A/N: This one is short and not at all sweet. Sorry in advance.
I'm driving Ma's beat up old Bel Air to pick him up. I ain't taking the chance some eagle eyed prick in a uniform sees me in a stolen car. Not here. Not right outside the reformatory.
He has a fading black eye.
"I assume the other guy looks worse," I say without looking at him directly, as he drops himself into the seat and I take off. I toss a packet of weeds onto his lap.
"Thanks for comin' to get me, Tim." He sounds smaller than he is, if that makes any sense. Truthfully, he looks taller, four and a half months'll do that when you're thirteen, but his voice don't seem to match. It's deep enough, but it's quiet. He ain't never been quiet.
"Figured you'd get lost, if I left ya to find your own way home."
He don't rise to the bait.
He stares out the window.
I know how weird it feels to see into the distance, when you been stuck inside so long. But I get the feeling he ain't so much looking out, as looking away. Not looking at me.
"You hungry?" Bizarrely, I want to find him some cookies and peanut butter, like when we were kids.
"Yeah."
I swing the junker off the road, picking a truck stop at random. Or maybe not so random, maybe because it ain't near our turf. I watch him walk into the place, watch him check it out, pick a booth where he can sit with his back to the wall and see the door.
I let him order what the hell he wants. What he wants is sweet stuff; pie and ice cream and a chocolate shake. Maybe I wasn't so far off with the cookies idea. I order coffee and I watch him eat.
"You do what I said? The first night?"
He nods, over the milk shake.
My advice had been to take on the toughest guy in the room, right after lockdown. Set yourself up as top dog, before someone tries to tell you what your place is. I can still hear Dom's voice telling me to do exactly that, before I went in the Reformatory. It worked for me. But it ain't a given, might not have worked for Curly.
"And?" I can't help needling him. Something's off.
"Yeah, I did it. They were babies. Except for this one kid an' I still stomped him."
"Good going." I say it matter of factly, like I didn't really expect anything else. But inside I'm thinking - as I'm looking at his eye - Who did that, Curly? If you were top dog in your dorm, who did that?
"You were right about the visitin'," he tells me, around a mouthful of pie, his lips and tongue turning black with the mash of blueberry and ice cream. "They was worse after they seen their folks."
When he went in, I said we wouldn't come up. Four and a half months, that ain't no time at all. I told him it makes the time stretch longer, if you're waiting on visits. Better to focus on the end date, the getting out. I didn't tell him I thought it would make him cry, to see us. I guess he knows that now, from seeing the other kids. Knows that you don't wanna show any sign of weakness, not to the other boys. Not to anyone.
I told him enough to get him by. I know I did. I told him not to ever be on his own in the showers, I told him not to owe any favors. Not to the other boys. Not to anyone.
"You see Joey Peters's kid brother in there? He got sentenced 'bout a week after you."
Curly shakes his head. No biggie, it don't always help, to know someone inside. Loyalties shift.
"Who'd you have trouble with?" I can't stop myself asking, because he ain't telling.
He shrugs. "Nobody." He's stabbing the end of his milkshake with the straw.
"Nobody give you that eye?" I push it. I can see he don't want to say, but I got to know.
He shrugs again. If it was a fight, he would tell me. I know he would.
"You okay?" The words sound weird to me. I don't think I ever asked him outright before.
"I tried to stop him." The quiet voice is back, the one that don't sound like Curly. He's talking to the empty plate in front of him, his whole face turned down. "I tried, Tim."
"Okay." I try to believe myself as I say the word.
"He kept me after class. He had the keys. I didn't wanna..."
"Okay," I hear myself repeat.
Curly presses the back of his fist against his mouth. I can't tell if he's stopping himself from bawling or hurling. I feel nauseous myself even thought I didn't eat anything.
I toss a couple of bills on the table. "We should get going."
I slide out the booth and head for the car.