I know, not ANOTHER WIP, but this is more a longish oneshot, I promise— it just made sense for me to split it up into separate chapters. Possibly contains spoilers for some of my other fics, though I can't really think of anything besides the premise at this point? Still, read at your own risk.


"This is pretty pathetic, Curls. Just wanted to let you know that."

I lifted my head up from my pillow to see Tim rummaging through his pile of Playboys— probably counting them to make sure I'd kept my sticky fingers off. "Go to hell."

Three, two, one, and the sharp slap I'd expected was delivered upside my thick skull. "It's my room too, I ain't goin' nowhere." He sat down on the edge of his mattress, the springs creaking under his weight. "Come on, she's a disaster. She'll say anythin' once she's mixed that mother's little helper with a nice tall glass of whiskey."

"You know it's true," I insisted, hating the way my voice wobbled. "I don't look nothin' like— Carlos."

Blue eyes, like Ma's, hair a shade lighter than— not Dad, anymore. Carlos. Carlos Ramirez, who was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, not the baby daddy.

"All right, I tried to bullshit you, but you're makin' it a lot harder than it has to be." If he was flipping through Linda Gamble's 'best tits of 1961' during my crisis, I was going to kill him. "So Mary Magdalene had me an' Angela with a Mexican ex-con, and she had you with another Mexican ex-con. Either way, we ain't got no daddy, so what's the big deal?"

"Don't call her that."

"Why not?" he demanded. "She's a whore, ain't she? Remember all them stepfathers the cat dragged in?" He let out a harsh chuckle, belying that casual act he'd put on. It was a big deal, it was a big fucking deal, and he couldn't pretend otherwise. "Goddamn, she didn't even blink, namin' you Carlos. She's one calculating whore, that's for sure. And all you ever do is defend her like she gives a shit about you."

"Someone's gotta love me best," I said, with more raw honesty than I'd intended. "You was always your daddy's favorite. Guess that makes sense now."

Quit that snivelin' before I really give you something to cry about. Wish in one hand, shit in the other, and see which one gets full the fastest. Why can't you be more like your brother, you little—

"Maricón." Tim strode over to the window, throwing it open and lighting a cigarette with shaking hands. "Dad made me run around with the product when I was in grade school, and you think I got real lucky there?" He flicked it after a few feeble drags, dropping embers onto the yellow grass beneath him. "Grow the fuck up."

"You better not let Luis an' Alberto hear you talkin' like that," I drawled. "Then we'll see who's the maricón."

Tim and I had always bickered, but there was a dangerous edge to our fights since I'd gotten jumped in and joined the gang for real, not just tagged along on his or the tío's jobs. He was quicker with a sharp word or a clip around the ear than ever, and on my end, I could never let a snide remark go without bringing my fists up. Maybe it was just us growing older; maybe it was that our cramped, falling-apart room felt as hot as a kiln the summer of '64, threatening to shatter the pots inside.

"Man," he shot back with a low whistle, "if those two found out their lil' Carlos ain't a Ramirez, I'm pretty sure they'd both drop dead on the spot. Life just wouldn't be worth livin' no more."

"You can't tell them." I sat up straight, clutching the comforter in both of my fists, panic flooding my mind and knocking all the smartmouth out. "Fuck, you can't—"

"Don't worry, you can stay their favorite, too." He gave me a mocking smile, barely turning a sliver of his face away from the window. I hated him in that moment. "You really think they'd believe it? Denial's one hell of a drug."

"Jackass," I muttered as my heartbeat slowed down, not too far under my breath— in fact, not at all under my breath. "You're just jealous, you know, you always been jealous. No puedes hablar español digno de mierda, los avergüenzas cada vez que abras la boca..."

(Insulting his Spanish was the number one way to piss Tim off. He talked okay, he knew enough cuss words to make Father Lopez at church blush and could hold a conversation, but Luis and Alberto still called him the family gringo compared to me. I couldn't explain it; it was like my thoughts flowed faster, spilling from my mouth before I could leash them. Like my uncles and I came from the same breed, and Tim was on the other side of a pane of glass, failing to bust his way through with a sledgehammer.)

He smiled wider, warping the livid scar on his left cheek. "They're only all nice an' sweet with you 'cause you're never gonna do nothin' but take my orders."

I knew what he was trying to do— goad me into punching him, so we could get into an honest-to-God brawl about all our daddy issues. Move past it like we usually did, with a grim fist-bump and Saturday night football. But the acid simmering in my veins had different ideas.

"You ain't even my real brother, so why don't you just fuck off?"

My scalp prickled after I hurled the words like javelins, blood sloshing around in my ears; somehow I regretted it more than anything and still not enough to take it back. "Fine," Tim said, his face blank as he tossed the magazines under his bed. "If that's how you wanna play. But next time Ed comes home drunk and lookin' for a fight, don't expect me to jump in front of his fist."

He slammed the door hard enough to make my Beach Boys poster fall off the wall. I didn't have the energy to get up and fix it.


"Tim told me what you said." Angela plopped down on my bed like she owned it, and then socked me in the arm— I'd take the secret to my (probably early) grave, but for a little girl, she could pack one hell of a punch. "I'd better still be your sister, asshole."

"Like I could get rid of you." I managed to sit up all the way, rubbing at the spots on my skin where the sheets had made indents. "I didn't mean it. Fuck. I don't mean shit when I get all hot."

