Cigarettes and His Mother's Eyes
Two
The empty bed stared back at Blink, the void doing nothing to ease the guilt in his mind, so Blink pulled his gaze away from it and looked around the room some more. It was pitch black and he could barely see a thing, though his eye was used to the light by then. He could make out an impression of the beds nearest him, the one above him, but the shades were all pulled down so even the light from the city that didn't sleep was blocked out so a few poor newsboys could get some shuteye.
He sat up, the creaking of his bed loud enough to startle him. Someone coughed a few bunks over and he froze, heard someone turn over a few times, and then it was quiet. Slowly, he reached up to his face, and ran a finger gently over the band of his eye patch. He even slept with it on, he was so used to its feeling by now. Nothing felt as strange as having it off. Nothing except the gnawing knowledge of the empty bed next to his.
On an impulse, he did the one thing no one had ever seen him do willingly before: he hooked a finger under the band and slid it off. The cold air hit his face and he felt almost unbalanced, after being so used to the slight weight and pressure. He set the patch in his other hand and ran the pointer finger of his right hand gently over the scars. Two of them, forming an X, meeting in the middle of his dead eye. Not that they really showed up on his eye itself, but they'd been there, deep enough that he'd never see from it again.
He swallowed hard, remembering explaining to Mush about the woman who reminded him so much of his mother. I have my mother's eyes, he remembered. He'd heard his father say that so many times… One last time, that night in the kitchen…
A shudder ran through him and he felt the rising panic that always accompanied those memories. He tried to avoid them, usually managed, but here in the dead of night, without anyone to help him, he felt too alone to keep them from his mind. The only one he'd ever managed to explain everything to was Mush.
And Mush was gone.
He realized again just how alone he was and clutched desperately his eye patch as the memories came flooding back.
*
"Please, miss, buy me pape?" Mush asked, his voice sounding close to tears. He kept his eyes open wide so he looked like he might cry, and his baby face and his youth were a sure combination for getting papers sold. He looked younger than he was, unlike his partner, who looked too old to be properly pathetic—despite the fact that they were nearly the same age.
The lady made a little, "awwww," noise and handed Mush a penny. His face lit up with gratitude as he thanked her and handed her the paper, then glanced around for his next target. There, a blond man taking change from a street vendor. He had the change, he just might buy. Mush started over towards him, and readied his lost child expression.
Something made him stop, as he crossed the road. Something about the blond man… He looked down the street and saw his partner, working the other end of the block, and squinted a little. Kid Blink was too far away to really see clearly, but Mush knew what he looked like well enough, and he glanced back up at the man he hoped to sell to, he decided not to after all.
It was probably just coincidence, but the color of his hair and the shape of his jaw looked eerily like Blink. The man looked almost like he could have been Blink's father, Mush didn't know quite what had happened between Blink and his father, but he knew enough. He knew that if this was the same guy, he was bad news.
Nervously, trying to look subtle, Mush started down the block to where his partner was selling. He saw the man glance around, glance down at him and then past him—street kids were unimportant—and over towards Blink. And Mush saw that the guy's gaze lingered just a moment too long, that there was a little recognition behind it, and that the man was now striding purposefully down the street.
That couldn't be good, either.
Mush took off in the same direction, pushing his way through crowds, small enough to worm through spaces someone bigger couldn't have fit through. And he made good time, luckily, and grabbed Blink by the shoulder. Blink turned around, startled; Mush had accidentally come up on his blind side. "What're you—?" Blink started, but Mush just pointed back at the rapidly approaching man.
Blink's eye went wide and he stared, and the man saw him staring. "Mush…" he said. "That's…"
"I know, let's cheese it. C'mon," Mush urged. Blink nodded a little, still startled, and it was Mush grabbing his arm and running that forced him out of the stupor. He started to run himself to keep up with Mush, and was actually faster once he started, but didn't want to lose his friend in the crowd. Together, Mush's arm still clutching Blink's, they wound through the streets, towards the lodging house, the only place they considered safe. They didn't stop until it was in sight, then finally collapsed, panting and exhausted, on the Horace Greeley statue.
That was all Mush heard about Blink's father for awhile. It was a week later when the subject came up again, since Mush didn't ask. He didn't want to upset his friend. Blink had been acting a bit weird since he'd seen his dad, he was always looking behind himself to make sure no one was there, and refused to go back to the block they'd seen him at, even though it was their best selling spot. Mush was worried, but he got a lot more worried when the horsing around in the lodging house got worse one night.
