Prison Walls

Her lips are cracked. "Dallas," she whispers, her voice reaches him where he sits curled up in the corner, arms around knees. "Com'ere."

He rises, takes a step. One more. Closer. Blue eyes meet his. They're tired, rimmed with red, unfocused. "Mom?" he says.

She reaches out an arm, grabs his sleeve with a shaky hand. "Do me a fa-favor, boy. Gimme my- medication..." She lets go, sinks back in the couch. Sighs and shuts her eyes. And he nods, even if she can't see it. He's a good boy. He turns around, finds his way through the small apartment, to the front door. The doorknob is too high up, but the chair stands there, like always, and he pushes it, climbs it, to reach. The stairwell outside is scary, always dark and dirty, and he sticks his thumb into his mouth as he slowly walks down to the second floor.

The music is too loud behind the door, but he knocks at it anyway. Then he waits. He can't go back without the bottle. That will hurt. Hands and bad words and angry eyes.

He waits and waits and he's hungry, but finally, someone jerks the door open, rushes through it, stops in the steps when he, it's a man with brown hair and thin beard, discovers the kid outside.

"Boy? Dally?"

"Momma wants her medication," he says quietly, gaze on the floor. The man squeezes his eyes, looks down at him.

"Got any money?"

Dallas shakes his head, No, the man grins at this. "Then I guess I'll have to pay a visit, huh?" He disappears again, and Dallas waits once more. When the man comes back, he has a plastic bag in his hand. He sits down on his heels, puts his hand on the boy's small shoulder.

"Let's go see momma, all right, boy?" His teeth are yellow. His breath smells like moms.

Dallas nods, and they walk the stairs together, and then he sits in his room, behind a closed door, listening to noises he doesn't want to hear. They scare him, still.

He's four years old.

The door opens, letting in his mom, letting in light from the hall, letting in cigarette smoke from the man who remains just outside, peeking in.

"Dallas, honey?" His mom presses her mouth to his forehead, his temple, puts a hand against his cheek, gently. "Happy birthday."

He sits up, rubs his eyes. Sometimes she's nice, and he smiles when she is. Then he loves her. She sits on his bedside, drags the quilt off of his thin body. He shivers, it's cold, he only wears his underpants, but she doesn't notices. She pats him on his head, pushes away blonde hair from his face, tucks it behind his ears. He needs a hair cut, she thinks, but she will forget it once she turns around. The day she remembers again, she will take a scissor, cut through it, leave the light straws in the sink.

"Honey?" she says, and he closes his eyes, knowing what will come. Moments like this are rare, and they're never forever. "I've to gotta go for a while. But when I get back, we'll eat some cake. All right... Dallas?"

He sits still. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't want her to go, but he knows she will, so he just refuses to look at her. And she leaves, without another word, taking with her safety and light and the smoking man. She's gone all day and all night, leaving him with darkness and nightmares and agony, and the day after that, she stumbles through the door, pushes him away to throw up in the toilet. She doesn't flush.

She crawls to the living room, ignoring him and his eyes and his need for her.

He never gets that cake. He never gets a gift for his birthday. He never gets used to be left, and the shadows under his bed grows bigger, turns to monsters when he's alone. Worst is, these days, he's more alone when she's home, than when she's not.

He's five years old.

He fingers on his black eye. The man who has lived with them for seven months are finally gone, but his marks are still there, marks and memories of other bruises. Dallas winces at the pain in his eye, but mom's face is far worse, so he can't complain. He can't cry. He did the first time, when the man slapped him so hard his head got knocked into the wall and he saw stars. He's ashamed of the memory now, 'cause boys don't cry, and he promised himself afterwards, that it would be the last time. He hasn't cried since. Even if he sometimes, secretly, wants to. Even if he sometimes wakes up with a soaked pillow. Then he goes up, kicks holes in the walls, takes a knife and stabs the mocking wallpaper. Don't watch, he shouts at everything.

But mom cries. She cries in the nights. She cries when the money runs out, when the bottles are empty, when she hugs him and slaps him and sends him to school. When they hurt her. Sometimes she whispers I'm sorry, but Dallas knows the words mean nothing. She's stopped saying I love you. She only says that to the men who come and go. Dallas is not sure what love means. He thinks he used to love her, but he thinks he doesn't anymore. He doesn't miss her when she's gone. He hates it when she cries.

Nobody should cry. Tears won't make things different. He has already tried, failed.

He's six years old.

It's dark outside, but he has no curfew. The cigarette makes his lungs burn, makes him cough, but he smokes it to a butt, then he takes another one. He stole them from Richard, but he has so many, he'll never notice. And if he does, Dallas can run, but the man can't.

He can't hurt him. Dallas will not allow it.

It starts raining, it's summer and not cold, so he stays for another hour, knowing that he's not missed at home.

