Disclaimer- S.E. Hinton owns The Outsiders.

Author's note- This is written in second person alternating point-of-view, i.e., each chapter, the narration switches between Curly and Tim Shepard. It's rated M for language and underage substance abuse. The events take place pre-book.


June, 1965

"When I lost you, honey, sometimes I think I lost my guts too
and I wish God would send me a word, send me something I'm afraid to lose."

- Bruce Springsteen, 'Drive All Night'

Curly - The Call

Death is a disease.

It is everywhere, contagious, like cancer spreading through your body or bird shit on the sidewalk. Unavoidable. One glance, an open wound, the misunderstanding of a word, and you're infected. When your earliest memories are of blood and the sound of screaming, you expect it - death - to be there constantly, hiding around the corner or at the bottom of the stairs.

But when it isn't there, you fear it, knowing what it could take away from you, but not how, or where, or when, or even why. (That's the question most people ask - why? - although it's the one you understand the most, because there's a hell of a difference between what you can survive with and what you can't survive without. At least, that's what your brother says, anyway.)

Dying has been a part of your life for so long you've just learned to accept it, like your hair that's always a little unkempt and your nose that's not straight and your height, two inches shorter than what you'd like it to be. You can control it, almost - you know where the gun is in the house, what liquor stores don't check cards, how many packs of cigarettes you'll need to smoke to get emphysema.

There's just a before, and then an after, but the part everyone forgets about is during: When the one thing you've spent so much of your night running from is no more than a glance, an open wound, the misunderstanding of a word.

xxx

The morning you're supposed to leave for Chicago, Tim is pacing the den back and forth in his stocking-feet. (You don't care if he's nervous, long as he doesn't lay a hand on you when you're on the road. It's his damn fault if he doesn't want to go - he's the one who offered to drive you and Angela in the first place, after you told him you'd just take a train there.)

"A train?" he'd said, his nose crinkling in disgust, in the way that makes you think of gnats swarming around an animal carcass. "Don't you know what the hell kinds of things happen on trains?"

No, you told him, you didn't.

So that's how you ended up sitting on the couch at six o'clock, waiting for your sister to come downstairs. In front of you, the road map is spread out on the coffee table, a blur of city names, state lines, and highways. And, if you lean in a bit closer, you can see the tiny words Tim wrote in the margin, barely eligible but there nonetheless - Allen Wednesday 12 - and you swallow down the lump that's formed in your throat.

Allen, your mother's brother, had been estranged until last night when your aunt Cathy called long-distance from Illinois to tell her that he'd gone and bellied up like a fish in their living room chair. Heart attack.

(The other four hours you'd spent awake are all a blur: Tim writing down the address of the funeral home, hanging up the phone and blinking once, then twice, as if to clear something from his eyes; you, always ignorant, thinking he was going to swear, punch you in the arm too hard, and feeling disappointed when he didn't do either of those things, just pulled his hands through his hair, said, "Well, shit. I guess you're gonna have to borrow one of my shirts," and walked down the hallway to tell your mom what'd happened; and finally, the scream that followed behind her closed door, so loud you couldn't hear yourself breathe.)

"Angela," he says now, having lost his patience an hour ago when he woke you up, "get the hell down here!"

"Hold on a minute!" you hear her yell back. There's a thud, and you turn your head just in time to see her struggling to carry her suitcase down the stairs. You get up to help, meeting her halfway. Tim's face is turning purple, and you'd laugh if your stomach didn't hurt so much and this situation wasn't so goddamned awful.

"Damn, Angie," he swears, "we ain't goin' on a five-star vacation. What the hell you got in there, a dead body?"

Your sister gasps, and you almost drop the suitcase and let it roll down the last few steps.

"Tim!" she shrieks, and you roll your eyes at her. (Like your mom, in her drug-induced state, three rooms away with her bedroom door shut tight and locked actually heard what he just said, let alone realizes how ironic it was.)

The look he gives her shuts her up quick, and it reminds you that funerals always bring the worst out in people - at least, that's what you've heard - but you and him both know it's too early for either one of you to be acting like such an asshole. After what happened at The Dingo, with that girl from Brumley getting shot, you don't need your brother going off on you anymore than he already does.

(The shooting happened in May, almost a whole month ago, but he's been on edge since, nervous about letting you or Angela out of his sight for more than a few hours. His whole protective-brother act is starting to wear on you. He needs control in his life, stability, and with Allen's death and your mom's sudden reclusion - depression? - back into her room, all within twelve hours each other, he's one remark away from losing it.)

