I've stood here before~ By Crunch
Alright kiddies, bare with me, because this is WAY different then anything I've tried before. Think of it as a Newsies sequel, one hundred years in the making. It's set in the present. . . sort of. If it works out, well, it should be pretty friggin cool. But we'll see, won't we? Enjoy!
Oh yes, and I've decided to dedicate it to the goils of the NJL (just because I CAN~ MUA HA HA HA *cough*) and because you guys rock the kielbasa.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
~ What might have been, had a different path been taken, had a different choice been made, had life been different. . .
~*~ Manhattan - 1999 ~*~
The glittery lights of Broadway, liquid and runny through the rain-streaked windows, tumbled in neon pink and sparkling green rivulets across the tabletop of the back booth in Maraschino's. Ruden Mazzola cupped a hand around his unlit cigar, struck a match, and watched it burn down to its roots before deftly flicking it to the ashtray. All the while, the boy on the bench across from him smiled a dazzling, square-jawed smile, which only intensified his own lousy mood. He didn't see why anyone in the God forsaken world would be happy today, of all days. And a miserable day it was- the sky outside hung white and rainy, and the deep rumbling breath of the wind, as it scuttled stray newspapers, beer cans and cardboard box tumbleweeds across the pavement, only reminded Ruden of the world he'd have to face beyond the revolving diner doors. And still the square-jawed boy smiled.
"If ya gonna sit there grinnin' like a Jackass all day, jus' make like yer mudder and blow, will ya Ryder? You're spoilin' da taste a me Rigatoni."
Ryder shrugged, unwilling to be dampened. "No can do, Rudy. Jus' da sight a your pretty face an' cheerful dispahsition is enough ta make me smile."
"Eh, shove it." Ruden turned his gaze back to the water smeared window, briefly meeting his own mahogany eyes in the glass, before looking away. "What're you so happy about anyhow? S'not like we'se raking in money at da club. Don't nobody even listen to jazz no more."
Ryder shrugged again as he fondly petted the leather guitar case plopped on the bench besides him. "Ah, well, I aint gonna be playin' da Blues Club forever."
"Oh, dat's right. Tell me again how youse gonna bust out of the gutters an' make ya fortune as da nex' big thing, Mr. Sinatra?"
Ryder tossed down a crumpled wad of bills from the depths of his jacket pockets and stood, the guitar slung across his shoulder and the grin still on his handsome young face. "Ya never know, Rudy. Ya just' never know what's waiting fah youse." He tipped his baseball cap and strolled towards the glass revolving doors. As Ruden shoveled a vengeful bite of pasta, he traced his friend's path across the tiled floors of Maraschino's. Ryder paused to make small talk with a perky young waitress, probably another model-hopeful, then knocked strait into a wizened and white haired old man trying to shuffle around him. His jaw dropped in shock, a stunned look in his pretty brown eyes, before he muttered his apologies.
"R-real sorry, Sir."
The boy flushed, and Ruden swallowed a laugh as he turned back to his dinner. His friend, the ladies man. Ryder would never stop dreaming, and for that, Ruden envied and pitied him. Still fighting a chuckle, he jumped a mile at the hiss of a quivering voice by his ear.
"I've seen you before, you know."
Startled, he turned to see the white haired old man, now grimacing as he lowered his sharp, arthritic bottom into the seat beside Ruden. The boy puffed on his cigar and shot a nervous glance around the diner- he doubted the old crackpot would pull a gun on him, but this WAS New York, and one just never could tell. . . But after a moment passed and he still wasn't staring down the barrel of a pistol, he eyed the stranger at his side.
"Come again?"
"I said I've seen you before, boy. Don't suppose you remember me, eh?"
"Do you know me?"
The man's weathered old face cracked a splintery smile. "Better than you know yourself."
Ruden puffed reflectively as he scanned the dusty recesses and back catalogues of his memories for the face in front of him. Could the man be a long lost relative? Impossible. There were no relatives- if there had been, he wouldn't have ended up in the filthy, rented squalor of his one- room hovel on the swampy third floor of the YMCA after the accident. The accident. . . had the old man been one of the countless lawyers, tax collectors and inspectors or social workers that had swarmed in the weeks following the funerals? He doubted it; none of the bloodsuckers, as he'd fondly come to call them, had been informed of his exodus to Manhattan, and they were unlikely to be searching after all this time. But now the man was speaking once more, providing a welcome escape from memory lane.
