DISCLAIMER: I do not own Spot Conlon; I'd like to own Randy 'Fighter' Peterson. However, that issue is still pending. Smirks. Or so I like to think.
Author's Note: This is a story inspired somewhat by a story my girlfriend wrote me for our three month anniversary. I liked the storyline so much I decided to expand upon it from my own point of view. So this I suppose is a belated gift to her: Happy Three and One.
Confessions of a Silent Heart
This is it. Today's the day I'll ask Randy Peterson, more commonly known as Fighter among the paper-peddling flea-infested lower class of Brooklyn, to be my girlfriend. Or at least such will be my attempts. I never quite was the bold Casanova type, and though Italian, I haven't the gallantry to climb each sticky and grime-laden rung of the fire escape outside our lodging house to battle winter's freeze or summer's heat just outside the female bunkroom window where I might sing to her ballads of love and recite the most romantic of Shakespearian sonnets. I'm not one to be terribly blunt either. Though many a time it has been my aspiration to simply walk up to her, profess my feelings, and be done with the earth-shattering matter, it's something I've been having to plan for weeks now.
Sometimes I imagine myself gliding toward her in an effortless stride, casually swinging my stack of fifty papers (I know, not nearly impressive as Spot Conlon's daily 175 morning editions) under my arm, and asking her in the most suave of tones if she'd like to dine with me at my favorite Italian restaurant in downtown Manhattan. Other times, I've dreamt of sitting on the rooftop of our residence alongside her, sharing dreams and trading secrets as we gazed at the illustrious stars above and eventually with a hint of coyness confessed a long-restrained attraction toward each other. But every occasion, my wishful thoughts were shattered by reality's sting, and every occasion, it only took one glance at her fierce stamina to cower back to the drawing board, so to speak.
Randy isn't your every day pristine and polished becoming debutante of society. In fact, she's an eclectic coalescence of all things contrary to a well-to-do livelihood. Though an extreme beauty with quite a few admirers (though none would ever attest to such as it would only win them a bloodied lip and black eye), she has the wit of a serpent and a verbal bite a hundredfold more stinging. Her words are sharp; they cut deep and make your mind spin in twisted revolutions to devise something worthy of retaliation. I've encountered this several times, and I'm rather embarrassed to say she has on numerous days made me stutter, become speechless, or simply gawk at her in disbelief. It isn't the best of feelings. One moment I'll be bearing a lopsided smirk and telling her to veil her face before she blinds every one awake, and the next she'll be suggesting I veil my lower regions before every one awake knew of my late night excursions with my bedmate.
That, by the way, is a widespread but false accusation. Shaun Gregory and I, though we share a bed because of Brooklyn's confounded overpopulation, do not have anything going on whatsoever. For God's sake, I'd sooner have myself castrated than…well, you hopefully get the point. In any case, she was always apt to sustain her insults on such remarks, because she somehow knew how offensive they made me. It was a truth I wholeheartedly despised each day; how she knew quite well those things which made me itch with reckless hatred.
It had all started the day I foolishly set off into the 'real world' (the one just outside my snow-globe fantasy of attending Princeton University where I'd study theology and medicine) and allowed my tired and aching feet to perambulate the way to a blasted sinkhole called the Brooklyn Newsboys Lodging House. I wasn't at all impressed by its edifice. The pile of decaying splinters had less appeal than a hamlet composed of horse dung, but at the time wanting to assist my single father in whatever ways I could, I reluctantly accepted the hand of cards dealt me by Fate and became a wretched newsie.
When my small family was demoted to an apartment the size of a tool shed because of inability to keep up with rent (my dad, after the death of my mother, was anything but organized and up to date with his occupation, and thus gradually fell back into apathy), I sacrificed the comfort of my own living space to instead take up dwelling in Spot Conlon's blessed little hellhouse. I wasn't a week there, sleeping on stained sheets and stiff mattresses, before I met Miss Randy Peterson herself.
I wasn't in the best of moods that day; my selling aptitude, or lack thereof, was the rear-end of every Brooky's joke when I came home with the same amount of papers I had set off to originally sell. And so, lounging at an angle against a tower of fish crates on the docks with my legs stretched out before me, I perused the headlines and wondered upon what I could possibly be missing. Less than two minutes later, I felt a weight against my knees as someone crashed into me and reeled across my feet, ending up first face on the docks.
Her hair was a tangled mess of blonde wavy tresses under a hat which smelled of gin and smoke; I assumed it didn't belong to her. Though dressed in grey corduroy breeches and a thick long-sleeved shirt, certain feminine attributes were still maintained through the attire as she turned around to face me and with blazing glacier blue eyes proceeded to pitch hysteria over me needing to watch where I decided to rest! The bill of her derby hat cast shadows upon her soft face, making those gorgeous irises ten times more electrifying under those thick long lashes.
"Are you deaf!" She clenched and unclenched her fists, making the knuckles of her ink-smeared hands switch from white to tan to white again. I could tell she was a spitfire already, with the build to back up her scathing remarks. Though petite and a bit on the skinny side as far as stature went, I could tell she'd be able to strike me across the face in half a second and leave me still wondering what had just happened if such were her wishes.
