As I reached the front porch, the sight that greeted me was as irritating as it was unsurprising. Two-Bit was sprawled there, half-tangled in a lawn chair, hat slung over his face, chest rising and falling lightly. Cigarette butts littered the ground like a vile wreath around a half-empty bottle of whiskey. In the moonlight, it almost looked like a desperate offering to the patron saint of hangovers.
Anger flared up in me. I debated leaving him there and letting the mosquitoes have their feast. It would serve him right for ditching me.
But it wasn't the mosquitoes that gave me pause; it was what Jimmy would do if he found Two-Bit like this again. The man was a ticking time bomb, and the last thing I needed was another explosion.
How would Angela handle this, I wondered?
"Keith, inside," I ordered, flipping the hat off his face. "Now."
He slept on, unbothered. Maybe there was a difference between acting tough and being tough?
The moonlight was catching on the stubble covering Two-Bit's face. Man, he could really use a shave. Suppressing a sigh, I nudged his leg with my foot.
"Hey, wake up," I hissed. "You can't sleep out here."
His eyes fluttered open, red-rimmed and blurry. "Hmm? Connie?"
"Yeah, remember me? The one you left stranded. Again."
I expected resistance, maybe some of his contemptible sass. But he just groaned, blinking up at me through the fog of intoxication as he untangled himself from the chair. Surprising.
It took a minute, but eventually, he managed to get himself upright. Staggering more than walking, he stumbled toward the front door, which I held open with a mix of relief and residual resentment.
Just as I thought we'd made it, a shadow formed in the hallway, and then there he was—Jimmy, oily comb-over and all. I fought the urge to cringe. Didn't this guy ever wear a shirt?
"What the hell is going on here?" he demanded, fumbling along the wall for the light switch.
Oh, perfect. He was just as far gone as Two-Bit and not nearly as easy to handle. Every word that left his mouth felt like stepping on broken glass; painful and meant to wound.
"Making all this god-forsaken racket," he sneered, finally finding the switch. "Gotta turn everything into a damn circus, doesn't he?"
"Sorry, Jimmy," I mumbled, keeping my eyes down. "I've got it. Just go back to bed."
He looked at me then, scratching at his chest hair. My skin crawled, feeling his gaze linger a little too long. He was greasy, in the worst sense of the word. He had a bad habit of treating Mom like she was his property and made a hobby out of trashing Two-Bit. That and the way he'd started eyeing me like an opportunity was enough to make me really hate the guy.
"Go on. Get him out of my sight," Jimmy growled, sticking his fists on either side of his swollen potbelly where his hips were meant to be.
I kept one hand on Two-Bit's arm to steady him, the other planted on his back, propelling him up the stairs. He was moving like his boots were filled with sand.
"Parading around like you think you're something special," Jimmy spat out, his words tainted by the stink of whiskey. "But you ain't special. You're nothing."
My jaw clenched as his vitriol continued to rain down, delivered unabashedly in his sagging, dingy drawers. With every barb, my grip on Two-Bit's arm tightened.
"Just as worthless as your old man ever was."
I winced. Not for me— for my brother, who was too far gone to even register the insult. Maybe that was the point, I brooded, suddenly appreciating the sense in it.
By some miracle, we made it to the top of the staircase and the sanctuary of his bedroom. I tried to ease him onto the mattress, but he collapsed like someone cut the last string holding him up, snoring before his head ever hit the pillow.
So much for not being a chump. 10 to 1, Angela wasn't game for playing nursemaid to anyone. I half-smiled at the thought of her screaming at a tipsy Curly, trying to get out of his own way. That was far more amusing and (probably) more likely.
I bent down to pull off Two-Bit's scuffed boots, laying them next to the bed with more care than they deserved. My fingers grazed the worn leather, and I couldn't help but consider Jimmy's words. They stung more than I wanted to admit.
Two-Bit hadn't always been this hazy, unreliable dupe, though. I could still remember a time when he was different—when we were all different.
That was the year we'd spent almost every day outside. Mom spent the summer locked in her room, a ritual she'd fallen into after Dad left.
We were both kids back then. I was ten, Keith was nearly 13 and was still called Keith. A heaviness had settled over the house in the absence of our father, and we had grown used to navigating the silence, each of us in our own way. But this night was different.
Mom had gone out. It was the first time I'd ever seen her go on a date. Dad had never taken her on one, as far as I could remember. She'd done her hair up real pretty, but I'd felt sick that she was curling it for some strange man.
When midnight came and went without any sign of her, Keith had dug out an old deck of cards, yellowed and worn at the edges. We sat on the living room floor in a circle of light from a single lamp.
"Let's play a game," he suggested, dealing the cards with practiced ease, even back then. "Whoever wins gets to ask the other a question. Anything they want— no dodging."
I skeptically agreed. The game began, the flip of cards mixing with the uneasy silence. Keith was winning, but that was expected. At least he was gracious enough to keep his questions light. Did I know where Mom had hidden his pellet gun? I didn't. Had I been the one that left the window open the night his new radio got rained on? I had. Pepsi or Coke? He knew the answer before he'd ever asked.
"Alright, ask away," he conceded after I finally won a round. His eyes flickered to the clock again. The smile he'd screwed on didn't reach all the way to his eyes but was genuine all the same.
"Why do you make jokes all the time?" I asked, hesitating but needing to know.
He paused, his mask momentarily slipping.
"Jokes make people laugh," he shrugged. "And when people are laughing, they forget. They forget how bad things are, even if it's just for a second."
His sincerity took me aback, but what caught me more was the hint of melancholy in his eyes, a glimpse into the weight he carried. It was something that shouldn't have burdened him yet, but I guess that's why I looked up to him.
"My turn," he said, snapping me out of my thoughts. "Do you ever wish Dad would come back?"
I blinked, surprised at the sudden shift in his line of questioning. "I don't know," I confessed truthfully. I think I'd known he wouldn't come back before he'd even gone. "Do you?"
Keith sighed, his eyes clouding for a moment. "Sometimes, yeah. But wishing don't change nothing, I reckon."
"I reckon," I echoed absently.
He reshuffled the cards with a grin. "Another round?"
We played on, and our wait for Mom was lighter somehow. Keith kept cracking jokes, and I found myself laughing, forgetting, if only for a little while, just like he'd intended.
Looking at him now, passed out on his bed, all those memories seemed to belong to another lifetime, one where the future still held promise. Where did that boy go? And how did we end up so far from that circle of light?
"He wasn't always like this," I whispered to the night, fighting back the emotions welling within me.
But even as I said it, the blackness of the room seemed to absorb my words.