Blood Brothers

Tate Simmons is looking up at me, his face just as swollen and bruised as my own. We had done this dance many times before, going after each other like two bulls fighting over the same cow, except for us the cow was a legacy. Our jackets, like brands we carried, are both trampled off to the side, crumpled together in a heap, much like we were moments ago.

My breathing is ragged, and I can’t seem to shake the anger burning into my gut as I look down at him, his eyes pleading even more than his voice as he talks through bloody lips.

“You don’t have to do this Aaron, it doesn’t have to be like this. It’s not our fight.” Tate props himself up on his elbows, his eyes still begging as they search my own, his face now inches from mine. I’m still holding his shirt in my fist, my other arm reared back and ready to deliver another blow.

Tate laughs bitterly. “We don’t have to keep doing it just because we’ve been taught to. They’ve bred us for violence, for something we didn’t even see, didn’t even know about before we joined. We can stop this, you can stop this,” his laugh turns into a cough, droplets of blood hitting my face and mingling with my own that seeps down my cheek.

His blood and mine.

We promised each other when we were eight. Blood brothers we called it, like we had seen in the movies. Two men who trusted each other, who had fought like hell side by side and beaten whatever evil they were up against.

We wanted to be like that. The two of us had been together almost as long as we had been alive, and we figured that if we weren’t brothers by birth, then we had to be blood brothers. We made a fire out of sticks and grass one summer, making the whole thing some big ritual. We made a big show of slicing our hands with a dull switchblade Tate had stolen from his dad.

When we put our hands together, the blood dripping down into the fire and onto our sleeves and the both of us trying to act like it didn’t hurt us one bit, we knew then that we were now connected.

Blood brothers. Two friends who were eternally linked, no matter where they went or what they did.

Until now.

Now things are different, we’re different. We made our choices, chose our allegiance, our real family.

I bring my fist away from my face and let it hang at my side, my other one releasing Tate’s shirt, both of us still huffing, neither of us moving, as if we were thinking the same thing. What do we do now?

Gangs were always so big and exciting to us. Tate’s brother was in one, and we thought they ruled the world, and to us the world was out tiny little town, never split into two until now. Even in the early days gangs were never about choosing sides, for us it was social, a fun little club that earned you a cool jacket. Until two years ago.

Then it was all about picking sides, you were either a Thunderbird or a Cobra, or you didn’t’t so much as mention your own opinion. Everyone thought it was just a matter of “boys being boys”, a stupid rivalry that wouldn’t last more than a few weeks, a month at most. We thought that too, until we made our choices.

We were seventeen, following the unspoken rule that you had to be at least that old to join up, like we were going into the army or something, not a rowdy social group that wore matching beat up jackets and walked around town like a pack of wild dogs.

Fully believing that whatever kind of childish game was going now would soon die off, we picked different sides. Tate walked into school the next week in a black jacket, the newly embroidered snake seemed to glow with it’s green thread, it’s fangs poised to strike. It was the opposite of my brown leather that had a design of a bird mid-flight, the oranges and reds reminiscent of a fire’s dying embers.

Suddenly we were walking down different sides of the hallway, but we knew it wouldn’t be long before we were walking side my side again, brothers, just sporting different colors. Except that day never came. We learned the truth, the violence that had come to our small town.

It was a regular rumble, if you could even call it that, that had set this whole thing into motion. Someone had brought a blade, not one of us, but of them. One of the Cobras had killed one of us, and they had to pay.

“You guys have to pay,” I find myself saying out loud, wiping the blood, our blood, off of my cheek as I back away.

Tate slowly stands up. “It was an accident,” His words sound hollow, his voice mechanic, like he’s been trained to say whatever it takes to prove their innocence. “Come on, let’s get out of here,” He walks over to where our jackets sit side my side, in a way their owners never can.

“Don’t walk away from this,” I say, my voice getting louder as he walks further away. “You guys can’t keep getting away with hurting people and then just running away,”

Tate stops, his jacket slipping from his fingers and back onto the ground. “So, you’ve sold your soul to them huh?” When he whips around to face me, his eyes are no longer pleading, they’re filled with fury. He marches towards me, knocking me flat onto my back with aright hook that slams into my face.

