Disclaimer I don't own The Outsiders

Warning There's some language here, folks. Also, this is tied in very loosely with a twoshot of mine called Long Time Coming. Check it out, if you haven't read it.

Devil's Backbone

You got a blade yet?

I'm ten and I don't but I lie like I do. Soda knows I'm lyin', too, but he don't say anything. I let the other guys think what they want until Tim asks where it is and I tell him it's at home.

I don't wanna get caught with it at school.

Tim says nothing and flicks his out showing it off proudly as we walk home. It ain't all that sharp, it's got plenty of nicks in the dark handle, but it's a blade and he handles it like he knows how. He flips it up in the air and catches it before giving it over to me.

I don't tell him, don't tell anyone—not even Soda—but dad's got a wicked blade in his dresser. He doesn't know I found it and I don't plan on telling him that I did. I go in every now and then, dig under his socks, and pull it out. But I always put it back just like I found it, keeping it hidden like he wants.

Tim doesn't have to hide his blade though and it's his. I take it and run my fingers over it. He's only eight and he probably stole it, but it's tough and I suddenly, blindly, want one of my own.

I never thought I'd be jealous of the dark haired boy whose step father beat the shit out of him for kicks, but I sure am now.

xxx

He starts makin' noise at twelve. Shoplifting, fighting, drinking, lying, cheating, gambling—kid's play in this neighborhood. But he's a smart son of a bitch and plays his game well. Well enough to start a name for himself.

Timothy Shepard. It gets around.

I tell my kid brothers to steer clear if they can help it. I don't want them gettin' any further shove towards the road that seems to wait for all of us on the north side.

We don't see much of Tim but we hear plenty. And then Dallas Winston comes to town and he's like a damn tornado.

He tough, fresh out of New York, sticks out like a sore thumb and doesn't give a shit that he does. The guys like Dally okay but I think they respect him more than they like him. He kinda forces the like out of you. Except for mom. She seems to have a real soft spot for Dally and I don't get it at all. But he treats her okay and as long as it stays that way, I keep my trap shut.

Then the inevitable happens and Dallas has a run in with Tim that leaves them both bleeding, bruised, broken, cussin' up a storm, and oddly enough—friends. When Dally starts slowly disappearing, I get an idea as to where he is.

In Tim, Dally finds an outlet, someone who won't make him explain and won't expect anything better out of him. It's an easy way to blow off steam and Dally has a lot of steam in him.

But for some unknown reason, Dally starts bringing Tim around the house with him. Tim's different than us. He's rougher. Not in the way of rage and explosives like Dally, Tim's violence is all liquid finesse—preconceived. When he comes over dad instinctively keeps an eye on him. He tells me later that he use to run with boys like Tim Shepard in his wild days. He knows what guys like him are and tells me to watch myself around him. So I do. Mom doesn't see it though. She mistakes his quiet for politeness and has no clue when Tim wanders out one day with her one and only watch.

It's Dally who catches him with it and when he does they slug it out and blades get pulled.

Dally's arm gets sliced open, Tim gets his first broken nose, and Dally gets the watch back. Mom never knew it was even missing.

After that, Dally stops bringing Tim around the house.

xxx

Me and Tim may be from the same neighborhood but we ain't cut from the same cloth. That becomes clear when I find my place in football and Tim finds his in a warehouse downtown.

I make friends easy in high school and football helps a lot with that. I'm good at it, damn good, and I enjoy the attention. I also meet Paul Holden and when I do I have no clue he is going to flip my world upside down until he's already done it. He is the first guy I know that is actually going somewhere in life and not just in his dreams. He is actually gonna do it.

He makes me want to, too.

Paul and I buddy around and the first time I go to his house, I can't believe my eyes. It is a two-story place with a perfect green lawn and a red mustang in the driveway. Paul isn't even sixteen yet, but his car is already waiting for him.

I remember an old feeling years ago when Tim Shepard had shown me and the guys his new blade. I had been jealous then but now, standing here with Paul, I wonder what I was jealous of.

In school, my English teacher says that poets describe envy as biting and cold, but when Paul lets me sit in the mustang and talks about the colleges his dad wants him to choose from, I feel it burn.

xxx

He's there when I get hauled in for the first time.

I'm a few days away from my sixteenth birthday and want to be anywhere but here. Some of it is fear but most of it is pride.

Tim is grinning like a fool when they put me in his cell and I ignore him and sit on the squeaky cot. My lip is throbbing and I can feel my eye swellin' up but it's my hand that worries me. It ain't busted open but there's a bone deep ache and I got a sick feeling that I broke it on Louis' forehead.

Shit, it's gonna be hell to try and catch a football with this. I stretch out my fingers slowly and feel sharp pain shooting up my arm like electricity.

