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Curly’s breath comes out in harsh, short, wheezing breaths. His hands shake so bad the metal hits the ground with a dull thud that he can hardly hear over the ringing of his ears.
He hadn’t meant to.
Tim turns around, something in between shock and anger in his gaze.
“I didn’t mean to.” he says, his voice coming out harsh and too young.
“God damn it.” Tim mutters and Curly flinches a little, his knees meeting soft dirt and rough stone.
He doesn’t know what had happened to the rest of the people that had been in the clearing just a minute ago, but he does know that Tim is running a hand through his thick curly hair, messing it up and at some point, Curly had started crying.
He knows that there’s the sound of shouting in the woods.
Curly knows that there’s three hoods in this clearing, but only two of them are alive.
Somehow, he had done this.
And for some reason, there’s a body on the ground.
When Curly was young (and Angela was, too) their mom had a real thing for acting like some kind of junkie whore.
Not that Curly had ever said that. He’d pulled it from one of the conversations Tim had with Sylvia.
He knew what both words meant but it just felt like some kind of line to cross. Thinking it was one thing. Saying it for some cheap cop-out on gossip was a whole other entirely.
But it had worked to change the conversation.
See, Curly had only been three when he first saw a body on the ground, but the first time he saw someone and knew they were dead, he was six.
Angela had been walking with him, just a couple steps in front as she crept towards the bedroom door.
Tim had left that morning to go see if anyone would hire him to do yardwork or something, and they were both hungry.
Curly could reach the stove which meant he could cook, but neither one of them was quite tall enough to reach the cupboards yet. The fridge is empty save for a six pack of beer and some condiments on the side door. They’d already eaten all the pickles out of the jar.
And Tim had forgotten to leave anything on the counter.
So, now they were both creeping towards their mom’s bedroom to ask for some help getting something out of the cupboard.
Usually, Angela was real good at being patient and also real good at holding Curly in place, but neither of them had eaten since dinner last night.
The door creaks just a little when she pushes it open which makes Angela wince. She turns to Curly and shushes him, like he’s the one who built the damn house, and he swats at her shoulder.
She rolls her eyes and focuses on opening the door back up.
They weren’t technically supposed to be in here, but they weren’t looking for their mom. They were looking for her newest boyfriend.
The door seems almost comical, in the slow way it opens and Curly would be tempted to laugh at the memory if he doesn’t know what’s on the other side.
When the door finally stops it’s slow swing open, the man their mother had been seeing was sprawled out on the floor. Not like he was sleeping, just on the floor (like some people do, though Curly preferred a bed) but like he was stiff.
Angela looks back at him with something outside of her usual mischievousness. She’s looking at him like she’s scared. “Go touch him.” she says, and Curly’s eyes widen.
“Me?”
She nods, and gestures toward the guy.
Curly shakes his head, and she kicks at his shin. “C’mon, I’ll wake up mom. You try and get the guy up.”
There’s a queasy feeling in his stomach, but Angela is making her way over to try and wake up their mom which is a lot scarier than poking someone he doesn’t really know.
Curly swallows and steps up to the guy. “Uh, mister?”
He crouches down. The guy doesn’t respond.
Curly reaches out a hand, hovering over the guy for just a second before reaching down and poking his arm.
It feels cold and firm. But not like that one guy Tim always brings around with super big muscles. It’s more like a balloon that’s filled with too much air, about to pop at any moment.
Curly looks over to Angela, who’s shaking their mom’s arm with all her might.
“Curly.” she says urgently, and Curly looks over. “I think something’s wrong.”
“Me, too.” he says, gesturing to the guy.
She frowns. “C’mon over here.”
He gets up and steps carefully over the guy, coming to stand by Angela. “Give me a boost.” she says, putting her foot up.
He rolls his eyes but gets down on one knee, interlocking his fingers to make a foothold. She steps into his hands, and he boosts her onto the bed.
“C’mon.” She whispers, more urgently as she reaches a hand down. He takes it and helps pull himself up.
Their mom is laying on the bed, but she’s not asleep. Her eyes are open but she’s not here. She’s somewhere else, with her pupils dilated to all hell and a dopey smile on her face, like someone in a cartoon when they get bonked on the head.
