The last time I wore a suit was my last court date, and I've had a growth spurt since then, showing a solid inch of ankle where the pant legs ride up. Fortunately, nobody has enough time to notice my fashion faux pas, because the second Darry spots our clan strolling into his parents' wake, he comes to eject us faster than a bouncer who's bent a suspicious-looking fake ID.

"Git out of here." Darry's taller than Luis by a couple inches, hell, bigger too, though he's barely twenty and Luis is pushing thirty— and if Luis keeps pushing this, I can't guarantee it isn't about to devolve into a good old-fashioned redneck brawl. "No one invited you, last I checked—"

"You don't send out invites to a wake. I read 'bout it in the World."

"You think I want you here, still sniffin' after my mama? You got one ounce of shame anywhere inside of you?" Darry digs the toe of his boot into the ground like he's an advancing wildebeest. The other kids are over near the front of the church, by the coffins; he's not fixing to even let us get within clear eyeshot. "She didn't want you neither, she never did, you was just a distraction when Dad wasn't available. A fat wallet, too."

He sounds too defensive for it to be entirely believable— just having to say it is already too defensive. Luis looks at him, then digs through the pocket of his suit coat, pulls out that fat wallet and pulls a couple fifties out of it too. "Funerals ain't cheap to finance, trust me. Here—"

"You really fucked up my life, you know that. Lettin' my daddy take a charge for you 'cause he was too softhearted to let you do time in Big Mac. Screwin' my mama. Tryna get me roped into—"

He cuts himself off. Luis waves the bills around again, in front of his face, like a snake charmer trying to coax one out of a basket. "Let me try to make it up to you."

Darry's suit fits perfectly. Not a single crease. He must've spent an hour ironing it this morning, to match his dead, expressionless face. "All my problems can't be solved with money."

"Maybe you just ain't had enough money to solve them, yet."

Darry's proud, but he's not proud enough to turn down a hundred dollar payout. He's always been smarter than that. "Don't let Soda see you here, just go home," he says once he's snatched the bills from his hand, points at the door. I'm pretty sure he's not including me, and Curly and Angela, who Luis dragged in silent tow, but I don't want to test my luck. "And don't think this puts me in your debt all of a sudden. You show up here again, you start botherin' my family, there's gonna be hell to pay."

Darry can't threaten Luis worth shit— maybe he could take him in a skin-on-skin physical fight, but in terms of any other kind of power or resources, he's got nothing. Luis capitulates, though, in the easy way you can humor someone without any of the ability to back up their big talk. "You ain't gonna see none of that, carnal," he says, throwing his hands up, like Darry's in any universe his buddy, "c'mon, kids, let's get a move on now."

He doesn't bother showing his face at the actual funeral, accomplished what he set out to do. I'm too embarrassed to, which is about the same difference.

I get an order from Darry a few days later, once he finally shows back up at work, which I feel guilty enough to take. "You have any clue where Dally is?" he asks as he fumbles with his toolbelt like he's fastening it for the first time. "I ain't seen him 'round since the funeral— hell, he didn't even stay long at the funeral. He and Mom were real close... I just hope he ain't up to nothin' stupid, Lord."

It's Dallas, so of course he's up to something stupid— if he ain't, he's either passed out or asleep. But I care enough about both of these fuckers, I guess, to give an intervention my best shot.

"Hey, you seen Winston around anywhere?" I ask Buck as he tries to clean one of his glasses with a dirty dishrag, which goes about as well as you'd expect it to. Buck himself already looks half-crocked, though it's not even past two in the afternoon. "Please tell me yes, 'cause I really ain't geared up for no manhunt right now."

The hand 'scrubbing' the glass stalls. "Uh. He ain't really in the mood for company, let's put it that way."

"In the mood for company, what is this, a fuckin' Jane Austen novel? If he's here—"

And suddenly I've got Buck's wobbly fist cocked somewhere under my chin. "You makin' fun of me?" Yeah, dropping references to Jane Austen in this joint probably wasn't the brightest thing I've ever done in my life. "I said, he's not in the fuckin' mood for your bullshit or nobody else's, since the funeral. So whoever slashed whose tires, or sassed who, or called whose mama a whore, I think you can wait a couple days, cain't you?"

I had no idea Dallas and Buck were on good enough terms that he knew anything about the funeral. He always seemed more like a landlord Dally could push around if need be, than any kind of confidante, and it's filling me with dread, thinking of the state he's in if he's been confiding in Buck about jack. "I'm not tryna start no shit with him," I say, warming up my voice in a way I hope sounds genuine. "I promise, not this time. My..." Christ hell, is Darry my friend? That word doesn't even begin to encapsulate half the truth. "Darry Curtis, he's been askin' about him, all right? I just need to go check his vitals for a second."

