Curly - The Reunion

You arrive in Illinois shortly after midnight. The motel you're staying at is a shithole of a place, which you guess is better than sleeping in the car as you help your brother unload the last of the bags from the trunk. Angela scampered inside the minute he unlocked the door, citing a headache as to why she couldn't carry her suitcase fifty feet to the room.

Just as you're about to step over the curb, Tim calls you back.

You turn around. "What?"

Under the dim parking-lot lights, he looks tired. His shoulders are slumped, and you have to remind yourself that he's only nineteen and not eighty-five. "Did you know about that? The cigarettes?" he says.

You lick your lips, biding for time. "Yeah. She told me today."

"Fuck." He pulls out a box of Marlboros and lights one. The red-orange tip glows in the dark, casting half his face in shadow. "Would've happened eventually, right?"

You look down at the pavement; toe a piece of gravel with your shoe. "I don't know. Maybe."

"Fuck," he repeats, louder this time. He holds out his cigarette to you, and you take it, the familiar smell comforting you somewhat. You can't recall the last time you had a real, honest-to-God conversation with him, one that wasn't burdened with drugs or girls or the gang, and it's making you anxious. Being with him like this, so close yet so far apart.

"What're you gonna do?" you finally ask him.

"Burn her goddamn fingers off."

"Really?"

He rolls his eyes. "No, shithead, I'm gonna fuckin' douse her in gasoline and light her on fire. What the hell do you think I'm gonna do?" Shaking his head, he turns away from you and starts across the parking lot, toward the motel and whatever is beyond it. "I'm heading in. You coming, or are you gonna sleep outside like an animal?"

The streetlight above flickers, momentarily leaving you in a patch of darkness. "Gimme a minute," you say.

Once the door closes behind him, you bend over and dry-heave into the weeds growing between the cracks in the sidewalk. After you're done, you sit down on the curb and close your eyes, forcing air into your mouth, trying to remember how you got here.

xxx

"Curly. Wake up."

"Mmmph."

"I'm not kidding."

Someone shakes you shoulder, hard – Tim? – then presses their knee against your spine. "Get the hell up, kid."

You open your eyes to a ceiling with a watermark the size of your head, temporarily forgetting where you are. The room is cold and dark, the floor littered with all of your belongings. It takes you a second to notice Angela, who's sitting in the lone chair by the window, the shades drawn over it, running a comb through her damp hair. Tim is leaning against the door, an unlit cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.

"Might wanna get in the shower soon, before the warm water runs out."

You rub the sleep out of your eyes. "What time is it?"

"Seven."

With nothing else to do, you slide out of the bed and fumble around in your suitcase for a clean set of clothes. There's a towel waiting for you in the bathroom, folded neatly into a square on the counter, and as you turn the shower on you try not to think about what happened at the gas station last night.

You were standing at the register, waiting to pay for your soda, when Tim walked in, murderous. He'd sidled up next to you, his hands shaking as he gripped your jacket sleeve, as if you were the only thing keeping him upright. His mouth had bumped into your ear. "Remember when Dad left?"

You'd nodded, not sure where he was going with this. The cashier motioned you forward, his eyes not meeting yours as you'd slid a dollar bill across the counter.

"I was gonna kill him for hitting Angie," he'd continued, his tone making the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. "But she deserved it. Payback's a fucking bitch, Curly." And then he'd punched you in the arm a little too hard (not that he'd admit it, of course) and left, not bothering to wait for you to collect your change. The rest of the car ride to Springfield, you'd thought about those four words, payback's a fucking bitch, trying to decipher it, understand what it had to do, exactly, with you.

Although you stay in the shower for as long as possible, when you're done you still feel dirty, like you didn't use enough soap. You get ready hastily, barely tasting the toothpaste as you brush your teeth and then the candy bar (breakfast of champions) your brother gives you on the way out.

The sun's rising. It's getting into your eyes. You blink, but you can't make it go away.

xxx

Angela leans forward. Her T-shirt slips off her shoulder, revealing a black bra strap. Her mouth barely moves as she says, "I'm gonna wait here."

Tim doesn't answer, doesn't look at either of you. The house you pulled up to a few minutes ago – your aunt Cathy's – is white, with green shutters and a wide front porch. A chair by the front door is slightly off-center, as if someone had just been sitting there but went back inside. You wonder if that was where your uncle Allen would have his after-dinner cigar, or if it is like that because Cathy couldn't bother to move it.

