I glanced out the window to reassure myself the truck with its $15,000 cargo was still outside, that no cops were lurking, waiting to drag me down. I couldn't wait for this day to be over, and I wanted it to go on forever. The last day of my life as Tim Shepard, with all the respect and the fear that my name was granted in this town. I would miss it more than I ever thought. I missed it already, with a sick longing.
Kane stood up and regarded me for a moment, his eyes hooded.
"You wouldn't cross me, would ya Shepard?" he asked.
"Fucks sake Kane" I snapped, my frustration boiling over. "You ever known me to shit on anyone in a deal?"
He shrugged, his expression unchanging.
"It's a lotta dope to be flogging off, you got better ways to do it. So what's the problem, if the dope is good why ain't you selling it yourself."
"Your word from the street is slow in coming Kane, if you ain't got no idea why I'm moving this quickly" I replied evenly, holding his eyes.
I saw him make the connection, but I couldn't believe he hadn't thought about it already. Must have got where he did more on muscle and intimidation than smarts.
"And," I added "that's why you're getting a fucking good deal on it. I ain't got the time to play with you, so make your mind up now."
No way would this prick think he had backed me into a corner, try and beat the price down. He nodded, and his stance relaxed a little.
"That's right, took that boy down didn't you!"
He reached out to shake my hand, but I felt suddenly sick. He had only been a boy, and I had taken him down for nothing more than an insult. God knows my own brother gets mouthy enough, but did he deserve to die for it? I pulled my hand out of his grip and hitched my thumbs in my pockets.
"So, if that's a yes, lets get on with things" I said.
Wade stood up wiping his nose with the back of his hand.
"Why don't we back that truck up into your garage and unload then huh?" he suggested, looking abruptly excited and impatient. I remembered feeling the same way myself the couple of times I had taken coke. I had liked the feeling a little too much, and didn't touch the stuff again.
Kane nodded and headed for the door. Then he turned and gave me a strange look, both envy and pride in his eyes.
"You know Tim, you ain't gotta worry about nothing. Ain't no one in town gonna be fool enough to testify against you. Not even those rich brats."
Wade laughed behind me. "Some of 'em might be suicidal, ya don't know."
Kane laughed too, but I didn't see anything funny about it. The soc's weren't like us, they didn't think the rules of the street applied to them. And if I was in jail, how could I scare them out of testifying anyway? Curly would try, but his threats wouldn't spark the fear in people that I knew mine did.
I backed the ute into the garage and Kane shut the door behind it. We unloaded quickly in the cold echoing interior, Kane and Wade laughing and heaving the packages around. I wanted to yell at them to shut up. That this was life, and it wasn't all just a game like we thought, a game where the tough guys never lose.
Kane came over to stand next to me while I counted out the bundles of money he had handed over. I just scanned each one quickly, mentally ticked it off, and chucked it in a bag. Kane knew better than to rip me off, I didn't trust him but I trusted the weight my name carried.
"So what are you gonna do Tim?" he asked, the same question I had been asked by everyone these last few days.
There was eagerness beneath the concerned tone. I guess Kane thought if I was gone it'd be him at the top, with everything that was mine. I felt anger stirring inside, these guys thought they could just step up and slide into my place, like my rep was a pair of shoes I'd left behind. I guess that's the problem with being on the top rung of the ladder, the people standing below are always waiting for you to fall off. Even if their friends, they wanna be the ones with the place in the sun.
"I'm gonna sit back and let come what may" I replied, being deliberately vague.
He would know I was gone tomorrow, but he didn't have to know that right now.
"Yeah" he said, "well least you got plenty of cash to lay low for a while."
He gave me a smile that was genuine, and I wondered if I'd judged him harshly. Maybe he was my friend, maybe he did want me to win.
"See you round" I told him, shaking his hand briefly and getting back into the cab of the ute.
"I'm gonna leave tonight" I told Wade as I drove back into town.
"Huh?" He turned to look at me, his expression not what I'd expected. "Shit Tim, you can get off this you know…"
He paused, his sentence hanging. The loss in his voice stayed with me.
"Tim," he started again. "They can't prove nothing."
"They know it was me, they got witnesses. They put those rich boys up on the stand, who's the jury gonna believe huh."
"I'll testify, say it was self defence, Curly'll back it up."
"Fuck" I muttered, holding back a laugh. The childishness of his argument, the belief that justice was blind and fair. But most of all I was surprised, at how he was trying to hold me here. I knew I was a hero to the kids, that was to be expected. I'd never thought I might be a hero to my second in command too.
"You were the one who told me to go to Mexico" I pointed out to him.
"Yeah" he laughed harshly. "I did. Fuck Tim, no one could ever tell you what to do anyway. I didn't think you'd really go and do it."
"Well I ain't going to fucking Mexico anyway, just some other state."
I felt that strange sad nostalgia creeping in again as I looked out at the high, cloudless sky, stretching out around us. I had never wanted to be anywhere but here. The last day of my life, I thought again. The last real day.
