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With a sigh, Davey walked away from his last client of the day. ‘ Finally, it’s over, ’ he thought as he waved at Specs who was explaining the choices in glasses to his last client.
Thursdays were always the longest days for him, the rest of the week was enjoyable, especially Fridays. Fridays meant the end of the working week. Fridays meant family. Fridays meant it was time for the Sabbath and the Synagogue.
Yet, today did have an upside. He was finally meeting the Newsies.
‘ I don’t know how they got that name though,” He pondered as he got back to his consultant room and collapsed into his office chair. “Only half an hour left,” he mumbled to himself as he spun around to face his computer and finish his paperwork for the day.
“Davey!” A loud knocking erupted on the door, breaking the optometrist from his concentration as he clicked send on his last email. “Davey, come on, we’ve gotta go!”
“I’m coming, I’m coming”
Davey opened the door and Specs lit up with a smile, he dragged him out and onto the street eagerly as Davey pulled on his jacket to fight the slight cold breeze.
“We need to hurry up if we want to get a seat, there are a lot of us,” Specs pushed his colleague further, radiating an excited energy that Davey couldn’t help but catch. They ran down to the subway, hopped onto the right train and snagged a seat, neither wanting to stand for ten stops after a full day.
Davey found himself picking at his hands, he couldn’t help but feel anxious, “Are you sure they’ll like me?” Specs looked at him over his glasses and gave his friend a comforting smile.
“They’ll love you, don’t worry,” He rubbed his shoulder as Davey’s nerves calmed slightly, but they were still simmering in the pit of his stomach. ‘ Most of these people are childhood friends, ’ his gaze returned to his hands. “ Even if they do like me, how can they accept me when they’ve all been so close for so long? ” The thoughts flew around Davey’s head as the subway train rushed on the underground tracks.
There it was the bar, The Dive as it was called. Specs was shaking him, full of anticipation and glee as he threw Davey through the wooden, brown, double doors.
Inside were a mixture of mismatched brown chairs, clustered around tables of all sizes. The walls were adorned with various neon signs along with vintage pictures that the owner, Mush, one of the Newsies, had collected over many years.
“Specs!” A chorus of young men shouted and waved from the far side of the room, around twenty eyes had turned to Specs and Davey- an extremely intimidating sight to Davey. “Come on! We saved you two some seats!”
After being squashed into a chair, Davey scanned all the faces he could see. A man with auburn hair set closest to him with a backwards cap on, next to him was a blond haired man with a grin on his face, making a sly joke about something. On Davey’s left, a man with a pair of forearm crutches sat, tossing his glass from one hand to another. The final man he took note of before he was interrupted from his trance was a brunet who had thrown his arm around the man with crutches, clearing trying to seem casual but dramatically failing.
“So, you’s Davey?” The brunet questioned, clearly knowing the answer. “I’m Jack, Jack Kelly, let me introduce ya to the guys,” He lent across the table to shake his hand as he began to name the many people across the two tables.
Firstly, he pointed towards the man with the crutches, “This is Crutchie Morris,” Crutchie waved as he was introduced. The next person was the blond with the sly smile, “This is Racetrack Higgins, we call him Race, he’s a vet,”
Race gave Davey a high five and laughed while sending him finger guns. Jack then gestured towards the man with the auburn hair, “That’s Albert Dasilva, he’s a delivery man who tries so hard to be cool,” Albert shot Jack a sneer but still shook Davey’s hand as Jack went around the rest of the group.
There was Elmer, a polish programmer who seemed quite happy, Buttons, a tailor who loved his family, JoJo, a Hispanic Entrepreneur who was raised by nuns, Henry, a deli owner, Sniper, a sharpshooter who works at a Laundrette and many more. ‘ I’m going to need some notes for all of these!’ He thought as Jack went onto some more of his friends.
Finch waved from the far end, he was Race’s colleague, a pair of twins called Mike and Ike didn’t help his confusion with their strikingly similar looks, Romeo was standing behind the bar, grinning at Specs from across the room and Mush, the owner of the Dive. Three more appeared from the bathroom, introducing themselves as Coffee Bean, Barney Peanuts and Kid Blink.
