Disclaimer: I do not own Newsies or the characters, just a fan.
A/n: I wrote this years ago! Found it burried in my computer and thought I'd share. Fair warning, I was in a serious justify the Delancey brothers phase.
You think you know who I am, but you don't know nothing.
You'd see me and my brother just trying to get to work, trying to squeeze through your stupid little crowd in front of the gates. You wouldn't let us pass. All you'd see was easy targets. You think we're good for a laugh. Mock us, beat us, torture us day in, and day out, who cares? It's just Oscar and Morris.
You think it's funny to soak us, but it's cruel when we fight back. Where's the justice in that?
I'd glare at you as I slipped you your papers, skimming a few off the top now and then for every insult you chose to throw at us. You think we didn't care? You think we're just heartless thugs that you can taunt? You can be as cruel as you like, and still feel good about yourselves at the end of the day, right? We don't matter. No one will judge you if you hurt a Delancey, they're just thugs who beat up kids in the street.
How was it that your pathetic leader put it at your stupid rally? How the rest of the world sees you?
Street rats, street trash, with no brains. No respect for nothing, including ourselves.
You think that's us. That ain't us.
You know what? We're just like you, even if you'd never admit it.
We work hard every day, same as you. We get knocked around by everyone we meet, treated like dirt everywhere we go, just like you. You preach one for all, and all for one, but you don't count us. You act like you take in all the broken, and abused kids in the city. You don't. You never even think about us, do you?
No.
You passed your little fliers out all around New York, urging all the working kids to go on strike. You wanted things to get better all over, except you forgot, didn't you? You forgot that I'm one of you. I toil day in and day out and it's still not enough to survive. I sleep on the streets sometimes. I have to steal when the going is tough. I have to beg for a measly scrap of moldy bread. I beat up the strikers because they paid. Money, real money. They paid us enough to bust the newsies' heads that we might not have to starve yet another winter.
And then you all win the strike.
One of the conditions being that the Delanceys can't be anywhere near the distribution center. You got us fired. You mocked us as we were forced to file out. I knew you hated us, but I had no idea you'd condemn us to starve. You condemned us, our family. You pat yourselves on the back and celebrate all the while. You cheer in the street as we walk away, knowing we ain't got jobs no more.
At least you got The Refuge shut down. I hated that place.
Did you know the Delanceys had been locked up in The Refuge before? Same time as Francis Sullivan, in fact.
Oh, excuse me.
They call him Cowboy, or Jack Kelly. Whatever bogus name he's using on you lot, he was Francis to us. Francis and us had been friends, once, before all of it. Before the strike, before he was a newsie, even before the refuge. We grew up three buildings down from each other. He never mentioned that now, did he?
Me and my brother were caught stealing our dead mother's Bible out of a shop. Our worthless, waste of a father had pawned it so he could get more booze. He didn't even come to our sentencing. Probably was too hungover. Anyway, we got sent to the refuge and what do you know? We see our good pal Francis already in there. He'd been caught pinching food from the bakery. We knew how it was, we'd done it ourselves, we'd just never been caught.
So what do you do when you have a friend in The Refuge? You talk. You talk about anything that's outside of the refuge. We told Francis about the newsies. How we'd watch them from our side of the bars, how free they seemed. We told him how our uncle made sure we couldn't be friends with the newsies, just so we wouldn't slip them extra papers. He agreed with us, being a newsie seemed like the closest thing to freedom this city had to offer us slum kids.
Then Francis broke out. We knew he was going to do it, he said he'd bring us along.
He lied.
He's a pretty big liar, ain't he? He slipped out one night while we were sleeping and left us. By the time we were released from The Refuge he was already parading around as Jack Kelly. The Cowboy. Spouting lies about his family and Santa Fe. He didn't have to sell papes for The World. He could've sold for any paper, could've been a shoe shine boy. No, he picked being a newsie for our paper, but why? When we saw him we thought maybe he was going to help us finally become friends with the newsies. Thought maybe he'd bridge the distance our uncle had forced. He was our friend, he'd have to be there to help us, right? We figured he had a plan to make it up to us for leaving us behind at The Refuge.
So, we didn't say anything. Didn't say we knew his real name, his real story, didn't let on that we knew he was lying.
How'd he repay us?
He made things worse. We used to just silently slip in and out of our cage each day, doling out papes without much conversation at all. Now he was there, picking fights, and taunting us. Well we taunted right back. He made us hate you, made you hate us. He didn't want anyone to trust us. He didn't want anyone to listen to us, to believe us if we ever told who he really was.
We didn't though. Did we?
We didn't breathe one lousy word of it. Even when he was stupid enough to get his picture in the papes we didn't rat him out. I'm sure he blamed us, thought we sold him out to Snider the Spider. We're not that rotten. Someone else ratted him out but we weren't sorry. He deserved to finish serving his time in the Refuge after leaving us behind. It would be the perfect revenge.
He had to pick between being stuck in the Refuge again or losing his friendship with the newsies. Poetic, ain't it? He leaves us behind, he makes the newsies hate us, and now he's got the same fate, too.
We enjoyed our revenge while it lasted. Took out a little of our frustration on Cowboy's favorite little henchmen, too. Won't-shut-up Davey and his annoying little brother. Don't forget that whiney sister of theirs, what a piece of work. Of course, the lousy Cow swooped in and interrupted just when we were getting to good stuff. Typical. We hoped he'd take the bait, though, so we weren't too sorry that he jumped in. We hoped to get Jack arrested again. Get him in the Refuge, and have the newsies still hate him?
Our revenge would be complete.
And then everything was over before it even started. You won the strike. Cowboy stuck around. We lost our job.
The bad guys won.
Sure, we know you think we're the bad guys. Just because we were on the other side of the bars of you, the other side of the fight, the other side of The World. It's all about sides. Our uncle and Cowboy put us against you, but we were never that different. We never had more than you. No money. No family waiting to tuck is in at night.
The biggest difference was we didn't even have the newsies for a family. It's always just me and my brother against everyone else. So we fight, and we steal, and we bust heads. What else Can we do but survive? That's all any of us are doing
You don't know anything. You don't know me, and you never will.
Enjoy carrying your stupid banner.