It started with an innocent game of keepaway. One of the older kids stole Cowboy's hat, and Jack Kelly chased him around the room frantically, trying to get it back, but every time he'd caught up enough to grab it, the guy tossed it to one of the other kids in the room. Everyone would laugh hysterically, as Jack turned around frantically and would begin chasing the new thief. It was an easy enough game, though the victim found it annoying, and it happened frequently.
The problem was that one night, someone threw Jack's hat to Blink. Usually it was just the older kids who'd take it, since Cowboy couldn't really hurt them, but now and then they'd let the younger ones play too. This was one of those cases, and Blink caught the hat and careened across the room with it. Jack followed him, and just as Blink was about to toss it, Jack tackled him. They both hit the ground full on, but were caught up enough in the game that they didn't stop and didn't care. Blink kept his arms wrapped around the hat, while everyone else was laughing, and Jack couldn't get his grip loose enough to get it back. After a few seconds, he decided to try a new tactic.
He reached out and grabbed Blink's eye patch, pulled up and it snapped off of Blink's face easily enough. "Hey!" Blink yelped, and everyone laughed; they figured it was only fair. He dropped the hat, not caring about it suddenly, and slammed one hand over his eye. "Give it back," he muttered into his arm, "Give it back!"
Jack grabbed the hat and scrambled to his feet. "C'mon, take it from me if you can, Kid," he challenged, dancing backwards.
Blink managed to stand up, but he kept his hand in place. "It ain't funny, Jack," he pleaded, the playfulness gone from his voice. "I can't… Give it back."
"What's with him?" Racetrack asked Mush, sitting down next to him. "Can't he take a joke?"
Mush shrugged. He'd never seen Blink without his eye patch before, and realized that probably, no one had.
Jack hesitated. On the one hand, he didn't want to upset Blink, but it was just a game. Blink sounded more upset than he should have, since sooner or later, everyone got something stolen. His own hat and Racetrack's cigars were the favorite targets, but still. No one was serious about it.
Blink seemed to be, though. He didn't chase Jack, just stood there with his eye covered, staring down at the ground, shoulders slumped. "What's amattah, huh?" Jack asked. "You can't take it?"
"Not that, please," Blink said quietly. He was turning red with everyone staring at him, a few people laughing a little. "Anything by my patch. Come on, Jack, please."
Jack shrugged a little. "Catch," he said, and tossed it back to Blink, who instinctively reached out with his right hand—the hand that covered his eye—and caught it. And for a split second, everyone saw his eye, and he realized it. Suddenly terrified, Blink started to run, out of the room, down the stairs, out of the lodging house. Everyone just stared after him, no one sure what had happened.
Mush glanced around, then wordlessly got up and followed. Blink wasn't anywhere in sight when he got outside, but he was pretty sure he knew where to look. The alley out back was pretty private, and Blink had gone out there to just sit, alone, every night since they'd seen his father. "Blink?" Mush asked hesitantly, glancing down the back road. Sure enough, there in the back, Blink was sitting with his knees pulled up to his chest, his arms wrapped around them and his face buried in them, obscured by his uncombed blond hair. He still had the eye patch clutched in one hand, and his shoulders were shaking a tiny bit.
"Lemme alone," Blink called, his voice breaking.
"You cryin'?" Mush asked, ignoring the plea. He walked over to his selling partner and crouched next to him.
"Go away," Blink insisted.
"You are," Mush realized.
"I ain't," Blink sniffled. "Just leave me alone, Mush. I don't need no one else laughing at me."
"I ain't laughing at you, Blink. I'd never do that," Mush promised. "I just want to make sure you'se okay."
"Fine," Blink said, sitting up a little bit, shaking the hair from his face. He wiped away the few tears with the back of his grimy hand, and froze with it over his eye again. "You gonna go away or what?"
"Nope," Mush answered. There was a long silence, and finally Mush offered, "But I'll look away while you put the patch back on, if you want."
"Yeah," Blink agreed. He waited for Mush to have sat down with his back facing towards him, before he let his hand drop and pulled the patch into position. It felt awkward over damp skin, but he felt better with it on than with it off. He hated having it off.
"Can I look yet?" Mush asked.
"Yeah," Blink said softly. Mush turned around and they sat next to each other against the wall.
