We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.

-D.H Lawrence

#

Crack-Crack-Crack-

Lacey whipped her head toward the sound of gunshots.

"Welcome to screwed-up suburbia," Lacey yelled above the clatter of gunfire watching Benny and his posse gathered beneath rows of palm trees sprouting from grey concrete, leaves swaying in the hot sticky air.

"K.O.S forever ese!" Benny shouted taking another cracking shot at a line of bottles glimmering in the blistering afternoon sun. They all stood in their in ill-fitting suits, ties cast away, shooting beer bottles off blue trash cans. Some of them were already stripped down to their white sleeveless vests; black bandanna's hanging from their left pockets as they gathered around weight lifting equipment in the backyard.

"Where everything is completely fucked up" Danny said clearing his throat, face flushed red as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"Careful my cynicism doesn't rub off on you" she smiled giving him another sideways glance through heavy lidded eyes. The whine of an aeroplane ripping the bleached blue sky rumbled around them, blue like Danny's denim shirt, Lacey thought, psychedelic like his tie with the whirls and swirls of it drawing her closer to him.

"Oh yeah, I bet you're highly contagious" he murmured dipping his head close to hers again. In a great effort to avoid his eyes, Lacey fixed her eyes onto his tie. It didn't seem like him, it was too jolly, too jazzy. It looked like something his granddad could have worn during the Chicago jazz scene, something Danny could've rustled up from some battered old cardboard suitcase in the attic. Then Lacey remembered that he'd been behind bars only a few weeks ago. He was still wet behind the ears, fresh from juvie and he probably had dug the tie up from his grandfather's old clothes in some dusty attic. It was quite sad, beautiful even and the closer she got to him, his hair, the more she felt him. Danny smelled like the wild trees around them and she suddenly wanted to bury her hands in his hair.

"I should be quarantined" she chuckled softly.

"Former cheerleaders turned misfits should never be quarantined. You add colour to the world." Danny said looking at her like it hurt to look at her, brows furrowed and eyes committed to the outlines of her face.

"Did you read that off a hallmark card?" Lacey scoffed rolling her yes.

"Are you drunk?" he whispered but she could still hear him above the vibrating music, above the cacophony of voices, gunshots, bleating aeroplanes, hooting cars and barking dogs.

"Do I look sober?" she raised an eyebrow as she watched the movement of his lush lips.

"You look beautiful" Danny said licking his lips before he swallowed. His shoulder was pressed up against her shoulder, part of his sleeve brushing her hand making her skin tingle.

'Don't look at me like that" Lacey said shaking her head. She felt him seeping into her skin, heated and uninvited. Someone cleared his throat, yanking them both from the moment and they jolted up propping firm and square against the wall.

"Danny, "Cesar greeted, hovering over them with a toothpick dangling from his mouth. He rose like a gaunt shadow even though he was barely six feet as he floated above them blotting out the sun. Plumes of white smoke veiled his olive face as he puffed out a haze from his cigarette.

"Cesar" Danny jerked up, the name tearing past his lips. His brown eyes narrowed as he looked up at him before the gangbanger collapsed next to Lacey.

"Vamos hermano" Cesar slurred, stroking Lacey's arm and glaring at Danny "Let's go shoot some bottles" he said slipping another hand behind Lacey's neck to caress her tattoo.

"I can't handle a gun man, it's a parole violation" Danny insisted, his eyes following Cesar's hand as it massaged the back of Lacey's neck.

"Fuck your P.O, tio" Cesar laughed tossing his head back "Here, take the piece" he said flashing out a gun from his waistband and handing it to Danny.

"No, mano" Danny protested, holding up his hands as Regina bounded for the group waving her mobile phone around.

"Lights, camera, action" Regina laughed as she stumbled back slightly, an obvious effect of the keg she had been consuming earlier.

"What are you doing?" Lacey asked looking up at the redhead. She shielded her eyes with both hands, blocking the fantastic glare from Regina's camera phone.

"I'm documenting" she replied winking behind the lens of her mobile as she adjusted the video settings.

"Come on; get that thing out of my face"

"I'm filming here. Sex, lies and videotape"

"Come on Danny; tell me what your fantasy is?" she teased focusing the camera toward a flushed Danny. She wrapped her fingers around Danny's loosened tie, tugging at it teasingly until he slipped it off his head and handed it to her.

"You want an unadulterated emotional outpouring?" he asked toying with her "You sure you can handle that?" He asked as she secured the stolen tie around her neck.

"Hey, I'm the queen of sexual pervasion, "Regina laughed "next to yours truly over here" she added jerking her head toward Lacey.

"God, Regina is nothing secrete to you?" Lacey hissed through clenched teeth "We just buried Rita!"

"Perverse is fucking killing yourself, besides she wasn't even my friend"

"You are truly damaged" Lacey said scrambling to her feet before Cesar pulled her down and draped his arm around her shoulder.

"You wanna talk damaged, look in the mirror princess" Regina yelled waggling her finger down at Lacey.

"Hey, callate puta" Cesar barked, his eyes cutting holes through Regina. Her jaw snapped shut and she retreated back like an injured dog.

"Andale, "Cesar said, flicking the toothpick to the ground and motioning for Danny to get up "We're taking Lacey home"

#

Danny thumbed through the mail eliminating all the redundant adverting brochures and set aside the monthly bills. It was a great pile of urgent notices and pink slips sitting on the kitchen counter. They were late paying the bills again and she was buying him fresh-out-of-juvie gifts. Who did that, where was the logic? He loved his mother but there were times like now when he was caught between love and another feeing he couldn't understand. It was the feeling of a father who wanted to chastise his children but it was also the feeling of a man wanted to protect his family. If love had to be reinvented in order to last, did he need to keep reinventing the love he felt for his mother or was that the only unconditional love that existed?

He was leaning against the kitchen sink, picking at a bowl of cereal when his mother came into the kitchen. Speedily, she swathed her nurse's uniform over the ironing board and began to hum a soft tune. Danny watched as Karen hunched over the ironing, pale and frail as if she was stuffed with sawdust and might collapse down on the linoleum floor at any moment. Time, Danny thought had diminished her into a tattered ragdoll. She had seen too much, been through too much and Danny's prison term had taken its toll on her. He didn't need to keep reinventing his love for her, he decided. His love for his other was as constant as time and the universe, it would always be there.

"I'm gonna take it back" his voice croaked, eyes clinging to the wiry veins in her hands.

"What?" Karen looked up, tired and weary with dark circles under her eyes.

"I'm gonna take back the watch"

"Why?" she stopped her ironing, hands flying to her scrawny hips.

"'Cause I think we need the money" Danny shrugged his shoulders, gulping down the rest of the milk from his cereal bowl. It was an act his mother always found deplorable.

"Don't be ridiculous, it was a gift"

"An expensive gift, a gift you can't afford"

"You let me worry about what I can and cannot afford. I want you to try and be a kid for once" she commanded, pushing strands of hair behind her ears as the grief inside Danny's chest grew and stifled his breathing.

"I'm sixteen and an ex-con, I'm no kid" he gulped back the pain rising up his throat.

"You think that makes you a man because it just makes you stupid"

"I just want to take care of you" Danny whispered, his heart growing heavy.

"You can't take care of me. I take care of you, that's how this works" Karen smiled weakly as her son circled around her to squeeze her shoulder, "now go get that education" she laughed hoarsely.

"Yes, mam"

"And Danny," she called as he neared the screen door "stay out of trouble"