He goes home anyway, at last, when the night is closer to day. He kicks away bottles, hear them clink, finds his mom passed out on the kitchen floor. A glass is shattered beside her, close to her hand. He takes a step over her, over the shards, to the fridge, but it's empty, as always. In the cabin he finds a can with white beans in tomato sauce, and he eats them cold with a tea spoon, cross legged beside his sleeping mom. He drinks water right from the tap before he wants to go to bed. He stops in the doorway to his room, looking at the big, fat man outstretched on his back in Dallas' bed. He can't sleep there tonight. Instead, he turns around, pushes all the trash lying in the couch down to the floor. He curls up into a ball on the cushions, drags a quilt over his head.

He wakes up hours later, the sun shines through the window, showing dust flakes in the air. His mom and Richard are in his room. Noises says they're fucking in his bed. He puts his fingers in his ears. They can't silence the sound.

So instead he goes up, goes out, sits on the stairs half a floor up, smokes the last sticks. He watches Richard leave before he goes back inside. His mom glares.

"What are you lookin' at?" she growls, turns her back on him, and he stops, not sure where to go.

He's seven years old.

He pushes away white blonde bangs from his eyes, clutching his fist again. His knuckles are sore. "I hate you," he tells the other boy, and it hurts to hurt him, but he has to. "Fuckin' bastard!" He swears and curses, spits his anger.

The boy wipes away fresh blood from a running nose. "I hate you too." Then he sits down on the curb, dizzy and sad and confused. "Why did ya' hit so hard?" he sniffs. Dallas sees tears, and he wishes he hadn't.

He hits hard because he always does. If you need to hit, do it properly. Take it further. Hit with your fists, but words are sometimes more painful. "You're a cry-baby," Dallas mocks. "You're stupid."

"I'm not!"

"You are. Stupid, stupid, stupid." He gives the boy a kick in the stomach, then he leaves. He goes straight to Brian.

"You made him bleed?"

"Yeah."

"Good."

Brian is ten and his new best friend. He thinks of the boy he left in the gutter, the one who sits next to him in class, the one who shares his lunch with him every day, and he guesses Monday will be a hungry day. He guesses he'll be hungry in school the whole year. But it's worth it to be with Brian.

Brian hands him the beer bottle and he takes a sip. They walk to Brian's place, and Brian's older brother Bruce observes him, and Brian says he's okay. Bruce shrugs, he doesn't care. But kids can come in handy, kids are replaceable, unnoticeable, the future, so then he goes to Brian's room, lurks in the doorway. The two boys sit on the floor, against the wall, and Bruce says, "Kids? C'mon."

They follow him, down and out and to a secret place, and Dallas suddenly feels important, even if he knows, he's not. But maybe some day, he can belong.

He's eight years old.

He limps, his arm's slung around Brian's shoulder. They both grin, despite pain and blood.

"You're one of us now," Brian says, and Dallas feels. He can't explain it, but he thinks it can be the feeling of having a family. Sort of. They will do everything for him and he will do everything for them, and if he breaks the rules, he's dead. But dead can't be worse than be alive, and rules, he only breaks them if they doesn't fit him, and this rules do.

Brian leaves him outside his house, Dallas steps in. He slowly climbs the stairs, his right foot is killing him, but there are no elevators in this building. When he's all the way up, he finds his door locked, no one answers to his knocks and curses. He spends the night close to the wall, waiting for his mom. She returns in dawn, walks past him with clicking heels. He wonders how she can walk in those shoes as he follows her in to their apartment, and then he tells her about the gang, not sure why. Maybe he wants her to say something. She doesn't, she just steps further into the dark room, their electricity was cut off two days ago.

Dallas doesn't sigh. He doesn't blink. He just thinks that nothing's ever gonna change.

He's nine years old.

"Dallas."

He rises. Brian hands him the switchblade. "C'mon."

They walk in silence, in the shadows, avoiding the street lamps if they can. Brian stops. "That place?"

Dallas shrugs. "Yeah." It's as good as any.

"Hey," Brian says, and Dallas eyes him. "You ain't scared?" Brian teases, earns a punch.

"Fuck no." He's not. His hand grasps the handle of the knife when they walk over to the glass door and peek inside. No customer's there, and they walk inside. It's a girl behind the counter, chewing a gum, flipping through a magazine. Dallas stands in front of her.

"What do you want?" she says, bored, when she discovers him.

"Money."

She blinks. Then she smiles. "Hun, go home to mommy. It's late."

He grits his teeth. He shows the switchblade, cursing that he's so small. "Gimme the money," he growls.

Her eyes narrow, painted black. "How old are ya?"

There's only one answer, and Brian steps up, gives it to her. "Shut up."

They're just kids, and she's old, twenty at least, Dallas thinks. She swallows, not sure what she should do. It's the first time she's robbed, and she always thought that robbers were grown up men. She has a plan for that. Not a plan for two small boys.

But their knives are real and their eyes are hard, and the bigger one steps around the counter and grabs her arm, and she screams.

"The money," he says. "Hurry up!"

Dallas swears, repeats Brian's words.

