Not Interested in Your Heart
--
--
"I want to know how you see this thing that's us. I must keep managing my madness over you." –Sister Hazel, Your Mistake
--
--
The last three months had been, at best, hectic. At worst, they were agonizing, but pain never lasted long for Thomas Cassidy and Cain Marko. They simply shifted it on to someone else, or drowned it (after fifteen years off the bottle, Tom was rediscovering the wonders of alcohol). Types like them, who at the time were living only for the present, are seemingly immune to pain.
For the while, they were renting an apartment in New York and staying low. They'd temporarily fooled police around the world into thinking they were residing somewhere in Scotland, and wanted to keep it that way for as long as they could.
At the moment, Cain was eating a roll and absentmindedly kicking their bag of groceries while Tom complained about the coffee.
"What part about 'black coffee' don't these fecking Americans understand? By the saints, there's about a kilo of cream in here…"
Cain smiled to himself. "You're losing your accent."
Tom looked up from his cup. "I'm not losing me accent, I'm affecting an American one…"
"Sure you are."
"I don't have an accent, Cain."
"Uh-huh." Cain kicked the grocery back again and began humming. In between sipping his most unsatisfactory coffee, Tom read a newspaper and clicked his tongue disapprovingly.
"'Tis a shame. This must be the hundredth time I've read the same story in a different paper."
"Are we in it?"
Tom shook his head. "First blessing o' the week."
"We got the apartment."
"Fine, second blessing o' the week."
"You're optimistic." Cain said sarcastically. "Any word from Terry yet?"
Tom shook his head again, suddenly sulky. "I sent letters. Didnae want t' risk a call. No answer."
Cain frowned a bit. Tom's sense of loss over Terry was transparent. It was the one pain gin and whiskey wouldn't drown and no amount of running could leave behind. It resided in Cain now too. "She knows how to reach us, right?"
"Aye, I left her instructions if she wanted to."
Both nodded to themselves in near-unison. The uncertainty in that sentence hung like smog on a skyline.
"So where do we go next?" Cain asked. It was only so long they could stay in a place before someone caught wise, and they'd prefer it if they moved faster than public recognition did. Cain wasn't the most easily disguised person.
Tom scratched his beard as he searched his pocket with his other hand. Had he not been with Cain, he could have easily set about somewhere, working covert, not having to move around every week. He'd often considered it, in the darker moments of the night when sleep wouldn't come.
"We leave for Chicago day after t'morreh."
"When do we stop?"
Tom shrugged. "We don't."
And that was the one of those things he'd regret in the back of his mind. He didn't dare tell Cain outright whose fault it was, because that was obvious to both of them. At the same time, however, he didn't mind it anymore.
Cain had started as Tom's personal challenge. Before the three years he'd spent in prison, Tom had been very smooth with the ladies, and having nothing better to do in his cell he'd set about trying to conquer Cain's heart. Not because of attraction, of course, but simply because he could. He figured he'd done so flawlessly, because, as it turned out, men were just as easy to seduce as women.
However, over the past few years Tom had began to like Cain's reassurance and devotion. Cain seemed to genuinely think that Tom loved him back. Tom, of course, was only a tease. He'd lead Cain on with little affections Cain mistook for genuine tenderness.
Tom was just scared when those little affections turned out to be tenderness.
"Four dollars for coffee that wasn' even black." Tom mumbled, fishing in his other pocket for money. "An' another two eighty for the roll."
"It was a good roll." Cain mused.
"Glad you're satisfied." Tom griped, laying the money on the table. "Twenty extra cents. Happy birthday, Cain." He shoved two dimes across the table, smiling wryly.
Cain looked at him with affection. "You remembered! That's like, the first time in three years!"
"It's twenty cents, Cain."
"So? It's the thought that counts."
Tom rolled his eyes and stood up. "I jus' had extra money. F'r once."
"Yeah, but it's the fact that you remembered." Cain stood up too, dwarfing Tom.
"Ye're standards are too low." Tom grabbed the bag of groceries and slung it over his back. He grabbed his cane with the other hand.
"I work with you, don't I?" Cain laughed.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nuthin'."
Despite the warm weather, Tom shivered a bit. It was a strangely pleasant feeling, this rush of adrenalin he was getting near Cain. He was gradually getting used to it.
Shouldn't have remembered the damn birthday, he thought. I must be going mad..
"Where to?" Cain asked.
"The apartment, I suppose." Tom shrugged. "Drop off the stuff. Go to the post office and check f'r anything from Terry."
"Sounds good."
And for a few minutes they walked without words, Cain blindly following and Tom secretly enjoying the shudder in his spine.
--
--
Fin – 12/3/04