Your brother yanks the keys from the ignition and gets out. You follow him across the recently-mowed lawn, careful to stay a few feet behind in case he turns and sucker punches you. The drive from Springfield to Chicago took five hours instead of three, and he's fucking livid. As he pounds his fist on the screen door, the noise ricochets off the quiet street and into your ears – bang, bang, bang – like gunshots.

There is a thump from the other side, as if something heavy has just fell to the floor, and the door opens. Cathy is smaller than you remembered, frail-looking – she has a clasp of pearls around her neck, and fidgets with them nervously. Her mouth opens and closes like a fish's, and you suddenly wonder if it was a bad idea, coming to a funeral for an uncle you only met twice.

"Did your mother send you?" she finally asks.

Tim speaks for the both of you. "No," he answers. "We came on our own."

Cathy puckers her lips, gestures behind herself with a wrinkly hand. "Come in, please."

The foyer is cramped with furniture, the air stale-tasting in your mouth. She ushers you into the living room, where it is slightly brighter and less cluttered. She perches on the puke-colored ottoman, folding her hands in her lap. You and Tim manage to squeeze onto the couch across from her, though it's tight – you can feel his leg moving up and down as he jiggles it. Detective Shepard, Assessing the Crime Scene. What a fucking joke.

The grandfather clock in the corner ticks twelve times. Cathy tries to smile, but it comes out as a grimace. "You've both grown so much. Is your sister…?"

"She's here," you say. Your eyes wander to the window and what is waiting for you outside. Angela is still sitting in the car where you'd left her, her head down, probably looking for something in her purse. From this distance, it looks like she's praying. You snort – your sister's as religious as a pine cone, and even if God introduced Himself to her, she wouldn't know who the fuck he was.

Your aunt swallows. She chooses her next words carefully: "Honestly, I'm not sure what to say to the both of you. I'm surprised you're here. Allen… he didn't enjoy talking much about his family. It was troubling just to call."

"That's too bad," your brother muses. "He's all she had."

"Unfortunately," she says, standing. Her chin is wobbling; her eyes are wide and glazed over, like she suddenly might burst into tears. You wish she wouldn't. "Pardon me, I forgot my manners. Would you boys like anything to drink?"

"Water's fine." As she walks out of the room, her heels clicking on the hardwood floor, he coughs. He's uncomfortable, his body rigid as stone against yours. When you look at him, his eyes say, go check on Ang. His closed mouth says, stay here.

But you can only do one.

xxx

"C'mon, try it."

"No!"

Lydia shoves the lighter away from her face. Tim groans, throwing himself back against the couch.

It's the summer before you turn ten, the summer after your dad split town and dumped all the bills on the doorstep, and your cousin, Lydia (who is two months older than Tim and proudly likes to flaunt it), is prissy and girly and mysophobic. For the past three days she's been at your house (sadly, she's staying another four), she's done nothing but eat all the popsicles in the freezer and boss Angela around, and you hate it.

The morning she arrived, she'd complained about the "icky" tap water from the sink after Tim said it wasn't filtered. Then, you'd found her in Angela's bedroom, giving her a "much needed" makeover, evident by the tweezers on the floor and the lipstick cap your poor sister was sucking on. Tim had actually tried befriending the chick, which in your book was mistake numero uno. Now, you're silently suffering in the basement, all because he decided to listen to your mother for once.

"Fine," he says. Unsatisfied with her reaction, he grabs the joint from Lydia's fingers and lights up. Usually, he's careful about smoking or drinking (or doing whatever it is he does when he's not at school) around you, but this time he doesn't bother to open a window or go upstairs and outside. You watch him from where you lay on the floor, half-asleep, both mesmerized and slightly nauseated by the pot's skunk smell.

Blue smoke circles around his head as he exhales. Lydia coughs dramatically. "Can't we do something fun?" she whines.

Tim rolls his eyes at her. "Like what?"

"Go out. Isn't there, like, a strip or something?"

You sit up, instantly awake. "The Ribbon?"

An hour later, you're walking down the middle of it. Lydia's stupid mouth is open and her eyes keep moving from one side of the street to the other, as if she can't believe what's she's seeing… And if you were her, you suddenly wouldn't want to, either.

