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He comes home late that night. Deals being broken out between speakeasies and alliances on thin ice, they kept him late. Apparently he was a good deal broker. Not like he was complaining; the more recognition he gets from being aligned with the Italians, the more his name is spread, and the more respect he’s given.
His suit jacket is laid carefully over his forearm, his waistcoatbuttoned over in the heat of summer.
His keys are heavy in his sore hands; blisters from signing contracts and papers layer his thumb and index finger.
He pushed open the door with his left shoulder, the apartment quiet. He hung his jacket on the coat hanger with his hat, reminding himself to make sure he didn’t forget about it the next day.
The apartment was quiet. Low orange light bled through the curtains from the street lamps below. The living room held two beds; on one sat Smoke, staring glassy-eyed at his shaking hands.
He swore under his breath, moving closer to his brother, dropping his bag at the front door.
“Hey, are you with me?” He asked, crouching down and waving his hand in front of his face. His eyes don’t move from the pinpoint stare at his shaking hands, but he slightly nods his head, opening and closing his mouth without any words coming out.
“Shit,” he swore again, patting his pocket for his cigarette box, popping a pre-rolled one in his mouth, fumbling for the lighter in his back pocket, and lighting it. He took a drawl of the smoke, the sizzle sound of the embers filling the apartment.
He took the cigarette back out of his mouth, handing it to smoke in his shaking hands. He closed his eyes, taking a drawl. His other hand was covering his face.
He stayed there, taking another drawl, and another, not opening his eyes, but his hands calmed slowly.
Stack leaned over, looking into the semi-lit kitchen. The clock above the oven read 4:15. “You ate?” He asked, turning back to his brother. He didn’t respond, still trying to catch up to his own mind, no doubt. He sighed, standing back up, and moving towards the kitchen.
Elijah stood in the kitchen. His eyes felt two seconds delayed at every move. Like he couldn’t take in the information of the familiar room.
Annie’s jambalaya recipe was taped to the fridge.
He stared at it. His glassy eyes didn’t want to leave her handwriting. Didn’t want to leave the memory of her smell or of the taste of her cooking. The smells of dried herbs and tangy teas. That small bit of him that refuses to move on, that refuses to face her again after he abandoned her. The other small bit of him that keeps him in Chicago.
He stepped forward, looking through the fridge, grabbing the chicken thighs that Stack had bought. The fridge is practically empty. No tomatoes, no peppers, no shrimp. The remaining rice was in a small bowl, not enough to make it. But Stack was supposed to get groceries. Maybe he’d return with enough to make a half-assed effort.
His body still felt delayed and unpredictable. He didn’t want to change his mind anymore though, so he moved to the knife block, taking out a blade, and unwrapping the raw chicken to place it on the cutting board.
He lined up the top of the blade with the cutting board, trying to create an anchor for the shaky blade to rely on, but it didn’t really work.
He tried to realign the knife, but it slipped again, falling out of his hand and clanging on the ground. His reaction time is off, but he jumps back right as it hits the floor. He freezes again, shaking despite it, watching as the blade continues to scream.
He keeps staring at it. The sudden loud noise made the shaking worse.
He crouched down, trying to pick up the knife. He faltered with it again. Like a fucking child, he can’t pick up a fucking knife.
He dropped. Sitting against the wall staring at the knife. He brought his left foot closer to him, face not changing as he kicked the knife as hard as he could. It ricocheted against the walls and cabinets on the floor.
He held his head with both his hands.
A while must have passed before he heard the door opening.
“Smoke,” Elias called from the doorway, “are you home?”
He was still staring at the knife. It was late; he didn’t want to waste the energy.
“Smoke?” Elias called again? Peeking into the kitchen. He looked at his fucking stupidity sitting on the floor like he’d thrown a tantrum. “You—uh, ok?”
Rationally he should respond, but he’s tired.
Stack looked to the cutting board, the raw chicken uncut, then back to him, tracking his eyes to the knife on the ground, to the recipe on the fridge, back to smoke, taking in his still shaking hand.
