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The last time he’d seen Johnny Cade, the boy was just fresh off a seventh birthday no one had bothered celebrating, thin arms trailed by deep bruises shaking as he held the hems of a too big shirt, twisting and stretching the already stretched and dirty fabric, standing by the door, staring at Andrew’s backpack. Andrew remembered thinking, well, he’s going to have to see this, then, before sticking his brother’s, Johnny’s father, last paycheck inside the backpack.
He felt it was justice, stealing it. Getting back for years of unpaid babysitting duties, of being beaten until he needed hospital visits none of them could afford, of being the only one taking the trash out or throwing away rotten food or cleaning vomit and piss from the floor and the walls. The house smelled like shit, but it didn’t smell like they were hiding a corpse, and he deserved something for being the only one who ever tried.
Andrew’s brother should’ve known better than to let him learn where he hid his emergency alcohol and betting money, anyway. His nephew would’ve to understand it.
His nephew would’ve to understand a lot about that afternoon.
How Andrew left him, seven and too short to reach anything, all alone with no idea of when his parents would come back. How Andrew left, stolen money and stolen household items on his person, knowing Johnny would take the heat when his parents learned about it. How Andrew ruffled his hair, and told him ‘made you a sandwich, big man', and simply left him to the terrifying feeling of being so young and so alone, with parents who’d beat him before ever comforting him.
How Andrew never came back.
Not until the funeral nine years later, at least.
He’d dreamed of it for so long: his brother dying. It was his favorite fantasy back in middle and high school, that one private little day dream where the man could be underground and Andrew could be safe. He was twenty five, then, and hadn’t thought of him in a very long time, by punishing any memory of his past life in Tulsa drinking so much even the thought of thinking about them made him too sick to do so.
There’s a hint of a vicious victory in his heart while watching the priest speak, but mostly, he felt empty. Mostly, he thought of Johnny and how small he’d look the last time Andrew saw him.
When he found him later, the boy still looked small. His eyes were the same, those dark, vacant things dropping to the floor, though now he had a scar a little under them, a nasty freshly healed cut on his cheek. He had the same tense line to his shoulders, the same twitching and shrinking like he was trying to make himself so small he’d be ignored. It’d never worked. Making yourself forgettable only made you safe if your tormentors needed an excuse to hurt you—not so much if they went looking for you every time something shitty happened in their lives.
“Sweet sixteen, huh?” Andrew touched his shoulder and didn’t care when he tried to flinch away, shocked. “Come on, I need a smoke.” Johnny looked back towards a group of boys that had to be his friends. He seemed to want help. They seemed to want to help, if help involved violence. “You and me gonna need to solve what happens to you now, little man.”
And, with that, he had to walk with him out of the church.
It’s very obvious what’d happen, really. The house had been Andrew’s father’s, had been split fifty for fifty when he died between him and his brother since they were the only ones in the family that stayed with the old man and stayed away from legal trouble, was now all his because the sucker put his name on the inheritance knowing damn well he didn’t have a single pot to piss him or any valuable in his name besides the place, ruined down and near worthless itself. Andrew’s almost sure he’d only bothered writing up a will at all when he was so piss poor to hurt his son by not mentioning him.
And when it came to the son, well. He had other uncles and one aunt, but Andrew’s three other siblings were either in jail or should be, and had skipped town even sooner than him anyway. It was impossible to find them. It was no good to even try. There’s only one person he could end up with. He’d hoped Johnny’d noticed and prepared himself, and Andrew told Johnny just so, as they smoked near his car in the church’s parking lot.
Johnny’s fingers were trembling, but Andrew decided he could be kind, just then, and pretend he didn’t see how close to crying his nephew was.
-
He remembered the first time he’d met the future Mrs. Cade.
Andrew was eight, then, watching his brother sneak Luiza Torres into his room, the smell of her too sweet perfume, the sound of her too loud laugh, their drunk stumbling around. His own mother had long dipped town with her teen daughter in her tails and no care for her youngest son, so Andrew was all too used to their father bringing home women too into their alcohol to care for the state of the house or the man touching them, enough so to understand the thumping of the bed for what it was, to be able to recognize the soft sobs he heard when he woke up in the middle of the night some time later.
He knew his brother enough to understand that had likely been Luiza’s first time and that hadn’t stopped him from throwing her out of his bed the second he got his fix.