"No, I hear perfectly well, thank you. It's with thorough gratification that I'm obliged to you for being concerned about the status of my hearing ability." I looked down at the scattered sheets of papers she'd sent flying out of my hands, not caring in the least they'd be lost to the East River within minutes. What entertained me at that moment was the flashing quickness in her eyes as she digested each of my words. Since my stay in Brooklyn, I'd come to realize how powerful a tool strong vocabulary could very well be. "But I must say, dear girl, perhaps we wouldn't be engaged in this conflict if you knew how to manage the large chunk of fat on your behind."
"You bastard." I'd heard the name countless times before, but somehow hearing the two syllables slip from her pale lips made my heart quake for just a single moment. Her eyes were narrowed now, like those of a merciless wild cat inches away from its prey. She closed the distance between us so that our noses were nearly touching, oceanic and enigmatic blue meeting the daunting frigidity of her own pupils as she uttered the next words: "The next time you even think of calling me a 'dear girl', let alone assuming I care in the slightest about you, I'll be a hell of a lot more vengeful than I'm being now."
I could do no more than scoff at this notion. She made it sound as if she were putting me through physical pain. "A hell of a lot more vengeful than you're being now, huh? And how exactly are you…" She brought the tip of her muddied black boots up in one swift ruthless kick, her target none other than the all too common 'sensitive area' found on the male anatomy. I avoided her for two weeks afterward.
The next time we did converse, it was no less barbaric in nature. The wash room of the lodging house was a circus of gossip, shaving cream, cold dirty water, and the stench of waste. On top of that, the Brooky's lacked the sense to simply wait their turns like civilized gentleman; no, everyone had to do their business at exactly the same time. Unfortunately, what this meant for me was confronting the demonic fascia of my nightmares: Randy Peterson.
She was combing her golden locks beside the room's only vacant sink, and I was in dire need of water upon my face. And so I swallowed up my pride, or perhaps more so my fear, and strode toward the respective area to proceed with my morning rituals. She glanced at me momentarily, returned to her grooming, and muttered something akin to: "I wouldn't worry too much about cleaning the dirt off your face. It blends in so well with your natural ugliness."
Smiling wryly at this, I leaned against the sink and addressed her. "I wouldn't worry too much about detangling that unruly hair. Besides, the hair on a monkey's ass isn't supposed to be brushed daily."
"And yet you shave with perfect routine!"
"Maybe if you took up apprenticeship, I could help you do away with the mustache over your lip," I threw back at her, raising my voice as the argument progressed in intensity.
"Had I a mustache, I'm sure it'd equate to more hairs than the total number on your scrawny little body."
I took a step closer to her, a smirk adorning my lips. "This scrawny little body was doing well to garner your screams last night, baby."
"If you were the last person on a planet terrorized by puss-vomiting geysers and rabid mice, and the future of humanity depended on me and you procreating, I would deprive you of your child-making capabilities with the help of a toothpick and then throw myself off a cliff as to not put up with your stupidity." She threw her comb, made of pure ivory, at my face…and damn, did it hurt.
And so it ensued. We always found it of the utmost necessity to bark at each other whenever given the chance, for our very existence apparently survived on breathing the words to our carefully devised insults. I recall sitting up in my bunk at nights and deliberating over how I could flawlessly make the succeeding day miserable for her, and I'm sure it was the same for her as well.
We also plotted and schemed like madmen. I remember once I had paid off two Manhattan newsies to provide short-lived merriment for me one day when my nemesis was visiting their lodging house, and I just happened to be present as well for reasons I can't quite recall. But in any case, as one of the boys created a diversion by speaking with Randy as she leaned against Kloppman's desk, the other inconspicuously crept behind the wooden structure, took the ends of Randy's silken hair, and dipped them in a small container of ink! It was a moment for which I could've died! She, of course, ascertained my involvement in the tomfoolery and, after getting a hair trim at the local salon, vowed to gouge my eyes out in my sleep.
Fortunately, she didn't live up to this allegiance, but she did enact something far more embarrassing. After selling the morning edition, it's a well known fact I like to recline upon the fish crates of pier 23 and read a snippet from whatever literary work I acquired at the library that morning. One particular day in December, I was coming home from a laborious and tiring working experience, ready to collapse on my territorial spot and simply rest. This I did with ease, plopping down with satisfaction upon my rightful crate as I watched Randy off in the distance smirking wickedly in my direction.
I wondered what could possibly be up her sleeve, but paid no more heed to her foolishness. Instead, I opened the covers of my book and began to read. About an hour later, the dropping temperatures and my already existent exhaustion pressed me to rise to my feet and retreat to the lodging house, yet as I attempted to do this very action, it suddenly dawned on me my rear end was stuck to the confounded crate! My eyes widened in panic and I tried to maneuver myself off the seat; it was at this point that I caught sight of Randy hurrying back to the lodge, covering the loud raucous of her laughter with two hands.
I glared at her. Great; just great. She'd supposedly used some adhesive substance all across the upside of the crate, knowing I'd crash onto it without a second thought. Boy oh boy did I feel like the prince of idiots when I walked into the main room that night with a small wooden crate attached to my behind.
Review if you want more!