I'm beating my kid brother up in the garage, when Darry comes by my place— in a controlled and safe manner, that is. Regardless of my personal feelings right now, I still have responsibilities towards him, and that includes making sure he doesn't get his ass kicked all the way up and down the East side. That'd be a poor reflection on me.

I fiddle with the tape around my knuckles as I bounce up on the balls of my feet, it's starting to come loose; Curly spits a tendril of wet hair out of his mouth, along with a hock of blood and spit, after I've caught him unawares with a blow to the jaw. "You favor your left side too much, that's your problem," I say through a hard breath, thinking I'll give it another ten before I wrap things up, maybe. His whole face is gleaming with sweat at this point, and though there's value in learning how to work through fatigue, there's only so far I can push him, for one day. "This time, don't telegraph your moves in advance. You're too obvious."

That's when Darry comes sauntering up to us, far out of his territory and looking more pissed off than a wet hen. Curly swivels around to see who it is, which is when I tap the side of his face; not hard enough to send him stumbling, but not so easy, either. "Don't get distracted, genius, you never take your eyes off your opponent for a second," I say roughly. "That's how you're gonna get killed, swear to God. Someone's chargin' at you, but you noticed a bluebird in the background that's more interesting."

He scowls at me, which he does constantly these days, so I just let it slide off me like water off a duck's back. I'm being too hard on him, as is my wont. Curly's a real good fighter for his age, scrappier and better technically than I was at fourteen, but I'll never say it because I sure as shit don't want him getting cocky about it— that's the difference between life and death around here. "It's not an actual fight, is it? And it's just Darry."

"Hi, 'just' Darry," I say drily, as I settle back down onto my heels. "We're a lil' busy, so if this can wait—" I feel like kind of an ass, both for giving him the brush-off now and not having done more to check in on him, since the accident, but hell. Like I don't have enough of my own problems to deal with. And clearly, he knows where to find me.

"I won't be long, 's not much of a social call," he says with a smile like he wants to stretch someone out on a torture rack. "Curly, Ponyboy's real sick right now— vomiting his lights out, in fact. You happen to know anything about that?"

The downside of Curly's skill at lying— he just cannot fess up for shit, even when his goose is real, real obviously cooked. "No… uh, sir," and I almost give myself a hernia trying not to laugh at the overkill. He even shoots Darry a concerned look from behind his long eyelashes. "He have too much to drink, maybe?"

"Yeah, you could say that, he's drunk as a skunk right now— or hungover, I reckon." Darry's about to pounce, I can tell. "See, funny thing is, he mentioned your name, between the dry heaves. Seems like last night, y'all were at a party downtown, in River Kings territory, that you took him to." Darry adds a meaningful pause here, for the news to sink in with me. "Care to explain?"

Even Curly's finally figured out that his number's up. "I just thought it'd take his mind off things, y'know, his parents dying an' all? It sounded like a gas," he mutters, scuffing the toe of his taped-together tennis shoe on the ground. "I told him not to have so much as he did, it's not my fault he didn't listen."

"You know, I'm not so sure I want Ponyboy learnin' in the ninth grade that alcohol takes your mind off your problems," Darry says through gritted teeth. In some far-off, vacant corner of my brain, I process that, hell, I'm not so sure I want Curly learning that lesson in the eighth grade either. "He's grounded for two weeks, and after I let him outside again, you better not be takin' him anywhere near that kind of stomping ground, you hear? He don't know how to handle himself yet, not like I guess you think you do."

"Yessir," Curly mutters, looking like he's about to piss himself if Darry doesn't lay off in the next second— damn, if only I ever got that kind of respect from him. Darry gives me another meaningful look, an opportunity for me to start contributing. I take it.

"Give me that." I reach into the back pocket of his jeans, a lucky guess, and pull my fake ID right out of it. "Do not let me catch you pawin' through my fucking wallet again, I paid a pretty penny for this. It don't even look nothin' like you to begin with."

I'm sure as shit not getting any 'yessir' treatment, he starts whining the second I swipe it back— maybe because, unintentionally, I've managed to step on a landmine of a sore spot. "Don't look so much like you neither, does it, Francisco Yáñez—"

Yeah, and it cost me a pretty penny to be able to borrow his license, trust me. "No one saw you, right?" I powder more chalk onto my bandaged knuckles. "Nobody who's fixin' to snitch, to social services or your PO?"

"I don't think so?"

I shrug and turn back around to Darry, whose lips are pursed like a cat's asshole. "Are you waitin' for something?"