He knew Luiza from name and fame, too, ‘cause everyone that side of town knew she was a nasty little bitch, and ‘cause he’d heard his brother had been seeing her and she’d tried to cut up Rosalía Barker’s face with a broken beer bottle ‘cause she’d kissed him. But that night, Andrew had sat by her side as she cried on the curb in their front lawn, and when she controlled herself a little, she took some shaky breaths and lighted up a cigarette with a shaky hand, and let him take a drag, the first he ever took.
She watched him coughing breathless with sharp dark eyes, full of loathing and hurt. She’d spat, “Ain’t none of you Cade boys worth a fucking thing, huh?”, without any idea she’d been the one to give out to the world the next Cade boy not even a full nine months later, born baby pink and too small, screaming, premature, hated, just as good as if he’d been stillborn.
When his brother got the news, he drank so much Andrew almost thought he was trying to kill himself, and let himself fall at that same curb, head in his hands sitting right next to his own puke. Andrew sat with him, ‘cause he’d been wanting to sneak out of the house before his father saw him, only his brother caught sight of him and called, slurring, for him to come.
He’d been too terrified not to obey, but he hadn’t slapped Andrew. He only gave Andrew a swing of his bottle, shaking his head, laughing when he choked at the burning and almost spit it out. He’d ruffled his hair, when he’d never done that ever before, and said something so slurred Andrew still didn’t know what he’d possibly been talking about, only that it sounded something between kind, mean and plain condescending.
Those were probably the best memories he had of both of ‘em. If anyone asked, it’d be the only memories he’d be able to tell them that hadn’t ended up in screams or blows.
It was nothing worthy telling no church about, though.
Nothing good enough to make the loss hurt, for sure.
-
Andrew used to babysit his nephew a lot, but he was no good at it.
He was nine when little Johnny was born, and sixteen when he dipped out of town, which gave them a good seven years were, every time the other Cades couldn’t be bothered to care for their son, which was almost all the time, they would just dump him with what so happened to be a kid young enough to not be able to stand up for himself properly, but old enough to keep both alive. Not safe, not quite: since ten, he always had Johnny on one arm and a cigarette on a hand that definitely should have been busy steading the baby not to risk him falling or hurting himself.
When Johnny got a bit older, he definitely started just giving him shit to do and keeping as close of an eye on him as his parents did, which meant a very neglectful kind of care.
And then, when Andrew himself turned thirteen and more firm, Mrs. Cade used to promise to pay him up and then refuse adamantly to do so, and Andrew never bothered getting away from the kid before they started yelling at each other about money. He’d called her a bitch and a cunt and a pussy enough times in front of him they’d all suspected it’d be his first words, and even though Andrew didn’t feel guilty for any of it, he knew it wasn’t the most functional of ways for a kid to be raised.
Andrew had definitely been around the kid’s mom slapping him when he was so young he was still learning to walk, but Johnny’s first memories probably were about seeing Andrew being punched by his brother, with how often it happened, so it evened out on the trauma they gave each other.
Besides, Andrew’s father had already gotten himself killed by the time the boy was three, which was real unlucky of him: the old man made Johnny’s parents look like saints, but for some reason, the only person in the family he didn’t absolutely beat to a pulp any chance he got, and seemed in fact absolutely enamored by, was little Johnny Cade. He worked a lot, back in the old junkyard, and when he came back Andrew would get so afraid he’d almost throw up, only for him to take Johnny off of him and take good, genuine care of the baby as if he wasn’t the same man who used to beat his own children and girlfriends until they pissed blood.
Sometimes he liked to think he felt guilty about abandoning the kid and leaving Johnny to be his brother’s punching bag. Mostly, Andrew was just too happy not being punched anymore to care that much about who took his place, and only felt guilt when he remembered feeling it was something a better, good person would do.
In the end, he knew the truth: they were all damn lucky the kid hadn’t died. Andrew dipped to save himself pain, but it would’ve taken only one day left on the care of another kid who didn’t know how to give a fuck, only one of his father’s benders making his hands a tiny bit heavier, only one of his mother’s fits landing a little closer to his head—only one little moment their luck faltered, and he’d have had to dip to save himself the legal trouble of being sixteen trying to explain away the death of a seven year old.
Johnny Cade’s survival was nothing short of a miracle, in a cruel and petty family that fought against it every day.
Maybe it was spite, in a way, that made him go over all the trouble of keeping the boy. He’d cared for Johnny for seven years—shitty care, yes, and had been free from him for longer than he’d been suffering there with him. But it was care all the same. It was seven years, still. He couldn't just give the kid up to be handled by the government, even if he’d given him up to be abused by his parents years ago.
