I should've realized that me taking a job with Darrel Curtis, it wasn't something that'd go over real well with Luis, or go over at all. I don't know what the hell I was thinking, honestly, or if I was thinking at all. That I could hide it from him indefinitely, or that it was something I could admit a couple vodka shots in and only get uproarious laughter in return; spin it as a hilarious anecdote the way Curly would, me slinging bricks around with our crew's most notorious defector? But either way, I still haven't even come close to predicting the tornado of a shitstorm coming my way, when Luis's truck rolls up to where I'm shooting the shit in our car lot.

He sticks his face out the window the second he cranks the glass down enough to fit it. It's flushed, I have a dim view of him from this vantage point, but I can tell that there's a unfocused quality to his eyes that spells trouble. Great, he's already hammered before the sun's even down, just what I needed to be dealing with right now.

"Get in the fucking car." He snaps his fingers at me like he's summoning a dog, and I don't even register who he's referring to for a few seconds. Who he thinks he's referring to. "Entiendes, you fucking deaf now?" he barks as I stay rooted to the spot; Rafa and Alex both stifle laughs from behind their fists. I really could kill them, they always get a little too much of a kick out of when I'm the one in the hot seat. "Ain't tellin' you twice."

Luis isn't the type to start hollering over much of anything, unlike Alberto, who I once saw take a baseball bat to a stove because his coffee was taking too long to brew— yelling's for subordinates, not leaders, you hear me, Timmy? If you have to raise your voice, you've already lost. I can't even begin to imagine what's got him so heated, especially when he slaps the side of my head hard enough to make my ears ring as I slide into the passenger seat. "Qué pasa?" I demand, feeling more than a little indignant and owed an explanation. "Why you gotta embarrass me in front of my boys like that?"

"Embarrass you in front of—" Steam might as well be coming out of his ears. "You wanna talk about bein' embarrassed, fool? What the hell were you thinkin', puttin' your fourteen-year-old brother in charge of a bar? You think his scrawny lil' ass is gonna be able to bust up a fight if one breaks out in there?"

"He was fine, ain't he," I start out in a lame attempt at self-defense, and one that's falling on deaf ears, "he's been drinkin' since he was younger—"

"Yeah, wasn't it a nice surprise for me when Nacho asked me where you've been all week— says he doesn't miss you, don't get him wrong, Curly's better with the customers, but he's curious. And wasn't it just the cherry on top when Juan Pablo says he swears he saw you on Darrel Curtis's construction site the other day, when he was drivin' by."

I fall silent then, which does little to soothe his anger at me. "Oh, so now I guess you ain't got nothin' to say, for the first time in your life. Cat got your tongue?" He whips back around to slap the horn at some guy trying to cut him off, gets the finger in return, and I'm genuinely afraid he's going to haul him out of the car before he remembers he's most hacked off at me. The worst I've ever gotten beat in my life, it wasn't by no stepdad or cop, it was by him. "Darrel fuckin' Curtis. Outta every possible way you could've thought to piss me off, you really picked this one."

When I realize we're going down a street that's nowhere near my turf or his, I'm tempted to take my chances jumping out of a moving vehicle. "Where are we goin'?" I ask, hesitantly, though I've got a pretty good idea already. "Luis—"

"Oh, I'm boutta tell ol' Darrel just how much I appreciate him givin' you this new job opportunity," he says. "Just how much I can't wait to hear all about how your first week went. We can really start to reconnect."

This is when I realize he's strapped as I look down at his hip, and when I start to wonder, in a panicked daze, whether the plan is to shoot him in the head in front of his wife and kids. It probably just being a scare tactic is the only reason I don't try to wrestle it away from him. I hate guns, decent shot or not. We pull up in front of the house, when he gets out of the car and hauls me out of my seat, I actually dig my heels into the dirt— I'm no match for him, though, and he tugs me along like a mother dragging a kid through a supermarket, hard enough he practically dislocates my joint. "You think I won't throw you over my shoulder?" Worst of all, I know he will. "You just fuckin' try me."

So to avoid that much indignity, I reluctantly march across their front lawn, while Luis pounds on the door— it's dawning on me that he might not just be drunk, that this might be a lethal combination of alcohol and uppers, enough to give him the lack of inhibition and the manic energy at the same time. "Hey, open up," he demands as he knocks on the front door, and I wonder if it's actually possible to die of embarrassment. Maybe I could go run off into the trees behind their house. Maybe I could find a tree with a branch sturdy enough to contain my suicide attempt.

