I'm walking. I don't want to be home and I don't want to be at the yard.
If Angel or Curly was at home, I'd probably stick it out, but they bugged out early when Ma and Ron started revving up to an all night fight, so I don't got to be there.
Angel has a lot of friends, she's always having dinner someplace that isn't home. She does a good line in 'charming house guest'. She never did forget that quiet and smiling works on adults, although I guess she's a different kind of cute, now that she's ten.
Even Curly has kids he hangs with. They could be at the yard. I wasn't much older when I started hanging there. But tonight I don't feel like it. It ain't like I'm embarrassed about what Dom had to do. 'Sides, my nose is all healed up. I just don't feel like it. Sometimes I want to be on my own, savvy?
Dom talked to me late one night, just us. Sometimes one or two of the older guys stay over at the yard, but this time Dom sent them away.
Dom said that I'm turning out real good. He said that the store job I pulled showed guts, but he can't say that in front of the others. He said that he's sorry about my nose, he tried to do it clean and it's better than broken ribs, because those are a real bitch to heal.
I like that he trusts me more than the other guys. He's about the only person I trust back.
I was going to check out the park, but there was a whole bunch of kids with a transistor blaring, so I walked further. Everyone's getting the most out of the last week before school starts again. Winston lives somewhere around here, I think. We bumped into each other over the summer, once or twice. Had a pretty good scuffle over something I forget now.
A football lands in front of me on the sidewalk and I almost get knocked over as a couple of kids spill after it, shoving each other as they try to reach it.
"Hey, Shepard." Two-Bit Mathews grins at me, holding the ball up out the reach of a dark haired kid. He's got more'n a couple of inches on him, so it looks like he's winning, but the kid slugs him a good one in the gut and Mathews folds up like a paper bag and drops the ball. "No fair! Steve, you lousy, stinkin', cheat," he yells after the kid - Randle, I remember him now – as he races back onto the grassed lot they came from. Then he looks at me. "You wanna play?"
Before I can answer, Winston appears, cussing Mathews out for leaving the game stalling. He don't seem surprised to see me, just nods. I like that about him. It ain't that he's exactly watchful, it's more that he's just unshockable. I follow him and Mathews. I don't know why.
"Got us another player," Mathews announces, even though I never said I was playing. "Y'all know Tim, from school?"
I don't know all of them, not really. I shared maybe one class with Mathews in middle school. When we was both there that day. It ain't like you need to be there all the time. We passed okay, didn't we? Frankie Campbell's repeating, but that's 'cause he missed a chunk of time when he was inside. I mean, they're supposed to give you lessons in the reformatory but we all know how that shakes out.
They're all looking at me. I figure the littlest one for a Curtis, he looks enough like Stupid Name.
"I ain't playing," I snap, just to put them straight.
"No shit? Tim Shepard, don't play well with others? Shocker." Winston smirks.
"You sore, 'cause the circus wouldn't take you when you ran away down here? You hadda settle for the rodeo?" I shoot back, pulling a face at the cowboy boots he has on. He narrows his eyes.
"You wanna go, Shepard?"
"Any time, Saddle Bronx." I beckon him on, but Stupid Name pipes up:
"Dally, leave it alone, we got a game goin' here."
I take in the two lines – Stupid Name, Randle, Winston and some dark haired kid I don't know, lined up against the little kid, Mathews and Big Brother Curtis. Big Brother nods hello at me.
"Go help them out, Tim," Mathews says, pointing me to stand with Winston. "We're killing 'em, ain't we, Pony?"
I have no idea what he's talking about, or even if he's talking to someone in particular.
"That's stupid," I hear myself say. "If I'm gonna play, I should even it up." I go towards Mathews but they all yell, 'No', at me. Except Big Brother.
"Come on our team, they already got Darry." Stupid Name says this like it ought to mean something to me. And then I remember that Big Brother – Darry, yeah, that's it – is some big football star already, over to the high school. Guess I'll find out how big, next week, when school starts and I'm up there.
They make a huddle around me, talking like it's gonna make any kind of a difference, like it's some real game with a real plan. And then the ball is in the air and they're all piling into a heap after it. I didn't even want to play – I don't even know how to play, if I'm honest. But it don't make no difference I can see. They throw it, I catch it, they yell for me to throw it back and then, before I do, every fucker lands on top of me.
"Shit." Winston looks at the blood on his arm, as they all get back on their feet.
It's not his, it's mine.
My nose is bleeding like a fucking fountain.
"Tilt your head back," Mathews suggests.
"No, forwards an' pinch it," Big Brother – Darry – says. It don't stop. He offers me his hand to pull me up. "We'd better go to our house. Soda, go tell Mom what happened."
Stupid Name races off, Randle with him, and for some reason I'm letting the rest of 'em herd me along to a house up the street. We go around in back and up some steps, the two little kids running inside. A woman comes to the door and holds up her hand to me and Darry.
"Right there'll do, boys. I just washed this floor." She shakes her head a little and mutters something that sounds like, "Stupid really. I don't know why I bother." Then she's looking at me closely. "Oh, honey, that's a doozy. You want to sit?"
Only when Darry's hand on my shoulder makes me sit on the top step do I realize she was talking to me. Sitting feels like the right thing to do. The blood long ago ran over the side of my hand, holding it under my nose is just a habit now.
Mathews and Winston are estimating how much blood I've lost, in loud voices. Mathews is up to a gallon, before Winston points out that I'd be dead if it was that much.
The woman has a dishcloth in her hand. "Here," she wipes my hand and presses the cloth under my nose. "It's clean!" She reacts when I pull away. I wasn't worried about the cloth, I just didn't expect her to do that.
"Sodapop," she calls, sitting by me. When he doesn't appear, she tells Darry to go inside and bring me a drink – she asks him my name and he tells her. She's pinching my nose kind of hard and I try to move away again.
"Honey, your nose always bleed this much? Or should I be calling your mother?"
I stare at her. I can't even begin to work out how the two questions are connected. Why would Ma be interested? And why is she still calling me 'honey', if she knows my name now?
"I dunno. It got broke a coupla months ago."
"Someone broke it for you, I heard," Winston crows. I lash out with my foot, but he's out of range easily, snickering.
"Dallas." She don't yell, but I notice that he shuts up.
Big Brother hands me a glass of something.
"Wait." She's moving the cloth back slow and...gentle. She pulls a face. "I think it's stopping. Have your drink. Darry, bring him a cookie, he's white as a sheet."
Just as I drink, I feel a fresh drip of blood run out. The Curtis mom takes the glass from me and the pinching and the cloth start all over again.
"What did the doctor say about your nose? Did he say it might bleed a lot until it was fully mended?"
What doctor? I guess my puzzled look tells her that answer. She frowns.
Stupid Name and Randle appear, munching noisily, as they jump down the steps. Darry's behind them, handing stuff to Mathews and Winston and the mom. I know the cookies in their hands didn't come from no packet. This is not my kind of place.
I'm aware, suddenly, of all of them watching me. It feels suspiciously like sympathy. I don't like it.
"I'm outta here." I stand up.
"Timothy! Sit down. You're going nowhere until I say so." She ain't shouting but even Winston snaps to attention when she speaks. In fact, they all shuffle backwards some. She's still got her eye on me. What should I do?
I sit down.
Aw, I didn't write Mrs. C for a long time. I missed her.
This was possibly the fluffiest chapter. The next ones are...not. In case I need to persuade you to hang around. :)