“Jambalaya?” He asked, pointing to the fridge door. He waited for a response but didn’t get one. “Come on, man, can you answer me? Need to know if you’re there in the head or not, dude.”
Smoke rubbed his temples with his trembling hands, slow and deliberate. “I’m not a fucking child, man.”
“Really?” Stack scoffed, “Because you’re fucking acting like one right now, I’ll tell you that. What, you throwing a tantrum—“
“Can you actually shut the fuck up, man?” Smoke snapped at him, glaring at his brother. “I’m not a fucking child, so don’t stare at me like I belong in a goddamn asylum.”
Stack was silent for a while. Taking in the tense air. “My bad. Sorry,” he said, offering his hand to help him up. “I miss ‘em too.”
“Don’t try to relate to me,” he replied, moving past him to his bed.
“Don’t do me like that, Smoke,” Stack tried, arms going up exasperatedly.
“I’m tired. It’s been a long day,” he replied. “I don’t want to talk, especially about them.”
“Really? Gonna do that to me?” He argued from the doorway to the kitchen, “You know who else did that? Pop. You know who fucking complained the hell out of that? You. Can you stop acting like I’m below you?”
“Oh, so you’re going to pull that card on me. Why the fuck are you trying to guilt-trip me?” Smoke ranted.
“You’re ignoring the point. You’re acting like I don’t understand the fucking shell shock that practically everyone else in our squadron got. Like I don’t fucking find you staring into nothingness and pretending it’s normal. I'm not fucking attacking you! I genuinely want to help,” he retorted.
“I don’t need your help,” he scoffed.
“Clearly, you do,” he scoffed back, gesturing to the knife, “and there’s nothing wrong with that!” He backtracked, holding his arms up in surrender.
“I don’t need your help. “I don’t want it; I’ll never want it. That’s the end of it,” he said, staring at the stack in the doorway.
They stood like that. Smoke stared at the stack as he leaned against the wall. After a bit, Stack dipped his head in surrender.
“I’m sorry. My bad,” he moved back to the doorway, grabbing the grocery bags as smoke deflates and rolls under the covers. “Were you really trying to make Annie’s jambalaya?”
Smoke shifted again but nodded. Apparently that was enough, because Stack hummed in response and moved to the kitchen to unpack the groceries. The sound of him easily picking up the almost definitely dented knife was aggravating.
He fell asleep to the sounds of pots and pans.
When he woke up in the morning, a small pot of jambalaya was in the fridge. They didn’t have tomatoes or celery, so it was missing its distinct red color, but heated up on the stove, it made him feel a bit more at home.
Reliving the memory, Stack checked the fridge. Not much left; he needed to pick up groceries today. The helix of that being everything is usually closed near his walk home at 4:15, and like hell would he take a detour when he could just pick it up in the morning. The added bonus of this is that he has no ready-to-eat food to make for smoke.
Any good strong smell, something that tastes good, or even just getting something to eat usually helped Smoke snap out of whatever stuper or flashback or whatever it was this time.
Too bad he skipped the grocery store. Damn it.
“I know you didn’t eat!” He called out, still staring at the fridge, wondering if there was something he was missing. “You shouldn’t be skipping meals; those smokes are making you skinny.” He moved to the pantry; no home-cooked anything or anything that smoked actually like they had. “Shit,” he muttered. The only thing that seemed appetizing was a can of peaches. Nothing like the ones you could pick from the trees back home, but sweetened by the syrup.
He pulled it out, popping the top, and washed his hands to get rid of the sticky syrup. Fishing out a fork from the drawer, he moved back in front of Smoke's bed.
“Hey,” he said, crouching down, holding the peaches and fork in one hand. “I know you can hear me.”
He stared at his brother, who still didn’t look up. He placed the can next to him, fishing out a slice, which he ate, and dropping to sit on the ground.
