I probably shouldn't just be taking off from work, but considering the untimely death of our foreman, it's not like I'm entirely sure what we're supposed to be doing anyway. And I couldn't stay there for another moment, sharing generic anecdotes about what a great guy the old man was, what a tragedy all this is. He wasn't always, and that knowledge propels me all the way to the Curtises' porch.

The first thing I notice is their hair, or their lack thereof, even before the swollen eyes and dripping noses— Pony and Soda's cropped close to their heads, when it was approaching the nape of their necks before, Jasmine's dangling awkwardly just above her shoulders, one side longer than the other. "I did a shitty job," Darry says when he sees me, like he can read my mind, in a voice as hollow as a gourd. "I don't know how to cut hair. But it needed cut... Dad would've cut it."

"It don't matter," I say hoarsely. He looks like he just got out of reform school, with that buzzcut he's sporting— they didn't have anything else to take away from us, except our hair. He hasn't been crying, though, his eyes out of focus like he's seeing through a bad camera lens. "Man, I'm so—"

Sorry? How pathetic is that? This isn't my tragedy and isn't my problem— once again, I'm a badly-trained actor blundering into a scene I can't pull off. I don't even have any anecdotes to offer up, about my father's death. For all of Darry's bitterness towards his, I know he didn't feel the same strange mix of dread and relief and anticipation, learning the news. The Curtises are the kind of family where no matter what gets said, everyone loves each other at the end of the day. They're nothing like mine.

But our families are always going to be linked, all the same. Nothing can erase the past, no matter how hard anyone, on both sides, has tried. I came here for a reason, and that reason wasn't just morbid curiosity.

Darry turns to the couch, where the three other kids are sitting in some weird huddle, all sprawled limbs under a throw blanket. "Soda, can you get Uncle Gene on the phone." It's too flat, his tone, to be phrased as a question. "He needs to... you'll tell him better than me, 'bout Mom and Dad. Stay on the line and make sure he understands it's really happenin', see if he can come up here himself, for the funeral, or if he's gonna need someone's help."

I'm inclined to think the responsibility of calling up the family is a little much for a sixteen-year-old kid, especially an uncle I know is going to be more of a burden than a help, but Soda jumps right up and bolts to the phone. "It was my fault," Jasmine says, out of nowhere. "They went out because of me—"

"It was Dad's fault, you had nothin' to do with it," Darry says as he pats her on the head and rubs her hunched shoulders, and I don't ask him to elaborate. He swallows so hard I can see the visible lump in his throat. "They already know what happened, at work? Since you're here and all—"

"Yeah, y'all are in the paper and everything." I pick at a piece of dry skin on my lip, wish I could have a smoke, but I ain't about to light up in the middle of their living room right now. "They want to send some money 'round your way."

"We don't need nobody's charity," Darry says, which is something he's probably fixing to regret once they get the bill from the funeral home. "We'll be okay... we just need to get suits, a new black dress for Jasmine, Soda's callin' up Uncle Gene, the social worker's comin' back tomorrow, the mortician is callin' us back at one—"

He taps his foot against the floor in a manic rhythm while he rattles off the list on his fingers. I feel even more helpless in the face of all that determined competence. "If y'all need anything..." I offer up, like he wants that on his plate too, figuring out what I can possibly give him.

Darry hugs me. It's so unexpected, I stiffen right up in his touch like a porcupine stiffening its spine, and Superman's the kind who makes sure to show off those muscles and crush your ribcage in the process. Both arms involved, too, like we're brothers— in a way I don't remember the last time I hugged my actual brother. "Thanks," he says, all open sincerity. "For comin' here, really, I mean it. But we got everythin' sorted just fine."

I don't believe him for a second, but the selfish part of me— and hell, that's most of me— is relieved to even hear the lie said. I'm the last person who knows how to tell anyone to drop a brave face. I hug him back.

Alex is on the corner I assigned him to. He picked a hell of a day to listen to me for once.

I come by myself, though if I had a brain in my head, I'd be bringing backup, to set an example. Don't bring a weapon, neither, not a pool cue or a length of pipe or a dog chain. I want a more primal kind of satisfaction than that could ever give me. "Hey, Judas," I call out when I see him, pleasantly enough. "You enjoyin' them thirty pieces of silver?"