I guess I've emoted enough for once to come off as believable, because Buck nods his head of hay-textured hair at me. "I like Darry, he digs okay," he says, which is funny, 'cause somehow I very much doubt the feeling's mutual. "A'ight, Shepard, he's upstairs in his room, but don't expect him to be up for nothin'. He's takin' it real hard, like they was his own damn folks."

Buck was not kidding, when I push open the door he didn't have the sense to lock, though he's got nothing to steal save a few sweatshirts and a stick of deodorant that ain't as used as it should be. He's completely fucked up— I mean, I've intercepted a lot of benders and been on a couple myself, but this is bad. Empty bottles littered across the room, vomit in more than one corner that he never bothered to clean up, a trail of used condoms by his mattress on the floor— and who the hell's been willing to sleep with him in this state? He's lying on his back in a puke-stained shirt, no pants but fortunately boxers on, and I'm thinking he's smoking a joint at first, but that's not the right smell—

Hell, if he ain't smoking horse, and I overstep my boundaries immediately by snatching it from between his fingers; I watched Luis withdraw when I was fourteen and it's the worst thing you've ever seen, or smelled, in your life. It's testament to how wasted he is that he doesn't tackle me to the floor for it, just smiles, a slow, syrupy kind of grin that spreads across his face. "You here to fuck me, then, Shep?"

"No," I say carefully. Maybe he's even more messed up than I thought at first glance. Remembering shit from the past. "Trust me, if I was about to start fuckin' men, you'd be at the bottom of my list."

"Then get the fuck out of here, how 'bout it?"

"No." There's a spider crawling up the wall, nestling into the ceiling; the only living thing in this room. "What are you doin' to yourself, huh?" It comes out dangerously close to gentle. Concerned, even.

His entire face screws up, and he blinks hard, the way you do when you're trying not to cry in public, but I find it hard to believe I'm seeing what I'm seeing because it's Dallas, of all people. Then he's definitely crying, despite my presence, and he's about the ugliest crier in the world. His eyes swell so much he looks like he's been decked in the face, snot dripping from his nose, and when he wipes it off on his sleeve, now he's got vomit all over that too. He looks so pathetic that—

I hold my arms out to him before I can even register what I'm doing, just on instinct, sit down beside him on the stained mattress. Dally's about the most annoying asshole I've ever met in my fucking life, and somehow, he's still my best friend. Maybe we're the only two people in the world who could stand each other enough for that. "Hey, c'mere," I coax, then pull him into my side with one arm despite the mess. Usually, when we touch, it's to punch each other, so I can't blame him much for being hesitant. "It'll be all right, yeah..."

It won't be, I'm the worst comforter in the world, about; I'm resorting to my usual strategy of rhythmic backpats, while he hiccups hard into my shoulder. Fortunately, he wears himself out fast, which is when he recoils back from me like he's jumping on a trampoline, scrubs his arm across his face. "This didn't happen." He'd sound a hell of a lot more intimidating if he wasn't still hiccupping and struggling to catch his breath, the last syllable of happen coming out as a wheeze. "I wasn't— if you tell—"

"It didn't happen." I sit back down on my hands. Dallas knows my worst secret, spilled after three too many tequila shots one night, and I know his; our relationship is the definition of mutually assured destruction. "I don't go tellin' no tales out of school."

"You don't get it," he says with a harsh snort; not sure why he's started attacking me all of a sudden, but it's Dallas, which is reason enough. A Dallas more embarrassed than he's ever been in his life, too. "You've always... someone's always given a shit about you, you know? Your uncles and cousins, and Curly and Angel... you've always had family around, real family, not just pretend stuff. I never had no one, 'til I met the Curtises, and now they're gone too, I guess. 'Cause fuck me for gettin' attached."

It's not lost on me that he doesn't mention either one of my parents, but I swallow down any arguments I might make back at him, because the truth is that he's right. For all the responsibility they've piled high on my shoulders since before my voice broke, and as deeply as I resent them, on some level, I've always had a family. Which is why I say, "whole clan ain't dead, are they? Darry told me to go track you down and everything, he's still real worried 'bout your dumb ass. You better let him know you're still alive, and clean up your act."

I don't say, neither, that I'm jealous of him. Of how he got folded into a family that was at least semi-functional, raised amongst them— has buddies he knows will have his back in a fight no matter what, buddies with enough concern to spare for him even during their own tragedy. It just seems a little too cruel, a little too vulnerable.

I wake up around noon to the sound of what's not exactly hollering, but the voices sure are raised, all right. I wait long enough to figure out whether or not I hear the sound of breaking ceramics along with it— Ma and Ed throw plates so often, we've had to eat off paper towels before— and when I don't, I bother to get out of bed and investigate. Considering the mood Miz Allen is in, though, she might've preferred to go toe-to-toe with Ed after all.

