No one knew what to do with themselves. It was like the small war that no one knew about had shaken the very fiber and fabric of their lives. It was as if Top and Quail had been blankets to all of them, keeping them warm, safe, and protected; and then when no one was looking, someone snatched the blankets off, leaving them cold and shivering. And exposed to the world around them.
Manhattan went back home, and knew that things did not end with the death of their leader. They had only just begun...
Kid awoke in the hospital, a few friends by his side. He wasn't able to sit up or stand, and a clean white bandage that had to be changed five times a day covered the empty socket where his left eye had once perched.
And, for some reason, they did not tell him. He knew of Skittery's injury, knew of his quick recovery. He knew of the battles the boys had faced in his honor. But he didn't know the most important aspect of the war. The leaders had died.
They did not tell him simply because they feared his reaction. Kid was the kind of person who blamed himself for things that happened to others if he was even the least bit involved.
No one blamed him for the leaders' deaths. It wasn't his fault; it could have easily been any one of them who had been soaked that badly. But if the boys faced battles in his honor, they knew Kid would see it that Top and Quail died in his honor; died because of him.
It wasn't that they didn't want to tell him the truth. It was simply that nobody wants to put their friend through so much emotional pain just as he is recovering from an intense physical pain. No one.
And no one wanted to be the one to tell him.
But he found out soon enough.
The day Kid was finally well enough to go back to the lodging house, and selling; was a day that no newsy will forget. The handsome, blonde haired young man, a fresh fourteen, fifteen soon, walked out of the hospital they had no means of paying for on a sunny day. The sunlight rebounded and reflected onto the snow and into their eyes, blinding them with its brilliance.
Kid was happy that day, at least in the morning, and he joked about his missing eye, laughing that he had half as much glare now. The suede patch he wore over his left socket suited him; made him look rugged and suave.
Mush and Skittery walked with him, the only traces of Skittery's injury being a bright pink scar, the stitches having been removed a few days earlier, which would soon lighten into white. The war, nearing two weeks gone by since, seemed like a distant memory, a bad dream on that morning as the sun played off the ice in the streets.
But someone slipped up. Mush and Skittery were joking around, pushing each other around, when suddenly, out of the blue, Kid made a comment that shook them into stillness.
"I wonder what Quail's gon' say when 'e gets a load'a this t'ing," he said, indicating the path over his eye.
Skittery and Mush stopped slap-boxing, and looked at each other, wondering what to do now that they were backed into this corner. Their grins faded slowly as they realized that now was the time they had to tell him.
"What's with you?" Kid asked, his lip curling in confusion.
Mush shuffled his feet as he looked at the ground as if the cobblestone fascinated him into silence. Skittery, taking note of this, sighed and made a mental pledge to kick Mush's tail for this one.
"Nothin'. But uh. Damn."
Kid's mind, now reeling with suspicion that something was off, thought back to times when he himself had asked about Quail and his questions had been skirted.
"What happened?"
Skittery looked at his friend, into his one blue eye, and licked his lips in nervous bewilderment. How do you tell someone something like that? That was a question he did not know how to answer.
"The war, Kid. He--"
"Was he hoit?"
"Yeah, but. And he--" Skittery, glancing, panicked, at Mush, faltered.
Mush swallowed hard and pushed his own palms together, pursing his lips. He knew it wouldn't take Kid long to figure out what had happened, what had really happened.
"He died din' he." The words that Kid had meant to say in horror, in terror, in shock, came out flat and devoid of any emotion whatsoever.. He should have known. They didn't say anything about their leader, he never visited--it was as if he didn't exist.
Mush and Skittery's awkward silence was all the confirmation he needed.
Suddenly, all of his calm, cool, serene manner disappeared. Filled with dismay and a dread as such he had never felt, he ran. He ran in hysteria, simply broke away from his friends and fled.
Kid never knew, looking back on that day, how long he ran, or how far. all he knew that once he was just plumb tuckered out, he stopped, panting, adrenalin flooding through his veins.
Looking up, he realized that he was standing right in the middle of the street, and, feeling that his recent brush with death was enough for awhile, he turned and walked, shaking with fatigue from his blind race through the City; to an alley where he stopped to get his bearings.
Millions of billons of thoughts raced and tumbled through his mind, jumping over one another with such a speed it made him dizzy. Kid leaned against the brick wall of the building behind him.
'What have I done?' he asked himself. 'I got 'em killed. What kinda person am I?! I can't go back dere. If I go back, dey'll toin on me. Dey's jus' been waitin' to soak me again...'
Absurd thoughts, of course, for the majority didn't think any less of him as a result, and those that did kept mum for the single reason that they respected their fallen leader enough to know that his approval of such things would be nonexistent.
He slowly slid down the rough brick wall, his shirt raising just enough so that the wall scratched up his back. He didn't even notice.
He sat there, trembling, quaking in his own skin that felt hot yet cold all at the same time; for hours. The sun rose to its noon peak, and continued its travel west; and Kid sat in silence all the same.
And that's how they found him: head down, shaking with intense cold, sitting on the frigid ground in a small ball, looking like a lost puppy.
