Shuffling Cards

All the other fellows thought I was crazy when I ended it with Henny.

They wasn't down about it. Half of them that said they was sorry yesterday, are going to go dry her tears and sit with her tomorrow after her long day at the factory. And hey, who wouldn't? She's a pretty good looker, and daring. At the beginning, a few of them teased me about picking up a gun moll. But she's alright. Jim dandy, by all accounts.

So, whydja do it, Skitts?

I sit on the fire escape, staring out at the rest a' the city, wondering what they're thinking. Could anyone be thinking the same things as me? Could any one possibly be imagining 'bout thinking the same things as me? Because I know what I'm thinking is hard to even think about. And I'd be doing even less thinking if he were here, but he's afraid of heights.

Some of the boys are still up, probably discussing the latest news. Bumlets managing to get Henny to promise him a dinner or two at Tibby's. Everyone thought I'd clean his clock when I heard, but I didn't do nothing. And it ain't snap explaining why neither.

Yet, I talked to him about it.

When he first sat down next to me, shufflin' those cards, like his fingers was trained to do it, I had the willies. I wanted to chew the fat with him, get it all out, but damned if he would listen.

"Too poifect for ya?" He had asked.

Well, that was it. My guard was lowered.

"Nah, there ain't no such thing." I had said.

"Too darin'?"

"Nah."

"Not darin' enough?'

"Nah."

"Gold digger?"

"I dunno."

The conversation was getting a little too deep for me to understand. How could I tell him that I didn't know why in hell I had done it? Just seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

Shuffle. Shuffle. Shuffle.

He wasn't even looking up at me. I'm glad he wasn't. Those soft brown eyes had a weird way of penetrating you, even if he was joking around or making some kinda grandstand.

"Did she cry?" He asked calmly, as though he was asking the time of day.

"What?"

"Your gun moll. Did she cry?"

"Yeh."

"Did you?"

I'll tell you this now, I did. But not for her. For the thing inside me that I couldn't quite understand, and it's not like I could just forget it neither.

I didn't tell him.

He didn't bug me about it neither. Just sat there. Shufflin' his cards.

The weirdest thing was, I didn't mind. If it had been any other guy asking me those damn questions, I woulda told him to shove off, or slammed him or summin', but with him, it didn't even bother me. At all.

"The rest a' the guys t'ink I'm crazy." I had said. "Lettin' go a' her like that. She musta been one a' the swellest goils this side a' the city."

"I don't."

"Don't what?"

"T'ink yer crazy."

I looked up at him, and it sounds really weird when I say it now, but it's the first time I really noticed how his face was shaped. Narrow, 'cept with the baby fat still clinging to it. Innocence? Whatever. Reminded me of those peppermint wafers you can buy for a jitney, and after you suck on 'em for a while, they're still round and all, but real thin, y'know?

For the first time that conversation, he looked up at me, and I got this weird sensation of falling, like I'd tripped and was tumbling down some kinda dark hole. I could never possibly explain it with the words I got. And in a weird way, I knew he understood.

I had studied his eyes, tilting my head one way, then the other, like I was tryin' to look down into 'em. Almost as though they were muddy wells or summin'. It was sure hard to get past all of it. Seein' through all the muck and dirt and crap he had seen, to the pure beginnings. You could almost see the nicotine stains surrounding the pupils.

I wanna be him, I remembered thinking. So carefree and wise and…not happy…not depressed either. The between emotion. Don't know if it has a name, but that's him. I wanted to have him teach me everything he knew about life and laughter and love…wanted to be around him…

And strangely, being with him was more fulfilling than being with Henny had ever been.

He had left then. It felt as though I was lookin' at a life raft, the kind they have on those big fancy ships, watching it float away from me. I wanted to run after him. And that's when I first realised.

Oh God, I thought, feeling my stomach fall into that same pit. I ken not be stuck on Racetrack Higgins.

The city looks real nice tonight. All lit up and glowing like a birthday cake, the kind that rich kids get. We gave Jack a birthday once, 'cept it was just a sandwich from Tibby's with a few matches burning on it. But it was nice.

I take a few puffs on my cigarette and just let it hang between my fingers. It ain't snap keeping up relationships when you're street rats like us. We all gotta earn our daily bread. We all gotta be careful when spending our dough. We all gotta watch out for ourselves and keep ourselves healthy and warm and clothed and full. Sometimes Specs reads to us aloud from all his fancy books, about pioneers learning to survive and all, and it seems an awful lot like what we do. And they say our city's come so far.

Racetrack's got a girl. She's real nice. We call her Beauty, sometimes we call him Beast. Just for laughs, y'know. I don't think he really cares, he knows he'd be doing the same if the situation was reversed. She's real nice, she's got these big brown eyes and glossy brown curls and real pale skin, like it was painted on or summin'. He's good to her.

I wanna throw the cigarette away. It doesn't matter any more.

"Shit…this is high Skitts…" I turn around, and there he is, sticking his head out the window and staring down in disbelief. And I'm content again.

"Comon, Race. A few minutes won't kill ya." I have to grin as he steps onto the fire escape like it's gonna crumble beneath his feet.

"Hooooo Jeeminy." He says under his breath.

"Fer Chrissakes, Race, it's metal, not icin' sugar."

He rolls his eyes, staggers over to me, and drops down. I can tell he's glad to be off his feet for a while. He gets a bit better as he looks out over the city though. Some of the wrinkles on his forehead smooth out, anyway. I offer my cigarette to him.

"Cig?"

"Nah, not befoah bed. Gets me all riled up, y'know?"