There's been some type of accident; up ahead, the next block, you see two police cars and an ambulance. Blood is on the ground, red and shiny – pools of it – and the overpowering scent of gasoline burns your nose. Off in the distance, over the roaring of sirens, you hear someone screaming. It's not until Tim has pulled you aside, into a dark alleyway and told you to put your head between your knees, that you realize it's you.

xxx

Ten minutes later, you're finally able to coax your sister out of the car. She doesn't accept the glass of iced tea Cathy sets in front of her at the kitchen table, instead nibbling on an oatmeal-raisin cookie Tim shoves at her. It's Monday afternoon, which means the funeral is a day from now. Your brother graciously reiterates this fact.

"You have a casket?" he asks Cathy. He's leaning against the counter, his hands tapping against his thighs impatiently. The scar on the left side of his face that runs from his temple to his jaw – the result of Wicker missing his neck – is clearly visible in the daylight. It's slightly pink and puffy and each time you look at it, your stomach squeezes itself into a ball.

"We…" she starts, then clears her throat. She tries again, "He wanted to be cremated."

"What about Lydia?"

"Lydia?" you say at the sound of your cousin's name, and immediately wish you hadn't. "The one that plucked Angie's eyebrows?"

"She did what?" Angela blurts out, covering her eyebrows with her hands in horror, just as Tim says, "Who the hell else do you think I'm talking about, Curly?"

Cathy closes her eyes. Her lids are pale, translucent, and her face looks washed-out, as if this conversation is wearing her down, bit by bit. "She's coming at three."

Tim speaks around the bite of cookie in his mouth. "Does she know?"

"Yes, of course, Timothy. She doesn't live under a damned rock. He was her father, for God's sake."

For the next few minutes, there's only the awkward sound of chewing and swallowing and ice cubes rattling in glasses. Your aunt excuses herself to the bathroom, the legs of her chair scraping harshly against the linoleum floor. In her absence, your brother takes her seat.

He hands his wallet to you. "Go outside for awhile." It's not a question. To Angela, he orders, "You better start talking."

Grateful for any excuse to escape your brother's wrath, you head down the hallway and push open the screen door, for the first time welcoming the sticky heat on your skin. You hadn't noticed it earlier, but the neighborhood your aunt lives in is so much nicer than your own. Each house has a garage and a fence and actual green grass, not shitty clumps of dirt, in the front yard. All that's missing is a big, dumb golden retriever and a snot-nosed kid running after it.

Because you're definitely not hotwiring Tim's car and driving it anywhere, you follow the sound of traffic until it leads you to an intersection. Across the road, in a mostly vacant strip mall, are cheap stores, places you woudn't normally look twice at – take-out restaurants and dry-cleaning services and a liquor store. And then, standing there at the corner of 107th Street and Western Avenue, it abruptly hits you like a slap in the face: You have Tim's wallet – which means you have money and, more importantly, his ID.

When you step inside the liquor store, slightly out of breath and heat-depleted, the welcoming breeze from the air-conditioning unit in the corner raises goose bumps on your arms. Lucky for you, you've been in enough places like these in Tulsa that you know where the managers keep the good stuff – in the back. Trying not to draw too much attention from a homeless man down the aisle, you grab the most inconspicuous bottle you can find – Smirnoff, which isn't your favorite but will have to do for right now, until you can come back another time – and trudge over to the checkout.

The cashier is old and smells like a mixture of patchouli and rum. His tie-dye T-shirt pulls across his beer gut as he scratches his chest. Gross. "You got a card, kid?"

"Obviously," you respond in a flippant tone, lowering your voice an octave so it sounds like your brother's – deep and irritated. As the man squints at it, you make sure to keep your expression flat and your eyes distant to convey boredom, even though on the inside, you're squealing with joy like a pig rolling around a muddy pen.

"When's your birthday?" he asks.

"November ninth."

"What year?"

Shit. You bite down on the inside of your lip – you can never remember the exact date. "Forty-seven," you guess. It must've been the right answer, because he gives the card back with a grunt and punches a few buttons into the register.

On your way out, you smile to yourself, pleased with the vodka in your hands and the crisp bills in your pocket. This, you realize, is what you've been waiting for. This is Chicago. This is it.