You stop at the front door, watching as he shoves his feet into his shoes. Today his eyes are pure black and there are bags underneath them, deep-shadowed and purple, like bruises - like he didn't sleep at all, you think - and the space between your shoulder blades starts aching. You want to tell him that this isn't his fault; none of it is, really, although you can't help wondering why the fuck he's gone to all this trouble if he can't do anything about it.

Just as you're about to open your mouth, he looks up and finds you staring at him.

"God," he says, "stop fucking standing there and let's go, Curly."

Somehow, your sister was smart enough to grab the map and sneak out, but you weren't, and now there's a ringing in your ears, like they're full of cotton balls. You nod in response because that is what he expects and that is what you are supposed to do.

Outside, the sun is starting to break over the trees, casting everything in an off-white glow. The air inside Tim's car is stuffy, and as he backs out onto the street you dig your fingernails into your palms, willing the nausea away.

xxx

One of your earliest memories is of three boys standing over you, their shadows large from the looming sun behind them, so bright it made the weapon in the oldest boy's hand - a tire iron - seem almost as if it wasn't dangerous, a child's toy, until he raised it high above his head and then brought it down. His face was carrot-red, the color of his hair, and all you could think was that he had very crooked teeth when he smiled at you and that you were very alone.

When the rod crashed into your skull, splitting it open, the pain was sudden and blinding. Disorienting. Your vision went black, your knees buckled and your breath caught in your throat, the taste of blood in your mouth bitter as you gagged on it. You remember the sky swimming above you, and how the asphalt felt burning-hot under your cheek as you collapsed after what seemed like falling for a long time. Each kick to your stomach was duller, somehow, than the throbbing inside your head.

You were barely conscious when your brother and his friends found you an hour later. Curly, he'd said, in that same voice he used with your sister, can you hear me? and you'd opened your mouth, trying to say something, anything, but your tongue was in the way and the only noise that came out was a groan. You didn't know it then, but something in his eyes had changed - hardened - that day when he knelt and your blood stained his hands red, bound him to you.

But you were lucky. (That was the word the doctor had said in the hospital to your parents, lucky, with Tim outside in the hallway, chewing on a fingernail, a toddler-size Angela hanging on the arm of the chair he was sitting in.)

Later, you'd asked him what it meant, when you were in the safe dark of your own bedroom, supposed to be asleep. Tim, you'd whispered, and he shifted next to you.

What?

His voice was thick, full of exhaustion; it had to have been at least three in the morning.

What'd the doctor mean when he said I was lucky? Did I almost die?

There was a pregnant pause, long enough for you to think he'd fallen back asleep. I dunno, he finally replied, and told you to go back to sleep. For a while, you almost believed him: That he didn't know, either.

That's the problem with denial, though. It builds and builds and builds upon itself, until there is nothing left besides dark nights and cold metal and cigarette smoke in your face and the knowledge that there's so much more than just distance separating you from where you are and where you're supposed to be.

xxx

The first stop you make is fifteen minutes outside Lebanon, at a Dairy Dream just off the highway. You've only been on the road for a little more than three hours, but your legs are cramped and your neck is stiff from having fallen asleep with your head leaning against the window.

Obviously, the place is deserted - who the hell would want a cheeseburger at nine in the morning? - so you head straight for the booth in the back corner. Angela follows you, a lost sheep in the field while Farmer Tim goes and places your orders. You don't realize you're starving until he comes over a few minutes later with three Cokes and a bag full of grease.

The burger tastes delicious, numbing the throb in your stomach. After you're done eating and the trash is thrown out, Tim unfolds the map on the table. It's wrinkled all over from having sat in his back pocket, the ink smeared, but the route he outlined in red marker last night is still visible.

"We can stop next in St. Louis," he says, "and then I was thinkin' we could stay the night someplace in Illinois."

At this, Angela opens her mouth to say God-knows-what, and you give her shin a soft kick under the table. There's no point in arguing with him over some petty bullshit, anyways; if it was up to you, you'd drive all day and night until you arrived in Chicago, but like everything else in your world it's not and you're too anxious (or tired?) to fight.

When you push open the door to leave, you notice the heat: It is sudden and everywhere and heavily wet, smothering, nothing like how Tulsa summers are - all prairie fires and dry air and dead grass. A thin layer of moisture hangs over the empty parking lot, making the asphalt shine.

Once you reach the car, Tim tosses you the keys.

"Your turn," he says, opening the passenger-side door and sliding in. It takes you a second to realize what he just said, and when you do, you have to bend over to pick up his keys because they fell to the ground. You've been outside for less than five minutes and you're already fucking sweating, some beads slipping into your eyes, burning them, and you suddenly wish you hadn't thrown your drink out.

"What?" you say.

