Cigarettes and His Mother's Eyes
Three
Blink forced the memory down, away, locked in the back of his mind where he usually kept it, and ran his fingers around the edge of his eye patch. The cold air felt strange against his exposed eye.
Someone cleared his throat conspicuously, and Blink whirled around, hand pressed firmly over his bad eye, to see who. He squinted and could make out Racetrack lying on his side in bed, head propped on one hand. "Ain't never seen you take that off before," Racetrack said.
Blink turned away and hurriedly pulled the patch into it's usual place. He knew that there was no way Race could have made anything out anyway, but a wave of paranoia crept through him.
"I woke you up?" Blink asked.
"I been awake," Race answered.
"How long?"
"All night. I don't sleep much." He sat up in bed and reached for the table next to him. Blink expected him to go for a cigar, but instead he found his worn deck of cards.
"Why not?"
"Can't." He shrugged. "Why're you up? I never seen you wake up before. Mush said I coulda set fire to your bed an' you'd sleep through it."
Blink almost smiled. That was probably true, though Mush would wake him up, of course. Except that Mush was gone. Probably forever. The smile faded from his face as quickly as it had appeared.
"Just thinkin' about some things," Blink said finally.
"Since when do you think?" Racetrack asked. "Ain't that Mush's job?"
"Mush ain't here," Blink said dismally, as Racetrack began to shuffle the cards quietly. Blink felt like they were talking too loudly, and someone was bound to wake up and hear them, and after he'd almost been caught without his eye patch, he didn't feel like explaining anything. Racetrack had a notoriously loud mouth, sometimes. He carefully got up and walked over to Mush's bed, sat down on it and watched as Racetrack sat up in his own and began to lay out a game of solitaire on the bed's foot. For a fleeting second, Blink wondered how it was possible for Race to play in the dark, since there was no way he could see the cards, but half-figured he could tell them by feel by now. The deck was awfully worn, after all, he'd had the same one for as long as Blink had known him.
"Yeah. Heh." Race didn't laugh, he said it just like that. "Usually, I end up sittin' up wit' him, worryin' about you. Weird to do it the other way around."
"Who says I'se worried about Mush?" Blink asked defensively.
Racetrack glanced up and gave him an amused look, though it was too dark for him to see it clearly. "Mush ain't here an' you'se awake thinkin' about things. What else could it be?"
"Lotsa things," Blink objected. "I ain't all that concerned about Mush."
"If you says so." Racetrack began to play, moving cards around. "You wanna talk about it?"
"Nope." Blink watched him play for a minute. "Why can't you sleep?"
"I'se an insomniac." He smirked over at Blink for a second. "Sorry, the word too big for you?"
"I know what it means," Blink snapped.
"So you an' Mush have a fight or what?" He played another card.
"What makes you think that?"
"'Cause you'se awake an' Mush ain't here." He flipped a card from the deck and moved it, then moved a whole pile. "An' I saw you stomp outta the alley earlier."
"So?"
"So sometimes you can be a real moron. What'd you two argue about, huh?"
"Ain't none of your business," Blink said, then realized he'd admitted that he had gotten into a fight. "You ever sleep, Race?" he asked, before he could get asked another question that would make him give anything else away.
"Now an' then. When I can't take it no more an' pass out."
"You never look tired."
Racetrack put up one of the aces. "I act real good."
"Oh."
"Lotsa us are actors, an' no one even knows," he said.
Blink stared. "What're you saying?" he demanded.
"You an' Mush start fighting outta the blue, an' you think I can't guess why?" Racetrack answered, putting up another ace and piling a few cards on top of it.
"I don't know what you mean."
"Then you'se awful dumb." He took another card from the deck.
"Maybe not as dumb as you think."
"Sure." He played a few more cards before breaking the silence. "Is Mush gonna come home?" he asked finally.
"I dunno," Blink said. "Doubt it. He thinks I'm real mad at him."
"Are you?"
"Yeah." Blink tiredly leaned against the post that held up the upper bunk. He wished he could get to sleep. "But I want him to come home anyway."
"Why's that?"
"'Cause he's my best friend."
Race nodded a little. "He's better at makin' you feel good than I am," he said casually, picking up the cards he'd discarded and starting again, flipping over one at a time. "I ain't the one who does that stuff."
"Whaddaya mean?"
"When you get upset. An' Mush takes care a' ya." He played the first card, and put it over one of the ace piles.
"How do you know about that?"
"By watching."
"Since when do you watch me?"
"I watch everything."
"I ain't never seen you do it."
"You ain't s'posed to."
