Disclaimer: I do not own "Newsies" or any of the genius associated to them. Disney owns them, no infringement intended. I am not making money from this in any way, I claim no rights to the characters mentioned from the movie, but I do claim the plot and the ideas surrounding this story. Don't steal, don't sue, and I'm sure we will all be grand friends.
A/N: A Lie of the Mind by Sam Shepard is seriously messed up.
Warning: PG (mild language and sexuality)
vii.)
his plans are 2nd grade&spectacular
uninhibited by reality®ulations
but he could sell lies to Lucifer
(he's done it before)
SHE SAYS:
"sunsets are always so beautiful."
HE SAYS:
"people are always so impressed with things turned upside down."
Alabama's coast was tortured and Georgia's wasn't much better. The hurricanes had gotten there before they had and gray skies weighed heavily upon them. Louisiana was the worst. The humidity was suffocating (they're drowning in the open air) and the only time she doesn't mind losing her breath is when Boy Vagabond takes it from her. There's a southern comfort in the people still that can't be bled out by tragedy and a refinement in the shattered buildings and boarded windows.
They sleep in an abandoned house (he pried the wood from the windows). It reeks of mildew and broken memories. In its waterlogged decadence they find company with the remnants of someone else's shattered life. There are pictures of a little girl with a smile in her eyes and mischief in her mouth cut from shards of glass and books on the shelf (the ink has run away from the pages but Boy Vagabond still tries to read them).
Together they sort through the things. Boy Vagabond swears it isn't to steal anything – he just wants to borrow it (anything of relative value has already been stolen). She is lost in the photographs of people she never knew. Smiling faces ravaged by floods too unexpected stare at her from behind broken frames and she remembers that somewhere someone might be missing her, but she couldn't remember who they were and where they would be. Anything before him is hidden in a dream like haze (mixed in with the stories he told her while she was under his seductive spell) but she can't help but feel something of her has slipped away. Did he remember who she was before he entered the picture?
For now she doesn't ask (mainly because she always forgets before she has the chance) but she tells herself that someday she will. Today, however, she is content just to be with him (even though she wishes they would leave this graveyard of someone else's memories). This is the first place they've stayed for more than a night and she wonders what he sees in this tattered and torn environment, but his eye light every time blackness creeps over the world and they can venture into the strange culture that accompanies the darkness.
Joining him isn't an option (not so much that he forces her, but because she forgets who she is when he isn't close at hand). They, like rats, creep out in the shadows and through alleyways. There they find others rats like them (desperate – even if they'd never admit to it) in rooms filled with smoke and swinging jazz. The thick air is filled with thicker accents and when dark faces look at them disparagingly she shrinks behind him. The way they stare makes her shiver but the way Boy Vagabond embraces the attention makes her shudder (he's always drawn attention without meaning to do so and takes the good with the bad).
One night they passed time with rats at a warehouse near what used to be a shipping port (but it was chewed and spit up along with their jobs). These rats were more barnacles than men (they stuck to the pier even when it had mostly washed away). The way they spoke of their ships was how most spoke of loved ones and their twisted smiles told dark secrets of what went on when they were aboard. None of them were gentlemen, but a few put on airs like they were. They were pirates, all of them, (with black hearts and rotten teeth) but Boy Vagabond was fascinated with them (was this what he would become when he grew up?).
They told terrible stories of high tides and high tempers. Weeks alone with men you didn't like before you left shore made for plenty of fist fights, furious faces, and fabulous farces (they had time to make up stories as much as anything). The stories intrigued Boy Vagabond the most and she saw him absorb the words and could imagine them bleeding back out onto the page when they returned. The mangled bodies and faces of men who looked at her crudely and drank too much were sure to find their ways into something he scribbled (would he tell her their stories even though she'd already heard them? Would she remember that she'd heard them?).
She lost track of the number of visits to the salty shore dives and harbors for the disreputable, but she never lost track of him. Brassy women with old Mardi Gras beads draped themselves over him with no attention to her close accompaniment. The cheap plastic beads glistened brightly in the smoky light (someone offered to give her some if she flashed her tits but she blushed and turned away) and she hates those women in this moment. He always revels in the attention and she blanches when a woman past her prime lifts her shirt to display her withered bosoms (she wishes she'd flashed that man just to get back at Boy Vagabond for allowing this, but she wondered if he'd care?).
They left Louisiana three days too late for her taste (which was a bitter taste at that). Their car drove into the inferno sky (they were drawn towards the fire) as they hurried towards the sinking sun. It had been awhile since she'd seen a sunset (they'd always slept past twilight) and she attempted conversation.
"Sunsets are always so beautiful." She said.
"People are always so impressed with things turned upside down." He said and they drove on in silence (but not in peace).
A/N: Sorry this took a little while. I've been busier than anticipated.