He fumbled with the lock for a good two minutes before getting the damn key in and pushing the door open. The lights were off but the early morning light streamed through the small windows in the living room, allowing Jack to see the way to his bedroom.
A light switched on just as Jack was stepping over a pile of laundry and empty pizza boxes, a hand held tightly to the back of a chair for balance. He squinted at the blinding light and brought his hand to cover his eyes. With nothing to support him, he stumbled forward, smashing the boxes, and falling into the wall. He managed to catch himself long enough to lean his back against the wall and slide to the ground.
"Turn out the fucking light, man." He closed his eyes as the room began to spin.
He heard a squeak from the couch—which doubled as his roommate's bed—and footsteps headed his way, but the spinning room made him dizzy and confused, and he started to slump to his right, letting alcohol-induced numbness blanket his mind.
"I thought fairies were supposed to be graceful."
It was a minute before Jack could put the pieces together; His mind was fighting sleep and alcohol, and was to struggling to keep up.
His eyes popped open, and he winced at the light. He straightened himself against the wall, and although that brought back his dizziness and a strong bout of nausea, Jack couldn't help but smile up at his brother.
XXX
Jack woke up to silence. He didn't move, didn't even open his eyes, not wanting to upset the balance of the universe and bring an end to the silence in the building. It was never quiet in that damn place. The lady next-door just had a baby, or maybe eight babies, with the amount of noise coming from over there. The people upstairs train elephants to stampede, or something equally as loud. And not to mention he lived in an apartment above a popular bar.
His thoughts drifted to the night before. His liver began to hurt just thinking about all the alcohol he drank. He chanced a turn to his side, so as not to cause the organ more damage. It wasn't until then, that he remembered Bobby.
He sat up suddenly, knowing that a quiet-Bobby is never good, and he's actually never seen one before and didn't want to miss the chance.
"Hey." Jack found Bobby sitting in the living room, rifling through CDs.
Bobby nodded his greeting. "You always did listen to crap." He tossed the CDs to the ground, standing and looking at Jack. "Well, what is there to do in this town? I've been waiting all morning for you to wake from your beauty sleep. I want to see what the big fucking deal about New York is."
Jack smiled at him but couldn't help feel like something was up. There was no television in the house, so Bobby, always the early-riser, had to be bored. And when Bobby was bored, everybody knew it. But there he was, just sitting, quietly rifling through CDs, like it was no big deal.
"Hey. I know I'm pretty but get your eyes off me and go change. Let's go."
It was Bobby's first trip to visit him in New York, but suspicion began to taint Jack's excitement of seeing his brother.
XXX
"If one more person bumps into this goddamn table, I'm gonna bust a cap in their ass."
Jack and Bobby were sitting in Jack's favorite restaurant in the city. He couldn't afford to eat there often, and it's been a couple months since the last time he'd come, but as he took the first bite of his syrup-drenched, fluffy pancakes, he vowed to come more often.
"I don't see what's so great about New York fucking City. It feels like an overpopulated cage of rats or something, all these people running all over each other." He glared as a group of businessmen walked by.
Jack looked at Bobby, surprised at his insight. Sometimes Jack used that exact analogy. He felt like a rat on one of those wheels, running but never really going anywhere. He was so busy with work and his music, Jack never had time for anything else, and when he looked back at the day, he wondered what he'd done with it.
"What are you so quiet for, kid?"
Jack glared at him.
Bobby picked up his unused fork and dropped it on the edge of his plate, smiling as Jack winced from the harsh sound.
"I don't know, Bobby. I like the city. Why're you here anyway?" He didn't mean for it to come out so mean (really he did, but he'd felt bad after). But Bobby didn't notice.
"I was in the neighborhood." He was suddenly interested in a man selling hot dogs across the street.
Jack's eyes narrowed. "The neighborhood? You live like a thousand miles away. What happened? You accidentally got on a plane and it just so happened to come to New York?"
Bobby smirked, only making Jack mad. Jack had a sneaking suspicion he knew what Bobby was doing there: checking up on him. And it pissed Jack off. He wasn't a little kid anymore and he'd always hated when his brothers pulled shit like that.
Bobby had done his fair share of threatening or beating up the people he thought weren't good for Jack. He'd even met one of Jack's bullies after school one day. He roughed him up before knocking him into a ditch behind the school, telling him if he messed with Jack again, it'd be his grave he'd be standing in. For all Jack knew, the kid stayed there until school the next morning. Jerry and Angel definitely had their moments too, Angel so much as walking Jack into school on his first day at the new place just to let everyone know who his big brother was—a fact that Jack didn't know at the time, but that embarrassed him to no end when he thought back on it.
"What? I can't visit my baby brother, spend some quality time together?"
Jack was about to lay into him for about calling him the baby, and start a rant about being able to take care of himself, but some lady walking a dog and holding a cell phone to her ear, bumped into their table, knocking Bobby's coffee onto his half-eaten burger.
Jack jumped up when he noticed Bobby standing and reaching for his waistband. Jack grabbed his arm, pulling him away, while managing to pull a twenty out of his pocket and put it on the table.
"Damn it, Bobby. I can't take you anywhere."
XXX
Jack stood in the kitchen of Ria, the pizza place he worked at part-time, headphones over half his ears so he could listen to music but still hear orders being called out.
His mind drifted to Bobby as he prepared a medium thin crust. Bobby was wandering around the streets of the city, something Jack couldn't help but worry about. Jack thought about skipping work that night, but thinking of how he'd just spent his last twenty on breakfast that morning, he declined, giving Bobby strict instructions of what parts of New York to stay out of. But thinking of the bail he'd probably have to post to get Bobby out of whatever trouble he will have gotten himself into, Jack was second guessing his decision leave him.
"Hey Mercer, you got plans? We're gonna cut some shit up."
Jack cleared his throat. "Nah, I got family in town, man."
"Family. That's rough, brah."
"It's not so bad. Least not yet."
AJ laughed so hard as he began wiping down the work station, that Jack wondered if he was already stoned.
"Yeah, well if you need an escape, you know where we'll be."
Jack stared at him for a minute, wanting to stay and party, but then he thought of Bobby and how he'd undoubtedly see it the wrong way.
Most nights, the guys closing up would stay a couple hours later and cut coke right there on the prep table in the kitchen of Ria. Jack would join in most nights, delaying the cold walk home or just for fun after a long day. He wasn't using it as he had before though, during that dark period just after he moved in with Evelyn. No, he was just using it for fun, and he definitely wasn't hooked on the shit. No harm, no foul.
But he doubted Bobby would see it that way.
I don't own Four Brothers.
Thank you for reading.