The two boys entered the alley, looking for a way to ward off the arctic wind that was swooping in like a bat out of hell.
They stopped short, however, upon seeing the huddled form on the ground.
"What the--"
"He dead?"
"No I--well--"
At that, Kid snapped out of his abstraction and looked up at them.
The two boys looked at him, taking in his blue lips, trembling with cold, his blonde hair, shaggy and wind-blown. Their eyes stopped, of course, on the patch that covered his left eye.
"What's yer deal?" The taller one asked, shaking his dark hair out of his face. He grinned as he said it, revealing a wide, straight-toothed smile. His thick eyebrows arched upwards as he turned his tan face down toward Kid's own.
Kid stared at him, silent.
"Can ya tawk kid?" the other asked, piping up. The wind still howling into the all-too-outdoors' alley whipped his fluffy chocolate hair into his dark eyes. He pushed it away impatiently. As he waited for Kid's answer, he rubbed his thin nose, leaving a smudge of something sooty on the end.
"Yeah. Can you shut up?" Kid asked, his already vulnerable emotions making him less friendly than was usual.
As the second looked at him, seemingly debating whether or not he should punch a kid with one eye, his friend laughed, a loud, cheerful laugh that involved all of his top teeth and a glimpse of his bottoms as his lips stretched back into a grin and his eyes twinkled with humor.
Kid stood, feeling a memory of a smile slip across his mouth.
"Where ya from kid?" Asked the laugher, who seemed to be friendlier than his companion.
"'Hattan," Kid replied nonchalantly, wondering if the two boys before him would know where he ended up and how far he had to walk back. That is, if he went back.
"Whaddya do there?" He asked, his eyes darting from the clothing Kid wore to his friend.
"I was a newsy. Still am, I guess."
The welcoming expression on the friendly boy's face changed faster than a bullet firing from a gun.
"You bettah get da hell outaa heah kid," the silent, slightly moody one said after a pause.
"Why?" Kid looked around him. He peeked out into the street beyond the alley, and a street sign caught his eye. 125th street. As the realization hit him like a sack full of potatoes swung into his gut, Kid stared at the boys.
"You're in Harlem." The statement confirmed his fears.
Rendered speechless, Kid stared at the two boys. Suddenly, he wondered how they knew of the obvious danger. Skittery and Mush had said that only newsies of Brooklyn, Harlem, and Manhattan knew of the fight, and these boys were not any Kid knew to be in Brooklyn, and they certainly weren't from Manhattan.
In spite of himself, Kid backed up into the wall.
The two boys before him didn't have to ask why. They could tell the poor blonde kid knew that they were Harlem newsies, and they knew he thought they would kill him as soon as they found the right opportunity.
Kid licked his lips and thought, panicking, that maybe he could still run the three and a half miles back to Manhattan before dark, and before these boys decided to soak him; or worse.
"Pipe down kid, we ain' gonna soak ya. From what I can see, you been soaked enough for all three of us. So you're the one who started the war, huh?"
"Huh?"
"Well we hoid that when some kid in 'Hattan got soaked by Fox and his cronies; Brooklyn and 'Hattan banded tagethah and we went ta war cuz of it."
This was not what Kid needed to hear. He slumped down onto a wooden crate that lay upside-down on the ground.
"You blame yaself doncha?" The friendlier of the two asked him, crouching down to his level.
"He blames hisself for what? Nobody di—oh wait." The second raised his eyebrows quickly and turned away, his mouth conveying his embarrassment in an I-didn't-say-nothin' expression.
"I blame you! You and ya friends! You and ya leadah! If it wasn't fah you, I wouldn'y be like dis!" He motioned angrily to his patch and stood before continuing his tirade, suddenly not full of guilt, but rather, anger. "Dis ain' my fault, its yours! If you hadn't soaked kids from 'Hattan, an' if you hadn't killed Top and Quail—"
The moody one cut him off, holding up a hand and turning to his fellow Harlemite. "Well, well, well Bumlets. Looks like we got an angry newsy on oah hands. Think we should tell 'im it wasn't us who soaked him oah his friends?"
"I dunno Snoddy, think he'd listen ta reason an' realize we was only defendin' the honah of ouah newsies? Of ouah toif? Dat we didn' soak nobody, and we didn't 'spect, oah want nobody to get kil't?"
"Well, now, I ain't shoah Bum. Let's ask him."
They turned to Kid, who stood, staring at them, wondering what the hell had just happened.
"D'ya know how much pain ev'ryone in Manhattan and Brooklyn is in right now? Cause a ya damn borough's honah?!"
"No. Do you?" The boy who called himself Snoddy shot back, raising his eyebrows, a quirk Kid quickly learned he had.
Even prideful Kid didn't have an answer. Truth was, he hadn't been back since that night; and when he'd found out, he'd ran.
His silence was answer enough.
"Hey look, as soon as we heard woid dat they was really dead, we left the newsies. We ain't no killahs. When I saw 'em go down, I backed off; left. I wasn't even in that scuffle that killed 'em," Bumlets said, crouching to look into the eye of the boy who had sat down as he spoke.
"Neither was I."