Blink gave his friend a strange look. "You'se a real odd guy, Racetrack," he said finally. "Why can't you sleep at night?"
"What happened to your eye?" Racetrack countered.
Blink scowled. He supposed it was only fair; all of the newsies had one or two skeletons in their closets they didn't want to drag out. For Blink, it was his eye; for Racetrack, he supposed, it was whatever it was that kept him up at night. And he shouldn't ask questions if he wasn't willing to answer some of his own, which he wasn't.
Racetrack smirked as he put up a third ace.
"Ya know," he mused, "solitaire's a real lonely game. I mean, ya gotta be alone to play it. All by yourself." He moved some cards around. "An' you almost never win, anyway."
"So?" Blink asked.
"Ain't you gonna miss Mush?"
Blink nodded a little.
"You so mad at him you'se willing to never see him again?"
"Dunno," Blink answered honestly. He didn't feel angry, but he had that afternoon, when they'd fought. When he'd told Mush he didn't want to see him again… And he was hurt that Mush had kept secrets from him, important ones, ones that Blink didn't want to think about and had never wanted to know. That was really what made him so angry, the fact that Mush hadn't trusted him with the secrets, even though he didn't like them–never mind what they actually were. Things that Blink wasn't thrilled with, but could get over. But he could never get over having spilled his guts to his best friend about everything in his life, being led to believe that Mush had done the same for him, and then finding out that it was all a lie.
It was a slap in the face. That was what had him so mad.
Solitaire's a lonely game, he thought, watching Racetrack play. He wondered if Racetrack was really lonely, and wondered again what could drive him to insomnia. You almost never win. All by yourself.
Racetrack hadn't been talking about cards, had he?
"So what do I do, Race?" he asked.
Racetrack flipped up another card from the deck, picked it up, and stared at it for a second as though he couldn't tell what it was. He turned it around a bit, trying to catch the light.. "He ain't gonna come back," Racetrack said as he finally set the card down. From it's position, Blink could tell it was the fourth ace. Racetrack practically had the game won, now. "'Cause he probably thinks you hate him. Knowing you."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You get awful mad awful fast, an' you says stupid things when you'se mad," Race answered calmly, placing a whole mess of cards on top of the aces. He paused to take another from the deck, then continued stacking. "An' he'll think you meant 'em. So he ain't gonna come back unless he knows you don't."
"How's he gonna know that unless he comes back, though?"
Racetrack stared at him for a long moment, and Blink stared back, waiting for an answer. He got the distinct feeling Racetrack figured he'd come to it himself, but no solutions sprang to mind, so Blink just waited. Finally, Racetrack looked away, turned back to his cards and flipped over the last one. He placed it triumphantly on the top, four complete stacks of four different suits. "Ya gotta find him, ya moron," he said, when Blink didn't guess.
"How?"
"Ain't you his best friend? You oughta know where to look. Better than I would."
"Yeah, but…" He trailed off. "You mean now? The middle of the night?"
"Were you gonna sleep anyway?"
Blink sighed and sat up straight again. He probably wouldn't have fallen asleep anyway, Racetrack was right. "Awright," he said. "You'se right, I guess. I'll go find him."
"Good." Racetrack stacked the four piles together and then cut them in half, preparing to shuffle again. "You want company?"
Blink seriously considered taking him up on his offer, but hesitated. When he found Mush, there was a lot they needed to tell each other. He needed to explain why it was he was so hurt, and he knew that Mush had some explaining to do. A lot of explaining to do. And probably neither would want to do it with someone else there.
"Nah." He paused and looked back at Racetrack, now shuffling cards. "Will you be okay?"
"I'll be fine."
"You gonna get to sleep okay?"
"Prob'ly not tonight. Maybe I'll pass out at Sheepshead tomorrow or somethin'."
Blink laughed a little as he walked back to his bed to put his shoes on. "You serious?"
"I done it before."
"What happened?"
"I woke up in a puddle with all my money gone. Shoes too."
Blink finished tying his laces and chuckled, though he wasn't sure if Racetrack was kidding or not. "Enjoy your cards," he said. "Sorry you'se gotta play alone."
"Nah, I like it that way, most a' the time." He began to lay out another game. "But you ain't like me like that. Go find Mush."
Blink grabbed another layer of clothes and pulled them on over his others, knowing how cold it was. "Yeah…" He walked away then, wondering just how Racetrack knew everything he seemed to. He really was a strange guy.
The cold wind whipped at Blink's face the moment he stepped outside, throwing his hair around like crazy. He bit his lip and thought, trying to figure out where Mush might be. And as he thought about where his friend might have gone, he couldn't help but think about what had happened.