"It's only ten," Daryl said, shuffling his feet, his hand outstretched with the twenty-dollar bill in it. Mr. Fifer shook his head.
"Nah, keep it. The whole family looks forward to the game." He wiped his hands on his shirt and slung the pair of rabbits over his shoulder. They were pretty puny animals to begin with; Daryl was almost overcharging him by asking for ten. Twenty… Mr. Fifer smiled, his eyes landing anywhere but Daryl's face.
Ah. The extra ten was the obligatory sorry your old man beats on you cash. The pity money. Daryl tensed, scowling, and refused to retract his hand. "It's ten."
"I don't have change on me."
"I'll wait."
Mr. Fifer sighed. He was a big man, with a big family, and two rabbits wasn't gonna keep them all fed. Hell, Daryl was in school with one of his girls, and he knew she didn't even eat meat. And people around town thought he was the weird one. Mr. Fifer was the richest man in town, which wasn't saying a whole lot, but he could afford to pay the kid of the poorest man in town a few extra bucks for rabbits he didn't really want or need, especially when the kid turned up on his porch barefoot with a bruise just fortunate enough to be the size of a baseball on his cheekbone. It was irritating enough for Daryl to almost tell him to keep his money, and just take the rabbits back home with him and eat them himself. But it was almost winter, and he didn't want to wait another five months, and he was so close…
"Alright. Hang tight a minute." Mr. Fifer let the door swing shut behind him, and Daryl stood on the porch. The prim and proper porch, where a rocking chair for every member of the family was lined up side-by-side, and, oh, wasn't that sweet, there was a table and a pitcher of lemonade on it. As if some stranger was just going to come up and pour himself some. Daryl wondered what Mrs. Fifer would think if she saw the Dixon boy drinking from one of her good glasses. She'd probably burn it. Offer him some clothes from the Salvation Army, then hose down the porch.
The youngest kid, Lionel, had taken a liking to Daryl last summer. Followed him around in the woods once or twice, even after Daryl yelled at him to get lost. Asked if he could shoot his gun, to which Daryl responded he might get shot at by his gun if he didn't go home. It wasn't that he didn't like the kid; he was only ten or eleven, just a baby who didn't mind his own business, but he stomped around so much that he scared off all the game. Besides, with a name like Lionel, the kid was going to have enough trouble fitting in without hanging around Daryl Dixon.
Mr. Fifer opened the door again, a crisp ten-dollar bill in his hand. Daryl accepted it without a word, and jumped the two steps down to the walkway. "You take care of yourself, Daryl. I'll be expecting a deer pretty soon!"
He always said that. One of these days, Daryl should tell him that he shot deer all the time; he just kept those ones for himself.
Still…Daryl reached into the back pocket of his jeans, and pulled out the bills he'd gotten from his earlier stops. He'd already done the math three times, but he did it again just for shits and grins. Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty dollars today. That brought the grand total to $1,376. Math wasn't his strongest subject – that was history, he usually managed to pull an A on assignments he actually turned in – but it didn't take much calculating to know that he was only $624 away. $624…he could make that before winter. Spend a few extra hours in the woods, a few less at school…Merle would be pissed, but who cares? When was he gonna see Merle again anyway?
Merle wanted him to go to school, to graduate. Daryl didn't know why, and thought it was pretty damn hypocritical, but Merle had never cared much about stuff like that. He'd dropped out when he was Daryl's age, fifteen, before the end of freshmen year. Dropped out, got a job at the car shop down the road, and hunted. Daryl had only been a baby then, two-years-old, but the way Merle told it, his job and the game he brought home had kept Daryl fed most of his childhood. He was probably right. Dad didn't work, lived off disability checks from the government and blew those at the bars the weekend after they arrived in the mail. Merle had better things to do than go to school. So did Daryl. Merle would know that if he weren't in prison. Or in a cabin. Or on the road somewhere with his biker gang.
Daryl didn't know where the hell his brother was right now. Said he'd call, but never did. He left the day he turned eighteen, hopped on his motorcycle and took of for the nearest recruiting station. He'd left five-year-old Daryl standing in the driveway and watching the headlights fade. It embarrassed him now to think of how he'd cried, clung to the motorcycle until Merle pried his hands away, because he knew if he remembered, then so did Merle, and God only knew what Merle would do with that information. Course, that was ten years ago, and Merle hadn't mentioned it, so it was probably pretty safe to say he wouldn't now.
They didn't see each other much during those ten years. Merle lasted a year in the army before punching an officer in the face, then spent the next 16 months in jail. The first time he came home after that, Daryl had been like a puppy, or that's what Uncle Jesse had said. Jesse had indulged him in buying Merle a cake, and Daryl had bounced around the kitchen like the seven-year-old he was, careful not to put too much weight on his left leg after the fall he'd taken down the stairs that week, but excited nonetheless for his big brother's return.