"I know why you're here. . . what name do you go by now a days, kid?"
Shocked by the strangeness of the man's question, it never occurred to him that he shouldn't answer. "Ruden."
"Ah. Odd name you got there, boy, but I guess it's not the oddest, is it?" The elderly man's eyes twinkled, as if this were a private joke. "Ruden, then. What do you think about death, Ruden?"
Ruden cracked a smile and a joke, as he did whenever he was nervous. "Well, I t'ink it happens ta da best of us."
"That's good, boy, very good. I can see you haven't changed in the slightest." The man leaned forward, and Ruden kept still, mesmerized by the sorrow he saw in those watery gray eyes. "I know why you're empty. Why you're lost."
"Is dat so. By all means, you gonna tell me why?"
"Wouldn't you like me to? Better yet, I can show you." With a speed that didn't quite mesh with the man's long years and decrepit bones, he moved a wrinkled yellow hand to Ruden's shoulder, and before the boy could protest, the drizzly warmth of Marrachino's had melted away. The blood still pounding in his ears like African drums, he stood on the streets of New York- but not his New York. The street was ripped from the pages of one of those turn of the century, harlequin romance novels that lined the back shelves of the used bookstore on fifth and Kent. From the gritty cobblestones beneath his feet, strewn with porclein clumps of snow, to the star-dotted night sky, uncluttered with the harsh lights of billaboards and stadium lamps, to the quaint people in their mufflers and trenchcoats, hustling down the barren sidewalks. And something was off about it all- not just the fact that he'd lost his mind. There was something else, something he couldn't put his finger on. . . And then it hit Ruden like a sour punch to the stomach.
The world was in black and white.
Like a broken and grainy film reel, only he'd stepped through the movie screen and into the picture. He was himself, he knew that much- same small but sturdy figure, same slicked back bed of hair, same puppy brown eyes and lingering smirk on his boyish features, though his skin was now the color of weathered and wind-worn concrete. Ruden held out his palm and stared at the sight with his jaw on the floor. And just then, like the crackling, staticy soundtrack of an ancient movie on TMC, a filmy voice splintered the night air.
". . . day at da tracks, Race?" Ruden looked up to see the young boy beside him. Small, with eyes as big as his own, and skin darker than the smoky gray of his own hand. This boy was black. Ruden had seen his share of African American or[hans, entrepreneurs and thugs wandering the streets he called home, but this one was different. This one was familiar. And he was speaking again. "Why ya lookin' at me like dat, Racetrack? Hah! Ya look like youse seen a ghos- "
"You've seen it, then?" The pounding of those bloody African drums swallowed him once again, and a moment later, he was back in the diner, warm and dry and in living color. The old man leaned closer as he struggled to regain his breath. "Now you know."
In the days that followed, Ruden would be sure of only one thing: that he should have left the diner. He would look back and know that he should have risen to his feet at that very moment, wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, tossed the old man aside and run from Maraschino's, leaving him with the bill and a heart attack. Later, he'd regret that he hadn't run.
But Ruden didn't run, just stayed plastered to the sticky vinyl seat cushion, and the old man spoke. "A hundred years ago, ten boys stopped the world. They followed a leader, and they changed their lives. But then, something happened- a wrinkle in the plan. A tear. A mistake. Things that weren't meant to be. . . and they fell. Boy, did they fall."
His mind reeling, the boy reached for some spark of understanding, some assurance that either this man was crazy, or at the very least, he himself wasn't. At last he found his voice. "Who- who are you?"
The old man leaned in, his voice a dead whisper and his eyes sparkling with that secret joke. "I've seen you before." After a long moment, he drew backwards, and with the veins in his withered neck straining, he hauled his bent and crooked body to its feet. "Find the others. Rind the lost. Find the leader. You can change everything."
"How?"
"You'll know them. You're all connected- tangled. You'll know them, kid." The white haired man smiled his sorrowful smile, smacked his lips and turned to go. Ruden thought about following, then leaned back in his seat, his eyes swimming and his head buzzing.
Two hours later, when the head Chef hollered a "Last call! Ten minutes to closing!", he sat there still, wishing like hell that he had run.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Well. . . . . confused? Overwhelmed? Disgusted? Hungry? REVIEW!!!