Darry grabs me by the bicep and leads me into a spiderweb-filled corner of the garage, which is not at all out of Curly's earshot. He's got excellent hearing when he wants, trust me. "Your brother just got my brother stinking drunk, and you don't have nothin' to say about it?"

"He got himself drunk, 'less you want to argue Curly strapped him to a keg and made him do a headstand over it—"

"He's vulnerable, he doesn't know what he's doing. For fuck's sake, Mom and Dad just died, he's a thirteen-year-old kid, and he's not what I'd call a real mature or wise thirteen neither—"

"Curly's only a year older, and you know what, he's had some shit goin' on too." I mean, not shit as serious as becoming orphaned overnight, but still; I feel obligated to take up for him, when someone's ragging on him outside of the family. You could call us a real close-knit bunch, at times like these. "Y'all Curtises ain't the only ones with problems, a'ight? Things are rough all over."

Jesus, that's nasty to say out loud, even for me— he clutched me the morning after their deaths like I was a blood brother. There's a flash of genuine hurt in his eyes that I force myself to ignore, before he stiffens his jaw again. "I can't believe I came over here to ask your advice on what to do about Ponyboy, I never punished none of them before, even when I used to babysit." I can't believe it either, like I'm some kind of expert on wrangling idiot kid brothers— though, hell, if I'm an expert on any topic, it's that one. Then he shakes his head. "At least I'm puttin' in a better showing than you, at any rate."

One step forward with us, two steps back, huh? He storms off in what you could call high dudgeon, and I still can't bring myself to regret it. Why have I even been wasting my time? Curly's a lousy baby hood who'll grow up to be a lousy adult hood— I've just been swimming against a riptide, trying to put off the inevitable. Playing the father, when I ain't hardly older than he is, and no kind of good example to begin with. It's not accomplishing shit, it never has, except make him hate me. Nobody ever asked me to, least of all him.

Curly comes back over to me, puts down the dumbbell he was pretending to lift while hanging off our every word. "You was real mad," he says, arching one of his eyebrows up, "when I came home drunk before," and Lord, I guess the little idiot never heard the saying about looking a gift horse in the mouth, huh. "Hollerin' like hell about it."

I scrubbed all his throwup out of the carpet, too, but of course that's not what's sticking around his memory bank. None of my gentleness ever is. "You want me to get mad? Fine, go back inside, get one of Ed's belts, and I'll school you a valuable lesson right now." I'm bluffing like hell, and fortunately he doesn't call it, just stands there gaping at me like I'm the starring role in Invasion of the Body-Snatchers. "Should've mentioned it when Darry was still here, though, would've gotten me out of hot water with him."

"I never said nothin', did I?" he's quick to point out. "Just askin' a question, is all."

"Cállate la boca, then." The sun's shining as I step outside again, the crystal-bright kind of cold morning you get in the middle of February. It feels full of potential, like the start of the line I snorted off Joe's dash, months ago. "You want to skip school today?"

Now Curly really looks at me like I'm a replica grown from a pod— man, did that movie give me the creeps when Alberto took me to go see it as a kid. "Is this a trap, or what?"

"Come on, mano," I say, and a slow kind of smile starts to unfurl on my face. "Let's go have some fun."

Curly's got his feet kicked up on my dash, a joint in one hand, McDonald's bag in the other— I even let him turn the radio dial until we reached The Beach Boys. He must think he died and went to heaven, and as a reward for bad behavior, too. I don't normally let anybody eat in my truck, least of all his messy ass.

You could say I'm enjoying one nice, last meal with him like a prisoner before his execution.

"So what are we doin' here?" he asks, licking some mustard off his thumb— Christ, he better not have squirted any of it anywhere, or he's scrubbing my interior with bleach. "In some… random alleyway?"

I can't tell him the truth— I should've had the good sense to pick it up first, not take him along for the ride. This is the same kid brother who almost pissed himself watching Alex get his nose broken, there's no way in hell he has the mental capacity to deal with what I'm plotting now. Besides, the less he knows, the less he can tell anyone who tries to interrogate him, if I get booked.

Maybe part of me, that sentimental part I try so hard to bury, wants to let him stay naive. I lost my last scrap of innocence at thirteen. Sometimes he makes these coltish, awkward movements in my line of vision and I swear I can't have ever been that young.

Dallas finally waves at me, as he reaches the end of the alley. He looks well-enough recovered by now, hell, maybe I've given him something to focus on other than the depths of his own misery. "Hey, Shepard, git over here," he hollers loud enough I can hear the faint echo of it.

"Stay in the car," I order Curly as I slam the door behind me, and trust he's going to listen to me for once. I walk over to him, start to stick my hand out. "You manage to get it, then?"

