GOD DAMN IT BRUCE!" I had awoken to my mother screaming typically at my step-father once again, they had been married for ten years - Since my little sister Angela was two. Everything seemed to start off real good with their marriage. When mom and dad split, mom changed. Every boyfriend she brought over to the house either stole money from her purse, slapped my siblings and I around or drank so much they passed out setting the house a light... Sometimes all three of them things. But when she brought home Bruce, Bruce was real nice - he'd take us to the park and he wouldn't drink! He never even set the house a light once! I liked him real nice.
But nothing good can stay, especially around this house. Bruce and mom were good for a year maybe, before everything started on a down hill slide. He did start drinking - more then just at dinner and on the weekends, he drank all the time, he'd yell at us for the littlest things. One time when my brother Tim broke a glass by accident, Bruce smacked him up real bad and Tim needed stitches - but Tim was only ten.
"SHUT UP MARY!" Bruce returned the yelling just as loudly as she had yelled the first time. I rolled over in my bed, ignoring the springs digging into my back, "BOTH OF YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Tim yelled before something that sounded like a shoe made contact with the wall separating my bedroom with his.
"WHAT'D YOU SAY YOU LITTLE PUNK!" Bruce yelled and I heard his feet pounding against the floor of the hallway, his fist pounding against Tim's bedroom door, probably hitting another crack into it between the holes.
"Forget the sleep." I said to myself, pushing myself up, looking across my small bedroom, that despite being clean still looked dirty, thanks to the several different holes in the wall, the stains and burn marks on the carpet. I rubbed the side of my face, yawning.
Before making my way across the small room that sometimes felt like a jail cell, to the small broken in half mirror resting against my dresser, it was dirty and smudged. Staring back at me were the same smouldering blue eyes that everything within my family [excluding Angela] dawned from our father. Angela took our mothers green eyes.
Maybe I should explain my family a little bit better, for less confusion in the long run. My mother; her name is Mary, she's an averaged height woman with green eyes and curly dark brown - almost black hair, she's heavier set. She never did fully drop the baby weight - at least that's her excuse.
My Father; Timothy besides being an alcoholic, stealing, abusive son of a bitch, who finally ran off with another simple tramp had blue eyes and straight black hair. He was tall and built - at least from what I can remember. And I don't like remembering to much, sometimes I think that he didn't even exist and the hazy memories are just something my mind painted for me.
Bruce; He was tall, heavy set too, blazing brown eyes with black buzzed-cut hair with bad patches, his skin was darker, he smelled like left overs that had been in the fridge to long and cheap booze.
My eldest brother; Timothy Junior, 'Tim' is Eighteen, he's got the smouldering blue eyes, curly black hair that is greased back from shagging into his eyes – the curls kicked out against the back of his neck.
Tim was tall, six feet at least and lean, his nose is kinda bent from being broken twice and he's got a long scar on the right side of his face that runs from his temple to his chin – courtesy of a tramp who used a broken bottle on him.
I think Tim has spent more time in The Cooler [Jail] then all of us, but he never seems to spend more then three months inside. Which I'm thankful for.
Tim also is the leader of the Gang, by the Gang I mean; The Shepard Gang, we're an organized gang on the North side of Tulsa. It started a couple years back when Tim was sick to the high hells of the Socs trying to take over. We've got a few regular people, people you can count on. - There are also several other 'organized' gangs across the North Side of Tulsa but The Shepard Gang is the most organized and the most known, which believe it or not, isn't always a good thing.
He dropped out of school in grade nine, he thought 'This bullshit is a waste of time' tossed his books at a teacher, left and never came back.
There was Angela the youngest Shepard; she was twelve years old and acting sixteen, she was unbelievably gorgeous – personally I believe its because of her eyes, they were emerald green like moms. They'd glitter in the light and twinkle in the darkness. Her skin was flawless – Pale and her hair was long black curly ringlets down her back. Now I would to anything for any of my siblings – But Angela and I never really got along, Angela has the mouth to be considered a North Side. But she's got the attitude and the expectations of a South Side, maybe it was because we never really bonded as kids, maybe because I rarely spent any time with her growing up, but I tend to steer clear of Angela, love her to death but she just, doesn't click with me the way every one else in my family had. Angela still goes to school.
Finally the last sibling, minus myself. Curly, oh Curly. I thought about him, he was fifteen years old and could pass for seventeen or eighteen. He was between 5'7'' and 5'10'' I wasn't exactly sure. His black curly hair seemed to mimic Tim's – long and shaggy, greased back from his eyes and forehead and the curls, they'd curl around his ears and kick out against his neck. I guess Curly would be the second in charge of The Shepard Gang, Curly was rough, he'd pull the blade out first in any situation. Not that we all wouldn't pull a blade or a bottle – but Curly was blade savvy. Curly dawned the same smouldering blues eyes as Tim. [I bet you're sick of hearing that, aren't you?] Curly carried a little extra weight, but he could run just as fast as the track kids. Curly also dropped out of school in grade nine – well actually he was expelled and he didn't object to it.
Then were was me, my name is Leslie Shepard. I'm fifteen years old – if you haven't already assumed, I'm a twin, Curly's twin. I've got the same smouldering blue eyes, the same curly black hair – that brushes my shoulders. I'm not sure how much I weigh, but I know its somewhere between one-hundred and one-hundred and twenty. I'm short to – well short to the people I hang out with, I'm 5'3'', I don't have much of a chest, if you catch my drift, I mean they are there, you can tell, but they aren't the kind you need to hang onto when you're running down the stairs - Mom says I haven't hit my second growth spurt and honestly, I could care less if I do or don't. My skin is tanned from the sun, but not overly.
I dropped out of school to, it's not something uncommon, I was in the middle of my grade ten year, I just got sick of it. Sick of the Socs more like. I don't want to brag but I was smart, a friend of mine says I have both book smarts and street smarts, but the street smarts always over take the logical thinking book smarts.
I guess Tim being the leader of the Shepard Gang and Curly being the second in command to it, I was the third? I mean if I told someone to go into a store and rob it for me, they would, some of them were genuinely scared of me, others I think thought if they didn't listen, Tim or Curly would be pissed, either way. I can hold my own weight, I don't need guys doing my dirty work for me.
I wasn't the proper young lady, people wanted me to turn out to be. I wore jeans and pants, not skirts, yeah girls were allowed to wear pants but it wasn't widely accepted, probably another reason I dropped out of school, because girls HAD to wear skirts. I just wore pants and put a skirt over them.
Spending time in The Cooler was something I'd done but didn't do often, I didn't get caught doing the things I've done, except once I got caught slashing the tires of a police car, got two months in a 'Reformatory' – Which didn't help. I've spent many nights in lock-up.
Because I'm a girl, a lot of people underestimate me, they don't assume I'm as tough as I am, they tend to down-play by abilities, which usually leads to a disappointment on their part. What makes it funny is they underestimate me because I'm a girl, but they jump and beat me up like I was another guy. Sometimes it makes me laugh.
"Y'ALL SHUT UP! I'M TRYING TO FUCKING THINKG HERE!" I felt myself yelling over the voices of Tim and Bruce, turning away from the mirror, listening to the yelling stop for a fraction of a minute, before starting back up again.
Sighing, I brushed my fingers into my hair, looking back to the mirror, I could see the various scars across my arms, I had a lot of different scars across my body, a lot of them from the Socs.
My name is Lieslie Shepard and welcome to my life...