Notes/ramble: I can't believe I'm actually doing this. I really can't. I'm actually posting this? HA. I guess that means reviewers do mean the world to me ^^; For the time being, it's just copy/paste from the original file (which means, YES, I am being evil and not posting more than one chapter a day 9.9;). I'm working on tying up the loose ends. Please, folks, review! This story has special meaning to me.. and it gets better, I swear o.o Just sweat through all this stuff.. and pray I don't come to my senses when I'm off my cold meds ^^;; And I hope people believed me when I said this whole thing wasn't slash.. ^^;
Disclaimer!: Newsies isn't mine, but, um, the boys you meet in this chapter are : ) Especially Boxer ^_^
Holding Over Water (after nine monts, I still don't know where the title came from...) -- Chapter 2
I guess I'm being rude, not even to tell about my past and how I even became a newsie in the first place. But being rude is typical of a newsie, isn't it? I _should_ have mentioned my past, at the very least. After all, everyone's got a story. Some are more interesting than others. Hopefully mine's interesting enough to tell.
If you haven't done the math already, I was born in 1881. I'm not quite sure where it happened, though, because I was never told. I've always said I was from New York, because those are where my earliest (and only) memories are from. My mother was kind, but the two of us were poor as dirt. I don't know who my father was and from what I've been told, I really don't care to know. My mother told me that he married her, took advantage of her, and then left her only a few months after I was born. Like I said, I've got no connection to him, other than my surname. "Conlon" was his family, but I was named after my mother's deceased father. If I ever met my father or his family, you can be sure about what I'd do to them because of what he did to my mother.
Like I said, my mother and I were poor. She worked in a factory sewing shirts, but the pay wasn't very good. She took me with her when I was young. It was dirty, dusty, poorly lit, no windows - everything you'd expect of a factory. There were constantly new workers coming around because of injuries and the occasional death. But my mother never got hurt. She was one of the lucky ones.
Despite our situation, my mother wanted me to grow up right. We didn't attend a Church or anything, but she taught me about God with a Bible that had belonged to her parents. She was determined to instill some sort of moral sense into me, so I wouldn't become a thief like so many other children of the day. At night she'd use the Bible not only to teach me Scripture but also to try to teach me to read and write in place of a school. She started teaching me about God when I was three, and the reading and writing lessons when I was five. By the time I was seven I was reading Genesis and the papes to her, clear as day. She was proud of me. I wanted her to be. I'd promised her that I would make something out of my life so she could always be proud.
Of course, that was after her luck ran out.
I told her that on her deathbed. She had gotten injured at work, and the wound hadn't been treated properly. It became infected, and she was already sick with some sort of fever she had caught from another woman at work. We couldn't afford a doctor and we didn't associate much with people in our neighborhood, so there was no one we could ask for help. So I sat by her bedside and tried to make her as comfortable as possible. She died right in front of me in October 1890. I was just under nine years old. I couldn't even give her a proper grave, just some godforsaken hole in the ground a short distance from our house.
Because she was dead, there wasn't any more money coming in, so I was forced to leave the little shack of a house we had called "home" with what little belongings were left to me. I didn't have enough money to pay for a stay in a lodging house, and I was too proud (or was it afraid?) to make myself at home in an orphanage. As a result, I lived on the streets for a few months. I had a few brief stints in a couple jobs - most of them were shoe shining for various guys. I didn't leave each job because of the money or anything like that. It wasn't much money, but it was good money and I needed every penny I could get. The thing was, I had an attitude at nine that came from a bitterness with life and God for taking my mother away. That attitude ended up offending so many customers that my employers would send me away. At first I thought it was for the best. What was the point of shoe shining if you'd outgrown your only pair of shoes anyways? But then I was going hungry and by then it was December, so I was freezing too. I had already gone as far as to burn my mother's Bible for warmth, but when the pages were gone, I was out of luck. Sometimes I'd sneak into places to sleep, or sleep right outside those places, hoping to at least stay a little warm. But most of the time my sleeping spot was in some snow bank, freezing every part of me off. I caught a cold that grew worse and worse. By January 1891 I was sick, hungry, poor, and probably going to die, in my humble nine-year-old opinion.
