I ain't sure what's so different this time.

When Angel was a baby, dad must have been inside for a couple of years. I don't really remember that. But I remember him coming home in time for me to turn six, although he was gone again before I turned seven. That wasn't his fault though, he got framed by some bastard out of Catoosa who was holding a grudge. Dad got him good when he came home. He was home a long time this last time, like two years at least.

He said he was gonna take me hunting now I'm eleven. I think he meant it, this time. He said we was gonna go out to this place he knew, for maybe a whole weekend, just me an' him. When he got this next job done, he was gonna get a hold of a couple of hunting rifles and we was gonna go have some fun.

Only, when the fuzz came in the middle of the night, it wasn't no hunting rifle they found under his mattress. He didn't go easy. It took three of 'em to get him in the cruiser an' he cussed a blue streak every step of the way. My old man sure is tough.

This time, though, Ma says that he ain't coming back.

I try to find out why, what was different this time, why would they send him to jail forever?

Ma laughs and tells me that, Nah, they only sent him for five years, she means he won't be coming back to us the other side of those five years.

"I'm done now," is what she says, "he ain't never gonna change. I'm divorcing him for sure this time."

Gramma crosses herself and tries to make me and Curly go to church with her but I tell her if Ma ain't a Catholic no more, then no more am I. I don't think I ever was one, whatever Gramma says.

And one day I get home from school to find out we miraculously acquired another new uncle. There's a lot of his stuff around; clothes, work boots (not looking very used, in my opinion) and a stack of lame country music records on top of Dad's Elvis collection.

The records are all that's left, apart from the belt that hangs inside the closet door.

"He ain't movin' in!" I yell, when Ma shows up. "Are you fucking kidding? Dad ain't been gone but a month." It's six weeks really. Six weeks, three days.

Ma's response is predictable. She slaps me across the face.

I slam the kitchen door behind me. And the door to my room. Of course, it ain't only my room. Curly bounces up off his bed, says that he's just as pissed as me and what do I think we should do about it?

I think we should make the bastard's life hell. I think we should let him know he ain't welcome and he ain't staying. He won't be, anyways, they never did before. Not Pete, nor the one with the tattoo of a naked broad on his arm, nor the one who took off with Ma's wallet and Angel's silver christening bangle that Gramma gave her special.

Only this time, something's different. Not the drinking. Not the fighting. Not the noisy, headboard-knocking making up. That all goes on as expected. But a month turns into two, and then six, and Ron is still here.

It freaked me out when he came into the house that first night. At first I didn't connect him with the boots and the records. I thought he'd come to play cards, drink beer, or something. That he'd forgotten Dad was gone. But he wasn't there as Dad's buddy. He was there for Ma.

I don't like him and I like even less that Ma thinks he can take over for Dad. He ain't my old man and I tell him so. I tell him when he yells at me, for coming home late and worrying Ma. Like she was ever worried before. I tell him when he tries to make me get up, or go to bed, or go out or stay in.

And I won't call him 'Uncle' Ron. I ain't a little kid no more, she can't make me.

At first, Curly and Angel copy me. But then one day, Angel forgets. Worse. She's chattering on about something and she calls Ron, 'Daddy'. She don't even realize she does it, goes right on talking about whatever it is. I drag her out in the yard and I tell her straight, I tell her that she needs to mind what she says. I tell her, that she's gotta keep remembering Dad. I did it when I was six and so can she.

She gets a real pouty look on her, an' says that anyway Daddy promised her a new ballerina doll an' she ain't happy that he went away without getting it for her. And she asks me if I think Ron would get it for her.

I think about the fact that she'll be the age I am now when our old man gets out.

I lift the doll easy enough, but Angel complains I got the one with a blue dress and she wanted the pink one.

One time when I'm in trouble again, Ma tells me to fetch her the belt and take what's comin' to me. It's easiest to let her get it out her system and think I'm taught whatever the friggin' lesson is supposed to be. At least she shuts up then. We got the routine down pat. Only, when I look around, she's handed the damn belt off to Ron and he lays into me considerable harder than she ever does. Not as hard as Dad did, though.