God, could one be a deadbeat uncle?
Really, how much could he truly own to a kid he had no say in making? Andrew wasn’t the one fucking girls raw and then making everyone’s life a living hell because he had to drop out and deal with the consequences of teen pregnancy. His brother had done that, sixteen and stupid, sixteen and dating an even dumber fifteen year old. They’d made the mistake. Their father had beaten his brother and told him he’d have to get married instead of getting rid of the pregnancy like he wanted to. Andrew didn’t do shit besides deal with the violent fall out that took away completely their already violent home.
Could he be called a deadbeat for not caring about what happened to his abused nephew for nine years? He felt a bit like one, staring at Johnny just then.
Johnny didn’t have a jacket, at least not a good one. He didn’t have good shoes, or a real mattress to sleep in, or a bedroom for himself, which was almost amusing, because even Andrew used to have a mattress and a room. It felt like a deliberate kind of cruelty not to give him Andrew’s old room, especially when opening it up showed him the space wasn’t being used for a whole lot.
His brother had always been deliberate about his cruelty, until he was so furious he only cared about hitting you as much as possible, in as many places as he could reach. So it made sense, he’d make his son sleep in the living room while they had a good enough bedroom wasting away. It made sense, he wouldn’t give his son clothes, would very clearly not even feed the thing properly.
Andrew told him to sit the fuck down in the living room, after they’d came back from talking to some fuck ass lawyer, and tried to find something that wasn’t half rotten in the kitchen he could give him. Tough luck. He ended up getting a trash bag and just dumping every single disgusting thing he found, and ended up so disgusted and entrailed by the chore he’d almost forgotten Johnny. Was perhaps taken by surprise when he went to take two full bags outside and saw him on the couch.
“Fuck,” he snapped and tried to pretend he hadn’t jumped, startled. Johnny was as quiet as a ghost, even back then. He’d forgotten that. “Oh, help me with this. We won’t be having any dinner while this house looks like some crack house where someone happened to kill a bunch of people and then killed themselves.”
Too soon, perhaps, to joke about murder suicides. Johnny flinched, but he jumped into action.
Andrew would take a guess he, too, had been suffering to try and make that place even a little bit organized despite the adults who certainly broke anything he cleaned seconds after, and that he too had been itching and daydreaming about everything he’d get rid off if his mom wasn’t such a controlling bitch with a hoarding problem. God, half the shit he’d stolen from her he knew he couldn’t even sell for much. He’d just taken because he knew she’d go crazy.
They finished the house’s trash bags before it looked even half presentable, but the kitchen, at least, didn’t have anything rotten and moldy making it a danger to all. Looking through the dusty cabinets and crusty fridge, it seemed there was not a single thing they could eat either.
“Shit.” He shut the door more violently than he’d meant to and looked back to his nephew. “You wanna go grocery shopping?” He didn’t seem particularly eager, but Andrew only snorted. “Tough luck, then.”
Johnny was very obedient, if nothing else. He’d forgotten about that too, because it was very easy to forget shit about Johnny. That he was quiet, that he obeyed without asking, that he was so unobtrusive it was hard to remember he existed even when he was right by your side.
He followed him to get groceries, reached everything Andrew told him to get, didn’t ask for a single thing, didn’t look Andrew or anyone in the eye a single time, and when they were back in the house and Andrew got on cooking, he went to sweep the living room floor without a word.
Andrew, thankfully, was a better cook than he’d been when he was fifteen and trying to feed himself, trying to make sure Johnny wasn’t so thin and starved he was at risk of blowing with the wind. Actually had some grown up money he could use to buy them fresh ingredients, even if he’d have to be real careful with it until he found something in town.
He’d got to wipe the stove clean before touching it, got to take out most of the plates out of the cabinets to wash them again because they’d been put away still dirty, besides the state of the sticky, disgusting table and countertop. By the time he had anything resembling dinner ready, it was way too late, and going to call for Johnny let him see so perfectly how the boy thought he wouldn’t be eating that night, as if Andrew was the kind of ass that’d make him help him get the groceries and then wouldn’t let him eat none.
Andrew mulled over it, as Johnny gingerly made himself an almost empty plate. Bruskelly, he took the plate out of his hand and filled it a bit more himself, before shoving him towards the crooked table in the corner.