Fuck.

Hurt like a bitch, don't it? Tim quips with a grin. I stay quiet. Let me guess. Your Soc friends finally realized you weren't one of them and got you thrown in here? More silence. I can smell the overwhelming alcohol on Tim's breath and it loosens his lips. When are you gonna realize that no matter what you do, they ain't never gonna accept you. You can try an' talk like them, look like them, but you'll always be nothin' but dirt in their eyes. Best just accept it. You ain't no Soc, Darry.

I can't open my mouth, can't even unclench my jaw, because for the first time in my entire life I am completely and totally ashamed. I'm ashamed of where I live, ashamed of people like Tim Shepard who know me better than most of my friends from school, ashamed about betraying my own kind—me tryin' so hard to be somethin' I'm not. I'm even ashamed of bein' ashamed.

A charity case.

I have never been called that, never had a reason to be called that, and by fuckin' Louis Reece no less. Louis is an asshole through and through. I know that but part of me can't help but wonder if what he said is true.

At least tell me you bashed their heads in.

I snort. 'Course I did. I've never lost a fight.

Then you must've not fought much yet.

I've fought plenty.

Sure. Tim nods and suddenly I don't feel like putting up with his shit. So I don't.

I turn away from him and stare straight ahead my mind playin' the feeling of beating Louis Reece's face in, the sheer violence of it, over and over. And then I start to think about the fact that even when Louis was sayin' that shit, even when I started throwing punches, even when I got hauled in… my buddy Paul never once spoke up.

He was there but he wasn't at the same time.

It doesn't make sense to me. You don't leave your buddy hangin' out to dry on the north side. It's in our blood to stick together, to have each other's backs. I don't know what to think about all the people who I call friends now, the girls with their nice sweaters and soft laughter, the boys with their mustangs and their madras ski jackets. I never thought to wonder if they have my back or not. It's never something I've had to question with anyone before—even guys like Tim.

I start to get a headache and maybe it's from my black eye, but I know that I have to get my mind on somethin' else or I'll explode. So I start wondering how long it's gonna take dad to get down here and what we should do about my hand. I hear mom and dad talkin' sometimes when they think they're alone and I know things are real tight right now. Tighter than they've ever been. If I don't gotta, I won't go to the doctor. I'll just deal with it.

Listen. Tim sits up a little more clumsy than usual. I got some buddies of mine, good fighters, if those Socs start in on you again, let me know and we'll help you sort them out. You get your guys and I'll bring mine. Savvy?

I stare at Tim and realize just how old he looks for how young he is.

Darry.

The voice shakes me and I look up in shock to see my mom, not my dad, standin' there waiting for me.

Offer's still standin'. We got a deal, Darry? Tim grins as he takes in my mother's appearance.

She is staring at me and then at Tim and I can't bring myself to say anything. So I nod and when I get up I wonder if I just struck a deal with the devil.

xxx

I start getting recruited by colleges when I'm seventeen. Tim starts recruiting his gang when he is fifteen.

We run into each other in school and usually when I see him I have other things on my mind or other people I'm already talkin' to. I give him a nod and he returns it. We go our separate ways. We never talk about the conversation we had in jail and I still buddy around with Paul and Richard and David but both Tim and I know we got back up if we need it, for anything.

Nothin' more needs to be said.

Tim's a natural leader, but his charisma but is more like a Picasso painting than that of a movie star. He's the kind of mess you stare at and can't take your eyes off of tryin' to figure out what in the world the artist had in mind when they started it and where they went wrong.

When he starts recruiting for his gang, he gets my friend Chuck in deep but he never comes to me. Tim may be a leader but I was never really born to follow and we both knew that I was goin' somewhere. I was getting out and he was stuck.

Sometimes I think that's where it all started.

Sometimes when you're stuck in mud and you know you're not gonna move any time soon, you realize that you can either give up and just die or wallow in it and make as much of a mess as you can just because you can.

Sometimes you realize that enjoying the mud is the only thing you can do.

It isn't long after he puts together his gang that Tim starts stealin' car parts for cash. I don't say anything about it, even my dad use to do things like that when he was young. I guess it isn't a huge surprise considering where we live. But I don't like it when Tim gets Steve in on it. Tim and I might've reached an agreement but this ain't it.

Even though Steve knows cars inside and out, he's only thirteen. The job makes Steve a few dollars richer and I tell Soda that if I catch wind of him steppin' near this mess, I'll beat the tar out of him.

Things change when Steve gets shot at while trying to get the hubcaps off a tuff Dodge Charger. The bullets don't come close to hitting him, in fact the gun was just shot in the air to scare him off, but it's enough to get Steve to quit that shit.