"Your turn to drive, Curly," he repeats, like he's talking to a child. Behind his sunglasses he's probably rolling his eyes and your cheeks warm. You know that you're supposed to agree with him, say, "Yeah, sure, I got it" but for some reason you can't.

(That's what comes out: "I can't.")

Now you've pissed him off. Way to go, Curly.

"What the hell do you mean you can't?"

Angela leans forward from the backseat, gum-snapping away. You hope it's not so she can listen to Tim bitch you out again but instead to inspect her cleavage in the rearview.

The words slip out before you can stop them. "'Cause I don't have my license yet."

Your sixteenth birthday isn't for another three months, in September, and although you've driven (stolen) cars since you were fourteen, you don't feel right about driving Tim's partly because it's his, one of the only personal items he (rarely, if ever) shares with you and your sister, and because you'd be sitting so fucking close to him for hours.

"Shit, Curly," he groans, "you'll be sixteen in three months -"

"I know."

"- so why is it so important?"

"Yeah, Curl," Angela pipes up, and you want to sock her, "you didn't say nothin' 'bout it before."

"I don't know," you mumble, instantly feeling stupid for even bringing the topic up. Sighing, Tim motions for you to get in beside him.

Luckily, you've got a couple of inches on your brother (something you should be grateful for) so your head grazes the ceiling; you have to squish your legs against the pedals and bend over to start the engine, except when you do it doesn't do its part - start. Instead it sputters its way to a slow, loud death, and you about die from embarrassment right there, in a truck stop parking lot off Interstate 44.

Fuck, you think, just as Tim says it aloud. Funny, how things work.

He gets out and leans into the open window to add, "Goddamn it. Just sit here, don't fuckin' touch nothin'," before slamming the door and storming across the lot and into the gas station next to the Dairy Dream. With nothing else to do, you flick out the lighter on the dashboard and light up your last Marlboro. You're a couple drags in when Angela asks if she can have a puff, too.

"What did you just say?"

She leans closer, her hair brushing your shoulder, and pouts. You can smell her perfume, a sweet, flowery scent that your mom used to wear when she went on dates with your father, and underneath that, the slightest trace of… nicotine?

"Gimme a drag, Curl."

"Since when do you smoke?"

"Ain't any of your fuckin' business, Charlie."

She only calls you Charlie when she wants something that Tim won't let her have, and it's fucking annoying. You exhale a cloud of smoke, flick a couple ashes out the open window, and scowl at her in the rearview. "Last time I checked, yeah it is, Angie."

She sighs, crosses her arms over her chest. "If you wanna know so goddamn bad, fine, Sylvia -"

"Winston's Sylvia?"

"- yeah, dork, what other Sylvia do we know? Anyway, she let me try one a couple of weeks ago, said it'd take the edge off things." She picks up her purse from the floor and rummages through it, then (triumphantly?) pulls out one of Tim's old lighters and shows you the edge of a box of Parliaments.

"See? Look." She grins. "C'mon, Curly. Please?"

You can't believe it. She's only thirteen months younger than you, still your little sister, and you want to both laugh at her and shake her until she knows how much fucking trouble she'd get into if Tim ever found out.

"Fine, just once," you warn, trying your best to sound tough, and she squeals. You take one last drag, holding the smoke in deep, before passing it to her. She's careful to take only one puff, two tops, before giving it back to so you can snuff it out in the ash tray. A few more minutes pass and Tim's still nowhere to be found, still inside that gas station, and you hope he didn't kill anyone because he's so pissed off.

You're about to get out and look for him yourself when he materializes from the building with a balding man - Earl, he says his name is - and a cord of cables to jumpstart the car.

Earl props the car's hood up and gets to work while Tim stands off to the side, his hands on his hips. "Happens all the time," he explains to your brother, attaching one wire to the Charger's battery. "Good thing y'all parked so close." He hooks his thumb back to the truck parked in the space in front of yours, a dented Chevy. "Mind if you go an' prop her hood up, son?"

"Yes, sir," he says. A muscle in his jaw twitches, and you feel a swift and deep pity for this Earl guy, who doesn't know what happens when someone calls your brother son, let alone Timothy. Last time Winston did it, Tim slashed his tires and broke a rib.

When everything's set up, Earl lets the truck run for a couple of minutes before telling you to turn the key again and ease on the gas. Miraculously, the engine starts, and you swear you've never heard a sweeter sound in your entire life. Then Earl disconnects the cables, he and your brother shake hands, and Tim gets back inside the car.

"Let's get the hell out of here," he snaps, and you swallow down the bile that's slowly making its way up your throat, inch by inch. For the first time since leaving Tulsa, you want to thank him - for what, you're not completely sure - but you don't.

Then again, you never do.