Tim – The Heart

"What the hell did you do to him?"

There is no knock this time.

Angela stands in your bedroom doorway, the hallway light behind her yellow and sagging, how it always is when you're hung over. You should've locked the door when you came home, shoved your dresser against it so she couldn't come in, but you didn't and now you're sorely regretting it. Her body is a mirage and if you blink she'll be gone.

"Fuck're you talking about?"

"This."

She crosses the room, sniffling all the way, as if she's recently been crying, then sits at the edge of your bed. You stare at the piece of jaggedly cut newspaper she shoves at you – she's never had her way with scissors – and frown, the words at first swimming together before coming into focus. Juvenile, Seventeen, Shot to Death in Crescent Park, the headline reads. Underneath, it states in smaller print next to the author's name, Authorities Investigating Local Gang Violence.

The leftover alcohol from last night burns in your stomach, and you look up at her, entirely lost. A thousand words – a thousand explanations – clamor for the spaces between your teeth, and all you can gasp is, "I –"

"You killed someone!" she shrieks. "You fucking took someone's life, Tim! What were you thinking?"

"Jesus, Angela –"

"Wha-what if – what if the fuzz c-come after you, o-or if C-Curly finds out, or i-if –"

Her voice breaks, and she collapses into you, sobbing. Her skin is cold against yours – like a corpse's, you think. Like a kid you might have killed, even though you weren't the one to actually pull the trigger.

You'd orchestrated the jumping, obviously, just wanting to teach the kid a lesson about loyalty, commitment, whatever, until he understood what fucking with a gang leader – what fucking with someone like you – meant. But when Jake pulled out that heater and aimed, you'd opened your mouth and said Stop, the echo of it already in your eardrums, and the boy had looked from him to you, his eyes wide and fearing and somehow empty, as if he'd already died, and then – bang. Game over.

(That has to count for something, right? Not knowing? It has to. It has to. It has to. Please, God, it fucking has to.)

Your arms find the circumference of her waist. "I didn't do it," you whisper into her hair until your voice is hoarse, until you can't say it anymore, until you know it is almost true. "Angie, I didn't. I didn't."

Did you?

xxx

"So this is it," Curly says.

Sometime in the last hour, between your aunt's house and the train station, the sunlight has found its way inside your skin, forced itself behind your retinas. Each time you blink, you see your sister pressed against the car under a halo of lights and mosquitoes; his fingers, clutched around the joint you'd stashed in the bathroom; Lydia's teeth, wide and white and wolfish in the rearview, You son of a bitch.

You've lived in darkness for a long time. Over the years, your eyes have adjusted until the darkness became your world and you could see. But then Angela turned on the light. She flooded your memories and now you are blind.

"Yeah," you say. You think this is what sinning must feel like – a void that must be filled by another void. This is what you've done, Tim, you envision God himself saying to you as he strikes you with a hammer, the words etching themselves into your skin blow by blow. This is what you've done, and this is what you will have to do to correct it. But I wouldn't fucking bother, if I were you, because you'll just dig a further fucking hole in the ground for yourself to lie in.

"I can walk you inside."

He looks over his shoulder at Angela, who is leaning against the back bumper near her suitcase on the curb, pretending not to hear any part of the conversation you are having. "You don't have to."

"I want to."

"It's not a good idea," he argues, and in his voice you hear desperation and pity and the slap you can't take back.

Your keys are in your hand, and you wrap your fingers around them until the metal bites your palm. As much as you don't want to, you force yourself to push the rage away, into a smaller corner of yourself, save it for later when you can drink it all down. "Don't ever fuckin' tell me what I can and can't do, Charles."

He narrows his eyes, lifts his chin a little (like he is a giant and is defiant, like the fucking punk is defying you. What a goddamn prick). "I said, I don't think it's a good idea, Tim. Please."

But he is wrong. He has always been wrong, and heat swells in the center of your chest because you still can't understand why you hit her and why you don't feel ashamed for it (more so, why you somehow fucking can't)and why he has taken her side in this last battle when he should have been on yours. All the fucking shit you put up for him, arrests and coldness and constant self-loathing, and this is how he decides to repay you.