Tim has the nerve to come by and ask Steve for the hubcaps and that's when I clock him.

There is no warning, I don't even know I am gonna do it myself until my fist connects with his nose and the bone gives making a sick thwack like noise. I know I broke it and I don't care. All I see is Tim Shepard wallowing in his mud and getting as many covered in it as he can.

The only thing that stops Tim from fighting back, aside from the fountain flow of blood, is dad's truck pulling into the driveway and his voice asking real calm what was goin' on. I tell him nothing and ask Tim if that was right, that there is nothing goin' on. I'm two years older than him, bigger than him, and he might be the leader of a gang but I'll use everything I got.

Tim is cursing blue and green but doesn't say a word. He stalks off into the night ignoring dad's offer for ice. For some reason, I feel like I got off easy.

xxx

When my girl's car is keyed and her hubcaps are stolen a week later, I know I was right. She tries to tell me what the guy looks like that she saw running off but I don't listen.

I already know and I go lookin' for him.

xxx

Tim and I have it out, I don't get the hubcaps back—says he's already sold them—and we shake hands at the end like it was some kind of fucked up business deal. But that's the way things go around here. At least with Tim's outfit and ours. As long as Tim leaves the guys out of it, I ain't got no beef with him. He knows that now. I made it perfectly clear.

'Sides, he's got bigger fish to fry than us, like the River Kings who are testing the waters of Tim's new territory, and we've never really been an organized gang. I don't dish out punishment in the form of broken jaws and busted heads like him. Tim and I do things different but we respect each other… in a way.

xxx

About a month later Soda and Steve get jumped after school. It's just the two of them against five Socs. Not the best odds and they know it. I'm at football and they're on their own. The way Soda tells it, things weren't looking real good until Shepard showed up.

I don't like owing people things. I don't like the feeling of a debt. But it's heavy on my shoulders when Tim saves Soda's ass from a beating. It's only when Tim asks me why my Soc friends jumped my little brother and his buddy that I even think about the possibility that I may know the guys who did it.

I can't look at Soda for a week.

xxx

I know him.

That's the first thing I think, the only thing I think as I watch the scene from inside the Dingo. I know him. He looks out for my brothers and I keep an eye out for his; that's always been our deal. He's good in a fight, so am I, but soon things start to rattle and shift and now days I wonder if I actually know him at all.

Morality is a funny thing, like a slide; it begins with a push and ends with a fall.

Dad use to say people like Tim Shepard were raised on the edge of the devil's backbone. As I watch him spit blood in the face of one of the cop's after they cuff him, I figure he was right about that.

xxx

Pony turns twelve and starts hangin' around Curly Shepard and I grit my teeth. Curly is wild and young and his biggest dream is to become his big brother. He's an agitated little squirt always movin' and talkin' and looking for the next big excitement like he could never be satisfied. He's not like Pony at all. Ponyboy's better than that. He's different and not just from Curly. Pony's an endangered species. Peace… peace just runs deep in him.

I'd like to keep him that way.

But one day Tim drags Ponyboy home with a hole burned through his finger and tells me all about finding him and Curly playin' chicken. He says not to worry about Curly pulling that shit anymore, he is gonna sort him out.

I don't ask what Tim's idea of sorting Curly out is but he leaves Ponyboy with me.

I sigh long and tired. What are you doin' Pony?

I dunno. Didn't think, I guess.

Well then, you better start figurin' out how to use that brain of yours, huh? Silence. Curly ain't worth this shit, Ponyboy. Look at where he's comin' from, what he wants to be. He ain't like you. You're better than that.

xxx

I get a scholarship for football but it isn't enough. My family's still poor and dad tries real hard to make up where we fall short and I end up tellin' him I'll just take a year between high school and college and get the rest of the money. He doesn't like it and neither do I but it's what we have to do.

The work is hard. Dad gets me a job with his roofin' company and I pull my weight okay. Some of the other guys aren't so sure but my dad and I make a killer team together. We finish faster than anyone else and they can't argue with the results.

It keeps me in shape and with every sound of the hammer I hear the cry of a Friday night crowd cheerin' my name not so long ago. With every bundle of roofing I grind my teeth and tell myself that it's one step closer—one fucking slow step closer to getting out of here.

I come home exhausted every day, tired down to my marrow, and I get the feelin' that mom gets a little too much enjoyment out of finally bein' able to fuss over me. She use to try after football but I would still have too much energy or just brush her attempts off.

Now I can hardly even raise my arm.

It'll pass. Dad says when he sees my face after one real hard day and laughs.

But I listen to him grunt and see him wince as he kicks off his boots movin' like he weighs five hundred pounds and shake my head. Bullshit it will, old man.