The Merle who came home was almost unrecognizable. Gone was his full head of hair, his clean-shaven face. This Merle was crew-cut, scruffy, with the arms of a sailor and more than one tattoo. Daryl had paused when he walked in, confused, not quite sure who that stranger was, but then his brother had laughed at the spectacle waiting for him in the kitchen and ruffled Daryl's hair and Daryl had been glad he was back. Even Ma came out of her room long enough to give him a quick kiss on the cheek, and Merle was in such a good mood that he let her, which he never had before he'd left. Jesse pulled out his bulky camera and tried to get a picture and she'd disappeared again but Merle had said sure and pulled Daryl over and knelt down by him. Daryl still had that picture, somewhere, Merle on one knee with his arm around Daryl, Daryl's eyes barely visible beneath the military cap Merle had tossed on his head, a stupid chocolate cake on the table behind them.
Then Dad had come home. He hadn't know Merle was coming back, and he wasn't happy, and he'd knocked the cake off the table and shoved Merle backwards, but Merle wasn't a kid anymore and he'd shoved back and when dad realized that Merle wasn't going to take it anymore he hadn't known what to do so he'd reached out and backhanded Daryl instead, and Daryl had gone flying to the floor and Merle lost it and rammed their dad into the wall and Jesse was in the middle of it, trying to break everything up, and Daryl had just crawled to the side and hoped they'd forget about him, which they did. Then Merle left again.
He came back for Ma's funeral, two years later. He stood in the back during the burial, and called Daryl over to him afterwards, and their dad hadn't even noticed him walking off, which was fine. He told Daryl that he was going to buy a cabin in the woods a few miles north of town, and Daryl had asked if he could live with him since he didn't have a house no more, and Merle had gotten a funny look on his face and said no, he had to stay with their dad, but he'd be around more often. Besides, Daryl and Dad were gonna live with Jesse for a while, so things should be alright.
And they were, for a while, with Jesse, who had a hold over their dad like no one else. Something about little brothers, maybe. Then Dad spotted a new place, on the outskirts of town, which was even better than before, no nosy neighbors calling the cops when the yelling got too loud, not that the cops did anything anyway. Everyone at the station knew his name. They'd pat his head, say, "Hey, Daryl," real quiet when they were looking for his dad. He'd never been arrested. Trips to the house to check up on his dad, and Daryl's visits to the station to bail out his brother, which were becoming more and more frequent, were the only ways the cops knew his name, and Daryl was damn proud of that. He'd never spent the night in a cell, which was more than anyone else in his family could say.
Merle was in and out of jail now, the town jail for minor offenses and the federal jail for bigger ones and longer terms. When he wasn't behind bars, he was usually at the biker bar. Sometimes he was in the cabin. Daryl didn't know how Merle paid for that cabin, and he didn't want to know, he was just grateful it was there, even if it was empty most of the time. He went there a lot. He liked when Merle was there, then he had someone to listen to, but it was okay when it was just him too, and he could get a good night's sleep without worrying about where his dad was and when he was coming home, and who with. The old man had taken to bringing this dyed-red-haired chick back with him lately. She was always smiling at Daryl, high out of her mind, and Daryl thought it was the weirdest thing ever, and even though his dad usually left him alone those days, Daryl still didn't like having her around.
Course, there was usually some girl with Merle whenever he was around the cabin, and they smiled more than they oughta too. Daryl didn't trust people who smiled that much. What did they have to be so happy about?
Daryl kicked a rock and watched it tumble down the hill. He looked left, to the area of town he didn't go to. There was one girl… Emmy Jansen. Sometimes they met up here, and walked to school together. Didn't say much, either of them, but she had nice blonde curls and she didn't smile all the time, but she usually did when he said hi in the mornings. She laughed when he made comments under his breath in the science lab, and that always took him by surprise, because he was pretty quiet so that meant she was listening.
Sometimes, when he was alone in the woods, thinking about his plans, he wondered if Emmy might come with him, if he asked. He knew she wouldn't – her daddy coached the boy's basketball team, and she wanted to play for the girl's team next year, she'd told him that – but sometimes he liked to pretend. Then he'd scowl and tell himself to grow up, just because a girl said three words to you didn't mean she was going to runaway, and how desperate are you that you think about that?
He did wonder if Emmy would miss him when he left. Besides Merle, she'd be the only one. And Merle wouldn't miss him for long. When he got wherever he was going, he'd call Merle, and Merle would follow him. It didn't matter to Merle where he lived; he could do the nothing he did now just as easily where Daryl was going.