I have to give him credit where it's due— Alex might be a traitor, but he's no coward. Stares me down cool as you please and even lights a goddamn cigarette, but his dark eyes are flickering like he's an animal caught in a trap. "I have no idea what you're talkin' about," he manages to say, right before I've got him pinned down to the ground with my knee in his back. He's a couple inches shorter than me and gets even less to eat at home, and if I didn't fight better than everyone in my outfit, I wouldn't be in charge of it. He's done for.

My breath knocks against my throat in short, harsh stabs once I'm done, as I lean over him, examine how he's curled up in the fetal position. There's a lot of blood, seeping into the sidewalk, but that's fine, he's lucky I didn't kill him for this. That's what a 'jump-out' in my uncles' gang is. I've been too soft on these fuckers, too sentimental just because we were friends a lifetime ago, that's how I landed myself in this mess in the first place— let his big mouth and bad attitude go unpunished too long. He could've gotten me sent back to actual prison for possession and intent to distribute, not just reform school, and all for what? Because I hurt his fucking feelings?

It ain't pretty, though, what I did. He's not out cold yet, but he probably wishes he was; his face looks like rotten fruit, the way it's been kicked in, leaking blood like juice. His nose is going to, no fucking shit, need reconstructive surgery or the power of prayer in order to work again. And if that wasn't enough, his left arm's caught at an awkward angle, and I heard a snap at some point. Hope he saved some of that dough for his own trip to Saint Francis.

I feel like my daddy, looking up at me from the pits of hell, would be proud. I feel good, so high off the adrenaline it reminds me of the time I did coke with Joe, back in November, can't even feel my own injuries yet— motherfucker bit me at one point. Then I spit on him. "You finally learn your lesson now?" I ask, low and mean and mocking. "You need me to teach it again?"

He rolls over onto his side and vomits, pale green bile mingling with all the red. I'm gonna take that as a yes.

"Good. 'Cause next time—" I make sure to punctuate the pause with a swift kick to the ribs, an unnecessary but satisfying one— "that sister of yours, she's gonna have to worry 'bout the expense of burying you, too."

I'm bluffing. I'm bluffing. I think. Today reeks like death, like bad luck. I need to beat the hell out of here before I'm getting booked for aggravated battery.

I wash Alex's blood off me in the sink, back home, have to scrub with a brush to get it out of the tiny creases in the skin of my hands. My mouth waters from the phantom taste, the iron like liquid sunlight, and I heave all of a sudden, clutch the porcelain lip and then my stomach like I'm the one who was hit there instead of him. I rinse it out with a half-finished bottle of whiskey from under my mama and stepdaddy's bed, swish it around, take a few swigs, but the taste still lingers.

I go to Gabi's house because I don't even know what else to do.

"Where have you been?" she demands as she pulls open the front door, which is a surprise. "I called you three times, but you didn't pick up."

"Your daddy home?" I ask, peering into the hallway. I don't hear anybody.

"No, not Ximena, neither. Diego got arrested last night, for possession," she says irritably, her mouth a long, thin slash. She looks like she didn't sleep all of last night, either. "Papi said he was going to put him out of the house this time, but I think he's just angry, he doesn't mean it. He's trying to get enough money together to post bail and find a good lawyer."

I shouldn't be focusing on him having enough money that he can get a good lawyer, especially after posting bail. I never even knew anybody who didn't have to deal with whoever the county assigned as your public defender, complete with their tendency to lose any documents you entrusted to them. I press her against the wall, knocking some of the shoes on the floor loose from their place, and kiss her instead of saying any of that.

She melts into me like she's liquid, as I cradle the base of her skull, get her closer with my fingers tangled up in her hair. "Are you okay?" she asks, pulling just a millimeter away from my lips, still so close I can smell the perfume she has on— vanilla, maybe? "You look upset—"

I shake my head, a hand braced against their wallpaper, right under a crucifix that's even bigger than any of the ones we have in our house. "I just needed to see you." I don't want to talk about it, I can't even imagine trying to explain what's happened in the past twenty-four hours. Recklessness rushes through my veins like I injected it with a needle. "You want to go upstairs?"

