It's been... a while, huh? Damn, how is everyone?

When I reach the curb outside my house and find the leader of the Kings sitting in his car, windows down, system up, I about shit myself. That's the kind of scene you see before you take three to the chest.

"This ain't your territory," I say, settling my face back into its usual cool mask; I grasp around my pockets for the handle of my switchblade, just in case. "You're a little... far from the river, ain't you?"

Joe sticks his neck out the window, jerks his thumb at me— I'm not nearly stupid enough to flip him the bird, or yell something rude in response. He might be on my turf, but Bonnie was right, as loath as I am to admit it— I ain't shit without my uncles around to vouch for me. "Shepard, c'mere, I wanna talk to you."

Kings and Tigers have been enemies since the dawn of time, and Ramirez, we've kind of just been staying out of it and playing both sides— keeping control of the north side, letting them pump each other full of lead over the east. I don't know what the hell he wants from me, or why he showed up here instead of approaching my tíos, but there's a nasty twist in my guts as I approach the car.

"Rumor has it you're sleepin' with one of my girls," he says once I've sunk my ass into his leather seat, been blasted in the face by his heating system. "That true?"

"I ain't been sleepin' with none of your girls." I try to keep the sneer off my face as I say it, probably not very well— he runs whorehouses down the east, it makes me sick if I think about it for too long. I'm no innocent, I've done a lot of things that'll send me to hell and my uncles are worse, but at least I have enough of a conscience not to get into the pimping business. "I would've paid, anyway, even if I had—"

"I'm not talking 'bout my working girls." He moves towards his pocket like he's about to pull out a joint, then removes a baggie of white powder instead. "Gabi Lopez— heard you and her had a thing goin', few nights ago."

Jesus fucking Christ, does everyone in town know and care about who I'm sleeping with? "She ain't one of yours, she's Chicana—"

"Colombian, she's from Bogotá." He's just spreading out a line on his dash, dividing the powder with his car key, okay, that's what's happening— I'll admit it right now, I've only seen the stuff once or twice, much less snorted it. "And I ain't senile, last I checked— her brother's in my crew. What you got goin' on with her, huh?"

"What are you doin' with him anyway?"

I actually don't mean to have an attitude, for once— gangs in Tulsa don't go as far as being literally segregated, but it's pretty much so, when you look at the composition. Kings are white, Tigers are Native, Ramirez is Latino. Still sounds like one, though, and his sniff is downright angry before he turns to face me again.

"Ain't your business, what makes you think it is?" His eyes have always unnerved me, pale blue and bulging, like a fish's. He looks something like Dallas, except maybe if Winston's soul had been sucked out with a vacuum cleaner first. Then he laughs, like the coke's finally gone from his nose to his brain. "He thought he'd have better luck with our outfit than yours, he ain't Mexican. I ain't about to DP him, don't start stickin' your hands out."

Despite what I might want to say, Luis taught me enough politics to keep my head, and being accused of sleeping with another man's girl— no matter how loose the relationship— isn't the kind of situation where you want to value your pride over your life. "I'm sorry, man," I say, throwing my hands up to show I don't have a weapon in them, at least not now. "Nothin's goin' down no more, I swear. I didn't realize she was one of yours."

Just my luck. First girl I've laid hands on in months, and I've got a coked-up loon with a piece rolling up to my place, all to tell me I'd better never get near her again. Her ex is probably one of his equally-creepy boys, put heat on Joe himself to go down here and threaten me straight.

Joe laughs again and puts a hand on my shoulder, like we're primos or some shit and this was all some big misunderstanding. "You know what, you want her, maybe you can have her. I'll give her to you, how 'bout, it'll be a marriage of convenience."

"I don't have time to play games with you, okay?" If I fling the door open now, while he's busy snickering like he's watching The Tonight Show, I might be able to run fast enough to get away from him— but for how long? How far could I get before he caught up with me? "The hell are you even talkin' about?"

Not to mention how slimy my insides feel at the thought of him giving me anyone as a prize, never knowing if she really wants to be with me or if he held a gun up to her head first, said she better make me happy.

"Tigers been sneakin' into my territory more than usual— they're shit," he says with a feral dog's snarl, harsh enough to snap the back of my neck into the metal bars of the headrest. "They want to exterminate us because they fear us."

