Every Greaser has a story that could break your heart. They lose, they get hurt and everything comes apart. That's why it's so hard to keep them on the straight and narrow path of being good.
Curly was tall and somewhat tough, able to fight his own battles. He'd been in a fair few fights in his fifteen years but not once had he lost his dignity, even if he lost the fight itself.
The gang, well, his brother's gang disregarded him completely. If he was brutally honest, he only hasn't been kicked out of the gang because Tim feels he can dump the blame on him for things that went wrong.
Take two weeks ago for instance, Tim's second hand man Alex got two of his teeth knocked out when Curly and him got jumped in an alleyway. Somehow they had the nerve to tell Curly that it was his lack of fighting skills that let both of them down.
Curly paced quickly down the street, his hands shoved deeply into his pockets from the cold as his mind wandered elsewhere. The city streets were barren - only a handful of tired and desolate people appeared and disappeared around him, as eager to get someplace warm as he was.
He was watching the dark alleys when he heard footsteps pattering along the sidewalk behind him. He felt someone bump into him and move past.
"Watch it, pal." He snarled at the back of the guy wearing a baseball jacket. Even from the back he could tell that he and his friends were Soc's.
Then all of a sudden the taller guy turned, reaching out to grab Curly by the elbow. "What the fuck - " Curly started . Then without even seeing the blade he felt an explosion of pain in his side.
Time slowed to a crawl as he glanced down to see the silver blade carve its way inside him, digging deeper as a crimson blush spread across his white shirt.
Curly gagged, tasting blood in his mouth as he hit the wall and slumped down to the ground. The man followed him down, his hand still clutching the knife, the knife still buried in Curly's side. He kicked out with every ounce of strength he could muster up, jarring the kid enough that he let go of the blade.
"It's better if you don't fight it, one less no good hood on the streets has gotta be a good thing," said the Soc as he moved back over him. Curly swung out again, connecting with his attacker's jaw. It connected with a satisfying crack and he saw the man beginning to move away as a hard fist connected with his nose, he felt the blood running down his face immediately.
Despite being half collapsed to the floor he felt himself slouch impossibly more. Getting your ass kicked is a weird feeling.. The adrenalin can make you feel strangely conscious of your own body, each punch or kick, you feel like you can sense each individual cell and blood vessel bruising or bursting, each nerve ending blasting out electric shocks and chemical responses.
You can hear and feel your heart beating in your ears, and your vision becomes tunnelled. You see the face or the masked face of your attacker as though you're viewing it through a telescope, and you also notice other sensations that you haven't experienced before. Maybe you see or smell the sidewalk close up, the sour smell of the pigeon droppings, the unevenness or the beauty of the stones in the asphalt.
The punches and kicks came more vigorously now, to the point where he couldn't really feel the pain which was a good thing because he was sure he'd be in agony if he could.
So he lay there, staring up to the cloudless sky as the hard kicks continued to be thrown at his torso, he was aware yet couldn't feel a thing. If I knew he'd be dying tonight he would have worn his better jeans.
Tim was going to be mad. He wouldn't want to have to fork up all that money for a funeral.
He tried to laugh at that but ended up coughing up more blood. In Curly Shepard's final moments he was worrying about what Tim would think.
III
"Where was I?" Pete slurred from the six pints of beer. "An English man, Irishman and a Scottishman are sitting in a pub full of people. The Englishman says-" He continued, swaying on his chair.
"You've told this fuckin' joke four times tonight, Pete!" Tim said loudly, feeling the effects of alcohol starting to kick in.
"Shut up Shepard!" Pete retaliated, causing laughter to spread all over Buck's bar. A guy from the Brumly boys came smashing through the doors of the bar, silencing the entire room. If Tim hadn't had beer goggles on he'd have quickly recognized him as Evan Nelson, the guy he had maths class with when he still went to school.
"Tim? You gotta come with me, man." He spluttered out quickly, out of breath from running a few blocks to Buck's. Tim sneered and ran a hand through his greased hair.