"You mean to tell me that you've still made no further progress seeking employment—"

"Do you think jobs grow on trees?" Ma asks. "Nice jobs, like yours, with a nice, steady paycheck? I'm lookin', I told you as much. My man's got one, anyway, I don't see why you can't stop crawlin' up my—"

Christ, she couldn't even sober up for a home inspection, and an even stronger wave of shame washes over me than usual when I have to deal with my mother. She's only getting worse. And though for once, Curly didn't do shit, the social worker's going to scribble all this down in her file, yet another black mark against him.

"Miz Shepard, maybe I've been too opaque about the facts of your case, but let me try to make myself clearer." I had no idea this lady could look so vicious, twirling a ballpoint pen like it's a switchblade she wants to plant in the middle of Ma's face, as she cradles her clipboard. "Carlos is fourteen years old and has already been incarcerated twice, once as the youngest child in Tulsa county that judge had ever sentenced to reform school. His probation officer has very serious concerns about his potential for recidivism in this environment, especially considering how much exposure he has to gang activity here. His potential for an adulthood in McAlester, for that matter. And considering what I've seen so far in this home? I have absolutely no reason to disagree with that assessment."

His PO's describing him like some kind of hardened criminal, and I almost want to interject, though I'm not sure victim of his environment is a better description. Curly's just dumb, and doesn't know how to get away with shit. He got locked up at twelve because our moron uncle Alberto took him along to watch a dial-a-dope operation, he was sitting in the truck when they made the arrest, and well, it's not really a surprise to anyone but her that the judge thought a Mexican kid was 'older and wiser than his years' and a key part of the process. And last time, the time he's still on probation for, he was hotwiring a car with some middle class chick in the passenger seat, and the cop who found him had a conniption fit over that. It's bizarre to realize that from another outsider's perspective, my dopey kid brother, who has a Beach Boys poster up on his side of the room and teared up when Bambi died, apparently needs urgent intervention before he spends the rest of his life in the Oklahoma penitentiary. Is it better to have their pity or their contempt?

"You use a lot of big words, honey. Do you think I'm stupid, just 'cause I never went to high school?"

"Excuse me?"

Ma lights a cigarette, though she bawls me and Curly out whenever we do that inside, the hypocrite. Leans against the kitchen counter, bats a strand of long, unwashed hair away from her face. "Do you think I don't have a single, solitary clue about what goes on in my own house? I need you to spell it out for me?"

She's quiet for a second, and Ma goes in for the kill. "Looks like you're married, judgin' by that ring finger." Ma sucks her teeth with a loud pop like a miniature gunshot. This is her turf, and she's not about to let her forget it. "You got any kids yet, Miz Allen?"

"No, ma'am—"

"Well, why don't I just give you some advice, then." She smiles at her. "You're always the perfect mother before you got any of your own."

"Miz Shepard, I'm not claiming I can tell you how to raise your children," she says, more conciliatory, though that's her entire job. "But the fact remains, that I can't say you're making much effort to intervene in your sons' activities—"

She laughs, and doesn't quite blow smoke in her face, but comes close enough that some of it wafts towards her. Miz Allen wrinkles her nose. "They're both bigger than me now, your highness, exactly how do you expect me to stop them from doin' as they please? I ain't been able to whoop them in years, and they sure don't respect me enough to listen anyway. Or how exactly did you expect me to stop their uncles from comin' in here, takin' them, and doin' as they pleased? 'Cause they used to call me a little gringa b-word every time I did, and slap me into the cabinets too, for good measure." She taps her ashes right onto the floor. "I know they ruined them. But what choice did I ever have? I should've picked their daddies better, and that's all there is to it."

Miz Allen opens her perfectly-lipsticked mouth, only for Ma to slash her hand through the air and cut off the words. "Or maybe you want to give me some more static, about how I didn't support my three kids good enough as a widow with an eighth grade education— well, it's better than anyone ever looked after me. My mama never figured out the twenties were over, back during the Depression, she was out raisin' Cain all day while me an' my brother wore flour sack clothes and dug through trash barrels for scraps to eat. At least I tried to teach mine their catechism."

She whips her cross necklace around her finger like a propeller and sees me skulking in the corner, and her mouth sinks into a sneer. "Why don't you talk to him? He thinks the exact same thing as you, trust me, it's nothing but criticism morning, noon, and night. He thinks he's the parent, so you take it up with him."

She snatches her pack of American Spirits off the counter and stalks out onto the porch, slams the screen door behind her. I flip the bird at her retreating back, real easy, and then turn around and remember Miz Allen, who still looks stunned. "Sorry, ma'am," I have the decency to say. I don't really give a shit about cussing in front of most broads, but she was already scandalized enough to begin with. "She's got a point, though. You want to take Curly away? Give it to me straight, I can handle the truth."