One night I curled up in the snow, completely beat up from trying (and failing) to steal myself a little food. So now I was bruised, sick, hungry, and poor. What was the point? I asked myself. I crawled into that snow bank and prayed that I'd never wake up. Life certainly wasn't the sweetest dream for me, and I thought that by dying, maybe I'd go to something better. Like my mother did. It was worst of all to think that I hadn't been able to do something good like I'd promised her. I'd even gone so far as to try and steal something. If she had seen me then, she would have been heartbroken. Her son was starving and beaten in a snow bank. Not very much to be proud of, I'll tell you that. My eyelids were heavy, and so was my heart. I let them shut, hoping it would be for the last time.
"D'ya t'ink 'e's dead?" asked a voice over me what seemed like a million years later. My eyes weren't open, so I couldn't see who it was. But I could hear them, loud and clear. I thought, in my delusion, that I had died, and they were angels that were going to take me to Heaven like my mother had told me they were doing for her.
"'e sure looks it," said another.
"T'ink we'se should do somet'in'?" asked the first. "Y'know, to check if 'e's alive or not."
"Let's kick him."
They did. I moaned. Damn, angels hurt.
"Sounds like 'e's alive," said the second.
"We'se should take 'im to Boxah, den."
"What the hell would Boxah hafta do wit any of dis?"
"Where the hell else we gonna take him?" asked the first.
"I sees whatcha mean."
One of them grabbed my shoulders, and the other took my feet. I could feel myself being lifted and moved, though I had no idea how far away it was. The only thought going through my mind was that I was going to be with my mother again in Heaven. Next thing I knew, I was being set down on something soft in a place I could tell to be bright, even with my closed eyes.
"Who's dis?" asked someone else.
It was a strong, authoritative voice. It of course belonged the person the angels had been talking about, Boxer, but at the time I was sure that the voice belonged to God. God with a New York accent.
"We found 'im in the snow, Boxah. 'e was freezin'."
"We think 'e's sick."
But I was dead...didn't they know that? I felt a hand on my forehead. God's hand. Blessing me, I knew.
"Someone get Doctah Salamone, quick," God said to them. "e's got da fevah."
I opened my eyes as much as I could, but everything was blurry.
"Isn't dis Heaven...?" I asked.
I could hear God laugh.
"Dis place is nicer dan da streets, but it ain't no Heaven," he said to me.
Then everything went blank.
Disclaimer!: Newsies isn't mine, but, um, the boys you meet in this chapter are : ) Especially Boxer ^_^
Holding Over Water (after nine monts, I still don't know where the title came from...) -- Chapter 2
I guess I'm being rude, not even to tell about my past and how I even became a newsie in the first place. But being rude is typical of a newsie, isn't it? I _should_ have mentioned my past, at the very least. After all, everyone's got a story. Some are more interesting than others. Hopefully mine's interesting enough to tell.
If you haven't done the math already, I was born in 1881. I'm not quite sure where it happened, though, because I was never told. I've always said I was from New York, because those are where my earliest (and only) memories are from. My mother was kind, but the two of us were poor as dirt. I don't know who my father was and from what I've been told, I really don't care to know. My mother told me that he married her, took advantage of her, and then left her only a few months after I was born. Like I said, I've got no connection to him, other than my surname. "Conlon" was his family, but I was named after my mother's deceased father. If I ever met my father or his family, you can be sure about what I'd do to them because of what he did to my mother.
Like I said, my mother and I were poor. She worked in a factory sewing shirts, but the pay wasn't very good. She took me with her when I was young. It was dirty, dusty, poorly lit, no windows - everything you'd expect of a factory. There were constantly new workers coming around because of injuries and the occasional death. But my mother never got hurt. She was one of the lucky ones.
Despite our situation, my mother wanted me to grow up right. We didn't attend a Church or anything, but she taught me about God with a Bible that had belonged to her parents. She was determined to instill some sort of moral sense into me, so I wouldn't become a thief like so many other children of the day. At night she'd use the Bible not only to teach me Scripture but also to try to teach me to read and write in place of a school. She started teaching me about God when I was three, and the reading and writing lessons when I was five. By the time I was seven I was reading Genesis and the papes to her, clear as day. She was proud of me. I wanted her to be. I'd promised her that I would make something out of my life so she could always be proud.