(Slowly, you will find a way for him to hate you. He won't yet, but he will, whether it is two weeks or two years from now, whether you are rotting in the state prison or collapsing under a rain of bullets. In the end, you will either kill someone or they will kill you, and you want him to despise you for it, to think of this trip at your own funeral and remember that this was the last honest moment of your relationship before it was severed in half.

A straight cut, a clean break. A scar that will not completely heal on its own.)

"Fuck you."

He inhales, like he has been waiting the entire time to breathe, and the last words are a whisper, a mantra. A prayer. "I'm sorry."

You are, too.

You think he means it.

You hope he does.

xxx

He finds you in the bathroom.

You're sitting on the edge of the tub, holding a washcloth to your nose. You've lost count of how many times it's broken - this must be the sixth or seventh. For the past half-hour, you've been trying to realign it without looking into the mirror because if you do, you will throw up into the sink and won't be able to stop.

Before you found him that summer, in the abandoned lot, you were able to handle blood. You were attracted to its redness, the way the light would reflect off it - like rubies, you'd thought - at a certain angle. You thought it was amazing, how it could spread over everything, slowly, slowly, like the tide spilling onto the beach, the heady scent of iron a comfort in all of the wrongness that surrounded you. So you searched for it in the dark, welcomed it into your life with open arms when it came knocking at your door, wanting more, always, always more.

But now, the sight and smell makes you sick. You can't look at a single drop without thinking of him on the pavement, curled into the fetal position, his head nearly split-open…

And the blood, so much of it - it was suddenly terrifying, it fucking made you want to run and never look back. You don't know why you stayed, why you knelt down and stared at him in shock, in agonizingly beautiful awe, unable to move as Tommy Waters and two other boys ran the mile back to your house to call for an ambulance…

How the paramedics picked him up, tossing him onto the gurney as if he was a fucking rag doll and not a real person, not your brother, yours -

"They break it?"

The sound of his voice makes you jump, and you flinch. "Yeah."

"Can I see?"Two steps later and he is pulling the washcloth away, his fingertips brushing your cheek. The light blue material is now, your stomach notices with a flip, deep purple. "Shit," he swears softly. "I'll fuckin' kill 'em, I swear.Give me their names, I'll -"

"You're not… killing fuckin' anybody… Curly," you gasp in between winces of pain. "You're gonna take me… to the hospital and not… ask any questions, okay?"

He gives your face a once-over, a small line between his eyebrows, the same wrinkle that your mother would get when one of you would come home, dirty and bruised, after playing outside. He's worried, and he needs to know what happened - to understand that the path you are leading him down is one that has been destined since birth. One that he is, despite all of his efforts, unable to change.

And for the millionth time in your life, you can't tell him why.

xxx

At Allen's funeral, you stand in the back of Saint Jude's, hidden behind a column. The pews are nearly full – of your uncle's coworkers at the bank, your aunt's relatives, your cousin's sleazy friends and their boyfriends – and the mahogany wood of the casket gleams in the light that falls through the stained-glass windows. In the center of it all, Jesus hangs limply on his cross, his head bowed – how yours should be and is not.

You can't recall the last time you went to Mass. It had to have been years ago, once your father had left but your mother hadn't broken down completely, not yet, when she still believed in something that had not gone entirely out of reach. Like the rest of your family, you were baptized Catholic, learned all the prayers and hymns, the names of saints and what they stood for. By the time you were old enough to make your Confirmation, your mother had been disaffiliated from the Church for months.

You aren't sure what you believe in. You'd like to think that there is Something out there, that the cross you wear around your neck on a silver chain represents more than a nice piece of jewelry. But you have been through so much darkness that there is no use in seeking out a light to guide you home. Your eyes have adjusted, your ears accustomed to the sounds of creaking floorboards and small footsteps padding down soft carpet and a whisper of your name in your ear. Everything is too familiar and unfamiliar at the same time and if you turned back now, you aren't sure you would still be alive.

The crowd shifts, a black sea of bodies pressing against each other to get a better look at the six-foot-long box your uncle has been shoved into. Someone coughs, a woman in the third row sneezes. At the front of the church you watch the priest ascent to the altar. He tugs at his white collar.

"Today we are gathered here to celebrate the life of a husband, a father, a brother, a cousin…"

You shouldn't have come, you realize halfway through the service, as one of Lydia's friends holds her up at the podium, where she's reciting a passage from Romans between bursts of crying: For if we live, we live to the Lord (sobs), and if we die, we die (chokes up) to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die (gasps), wearetheLord's (these last four words rush together into one as she clumsily stumbles down the three steps and into the nearest pew).