She pinches the bridge of her nose, the same way I do. "Tim, I know you won't believe me when I say this, but my job is to keep families together. I don't want to remove anyone, and neither does the state. We're doin' everything possible right now—"

"I said, you can give it to me straight, not platitudes. I was born at night, but it wasn't last night."

I regret my rudeness right after it comes out, when this woman holds all the cards; I never know when to shut up, even when it's good for me, Luis says in my head. "I can't let a fourteen-year-old live in an environment where he might have a bullet in him tomorrow, Tim, no wonder he can't focus on his schoolwork. What your mother's doing, it's called failure to protect, no matter how many excuses she has for her behavior. It's wrong. And the fact that I'm havin' this conversation with you and not her tells me everything about how this family operates."

"Curly's not in that kind of danger," I scoff, though I'm lying for both her benefit and my own. A flip book of images plays in my head like God's thumbing through it, and I smell the cold dampness of the shed and see blood, wine dark, as far as my field of vision goes, and it takes Herculean force of will for me to wrench myself back into the present. "Things don't get that rough around here, not usually, kids his age don't—"

They do, though. 1947 to 1960, rubber bands showing on the braces when he smiles for the camera, frozen in time while I'm doomed to grow older and older.

She just stares at me, and I know she's got my number, this little blonde chick in a cardigan a size too big for her. "Are you willing to bet his life on it?"

Maria Teresa's pretty like a doll, with her heart-shaped face and big, round eyes, more hazel than brown. Even after weeks in the hospital, she's turning heads in the tight sweater and miniskirt she's got on, though she must've lost at least ten pounds and the way her collarbone sticks out is downright jarring. And it's that completely harmless appearance that makes me not recognize her as a threat until it's too late, when she comes up to me at the DX as I'm pumping gas. "You doin' all right now?" I ask, before I remember just whose twin sister she is.

She slaps me so hard my neck actually snaps back, and her nails catch on my skin, too, leaving a scratch I can tell drew blood without reaching up to touch it; the nozzle falls from my hand. I don't hit her back, just grab her hard by the forearms while she writhes in my grip and tries to get loose, kicks at me when that doesn't work out. "Nenita, let's knock it off before I have to hurt you, all right?" I say once the last thread of my patience threatens to snap. "This is gettin' a little less cute to me every passing second, broad or not."

There's a couple people around who overhear, but while thinking this makes me feel like a scumbag, I know I'm in the clear. No one calls the police in this neighborhood, especially not over what they'll assume is some domestic between me and my chick.

"Do you have any idea what you did to Alex?" She gears up like she's about to spit in my face, which she won't do, if she knows what's good for her. "How bad you hurt him?"

My stomach swoops like I'm on a ride at the county fair. I don't— I just left him to rot. Not for the first time, I'm chilled by plumbing the depths of my own ruthlessness, how far I'm willing to go to get what I want. "I was there," I say with a sneer instead, "so I think I got a pretty good one."

"He was pissin' blood the other night, we had to wait at the free clinic for six hours. You knocked his kidney loose."

"Your fucking—" I cuss that brother of hers out so good, in both English and Spanish, he definitely ain't seeing heaven after that. "Is lucky I didn't put a bullet in his skull, after the shit he pulled on me. You know what the charge can be for possession, for one of us? Five years. And who do you think's gonna be lookin' after my brother and sister then? My drunk mama, my stepdaddy?"

"It's my fault," she says. My grip on her upper arms slackens as she seems to deflate before my eyes. "Ain't it, I'm the one you're really angry at? He left his corner 'cause I was in that accident, he sold you out 'cause we needed money for my bills. So why don't you just hit me instead?"

"What the fuck?"

She wrenches free and tries to slap me again, some last-ditch attempt at provoking me; I catch her wrist and twist it away from my face, hard enough I don't doubt it hurts, and hope that'll sedate her. "You take your ass home now," I say, with the same low, calm authority I wish had worked a good goddamn on her brother. "Before I start thinkin' twice about it, you hear?"

"You wasn't always like this." I remember winning her a stuffed animal almost too big for her to carry, at that same county fair; I didn't love Maria Teresa or nothing, only slept with her a few times, but there was some tenderness between us, once. She expected me to come see her in the hospital. She thought of me as a friend, they both did. "You didn't always used to be your uncle in miniature—"

"Don't you start givin' me no speech here 'bout how I got secret good hidden in my heart," I sneer. God, I really am a bastard. Luis would be proud. "You want revenge for Alex's nose, or kidney, or whatever the fuck, next time, bring backup. 'Cause right now, you're just punchin' above your weight."

She gives me one last poisonous look before getting back into her own driver's seat.