He smirks at me then and it's his turn to listen to my grunts and see my winces as I stretch out on the couch. Mom'll holler at me if she sees me on it without takin' a shower first but I'm too tired to care.

I'm proud of you Darry. It's not the first time he's said it but it's the first time I've felt like he has a right to be. Here, you work like a man and you can drink like a man. I'm not old enough to drink yet, but that's never really stopped me. I take the beer he offers and he gives me a wild grin. Just don't tell your mother.

xxx

I never do tell mom. I never get the chance to.

I can't help but feel like a shitty brother when I leave mine cryin' in the living room holding onto each other for dear life, but fuck, I can't take it. Walls feel like they're closin' in around me and I'm being crushed and suddenly there are so many questions I wish I could ask them.

I reach the lot and I don't know where I plan on going—just away for right now. For five minutes. Just so I can breathe.

But when I see that in my hurry to get out of the house I grabbed my dad's shoes and not my own I fucking lose it. My chest locks, everything hurts, I rip the work boots off my feet as a strangled noise leaps out of some place deep in me. For one moment—one single flaming moment—the pain takes the shape of my dad's name in my throat.

Rocks cut into my bare feet but I ignore it. I stand in the middle of the lot, stare up at the sky, and let the scream that'd been building up rip its way out of me. There's no words this time, no names, just desperation and I feel like tearing at my hair.

My throat turns raw and somewhere in my mind I think I must've terrified the neighbors. It's that thought that sends me back to my brothers.

It's a long walk back and I forget the shoes in the lot.

xxx

It's bullshit how when your family dies people you never spoke to before or haven't spoken to in years suddenly start pouring in and talk to you like their your best friend, like you can rely on them.

Where were all these people when my folks couldn't pay the electric bill one month? That's what I want to ask but I don't because if I start then the bitterness won't stop. I don't mind the guys bein' at the house—I welcome them and ask them to stay. They know how to take better care of Soda and Pony than I know right now.

At their funeral neighbors, church members, work friends, teachers, even my old principle shows up. I don't know what to say to any of them and so I hardly say anything. I don't look at the ground, don't lower my face once. Just like mom told me long ago. It doesn't make sense and I don't know why but it feels like I'm honorin' her when I hold my head high. I think for some reason that she'd like that, so I clench my jaw and make myself look straight ahead.

When we go home, the gang comes with us—except for Dally. No one's seen him since the night they died and I'm sorry to say but I can't be bothered to go find him right now. I feel more bone tired than I ever did roofing houses and I'm about to collapse.

Two-Bit's mom brings by dinner and she's a terrible cook and it makes me miss my mom so much that I have to swallow real hard to control myself and get the stuff down my throat.

Night finally comes and I've never felt like I've talked so much but said nothing at all in my whole life. Soda and Pony fell asleep hours ago—exhausted from the day—and the gang wandered out one by one. I have to convince Two-Bit that I'd be fine and finally have to tell him that I want to be alone. He gets that and leaves promising to be back tomorrow.

Silence falls and I can't bring myself to sit in dad's chair. I just can't. Not yet. So I sit on one of the chairs in the kitchen and stare at the empty living room wondering what in the hell happened to my life when I hear the car pull up outside and the footsteps on the stairs.

For some reason I expect it to be Dally finally showing himself but instead I find Tim Shepard and a pair of work boots.

He might've stolen my mother's watch years ago but now he's brought back my father's shoes.

I stand on one side of the door and a thin, filthy screen netting is the only thing separating me and Tim. I wonder if that is really all that is separating me and him. I wonder if someone looked under a magnifying glass if they'd find that Tim and I aren't that different after all. I wonder what he might be like with parents half as good as mine are—were. I wonder what I might be like with parents like his.

He doesn't try to come in and talk—not that I would ever expect him to—just sets the boots on the porch outside and stuffs his hands in his pockets.

Found these in the lot. Thought you might want 'em.

I do. Thanks.

Sure thing. A pause and a breath. They were good people.

He's gone, down the steps, without letting me say anything else. Tim gets in his car, one that I'm pretty sure he stole because I've never seen anything like it around these parts, and I'm sure he's got plans for it, like he's got plans for all of Tulsa. But I don't care much about any of that. I just step outside, grab the boots, and place them as carefully as I can by the door.

They stay there for the next year and when our lives shake again, those boots are what I stare at when I need to remember that even the things I thought were lost could be found.

AN: I'm about to head overseas for a few months (as in, I'm at the two day countdown) and wanted to get this out before I left. My first time exploring the enigma that is Tim Shepard and practicing some Darry POV.

Hopefully I didn't screw things up too badly. I also hope you enjoyed it!

- Finch