“Still a bit of a disappointment,” he sighed. “I’ve seen you’ve been starring Annie’s, uh, recipes. Honestly, it’s pretty fair. You remember the day you brought me to her place? Had to have been only two weeks after the war, and she made that pot of gumbo? Brought me straight back to earth after being away for so long—“
“Stop,” he interrupted, voice hoarse and eyes still glassy.
He sighed again, and it seems like he's been doing that a lot.
“You with me?” He asked, rubbing his head.
“I told you to stop with that bullshit.” smoke drawled
“What bullshit?” Stack denied, leaning back against his arm on the floor.
“You fucking know what bullshit, I’m not fragile; I don’t need you trying to get me to eat like I’m incapable of caring for myself,” Smoke argued back.
“I wasn’t doing any of that shit because I don’t think you can care for yourself. I don’t fucking think you’re fragile, so why do you keep fucking bringing it up?” Stack swore, crossing his arms, “I can’t just do one thing for you without you trying to start a fight over something that I don’t even think about you!”
“Cut the shit, how about that? What the fuck was the point of talking to me when I get like that, about fucking Annie?” Smoke fumes “What was the fucking point? To try to make me feel better? I'm not in a psych ward. You’re not my fucking doctor, and I’m not trying to kill myself, so can you stop trying to relate to me? You have no clue what the fuck I’m going through!” He finished with a staggering laugh that was anything but for fun, standing up over the stack; the dip in the mattress where the can of peaches sat spilled onto the sheets.
“The fuck are you trying to insinuate, Smoke? Genuinely what?” Stack asked, no lilt to his voice as he stood up from his spoon on the ground, “Why is it sometimes not a surprise that when I get home I see your unresponsive ass sitting down? Your shell shock is bad, and we both know it started long before the fucking war, so you better stop acting like it doesn’t matter.”
“Why are you acting like you’re so pristine and perfect? Because you’re acting like you don’t freeze the MOMENT anyone even DARES to talk even a bit raised to you—” Smoke started before the stack interrupted.
“Oh, you can’t act like that is at all similar,” he scoffed.
"Yeah? Why do you turn into a fucking deer?” Smoke sneered, “How do you act like that’s the same as me sitting down and thinking—"
“Is that what you’re going with now? Thinking? You were just thinking?” Stack yelled back. “What, you fucking Einstein? So caught up in measuring equations that you didn’t notice when I opened the fucking door? When did I call your name? You look like you’re in a coma some days, and I call the good ones the days when you snap back in to tell me to stop, because that means you’re conscious! And if those are the good days, then put that fucking brain to work and think of the bad ones—“
“My daughter is dead,” Smoke shouted, a silent pause sitting in front of them. “My daughter’s body is back in Mississippi, and Annie is suffering because I fucking left her alone. How about that?”
Smoke’s heavy breathing felt like its own spot in the apartment.
Smoke dropped his shoulders; his left hand held and covered his face. Stack stared ahead as Smoke let down his guard, not dropping his own.
“It’s getting worse. I know it’s getting worse, and I didn’t think that was something that could happen,” Smoke muttered, hiding behind his hand.
“Shit, man,” Stack sighed, giving up on the defense himself. He looked around in the lapse in conversation; the pause was heavy from the yelling.
“It’s uncanny looking at you like this,” Smoke said, gesturing to Stack, biting the joint of his index finger.
“Like what?” He asked, raising his head.
“You’re not supposed to be the serious one.” Smoke said, “You are not supposed to be the worried one; it’s weird.”
“Am I not allowed to care about what’s going on in that thick skull of yours?” He scoffed.
“You shouldn’t be. You’re supposed to joke around and be carefree; you’re not supposed to care about anything that isn’t the next step to freedom or whatever you’ve put your mind to that week.” Smoke said, gesturing to the stack and the apartment around them. Another step stack had brought them to. Stack sighed again, and it feels like he’s a scratched record. “Like that—that shit, sighing, covering my face, looking after you, was my job. What the fuck am I supposed to do if you take that from me? You—you are the one with the goals and with the connections, and then you come home, and it’s like—it’s like I have nothing. Because what do you mean I can’t even roll a cigarette, or—or—or even think straight if I don’t have something to do? I was supposed to be the one looking after us, and now it’s like I’m some fucking kicked dog at your side that you won’t let run into the street.”
