It was cold outside, but from the way Spot carried himself, passersby had to blink and look a second time, just to make sure that their eyes weren't deceiving them and that the skinny boy angrily striding past them wasn't wearing a thick, fur-lined coat. In that instant, when they looked at him a second time, they noticed the bruises, the cuts, and the limp he was trying to disguise.
And some people looked a third time, recognizing the erstwhile King of Brooklyn, the one and only Spot Conlon whom, rumor had it, had nearly been beaten to death and couldn't show his face in his territory for fear.
Spot hated those people who looked a third time more than he hated anyone else...except for Blue and his father, of course.
With a muttered curse, he ducked into the Lodging House and thumped straight up to the attic, knowing that no one would dare disturb him up there.
But when he slammed the door and whirled around, he wasn't alone. Race was sitting in the corner, a cloud of cigar smoke surrounding his head. Spot exhaled and realized that he wasn't really surprised to find Race up here.
Race spoke lazily around the cigar in his mouth. "Need to cry, kid?"
"Cry?" Spot scoffed. "'Course not. I don't cry."
The dark brown eyes eyed him sardonically. "Next time you say that, try to keep your chin from shakin'."
"My chin ain't shakin'" Spot replied frostily.
"Cryin' ain't a bad thing. Haven't I told ya that before?"
"Fine, fine," Spot glared. "Then let's see you do it."
"Me?"
"'Course. If it ain't a bad thing, why don't you do it? You'se an orphan, Race, right? You'se poor. You'se nineteen years old, but you still look like you're twelve. And," Spot paused with a flourish, "you ain't that good of a gambler. So how come you don't cry?"
"Who says I don't?"
"Huh?" Spot blinked, thrown off balance by Race's quiet question.
"You'se right, kid—"
"—Don't call me kid—"
"—My life ain't that great. I keep getting' older, and what've I done with my life? I sell papes just to keep myself from starvin' to death. I win money off the other newsies, but then I go and blow it at the tracks. I ain't educated, and the odds of me ever gettin' smart are pretty bum. I'll never have a good job or a family. It ain't fair. Why should some guys have so much while we ain't got nothin'? So what makes you think that I never cry?"
Spot leaned against the wall, feeling as though a weight were pressing against his chest. He'd never heard Race speak so much about his feelings before. The note of bitterness in the older boy's voice was also new. He looked at Race as though he'd never looked at him before, noticing for the first time the weariness around the deep brown eyes, the brackets around the mouth that bespoke years of worry, the look of quiet despair that he'd always before identified as thoughtfulness.
"...Race, I—"
Race cut him off as though he hadn't even spoken. "You ain't the only one bad things happen to, Spot. They happen to all the rest of us too, so don't you go 'round thinkin' that you'se got some sort of special bad luck. You ain't even the only guy nearly beat to death. This is just the first time that you'se been on the receivin' end. You'se been mopin' around this attic for a week now. So what're you gonna do now?"
Spot was stung. "I tried to get back into Brooklyn."
Race snorted. "You get turned away by your own boys at the bridge, so you give up? You come back here and lurk around this attic, avoiding everyone, but you'se just fine goin' out into the streets and seein' how people look at you so you can feel...can feel...righteous in your anger and pity?" He pursed his lips, and exhaled a frustrated sigh through his nose. "Tell me, Spot, how long are you gonna stay here?"
"You want me gone, huh?" Spot snarled, wishing desperately that he weren't still too sore to go punch Racetrack right in the cigar.
"No."
Spot froze, the wind again taken out of his sails by that one word. Suddenly immeasurably tired, he rubbed his aching eyes with a grubby hand. "I don't understand ya, Racetrack. Just speak straight. For once, just speak straight."
"It ain't that I want you to go. It's that you wants you to go. Ain't it, Spot?"
"Do you want me to go?"
"You didn't answer my question."
"You didn't answer mine neither."
A tired grin curved Race's mouth. "Yeah, but I asked first."
"Of course I want to!" Spot slid down the wall to a sitting position. "I want to go back to Brooklyn. It's where I belong, Race."