“Mama.” he says, poking her arm just like he had the guy on the floor’s.
He doesn’t get met with resistance. His finger is met with the same squishy skin it would be if he poked Angela.
Angela shakes her shoulder. “Ma, wake up.”
“She’s awake, dummy.” Curly says, pointing at her eyes. “She’s just not... I dunno. Conscious?”
”That’s the same thing, dummy.” Angela snarks before turning back to look at their mom.
She bites her lip and furrows her brow.
“We oughta get out of this room.”
Curly knows it, too.
They help each other off the bed and run into the living room where they’d been all day.
Suddenly the hunger was a lot less biting. All they could do is wait for Tim to come back. Tim can fix it. Tim would always be able to fix it.
Tim would know what to do.
“Get in the car.” Tim’s voice is harsher than Curly is used to hearing it.
He doesn’t move; his feet are glued to the ground.
Tim slams a hand down on the hood of the car, making Curly jump. “I said get in the fucking car! And stay there, this time!”
Curly moves quickly, climbing back into the passenger seat through the door he’d left open.
Tim is pacing in a way Curly isn’t used to seeing and oh, God, Curly’s gonna be sick. His palms are red from how tightly he’d been holding onto the metal, and his head is spinning with the scent of smoke and coppery blood that swirls in his nose.
Tim is still muttering expletives as he breaks out in a dead run for the street.
Curly is terrified that he’s leaving Curly at the scene, because this isn’t just something you do a couple-weeks-long stint in the reformatory for. This gets actual, real, jailtime.
He wants to run after Tim, he doesn’t want to be left here alone. He doesn’t know what to do, he’s only eleven!
And stay there, this time!
It rings throughout his head. Maybe it’s a set-up, maybe Tim’s leaving him here, maybe, maybe, oh God.
He pulls his knees up to his chest and clasps his hands together in a desperate plea, muttering to God in a way he hasn’t had to for years. He hasn’t had to go to church in years, but now he wants that cold Holy water against his fingertips.
Or maybe it would burn him, now.
He’d broken a commandment, hadn’t he?
He’d killed someone. It makes bile burn his throat and tears sting his eyes but that’s what he’d done. If it wasn’t, the hood on the ground would have moved by now, and he hadn’t.
Honor thy mother and father.
Curly doesn’t know his old man, but he knows that Tim is the closest thing he’s got to one. He’d already broken one commandment; he wasn’t going two for two.
He stays in the car, even as every part of him seems doused in flame, his breaths coming out in short sobs.
He stays in the car, because that’s what had been the plan all along.
He stays in the car, because that’s what had gotten him into this mess.
Tim is finally taking him on a deal. It makes him bounce on his heels with excitement as he waits impatiently for the time to come around.
Tim is sitting on the couch, a lot cooler about this whole thing than Curly is. He just taps his foot in a slight rhythm.
He looks like a hood. Like one of those guys that comes in and out of the house to talk with Tim in hushed tones in the kitchen.
At 14, Tim Shepard is well-established in the Oil City Boys.
A gang he’d joined up back two years ago. He was reliable. And they kept him around.
Curly has a guaranteed spot, as long as this whole deal goes right.
At 9:30 on the dot, Tim stands up. “C’mon kid.”
Curly is up in a second, scrambling to get outside and in the car that technically belongs to their mom. But Tim isn’t exactly the law-abiding type.
Curly is sitting in the passenger seat as Tim climbs in and starts up the engine. He sure is lucky to be tall, or Curly is sure Tim wouldn’t be able to reach the pedals.
But it’s easy for Tim to get on the road and start taking the backwoods way to the clearing near the edge of town. He doesn’t say a word, but Curly can’t tell if that’s more because he’s focusing in so heavily on the road ahead of him or if he’s nervous about the deal.
Eight minutes pass in a flash, and they’re there.
Tim puts the car in park but doesn’t turn the car off. “To blind them.” he mutters to Curly, looking out the window at the boys who are illuminated by the headlights.