A Tiger shot my cousin up a few years back, when we were thirteen. We don't have a blood feud with them, but it came pretty close.

He smiles at me like his outburst didn't happen, all toothpaste commercial white teeth, but it still doesn't quite reach his eyes. "You ever snorted anything like this before?"

"A couple times, maybe I did," I automatically say, not about to look naive in front of him. "Ain't my kind of kicks."

"You ain't much of a liar, you show everything on your face, anybody ever tell you that?" He separates another line, scoops a little from it up with his nail and sticks it inside his nostril. "It's gonna blow your mind wide open."

My heart pounds against the wall of my chest like a swarm of bees struggling to break out— I press two fingers up to where my carotid artery pulses in my neck, cringe and pull them away when I get too conscious of the fact that I'm alive. "I feel good," I say for what must be about the millionth time. Either Joe is really flooring it, or the world's started spinning around on its axis a hell of a lot faster than it ever did before. I wonder if he cut that coke with something else, but I don't have the attention span to keep chasing that train of thought. "You think Lennon's tryna talk to us?"

"Yeah," he says in a patient voice as he turns down the radio, "I'm sure he was sendin' a real profound message out to the people with Twist and Shout." I nod along to everything he's saying, until I realize he's full of shit and he's driven me all the way over to my uncles' apartment building— the one where Alberto's fucking the super, so she'll ignore the sheer amount of electricity they use to grow their weed stash.

Luis is smoking as we roll up, and the second he clocks me stumbling out of the front seat, he doesn't look too happy about what he sees— not that that's so different from how he usually is, whenever he sees that I don't have Curly in tow. "The fuck did you do to him, huh, hit him over the head with a crowbar?" He flicks ash off the tip of his weed. "He ain't no use to me if he's hammered out of his mind, he's never been."

"I ain't no use?" Everything seems irritating to me, the crunch of the concrete under the soles of my shoes, the brightness of the sun, especially the nasal intonation of his voice. "Why don't we go right now, you can see just how useful I am—"

"You really feelin' brave tonight, compa, huh?" He raises a hand, but he's not about to smack me up, not when he's got a much more convenient target to go after. "What'd you give him, I ain't playin' with you, c'mon, it was obviously uppers—"

"Coke." Joe gives him a casual shrug, like he's got nothing to apologize for and never will. "Wanted to sweeten the pot a little, you know."

"Jesus, I told you to talk to him, maybe give him a couple shots, not waste him this bad." He crushes his cigarette butt with the heel of his boot. "He's seventeen, come on."

"Eighteen," I feel the need to cut in. "I turned eighteen last week. You was there."

"Oh, eighteen last week, ain't you a big man now." Sometimes I really fucking hate him. "I'm gonna have a real problem with this lil' alliance if you give anything to Curly."

"All right, I wasn't planning on nothin' like that, it's all good," Joe says, his arms up in a mock surrender, backing away towards his car again, but nobody with a couple of brain cells to rub together would trust the malice playing at the edges of his lips. "You want me to go?"

"Yeah, maybe you should." Luis is just messing with him, though, he's not as angry as he's pretending to be, or he would've raised his piece. "C'mon, use your head every once in a while. My brother's dead, they practically my kids now. You don't get to screw with them like they're your new recruits from the boys' home."

Joe flashes a grin at him before he revs the Chevy up again, and Luis grabs my chin, drags me over to the foyer. "Your pupils blown to all hell... you retarded or somethin', why'd you take shit he gave you?"

"He gave it to me, didn't he?" I try to jerk away from him, but he's mopping at the drool on my face anyway. "This ain't your business, Jesus, you been tryna give me smack since I was Curly's age."

"Smack don't do nothin'," he says with a wave of his hand, "just makes you real sleepy, is all. You have any idea how many morons I've seen practically kill a man after they snort too much? See, you already got an attitude with me."

"Ain't got no fucking attitude."

"You got your mama's tolerance." He gives me a hard slap to the side of the head, too fast for me to dodge. "None at fucking all. Got her mouth, too. I never liked that."

I sit down on one of the concrete blocks outside the door, cross my arms over my chest and try to pretend I'm not pouting. "Yeah, maybe."