Daryl didn't know where he was going, but he knew he was going somewhere. All he needed was $624. That was it. He'd been saving for two years now, ever since Mrs. Wilkins asked if she could buy a squirrel off him. That had surprised him – she'd seemed too proper to eat a squirrel, and he wasn't sure if she had enough teeth left to chew, but she turned out to be one of his most reliable customers. And he branched off from there, selling whatever extra he had and saving the cash, storing it beneath the floorboards in his room. There were days he was tempted to spend it – there was a movie in the theatres right now that everyone at school had seen but him, and he wanted to know what was going on – but then he'd think of that train ticket, of falling asleep with his head on the glass and watching the state of Georgia disappear forever, and he'd save the money. He didn't know why he'd picked $2,000; it just seemed like a good goal, a good, solid, number to reach. Now, he thought about lowering it. Maybe to $1,500. He could reach that by the end of the month, if he tried.
Hell, he didn't have to wait at all if he didn't want to. He'd survived on nothing his whole life; $1,376 was a goldmine for him.
Daryl wasn't paying attention when he walked in the front door. Otherwise, he might not have. He might have gone in through the window, or checked first, to be sure his dad was out already. He never just walked in. Nothing good ever came of that. But his head was on the train up north, his pockets full of money, and he wasn't paying attention.
"What the hell is this?" His dad was on him before the door even shut behind him. He was gripping the front of Daryl's shirt, poking new holes where old ones already existed, and his breath reeked of alcohol and stale chips. "What the hell is this?"
Daryl wrenched his head far enough away to see his dad's fist held high in the air, and he flinched back instinctively. It wasn't coming for him, though. It was clenched, shaking, just like his other hand was shaking Daryl.
It was full of money.
Daryl opened his mouth, but his dad wasn't looking for an explanation. Without letting go, he dragged Daryl down the small hall and into his room, throwing him so hard he collided with the opposite wall, sending the crossbow that Merle had gotten him crashing to the ground from where it had resided on his dresser. Daryl blinked, taking in his surroundings in the short seconds he had before his dad went off again. His room was destroyed – the bed overturned, the drawers pulled out of his dresser, his few articles of clothing strewn across the floor. The floor…the floor was torn up, the boards yanked out of place, nails sticking up in odd places. And his money was gone.
All of it.
This realization had barely sunk in when he felt a pair of thick, callused hands clasp around his neck. He choked, digging his fingers into the fleshy part of his dad's hands, but it made little difference. When he was this enraged, his dad was immune to pain. "What were you doin', huh? What were you gonna do with all that money?" The fingers tightened, and Daryl started to see spots. "You think of sharin' it? You selfish little bastard." He released him, and Daryl gasped, sucking in air desperately.
His dad's fist colliding with his jaw made that task difficult. Daryl backed further up against the wall, trying to think of something, anything, to say to diffuse this situation, but there was nothing. His dad wasn't a smart man, but even he wouldn't buy some excuse for storing thousands of dollars in his room, beneath his floors. What was he planning to do, use it to start a fire? It was pretty damn obvious what his plan had been.
"You little shit," his father hissed. "After all I done for you, this is how you repay me!" He shook his fist in the air, shook Daryl's money in the air, and in that instant, Daryl wanted nothing more than to reach out and take it back, take it all back, even if the effort got him killed. At least he'd be free of the man.
His dad didn't give him the chance. Daryl was fifteen, and short for his age, not like Merle had been, and when his dad took three steps towards him across the room, he towered over his son, outweighed him by over one hundred pounds, and any thought Daryl had of fighting back fled as his dad grabbed him by the hair and threw him to the ground. His foot collided with Daryl's side and Daryl curled down, trying to protect his ribs, but no more kicks came. He didn't look up when his dad said, "No, this is exactly how you repay me." Will Dixon bent down, picked up a bill that had flown from him during his rage, and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
Daryl listened to his footsteps as he left the house, and only when he was sure his dad wasn't coming back did he slowly push himself up. He looked around the room, but he knew it was pointless. When Will Dixon had found one bill, he'd left no board unturned. It was gone. Two years of work, his escape from this hell, gone with his dad to the bar, to be spent on women and booze, nothing more than a memory in two weeks time.
His lip was bleeding. So was his nose. Daryl wiped them both on his sleeve and got to his feet. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the five bills he'd earned that afternoon. He leaned out the window frame, and tore them up, one by one, and let them fall to the ground.
Outside, he heard a train roll past.
I was re-watching "Still" and thought it was interesting that Daryl said he'd never been out of Georgia, and that he thought that significant enough to bring up. Then he goes onto to say that all he did was follow Merle around before the apocalypse, and I thought there was something paradoxical about that - that he would mention leaving the state but ultimately ended up just doing nothing with his brother. I think that somewhere along the line there was a moment where he realized, "I'm really never getting out of this place." And that's what this is. I own nothing. I love reviews.