Alright next chapter is here dudes! So this is mostly about Tim (with some Shy incorporated as well into it) and why he's the way he is. I also made up an original trailer park setting by the river (which will serve as the River Kings turf). This chapter basically just deals with Tim, bits of his past, and stuff like that. It will be done in 2 parts. Anyways R&R. Oh & thanks for all of the reviews, they rock!
Understanding Tim Part 1
His dirty boots kicked a few rocks and pebbles as he trudged along the gravel path, walking along the rust-metal tracks embellished deep in the ground from centuries ago. The sun rays beat down on his leather jacket clad back with a powerful heat that would generate sweat. His jaw was clenched and his face was as hard as stone. His lean legs moved swiftly, taking him to his chosen destination.
As his destination became clearer to him and closer in distance he saw a group of guys hanging out and smoking. His gang was there, as faithful as always, just waiting for him to come by.
"What's up?" Tim asked a bunch of his gang members as soon as he walked right up to them, right where they were sitting and standing by the tracks.
"Nothing really, Shepard." One of the gang members spoke up while the rest just looked at their leader and nodded their heads.
"Let's go down to the river, find us some River Kings and have some fun fighting." Tim chuckled as he flipped up the collar of his jacket.
"Sure." One gang member shrugged as he smoked a cigarette.
Another nodded while saying, "We're down."
"Cool." A third gang member peeped out.
I was in the ugly kitchen making lunch whenever Shelly, Tim's drunken mother, stumbled on in. Her hair was a matted mess, her night slip was torn and dirty with a strap hanging off of her shoulder. "When you and the kid get here?" She asked me as she rooted around in a cabinet, looking for her cheap liquor no doubt.
"Last night, Tim said we could stay for a while." I told her as she found what she was looking for in a cabinet, something that Tim probably thought he'd hidden from her well this time.
"As long as he pays your way I don't care." She flatly told me before heading back to her room, cheap whiskey bottle in her hand.
Now Shelly was a very skinny lady perhaps on the verge of skeletal skinny, since all she did was drink her food instead of eat it. Then there were all those prescriptions she took for her depression. A depression, as I understand from Tim, that's been with her ever since her first husband and the father of her children left her almost 15 years ago.
Yes, Tim's real father Richard left whenever he was 3. Tim told me that story, it was seared in his mind forever and honestly I think it's his own father's shortcomings that make him strive to be a good dad to our son Tim-E.
It was a cold winter's night, bits of snow clung to the ground and anything that would allow a buildup, during the February month. A small boy with dark curly and smoldering blue eyes sat on the couch, watching his father storm out of the master bedroom with his mother, holding his year old baby brother on her hip, following after him.
"Richard, you can't do this to us!" The 3 year old boy heard his mother cry out to his father, still following behind him.
"Shelly, I'm tired of living in this hell with you and I'm tired of having these God damned kids! Damnit, it'd be a miracle if this new baby's even mine!" The boy's father, known as Richard, growled and barked at the boy's mother, Shelly.
"Please, you can't leave, Richard, please, we can work this out!" The mother cried as she followed her husband towards the door.
"I'm tired of sticking here for these kids, I don't care about you and these kids are a package deal with you!" The father barked as he made his way to the door. As he placed his hand on the knob he turned to look at his 3 year old son and said, "Timmy, you're the man of the house now, I'm going and I ain't never coming back."
The man walked out of the house with his frantic wife following behind. The boy stood up on the couch and looked out the window. He watched as his father flung a suitcase in a car and he watched as his father got into the car. As his father drove the car away from the house the little boy just looked out the window, wiping away a single tear with his small hand, while uttering the words, "Daddy, p'eaz, come back."
A few moments later the boy's mother ran back into the house crying, she placed her baby in a playpen in the living room before looking at her oldest child through teary eyes. "Watch your brother." Was the order she gave him before she retreated to her room in order cry herself senseless.
It was that very moment in time in which Tim Shepard, the protective family man and anger issued man, was truly born.
A bunch of feet stomped and stepped on the twigs that were littering the grass along the dirt road path to the slums by the river. The river slums weren't too far off from the river bank. Mostly the poorest of the poor, the trailer trash, white trash greases lived in the river slums. Riverside Park was the trailer park nestled by the river, where the gang the River Kings all hailed from.
Tim and some of his gang were stopped the leader of the River Kings along with some of his crew as they were getting closer to Riverside Park. "Shepard, aren't you out of your turf, you lookin' for a fight?" The leader asked Tim, looking him up and down. The leader was tall and broad, he wore jeans with a simple grey shirt, and his long hair was kept out of his eyes with a blue bandana that was tied around his head.
Tim just chuckled at his smoky blue eyes met the emerald green ones of his enemy. "Yea, maybe I am looking for a fight, Riff." Tim said as he removed his jacket, throwing it to one of his members to hold. "You down with that, one on one with me, Riff?"
