Blood Brothers

by Colleen Nelson

  His mouth sets in a grim line under his moustache. “This apartment! It’s a shithole. Who can live like this?”

  I give him a sharp look. “Bye,” I call to him as I tear out of the building.

  I arrive at the corner just as the bus pulls up, secretly relieved to be escaping the West End.

  The locker rooms at St. Bart’s are meant for the sports teams and are nicer than any bathroom I’ve ever had. Tile floors, a huge bank of mirrors, and trough sinks. Even the urinals are sparkling white. I take a long, hot shower, letting the water beat down on my back till my skin is bright red. I feel good, cleaner than I ever have been.

  This early, the halls are empty, and I take my time wandering back to my locker. Would anyone know if I did this every day?

  The library is open. The librarian nods at me when I walk in, hesitant. Dumping my backpack on the desk, I sit down and let the hushed silence envelope me.

  Unzipping my backpack sounds like a roar in the quiet. I pull out my textbooks, their corners still sharp and new, and sit down. The quiet is disconcerting. I’m used to feet thumping up the stairs, floorboards creaking above, or people yelling outside. Even the pipes in the apartment are noisy; water, when we have it, gushes through, with each toilet flush.

  I crack the spine on a book. Crapload of work for the first day, but I get it done. I still have a few minutes before class starts. The thought of hanging out in the hallway trying to find somewhere to fit in makes my stomach churn. I pull my sketchbook to me and flip it open.

  The sketch of Lincoln on the first day of kindergarten stares back at me. I wanted to check in on him last night, see what happened when the cops dropped him off. But I hadn’t. To be honest, I was shit-scared to face him. He’d taken a bullet for me. I want to think I’d do the same for him if I had to, but would I?

  I get so into the sketch of Lincoln and my dad that when the bell rings, I jump. Packing up my books, I fly down the hall.

  Lincoln

  There’s no cars in front of the clubhouse. The door creaks when I open it. It’s unlocked, so I figure someone must be there.

  “Henry!” I call. “You here?”

  The toilet flushes and the door opens. “Hen —” I start, but see it’s not him. It’s Roxy.

  “He went out.”

  “Where’ve you been?” I ask.

  “Around,” she says and squeezes between me and the wall, so our shoulders collide.

  I pull the paper I’ve been carrying around out of my pocket. “You seen this?”

  Her face freezes when she looks at it. The purple bangs hang over one eye. “Where’d you get it?”

  “On Mountain Ave. A girl, said she was your sister, was hanging them up.”

  Roxy pulls her mouth tight in a straight line and glares at me. “You talked to her?” She says it like I’m a traitor. “You gonna turn me in?” She narrows her eyes and tilts her head, full of attitude.

  I shake no, but she keeps staring.

  “She’ll drag me back to Buttfuck Nowhere, and I’ll run away again,” she threatens, even though I said I wouldn’t tell on her.

  “I won’t,” I promise. I want to say more, like, at least she came looking for you. But I don’t. None of my business. “When’d you become Roxy?”

  She shrugs. “When I got to the city. Didn’t want to be Rachelle anymore.”

  There’s times when I don’t want to be Lincoln. Be cool if it was that easy. Pick a new name and get a new life.

  Roxy/Rachelle takes the poster from my hands, and real slow, she tears the flyer in half and lets the pieces fall to the ground. I wait till she’s in the other room and then I pick the pieces up. Her sister’s number’s been ripped in half, but I find both pieces and put them in my pocket. The rest I crumple up into a ball and toss in the garbage.

  A wet spot of spit stains the couch cushion. I pull my cheek away from it and take a deep breath, trying to remember the night before. It was just me and Roxy for a while, but then other people showed up. The clubhouse was steamy, so many of us jammed in. There was music, smoking, beer, a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. I wince. Thinking about booze makes me want to puke. “I’ll never drink again,” I mumble.