Because Andrew wasn’t selfless, nor particularly good, he said as soon as he sat in front of the boy: “First thing first, I’m gonna need to change the mattress on the main bedroom, ‘cause I’m not gonna sleep on the same bed your parents made you, you dig?” Johnny made a face, but he didn’t comment on the fact he mostly definitely wasn’t made on a bed. Not very talkative, his nephew. He stared at his food and nodded, small. “Then, as soon as I get a job and get paid, I’m gonna get you a real bed. The month’s almost over anyway. Then—well, shit, I don’t know yet, but it’s not gonna be hard finding something else to fix. Meantime, you need some money for food? Clothes? Cigs? I can give you twenty, tops.”
“I don’t need anything, sir.”
“Fuck off.” He rolled his eyes, ignoring when the kid flinched. “I cleaned your wet shit for months after you were born ‘cause your mom was too busy drinking to care if you got a rash. Call someone else fucking sir, won’t you. Come on.” He reached. The kid’s flinch was even more violent then, but Andrew just put a ten dollar’s bill on the table. “Fucking take it, Johnny.” He let his eyes watch his face as he hesitatingly took it and packed it. “Your dad did that?” he asked, gesturing to the nasty scar on his cheek, and Johnny’s grasp tightened on his fork.
“Some rich kids did.”
Andrew nodded. “You got some hits in?”
“It was five against one. Lucky I even got out alive.”
The almost didn’t went unsaid. Andrew frowned. “And your friends? Blond one from church seemed like he wanted to kill me, ain’t not one helped you out?”
“Weren’t there.”
“And after?”
“I don’t know who did it.”
“Well, I’m not gonna give you a fucking curfew, and if you have some friend’s house you like to sleep in, that’s on you. God knows I never slept in this junkyard. Just let me know so in case some shit does happen I know to look for you. And don’t get in fights, ok? This,” he gestured between them, “is conditional, and it ain’t even because of me. You get in trouble with the cops, you get taken away and I go back to New York. So it’s on you to make sure that doesn’t happen. The whole feeding and buying things for you, that’s my part, and I’m gonna do it. But shit like that scar of yours can’t happen while I’m your guardian.”
“I didn’t go looking for it.”
“What were you doing?”
“I was just—I was sleeping in the lot.”
That, too, Andrew understood well. Some nights you just couldn’t find a friend’s couch to crash in and, by that, even an empty, cold lot was better than Johnny’s parents. Most nights, Andrew hadn’t had nothing but some empty, cold street to hide on.
“Then I make sure you don’t need to do that and you make sure you ain’t walking alone where the rich kids can find you. That’s the ground rules. I guess I don’t want to see any drugs in the house, but I can’t stop you outside, as long as you don’t get in trouble. Need you not to get in trouble, you understand?”
He worked his jaw, squinting at the meat on his plate as if it had personally hurt him.
“Yes, sir.”
Andrew rolled his eyes, but he let it go, for now. “Wanna ask me something?” The question was answered with an awkward pause, the kind that made clear just how much he was itching to say something. “I’m sure you must have at least one question, Johnny. Just throw it.”
“You went to New York?”
“Best place to be if you don’t want to be found.”
A joke, of course. Andrew doubted anyone had ever bothered looking for him. Johnny, if possible, made himself even smaller and tenser. “What’ you do for work?”
“Was a line cook. Will see if I can get somethin’ like that.”
Andrew’d liked the job. He’d liked food, for all he hadn’t been fed most of his childhood, and he’d liked the other guys, for all they could get so loud and snappy during hush hours he’d end up all jittery, craving a smoke or a fight. He was a damn good cook, and he was paid damn good money. Used to be. Fucking dead brothers, making things so much harder. Fucking nephews, making it all impossible.
“Work ain’t good here,” he whispered. “Not like New York.”
Andrew watched him. He shrugged. “Not gonna take you away from your life. Trust me. Been there, done it at your age, it’s a drag.”
They left it at that, because there was no need for them to delve into the first years of Andrew in New York City, a high school dropout without a hint of experience to his name, homeless, half of an alcoholic, half of some even worse kind of addict, stumbling bruised and scarred through streets that weren’t made to soften any kind of fall. It wouldn’t be like that to Johnny, even if Andrew had decided to take him there, but it would be nothing good or safe, anyway.
They both got Tulsa, with its small stakes rumbles and half baked gangs, the same low seemering class war one’d find anywhere else in the country. No need to show Johnny the real deal—with him looking like some little dark pup who’d been kicked too many times, Andrew knew they’d eat him alive.