"I ain't staying here in hiding the rest of my life, and I ain't turning myself in. You think I'm gonna put my life in the hands of some jury, let 'em decide if I'm gonna go to the chair or rot in jail?"
"It's all bullshit" he said bitterly. "You know if you were the one dead, they'd be calling it kid's play, just rough stuff gone too far. It's street justice man, why they gotta drag it through the courts anyways. What the fucks it got to do with any of them."
"You sound like Curly" I told him. "He thinks life should be fair too."
"So what's he doing? You'll break his heart if you leave, that kid loves you like nothing else."
"He's coming. Dumb little shit would only get himself killed if I left him to his own devices."
Thinking of Curly, if it was anything like the first time he got his arm fixed, he'd be doped to high heaven when I picked him up. That was just another thing to worry about, escaping in the dead of night with a stoned bloody kid. I slowed as we neared Bucks place, scanning the parking lot quickly, searching the trees, the shadowy places. It looked quiet and empty, I heard only the gravel crunching under the wheels of the ute as I turned in.
"See anything?" I asked Wade.
"Nah, looks clear."
"I'm gonna need a car, a legit one" I added as I parked up by the front door. "Know any for sale?"
"Buck will, I only know people with stolen cars for sale."
"Yeah me too, guess that's the problem with being a hood."
I got out the car slowly, ready to jump back in if I saw anything. I stood by the door for a while and scanned the parking lot, wondering how my life had come to this. I would always be hesitating, always looking over my shoulder. And Curly too. What was I bringing him for? To condemn him to a life outside of everything, never belonging, nameless and drifting. If he stayed here he could live off my rep, he would build his own in time, he could be someone even without me. I rested my head against the pillar of the car, suddenly overwhelmed with tiredness. I had always been the one who held the world, I never thought my own life would slip from my hands.
"Tim, you alright?" Wade asked me.
"Yeah" I straightened quickly. "Let's sort this shit."
I grabbed the bag from the boot of the car and took it inside.
"Tim, hey Tim!"
A chorus of rough drunken voices greeted me as I strolled in, seemed half my outfit had come to hang out at Bucks that day. It occurred to me they were there looking for me, I hadn't seen anyone for three days. They probably needed me to tell them what to do next.
I felt my mood lift as I was surrounded by my gang, the back slaps and handshakes, the admiration in their eyes. This I would miss, the mad love of gang followers for a leader. I was a hero, a brother, a friend, a father, I was everything that they wanted and needed me to be.
I looked around for Buck and saw him behind the bar, watching and waiting. For an instant he reminded me so much of my father that last night of his life, I could hardly breathe. The way he was looking at me, sad and sorry, like he had already seen my whole life ahead of me and knew how it would play out.
I pushed my way through the boys and went up to the bar, knowing if Buck was still looking at me like that by the time I got there I would pound his face in. But he was grinning and holding out a beer, the same kind of admiration on his face as my boys had.
"Lets go out back" I said to him.
We went out to his office and I quickly dished out his share of the money.
"Buck," I said, sorting the piles on a table. "Can you get me a car quick? A legit one I mean."
"You leaving town?" he asked in his slow drawl.
"Yeah, but keep your mouth shut about it. Can you?"
"Yeah, give me an hour or so. Anything special?"
"Nothing too stand out, an Impala maybe."
He nodded and looked hard at me, the sadness touching his eyes again.
"I had a brother go down for murder. He was nineteen when he went to the chair, just a kid. Don't let 'em get you."
I nodded and zipped the bag up again. "They can't get me if they can't find me."
I went back out to the boys, Bucks words playing on my mind. But I wouldn't let that happen, not to me. That would not be how I left the world, strapped into a chair and killed by prison officers. I would fight to the end, they would never get me.
Everyone started talking to me at once, I sat back drinking my beer and listening to snatches of conversation as they broke into one another, getting the picture.
"…the cops fucking kicked down my front door thinking you were at my place…"
"…and Will McIntyre's carrying round a gun now…"
"…they got roadblocks on the main highway out of town…"
"…that soc's parents got a $10,000 reward for whoever turns you in…"
"…they hired that lawyer Lloyd Johnson, and he's gonna ask for the death penalty…"
I nodded and kept cool, casually rolling a cigarette, but felt myself tensing up. I'd heard of Lloyd Johnson, everyone had, he was considered one of the best prosecuting attorneys in Oklahoma. His rate of success was high, his methods rumored to be dirty.
"Tim" I heard Buck calling above the noise.
I looked up and he held his hand to his ear, indicating a phone call.
"It's Curly" he said as we went back out to his office. "I got you a car too, it'll be here in twenty minutes."
"Thanks." I picked up the phone and held it for a second, not speaking. What was I dragging the kid into? If I left him, he would get over it, eventually.
And I remembered the first boy's home we had lived at, in the months after our parents died. Every night Curly would crawl into my bed after lights out, and every night I would pretend to be asleep so I wouldn't have to tell him to get out. I could still feel the way his thin arms had pressed against me, still hear the soft catch to his breath as he cried without making a sound. He never knew I needed him almost as much as he needed me.