I expect her to say no, but turns out she does.

"I didn't mean to do that," I say once we've wrapped it up. The imprint of my thumb is still livid on her hip as I pull the sheet away and expose her bare skin, threatening to purple by tomorrow. Christ. All I know is how to be rough, even when I'm not trying to be; I lean down, brush my lips against the mark, like that'll make it all better. "Does it hurt?"

"It's fine," she says as my head darts back up, "it's nothin'." And I'm sure it is, to her, but I still sink ever deeper into a morass of self-loathing, like I'm being dragged down into waist-deep sludge with no way out. Like she needs more men leaving their mark on her. "But I know something's up with you, you wouldn't just ignore the phone for no reason. Your mama said you weren't home. What happened?"

I shouldn't be using her as the bottom of a bottle or the barrel of a gun, but I still don't want to confide in her. Darrel wasn't my fucking daddy, he's a guy I barely knew, if I'm really being honest with myself. A guy who wanted to use me to get revenge against my uncle for fucking his wife when he was in jail, more than he was ever interested in rehabilitating me, if I'm being even more honest. "Don't worry about it," I tell her instead, all of it lodging inside of my throat. Like she's the kind of girl who will take that lying down, like I'd get involved with the kind of girl who would swallow my bullshit in the first place. "I'm here now, ain't I?"

"You have so many secrets, livin' your double life," she says lightly, but there's something harder underneath it at the same time. "Sometimes I just want to crack your skull open like an egg and see what's inside."

"That metaphor's maybe a lil' more violent than you intended," I say with a low laugh, trace a meaningless pattern on her back with my fingertip. "You don't need to be involved with my shit, nena, none of it. It's all real dirty."

I imagine trying to tell her that I kicked my childhood friend's teeth in until he vomited blood, that I wasn't sure, when I walked away, whether or not I was leaving him for dead. Same kid I used to wade in the river for crawfish with, the cuffs of our jeans getting muddy as we went deeper and deeper. We ain't kids anymore, though, all of our games gaining an edge of steeliness before I could even process it. He knew the risks of what he did, chose to take them.

"I don't even know any of your friends, much less your—" She doesn't say the word.

"You don't want to. Lord, meetin' the jokers in my family wasn't bad enough for you?"

She sits up and straddles me, and I'd be getting hard again if it wasn't so unexpected, her thighs on either side of my torso. Starts running her hands around like my body's a topographical map, my past written all over the skin. "How'd you get this?" she asks as she traces the jagged scar between two of my ribs.

I humor her. "It's from a broken bottle," I say, "I lost a fight when I was fifteen, in juvie." I'm still embarrassed by how it happened, after I ran my mouth to some new Tiger initiate with something to prove. I spent the last week of my sentence in the infirmary, with a 104 fever, all because that thing got infected.

Her gaze goes higher, to the inside of my left bicep, and my bowels freeze solid. They're shaped like crescent moons, the scars silvery, but still noticeable against my skin. They're too neat to look like a believable injury. "What about this?" She brushes them with her fingertips.

I did it to my—

That's something I could never, ever tell her, right there.

"Fire pit accident," I lie easily, "Curly threw a sparkler into one, the little idiot."

Curly wants to know where Ma is, once he gets home from school— guess even just her presence offers him solace I've never once found in it. The trouble is, nobody's seen her for the past three days, and since Ed's off smoking meth with his cousin Dooley in Stillwater, he's no help. So it's time for my least favorite activity— fishing her out of whatever bar she's holed up in. I find her at the one she got fired from last month.

I don't know how she went from sleeping fourteen hours a day to this, but I miss that version of her, because now she's wearing a black dress that's bunched up around her thighs and cut low at the chest, half on a barstool and half crawled into some guy's lap. The front's damp from where she spilled gin and tonic all over herself. "Ma, c'mon," I groan, "let's get out of here, it's late," even though it's an obvious lie. Maybe she'll believe me, maybe this won't be a bare-knuckle, drag-down fight, but I'm already prepared for one. She's not great with emotional regulation even when she's sober.