-
The last place he had in New York, he kept an extra room. It was a stupid game only he was playing—no one he knew had a guest room in New York, the same way no one he knew in Tulsa did. They had roommates, families, people filling every available space and paying for it, and he used to tell his friends his rent was so good it was cheaper than getting a one bedroom apartment, but that was just bullshit. Stupid goddamn guilt showing its ugly head unprovoked, just as he was looking for some new place after his last landlord tried to up his rent. It’d never showed itself before or again, not as strongly, not as present or noticeably.
It didn’t change shit.
He’d still kept it.
-
Andrew stayed one week washing dishes until his palms almost bled in a rundown dinner before he got a better offer at some high end restaurant the Socs liked to go to. It was the kind of fancy place that’d been impressed by the last fancy place he’d worked at, not even because of the real experience he’d got, but mostly for the comments they’d be able to make to the clients about a cook from New York, one that’d learned with a chef a lot of them were likely to recognize, who’d worked somewhere they certainly would know by name.
It paid well enough, but with the looming uncertainty of how much keeping a child alive would cost him, Andrew still took some shifts washing dishes on weekend nights. Because of the money. Not because of the crawling feeling staying at that house made him feel.
If nothing else, Johnny was as glad to be out of there as him, so much so it was hard that both of them crossed paths. There were some mornings right at the start Andrew’d taken him out of bed earlier so they could clean up the place and make some space for Johnny in Andrew’s old room, and they’re both happy the house looked even closer to presentable. Besides that, the interactions were minimal.
In the middle of his second week there, Andrew stopped the boy before school, grabbing Johnny’s arm, uncaring to the way he startled as if hit and stared at him, terrified, tense, ready to run, unprepared to fight. Andrew spat, “You wanna starve yourself, kid?”
“Sorry?”
Andrew let go of him, huffing. “You didn’t touch dinner.”
“What dinner?”
“The one I left for you in the fridge. Why the fuck are you acting dumb?“
“I’m not!” He swallowed. “Sorry. Didn’t see anything.”
“I left a note.”
“I didn’t check the kitchen.”
Andrew didn’t ask why. He guessed when you went sixteen years knowing your kitchen would only ever be filled with empty beer cans and old, moldy food, you didn’t get in the habit of checking it when you got hungry. Even more so when going to look was just a way to put yourself in the way of people you didn’t want to be around. He scoffed, and took out his wallet to give Johnny an old, crumpled up bill he’d been meaning to use to buy himself something to eat before work.
“Buy yourself some lunch, and then when you get home, there’re leftovers you can reheat. I don’t want to see none of this skipping meals shit under my roof, you hear?”
“Yeah,” he whispered, and ditched the house as fast as he possibly could.
He didn’t know what surprised the kid the most when Andrew actually got him a bed. That he’d made a promise to get him one and kept it, or that he’d made a promise to get a job and actually went and got one. Johnny’s parents usually didn’t do none of those things.
Andrew fixed what was now Johnny’s door, which didn’t lock and didn’t close right since Andrew used to sleep there and his brother had broken the knob, and then changed the shower of the only bathroom, which had been more close to broken than working since long before Andrew was born. Had to change every facet of the house and then take an entire day off work taking a look at their plumbing.
After, he got Johnny the first half naked girl in a poster he found, because he heard normal teenage boys liked those kind of things and, more importantly, it worked to hide the hole Andrew’s brother had punched on the wall once, ten years before. Found him some curtains, because privacy was a rare thing on that fucking neighborhood.
For himself, he’d only really cared about getting a new mattress. One of his friends sent him the rest of his shit and once Andrew got his clothes, his books and his kitchen equipment, he didn’t think anything else mattered. Johnny having a space for himself was taken care of, and the boy was eating everyday, ‘cause Andrew noticed the good restaurant leftovers he brought home weren’t just wasting in the fridge anymore.
It was all alright.
They just hardly ever saw each other. They just hardly ever talked.
Andrew just cooked all day for a bunch of rich fucks who’d spit on his face if they saw him in the streets, but were all too happy to call him out of the kitchen to give him their compliments, shake his hand, ask after his old chef with their best politician smiles. Sure, he got paid better than any greaser he’d known growing up—not enough he’d ever be able to bring Johnny out to sit down at one of those fancy tables, to eat the same food he made and took home, fresh for once.
That fucking stung and he knew, he knew he couldn’t hide his hate when he went to talk to them. His supervisor warned him about it.