I grit my teeth and take the licking. But as I walk away, I tell him what I always tell him. He ain't my old man. He nods and says, real quiet, so Ma don't hear:

"Nah. But I'm here."

I hate him.

xxXxx

So, I'm home on suspension, first time out of middle school, an' the house is real quiet, just me. I like that. I don't turn on the radio or the TV.

Ma leaves piles of crap lying around. She's been collecting her papers in a folder because there's money for a divorce lawyer, apparently, even if Curly ain't getting a birthday present and never mind that his shoes have wore out, right down to a hole underneath. My old ones ain't no better, or he could have those.

I take Curly with me, to lift a new pair of shoes, thinking I can get the right size that way, but he's too excited in the first store and I have to take him around in back and shake him to get him to be cool.

I leaf through the stack of papers. She's gotta prove she was married, before she can get divorced. I know she is, because Dad complained about it enough. 'Suckered into it', that's what Dad used to say. 'Trapped like a fuckin' rat.' And there it is – a certificate, that says James Timothy Shepard...That makes me smile. Makes me and Dad nearly the same. Anyway, James Timothy Shepard and Maria Frances Riley, married in Gramma's church, by the look of it, July 6th 1946.

The next thing I find is my birth certificate. Timothy James Shepard. November 5th 1946. And their names again. I look at that, thinking about how it makes me real as a person. If it was lost, I could be someone else. If I burned it up, I could be anyone I liked. I like seeing mine and Dad's names on the same piece of paper, though.

Underneath, just sticking out, I can see the one with Curly's name on it. His real name I mean, they didn't put 'Curly' down on the paper. I can't think of him as anything else though, don't know who Jerome Shepard is, don't even think he would answer to it. His certificate sits there looking at me. I'm nervous that it might not have the same stuff written on it as mine.

Curly looks as least as much like Dad as me. He looks like me, I guess, in a squashed, short, kind of way. If it don't say the same things on his bit of paper though, would he still be my brother?

One time, real late at night, I heard Dad say something bad about Curly. Ma just cried.

But it's right there and I have to look. I have to.

And it's all right, because it is Dad's name, same as on mine. I don't know why he said what he said, but this piece of paper proves he is Curly's dad. I wonder why Ma didn't show it to him, to prove it. I put the papers back, without looking at anything else.

A face at the window makes me jump. Dom grins at me. He tells me he's cutting class an' do I wanna hang with him? Do I? Dom is cool. Dom knows some great places, places where you can lift bottles of pop from crates at the back entrances of stores, even get cigarettes if you're lucky. He shows me how to light one, how to breathe it without coughing. He shows me a place where you can cut into the high school football field without being seen, but there's just a bunch of cheerleaders practicing and I get bored. Dom laughs and says I will appreciate it soon enough.

When I get home, Ron is there, although he was supposed to be working all day. He ain't no better at keeping a job than my old man was. I ignore him when he asks where I was. He yells a bit and I cuss him out. He's been drinking, I can smell it on him when he grabs the front of my t shirt and shoves me against the wall.

Curly only comes up to Ron's waist, but he's suddenly there, between us, shouting about how Angel fell over on the way home from school and hurt herself and how Ron oughta see if she's okay. Ron turns around and heads out the front door.

When I go to follow him, to see about Angel, Curly snorts with laughter and tells me that she's just sitting on the curb out front, whining about a bruise on her knee, and that they heard Ron yelling from there.

"I don't need to be fucking saved," I object.

"Never said you did." He still smiles like he's proud of himself, or something.

So I get to disappear to my room and Curly gets to be the hero and Angel gets carried into the house and they both get cookies without even asking.

Curly's birthday comes around. And despite what Ma said, Ron gives him a Lone Ranger cap gun and Curly sleeps with it under his pillow and I can't make myself tell him not to.


Okay, who counted? So, it's not that Tim can't do the Math, more that a boy his age back then wouldn't necessarily know it takes nine months...