Stack pauses at that, looking at smoke up and down.
“It’s like I’m the parallel version of you that fucked up somewhere along the way.” Smoke spoke with the verdict of a talk in confession.
“You think I’m the one who put it together? Me? Of the two of us? Man, I don’t know what you’re on.” Stack laughed, running a hand over his head. “You saw me in the conference between the Irish and the Italians, because I know you were right next to me. Who the fuck between us can actually work under pressure? Because I’ll tell you one thing: I wasn’t the one who picked up the gun, and you weren’t the one who froze. You said it yourself, I can’t fucking handle anything, and you’re saying that—what, are you jealous? Your head screwed on wrong or what?”
“Yes. Of fucking course I would, if that was the price of acting like an actual fucking man.” Smoke said,
“You know what to do and when to do it. Without you, I’d be dead, and I know I’d be dead, because I would never have had the ability to pick up the gun and fire it straight into Pop’s head. You did, though. You fucking did.” Stack argued,
“I wake up some days and I feel nothing. I can’t feel pain, I can’t feel hunger, I don’t feel happy, I don’t feel sad, I feel nothing.” Smoke listed on his fingers “I don’t feel like a person some days, but I am concise those days. Do you know how fucking horrific those days are? Fuck, maybe I should go to an asylum.” smoke breathes
“You think you’re on the level as those nutcases? Nah.” Stack dismissed, turning to look at the handwritten recipe, stained, still stuck to the fridge. “Maybe we should take a break. Visit home. Annie could probably help with whatever shit is going on in your head—“
“I can’t.” Smoke interrupted, and it almost sounds like he’s pleading, which gives Stack shivers. “I can’t go back to her. I can’t face her after I left. She is dealing with the grief more than I can even imagine, and I left her. I can’t walk back into her shop like I want, because we would never be the same, and—and I don’t know what I would do if I looked into her face and saw hatred.”
“…I’ll figure something out.” Stack declared.
“I don’t want you to. I don’t want you to be the worried one anymore.” Smoke said, crashing back onto the bed. The can flopped to the floor, making a clanging sound.
“Motherfucker, then what am I supposed to do? Just continue on like you don’t know what’s happening? I'm not 10 anymore. You don’t have to protect me,” he argued.
“But if I don’t stop trying, what would I do?” Smoke breathes from the bed.
Stack didn't respond to that. The sound of dripping syrup on the wooden floors took his silence. “That’s your own thing to figure out.” He said, taking out a cigarette and lighting it, and walking around the smoke to sit on his own bed, unbuttoning his waistcoat.
Smoke didn't move. Didn't turn around to continue the argument or whatever the fuck that was, just stood there, staring ahead at the front door. The syrup from the canned peaches was still in his sheets. He needed to clean that up before he went to bed.
The clock on the kitchen wall read 4:35 as he grabbed a cloth, ringing it in the sink. He's tired. The Irish need him. He's brokering more deals and playing out more agreements and shootouts. He's there in the conference rooms. Maybe that’s the solution to this confusing shit. Give yourselfa new purpose.
Stack doesn’t need you anymore.
And yet he still dreams big. Talks about freedom like it’s in their reach. About opening a juke joint back home. About returning to Mississippi like it doesn’t hold grief in the land.
Stack doesn’t need him anymore, but maybe he can try harder to make it so that maybe one day, when he grows a backbone, he can go back to Annie. Go back to the Mississippi that holds grief in the land.
And of course, there’s that reasoning in his head that repeats that maybe he had to fail so that stack could succeed. And maybe that brings him solace. Maybe that can be his purpose.