Of course, that was after her luck ran out.
I told her that on her deathbed. She had gotten injured at work, and the wound hadn't been treated properly. It became infected, and she was already sick with some sort of fever she had caught from another woman at work. We couldn't afford a doctor and we didn't associate much with people in our neighborhood, so there was no one we could ask for help. So I sat by her bedside and tried to make her as comfortable as possible. She died right in front of me in October 1890. I was just under nine years old. I couldn't even give her a proper grave, just some godforsaken hole in the ground a short distance from our house.
Because she was dead, there wasn't any more money coming in, so I was forced to leave the little shack of a house we had called "home" with what little belongings were left to me. I didn't have enough money to pay for a stay in a lodging house, and I was too proud (or was it afraid?) to make myself at home in an orphanage. As a result, I lived on the streets for a few months. I had a few brief stints in a couple jobs - most of them were shoe shining for various guys. I didn't leave each job because of the money or anything like that. It wasn't much money, but it was good money and I needed every penny I could get. The thing was, I had an attitude at nine that came from a bitterness with life and God for taking my mother away. That attitude ended up offending so many customers that my employers would send me away. At first I thought it was for the best. What was the point of shoe shining if you'd outgrown your only pair of shoes anyways? But then I was going hungry and by then it was December, so I was freezing too. I had already gone as far as to burn my mother's Bible for warmth, but when the pages were gone, I was out of luck. Sometimes I'd sneak into places to sleep, or sleep right outside those places, hoping to at least stay a little warm. But most of the time my sleeping spot was in some snow bank, freezing every part of me off. I caught a cold that grew worse and worse. By January 1891 I was sick, hungry, poor, and probably going to die, in my humble nine-year-old opinion.
One night I curled up in the snow, completely beat up from trying (and failing) to steal myself a little food. So now I was bruised, sick, hungry, and poor. What was the point? I asked myself. I crawled into that snow bank and prayed that I'd never wake up. Life certainly wasn't the sweetest dream for me, and I thought that by dying, maybe I'd go to something better. Like my mother did. It was worst of all to think that I hadn't been able to do something good like I'd promised her. I'd even gone so far as to try and steal something. If she had seen me then, she would have been heartbroken. Her son was starving and beaten in a snow bank. Not very much to be proud of, I'll tell you that. My eyelids were heavy, and so was my heart. I let them shut, hoping it would be for the last time.
"D'ya t'ink 'e's dead?" asked a voice over me what seemed like a million years later. My eyes weren't open, so I couldn't see who it was. But I could hear them, loud and clear. I thought, in my delusion, that I had died, and they were angels that were going to take me to Heaven like my mother had told me they were doing for her.
"'e sure looks it," said another.
"T'ink we'se should do somet'in'?" asked the first. "Y'know, to check if 'e's alive or not."
"Let's kick him."
They did. I moaned. Damn, angels hurt.
"Sounds like 'e's alive," said the second.
"We'se should take 'im to Boxah, den."
"What the hell would Boxah hafta do wit any of dis?"
"Where the hell else we gonna take him?" asked the first.
"I sees whatcha mean."
One of them grabbed my shoulders, and the other took my feet. I could feel myself being lifted and moved, though I had no idea how far away it was. The only thought going through my mind was that I was going to be with my mother again in Heaven. Next thing I knew, I was being set down on something soft in a place I could tell to be bright, even with my closed eyes.
"Who's dis?" asked someone else.
It was a strong, authoritative voice. It of course belonged the person the angels had been talking about, Boxer, but at the time I was sure that the voice belonged to God. God with a New York accent.
"We found 'im in the snow, Boxah. 'e was freezin'."
"We think 'e's sick."
But I was dead...didn't they know that? I felt a hand on my forehead. God's hand. Blessing me, I knew.
"Someone get Doctah Salamone, quick," God said to them. "e's got da fevah."
I opened my eyes as much as I could, but everything was blurry.
"Isn't dis Heaven...?" I asked.
I could hear God laugh.
"Dis place is nicer dan da streets, but it ain't no Heaven," he said to me.
Then everything went blank.