"You okay? 'Cause Cowboy didn't mean nothin' by it, no one knew you was so sensitive."
"I ain't," Blink objected. "I ain't, I just… I don't want 'em to look at me like a freak."
"You ain't a freak."
"I am," Blink said resolutely. "But it's okay so long as no one sees it. I mean, I'm blind with or without the patch, but ain't no one gotta see why."
"You mean it ain't natural?"
"Didn't you see? 'Course it ain't natural."
"I didn't see, really. Don't think anyone did, you covered it up and ran so fast. We wasn't looking, really, just worried 'cause you went nuts like that."
"Oh." Blink considered that. "Nah, it ain't natural."
"What happened?"
He shrugged. "It… I don't like to talk about it, okay?"
"Sure, Blink."
The silence after that was a bit more companionable. Blink reached into his pocket for a cigarette and lit it up, then offered it to Mush, who almost never smoked, but shrugged and accepted it anyway.
"It's just…" Blink started, then stopped, then tried again. "My dad did it."
"Why?" Mush asked.
Blink shrugged a little. "He lost his job. Again. And he was drunk, and I guess… I don't know what I did, but I musta done something. He got real mad at me…" He crossed his arms over his chest for a minute, uncomfortable, then reached out and took the cigarette back from Mush. "We was in the kitchen, an he grabbed the nearest thing he got. Usually, it would be big wooden spoon or somethin', an' he'd just throw it at me. But I guess he was real mad that night. 'Cause the nearest thing was the knife and he just grabbed it and he ran at me and even though I tried to run away 'cause I could see what he was doing he was bigger than me and stronger and he grabbed my arm and he cut me, just kept yellin' something about my mother's eyes and I don't know what else, just that all I could see was the blood from my eye, from my face, and he did it again before he even stopped, and as soon as he loosed up a bit I just ran for it, bleedin' like crazy and everything…"
Blink finally broke off the long, tangled story and gasped for a deep breath. He hadn't paused to think or anything, just spoke, since he didn't know what else to do. His narrative was hard to follow as his voice became more panicked and desperate, but he couldn't help it. Thinking about that night always made him feel scared again, even now that he knew he was hidden from his father.
Mush put an understanding hand on Blink's shoulder, not sure what else to do, unable to think of anything to say. After Blink caught his breath, he continued, a little calmer, "I ran for it, and Dad chased me to the door of the building, but I guess he didn't want anyone to see him chasing a kid with a knife like that, so he let me go. But I didn't stop running, it hurt so bad, and I could barely see… I guess I kept running until I fell down and I couldn't get back up. I don't know what happened. Blacked out, I guess.
"Woke up in a hospital. They told me someone found me, brought me in, that I'd been half-dead from bleeding. They stitched up the cuts on my face, but couldn't do anything for my eye. I wasn't gonna see from it again, never, and I got real scared… Scareder when they told me they needed to find my father. I guess to pay for it all. But I thought they was gonna send me home, and I was afraid that if he found me he'd kill me or take out my other eye or something, so as soon as the stitches were out, I ran for it again.
"I ran right into Jack selling papers and I guess he saw I was all freaked out and all, 'cause he brought me back to the lodging house… I still had the bandages taped over my eye, and I didn't want to take 'em off 'cause I didn't want to see what it looked like and I didn't want anyone else to see it… Racetrack scared up the eye patch for me, don't know where he got it… I put it on. Never take it off, never, I can't… I can't stand to see myself… You can see where the cuts on my face were, and my eye is… It's… It's still there, but it looks dead. It is dead… It makes me sick."
He paused to extinguish the cigarette. "I can't look at it, an' anyway, when I have the eye patch on, sometimes I can pretend that's all that's keepin' the light out. That maybe if I took it off, I'd be able to see again. So I never take it off, so I never have to really be blind…"
Mush nodded a little. Blink finally seemed like he was done, and he'd begun to cry a little again. Not the same sort of sobbing he'd been doing before, just a few tears that leaked out. He wiped them away. "I just don't want no one to see," he said finally. "An' you can't tell no one about it. About my dad. Promise."
"Promise," Mush agreed.
"An' you can't tell anyone that I was… That…"
"You was crying?" Mush suggested.
"Yeah. That."
"Promise," Mush repeated. "Cross my heart and everything."
"Thanks." He paused, then said it again. "Thanks, Mush. You know, you'se the best friend I ever had."
Mush just smiled.