Darrel answers the door— thank God it ain't one of the kids or something, guess they all understood who was being referred to with 'open up'. He looks at me with blatant pity, like I'm a dog whose paw just got run over— I grit my teeth so hard, I'm afraid they might break into shards in my mouth. "Can't really call this a pleasant surprise, Luis—"

"What the hell are you playin' at," he says through bared teeth, thrusting me into his line of sight, "gettin' Tim involved in your business?" I try to struggle my way out of his grip on my collar and get nothing much in return, except embarrassment. "Lemme make somethin' real clear, he's off-limits—"

"My boy wasn't, though, was he? Turnabout ain't fair play all of a sudden?" Darrel says it like he's expecting a cold snap to come before a hint of snow, about as much as we ever get around here. His expression fades into something else. That pity, it isn't aimed at me, or at least not only at me. "Believe it or not, I took that charge for you for a reason. Jesus Christ, you're the closest thing that boy's got to a father now. This really the most you want for him, runnin' around on the streets with product? Gettin' his brains blown out just like his daddy?"

I can tell what Luis is going to say before he does, the sheer anger radiating off him far more powerful than any shred of sense he's ever had in his head. I want to clap my hand over his mouth, I actually move forward to do it, but I don't move fast enough. "You sure talk a lot of shit for a guy whose wife I've fucked."

In one second, I'm afraid of this erupting into genuine violence. In the next, Darrel bursts into laughter so hard, I'm afraid he's going to give himself a hernia. "Frannie," he calls out to her from her position inside the doorway, "you and Luis gettin' real close and personal now?"

For a second, her face is frozen in absolute mute horror as it appears in the doorway. Then it slackens, so quickly I'm almost convinced I must've imagined it. "I ain't never seen this fool before in my life. He a friend of yours?"

"He's goin' home now," Darrel says, no longer laughing, the easy command slipping back into his voice. Then he turns to me. "Tim, you wanna stay—"

"He doesn't," Luis answers for me, and he's hauling me around by the arm again, got a firm grip on me. He's all about possession, not affection.

I'm about angry enough to kill him, I really am. I want to say he embarrassed me, but to be perfectly honest, there's no one he's embarrassed more than himself right now. "That was a fucking stupid thing to pull," I have enough furious courage to say once we're both settled in the car. "I'd ask if you accomplished what you thought you would, but I ain't got the first clue in my head what you set out to accomplish. Measurin' your dick against his? He's already won, man. He ain't even competing."

I brace myself for the blow, at least the cuff upside the head I probably deserve, but he doesn't hit me. He looks out the window, eyes vacant, and all the anger's drained out of him like water from a sieve. Christ, he can't still be hung up on—

"Forget about it," he says roughly, and I think I must have imagined the melancholy quality of his face, because he gives me a look like he's daring me to object. "You want to bust your ass on some rooftop, you go ahead and knock yourself out. I ain't gonna try to figure out why. But this better not get in the way of the real work you do for me, you hear?"

The truth is, I'm not even sure why I did it, and maybe Luis was right to blow his top— not over what's happening on the surface, over the subtext. I wanted to have something going on in my life that he didn't have his hand in. I'm spinning out of his orbit, no matter how hard he tries to draw me back. And it both thrills and terrifies me, that thought. Having something separate, that he can't touch, can't control.

"So Susan ain't talkin' to me no more, which is bullshit, 'cause I didn't say anything that wasn't the plain truth." Angela plays with her bracelet, a complicated web that wraps around her hand, as she fills me in on all the latest gossip at Millard Filmore Junior High. "Maybe I was a little harsh, tellin' her to go cry to her Barbies, pero like, I don't see how she's surprised no one's ever inviting her to another sleepover, after what she pulled. Betty got a lickin' and grounded for two weeks after her mama caught her with the Jack— Tim, are you even listenin'?"

I am, but trying to keep up with the social machinations of eighth grade girls is a lot more complicated than keeping up with the ones in my uncles' gang— they're a hell of a lot meaner, too. Then, as I process what she's saying, my eyes narrow. "Wait a minute. Y'all are drinkin' at them sleepovers?" I thought they braided hair and gossiped about boys, for fuck's sake. I'm starting to understand why Ma threatens to send her to Catholic school.

She opens her mouth, probably to say something smart, when there's a knock at the door. "I'll get it," she says. "Oh. Hi, Miz Allen."