He has nice eyes, but his hands are hard when they grab him.

"Stop it, kid!" But he doesn't stop. He screams and kicks, and they force his arms behind his back, lock them with cold steel. Then he sees Brian. Brian is calm, Brian is tough, Brian glares but smirks and lets nothing get him. So Dallas freezes, stops struggling, he's not scared.

"What's your name, kid?"

He keeps his mouth shut. Never talk to the fuzz, one of the rules. The man sighs, puts the kids in the back of the car, and when he drives to the station, he refuses to put the sirens on. He wonders why they would try to rob a corner shop, thinking of his own sons at home, same age, the ones he will help with their homework tomorrow. Sometimes he hates being a cop. You could think murders are worse, he sometimes tells his wife, but it's not. Worse is to see the hard eyes of a lost kid.

When he parks he turns his head around, but he can't find the words he wants to say, so he just looks forward again, climbs out of the car, takes the kids inside the station.

Locks them in behind bars. Locks them in with neighbors that have done worse than them.

"How old are ya, kid?"

"Ten."

"Heard you robbed a fuckin' store, huh?"

"Fuck you."

The man puts his hands through the bars of his cage, opposite Dallas, laughs. His stomach is big, his beard is red, and he's far from ten years old. Dallas sits down on the bed, waiting for himself to grow up in this place. How much for robbery? How many years if you've done it two times?

He's not a kid anymore.

The prison walls are cold against his back. Emotions visit. They're running through him, argue which is worse, alone, abandoned, unloved, none can decide and Dallas shouts at them to shut it, shut it, shut it.

Loners are strong, abandoned tough, the unloved feeling so familiar it doesn't touch him anymore.

He's not crying.

The dark surrounds him, pokes him, eats him, and it feels like when he was younger and still scared. So he curses, like a mantra: Fuck it! Fuck it!

Prison gives records, and he will have a mile long when he's twenty five, he thinks, feeling proud, feeling little. His hands shake, and he sits on them.

It's only one night.

"What did ya do this time?" She walks half a step behind, trying to catch up. He's surprised she came, this time too. She always comes when they call her.

"Why do you care?" he throws, without looking back. There could be an answer to that, and maybe he wants to hear it, cause you're my son, but she doesn't say anything, and he knows, she doesn't care at all. Her reasons to show are something else. Because she have to, because she's curious, because she wants to see him fail. Take your pick.

They go home and he nurses his bleeding lip, his split eyebrow, a rib that can be broken but probably isn't - it just feels that way.

"Dallas Winston," the police said. "Third time arrested. Gang fight, again? Aren't you a bit young for that?"

Young? He's eleven years old, has been fighting on the street for two years. Has been fighting all his life.

Bruce is suddenly dead. Brian stands in his hallway, breathless.

"What happened?" Dallas asks, leaning against the wall, arms crossed. His mom shouts something he ignores.

"They killed him."

Dallas rolls his eyes - of course they killed him, or he wouldn't be dead, wouldn't he - but Brian snaps.

"Fuck you, he was my fuckin' brother!"

Brother, mother, father, does anything of that mean anything at all, Dallas thinks, but Brian's eyes tell him, yes it does. So Dallas only says, "Revenge?" while he turns around, picks up his jacket from the floor.

Why does he ask? Of course the gang wants a rumble. No reason given, they fight anyway, and with a reason given, it's even better.

When the night comes, crawling over New York streets, they gather under street lamps, hit and kick and hurt, and they can pretend it's for Bruce, or for Sam last month, or Eduard last year, but they all know, they only do it to feel that they exist. To feed the burning rage inside.

If you feel pain or rage or hate, at least you feel something, so feed it.

Dallas is twelve years old, and he thinks he has fun when his fist knocks out a boy's front tooth. He thinks he's alive when his foot hits a warm body. He breathes when he fights, he eats the air, he's stronger than everyone else. He's untouchable. He's immortal even when his own blood flows, paints the ground beneath.

She's annoyed, more than that. "Of course I know who his father is!" She spits words and saliva, red eyed, drunk, swaying. "He lives in Tulsa, in Oklahoma, that bastard." She smokes furiously. Her hair is a mess. Her body's too thin, bent. Elbows stick out from a ragged sweater. "You think I'm a whore? You think I don't know who knocked me up with that kid?"

She points, wide-eyed, acting offended, and she's bad at it. She doesn't look at him. "I'm a good mother, " she says. "I am. I am a good mother."

The silence in the room doesn't agree.

Dallas stares at her with icy eyes, and he thinks that maybe, maybe she does know who his father is, but she is a fucking whore, and she is a fucking liar.

And Dallas is sent away from New York, to a father he thought were dead, without a hug he doesn't want anyway. Without any good-byes from the kids that once was his family.

He's thirteen years old, and his bleeding continues, he keeps burning, the prison walls are still cold against his skin.

I don't own The Outsiders.

Reviews and criticism are always very welcome.