"He just broke three plates yellin' at Ma again," she said— not that he ever needed much of an excuse to do that. "Guess you really hurt his feelings. I didn't know he even had feelings."

"Yeah, well, maybe if he wasn't such a goddamn prick all the time—" I started, but then didn't have the heart to continue. "I can't believe Ma didn't tell me. Not even after... your dad died."

I wasn't as dumb as Tim thought I was— or as dumb as most people thought, despite my piss-poor grades. I knew how the street worked, knew in my subconscious mind that Carlos favored his real kids over me for a reason. Maybe even figured out that every recognizable feature on my face came from my ma. But all of us had kept up the same pantomime for years, until the right cocktail made Ma finally declare the truth.

Was this why I was her favorite? The only reason?

"He might be dead by now," she said with a shrug. "Or on lock."

"She says he's alive." I rolled over onto my back, staring up at the cottage cheese lumps on the ceiling. We'd spent a lot of time roving from motel to motel after we got evicted, when I was a kid, and this new house wasn't much nicer. "Last she checked, anyway. He's got a place on the North Side."

AKA Little Juárez, where Luis and Alberto lived, along with a good three-quarters of the Chicanos in Tulsa. Ma shrieked and slammed pots around in the sink whenever Tim and I went to visit, but I'd learned every graffiti-covered wall and bodega, had always assumed I'd live there too when I was grown. He wouldn't be hard for me to find.

"So?" she demanded, pressing her crimson-painted toes into my side. "What do you think you're gonna do, dumbass, look him up in the phone book and just ring his doorbell?"

"I dunno. Maybe. Maybe he'll want to know he's had a fucking son all these years."

"More like he'll wonder if Ma's tryna get cash outta him," she said. Angela always had a way of slicing through anyone's dreams. "Come on, Curls, this ain't gonna end well."

When I didn't immediately reply, she kept going. "If he's got a new wife and kids, he'll slam the door in your face so fast, your nose'll break on it."

"Christ, I get it, you can shut up already," I said, giving her a shove. "I ain't plannin' on hirin' a U-Haul and movin' out, it's just— you don't understand."

She never would understand, being a girl and all, though I had enough sense not to tell her that part. Carlos looked just like Tim, when he was younger— Ma had a black and white photo of him in the back of her underwear drawer, all sharp jaw and stern mouth and big dark eyes. His daddy was a dealer, his uncles were dealers, and that was what he'd grow up to be, but I didn't know what I'd do without Carlos Ramirez's reputation to flash like a knife. Tim's words had hit where it hurt— I wasn't shit anymore, unless—

Hector Diaz, she'd said, and I repeated the name in my head until the syllables no longer held any meaning. Hector Diaz. Hector Diaz. My father, the possibilities spreading out before me like the entire solar system, endless and terrifying.


Tim had long since stormed out, looking for booze or women or a fight to douse the fire of his temper. Angela never stayed at home anymore if she could help it. Ed was back, a tornado of cusses and projectiles, but I didn't feel like defending Ma's honor much today. Tilting more of a stolen whiskey bottle down my throat, I drifted into an uneasy doze, one particular memory pushing itself to the forefront of my mind.

"You ever think Daddy had more kids?" Angela asked. "Other than us?"

Typical breakfast conversation at the Shepard house— that is, when Ma and Ed were still out at Charlie's Bar, getting sloshed. A typical breakfast conversation with those two around involved a lot more thrown plates.

"Doubt it," Tim said through a sip of orange juice. We were pressed together on the couch, our cereal bowls on our laps in a rare moment of family bonding— Ma didn't let us watch any TV that wasn't religious, and we meant to take advantage of the opportunity, The Twilight Zone blaring. "Luis and Alberto would be all over them, wouldn't they? Would've introduced us by now."

"Luis ain't even all over his own kids," I said, shuddering. I still remembered the time Cami showed up at our place, high on angel dust with a baby on her hip, threatening to claw our faces off if we didn't get him to pay his fucking child support.

"I mean, maybe we've got a dozen siblings runnin' around town, for all we know," Angela jumped on my point. "Ain't like Mama an' Daddy were ever married. Lots of guys get with more than one broad."

"They wouldn't be our siblings, Angel, c'mon," Tim said, flinging an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close to him. "Your daddy's kids from another baby mama don't count as no damn siblings."

"But what if we have a sister?" She smirked. "Can we trade Curly for her? He won't sit still an' let me practice doin' eyeliner on him no more."

I flipped her the bird. "Can we trade her for another brother?" (A kid brother, just to be clear, one I could boss around a little. Last thing I needed was a second Tim telling me what to do.)

"Shut up," Tim said easily, rolling his eyes so far back all I could see were the whites, "I'm not tradin' either of you. Half-siblings ain't the same as real ones, that's just the plain truth."

I'd wrapped myself up in his words like a blanket that day, clinging to the security they provided. Tim wasn't much of one to go 'I love you' and all that mushy shit, but I knew what he'd been too self-conscious to say out loud.

Now I wasn't so sure of anything.


An unpleasant glossary:

maricon— f*ggot

no puedes hablar español digno de mierda, los avergüenzas cada vez que abras la boca— you can't speak Spanish worth shit, you embarrass them every time you open your mouth