"Knock it off, you're embarrassing me," she hisses, like I'm not watching my own mother act like she's in her senior year at Will Rogers. Her red lipstick is smeared all over her mouth, as she turns back to the guy she's with. I pray she doesn't start screaming, really melting down, that we won't have to get the bouncer involved. "I'll be home later, I can't have a break from y'all for one night?"

"It's important, Jesus Christ, you think I'd care enough to get a hold of you otherwise?"

"Think the lady said she don't want to leave," he says lazily as he grabs my wrist, playing the hero, and great, I guess I'm going to have to fight some scuzzy redneck for her honor tonight. His cowboy hat falls into his eyes, and he pushes it back up with his free hand. "You didn't hear her the first time?"

"I'm her son, jackass, you got the wrong idea." Literally came out of her, like she ain't told the story a million times, how I took three days and Curly popped right out. I jerk myself out of his grip and bite back the urge to hit him— I've done enough of that for one day, and whoever he is, he ain't worth it. "Hey, Ma, let's get a move on, huh? For some reason, Curly misses you, else trust me, I'd just leave you to it."

"She ain't old enough to have no son your age," this guy just keeps running his mouth, and the worst part is that it's true— Ma's thirty-five, and to be honest, she looks younger. When at the same time, I'm pretty newly eighteen, and cops have been assuming I'm legal ever since I was too young to go to Will Rogers. "Why don't you cut the bullshit already—"

Ma pitches forward out of her chair like she expects me to support her weight, and I do. She's got some maternal instinct somewhere in her, at least when she hears Curly's name mentioned. Then she slides a bar napkin with her sloppily-scrawled handwriting at him. "Call me tomorrow, sugar, okay?" So much for all that crap about 'being a family again' with Ed, though I wouldn't really mind him getting replaced.

That's just what moms do. Something wells up in the base of my throat, like nausea, like regret. I don't have the words to express this. Maybe I deserved a better mother, but hell, it's me. Maybe I turned out this way because of her. Maybe I don't want to try to untangle cause and effect right now.

It's still early evening when we step outside, but it's already pitch black out, and I have to haul her across the parking lot to get her into my truck. "His friend's parents died last night," I say, "the Curtises," though that's burying the lede all right, describing what they are to us.

"I could not stand that man's wife," she says instead of offering any condolences, as she teeters into my passenger seat. "Lord, did she always have her nose in the air like her shit didn't stink, like she was too good to live in this neighborhood with the rest of us."

This is a pretty psychotic thing to say even for her.

"Oh, you don't agree with me, do you?" she says as she senses my disapproval, her voice all cold sweetness like lemonade with too much sugar. "You wish you could've had Frannie Curtis for a mother, don't you? Bakin' chocolate cakes for breakfast, checkin' over your homework every night?"

I still don't say anything. Mostly because it's not something I can imagine too well. If Frannie Curtis had raised me, there wouldn't be enough left of me to be recognizable.

"You love me, Tim?"

That one I can't even begin to try to answer.

"I don't like you at all." It's not fucking news to me, but it still stings. "Me an' Lois Cade, we was talkin' the other day, 'bout how we've done everything for you boys and you run around like little hoodlums in return, gettin' jailed and Lord knows what else. But I still love you. You ain't gettin' another mother and I ain't gettin' another son. We're just stuck with each other until we die."

I exhale hard through my nostrils, as I crank my key in the ignition. "Let's just go home, Mom. You're drunk."

I can't sleep that night, for a lot of reasons, even after I smoked a joint by myself— turns out it had the opposite effect than I intended, heightening my senses and anxiety, the sheets scratchy under my skin. I could get up and get a drink, I suppose, but I'm not sure how much I want to start mimicking my stepfather, until I can't sleep without something at all. Curly breathes too loud next to me, twisted up in the blankets like a spider caught in its own web. He's still awake too.

"I dunno what to say," Curly's voice drifts across the room to me, small and anxious. "Or even if I should say somethin' at all. Everything sounds so damn stupid, 'they're in a better place'. No they ain't, they're just fucking dead."