He lets a hard puff of air leave his nostrils and form a cloud in the frosty air outside, probably cusses under his breath for the millionth time that I'm not Curly, don't treat every word that comes out of his mouth like God giving Moses instructions. "How'd shit go with your PO?"

"Bad." I'm not about to admit everything he said, just trickle enough truth Luis's way that he'll believe I'm telling it all. It's a skill I've honed to an art over the years. "They gave me a new one now that I'm legal, he's crawlin' up my ass, tryna make me get a job. Legit one, on the record."

"They all want you to get a job," he says boredly, "that's their job. Relax, ain't boutta send you down to the unemployment office; I'll just put you at the front of the bar, couple nights a week. Keeps our money clean, keeps us employed when they ask, it's a win-win."

"That all you wanted to say?" I shake my head out, try clear it up, but I have a million thoughts running through it at once; it's like I can't sit still, like I've smoked a thousand cigarettes in a row and followed that with a shot of espresso. "Since when are we all friendly with Kings? What's goin' on with that, huh?"

"Nah, there's somethin' else I wanna say." He grins at me. "Heard you got yourself a new girlfriend, carnal."

I'm trying to cook something that resembles soup when the Curtis clan rolls up in my business— yeah, me. I know it's women's work, that I should pawn it off on Angela, but she can't make anything edible and it's been my job since we were kids. If I didn't cook and Ma was on a bender, we didn't eat.

The door was unlocked, and suddenly there's a girl in the middle of the kitchen as I cuss at the congealed potato-leek-whatever I have in the pot— I stare at her for a couple of seconds before I figure out who she is. I haven't seen her since she was nine or ten, when Darry and I ended up on the outs for good. "Jasmine?" I can't hide the surprise in my voice. "Somethin' happen?"

"Is Ponyboy here?" She's got a real cute outfit on— not that I'm into her, I don't think she's any older than fourteen, but Curly's got one helluva crush on her. "My mama's pissed, he was s'pposed to be home hours ago— she told me to go get him from the library, but c'mon, I know he ain't that innocent."

"He better not be here," I say, but I have the uncanny suspicion he and Curly are up to no good— Curly never is. "Hey—" I turn the burner off and stalk down the hall— "you invite any guests over, mano?"

He opens the door to our room just a crack, but I can smell the grass even before I see Ponyboy sprawled out on my bed, joint in hand. "Jas, what the hell?" he squawks. "What are you doin' here?"

"Now what'd Dad say?" She's got that smug older sibling smirk on her face, and she drops her voice about three octaves. "Ponyboy Curtis, if I catch you hangin' out in them streets with that Shepard kid again, doin' whatever the hell you wanna do, I'm gonna whoop you straight into–"

"We ain't in the streets," he manages to sputter out weakly, "we're in the house, ain't we?"

"You're literally holdin' a joint right now."

"My joint." I grab Curly by the ear; he hollers and tries to get loose, but I don't let up. "How many times I gotta tell you little assholes you can't just smoke up from my stash, huh? That shit's to sell, I ain't boutta tell you again."

"Like you ain't smokin' up out of it—"

"Barely." He's actually got me there, our uncles would have my ass on a platter if they knew I was smoking up any of their precious profits, but, well. First of all, I'm smarter than Curly. Second of all, as hard as Luis pushed never get high on your own supply on me, I've seen those two shoot up way too many times to take them seriously. "And when I don't, I ain't bringin' that Curtis kid over here."

"Yeah, you wanna tell Mom," Ponyboy says to Jasmine, they've been having World War Three while I've been busy reaming out my own brother, "maybe I'll tell her you said you was goin' to sleep over with Sylvia, and y'all really went to her brother's daddy's house to—"

She tries to fly at him with her sharp nails, and I grab her by the tail of her blouse before she can claw his face off, as entertaining as that might be. The Curtis girl, I make the unpleasant prediction, she's going to be hell on wheels in the next couple years, if that. Sleeping over with Nate, that's already convinced me.

"You ain't walking yourselves home," I say reluctantly, already fumbling around for my car keys on the top of my dresser, "not in the dark. C'mon, I'll take you."

I haven't seen Darrel Curtis in a few years, not since Darry decided he didn't want nothing to do with me. I still don't know what went down between him and Luis, except that he doesn't know that Luis was fucking his wife while he was inside, and if I ever tell him, Luis is gonna cut my tongue out personally.