I didn't want to bring Dally in on this, neither— he's pretty much the dictionary definition of 'loose cannon'. Fact remains, though, he's the only person I know, who I ain't related to, who's ever disposed of a dead body before. Also the only person I know who, despite what you could call our love-hate relationship, I feel like I can trust not to sell me down the river. I'd see him coming before he could ever plant the knife in.

"Count yourself real fuckin' lucky we're friends," he grouses, "Buck was grillin' me with a million fuckin' questions." In addition to meth, moonshine, and shamelessly fixing horse races, Buck also sometimes dips his toes into weapons smuggling to eke out a living. "What I needed it for, who I was plannin' to shoot, if I was fixin' to bring the fuzz knockin' on his front door again— man, it ain't even for me. I carry my heater around strictly for looks."

He pulls the long black cylinder out of the pocket of his leather jacket— a silencer. Guess you can say I always think everything through, and that includes thinking ahead of Luis. I wasn't even sure I wanted to use the gun he so lovingly provided for me— I have one of my own, which I know for a fact is unregistered and can't be traced back to me— but I'm pretty sure this Glock wasn't legally acquired neither, without a lot of headscratching. Then he sticks his own hand out. "You got the product?"

If I'm going to hell for anything, I swear it's for just handing him a bag of horse in exchange. "You better smoke this shit," I try to insist, like that makes it so much better. At least it won't give him hepatitis.

"Save the mother hen act for your kid siblings, why don't you?"

"There a reason you can't just steal this from your old man?" Must be like dipping into the liquor cabinet, for a regular teenager. I swear I've never seen Norm without a needle sticking out of his arm.

"Norm guards his supply like Fort Knox, are you kiddin' me? One of his pits is gonna give me a scar uglier than yours if I try it." I flip him the bird; he smirks and pockets the bag, before his face becomes suddenly, unexpectedly serious. "I can't tell you how to do the actual deed, y'know. Buck and I already found the corpse, we was just the garbage disposal."

"Yeah, I reckoned as much. Not sure mixin' up some lye is my style, neither, shit." I'm already thinking I might have to skip town after this, hell, maybe cross the border for a while and see if one of my distant cousins in Juárez will put me up. Alex isn't the Johnny Cade type that could just go missing one day, daddy who beats on him, mama who sits by the TV drinking all day long. His old lady loves him, criminal and all, and ain't I already met his sister. They're not going to buy that he ran away for no reason, or got hit by a truck, or vanished off the face of the earth. "I can probably get tíos to take care of it." I trust them with that much, more than I trust myself. They've had plenty of practice.

"You must really love this chick, even if you was chokin' on the words. I'm just gonna be honest with you, if Sylvia got shot, I'm not so sure I'd be willin' to risk the chair for that sneakin' little broad."

"I'll be sure to tell her you said that," and he shoves me, and for a moment things almost feel like normal between us. Then his face gets back into that antsy, unsettled expression again.

"Do you want to join my outfit?"

If I had anything in my mouth, I would've spit it out. This is one hell of a role reversal for us, all right. "Excuse me?" Boy, won't Darry just love that, me at his workplace all day, then having me hang around his house all evening, stealing chocolate cake and beer out of his freezer and bickering with his kid brother's friends over the TV dial. Might get a real kick out of getting to boss me around, though. "You ain't even touched nothin' in the bag yet, c'mon, man."

"Did you think I was shittin' you, when I said I can count on them to have my back, when it's down to the wire? At least not sell me out to the cops or shoot my girl when they can't get a hold of me?" He tries to give me a shove, ends up digging his fingers into the hole-ridden, bloodstained sweatshirt I wore to spar with Curly. "Why are you comin' to me with this mess, huh, instead of the rest of the guys in your crew? Why ain't they the ones gettin' you supplies?"

Because I sure as hell don't trust any of them to 'have my back'. They're not my friends, they're my subordinates, and subordinates I keep in line with harsh discipline. I have zero reason to believe they'd sympathize with me here, and I'm sure not eager to give anyone else bright ideas about taking me out. Instead of saying any of that, I deflect the question altogether. "I like bein' the leader a little too much to give that up now."

"You ain't much of a leader, man. Just bein' honest with you." He rakes a hand through his hair; he doesn't like using grease, just lets it grow all over the place. "Darry don't beat us like mules, but when he talks, we listen to him, you dig? Seems you've got to try so hard to keep control over them, 'cause you don't have none to begin with. Like my old boss in New York."