It was easier in New York, somehow. Weren’t the same families of the kids who bullied him in school, sometimes even the same kids themselves. Weren’t families he kept watching, thinking their sons could be the one who gave Johnny that scar, staring down at hands, at rings, at the arrogant curling on their lips.
He had friends in New York, more than he’d ever had in Tulsa. Andrew had been a lot like his nephew when he was young, quiet and nervous around everyone; skipping more classes than going to them, hiding away to smoke alone, tucking himself in some little empty corner to stare at nothing and hug himself. When he wasn’t hiding or at school or drinking alone, he’d been taking care of Johnny. It was easier with the life he made away from the Cade, but even then, sometimes pulling out any genuine sentiment or kind conversation still felt like pulling out his own fingernails.
Not even the other greasers had liked him. Always too abrasive, too cruel, too uninterested in what they thought was fun. It was hardly respected, and certainly never liked. He didn’t have the social charm or the looks to make his coldness seem like something interesting to be explored, and didn’t have the loyalty to make into any gang. That was the worst part: not having any sincere loyalty to give was as good as being dead, in that side of town.
Besides, well, there was something else that made Andrew different from the other greasers. He didn’t know if they could tell it. He’d always been too terrified they could to ever cultivate any real friendship.
It was a strange thing. He’d found himself a home in the city—a family, a community. Strange, to go back to being nothing, putting all his smiles to phone calls from far away friends.
Maybe not so much the same as Johnny, then. Andrew hadn’t ever had friends in Tulsa who’d go to church with him, to hold his hand during service and stare down some deadbeat uncle later on. Hadn’t had friends who’d go to his house every morning to take a peek at how things were going within the house and with his face, or who’d let him sleep in their couches almost every night, or who’d make so perfectly clear through stares and sneers that touching him would be a bad idea.
Johnny, clearly, didn’t need to get out of there to make himself something. It made it painfully obvious Andrew couldn’t just take the kid away like a selfish part of himself kept wanting to.
Perhaps that had been something, to his brother. The jealous knowledge that he had a child, one with all the potential and time in the world, no hated wife, no pregnancy scandal, no dirty work or dropped high school degree. The vicious thrill of having all the power over him, when he had no power over anything else—all the power to destroy all the potential there could be.
Andrew found it hard to feel the same. Johnny made it hard to feel so, with those damn eyes of his. But he couldn’t pretend the dark, cruel Cade side of him didn’t see it, like: ain’t no Cade boy worth a thing; like: ain’t no Cade ever going to fucking college to waste money, so take those damn books out of my fucking table, boy, or else; like: stay on that fucking floor and see what ya’ future is gonna look like, if ya’ think ya’ gotta chance of getting out.
Like: boy, ain’t no one else gonna get to be the first to get it right, if I fucking didn’t.
Like the oldest fucking trick on the book, really.
-
He took Johnny to get himself some new clothes, ‘cause the boy’s were far too small and frayed even for a greaser, and while most of the changes Andrew did he did without asking input from him, it seemed like in that front Johnny’s opinion was more important. Let him choose himself a couple of shirts, some jeans, a good jacket, patting himself on the back as he watched Johnny from the corner of his eye as he drove them home.
“You starting to need a haircut,” he commented, his eyes going back to the road ahead, but not before Andrew could see Johnny’s whole body tensing, ready.
“Don’t know.”
“Don’t know?” echoed Andrew, the corner of his lip twitching. Johnny looked stiff and awkward on his seat. A bit terrified, like a prey animal who caught sight of the predator.
“Thanks for the clothes. I don’t need nothing else.”
“Ok.” Andrew looked at him and laughed. “If ya’ sure. But you know, I gave you your first haircut, didn’t I? Not that you would remember that, you were three. I was twelve, ‘course. Was some half baked, crooked shit I did on the kitchen floor with a dull switchblade, but I sure tried to make it not too ugly. Your dear father kicked me in the chest so hard that I was pretty sure I broke a rib, when he saw you.”
Though, that probably had nothing to do with the dangerous mess on his toddler’s hair and all to do with the fact Andrew’ brother was drunk, and he was angry, and Andrew was around. Johnny flinched. “I—I think I remember that. Just the kick.”
“Yeah, I guess the haircut wouldn’t be that important of a core memory after the beating you had to see. If ya’ need me to give you another one, it’ll end better, at least.”
He swallowed.
“No, thanks, sir.”
Andrew used to have a girlfriend, right when he got to New York, who tried to cut his hair, when he was always way too broke to pay for it and every cent they got went to booze and cigarettes and dope. She was so pretty, but so shitty at it, and it wasn’t like he kept his head straight, so Andrew just started shaving it. Still kept it shaved: all the grease gone, ‘cause he’d never been a real greaser anyway.