"Sure you do." I try to sound reassuring and probably fail, that's never been my strong suit. "Santi died. Dad died. You've known dead people before."

"He was your dad," Curly says, "not mine. And I told you—" he reclines up on his elbow, I can see his shadowy frame in the streetlights coming in from the window— "I don't remember Santi real good."

"You still remember him some, don't you? That's better than most kids your age, 's better than nothing." I roll over onto my side, the way I like to sleep, pressed up close against the wall. I'm not trying to brush him off, or maybe I am. I'm just exhausted, the weight of the day bearing down on me, and if Curly's relying on me to be his social coach, that's when I know it's a day that's better off finished.

"Tim?" he asks again, though, just when I've come close to drifting off to sleep.

"Yeah?"

"If Ma died— I mean, what would happen to me and Angel? We're not eighteen yet."

I scramble. There is no way, in the event of Ma's untimely death, that Ed's going to stick around long enough to adopt these two. "I mean... Meemaw would take y'all in, I reckon." Meemaw is a sixty-year-old alcoholic whose liver is barely limping along, and to be honest, I'm wondering if she'd want the responsibility of them either. The idea of Luis or Alberto showing up to a courtroom for anything but their own sentencing, much less being awarded custody of minors, is laughable. I think both of them have active warrants. "Maybe Tía Mercedes—"

How in the hell do we have so many relatives and zero people who can be relied on?

"Gee, Tim, that's your answer? That you'd give us to Meemaw?"

I know what he means without him saying it outright. "No judge is gonna give me custody of no one, Cacho," I say gently to soften the blow, I haven't used that nickname for him in a while. "I just turned eighteen in November, Lord. Not to mention me bein' a hoodlum and all." I'm not even going to be off probation until next summer.

"Darry's takin' custody," he says, which is news to me, though it shouldn't be. I don't remember any Curtis relative other than the parents, apart from their schizophrenic Uncle Gene, being in the picture. "So that they don't have to go to a group home or nothing." He sits all the way up, the blanket pooling around his legs. "I ain't dumb, Tim— I mean, yeah, maybe I am, but I ain't that dumb. I know why the social worker's here."

"She can't do that— she's with juvenile justice, not child protection. Tell 'em to send you back to reform school, maybe—"

"You never listen to nothin', you don't know what she's been sayin', and she can always just tell someone from child protection again. She thinks Mom's doin' a bad job, she was hollerin' at her the other day—"

"Hollerin', uh-huh—"

"Fine, she was whispering real loud at her, sayin' that it's her fault I keep goin' in and out of juvie, that I'm in the gang and stuff, even though I want to be. She said we're 'victims of our environment' and that's why we don't know how to act any better." Jesus Christ, where does she even come up with this shit? Victims of our environment? Curly's been making victims since before he was out of grade school. "'S bullshit, though, and I ain't goin' nowhere. I'll run away, even if the place has bars on the windows, they can't watch me around the clock."

I try to keep my voice casual. I fail. "She know about Angel?"

This ain't the first time that social services have come sniffing around our doorstep— between our mama's chronic inability to feed her own kids leading me to steal from the school cafeteria and the mysterious bruises Curly and I got from our 'uncles', not to mention the automatic investigation that gets triggered whenever one of us is locked up. But there's all that, and then there's what happened to Angela. Miz Brown was happy enough to rubber-stamp the case closed, after she figured even Ma wasn't likely to take him back, but she was an inch away from retirement and never liked our clan to begin with. If Miz Allen gets a whiff of this, on the other hand, somehow I doubt we're getting off again on another 'improvement plan' to crumple and throw in the trash.

I'll live with the guilt that I didn't protect her until the day I die. But she belongs here, with her brothers, who at least try their best.

"Okay, yeah, forget me, losin' Angel's the real issue—" If I wasn't across the room, I'd punch him in the arm. "No, she don't, how would she? 'Least I don't think so, ain't like nobody's been chompin' at the bit to tell her."

"Good. Keep it that way, and let me worry about everything else. And go to sleep already, Jesus," and this time I let myself add a little bite to my tone, before I'm up past three in the morning again listening to him yap. I know he won't, though, and I won't either.