Wow have I NOT written Newsies in a long time. But consider this my not- quite-triumphant-but-mediocre return to the genre. Cause I can't stay away from m' boys for too long, you know.

Warning: Swearing? Doubt it. Drugs? Many. Slash? Little bit more than the norm. Bad writing? It's entirely possible, my friends. ENTIRELY possible. I wouldn't put it past me.

And without further shmagege, on with the fic!



I was squattin' in Kingsbury Run th'other day... you know the place, jus' past the five points and Kigali Street. Big back alley neighborhood where the lady bums hang clotheslines for curtains round their tin shacks, and men that look too old to be men smoke up outside so's they don't muck up the curtains. That's where I was- outside Mr. O'Beasley's, and the joint he runs above his cellar, kicking back a beer that tasted like gasoline goin' and comin'. It's real stuff, that beer, only for kids that can't afford what they sell at Tibby's, or kids who can't find a drink hard enough to kill the day anywhere's else. They're the only ones that know about O'Beasley's... the really poor off, and the really hard up for a drink. So, of course, almost all us newsies knows about it.

O'Beasley got hisself quite a still going, an he only charges half a bit a cup. Less, if you bring him sugar. For the beer, see. So what Snitch did, he took his pen knife one night, and snuck himself into the Refuge Pantries, cause they aint hardly guarded at all. Then he plugged a whole in the sugar barrels, and shoved an ol' wine cork in em. I guess he sneaks back there every while or so... I asked him once, I asked, what about them kids in the refuge? The ones who don't got sugar now? He said sugar aint the least a their problems.

No one but Snitch is brave enough to sneak into the pantries by hisself, and hardly no one is small enough to fit through the chimney box any how. No one but Snitch gets at the sugar, and he don't give it out free for nothing. If you want a cup a sugar so's you can go to Kingsbury Run and get yourself a cup a fire, you gotta work for it. I know, cause when I was hard up for a drink and a nickel, I worked for it before.

And that's all I'm tellin' on that.

So there I was th'other day, watching Skittery suck beer out a Racetrack's mouth, and watching Race sniff some bad snow off Skitts' stomach, while he was buzzed out on the cobblestones, when I got to thinkin'. About dogs, them wild ones you get tripping over your boots in the Battery, or chewin' on bones behind the delis in Little Italy.

You ever watched those mutts, I mean really watched em? Way they run in... in whadya call em...packs. What they do is, they get kicked out a wagons on corners, an' shoved out a flats to make room for babies, or beat down till they can't stand themselves no more, and then they find each other. So you get these packs running the streets, mutts who never asked no one to be there, cold an alone, but now they is where they is, so they run with each other.

Me, I thought it was real sweet, and nice, and good how they all watched out for each other, and played together... and they do play. You get these bunches of em, see, just lyin' over porch stoops like coal rags, and then one'll start up, sniffin' the air, an getting stiff in th'ears. Like he's got a whiff of something on the wind. Then what he'll do is, the one dog starts nippin' at the hinds of the others, getting em real worked up, so worked up they're foamin' with it. They all run off, leapin' and dancing, into the sunset. Kinda like Skitts when he's all drugged up. Heh.

I told Race about it once, how these mutts was cold and they was alone, but they was playin' all the same, and he laughed at me. Said, "Betcha ya sellin' money you wouldn' like the game they was playin'." So I spit shook him on it. Next day, we was working my usual corner, where I always do good business. I used to work Kigali Avenue, you know, down by the Minnesota Strip, back when it were an ok place for kids to sell. Papes, I mean, and nothing else.

But it got bad down there one day. I was working my spot with my shirt on my hips, an my vest down by my feet, cause it was June, hot so hot, an besides, no one cared. I was ten, maybe elev'n, and people was used to little kids runnin' the streets almos' naked in June, an winter too, you know. Till that one day, this big dark man come up the Strip, way darker than me, an I seen it wasn't cause a his skin, but his big old hat, with a brim like Jack's, stiff and wide, but he weren't no Jack. When Jack's with you, he's real good at gettin' you to smile, not to shake. Jack could get anyone to smile. S'how he eats at the end of the day.

This man aint made me smile, even though he had money in his big fat hand, more money then I ever seen in one man's hand. Even though it was hot so hot, an' I had my shirt on my hips, the big tall dark man was wearin' a big tall dark coat, so's the tip aroun' his neck was blue with sweat, an so was his face, where I could see it. I was scared even b'fore he talked, cause I knew he wasn't there to buy a pape, no sir. Turns out, he wasn't. What the tall man did, he put his hand, the one without money, on me shoulder, an shoved the hand with money under my nose, an said "I got me a niiiiiice flat on da Strip, boiii. If you gots a stroooong back, you could come in. I'll even carry ya dere, booooooiii."