  Someone else sleeps on the leather couch across from me. Other than the guy’s snores, the house is quiet, now. Wiping the wet off my cheek, I put my feet on the floor and hold my head in my hands. The room spins for a minute. I stand up and shuffle to the toilet to take a piss.

  The outside glows through sheets covering the windows. I wonder how long I’ve been asleep. The house is hot and stuffy. It might be afternoon already. I collapse back on the couch. Footsteps upstairs make the ceiling creak, like it’s going to crash down on me. A few minutes later, Henry comes down the stairs, shirtless and scratching his armpit. I never saw him come in last night, but I guess he did.

  He sees me awake. “Some things we gotta talk about,” he says and goes into the kitchen. I drag myself after him. I hear him making coffee, pulling the tin out of the cupboard and peeling off the plastic lid.

  There’s another tattoo across his back, covering the space between his shoulder blades. I never saw it before. “West End,” it says, in big, chunky letters with the Red Bloodz symbol underneath it.

  The kitchen’s a mess. Plates, cups, empties spilling out of the sink and all over the counters. I’ll be the one cleaning it up later, I think with a groan. Henry hears me behind him and turns around. “Sit down,” he says and pulls a kitchen chair toward him. Across the table, in the darkness of the kitchen, I see the dark circles under my brother’s eyes, the way his eyelids sink down. He rubs his forehead and I think he’s had too many nights of partying since he got out.

  He tucks both hands under his arms and looks at me, all serious. “You’re not cut out for this,” he says.

  His words catch me off guard. I don’t know what he’s talking about. I did all the stuff he wanted me to, stealing cars, meeting with buyers. “Yeah, I am.” I fire back quick.

  He stares at me and I hold his gaze. Even though my eyeballs want to come loose and fly around the room, I don’t blink.

  “I’m telling you, you’re not. You’re soft. You’re not like me.”

  “I could be,” I say.

  He shakes his head, thick lips frowning. “Guys like you are a liability. They crack. I can’t have that in my crew.”

  I stare at him like he’s joking. His face doesn’t change and I know that he’s not. “Where’s this coming from?”

  He takes a deep breath and his nostrils flare. “I’ve been watching you, looking to see if you have any initiative. I’m not seeing shit.” He raises an eyebrow, a challenge.

  I sit for a minute, frowning. I’m trying to make sense of what he’s saying, but my brain’s fogged up like a steamy mirror. “What d’you mean, initiative?”

  “Do more than follow fucking directions!”

  “I thought you wanted me here. You said it was gonna be me and you.”

  Henry cracks his neck. “I got other guys to think about. A reputation. You can’t just hang around, Link. Being in the Red Bloodz is more than that. You gotta man up. Show the other guys you aren’t a pussy.” He stands up. “Make some coffee. I’m going to take a shower. You should, too. You look like shit.”

  Before he leaves the kitchen, he turns back to me. “You want in, you got to earn it, like everyone else.” His heavy feet stomp upstairs. I think about leaving right then. Telling him to make his own frickin’ coffee and racing out of the clubhouse.

  But I got nowhere else to go.

  I peel off the lid on the coffee can. I don’t know how much coffee to put in, so I dump in half of it and pour in the water. In a few minutes, the slow drip of brown blood fills up the glass pot.

  Part of me knows Henry’s right. I’m not cut out for this life, not like him. He’s giving me a way out. Maybe I should take it.r />
  But without Koob or Henry, I’m not part of anything. A stray dog with no bite. At least with the Red Bloodz, I got a crew, guys who have my back.

  Koob’s got a new life, going to that school. Guess it’s time for me to get one, too.

  Roxy comes in, walking slow and holding a wall like she’s going to fall down. “My head’s killing me. You got any Tylenol?”

  I shake my head.

  “Any juice in the fridge?” She rubs a hand across her forehead.

  “You can check.”

  She slumps down in a chair like she’s eighty years old. “Can you? The room is spinning.”

  Fridge is empty, except for some mouldy cheese and cream that comes out in a clump. “You want coffee?”

  “Okay.”