You have no familial attachment to this man other than the fact that he is your mother's estranged brother and that your middle name is his first. While you have most of the pieces sorted out, you still don't entirely know why they stopped talking - rather, why your uncle kept his distance - after Lydia visited you in Tulsa the summer you were twelve. For a long time, you ignorantly thought it was because she was too much of a snob and had bitched to him when she got back to Chicago that she "hated" you and your brother, the contact between your mother and Allen thus ceasing since their children simply couldn't get along.

But then you found the letters - perfectly preserved in their respective envelopes and addressed to your house - wedged between the drawers of your mother's bureau in her bedroom. This was where she also kept her cash for emergencies - at least thirteen-hundred dollars (you always made sure to replace the amount you'd taken each time, she was the one person you would never deliberately steal from) - and had been looking for ten bucks when you pulled out a brown shipping package instead of a bill.

Instantly, you recognized the return address - 1934 S. Gardenia - from the birthday and Christmas cards Allen and Cathy always sent, how the stamp in the top right corner was slightly crooked, as if he'd pressed it on in a hurry, not waiting for the glue to stick. The timeline of the letters was as sporadic as your mother and uncle's relationship, going back as far as when you were four years old. Sometimes the date would be written at the top of the paper, other times you'd have to guess by the events he'd mention: Cathy's parent's are coming in from Detroit for Thanksgiving… Lyd has a piano recital near Christmas… Wish you were here.

More concerning, however, were the letters' main themes - your deadbeat father, your mother, you and your brother (and Angela, when she came along), or, a couple of times to your dismay, all four.

I know you don't believe me when I say it, but he won't change… He'll get another job, or a haircut, or he'll stop drinking again, and deep down it'll all be the same…

Do you remember the Romanello's, when we lived on Walker? Their oldest, Tony - the one I told you not to date and of course, you went ahead and did so - was always getting into trouble… Children who're raised in this environment, they don't fare too well on their lonesome… With what Tim did, it seems like he can't find a side to play so he's made up his own. Have you tried talking to him about it?

How are the boys doing? And the baby? Work's been real busy, I'll try to clear my schedule so I can visit in a few months.

Here's fifty bucks. Should be enough for you and the boys to come visit, maybe stay awhile. We have a spare room; the kids can share the floor in Lydia's… There's a school nearby they would love… Cathy heard they're looking for a new secretary, she could put in a good word for you if you're interested… Just think about it…

Thanks for letting Lydia stay the week. She really enjoyed her time with the boys. Loved giving Ang a makeover, too - though I don't reckon she needs one, since she gets all her beauty from you…

I want to say I'm sorry he left, but you understand how I feel… It's for the better. If you don't believe anything else I ever say again, please believe that for me, okay?

He'd signed each letter with a simple, Love your brother, Allen. You'd traced the letters of his name with your pinkie finger, noticing the slight dip in the e, as if he'd pressed too hard with his pen. Over the years, multiple times you would find yourself sitting in your bedroom after hearing a bottle smash downstairs, or your mother's raised voice as she pushed whatever drunk ex-boyfriend out of the house ("for good," she'd say, only they would never really leave, just circle the block for hours in their beat-up cars) and the uneasiness would settle in. The worry that everything would suddenly go so quiet in the other room that you would automatically know that something very bad, something you, at last, wouldn't be able to fix, had happened.

You'd wanted to write your own responses back to your uncle, to reach out for a blind hand when you were unable to see your own that was right in front of your face. You'd wanted to ask your mother why the letters and phone calls between her and Allen became shorter in length and then stopped altogether, sometime after your thirteenth birthday. Why she had given up on someone - probably the only person - in her life that was willing to help her cross the bridge you would never be able to carry her over. And why she had, in some ways, given up on you.

You reach for the chain on your neck, slide the cross to the left so it rests against your heart. Saint Jude, you vaguely remember, is the patron for lost causes. The least you could do, you tell yourself as the sermon ends and you arrange your face into a smug expression, is act like one.

xxx

Lydia's friend's name is Amy. Or maybe it's Amanda. Amelia?