"Am I down, Shepard you better never come back in my turf again once I'm done." Riff growled as he walked up to Tim, whose gang had back away from him in order for the fight to start.
Tim circled around his victim, much like an alley cat ready to pounce upon its prey, while Riff just snarled his lip up like an angry bulldog.
Suddenly fists collided into the skin of faces and the cloth clad shoulders and chests of each young man. The gang leaders were throwing punch after punch onto each other. They were dancing in a heated brawl, each hit resulting in another right after. Hair came undone out of greased up dos while the fighters kept at it. Fists slamming into hard bones, causing knuckles to pop and crack-sounding like fireworks on the 4th of July.
The alley cat like man truly had the upper hand over the bulldog like man in the fight merely because he had an uncontrollable rage running throughout his boiled blood.
Yes, Tim Shepard would be victorious in his fight with the River Kings leader Riff just because he had an ounce of anger he needed to let out.
I had just finished eating my grilled cheese and I was just now feeing Tim-E some baby food. It's awfully hard to feed your son without a high chair. Tim had mastered the art of sitting our son on his lap and feeing him perfectly but I still had some trouble with it, especially whenever Tim-E decided that he was going to be stubborn and not willingly eat for me.
Ugg, Tim was out blowing off steam while I was alone in his house. So not fair if you ask me but nope I'm never asked now am I? But I know how Tim is; I've known him long enough to know that fights are how he expresses his anger and all of his other emotions as well. Fighting is like in a way therapy for him, it's an outlet to allow him to get everything out.
I mean I remember once, whenever we were friends with benefits before we became an official couple (even though we acted as a couple before the night he officially asked me to be is girl), he explained to me why he fought so much.
"Oh my God, Tim, look at your face, that guy sliced it bad with that bottle!" I exclaimed at Tim, handing him some napkins, once he sat back down at our table outside of the Dairy Queen-on the patio section near the parking lot.
Tim just wiped his face off with a napkin, and then looked at the crimson stain on the white paper sheet. "Eh, it'll be fine once the bleedin' stops."He shrugged as he placed another napkin over his cut up side of his face, to absorb the blood.
I just rolled my eyes at him while remarking as I drank my pop, "Fine, it's like the whole side of your face though."
"So what, scar'll be tuff." He shrugged as he tossed another blood stained napkin onto the table.
"Tim, why the hell did you start a fight with the bum for?" I asked him curiously as I plopped a fry in my mouth.
"Why not?" He simply asked me right back as he unwrapped his barbeque sandwich from its paper wrap.
"All he asked for was a dime; you didn't have to shove him." I then shook a fry in his face saying," Hell, look what happened whenever he got off the ground, he sliced half of your face open with a dirty bottle from the ground."
"He shouldn't 've asked me for a dime then." Was all Tim said as he took a bite out of his sandwich, wincing from the pain his face was obviously causing him from being sliced opened.
"Tim, why do you even fight at all?" I unwrapped my own sandwich, looking from it to the guy with the now scabbing face.
He took another, what I assumed must've been painful, bite of his sandwich before answering with, "Cause I just do."
I too began to eat my own sandwich but not before asking him, "But why, it's like one moment you're fine and the next you're out hunting for a fight, Tim why?"
Tim put down his sandwich and took a large drink of his cherry pop before he began his lengthy explanation. "Why? Cause I like how I feel when I'm fighting. It's like all of your energy is on the fight and you forget about all the dumb shit around you and it also releases stress for me."
"Oh." Was all I said since there was nothing else for me to say.
"So, guess you're never gunna let me take ya out for barbeque ever again huh?" He asked me while he started to eat some fries while trying to keep his eyes focused downwards at his hands instead of straight ahead at me.
"Dunno, maybe, who cares." I shrugged, making him sweat and think for a moment that maybe I wouldn't hang out with him again or something.
"Ah, I see, rather hang with those stuffy assholes your Mama likes then…"Tim rattled off, searching his jacket pocket for his pack of Kools.
"Shepard, I was kidding, hell I'll still run around with ya." I let out a small smile while Tim took a cig from his pack and stuck it between his lips. "Hell don't get all sulky on me." I told him, rolling my eyes as he offered me a cig from is pack.
I took the cig and let him light it for me. After he placed his pack of Kools back into his jacket he took a deep breath of smoke and then while letting it out he told me, "I ain't getting 'all sulky', but it's true though your Mama does want your friends to be your rich schoolmates instead of some hood from the neighborhood."
"I'm friends with your sister, Tim, so my Mama doesn't really freak out whenever I'm around you cause your Angel's older brother and we're friends too." I reminded him as I let out a cloud of smoke.
"Yea and if your Mama knew exactly how friendly we are she'd shit a fucking brick." Tim chuckle sounded like a boom as he continued on with his cig while I took a quick sip of my drink.