And Kid believed them, for no one could look into someone's eyes and lie like that. And the blatant honesty reflecting in both their eyes confirmed his faith.
He nodded.
Both boys sat next to him on the cold ground, and they began to talk.
By the end of the hour, both boys had taken to calling him Blink; for whenever the patched boy blinked, they looked at him carefully, wondering if had just winked at them.
"Did you just wink at me?" Snoddy asked, peering into his face, incredulous.
"Huh? No…I blinked?"
At his bewildered response, both Harlemites cracked up, and, cautiously, Kid joined in.
After a series of you gotta go back's, Kid stood, sighing.
"I can't. They's awl gonna be so mad. It's 'cause a me their leadah's dead. An' even if 'Hattan don't soak me, Brooklyn will."
Both boys had to admit that that was a definite possibility.
"But if Manhattan ain' mad, an' I can almost guarantee dat dey won't be; won't dey protect ya from Brooklyn?" Bumlets asked, his eyes serious, his brows furrowed together.
"I dunno, sure." Kid shrugged.
"Well Blink, I say ya gotta go back. Like they say, if ya nevah take the risk, you'll never know if it woulda been woith it." Snoddy supplied something his mother used to say, way back when.
"Who's they?" Kid asked, his face showing his doubt.
"I dunno, pro'lly someone dead 'cause he took a risk not woith it," Snoddy replied, shrugging.
Kid and Bumlets laughed, but shivered in the coming night.
"Night's approachin' fellas. So Blink, ya headin' back home?" Bumlets asked, glancing skyward as the sun rode into the west like a knight on a horse of red sky.
"I dunno. You guys headin' with me?"
Snoddy put up his hands and backed away, pulling Bumlets with him.
"Whoa whoa wait. It's one t'ing fer you to go back; I mean, you belong there. But us?" He motioned to himself and Bumlets, "We'd be soaked for sure if we set foot in 'Hattan. I mean…ya know…"
"Yeah but…ya gotta come…ya gotta!"
"No."
But, thanks to the powers of persuasion and the power of guilt-tripping people in the process of bending them to your will, they went. Reluctantly, hesitantly, and altogether terrified; they went.
Once the three boys arrived in Manhattan, at the lodging house on 37th Street, they halted on the cobblestone.
"We can't go in Blink." Bumlets voiced exactly what Snoddy was thinking.
"How 'bout we don't tell 'em yer from Harlem? How 'bout you're from…Crotona Park?" Kid suggested.
Bumlets smiled at Blink's cunning.
"Sure," he and Snoddy said in unison.
As the three boys entered, all boys in the vicinity looked up. As they caught sight of Kid, their faces melted with relief.
"God, where the hell did ya go?!"
"We got boys out lookin' for ya!"
"Why did you run?!"
"Kid! What the hell!"
"What the hell?!" Several boys ended the questions together.
Kid, grinning at their welcome, told them of his apprehensions.
"Come on! We don't blame ya!"
"Yeah! Any one of us coulda got soaked!"
"It was gonna happen anyway!"
"Yeah!"
"Really!"
"Yeah!"
His worries and fears vanishing with every beat his heart made, and every breath he took, Kid found himself laughing.
He turned to Bumlets and Snoddy, who stood off to the side, near the doorway, the wind at their thinly clothed backs.
"Fellas, this is Bumlets and Snoddy," he motioned to each boy in turn, "They's from Crotona Park."
Boots, only just eleven, piped up, excited. "Wow Kid, you'se went awl da way ta Crotona Park?"
Kid nodded, smiling a secret smile that he turned and shared with the boys from Harlem.
Soon thereafter, Jack, Mush, and Skittery ran through the door, nearly bowling over Bumlets and Snoddy.
They barely gave the two boys a glance as they surveyed the room, all three pairs of eyes stopping on Kid at the same moment.
"God damn you Kid!" Skittery said angrily, backhanding Kid in the abdomen hard enough to sting but not hard enough to really hurt.
"We been lookin' for ya awl damn day, ya scab!" Jack chimed in, flipping his cowboy hat off his head onto his back.
"Kid! We was all ovah the City!" Mush concluded, his dark eyes wide.
"Sorry fellas. I…I thought you'd be…"
"He thought you'd awl blame him," Bumlets supplied into the silence.
"WHY?!" Nearly every newsboy in the joint responded in unison.
"And who're you?" Jack asked, turning toward Bumlets and Snoddy for the first time.
"Bumlets and Snoddy!" Boots cried out. "From Crotona Park!" he added.
"Damn Kid! You went that far?" Skittery asked.
Kid merely shrugged.
By the end of the night, the boys had adopted Bumlets and Snoddy (from Crotona Park), into their band of newsboys, and Kid was known as Kid Blink.
But across the Bridge, in a not-so-distant land called Brooklyn, silence prevailed.
As Manhattan celebrated, Brooklyn was still lost. And Cole Conlon still played on the surface.
Until one day, when all that changed; as it had to.
And Spot Conlon stepped onto the docks and said a final goodbye. A goodbye to Top, Quail, and above all else, Cole Conlon.
It was the end of the past. And the beginning of an era.
The beginning of a legend, of an icon, of a God.