“These guys are pretty rough. They’re an up-and-coming gang. Call themselves the Tiber Street Tigers and they don’t like playing nice.” Tim reaches into the back of the car and pulls a bag into his lap. He unzips it in one fluid motion and pulls out (Curly kids you not) and honest-to-God, no-tricks, heater. It really is a beauty, and Curly reaches over to grab it, but Tim pulls it away with a slight frown. “This ain’t a toy, Curly. Only use it if you really have ta. And when I say ‘have ta’ I mean if one of them pulls out a heater.”
Tim opens the glove compartment and places the metal in there, shutting it before Curly even gets a chance to look at it for too long.
“Stay here unless I’m in danger.” Tim gets out of the car, keeping the door open for just another second to say, “And I mean if they’re gonna kill me, when I say that.”
“But—” Tim shuts the door before Curly can protest too much.
Curly feels like a real child, with the way he starts pouting. Here he is, finally getting to go on a real deal and he’s gotta sit in the car like some kid who’s left alone while their mom goes to run an errand? Bullshit.
He sighs and kneels on the seat, leaning forward and peering through the windshield as he watches the deal going down. He eagerly drinks it in at first, when they’re just talking. There’s two guys talking to Tim, but he can’t hear anything.
Tim seems to look around before taking a couple steps back and all of a sudden, guys start pouring out of the woods. There’s gotta be ten guys who appear out nowhere in like fifteen seconds!
Curly’s fingers itch as Tim takes four quick steps back and holds his hands up like he’s trying to negotiate. But these aren’t the type of guys to listen.
Up-and-coming gangs around these parts will do just about anything to prove they got the grit to stay in the game. Including steal from another one.
He fingers grip the edge of the door anxiously, the other one hovering near the glove compartment. He should stay in the car.
He has to stay in the car. But one of those guys just punched Tim.
His mind is made up before he even realizes he’s making a decision, and the glove compartment drops open with a scrape of plastic on plastic.
Cool metal is in his hands and he’s flying out of the car yelling words he can hardly understand for how garbled and underwater his voice sounds.
But he can understand threats perfectly fine.
There’s a guy running at him.
Time slows down. And his finger is pulling down on instinct.
A clear shot. No way to miss it. The guy drops like a bag of rocks, and Curly’s shoulders hurt from the way he got thrown back by the force of it.
Curly’s breath comes out in harsh, short, wheezing breaths. His hands shake so bad the metal hits the ground with a dull thud that he can hardly hear over the ringing of his ears. All he can smell is smoke and gunpowder and oh, God why is blood spreading.
He doesn’t know what he’s just done.
Tim didn’t abandon him. He comes back with a guy Curly had never seen before, and they talk hurriedly.
Tim is walking back to the car and... they’re leaving.
That’s that. Someone else is cleaning it up and Curly isn’t getting hauled away.
They just get to drive off. It feels wrong.
“Those guys would be risking too much to call the cops.” Tim says, and Curly isn’t sure of who he’s trying to reassure. “They’re just as bad and they were there on a crime too.”
Curly’s fingers burn with shame. So do his arms. And so does his torso. And his legs. And his head. But not his throat, his throat is burning with bile.
“What do we do?” he answers, and Tim’s fingers tighten around the wheel.
“You pray to God no one calls the cops.” Curly’s mouth shuts with a click of his teeth, and Tim sighs. “Jesus, Curly. I had it handled! What were you thinking? This ain’t somethin’ you can just come back from.”
Curly tries not to cry.
Somewhere, deep, deep inside of him, he knows that.
Tim is breathing heavily. Like he’s just realized that’s an option.
He pulls the car over and Curly’s overtaken by a fear that he’s about to be dumped on the sidewalk and left for dead. But Tim just turns to Curly, eyes blown wide with a panic Curly hasn’t ever seen before.
“Don’t be a baby about this, okay Curly? Don’t... Don’t tell anyone. Not even Angel. This ain’t something people should know. K?”
Curly can’t bring himself to do anything but nod, even though every cell is screaming at him that he needs to tell someone. He can’t just carry it. Someone needs to know, or he’ll be crushed under the weight of it.
But he nods and Tim swallows and turns his attention back to the road. “Good.” he asserts. “Good.”
Curly looks out the window.
If this is what Tim said to do, it’s probably for the best. So, he ignores the vomit that’s constantly trying to escape him, and he settles himself in. He’s prepared to be crushed.