I don't like the sound of that at all, and I haul ass myself to see who it is— I can already tell she's from the government. This woman's real young, maybe twenty-three or twenty-four, pretty enough that I'm not sure why she had to go into a profession. All bottle-blonde curls and a neatly-pressed sheath dress, her nails painted a shade lighter than her skin. In other words, a bright-eyed do-gooder, my least favorite kind, they can't be bought with any amount of money and aren't yet jaded by the million worse cases they've seen. "Hi, Angel," she says with a polite smile. "Is your mama home?"

"No, ma'am," she says a little shyly, which shocks me. I've never heard Angela sound shy a day in her life. "She's… busy."

Busy getting drunk, we both don't say in front of the nice lady from the state. She got fired from her latest waitressing gig for showing up to work sloshed, and to ease the pain, she's been drinking her way out of problems she drank her way into. Miz Allen's face says you have got to be fucking kidding me. "I told her that I would be coming at four," she starts, then forces herself to smile again as she looks at me. "So you must be Tim. I've heard a lot about you."

"You heard anything good?"

She actually laughs a little. "For the most part, yes."

I don't let her say anything else before I turn to Angel. "When'd we get a new social worker, she sounds like she's been around for a minute? What happened to the other one?"

Miz Allen answers for her. "Mrs. Brown retired, she's livin' in Broken Arrow with her daughter now." Figures our clan would be enough to push her to the brink, we go through case workers like pairs of underwear. I don't even know who Miz Allen is supposed to be assigned to, this time around, we've all had separate ones. I'm briefly terrified it's Angela, but that case was closed back in February. Back when he got a year's probation, and was removed from the home, and that was the end of that. And I'm officially grown now, so that leaves— "I'm here to talk about Carlos, actually."

"We call him Curly," I say, pretty uselessly, like she gives two shits about what we call him besides his government name. "What's he been up to now, huh?"

She cuts her eyes at the door before she decides to confide in me. I can feel her judging, our trashy, rundown house my daddy once decorated with all the bad taste of the nouveau-riche, our trashy, rundown mama who can get three separate reminders from a social worker and still not bother to show up for the meeting— and I don't particularly like it. This is my family and my turf, I don't need some middle class outsider commenting. "One of the conditions of your brother's probation is that he regularly attend school," she starts, real delicate-like, which is when I remember he's still on it. "I can't say that either I or his probation officer have been receiving... glowing reports on that front. To put it mildly. He hasn't been attending the group therapy the court recommended on any kind of regular basis, either."

When I got assessed by a court psychologist, that old bitch said that I had a disturbing lack of emotional affect and very little remorse, and added on top of that that in her professional opinion, I had limited rehabilitative potential— that's part of how I ended up doing five months, while my ex-stepdad got probation and a restraining order. Figures Curly managed to charm one better than I ever could, got sentenced to talking about his feelings in a circle, and he's still skipping out on the opportunity.

"I'll talk to him," I finally say in the firm, authoritative voice I try to use when I talk to my outfit. One I hope sounds reassuring, and probably doesn't, so I add a "ma'am" to the end of the sentence. "I promise, he's goin' back on the straight and narrow." I don't have nearly enough power over Curly, to get him on the straight and narrow, if I did, I would've done it already, but I sure as shit can try. Like I need some social worker sniffing around here any more than Ma does, when I have enough grass stashed in my room to get slapped with yet another possession charge.

She fluffs her blow-dryed bangs with one hand. "I would really... prefer to have this conversation with your mother. I don't think she understands that he could be remanded back into custody, at this point."

I didn't understand that he could be remanded back into custody, either, actually. Figured his endless probation breaches might be brushed off due to his age, figured wrong. And that knowledge hardens my once flimsy resolve— I might not know how to get through to Curly, how to settle my own complicated feelings about our place in life, but I've always been a lot better with concrete goals. Teaching him how to game the system, keep from going back inside, I can sure as shit manage that. Which is why I straighten my shoulders, and I confess something that's a real risky gambit, laying all my cards on the table.

"Ma ain't got her house in order," I say, trying to express as much as I can through a cliché. Maybe it'll get through to her. "You want anything around here done, it'll have to be through me, I know it ain't exactly ideal. But I sure can get through to him, and I will."

I walk into Thanksgiving dinner an hour late, mostly because I didn't even know we were having it— Ma isn't what you'd call a Michelin-star chef, even when she's not too busy drinking Angel's death benefits up to buy food. Honestly, I'd forgotten all about it, period, until I strolled back home to find everyone seated around the kitchen table, my stepdad included. Sonuvabitch.