"Yeh." I take another drag anyways. I don't usually sleep at nights. Kloppman always gets mad at me for never getting my ass outta bed in the mornings, so I told 'im. He says it's isnom…imsom…summin' that makes it so you don't sleep good. Whatever.

"How's yer day?" Racetrack is the only guy I know that can make it sound as though he's actually interested.

"Not bad." I tell him. "Sold a huge stack down by the Williamsboig Bridge. Whole crowd a tourists goin' ova to Flatbush, by the sounds uvit."

"Nice." He comments. "Real nice. Didn't do half as well meself."

"Bad luck."

"Yeh."

Don't get me wrong, Race and I can get into the real deep stuff when we wanna. If we chin long enough, that is.

"So." I say, all light and casual like. "How's Beauty?"

"Ah, great. As ever." He says. He doesn't sound happy. "I ain't never seen her depressed."

I don't say anything.

"An' you? Met anyone lately?" He asks

Yes. This boy. He's great. We sit and talk and laugh and all I wanna do is hold 'im…

"Naw."

"You better get crackin' Skitts." He grins, thumping me on the back. "Soon all the good ones'll be taken."

I thump him back.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. You'll be an old, grey geezer like Kloppman."

I laugh, but my heart's not really in it. While he's still kinda chuckling, I'm staring out at the city, just thinking.

"S'funny." I finally say, as he takes out his pack of cards and begins shuffling. "Seems like ever since Henny…no…not even with Henny…s'never what I is lookin' for."

He looks up at me. And keeps on shufflin'.

"Hard to please?'

"Mebbe."

"Don't worry 'bout it. I felt the same once."

I snort.

"You? Anthony Moreno Higgins?" He looks a little pleased that I remember his full name. "You ain't never had a problem in yer life." My fingers curl around the grating of the fire escape. "I wish I had never met 'er." I confided to him softly. " Every day the guys look at me like there's sommin' wrong with me. For the last two weeks. They all expect me to crumble and' go see 'er again, or act different, or sock Bumlets one, or do somin', but there's nuttin' to do. Every day I have to wake up, put on a face, and see what's 'spected of me. An' every mornin' I jus' know that I ain't gonna be able to."

He nods. I don't even care if I'm boring him to death. I just want to talk. "All I got left is…well…me dignity, and that ain't much." I sigh and rest my chin on my fist. "Maybe if I jus' ask the next goil I see to dinner, I'll be treated good again."

"Don't do that, Skitts." He says amiably, still shuffling his cards. The flapping noise is almost kinda comforting, in a weird way. "Seems to me like yer jus' kinda lonely."

None of the other guys would ever think Racetrack was sounding this smart. But I learned that Racetrack never is as he seems. When he makes his wisecracks and he shoves Mush's head to the side and when he yells out his headlines, he's not really there. I like to think only I know the real him. But that's probably not true. Beauty probably knows him better than any uvus do.

"Maybe I am." I say. How can I be lonely? Yer sittin' next to me! "Maybe I am, maybe I ain't."

"Maybe you should ferget about jus' pickin' up the next goil you see." He says. "If love is what you want, that ain't no way to find no answer."

I look at him, but he's looking down at his cards again.

Who's he to tell me about love? He can't know. He can't possibly know, otherwise he would never have thought twice about coming out onto the fire escape to see me.

"Yeah? So what? You gonna tell me what love does come for?" I ask grumpily. He grins and shakes his head as I turn away and look out at the city again. I can hear his scratchy chuckle.

"I ain't no cupid. But I can see what your problem is, plain as the nose on your face." There's summin' suddenly wrong. Summin' missing. It takes me a coupla seconds to realise that he ain't shuffling no more. There's this eerie kinda silence, 'cept for the talk from the lodging house and the rest of the city. But it doesn't reach the fire escape. Kinda like we were both dreaming the same dream, y'know?

A warmth covers my hand. I look down and realise his fingers are on toppa mine. Just like dat. His skin's all calloused and rough, but it feels nicer than silk, if I knew what silk felt like. I look up at him, and he's starin' at me, with his nicotine, muddy well eyes. "Yer problem is that yer so desperate about findin' love…" He pauses, and his eyes bore into mine. I can feel my heart stop. "You don't even notice when love finds you."
Who's breathing so loudly? It can't be me. My throat's full of cotton. And he looks just as natural and unruffled as he always does. 'Cept for his eyes. His eyes are burning chocolate brown, and it suddenly hits me. All this time I've been trying to see past all the mud and dirt and crap, trying to see his feelings. But really, there's good stuff in there too. Stuff he's seen that would make anybody's heart swell up with joy and wonder and the pure happiness of bein' alive. And as soon as you can see that, you can practically read his soul like a headline.

And I can't believe what I'm reading.

Before I can even clear the cotton from my throat, he's up on his feet, stretching, deck in hand, as always.

"S'gettin' mighty late." He says simply. "I'm gonna toin in. See you in the mornin'?"

It takes me a few moments to answer.

"Yeh." I reply, sounding more like a mouse than a man. "See you in the mornin'."

"G'night Skitts."

"G'night Race."

He turns and edges back along the fire escape, as though he's going to suddenly be pitched off into the streets below, and slides in through the window. I hear a few greetings. I hear him replying in his usual jesting manner. I hear Kloppman banging at the ceiling with his cane, telling them all to turn the lights off and get their asses into bed. And I'm falling. Not over the side of the fire escape, jus' like he's 'fraid of. But down that deep black hole again that's suddenly appeared in the pit of my stomach.

Yer problem is that yer so desperate about findin' love, you don't even notice when love finds you.

I smile as I turn to follow him.