“Specs wasn’t lying when he said there are a lot of you,” Davey breathed while scratching his head awkwardly. “I guess it’s my turn to introduce myself,”
As if out of a horror movie, all eighteen sets of eyes stuck to him, almost forcing him to pick on his hands again out of anxiety. “I’m David Jacobs, everyone calls me Davey, I’m an optometrist who’s the eldest of three,”
“What’s your siblings names?” Race queeried, messing with a button on his button up shirt.
“Well, there’s my sister Sarah, she’s a year younger than me and my brother Les, he’s almost ten now,” Relieved, Davey sat back in his seat, no matter how stressed his family could make him, he loved them all.
It had been around half-an-hour when Mush left the bar and walked up to the minuscule stage which had been set up with a speaker and a microphone. The group turned to face him and cheered, lifting their drinks in support.
“And now, time for the weekly quiz!” The bar erupted into noise, the quiz a clear fan favourite of the regulars. “Now, get into teams, get some paper off the bar and then we’ll start!” The Newsies all clambered into teams, with Davey being pulled into a team with Jack, Crutchie, Race and Albert.
Eventually, the quiz had begun and around five questions in, Davey had began to notice something about Albert.
“Albert, you’re squinting,” The red head looked up, he raised an eyebrow and looked generally disinterested. “Is it too dark?”
“No.”
“Then what is it?”
Race jumped across to intercept the conversation, “The thing you needs to know about Al is that he looks permanently angry at everything in existence,” The Newsies laughed, apparently Albert’s expression was a running joke in the group.
As the questions went on, Davey continued to notice Albert’s strange behaviour. “What is the most consumed type of meat in the world?” Mush read off the next question as their group, The Cowboys of Manhattan, argued quietly about the answer.
“I’d say chicken,” Crutchie suggested.
Jack shook his head in response. “I swear I heard this on the TV sometime,” He rubbed his head as he tried to recover the answer. “I think it’s pork,”
“No,” Davey perked up. “Think of how many Jews and Muslims there in the world,”
“That’s true,” Race pointed his unlit cigar at him before continuing. “So we’s putting chicken?”
“Sure,” Jack confirmed as Race yanked the paper from a zoned out Albert to write the answer.
As if by magic, Albert snapped back to reality as soon as Race had finished writing. Looking disgruntled, he snatched the paper from the hand of him friend and went to look at their answer. He squinted and pulled the paper closer towards his face in his attempt to read it.
“What the hell’d ya put?” He spat after a few minutes of struggling. “How small’d ya write it, Race?”
“Not that small,” Race replied, with an equal amount of sass. He looked at Davey as he spoke. “Maybe ol’ Dave’s right, maybe your eyes ain’t perfect after all,”
The Newsies chuckled as Albert’s rae screwed up more and more, he dropped his face into his hands as he realised there was no point trying to argue against over ten people.
“I am an optometrist, I could get you an eye appointment,” Davey took a long sip of his drink as Mush read off the next question. Albert looked in his eyes, a hint of anger seemed to be deep set in his eyes as he nodded his head slowly. “Cool, I’ll get you an appointment, I’ll need your number to message you when it is,”
“Wait,”, “Is he serious?”, “Al’s getting glasses!” Came the cries of the Newsies as Albert shrunk in his chair from embarrassment.
He mumbled something through the hand that was covering his mouth. “Don’t go on about it or I’ll change my mind,”
The Newsies laughed again as they went back to the quiz, however, Davey kept glancing back to Albert- merely out of curiosity.
Eventually, the night was over. The Newsies clambered out of the bar, all engaged in some form of conversation or laughter. Their was the smell of rain in the air and puddles were scattered all over the sidewalk.
Davey found Albert standing at the back, seemingly linking arms with Finch. Whether it was out of some level of drunkenness or something else- he had no place to say. Upon his arrival, the two unlinked arms and moved away from each other.
“I just wanted to say, there’s always some frame of glasses for someone and contact lenses are an option, most of the time,” He offered a friendly smile to try and help the situation. Albert had apparently dropped his mean act, he gave Davey a slight smile and extended a hand- which he shook eagerly.
“I’m free before eleven on Monday,” He suggested just as Davey walked away. “And thanks, I’m really sick if squinting everywhere,”
With a laugh, Davey said, “No worries,” as he walked to the subway to return home and relax after a long hard day. ‘ I thinking I’m going to like being friends with these guys, ’.