  There’s more movement in the house, coughing, another toilet flushing, low voices. “How long you been here?” I ask and pass her a chipped coffee mug, filled halfway up.

  “Off and on since I left the rez. A girl I knew was partying with them one night. I came along and kinda never left.”

  “No one gets on your case about it? You hanging around?”

  Roxy flicks me a look from under her bangs. “Not till now.”

  “I’m not. I just wondered how it works if you’re not one of them.”

  “A Red Bloodz, you mean?”

  I nod.

  “You thinking about joining?”

  “Maybe. I been doing some work for them.” Something to fill the empty spot Koob left.

  Rat passes the kitchen on his way to the front door. His jacket is in his hands and one boot’s not laced up. “Hey, Lincoln. You see Henry, tell him to come by the garage.”

  “He’s having a shower,” I say. “Hey, uh, Rat?” I take a few steps close to him so Roxy’s behind me. “You got any more work, I’m good for it.”

  He gives me a slow nod. “Yeah, okay. Come by later. We got a meet tonight. Maybe you can handle it.”

  “Hell yeah,” I say and want to fist-bump him, but don’t. Instead, I put on my best gangland sneer and pull my hat down. I might not be the guy Henry wishes I was, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t become him. Like Mr. K’s always saying, if I put my mind to something, who knows what I can do.

  Rat arranged it so it was just me and him going to the meet. Without Henry, I wasn’t nervous. Told the guys what we had to offer and let them work out the details with Rat. Easy-peasy. By the time I got back to the garage, Rat was turning lights off and calling it a day. “Here,” he said, handing me some cash. “It’s your cut.”

  I flipped through the money. “You shitting me?” Two hundred dollars!

  “I’ll keep it if you think it’s too much,” he says.

  “No way, man!” I stuff it in my pocket and squeeze my fist around it, worried it’ll fall out. We go separate ways when we leave the garage. Rat toward the clubhouse, but me, a different direction. I’ve never had this much money to spend how I want. I wish Koob was with me. Be more fun to go into stores with him, but I push that thought out of my head. I earned the money, guess it’s mine to spend.

  Mom and Dustin are sitting on the couch. She’s got a bag of chips in one hand and a can of pop in the other. She takes one look at me when I walk in the door and shakes her head. “What’s that?” she asks.

  “What do you mean?” I play dumb, and hold the box up, waving it to Dustin. He looks up from his video game and his jaw drops.

  “Where’d you get that?”

  Dustin runs over and tears into the box. Cardboard goes flying as he peels it away from the plastic window.

  “At a store.”

  “What’s in the bag?” she says, eyeing it up. A new jacket, warm for winter, stuffed with feathers; it’s so big it looks like I’m lugging a pillow around with me.

  “Jacket. One of those parkas I’ve been wanting.”

  “Huh? Since when do you have money for all this?”

  “Got a job,” I tell her.

  She narrows her eyes at me. “Doing what?”

  “None of your business,” I say, pissed that she’s ruining the fun. That’s Dad’s complaint about Mom, too. She shuts the party down just when it’s getting started.

  She gets up from the couch, faster than I think she can move, and rips the box out of Dustin’s hands. “My house, my business.”

  Dustin’s eyes are big as he stares at his toy.

  If I tell her I’m working with Henry, she’ll lose it. “Koob’s dad helped me. He knew someone looking.”

  “Doing what?” she asks again, and I’m trying to think fast. “At the church. I sweep up and stuff. Few hours a week, but it pays good.”

  She holds the car in her hands, like a hostage. My eyes are flitting around the room. “What?” I say. “You think I’m lying?”

  Passing Dustin the toy, she shoots me a look. I fire it back at her. “I’m gonna call him and find out,” she threatens, but I know she won’t.

  I go up to my room, lugging the bag with me. A few minutes later, I hear the whir of the car as Dustin gets the batteries in. Listening to him laugh makes me think playing the game, stealing the cars, might be worth it.