"Yeah?" I spoke because the bond between us was the womb we had borne from, and the blood we shared, and most of all the memories.
"You gonna come pick me up still?" he demanded, a plea beneath the rough tone. How could I have thought he would get over it if I left him?
"You get that arm fixed?"
"Yeah, they reset it. Hurt like a bitch, but I told 'em not to dope me."
He wasn't so dumb, I didn't give him enough credit sometimes.
"I'll be there in fifteen minutes, don't …"
"I know Tim" he broke in impatiently. "I won't wait outside, I'll run out when I see you okay?" I really didn't give him enough credit.
My boys were whooping it up out in the bar, slamming back beers, flashing knives, swinging fists. I watched over them for a minute, and it occurred to me that if I came back in ten years time, they would still be in the bar, drinking beer, flashing knives, swinging fists.
I caught Wade's eye and gave him a nod, he came over to stand beside me.
"I'm gonna get Curly, I'll be back soon."
"You wanna wait here and I'll go get him?"
"Nah," I shook my head, thinking of all the tales of cops coming through doors, carrying out searches in every place they thought I could be. The less I was in one place, the better. I went back to the table my gang was at, and their gazes swung to me.
"I'm gonna get my brother, I'll be back"
I bit back a smile, a real smile for them, because they had given me their loyalty, they had followed me blindly. They had made up for all that my parents never gave me.
Again I drove the streets in Buck's ute, and I could feel a slow calm growing over me. Whatever came, I could win in this life. I was born to fight.
I turned into the hospital for the second time that day and pulled up near the entrance. Hardly had I stopped and I saw Curly coming out, his arm held stiffly in a cast. But there was the same swagger to his step, the confident, defiant smirk on his lips. And even as I watched, horror fell across his face.
He opened his mouth to yell and stumbled forward, but whatever he said was lost in the noise behind me.
"Police! Put your hands up, we have you surrounded!"
I turned wildly, saw the cops beside my window, the cops running towards the car, the cops coming in the rearview mirror. The guns readied, aimed.
My life retreated from me, it slowed and turned until I could see everything, every police car, every cop, every gun, the circle they made around me. I saw us all under the sun, and knew my life was over. There would only be steel and bars and doors with locks, and I wasn't afraid to die. I still had time in this slowly turning world, they wouldn't take me, not to a cell, not to the chair.
They wouldn't take me, they wouldn't take me….I fumbled for the door handle, my other hand around my switchblade. I would take one out with me…and I wasn't afraid to die, not in this last bright instant of life. I looked to my brother as he stood on the hospital steps, stiff and still, his face stripped of everything but grief.
And the screams fell down around me "Don't move, put your hands up!"
But I saw only Curly's eyes, locked on mine. The bleak, hopeless eyes of the child who had watched his parents die, was about to watch his brother die.
…and I raised my hands high.
A/N: That was by the far the chapter I found hardest to write, I don't know if I've got it down right, but I think I could rewrite it about fifty times and it still wouldn't sound right so…I guess it'll have to do. Anyway hope you enjoy.
Replies to reviewers:
Starbryte234: Glad you think its okay being long, as I still have quite a bit more to go! Well I've gotten kinda attached to Curly, so he will still be part of the story.
Aslan: Thanks good to hear you liked the last chapter too, I wondered if it might be a bit boring but put it in anyway as I thought it was important to the story. Funny thing about Curly is I never meant for him to be in the story as much as he has been, but the more I wrote him the more he grew on me.
hollistergurl: Aww I thought I was pretty good with this update, it was only a week or so:) I wish I could update more often, but I have a job not to mention a boyfriend I like to spend time with!
Candygurl: Glad you enjoyed that chapter, but every week is the limit of my updating speed. I like to make long chapters, plus I do some severe editing before posting. You should be glad, you wouldn't wanna see the pre-edit of this story! It'd be about 100 pages long already probably.
NittanyLizard: Cool I'm glad you noticed the little detail, nice to know people do. I was actually trying to think up a joke for Tim to say, and realized that I've written him as a pretty serious sort of guy. Anytime I want him to make a joke, it just doesn't work at all. So I figured, I guess he has no sense of humor, that's okay! Sometimes these characters take on their own life, and you can't force them to do things anymore!
Frenchfry44: Thanks heaps, that's a really nice compliment.
Yellowbear: I'm so glad you like the detail, I honestly wonder if I'm boring people to death sometimes! But I like writing everything the way I picture it – it's kinda like a movie in my head – so I put it in anyway 'cause it's my story.
Vripta: Ahh that makes sense, here's me wondering if it was some weird American slang I've never heard of!
This is awesome: Thanks for the review, and the pen name, that's cool of you! Funny you should mention another story, I've had so much fun writing Tim and Curly I was thinking of writing one. Well I have one in mind already, but I don't have time to write two stories at once so it won't be started for a while.
Skateboard101: I'm starting to feel guilty about not updating enough! I try to be fast, but my boyfriend will probably disown me if I spend anymore time on it than I already do. I'm glad you like it so much, it's really encouraging to hear. Thanks heaps.