Disclaimer: Newsies does not belong to me.
Note: This was originally posted under a different account.
A Pirate's Life For Me
"What are ya fiddlin' with your patch for?" said Skittery. He stood on the street corner, cigarette in one hand and a stack of papers in the other, and he shot a sidelong glance at Kid Blink.
Blink stopped touching his eye patch and shot a similar look back at Skittery. "Whaddya mean?"
"You keep fussin' with your patch. What, is it itchy or somethin'?"
"Nah, I was just thinkin', that's all."
"About what?"
"About your mother," said Blink.
"Aw, shut up," said Skittery. He took a drag on his cigarette and blew the smoke in Blink's direction, hoping to hit him in the face with it. "Really, what's got ya thinkin' about that patch of yours?"
"All right, all right. I'll tell ya," said Blink. "I was thinkin' about bein' a kid again. I used to play pirate when I was a kid, before my eye got ruined."
Skittery snorted. "I think there's a fancy word for stuff like that. Irony or somethin'. I heard Davey mention it the other day."
"Yeah, irony! That's a good word for it. Anyway, I used to have this copy of Treasure Island, with pictures and everything. It used to sit in this old cupboard, along with my pop's pipe and his bottles of booze, and I used to take it out and well, ya know, flipped through the pages to look at the pictures. You ever do that?"
"No," Skittery said decidedly.
"Well you wasn't no fun. My ma would be sewin' in the corner and my pop would be workin' and I'd sit on the floor with this big book in front of me and—"
"Yeah, ya told me that part already."
"Lemme tell the story, will ya, Skittery? I looked at the pictures, like I said, and they all showed these firece pirates with these big ol' hats and peg legs and eye patches. Typical pirate stuff, ya know? So then I got to thinkin' that when I grew up, I was gonna be a pirate. I'd be a pirate just like the fellas in that book, with my own parrot and an eye patch and everything."
Skittery coughed into his cigarette in a feeble attempt to disguise his laughter. "Well whaddya know. Looks like all you're missin' is a parrot, eh?"
"Aw, put a lid on it," said Blink, punching him in the arm. "I was just a kid. I didn't know no better. You prob'ly woulda done the same if you'd been in my place, am I right?"
"You didn't wish ya had a hook for a hand too, did ya? Better protect those mitts of yours before ya lose one."
"It ain't funny," said Blink.
"Then why'd ya tell me the story if it ain't funny?"
"Cause ya asked, that's why. I wasn't gonna refuse no story to a fella who asked, and besides, what else are we gonna do? Stand around and stare at each other all day?"
"This headline is the worst," said Skittery.
"Yeah, this headline is the worst," Blink agreed. "And now look what you've done. You've got me talkin' just as negative as yourself!"
"Well ya didn't have to repeat what I said," Skittery pointed out.
Blink made a frustrated gesture with his free hand, then threw his stack of papers onto the ground and promptly sat on them. An awkward silence pervaded the air, broken only by Skittery puffing on his cigarette, and at last Skittery ventured towards Blink with the roll of tobacco held out like a peace offerng. "So, uh, what happened to that book of yours, anyway?" he asked. "The pirate book?"
Blink took the cigarette and stuck it into his mouth, then dragged on it bitterly. "My pop sold it about a year later, to buy booze or somethin'. He was always sellin' stuff to buy more booze."
"Oh," said Skittery.
"Yeah. Sometimes I still wonder who's readin' it now, ya know?"
"Prob'ly some hopeless kid."
"Yeah, prob'ly some hopekess kid. Did ya know my pop was the one who ruined my eye?"
A flicker of sympathy crossed Skittery's normally indifferent face. "No, ya never told me that."
"Crazy world, ain't it? My pop's the one who gets me this book about pirates in the first place. Then he takes it away, and then instead of gettin' me my book back, he makes it so that I gotta wear an eye patch for real. It just ain't fair, is it?"
"No," Skittery agreed, taking back his cigarette. "It ain't fair at all."
"But ya know, sometimes when I'm out sellin' papes or lyin' in bed, I wanna be that kid again. I know I can't be a kid again, but it'd nice to go back to those days, just for a little while, wouldn't it?"
"Aw, what's the point? Ya go back for one day, and then ya gotta face your own time the day after that. Then you'll miss bein' a kid even more, and next thing ya know you'll be mopin' around and drivin' us all nuts."
Blink cocked his head at Skittery, as if studying him for the first time, but instead of scowling at him he opened his mouth and laughed. "You're real funny, Skittery. Ya know that? You could find a million dollars on the street and find somethin' wrong with it, couldn't ya?"
"Maybe," said Skittery, though he started to grin a bit.
"Eh, you're right anyway. I ain't young enough to play pirate no more, even with the patch. None of us is."
"Nope," Skittery agreed, exhaling a puff of cigarette smoke. "We sure as hell ain't."