I should want to sink through the blacktop like it's quicksand, hearing that. Instead, I just let the criticism flow like water through my fingers— elbow him in the gut, but without anywhere near the amount of force I'd usually apply to it. "You've never been in charge of nothin' save yourself, Sun Tzu, but thanks for the advice."

Curly's hanging out the open window like an overheated Golden Retriever, trying to eavesdrop; I clip him around the ear as I head over to the driver's side. "Mind your business for once, chismoso, why don't you?"

"What's that?" Curly asks before I can shove the offending that into the glove compartment, out of his sight and attention span. "Wait, holy shit, is that a silencer?"

"Hell would you know what a silencer looks like, kid?" Dally asks, grinning; Curly just scowls at him, 'cause he's still sore that, in the first responsible move of their lives, tíos said he can't have his own heater until he's eighteen. They don't really get along. Curly thinks he's a dick, and he's right, Dally doesn't understand why he's always got to tag along with us, which is because he's an only child. I try to stay out of it, most of the time.

Curly doesn't take his bait for long, though, before he's turning back to me. "What do you need a silencer for?"

"For your big mouth." I close the glove compartment with a hard click, then force myself to smile. "You wanna go down to Jay's and bet on fights? Heard Roy Reynolds has a score to settle with some Soc over there, and my money's on the Soc."

We don't get home until eleven, about. I let Curly have a record four beers and some cherry coke and rum out of a stranger's flask, and gambled ten bucks I really didn't have to lose when Roy Reynolds ended up stomping the Soc, but got his ass kicked straight down to Oaxaca by a Mexican hitchhiker who was bored and spoiling for a fight. Then I decided to take the hitchhiker out to play some pool and grab a few more drinks (Adán's looking for seasonal work installing deer fencing, further out in the country), because Roy Reynolds is an ass, and anybody who can take him down a few pegs is a friend of mine. And even after getting to spend his entire school day goofing off, the kid still isn't happy. In fact, the longer the day went on, the longer his face got.

I crank my key into the ignition and cuss when it takes me a couple tries— I shouldn't have been drinking in the first place, to be honest, and I shouldn't be getting behind the wheel soused now. Whatever. Ed keeps a bottle of 'driving whiskey' in the console of his truck and swears it helps his concentration, which was his excuse the last three times he got busted for DUI. Come to think of it, I'm not sure he even has a license anymore.

Curly keeps staring at me the whole time, including when I drop the keys on the floor. I can practically feel the judgement radiating off of him. "What, you wanna drive?" I ask. "Have at it, just don't steer us into a ditch— or worse, speed." I don't need the cops pulling me over, considering what I've got stashed in here.

"Man, are you… high or somethin'?" He's got the cuticle of his left thumb in his mouth, worrying at it until he draws blood. "Tíos said we ain't supposed to be doin' none of the Kings' coke, sometimes it's laced with other stuff— and now Winston's givin' you a silencer— ain't your PO already fixin' to bust you, if you keep violating probation?"

"The hell do you think you know about what my PO's fixin' to bust, or laced coke, Jesus H. Christ—"

"I'm not that dumb, Tim, I know you ain't about to go out past Windrixville and shoot a turkey with a fucking silencer." I can't look him in the eye anymore. "You hate guns, you don't even like no hunting trips or shootin' cans off the porch. What the hell's going on?"

"I haven't been doin' no lines," I say, which is the truth, "just decided to unclench for once, is all. Ain't that what you always wanted?" I say 'wanted' like a barb, meant to imbed itself deep beneath his skin. "Now, for the last time, you git the hell out of my business or you can walk home."

Curly was completely right, though, I think in hindsight as I flip on the light switch and lock the bathroom door— I feel a little bad for trying to convince him he's losing his mind. I'd have to be as high as a fucking kite to blow off Darry showing up to complain about him, and that's just for starters. I'm surprised he guessed the wrong drug, though. He should recognize the effects of this one real good by now.

The bottle I grabbed out of the medicine cabinet and stashed behind a roll of toilet paper is still there when I reach for it underneath the sink, which means she hasn't noticed it's missing and gone digging for it. I shake another couple of little yellow pills out, swallow them dry, put the bottle back down on the counter. Reread the label, just for kicks, of what Ma's getting from the crooked shrink Ed dragged her to when he got tired of her throwing shoes at his head.

SHEPARD, Mary. Diazepam, 10 mg. No refills left—

She'll notice, eventually, raise unholy hell about it too. She's a big fan of that. But the days when my mama's wrath was something to fear are long behind me, and maybe if she knew, she'd understand.

I'm going to kill someone tomorrow.