Race closed his eyes briefly. "So why'd ya give up? It ain't like you."
"I gave up 'cause Blue's got five of my own boys posted at the bridge and I can't get by 'em. Not without my cane."
"So you can't use your fists. So what?"
"So what?!" Spot exclaimed. "So everything! I can't sneak by 'em, 'cause they know what I look like, and I can't soak 'em."
"You can't soak 'em alone."
"What, Race?" Spot mocked. "You volunteerin' to come along? Wanna get your hands dirty? Or," he added, "are you volunteerin' the Manhattan boys? Since Brooklyn rescued you all durin' the strike?"
"We ain't nothin', Spot. We could help."
"'We'? Barely any of you'se all is fit for it. You think I want Boots or Snipeshooter at my back during a fight? Dutchy and Specs, if their glasses get knocked off, they'se worse than useless. The Mouth, I bet he ain't never even thrown a punch in his life. Mush'd start cryin' if he stepped on an ant. Crutchy? Sure, I can see it now. Why don't I just let Les be in charge?" He snorted. "Some of the older ones might be all right...Snoddy, Pie-Eater, the Cowboy, Skittery...but there just ain't enough."
Race spoke flatly. "We ain't cowards, Spot, and we take care of our own."
"Didn't say that you all was cowards. I know you ain't. But the Brooklyn boys are tough. You know that. They'se tough and there's a lot of 'em. There ain't no way Manhattan can take 'em on, and I'll be damned if I'll let the lot of ya get the crud beaten out of you too."
"Thanks for the thought," Race said sarcastically, "but fightin' never scared you before, so why's it started to now?"
Spot drew in a deep breath. "'Cause it was never fightin' my own boys before. It ain't their fault that they gotta follow Blue's orders. Well...most of 'em, anyway."
With a disbelieving laugh, Race replied, "That don't sound like you, Spot. You never cared before who you had to soak, didja? You always just do what you gotta do, to hell with anyone else."
"I always do what's right for my boys," Spot said hotly. "What kind of king would I be if—"
"—if you went 'round beatin' your own subjects?" At Spot's nod, Race continued, "You'd be like most of the kings in history, from what I been told, Spot."
Spot set his chin stubbornly. "My boys told me they was real sorry, Race. When they wouldn't let me in, they said that they was real sorry."
"And you believe 'em?"
"I know that I'se a better leader than Blue, and so do they."
Race rolled his eyes. "You'se an idiot, but never mind. So soakin' your boys is out of the question?"
"Yes. And there ain't nothin' else. Besides my fists, what've I got?"
Race stood up and dropped his cigar on the ground, grinding it out with his foot. "Didn't I teach you nothin'? 'What've I got?'" he mocked. "You got your brain, kid, and it's a damn good brain every now and then, so use it. If ya can't bust into Brooklyn with fists swinging, then distract 'em and sneak in."
"Distract 'em..." Spot repeated slowly. "How would I do that?"
Racetrack's face suddenly relaxed and he winked, looking young again. "I ain't gonna do all your thinking for you."
"Distract 'em..." Spot said again, all the gears in his head beginning to work.
Recognizing the fixated look on Spot's face, Racetrack walked over to the door as quietly as he could, hoping not to distract him, but as Race put his hand on the doorknob, Spot suddenly snapped back to the present and said, "Wait!"
"Yeah?" Race asked somewhat warily.
"You've never spoken to me like that before," Spot said quietly, the accent suddenly gone from his voice.
"You never deserved it so much before."
"Do...do the others know what you told me?"
"Which part?" Race asked, not liking this conversation one bit.
"The parts about...about how you feel."
"No." Race turned his head to regard Spot silently. "They'se all satisfied with my lies and I ain't gonna fix their mistake."
Spot suddenly switched topics. "You never answered my question."
"What question?"
"Do you want me to leave?"
Race smiled almost sadly. "That don't matter. You want to leave, and that's what matters, ain't it?"
Before Spot had the chance to object, the door had opened and closed quietly, leaving Spot alone with his thoughts and a vague yet comforting memory of cigar smoke.