Alright kiddies, bare with me, because this is WAY different then anything I've tried before. Think of it as a Newsies sequel, one hundred years in the making. It's set in the present. . . sort of. If it works out, well, it should be pretty friggin cool. But we'll see, won't we? Enjoy!
Oh yes, and I've decided to dedicate it to the goils of the NJL (just because I CAN~ MUA HA HA HA *cough*) and because you guys rock the kielbasa.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
~ What might have been, had a different path been taken, had a different choice been made, had life been different. . .
~*~ Manhattan - 1999 ~*~
The glittery lights of Broadway, liquid and runny through the rain-streaked windows, tumbled in neon pink and sparkling green rivulets across the tabletop of the back booth in Maraschino's. Ruden Mazzola cupped a hand around his unlit cigar, struck a match, and watched it burn down to its roots before deftly flicking it to the ashtray. All the while, the boy on the bench across from him smiled a dazzling, square-jawed smile, which only intensified his own lousy mood. He didn't see why anyone in the God forsaken world would be happy today, of all days. And a miserable day it was- the sky outside hung white and rainy, and the deep rumbling breath of the wind, as it scuttled stray newspapers, beer cans and cardboard box tumbleweeds across the pavement, only reminded Ruden of the world he'd have to face beyond the revolving diner doors. And still the square-jawed boy smiled.
"If ya gonna sit there grinnin' like a Jackass all day, jus' make like yer mudder and blow, will ya Ryder? You're spoilin' da taste a me Rigatoni."
Ryder shrugged, unwilling to be dampened. "No can do, Rudy. Jus' da sight a your pretty face an' cheerful dispahsition is enough ta make me smile."
"Eh, shove it." Ruden turned his gaze back to the water smeared window, briefly meeting his own mahogany eyes in the glass, before looking away. "What're you so happy about anyhow? S'not like we'se raking in money at da club. Don't nobody even listen to jazz no more."
Ryder shrugged again as he fondly petted the leather guitar case plopped on the bench besides him. "Ah, well, I aint gonna be playin' da Blues Club forever."
"Oh, dat's right. Tell me again how youse gonna bust out of the gutters an' make ya fortune as da nex' big thing, Mr. Sinatra?"
Ryder tossed down a crumpled wad of bills from the depths of his jacket pockets and stood, the guitar slung across his shoulder and the grin still on his handsome young face. "Ya never know, Rudy. Ya just' never know what's waiting fah youse." He tipped his baseball cap and strolled towards the glass revolving doors. As Ruden shoveled a vengeful bite of pasta, he traced his friend's path across the tiled floors of Maraschino's. Ryder paused to make small talk with a perky young waitress, probably another model-hopeful, then knocked strait into a wizened and white haired old man trying to shuffle around him. His jaw dropped in shock, a stunned look in his pretty brown eyes, before he muttered his apologies.
"R-real sorry, Sir."
The boy flushed, and Ruden swallowed a laugh as he turned back to his dinner. His friend, the ladies man. Ryder would never stop dreaming, and for that, Ruden envied and pitied him. Still fighting a chuckle, he jumped a mile at the hiss of a quivering voice by his ear.
"I've seen you before, you know."
Startled, he turned to see the white haired old man, now grimacing as he lowered his sharp, arthritic bottom into the seat beside Ruden. The boy puffed on his cigar and shot a nervous glance around the diner- he doubted the old crackpot would pull a gun on him, but this WAS New York, and one just never could tell. . . But after a moment passed and he still wasn't staring down the barrel of a pistol, he eyed the stranger at his side.
"Come again?"
"I said I've seen you before, boy. Don't suppose you remember me, eh?"
"Do you know me?"
The man's weathered old face cracked a splintery smile. "Better than you know yourself."
Ruden puffed reflectively as he scanned the dusty recesses and back catalogues of his memories for the face in front of him. Could the man be a long lost relative? Impossible. There were no relatives- if there had been, he wouldn't have ended up in the filthy, rented squalor of his one- room hovel on the swampy third floor of the YMCA after the accident. The accident. . . had the old man been one of the countless lawyers, tax collectors and inspectors or social workers that had swarmed in the weeks following the funerals? He doubted it; none of the bloodsuckers, as he'd fondly come to call them, had been informed of his exodus to Manhattan, and they were unlikely to be searching after all this time. But now the man was speaking once more, providing a welcome escape from memory lane.
