it's a cold day and the sun's shining bright.
the streets are still not lined in gold, and rooney is still a deadbeat. a drifter, a lost boy. he's got seven pence to his name and he's still mopping up other people's vomit in the back of a noisy bar.
he still counts time in relation to when he was kicked out.
(seven months and four days, and counting.)
he kicks a pebble absent-mindedly along the street, feels ten-years-old again, feels just as small and lost in the miasma of this big world. tonight, he's crashing on some co-worker's couch; tomorrow is uncertain.
but one day at a time, rooney, one day at a time.
something in a shop window catches his eye, and he stops, holds his breath and shoves his hands into his pockets. it's a baby grand piano, sitting regally on display, gleaming dark obsidian, and he thinks, holy shit, what wouldn't i give for that sucker. not that he's any maestro -- his fingers are much too clumsy on the ivory keys -- but he misses the feel, the gratification he gets from making music from his own hands. of walker sternly instructing his fingers to go where and where and of amos sitting on the bench next to him, just as clueless, if not more. the days when things were simpler and his brothers had not yet hardened into statuettes.
he murmurs, because he thinks no one is listening, "isn't she a beaut?"