Disclaimer: I don't own Newsies, Billy Joel, or anything else that might be mentioned in this fanfiction. All I own is my imagination. This is dedicated to Friskywallabee, who not only inspired this, but has been waiting almost two months for me to type it up.
Prologue: Graduation
"A truly touching speech, Mr. Valedictorian," Jack said as he and David sat out on the fire escape outside David's apartment. Jack was smoking lazily, and David was lying down, staring up into the maze of fire escape above him. Inside, their friends were eating everything in the Jacobs' kitchen, and Esther had turned on one of her old psychedelic LPs.
"I threw up," David said numbly. "I was the fucking Valedictorian, and I threw up all over the podium."
"A perfect end to our high school years," Jack said, grinning like a maniac.
"Your cheering didn't help," David said, turning to look at him.
Jack shrugged, blowing smoke from his mouth dramatically. "I wasn't the only one."
Two more figures climbed out onto the fire escape. It was Blink and Mush, who were both high as kites. Jack, David, Blink, and Mush had been friends since kindergarten, their friendship sealed when Blink saved Jack, who had been David's only friend beforehand, from choking to death on cheap glue. He had come over with record speed, stuck his finger down Jack's throat, and swooped out the glue. David was eternally grateful, and Jack just thought it was really cool, because all David had managed to do was fall to his knees and start praying fervently in Hebrew. With Blink came Mush, and together, the four of them were an unstoppable A-team for all the years they were trapped in public education. They had done everything together, even gotten jobs as newspaper delivery boys as preteens, then as waiters at the Delancey's Italian restaurant.
"David, your sis is so pregnant," Blink said, as Mush puffed on a joint beside him. "Only about three weeks, but she's definitely got the bitch swings."
"Guys, that stuff smells like boiled urine," David complained, wrinkling his nose.
"Anyway, about your psycho sister," Blink said, waving David's complaint away with one hand, "Does she have to come? I mean a pregnant woman on a cross-country road trip could really cramp our style."
"We're going to Disneyland," David sighed, plucking the joint from Mush's lip and dropping it over the edge of the fire escape. "That's why all the other guys are ditching on us. Spot and Race are doing the roller coaster thing-"
"Lucky bastards," Jack muttered, low enough for David not to hear him.
"-And Specs, Dutchy, and Snoddy are just going to let the road guide them. You all said you wanted to go with us, and I'm not about to entrust my sister's life to her idiot boyfriend and his psycho brother. Morris would probably forget her in a Wal-Mart in Wisconsin. Besides, you guys were all psyched that my mom was letting us use the Volkswagen bus."
"Don't worry," Jack said confidently to Mush and Blink, "It'll still be like Thelma and Louise."
"Minus the guns," David exclaimed, looking at Jack in slight fear. "I don't trust any of you idiots not to shoot me or my pregnant sister."
"Yes sir," Jack cackled, his smile looking even more disturbing as it spread across his face like wildfire. "I'll return shortly, comrades. I have something to take care of."
"No guns!" David yelled down at him, as he scurried down the fire escape.
"We're doomed," Mush said, lighting up a new joint, only to have David pull it out of his mouth and put it out under his foot.