"You forget some of your shit?" I ask Ed, dumbfounded, as I snatch a roll off the table and shove it into my mouth. Look, in my defense, I'm fucking hungry, ain't sure if I've eaten in two days, I've been on a job. A lot of us take uppers to get through them, and once you come down from those, you could eat a horse whole. "What are you doin' here with a napkin in your lap?"

"You say grace in this house before you eat, Timothy Luis," Ma says with a glare. Like that's the most pressing issue here. "God forbid, maybe cross yourself, too. I swear I raised y'all heathens in a barn."

"What the fuck," I ask slowly, again, because clearly it's not clicking, "is he doin' here?"

I haven't seen ol' Ed since back in the summer, maybe late July, before he packed up his dust-free work boots and Roger Miller records and went back to his kinsfolk in the Ozarks. He's kind of like an alley cat, he comes and goes whenever he pleases, though I still have to acknowledge him as my 'stepdad' due to his sheer longevity. I was hoping that the last time he stormed off might really be the last, but the joke's on me, because he always ends up reappearing like a herpes flareup.

"Dad's back in AA," Curly pipes in, always helpful for some family information. He only calls him Dad when Ma's in earshot, the little kiss-ass, fortunately he's no fonder of Ed than I am— I never quite got in the habit, no matter how much she threatened me. I remember my actual father too much for that. "He just got his first blue chip."

"How nice for him," I say slowly. Angel keeps shoveling her turkey into her mouth— she's Ed's favorite, in large part, because she does stuff like this instead of running it. "Ain't you learned your lesson yet 'bout lettin' any man you let stick it in you live here, Ma?"

I regret it the second Angel's whole body jerks. I regret it even more when Ma meets my eyes, and it's with a spark of lucidity, and I remember that sober, she isn't always such a poor match for me. And worst of all, since she's my mother, I can't always bring myself to land the KO. "That new social worker called me the other day," she says as she spears a green bean on her fork. "I figured I had the right idea, havin' a man around here. Keeps y'all boys in line."

Doesn't she think she's so fucking clever, the way she shoots half a smirk at me, like she's beaten me at my own game. I wish I could say I react at all maturely. Instead, I storm out onto the porch, and immediately wish I hadn't. If it's not one thing, it's your fucking mother. Or her shit choices slapping you in the face.

I don't need to be told who he is. All of us favor our mama to a certain extent— Curly and I got her bizarre dark blue eyes, a color that looks black unless you get us in sunlight, and we all have the curly texture of her dark hair, the same shade. Black Irish, people call us, the exception to the stereotype of red hair and freckles, the youngest Curtis kid's phenotype. But he looks just like my brother, it's obvious just glimpsing both of their faces, the combination of their features. And goddamn, am I really not looking forward to my baby brother potentially growing taller than me, judging by the heft of this guy. He tops six feet, easy, though guys like us don't usually go much above five nine.

"Who are you?" I ask anyway on an exhale, like I haven't already guessed. I like engaging with him on my terms, making it damn clear whose turf he's entering. I'm not sure where he got the nerve to show up here, but I'm pretty damn sure I don't like it.

He shifts, uncomfortably, from hip to hip, and I hate myself watching it, because I see my brother underneath it and all his nervous twitchiness whenever he lies to me. "You know I'm Curly's dad."

"You ain't shit to Curly," I say with a parody of a smile. "Let's just get that clear right off the bat, partner. This is a family holiday. Go the fuck back home to yours."

"I just wanted to see him for a minute," he says, muscles in his face clenching on both sides like elevator cables. Like he has the slightest fucking right to feel irritation with us, this little pissant, this deadbeat. I'm tempted to ask if he ever got a good look at Curly before he took off, or if he just ran off first. "Don't think that's such a big request—"

Yeah, it still hurts me, fucking sue me. I know Curly didn't mean what he said to me, when he snapped that I wasn't even his real brother— if I really push it, I can admit that I'd damn well been baiting him beforehand, reeling from the news myself. I still don't much like remembering it, but what I settled on, it sure as shit ain't shifted. "Everything you ask for is a big request," I say slowly. "You made your choice when he was born, didn't you, you didn't want to be involved? Curly's too nice to tell anybody no, that's why he's got me, to look out for his best interests. If you ever gave a single solitary shit about him, you'll walk away right now before you fuck him up more than he's already been fucked up."