Whatever it is, Amy-Amanda-Amelia smiles wearily over her shot glass at you. She is small and dark-haired, the material of her black dress clinging to all the right places, and she is sarcastic and determined to drink you under the table and adventurous and you must be… You have to be too drunk to think that you've never met a woman like her before when there are so many around you that are the exact same at home.

You're in a bar three blocks from the church. After the service ended, you needed a drink and, you'd found out as she'd slid into the stool next to yours, so did she.

I was with Lyd at the altar, she'd explained once you'd made introductions and found out why the other looked vaguely familiar (funerals, apparently, are a commonplace to meet potential hookups). It was so sad.

Very, you'd agreed, taking a sip of your beer, although you didn't think so at all. He was my uncle.

Really? A raised eyebrow in surprise. She didn't mention any cousins coming.

You snort (of fucking course the bitch wouldn't talk about you).

Yeah, my mom was her dad's sister. They were estranged.

She studies you for a moment, resting her chin on the palm of her hand, then: I can see the family resemblance. You have the same eyes and mouth.

Now it's your turn to be confused. How so?

Your eyes are… intense. Like, brooding or something… Like you're unhappy and no matter what people do for you, you're stuck in the same place. And you're frowning. I always tell her she should smile more, that it takes less muscles than to frown.

It does?

So say the scientists. She nudges you with her elbow. I think you should try it, too, Mr. Sad.

You shrug. Don't need to.

Why not?

I'm fine how I am.

Are you sure?

What if I'm not? You're starting to get defensive, the emotions from the past twenty-four hours swirling at the bottom of your stomach into a hard knot.

Doesn't matter if you aren't. But you have to live your life for yourself, you know? If she stopped trying to fix everyone around her, she could focus on what's important.

What's that?

Herself. She was real close to Allen - he made her see things a different way. And now that he's gone… she doesn't know what to do. How to fill her time with something that's empty.

Sounds impossible.

It probably will be, she sighs. But she's my friend, she'll find a way.

A pause while she orders two more shots of whiskey, one for each of you.

Did she visit you often, in Oklahoma?

One time that I remember. Probably other times, when we were younger.

You're the same age?

Yeah. I have a brother and sister, too.

Are they here? Her eyes leave your (brooding) ones for a moment to search the small dark, cramped room, as if she'll see two people that look like you materialize out of the shadows and announce themselves.

Um…

The bartender slides your shot across the counter. You reach for it, grateful that you have time to think of an answer, and down it, the burning taste of what smells like hydrogen peroxide pushing you to continue.

No, you finally say. They couldn't make it.

She tosses back hers. That's too bad.

I guess. You got any siblings?

Two sisters. They're both married, older. One has a kid.

Why don't you?

Haven't found a good guy to bring home.

That a bad thing?

She snorts. For my parents. They wanted me married and pregnant by the time I turned twenty-two. But I'm not like my sisters - I'm not a robot.

Good to know.

I guess, she repeats, leaning a little closer. The top of her blouse is slipping, an inch of cleavage visible, and your mouth runs dry. Are you a good guy, Tim? Would you like to meet my parents? She jokes.

You smirk, playing along. I'm the worst you'll ever meet.

Prove it, Amy-Amanda-Amelia says, and her laugh is magical and soft and something in it reminds you of Angela and how she used to look at you, like you were her idol and she was lucky enough to make eye-contact, and the pressure in your lungs explodes, you cannot breathe.

And then, as swift and strong and deadly as the current, she reaches for your hand and pulls you under.

xxx

In the morning, you open your eyes to a note, folded in half, resting on the pillow beside your head. Six words - Thanks for a great night, Amelia (so her name was Amelia, you notice) - and a phone number are scrawled on the pink stationery that smells faintly of lavender. When you were locked up, your sister used to do the same: spritz her letters with perfume, a piece of home in something that was so foreign and cold.

It takes you a few minutes to locate your clothes discarded around the small bedroom, your left shoe hidden under what must've been Amelia's shirt on the floor. You don't bother buttoning your dress-shirt, just tugging it over your undershirt so it hangs, open, over your one pair of dress slacks. Despite the heavy amount of alcohol you drank the night before, you don't have a hangover, which makes it that much harder to pretend that the events from the last three days aren't just part of a nightmare you can't wake up from.

