Runaway Found

(This story is based on the Broadway play Newsies and more specifically, Newsies Live. The Race in this story is based on the Ben Cook character in Newsies Live. However there are elements of the 1992 movie, Newsies, as well.)

The lodging house was hot and stifling. The dawn was still hours off and Race couldn't sleep. He'd been thinking about his past for days. He didn't know why. He'd left it behind so long ago and had changed so much since then. Sometimes he felt like a completely different person than that little kid that had run away. He had grown up, taken up gambling, smoking, fighting, he even had a completely different name now.

He doubted his mother would even recognize him any more. But he still had ties to them. He still felt some responsibilities that years of change could not erase. Was that why he couldn't sleep? What was the date anyway?

Race shifted in the cramped bunk and let out a frustrated sigh. He reached for his cap and cigar and sat up.

"Where ya going, Race?" Jo Jo asked sleepily from beside him.

"Hey, what's the date today?" Race asked his sleepy bunkmate.

"Tuesday, I think."

"No," Race responded while lighting his cigar, "the date. What's the date?"

"I dunno. August somethin maybe," Jo Jo mumbled as he rolled over. "Go back to sleep, it's not even dawn yet."

"Can't" Race whispered into the stale darkness of the lodging house, "got somethin I gotta do. I'll meet you's at the circulation gate."

Jo Jo just let out a snore in response.

While his friends slept on until the morning bell, Race crept out of the newsboys lodging house and into the pre-dawn city streets. He puffed on his cigar and walked quickly, alert to his surroundings.

It was a fair distance, but it seemed only moments when the familiar apartment block appeared in front of him. Taking a deep breath he headed up the fire escape to face his past one more time.

One of the bedroom windows was open. He nodded to himself, he must've guessed the date right. He'd been making this visit every year on the same day since he'd run away. It was his little brother's birthday.

He'd always taken care of Jaime. That was why he'd run away. His mother wasn't making enough money to support them all. She was going without food for them. At 12 years old he'd known he could support himself and take away that burden from her. His baby brother having food on the table was more important than Race having a family. So he'd left them to try and make it on his own.

He knew he'd done what was best for them. But he just couldn't bear to face his family in the light of day and see the pain he'd caused his mother. Race tried his best to give them what little extra cash he made whenever he could. But he'd been a coward, just like now, and always left it on the windowsill in the middle of the night.

Race looked in through the open window at last. There was his little brother, still sleeping soundly in his own bed. That luxury would cost Race a hard earned ten cents. Jamie was 11 years old now, almost as old as Race was when he'd left home. He was older than Davey's little brother Les. He shook his head in disbelief. He still thought of his little brother as just a little kid. He couldn't imagine his brother out there in the streets like him and his friends. He tried to picture him like Les, trailing around after Jack and learning to lie to sell papes. He didn't like the thought at all.

Race was 16 years old now and was one of the older newsies. The others looked up to him and expected him to be a leader along with Jack, Davey, & Crutchie. He left the hard stuff to Jack, but he had always been aware of his responsibility to the younger boys. He'd always tried to look after them and teach them as best he could. Looking down at his little brother all he wanted to do was keep him as far away from the life him and the newsies lived as possible. If the strike had taught him anything it was that they could all get hurt bad if they weren't careful and no one but the other boys would even blink an eye.

He sighed heavily and took off his cap and to run his hand through blonde curls.

"Happy birthday Jamie," he whispered softly. "I got ya somethin'. You used to love horses when ya were little." Race dug a small carved wooden horse out of his pocket and set it on the windowsill.

"Got it from a fella down at the track. Horse's name is Trident. He's a real winner. It'll bring ya luck."

His brother slept on as he dug in his pockets again, this time coming up with several coins. The sun was beginning to rise as he placed the coins carefully alongside the wooden horse.

"Here's somethin' for ma. Should be a few days worth of food money there." Race looked up at the sky and sighed, "morning bell'll be ringin'. I gotta get to the circulation gate to meet the others, so's I'm not missed."

On the other side of the wall, out of sight of the cracked window, Shannon felt the tears flow down her cheeks, she'd awakened to her oldest boy's voice. After years of searching for him, he was standing just outside her window talking to his sleeping brother.

Her hand covered her mouth to stifle her cry as he mentioned the circulation gate. She'd thought he was working among the newsboys, but searching the faces of every newsie she passed had never gotten her any closer to finding her missing son.

"Take care of ma, ok. So long Jamie."

Race stuck his cigar back in his mouth and began making his way down the fire escape.

"Patrick!" Shannon cried as she threw open her window at last.

But Race couldn't look back, he began running hard down the steps as her shouts followed him. "Please stop, Patrick. I love you, we need you here."

Race shook his head and ran down the alley at breakneck speed. Away from the pain in his mother's voice. Away from the childhood he'd known when he'd lived in that apartment. He ran towards the lodging house, the boys, Jack, the life he'd made for himself as a newsboy.

His mother watched him from the window until he turned the corner. When she turned around her younger son was standing there, the coins and the wooden horse cradled in his hands.

"You saw him?" He asked her softly.

She could only nod in reply, as she wiped at her tears.

"I told you he would come. He never misses my birthday."

"He thought you were asleep," Shannon observed.

Jamie's blue eyes twinkled, "It worked didn't it? He said he had to get to the circulation gate. He's a newsie, ma. We can find him now."

"Get dressed quick, we'll go right now."

Jamie shook his head, "I don't think that's a good idea ma. He'll run as soon as he sees ya. Let me go by myself. It won't spook him as much."

"I already lost one boy to the streets, I'm not going to lose you too. You're only ten years old."

"I'm eleven now, ma," Jamie reminded her, "and that's more than old enough to be a newsie."

Shannon shook her head, but she knew he was right. She'd walked the streets calling for Patrick, searched through crowds of newsies and never found him. But he hadn't wanted her to find him. Her blue eyed, blonde haired tough little boy had thought he needed to support himself to save his mother and brother.

"I have to go, Jamie. I have to see him again," she said, "but I'll try to stay out of sight."

The boy nodded, pocketing the coins and the little horse, then he went to his room to get ready for his first day as a newsie.