Memoirs of a Scab
Part 2 - Running Away
Disclaimer (sorry I forgot this in the first part): Newsies and the Newsies characters are property of Disney, and I'd never presume to try and cheat them by making money off of this. Rails (and Mike too), however, are mine.
So I slipped away from the giant mob, and I'm telling you I had to travel for blocks and blocks before I stopped hearing everybody's voices. They were echoing in the alleys and streets. Or maybe they were just echoing inside my head. I could hear them long after I couldn't see them no more - any more - and then I began to run. I'm not much of a runner most of the time, but I was feeling so bad, so alone, I just ran. I don't think I even knew where I was going at the time. I just tore through the streets so fast I couldn't see where I was going. I remember some guy who thought he was smart shouting "Hey, son, where's the fire?" and then laughing. Real clever. No one ever thought of that line before. I'm usually pretty easygoing about that sort of thing - I mean, if you hang around Mush long enough, you get used to stupid jokes - but I just wanted to spit at that guy.
I was running as fast as I could, but like I said, I'm no runner. Sometimes you gotta run a little to keep up with a train when you're going to jump on it, and I don't do much more than that. So I was getting pretty tired, and I had this stitch in my side, and I couldn't help but slow down. By this time I'd left the voices shouting "Strike!" behind, and didn't really know where I was. That's gotta sound real funny coming from me, what with my having been a newsie and all. Three things I learned real well from being a newsie: how to read, how to lie, and how to make my way around New York. So when I looked up and didn't know right away where I was, I got kinda nervous. Naw, I'll tell it to you straight, I was downright terrified. I wasn't thinking straight, what with all the confusion I'd been going through and stuff, and I thought I'd…I dunno, I thought I'd run farther than I thought, and ended up in Jersey or somewhere. Now, it's real babyish, but I said I'd tell it to you straight, so I am. I felt kinda like I wanted to cry. I didn't cry. But you know, I felt like I kinda wanted to. It wasn't the being lost. I mean, it couldn't be, I spend most of my time lost. You show up in a new city, the first thing you do is explore, and unless you're some kinda genius or something, you don't really know where you're going. I'd spent plenty of time wandering around in strange places to not be worried about getting a little lost. But this time it was like… I dunno, it was like I'd never been really lost before. That isn't making sense. What I guess I'm trying to say is that I'd been lost a million times if you want lost to mean you don't know where your body is, couldn't point out where you are on a map. That was nothing new. In fact, it was familiar. But I'd never felt lost before.
I think I knew that I'd done something just then. Walking out on that strike mob, I knew that I'd walked out on more than some stupid crusade. I think I knew that things'd never be the same again. I'd gotten out, they hadn't roped me into their unwinnable fight, but I was having second thoughts about whether I wanted out or not. I guess that's what I mean by feeling lost. My mind was all messed up. I usually know what I want, or if I'm confused about something, it's not something important. Now it was like I knew that something important was happening, and I'd have to pick a side, but I was so damn confused! I didn't know what exactly the important thing was. I mean, there was a strike on, I knew that, but that wasn't the important thing. There was something more. It wasn't about a tenth of a cent or Pulitzer and Hearst screwing us working kids. It was like there was a fight beneath the obvious fight, and that was what I was really taking sides on, only I didn't know which side was good and which was bad, or even what the sides really were. You confused? Good, 'cuz that's how I was feeling. And I promise you it's a hundred times worse actually feeling it than it is hearing about it.
So, that's how I was feeling when I was sitting there on a street corner. I sat there, looking up at the sky, thinking about the weather so that I didn't have to think about anything real. Maybe that's why those high-class ladies are always talking about the weather. So they don't have to deal with what they really think. I wanted to do that right then, but I wasn't too good at it. I sat there, staring at the sky, trying my hardest to think nothing but "Wow, the sky's real blue today, ain't it? It wasn't like that last night. It rained yesterday. It's kinda funny it cleared up so quick. Hey, that cloud looks like a horse", but that didn't work so good. I chattered like one of those debutantes on the top of my brain, but I was still thinking things like "I should be glad I got out. I mean, Mike said that these things always come back to bite you. Still, I almost wish I was there. I know it can't work. I've got the Itch, I won't be able to stay till it's through. They won't understand that. I'm not like them, and they can't understand that, so that's why I can't fight with them. I ain't doing nothing wrong! So why do I feel like I'm dong something horrible?" You know, with thoughts like that swirling around just underneath the surface of my brain, all the crap I tried to think about the weather just didn't do nothing. So I stood up.
I still didn't know where I was, but I figured I knew New York, so if I kept walking, I was bound to find someplace that I knew. You'd be surprised at how often that strategy works. So I was walking, and walking, and thinking too. I was hoping that maybe all my friends would forget about this strike stuff. I mean, yeah, they'd seemed as determined as I'd ever seen them back there, but the fire had gone out of me, so why not them too? I mean, it probably hadn't happened yet, but it would eventually, right? Of course it would. Well, delusions are a great thing, and as I walked I became positive that everything would blow over, that it would all go back to normal. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I'm crazy because just a little while ago I was talking about how I knew that something had changed forever. Well, I told you delusions were great things, didn't I? I wanted things to go back to normal so much that I truly believed that everything could go back to the way it was before. You're thinking I'm crazy now, I can tell. Well, you can think that, but someday you're going to want something as much as I wanted that. I don't know what - maybe it's a girl, or a boy depending on who you are, or maybe it's your parents. I know plenty of orphans who want their parents more than anything else in the world. Whatever it is, you'll want it so bad that you can see it, feel it, taste it, even though it ain't real. When that happens you'll think to yourself "Damn, I guess Rails was right", and then you'll know what I'm talking about.
That's when it came to me. It was the perfect solution. I believed that everything would go back to normal in time, and I didn't want to deal with this strike nonsense in the meantime. So, what could be more natural and normal than my skipping out of town until this whole mess was over with? A week or two should do it. Hell, I could stay away longer if I wanted to. At any rate, by the time I got back, the strike would be over with. This way I wouldn't have to pick a side, and nothing would ever have to change.
It's funny, but the second my mind was completely made up, I wasn't lost any more. I knew exactly where I was, and exactly how to get to the train station. I set out at a jog, glad that my mind was made up.