"I ain't gotta do nothing," Chuckled Tim but the guy looked desperate, he was panting and he had blood soaked into his blue jeans.
"Tim, I'm not fuckin' joking around! Your brothers lay half dead on the pavement out there and if you don't stop being such an arrogant prick he's gonna fuckin' die!" Evan shouted. Tim immediately felt sober as he stood up quickly and followed Even outside. From their place Tim could see a figure lay slumped up a wall in a puddle of supposedly his own blood.
"Fuckin' hell." Tim muttered as he dropped to his knees next to his little brother. It was dark so he couldn't see real well but he could tell it was bad this time.
Curly had had his ass handed to him so many times its almost normal picking him up off the floor and taking him home. But this, this was worse than before. His face was whiter than it should have been and there was blood everywhere.
"Curly?" He whispered but got no response. Tim damn well was grateful that it was only him and Evan around now. He brushed a stray lock of hair that fell over Curly's forehead; the grease must have worn off. Tim started to try and see how bad he was hurt when Curly moaned.
"Curly? You need to wake up buddy," He soothed. At this point he honestly didn't care what he looked like, he was his little brother after all. Curly's eyes opened to reveal almost identical eyes to Tim's, no one ever really picked up on how much they look like each other.
"Tim?" He slurred quietly, eyes starting to close again. He lightly slapped him on the cheek to keep him awake, the last thing anyone needed was him passing out.
"Stay awake, kid. You've gotta stay awake." Tim told him sternly, he seemed to be completely out of it which was a bad thing in itself.
"What?"
"Stay awake." He repeated.
"What," He mumbled, this really wasn't good. No, it wasn't good at all. There was a lot of blood under him, he seemed to be clutching his left side so Tim gently pulled his arm away to feel a warm patch on his denim jacket.
"Fuck!" Tim shouted loud enough that Evan jumped back from his spot kneeling next to him. "Call a fucking ambulance!" he shouted again, slightly quieter this time. Evan ran to the nearest phone box and dialled 911.
"Hey, hey Curly?" Tim said quickly, "You're gonna be okay, kid. I just need to put pressure on the wound, okay?" It wasn't really a question, he covered the stab wound with his hand to stop the bleeding temporarily, hoping to whatever God he could think of that it wasn't internal as well.
Curly let out a whimper of pain, trying to resist his brother's hand. His breathing picked up and he was shaking either from pain or coldness, maybe both. So Tim cupped the back of his head with his free hand and made him look at him.
"You're gonna calm yourself down, and help me put pressure on this until the ambulance gets here." Tim told him, subconsciously stroking his thumb up and down soothingly.
"Mmm kay," He smiled with blood stained teeth and a split lip. He was getting more and drowsier by the minute and there wasn't a single thing any of them could do to stop it. To Tim's surprise, he cooperated by pushing down on top of his own hand to stop the blood from coming out as fast.
"Atta boy," Tim praised.
"M'sorry Tim…" He started slurring again and released the pressure he was putting on Tim's hand.
"What for?" Tim asked "And keep pushing on my hand, Curly."
"Gettin' busted up…" He slurred even more, it was hardly understandable but he got what he was trying to say.
"Kid, don't apologise. It ain't your fault some Soc went all psycho on you, is it?" Tim lightly joked but to no avail.
He had gotten it stuck in his head that it's always his fault when he gets hurt or loses a fight and it seemed to be Tim's job to get it out of his head too. Luckily, the ambulance came round the corner blasting the loud sirens. Curly pulled a disgruntled face and groaned.
"S'loud…" He whined.
"It's alright now, Curly. I'm here now." Tim soothed as the paramedic came out of the van.
Curly smiled another blood filled smile before being bombarded with paramedics. Evan patted Tim's shoulder and nodded approvingly.
"You did good there, Timmy." He teased.
"Don't call me that," Tim dodged his arm and laughed a little.
"You're a pretty good brother, y'know,"
"Tell me about it."
