Chapter 1 - Prologue
Look, I ain't here cause I wanna be, ya know? I don't like talkin' to people 'bout our problems, but the court ordered that I do this...and if I don't try, I gotta keep comin' til I do. So, I ain't gonna hassle ya. I'll tell ya what ya wanna know and I'll start from the beginning.
Thanks, but no. I don't smoke. Is that really somethin' you should be askin' a teenager?
I know you wanna know about my life- and my brother's too. It ain't been easy, I'll tell you that. I know you wanna know about...well, what happened and how I ended up in this situation.
Yeah, I know I'm gonna have to start acknowledging it by name. This is only the first session, ain't it? Give me a little time, huh? Shit.
Oh, sorry. I'll try to hold my tongue.
Anyway.
Nothin' ever went right in my brother's life- or mine, either, obviously. I mean, I'm sittin' here with a dead friend, a dead brother, and probably a mountain of problems.
I don't remember much about my early childhood. I know that my father wasn't always a drunk drug addict. Dally told me at the beginning he was real nice. I dunno why that changed or when it changed, but I guess it did. My earliest memory is of when I was three and he'd already done his changing. My brother was five. He'd already been knocked around enough to be angry. Real angry.
But he always took those beatings willingly if it meant that I didn't. He promised our mother he'd protect me. He-he always did, as best he could.
I-I'm okay. It's just still...really fresh. I still can't believe he's...Yeah.
No, I-I ain't sure if he ever did to Dally what he did to me. Sometimes, I thought my brother would drop hints, ya know? But he never came out and said it. He never...wanted to talk about it when I asked. That just wasn't his way. Maybe if he had, he would...
What?
Oh, yeah. He beat the shit out of my mother, too. She was always apologizin' to us. Thinkin' back on it now, it was real heartbreakin'. I can't remember a time when mom didn't have a black eye.
We lived in New York at the time and when Dally was seven he started dealin' for the big kings. I ain't got any idea why they'd let a little kid deal for 'em. Maybe because they thought the cops would overlook him? Who knows, but he was good. It took three years for the fuzz to finally catch him and he got arrested, but by that time, he was hard as hell, workin' on the streets for so long. They didn't charge him- prob'ly thought he didn't realize what he was doin'. He knew, though. He hated school, but he was smart.
Two years later, when I was ten, our mother died.
It's funny you should ask that. I can't say for sure how it happened. I just remember dad comin' home, spooked to hell, tellin' us to pack our bags. I'm sure he thought about leavin' us behind. I dunno why he didn't.
Dal was pretty sure he'd done it, but there wasn't enough proof to convict him. Either that or dad got mixed up with the wrong people and mom paid the price. I wouldn't be surprised either way. There was no funeral. No mention of her after that. Dad made sure of that.
He told us we moved to Tulsa to keep us outta trouble. Funny, ain't it?
Time went on. Dally definitely didn't keep outta trouble for long. If you've seen his arrest record, you'd know that. I'd like to think he did a good job at raisin' me, though.
Oh, yeah. He made sure I kept up with school. Didn't want me to smoke. Drink in moderation and only 'round people I trusted. If I'd ever been in trouble with the cops, I'm sure he woulda beat my head in. Not really, ya know, but I definitely woulda ended up with an earful. I think he didn't want me to end up like him. He wanted me tough, smart- but not hard.
We met the Curtis's not long after we moved here. Their parents took us in and treated us like their own. They fed us- and even sometimes clothed us. The boys accepted us right away. It felt nice to have a family who cared whether we had a bed to sleep in at night. We'd been on our own for so long, we forgot what love felt like.
Well, yeah, of course Dally loved me. I loved him, too. Still do. But if you knew him, you'd know he didn't show it in the normal ways. I mean, he gave me a switchblade for my thirteenth birthday for Christ sake. Kinda like a right-of-passage? But, ya know, growing up in our neighborhood it was more of a necessity.
Anyway, when the Shepards came along less than a year later, that was the end of Dal's good-boy streak. He always made sure I stayed outta trouble, though, even if Curly Shepard was my best friend. And then there was the accident that killed Mr. And Mrs. Curtis. Dal took it pretty hard. He-he went a little wild.
I wanna be clear, though- Dally never went back to dealin'. I think that was one thing Mr. and Mrs. Curtis were able to beat into his thick skull. He really didn't like disappointing them, even in death. But, he still didn't stay on the right side of the law unless he was at the rodeo. We needed the money. Pretty much every spare cent of what dad brought back when to booze or heroin.
Dally… Had a certain reputation, I know, but he always did right by me.
A few months back, he got picked up and went to a correctional for a while. He didn't do it-
Don't you look at me like that. I know my brother. The fuzz just wanted to bust him for somethin', so they did. It was the first time he'd actually been gone for more than a few days- and, well, dad decided to turn to me to get his anger out.
I started goin' to the Curtis's house for a while. Y'know, stayin' there overnight. Dad didn't like that. He-he knew what happened, with their parents and all. He threatened to tell the state all kinds of things-like, uh, Darry was on drugs and gettin' drunk at parties every night…
I don't understand why he didn't give a rat's ass-uh, sorry-about Dally not comin' home, but the second I didn't, he lost his fu-damn mind.
I was scared, though, ya know? I didn't want the boys to get split up just because I couldn't handle gettin' knocked around a bit. I mean, Dally'd been gettin' it for years, right?
Why didn't I go to the state about my father? You're kiddin' me, right?
You heard what the social worker said, right? They wanted to ship me off to some family I don't even remember back in New York and I couldn't come back 'til I turn eighteen. I didn't want to leave my friends, or my brother.
In the end, though, I guess it didn't matter, huh? In the end I couldn't take it and I'm in this whole mess because I tried to run away.
I-I know that ya want the story.
Please just let me-this is really hard. Just give me a minute, yeah?
I know, deep breaths.
Okay, I'm ready.