“You’ve bought into their brotherhood, their sorry excuse for a family.” The volley of punches that are coming my way are fueled with a rage that was absent a few minutes ago, and now I realize that I’m losing, not just the fight, but maybe something more. Tate doesn’t stop punching as he speaks again. “We were brothers Aaron, before they blinded you, before they taught you a lie that forces you to see us as wrong,”

“Who’s buying into the brotherhood now?” I ask, kicking Tate in the chin. He stumbles back, far enough away that I can drag myself into a standing position. “A kid died Tate, and whether you like it or not, your guys are in the wrong, accident or not.”

Tate spits, and I hear the unmistakeable sound of metal being unsheathed, looking up to see a knife in his hand. “Aaron, you’re not listening to me,” he says, his voice now soft, sharply contrasting the weapon that he clenches tightly in his fist, a lot like his shirt was clenched in mine a minute ago. “It doesn’t matter who’s in the wrong, if we keep doing this stupid dance we’ll be fighting each other for the rest of our lives.”

I back away, tripping on a root and landing hard on the ground, and then I can see them lurking in the underbrush behind Tate, the red and orange thread glinting in the afternoon sunlight. One of them is watching me, his green eyes peeking out from the top of a bush. They were right. I can’t make him understand.

As Tate comes closer, preaching about how he doesn’t want to hurt me, but that he also can’t let me leave, I let out a shrill whistle, and the three of the Thunderbirds, my gang, burst out of the trees. Tate turns around in shock, but he’s surrounded before he can say anything else, and I turn away as I hear him scream, burying my face into my arms, tasting dirt in my mouth as I roll over onto my stomach on the ground.

I can hear each punch as they beat him, and I want to make it stop, but I can’t because Tate is right. If we don’t stop it now, they’ll keep thinking that they can get away with it. The Cobras will keep thinking that they can kill someone and get off scot free.

But all that ends today.

The heel of a boot nudges my side, and I lift my head up, looking at one of the Thunderbirds that’s stands above me, his body blocking the sun.

“It’s done,” he says, his voice deep and husky as he lights a cigarette. “You can get up now,”

I drag myself to my feet slowly, turning around and surprising myself with the pain and guilt that I feel in my gut. Tate is lying prone on the ground, his body marred by cuts and swollen bruises, so much so that I hardly recognize him. His breath is more of a hitching gasp, and I notice that on one of his sides, his ribs are dented inwards.

“If it wasn’t him, it would’ve been you,” The Thunderbird smoking a cigarette says, walking slowly around Tate as if admiring his work. “Now they now they can’t run around free, that they have to pay for their crimes. We’ll be at the car,” he speaks the last part to me, dropping his cigarette and crushing it with his heel before loping off towards the car, my other brothers following suit.

I crouch down beside Tate, knowing I’ve made a choice I can’t unmake, a choice that had to be done. “I stopped it. I didn’t have a choice,” I whisper quietly, leaning near his ear, though I don’t even know if he can hear me. He doesn’t react, but that doesn’t matter. I played my part, and I’ve done it all for the good of the gang, for the good of everyone. Maybe it won’t stop them, but it’ll teach them a lesson.

“I just hate that I had to use you to stop it Tate. We have been bred for violence, but I think we carry it out because we’ve each learned our own truths, chosen our own families, and we have to fight to prove that loyalty. And I’d rather prove that loyalty than try to salvage what’s left of this tattered friendship” I smile. “Isn’t that why we had this fight in the first place?”

Tate groans as I slowly try to stand, my body groaning in protest. I lean down further to hear what he’s trying to say, and as I do, a drop of blood from my nose splashes onto his forehead, right into a small gash that trickles into his eyebrow. I can hear him trying to form words, so I try to listen, past his harsh breathing and his grunting, when I finally hear it.

“We…were blood brothers…” he whispers, and I stand up fully, looking over to where the members of the gang, the family I chose, the family I don’t have to fight, is waiting for me.

“Sorry Tate,” I say as I walk towards them, the loyal ones, “but it takes more than blood to make us brothers,”

I stoop down to pick up my jacket as I go, knowing as I reach for it that mine and the one that lays beside it will never be side by side again.