More than forty-eight hours have passed since your brother and sister left for Tulsa. If all went right, they should be home by now, you tell yourself while you quietly exit Amelia's house and step outside, onto the front porch and down the front walk. You won't allow the trepidation to set in until you're on the road - the fear of not knowing, for once, what war you'll be walking into once you get home, all on your own doing. The temperature must've dropped during the night; a sudden breeze, along with the gray skyline, makes you shiver as you dig around in your pockets for your keys.

An hour south of the city, you stop to get gas, coffee and two dollars' worth of snacks that will substitute for your meals over the next thirteen hours. (Unlike driving here with your siblings, when you had to stop every two or three hours for some reason or other, the only times you plan to do so are for bathroom breaks and fueling up.) Outside of the gas station, you spot a dingy-looking payphone and insert a few cents, holding your breath as you dial one of the few phone numbers you've bothered to memorize.

Twelve rings pass before the other line picks up.

"Hello?"

You clear your throat. "Darry. Hey, it's Shepard. Is Winston around?"

In the background, there is the sound of scuffling, distant voices rising in volume and then back down. "Hey," he at last responds, sounding surprised that you're calling him, of all people. "Yeah, he is, hold on a second."

You do. Another thirty-five seconds stretch before Dallas' annoyed tone fills your ear.

"Shep," he says, already done with you, "look, I didn't slash your fuckin' tires this time, man. If that's why you're callin' me, I don't know -"

Again? you think. Jesus.

"Then fuckin' find out and stop sittin' around on your ass, Dal. And that's not why I'm callin'."

"Why the hell are you, then? Aren't you s'posed to be in Chicago, at that funeral?"

"It was yesterday." Your grip tightens around the receiver in irritation. With him, as in your brother's case, damn-near everything has to be spelled out. "I'm headin' home now. Got a favor to ask for you."

"A big one?" He sighs, and you imagine him rubbing the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger, unable to believe that you want him to do something completely simple for you while you're thousands of miles away. "Listen, I don't got time to be runnin' your little errands for you, Tim. Ain't that what you got them gang members for, to do your laundry and wipe your ass? Or is that Angela's job -"

"Shut up." The slightest mention of her name has made you queasy, and you lean your right shoulder against the concrete wall to steady yourself. "You seen Curly around?"

"Your brother?"

"Yeah, the dumb ass that looks like me. He follows me around, sort of like a dog, 'cept he ain't cute enough to be one."

Dallas thinks. "No, I haven't."

"Would you mind drivin' over later, to check up on him and Ang? They took the train back a few days ago. I wanted to make sure they didn't burn the house down."

"All right," he agrees, and you can tell that he's bored with what you've given him. "Anything else I can do for you, princess?"

"Actually, yeah. Could you tell him something for me?"

"I guess."

You exhale, up until now - the biggest moment - not noticing that you've been holding your breath the entire time. "Tell him that I'm sorry and that I'll be home soon."

He whistles. "Goddamn, what'd you do this time?"

"None of your fuckin' business."

"Whatever, man." He sighs. "You seem kind of weird, Shep. You okay?"

You both understand that's the closest the two of you will ever get to the phrase Are you okay?, let alone How are you feeling?. Over your lifetime, you've been asked this question thousands, probably millions of times before - by your parents, your siblings, unassuming adults who don't really care to hear the answer - and for the first time in a long while, you try to answer honestly.

"I'm fine," you say, and in the silence that follows you almost, almost begin to think that you are.

"He was not dead yet, not exactly -
parts of him were dead already, certainly other parts were still only waiting
for something to happen, something grand, but it isn't
always about me,
he keeps saying, though he's talking about the only heart he knows -"

- Richard Siken,'Road Music'

Author's note- Thank you for joining me in the Shepards' road trip to Chicago in Next Exit. It has been a long road for me in the writing process, at least, and I'm glad that I finally reached its end! Along with inspiration from the epigraph - lyrics by Bruce Springsteen - this story was inspired by the above postscript, a stanza from Richard Siken's poem, Road Music, which I believe applies to Tim in multiple ways you're free to interpret on your own.

For those questioning the second-to-last scene's formatting of dialogue, I didn't put in quotation marks because I wanted to imply a dream-like state. That is, Tim believing the remarks of Lydia's friend don't apply to him at all when, ironically, they do more than ever.

As always, your comments are very appreciated.