Disclaimer: I don't own The Outsiders.
I was going for Tim as we know and love him, very surprised when this young one popped up! A series of connected moments in his life, that made him who he is. Please let me know what you think.
So I'm thirteen years old and palling around with my uncle Dominic, who really is my uncle, not like those douche bags who turn up at the breakfast table for a few months, grabbing onto Ma and eating all the cereal unless I sneak it out to the kids first.
If I had a buck for every one of those kind of 'uncles' who came and went, I wouldn't be lifting Kools every other day. Well, maybe I would, but I wouldn't need to, savvy?
Dominic, who goes by 'Dom', is only four years older than me. Ma had other brothers too, but between Korea and the slammer, there's just Dom around these days. He calls me 'kid', but he lets me hang around, shows me how to hot wire a car, how to jimmy a window. Most important of all, he shows me how not to get caught. Dom is like some kind of lucky charm, the others say; take him on a job and the cops never even look in our direction.
"You got it too, Timmy." He grins when he says it. He knows I hate being called that, but I'm not big enough to make my point stick. Not yet. "You got it too, kid. The luck of the Irish."
Later, when it's just us, he tells me that the other guys are dumb fucks and it ain't about nothing as random as luck. It's about watching real careful. Always knowing the score. He don't get caught because he don't take chances.
At first, I don't get it. Every time I lift something, I'm taking a chance, ain't I? But Dom points out that, no, I already know which stores got blind spots, I already wait 'til the cashier's distracted. Cars, houses, it ain't no different, Dom tells me – it's the watching before the taking that counts.
But he ain't only about being watchful.
When a kid tries to take him down, thinks he can be the big dog in our outfit, Dom wipes the floor with him, over at the disused lumberyard where we hang out. Past the point of knocking him down. Dom really hurts him.
I ask if he would've got the message without the broken arm, without the busted cheekbone.
"Maybe he would, but what about the others?" Dom makes me think about it. Makes me realize the lesson didn't just go out to the kid in the fight. No one who saw it, who sees the wreck of that kid, is going to step up to Dom any time soon.
Dom likes girls a whole lot. I don't really get that either, but he tells me that I will. Only not to let them distract me when there's work to be done, or ever let one get her hooks into me. He picks up these two chicks one night and he tells one to be nice to me. After what she does to me, I get it. I want to see her again, but Dom says that would be a mistake. Dom says that any number of chicks will do what she did.
When I'm fourteen, I decide I can pull a job on my own. I do okay, it's just a little grocery store, nothing I can't handle.
The next time I see Dom, he's lost a tooth and cracked a couple of ribs. I didn't know the store was over the line. River Kings turf. Dom went toe to toe with the leader of the Kings. They would've killed me, but they took a fair fight in settlement from him.
Dom tells me he did it for me. "Ain't nothing more important than family, Timmy."
He waits until we're all back at the yard, before he breaks my nose.
I understand.
I pretty much get to try everything once, while Dom's in charge. He lets me drink myself blind one night. Then the next day, he walks me around, asks if I remember this car with the smashed windscreen, or this fence with the blood that looks fresh on it? Then he asks how I'm going to give myself an alibi, if I don't know where I was?
I don't like not remembering. Dom says that's good. Dom says being in control is worth more than being wasted.
One of the 'uncles' sticks around. Decides he's changing his title to 'step-dad'. Dom tells me to watch out for Angel, even Curly, if he's that kind of step-dad. But he's just a lousy replica of the real thing, lazy, whiskey sodden. Barely gets out of Ma's bed, he ain't going to get into any of ours.
There's a room over the yard. We hang there, me and Dom; a little booze, a little grass, a lot of girls. The girls say I'm quiet. They like quiet.
I ain't quiet. I'm watchful.
When I'm fifteen, Dom makes a mistake. A husband back a little early, knife in the dark, kind of mistake. A fifteen year stretch kind of mistake.
There are older guys in the outfit, some of them think they're stepping into Dom's shoes easy enough.
But by then I'm big enough that no one calls me Timmy. Not twice anyway.