Author's Note -- Yes, tis I, Stress, back from who-knows-where; actually, though, I wrote this fic a month and a half ago after thinking sincerely about what a not so fine life the newsies had. Yes, it's angsty – but I like it! Hopefully you will too…
Disclaimer -- Ha – since you don't know which newsie this is, I'm staking claim on him, mwahahahaha!!
~*~*~*
I just can't take this life anymore.
Every day it's the same thing - in the winter, wake up shivering, barely covered by a thin, moth-eaten blanket; in the summer, toss and turn in a sweat-soaked bunk, trying in vain to ignore the body odor coming from some thirty-odd other unwashed bodies.
And what's the point in waking up when all I am doing is living the same nightmare day after day after day?
Every day I, along with the other rag-tag orphans and runaways of the fine - ha - city of Manhattan, head down to the distribution center to pick up our wares - the papes.
The papes.
Ya gotta love the papes. One of the few things I can find to smile about in my life. Isn't it funny how a few pieces of paper full of lies and, at best, half-truths can mean so much to some and make so much money for others? You know, the "Hearst"'s and the "Pulitzer"'s of the world.
I hate them, ya know. Those hoity toity fellows sitting so high up there are living my dreams while I'm stuck in the gutter, re-living this nightmare every morn when my eyes begrudgingly open.
I just can't take this life anymore.
Every day it's the same thing - walk around, act like a cripple to sell a pape when it'll lure in the suckers, lie straight-out to the suckers when it doesn't. Either way, sell a pape to a sucker and earn myself a penny. Of course, I gotta make sure that I find the suckers - no non-sucker would believe some of the headlines we come up with. But then again, only a sucker would believe that New York was a great place to live in. A city of dreams?
No.
A city of nightmares?
You betcha.
I just can't take this life anymore.
Every day it's the same thing - greedily pocket any change I make while pleadingly trying to sell the last of my papes. 'Cause, trust me, those papes sure as hell don't taste good when you have three or four left at the end of the day.
I just can't take this life anymore.
Every day it's the same thing - keep my head down and my eyes alert as I make my way back to the place I plan on staying -- the good old lodging house if I've made enough change or otherwise I'll be slumbering - ha - at the foot of the Horace Greeley Statue.
That's another I can at least smile about -- I haven't had to sleep outside since last summer. But that hasn't been because of my great pape-selling skills...
Sometimes it just pays to be a pickpocket as well as an innocent - ha - newsboy and trusted - ha ha - friend of the others.
I just can't take this life anymore.
Every day it's the same thing - fight for a bunk, even if I must share it with another every now and then. Anything is better than the floor, right? Right.
Because, as we all know, nighttime -- even in the heat of the summer and the frost of the winter -- is the only time that we can all escape the nightmare of our life.
Because, during the nighttime, we can all dream. And nobody can take our dreams away -- not Pulitzer, not Hearst, not the suckers -- nobody.
It's when we dream our dreams -- dreams of warmth and families and full stomachs and love...
You know, all the things that any self-respecting orphan wants.
Or, at least, that's what I want...
Not like I would ever tell anybody that though.
I got my reputation to protect.
Who would respect a newsie who dreamt of a
mother's touch and a father's reassurance?
Not even me.
That's why I keep my dreams where they are -- in my dreams. The same with the others. I know they have dreams -- but they remain where they are -- in their dreams. Never spoken off, never talked about, our dreams are left to be dreamt at night when all of us -- all of us big, strong, newsies -- can go back to being the little boys we should have been, reveling in the lost childhood of our dreams.
And then, just as we succumb to our dreams and let ourselves fall vulnerable to our hopes, it happens.
We awake.
And then, as we awake, realization dawns down that they were but mere dreams, nothingness when compared to the nightmare that is our everyday existence.
At that moment, brushing greasy, un-washed hair from my eyes, one thought goes through my mind:
I just can't take this life anymore.
Anymore...
And, ya know what? I don't think I was ever able to.
But, I will press on...
Because I have my dreams.
Yes, my dreams. Another of the few things that succeed in making me smile.