He had cut hers, though, and better than she ever cut his. Had given some of his friends haircuts through the years, some odd partners here and there. Wasn’t great at it, but he could get by. Could offer to those so broke they couldn’t afford anything better.
‘Course, the way Johnny was looking, he clearly thought the offer meant Andrew dragging him by the hair and cutting him with a switchblade, hair and scalp and all. So. Better to drop it, really.
Andrew drummed his fingers on the wheel.
“That’s ok,” he told him. “I ain’t your parent or anything, Johnny. You gotta relax, ‘cause really, I ain’t making you do shit. It ain’t my monkeys.”
Johnny clenched his jaw, but he didn’t answer, eyes locked on the car window. Dropping it it was, then.
-
Johnny brought the youngest Curtis around, sometimes.
Andrew remembered very little about their oldest, Darrel, who was still five years younger than himself, and so had no memory of some kid even younger than Johnny. Well, there was the fact he had a weird name and Andrew got some vague recollections of Johnny babbling about the boy after meeting him in school once, but nothing else.
He didn’t look much like Darrel, but he did look like Mrs. Curtis. Same hair and same eyes, though Mrs. Curtis had never looked as judgmental as her son, that Ponyboy.
He looked like he wasn’t sure Andrew was any good to Tulsa, or to Johnny, or to life. It couldn’t be said that wasn’t a fair look, so he mostly left them alone. There wasn’t a lot to do there anyway, and even if they did do a lot, Andrew wasn’t home enough to see.
When he’d caught Ponyboy around once or twice, it seemed more like a test from him than some show of trust from Johnny. He could see it from the alert glances he sent to Andrew moving around in the kitchen while he followed Johnny to his bedroom, to the just barely crack on the door he surely thought fooled Andrew, but made it very clear that he was overhearing him talking on the phone in a way Johnny never would’ve. If he did, he wasn’t so naively obvious about it.
There’d been one night Andrew was sure he’d heard someone banging on Johnny’s window at a devilish hour, and later after he’d already gone and then came back from work, he’d been sure it seemed like two people had eaten both breakfast and lunch there; from what’d been taken from the fridge, from the number of clean plates drying on the sink.
He was sure Johnny stayed a lot of his nights at the Curtis’—couldn’t fault Ponyboy for needing to stay at the Cade’s for once. Andrew went back to sleep and ignored the hushed whispers coming from Johnny’s room in the morning, the crying, and then the food later on. Pressed the pillow against his ear and didn’t fucking think about any of it, mostly.
Though, he did hope it was just a normal sibling fight.
He respected Darrel, from what he’d heard of him taking his siblings. It’d be shitty if he had to stop.
Johnny had people that cared for him, even besides Ponyboy. Andrew hadn’t been joking about stares and sneers: sometimes, he’d go to the DX to get something and the guys working there would look at him with such distaste he felt dirty, or he’d drive to work and look out of his window only to catch some hood staring at him with a mean glint on their eyes, playing with their switchblade on the other side of the street as if Andrew was a Soc straying in the wrong turf.
He didn’t even think Johnny told them anything. Everyone already knew Andrew had skipped town. They just knew Johnny enough to understand what Andrew left him to, and that leaving had made it all that much worse.
“Used to wonder,” he told the kid one night, watching him from the kitchen sink as Johnny told him warily he’d sleep somewhere else, “when you’d get out.”
Johnny looked up. “What?”
He was frowning. He looked confused and, perhaps, a bit too alert in a way that said he didn’t trust that conversation. No shit. He didn’t trust Andrew, for starters.
“There’s just two options for us Cade, really. Kill yourself in Tulsa or run away without a plan. Always wondered when you’d take one. Used to keep a room for you in New York, in case you chose right.”
And then. Oh, wonder of all wonders, J-esus and Mary and fucking Joseph showering their blesses upon that dingy kitchen, Johnny looked angry. Furious, even, scalding eyes finding Andrew with the true fight he’d been waiting to see, even if he hadn’t been expecting it just then.
“Fuck you,” he spat. “You didn’t call, you didn’t send anythin’. Why you acting like you some kind guy who’s aching to take me in, when you didn’t even let me know where you fuckin’ were for nine years?”
