better about it. I said it didn't matter, but he did it anyway, and we did it. It takes a lot quicker than you'd think, but maybe that's just because I clenched my eyes shut and just let him move on top of me. I let him do it, and we did it a couple times more before he told them all his decision to make me leader. Said he just wanted to be sure, but I think it was just because I thought I had turned into a whore you ain't gotta pay for. Finally, though, he stepped down and let me have what I earned.
They were all hopping mad when Mox told 'em. Some left the newsies, migrated to the other boroughs where the girls were fewer and ain't got any power. Most stayed, though, 'cause Mox would still be there to keep an eye on everyone, and then, when he went away after two years, there was Lefty too.
Lefty was my age, which was seventeen at the time, Mox's handpicked second to help me out -- my left hand, if you wanna be cute about it. The only thing I'd ever really liked about Mox was that he kept the secret. No one ever figured out why he gave the place to me; they concluded it was 'cause he thought of me as some kind of sister or something. Lefty didn't know either; all he knew was that he was supposed to make sure the guys didn't try to take advantage of me (ha!). Lefty was Lefty, though. He was smart, and I guess he was good looking. I never really thought of guys that way, since I had to live with 'em. He ended up thinking of me that way, though, and he got power-hungry, too. Wanted to run the whole show, that guy, so much that he threatened me. He told me that if I wanted to stay where I was, I had to do something for him. It was like Mox, except that I didn't have a choice anymore. I gave away my choices when I took Mox up on his offer, the offer I may never know if he was serious about. But that's not the point, I guess. I did what he wanted. I laid there on a rainy Sunday afternoon and he took me like I meant nothing to him, worse than Mox. Which I didn't, I knew, but still, the knowledge of that made the whole thing worse.
When Lefty and I went on like that, it wasn't like with Mox. At least Mox tried to make it a little better for me. Lefty, though, didn't care, and he told the boys. It wasn't a secret like it was with Mox. After the first few times, all of 'em knew, and all of 'em wanted a piece of me. Okay, all of 'em is too much. Some figured it wouldn't be good to try for it. Others, though, pushed me up against the bunkroom wall and told me they wanted me and would take me whether I liked it or not. I guess I was lucky that Lefty was the jealous type. He wouldn't let 'em have me, and he made 'em give up. I was his own little toy, until he got bored and left for Staten Island.
When Lefty left two years ago, I didn't want another second-in-command. I didn't want it to be like Lefty. So I toughened up. Like I said, I could never hold my own in a struggle. I just ain't built that way. But I've got the iciest stare this side of the East River, and I'm real good at the silent thing. Anyway. Even though, I didn't want another Lefty, it ended up like Lefty all over. The whispers of my habits had died down and been forgotten as old news, but a few still remembered, and they knew how to get me to buckle. They still know. The thing is, I like being a leader. It makes me feel like what I'm doing for these newsies is pretty good. But if I wanna keep what I've got, if I wanna make that difference, I gotta earn it in dirty bunkroom beds with boys I hate. I don't even call 'em men. Men wouldn't do this kind of thing.
Despite what you might think, some of them ain't that bad. They do it quick and let me be, give me a kiss on the cheek at the end and then pull their pants up. Don't get me wrong, they still make my stomach turn, but they're nicer than some of the others. Some of them force my eyes open and make me watch them do it, and others still take their sweet time and make it last as long as possible. I don't think of it as being an unpaid prostitute anymore, though. It's a sacrifice. It's a horrible, disgusting sacrifice, and I wish I'd never done this, but if I stop now, I lose all of it. I don't want to lose it.
If there's a good side to this, it's that no one talks about it anymore. When it happens, even if people are in the bunkroom when it happens, they ignore it. They understand.
Remember when I mentioned that thing about how people think all newsgirls curse like nobody's business? You know it's not really true. The legends you hear about newsgirls are often half-truths. But if you ever hear the one about the girl who kept her position as leader through her bed, do me a favor and remember that you know the whole truth, and not the half of it.