I dropped me papes, an I never went back to Kigali Avenue. When I tol' Bumlits about it that night, he asked how much money the big tall dark man had. I told him I aint sure, but it covered his palm alright. Bumlits just frowned, and says he'd have done it for that much money, and if I aint wanted it, I could of at least told him about it when I got back to the Lodging House, cause maybe I didn't have to eat, but him, he had to eat. I got the idea he was mad at me, so I let him take my spot on Kigali street the nex' day, and he worked it jus' fine. Course, Bumlits was older than me, then. At least twelve.

Anyhow, I sell on th'other side a town, now, and Race was with me that day, cause he had a bet to win. Then we saw them wild dogs run by, leapin' like daisies as they went, so excited they was bustin'.

"See, Race?" I says. "They do play." Then he took my hand and started off after them, and he might a' got short legs from his momma, but he can beat it fast when he got to. I had to run just to keep up. We followed those mutts a couple a streets back, through Eten Alley, and across Fifth and Wilkes, past the George Washin'ton parkway, all th'way to Kingsbury Run. And there they was, the lot of em, behind an old spool shop, tearin' at something between em. For a moment, I thought it was a bone from the deli, or an old boot from the fac'try. Only they was goin' at it like they aint eaten in days and nights. For a second, I thought it was just a rag. Like one of them coal rags.

But then I saw the blood, and then I saw the fur, and I heard the whining...

You can't be mad at em, not really. After all, they got kicked out a wagons on corners, an' shoved out a flats to make room for babies, or beat down till they couldn't stand themselves no more. Stuff like that'll turn any dog hungry. Hungry enough to eat what they was eating... well, I don't like to think about that. Still and all, Race got his money.

He did use some of it to buy Skittery a needle full, which I guess would a been nice of him, 'cept Skitts didn't really want it. Kid's jumpy enough without drugs in him. People think Skitts is jus' nervous, though that's true, too. He is, sometimes. Kid sleeps like a blow up bomb, the kind Specs used to make to chuck at the boys who'd come to beat on Dutchy. Any change in th'wind, or creak of a wood board, and Skitts comes awake swinging. This one time, Snipeshooter got himself a belt off the street. Not sure how he come by it, bein' nice and leather like it was, but he got it, an' one morning, he snuck up on Skittery's bunk real quiet like to snap it in his ear. Skitts jumped a mile that day, so hard I guess he would a gone straight through the ceiling, if he hadn't bumped his head on the bedside first. Snipes just laughed. I aint laughed, cause me, I know what a leather belt in your ear sounds like, and I 'spect Skitts knew it long ago.

Course, it aint just nerves that makes Skittery jumpy. Sometimes he gets the shakes when he aint had his Snow in a while, which happens more'n you'd think. Skitts really doesn't want to do the things he do, most of the time.

But Race likes him better high up, cause Skitts doesn't do things the kind a things Race wants him to when he's grounded. So Race took a bunch of us into Kingsbury Run after he won his bet, and had the boys hold Skitts down on a brick wall, all while Skitts was moanin', half cause he wanted it bad, and half cause he hated it. He did fight it... Skitts is a strong kid, and he might've fought em all off if he really didn't want the drugs.

He just might've, if he REALLY didn't want em.

But once Itey got his arm flat, and Race got the needle in him good, Skitts was fine, Race was happy, and we had us a few rounds from O'Beasley's.

Later on, Skitts was sleepin' heavy on the cobblestones, an Race was crashed on Skitts' stomach, tired out from the line a snow. Wasn't no one still awake but me and Blink and Snitch, and we was havin' ourselves a good old time of it, till Snitch got up an' walked over to Race, kissed his head, reached into his vest pocket, and robbed him blind. Just reached in an pulled out his bits, my bits, and shoved em in his own pants. Blink sort of choked on his beer and laughed... Snitch didn't, but he did wink at me, a let's-play-the-don't-wake-up-my-drugged-friend-and-tell-him-I-stole- his-food-money wink.

Ya can't be mad at him, not really. Snitch's got kicked out of a few wagons and shoved out of a few flats himself. He's just playin' the game. We all are. I always known that.

I just never knew what kind a game it was, till now.


Ooh, I blame my Runaways soundtrack for that one. Reviews, please?