“‘Cause that ain’t what I’m saying,” retorted Andrew. “I ain’t that, I know. I wasn’t—it was just a shitty thing. I just used to think, New York makes sense, for a kid like you. Did for one like me. So if you appeared, I’d get to help. But I know I didn’t look out for you or offer. And now—now I can see why you leaving wouldn’t have happened anyway. You got something here already.”
He forced out, “You left me.”
“I did.”
“I was seven. Dad broke my arm when he saw you took his money, and that wasn’t even the worst.”
Andrew swallowed something dry and bitter, but he knew the truth, didn’t he? Didn’t need to tell Johnny, the same way Johnny didn’t need to tell any of his friends, ‘cause it was clear as day to anyone who knew what happened inside that house. It was why he’d never been a real greaser, never was part of any gang or group around there: ‘cause, deep down, he was just traitorous and selfish, and they could all fucking see it.
“Knew something like that’d happen.”
Johnny still looked like he’d been hoping to hear something different. He looked young, broken, full of loathing, and a bit like his mother when she’d been fifteen on the Cade’s front lawn. A bit like Andrew, too. Like a lot of the kids he knew from that side of theirs.
“Why then?”
“Don’t have an excuse.”
He had a boyfriend, once, that told him apologies didn’t count if he only wanted to explain away what he did. Santos probably meant for him to stop making excuses and starting to take accountability, not for him to stop with apologies in general, but shit, Andrew was a Cade. They never learned the right lessons, especially from fights. Santos told him that, too.
“Fuck you,” Johnny spat again, and then he was out of the house, shaking hands and shaking voice.
Can’t just say you destroy everythin’ you touch, he was told once, in the kind of hurt whisper that hurt worse than any screaming match, and then act like it’s some kind of fucking family thing, if you ain’t even bothering creating anythin’ worthy to begin with, Andy.
There’d been a time, living in Tulsa, where he’d been sure he only liked boys, and then a good couple of months while living in New York he was so confused by the fact he also liked girls he hadn’t looked anyone he found pretty in the eyes. He learned that, unfortunately, he could fall in love with anyone sharp enough to look at him, truly look, and just cut through his bullshit. It was how he fell into it, how he always fell out of it, how he stayed fucking miserable.
Andrew’d had all of his bad habits thrown on his face more times than he could count. Never changed a damn thing about it, though. Never changed himself.
God. He was a deadbeat. Didn’t even need to be a father to turn into one.
What a fucking joke.
-
Of course, Johnny’s anger, no matter how righteous and real, wasn’t as strong as the memory of his parents and the knowledge of what they’d do if he’d talked to them like that, and the uncertainty of why Andrew shouldn’t react in a similar manner. It took him days to come back and when he did, he looked pale, terrified as he lingered on the kitchen’s door.
“I’m sorry—”
Andrew cut in, deciding to be kind, “I’ve been told to go fuck myself a lot, Johnny. Ain’t no one ever felt sorry for it, so you don’t need to act like you do.”
Johnny hesitated.
“You left Tulsa,” he said. “You didn’t leave me, ‘cause you didn’t own me shit, sir. I’m not dumb or spoiled or anythin’. Shouldn’t have talked back like I was.”
“I could’ve took you.” Andrew sent him a smile, dark and sharp. “We both know your old man wouldn’t go after us or send the cops, he’d probably throw a fucking party or something. I didn’t ’cause having a child with me would’ve made things harder and I never liked to do anything the hard way. You don't need to pretend like that ain’t the truth.”
“I never expected you to choose the hard way just for me.”
Johnny Cade’s survival was nothing short of a miracle. His whole life he’d been black and blue, he’d been broken bones and switchblades and gushing open wounds, only shown tenderness in the bruises on his skin. When he’s six, his father had shoved his head inside the toilet for crying about being hungry too loudly, and when he’s seven, his mother had shoved him away and made him hit his head against the kitchen table so hard he hadn’t heard them right for weeks, and Andrew had witnessed it all without a reaction, too busy tending his own pain.
‘Course Johnny didn’t expect to be chosen.
Kids like him only ever expected to be dead.
Kids like Andrew didn’t know how to choose anyone: they only took survival, no matter what. I’m sorry, little man, he thought. It ain’t personal. I just don’t know how to be there for anyone. But it was hollow. Andrew was hollow with his excuses.
I’m sorry, he thought again, but just couldn’t say it, ‘cause he’d always just been a fucking failure of a boyfriend, a friend, an uncle even before all the rest. You deserve a better family.
But deserving never meant anything, in Tulsa, and Andrew was still all the blood Johnny still had.