  Jakub

  Dad left a note, like an invitation, telling me to join him at St. Mary’s. It’s a feast day, Birth of the Virgin Mary. I let the note drop back to the table. Dad and twenty old Polish ladies will huddle in pews, listening to Father Dom’s voice echo off the marble floor.

  I change into jeans and a T-shirt, carefully hanging my jacket in the front closet. Even secondhand, it is the nicest piece of clothing we own.

  “Koob!” I hear my name shouted from outside. With the windows open, Link’s voice carries up. “Koob!” he calls again.

  I open the window wider and lean out. There he is, in the front yard, like nothing happened. “Be down in a minute.” I finish changing, all the things I want to say to him running through my head.

  He’s checking his phone when I get outside, and wearing a new, brand-name jacket, too heavy for the weather. He must be sweating under it.

  “Whoa!” I say, taking in the jacket.

  Lincoln nods and grins. “Never had nothing this nice before.”

  “You win the lottery?” I ask.

  He pulls some bills from his pocket. “Working,” he says nonchalantly.

  I take a few steps closer. “Shit! Where’d you get all that?” I look around, nervous he’ll get jumped. “Put it away!”

  He stuffs it back into his pocket, but the smile stays. “Told you Henry was looking out for me. That’s from one week’s work.”

  “Are you messing with me?”

  “No, man. There’s more where this came from, too. It’s steady, long as I bring them what they want.” Lincoln lowers his head and talks to me out of the side of his mouth. “I lifted two last night. Just walked down the street, checking door handles. Found two that weren’t locked, and …” He shrugs, like I should know the rest.

  “What if you get caught?” I ask.

  “What can they do? Young offender,” he says with a shrug. “Maybe get some community service.”

  “So, you just lift the car and that’s it? Your work is done?”

  “Drive it to the garage, and then, yeah, I’m done.” A hint of a smile tugs at Link’s mouth. “You interested?”

  Staring at the ground, I kick at a weed in the sidewalk with my shoe and shake my head. He makes it sound easy, but there’s always a catch.

  Link moves in closer and lowers his voice. “I didn’t think I was either, man. I was shit-scared the first time. But I’m getting good at it.” He holds up his hands for me. “Quick fingers,” he says and grins.

  “I wouldn’t brag about it.”

  Link shoots me a look. “You do. I hear about the pieces you throw up all the time. What’s the difference?”

  There’
s no comparison between graff writing and what he is doing. “I’m not stealing cars!”

  “You’re vandalizing, trespassing. Koob! I’ve been with you. I been busted for you. I know what we do. I know what happens when we get caught.”

  I shake my head. “I didn’t tell you to go down the ladder. You went cuz you wanted to.” I sound like an asshole. The apology I want to give him evaporates. He’s got the upper hand, wearing his new jacket, with cash left in his pocket; I don’t know how he’s going to play it.

  “I went with the cops to help you. I thought that’s what we did, look out for each other.”

  I take a deep breath. A siren blares a couple blocks away. Seeing Link like this, puffed up in his jacket, makes me feel farther from him than when I’m at school.

  We stand toe-to-toe, neither one backing down.

  “I coulda let them take you, too,” he says quietly.

  I go back to kicking the weed with the toe of my shoe. As much as I want things to be normal between us, he’s making it hard for me. The balance is shifted and I can’t find my footing.

  “So I owe you one?”

  “More than one,” he says, and I wonder how bad he got it from his mom when he showed up with cops on the doorstep. I’ve seen her ream out her kids pretty hard, not that it did any good in Henry’s case.

  The siren gets louder and a cruiser races down our street, a blur of lights and sound. Link follows it with his eyes. “I trust you, Koob. When we go up on buildings to do a piece, I always follow. How come you don’t trust me like that?”

  His words catch me off guard. I wish I could shrug them away, but they’re too heavy for that.

  I look at Link, my best friend. The only brother I’ve ever had. He’s never asked me for anything before. When I wake up tomorrow, I’ll leave the West End. For a few hours every day, I get to escape. He doesn’t. He’s stuck here on his own. “What do you want me to do?”