"I know why you're here. . . what name do you go by now a days, kid?"
Shocked by the strangeness of the man's question, it never occurred to him that he shouldn't answer. "Ruden."
"Ah. Odd name you got there, boy, but I guess it's not the oddest, is it?" The elderly man's eyes twinkled, as if this were a private joke. "Ruden, then. What do you think about death, Ruden?"
Ruden cracked a smile and a joke, as he did whenever he was nervous. "Well, I t'ink it happens ta da best of us."
"That's good, boy, very good. I can see you haven't changed in the slightest." The man leaned forward, and Ruden kept still, mesmerized by the sorrow he saw in those watery gray eyes. "I know why you're empty. Why you're lost."
"Is dat so. By all means, you gonna tell me why?"
"Wouldn't you like me to? Better yet, I can show you." With a speed that didn't quite mesh with the man's long years and decrepit bones, he moved a wrinkled yellow hand to Ruden's shoulder, and before the boy could protest, the drizzly warmth of Marrachino's had melted away. The blood still pounding in his ears like African drums, he stood on the streets of New York- but not his New York. The street was ripped from the pages of one of those turn of the century, harlequin romance novels that lined the back shelves of the used bookstore on fifth and Kent. From the gritty cobblestones beneath his feet, strewn with porclein clumps of snow, to the star-dotted night sky, uncluttered with the harsh lights of billaboards and stadium lamps, to the quaint people in their mufflers and trenchcoats, hustling down the barren sidewalks. And something was off about it all- not just the fact that he'd lost his mind. There was something else, something he couldn't put his finger on. . . And then it hit Ruden like a sour punch to the stomach.
The world was in black and white.
Like a broken and grainy film reel, only he'd stepped through the movie screen and into the picture. He was himself, he knew that much- same small but sturdy figure, same slicked back bed of hair, same puppy brown eyes and lingering smirk on his boyish features, though his skin was now the color of weathered and wind-worn concrete. Ruden held out his palm and stared at the sight with his jaw on the floor. And just then, like the crackling, staticy soundtrack of an ancient movie on TMC, a filmy voice splintered the night air.
". . . day at da tracks, Race?" Ruden looked up to see the young boy beside him. Small, with eyes as big as his own, and skin darker than the smoky gray of his own hand. This boy was black. Ruden had seen his share of African American or[hans, entrepreneurs and thugs wandering the streets he called home, but this one was different. This one was familiar. And he was speaking again. "Why ya lookin' at me like dat, Racetrack? Hah! Ya look like youse seen a ghos- "
"You've seen it, then?" The pounding of those bloody African drums swallowed him once again, and a moment later, he was back in the diner, warm and dry and in living color. The old man leaned closer as he struggled to regain his breath. "Now you know."
In the days that followed, Ruden would be sure of only one thing: that he should have left the diner. He would look back and know that he should have risen to his feet at that very moment, wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, tossed the old man aside and run from Maraschino's, leaving him with the bill and a heart attack. Later, he'd regret that he hadn't run.
But Ruden didn't run, just stayed plastered to the sticky vinyl seat cushion, and the old man spoke. "A hundred years ago, ten boys stopped the world. They followed a leader, and they changed their lives. But then, something happened- a wrinkle in the plan. A tear. A mistake. Things that weren't meant to be. . . and they fell. Boy, did they fall."
His mind reeling, the boy reached for some spark of understanding, some assurance that either this man was crazy, or at the very least, he himself wasn't. At last he found his voice. "Who- who are you?"
The old man leaned in, his voice a dead whisper and his eyes sparkling with that secret joke. "I've seen you before." After a long moment, he drew backwards, and with the veins in his withered neck straining, he hauled his bent and crooked body to its feet. "Find the others. Rind the lost. Find the leader. You can change everything."
"How?"
"You'll know them. You're all connected- tangled. You'll know them, kid." The white haired man smiled his sorrowful smile, smacked his lips and turned to go. Ruden thought about following, then leaned back in his seat, his eyes swimming and his head buzzing.
Two hours later, when the head Chef hollered a "Last call! Ten minutes to closing!", he sat there still, wishing like hell that he had run.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Well. . . . . confused? Overwhelmed? Disgusted? Hungry? REVIEW!!!