"Where the hell you been, huh?" he says at Ponyboy as I lead him up the porch. You could drive a truck through the hole at the bottom of his shirt, yellowed and stained with plaster; he's giving the kid a death glare, but he just glares right back at him, and I have to admire the youngest Curtis's balls the tiniest bit. "You turn thirteen, you think you can just come an' go whenever you please like some kinda alley cat?"

"Awh, c'mon, I just lost track of time at the library—"

"Uh-huh," he snorts, "smellin' like skunk, with him escortin' you home, you was at the library. 'Cause your ol' Dad was born yesterday, I guess. Git in here."

"You smoke grass with Darry, don't you?" that little dumbass just keeps going. I sort of stare at the moths fluttering around the light to avoid facing the secondhand embarrassment of listening to this; Jasmine had the good sense to dart inside before she had to bear witness. "I seen you two out on the porch after Mom's in bed—"

He stoops to his level and puts his hands on his thighs. "You want me to smack you up in front of God and everybody right now? 'Cause I'm gettin' real tempted."

Ponyboy takes a hint and scurries inside, and I laugh a little, in spite of myself, once he's closed the door. "He got you there."

"I don't want my boy over at your place no more, you hear me?" He crosses his arms over his chest in a way he probably thinks looks real intimidating. "I ain't havin' it, him gettin' high over there without any supervision."

He's not really wrong in what he's saying, I'm not sure I'd want any son of mine smoking up with Curly on a regular basis, but I've got enough family pride in me to bristle at the backhanded insult. "Oh, so he's too good for my brother now, huh? He's goin' places?" I kick at the boards beneath my feet. "Trust me, I don't want Curly hanging 'round him either. The queer might rub off on him."

"You ever thought you could go places?" Here we fucking go. "You're real smart, Tim, I seen you and Darry do homework together enough times—"

"I know what I am." Count to ten, burro, get control of that temper, my daddy says in the back of my mind, but something about this entire situation is making me run my mouth like Dallas after one too many shots. "I'm a spic, man, I wasn't exactly fixin' to go to college and become some middle manager. I earn good money."

He snorts, it's a real condescending snort too, and I wonder if that's what Dally hears every time this man's got to bail him out of the pen. "You think you're so wise, don't you?" I've about had my fill of this from Luis, I should just stroll away from him, but he has me fixed to where I'm standing. "You know everything about the world already? Honey, you don't know shit. And you 'specially ain't gonna be young forever."

"I saw my cousin get gunned down in front of me when we was thirteen," I say in the sweet voice I reserve for my social worker, like we're just as wholesome and American as apple pie. "Got sprayed with the blood from his brains bein' blown out, too. Go ahead, tell me some stories 'bout how bad it can get 'round here."

It's a voice I normally keep real even. I've told a fair few people, even members of my gang, to shock them straight, like Santi was some stranger I'd watched die; it's all business, that metaphor. Except it cracks on the last syllable, no matter how hard I try to stay cool and calm.

"Your PO, he askin' you to get a job?" I gape at him; he shakes his head at me. "Mine sure as hell did, when I first got out. They stay scrutinizin' you a lot less, if you get a legitimate one, I'm just sayin'."

"I don't need your charity," I scoff as loudly as I dare, and turn to walk away from this. "But thanks."

"It ain't no charity," Darrel says sharply enough to stop me in my tracks, "I'd be puttin' my own rep on the line to recommend you, so you better actually show up. Why don't you trust me, honey, a real job is gonna look better to him than washin' dishes at wherever your uncles are launderin' money."

"Yeah, at your construction firm, the one that pays ex-cons in cash?" I rub my arms and wish I'd worn a sweatshirt, but I hadn't expected to be outside of my heated truck for this long. "That's a real blessing, all right."

"Think about it," he says simply. "Darry—"

"Don't talk to me about Darry." I try to make this an authoritative sentence, and instead my voice breaks like a wave on it. "Your kid wanted to pretend he's a Soc all of a sudden, that's his business, that ain't none of mine. And guess none of us ended up leaving the hood after all, Boy of the Year or not."

I head over to the driveway and crank my key right into the ignition, before I start believing him.