It was well past midnight by the time Timmy and Tommy slipped their way into town. The Berryville streets were silent, deserted. A few aging streetlights cast a dim halo around the dated town square. Their faint beam barely cuts through the dark shadows. Several business security lights flicker in the distance, a small break from the eerie darkness, making it a little less unsettling somehow.
Tommy and Timmy pull up to the old clubhouse on the corner of Church and Main to find the property has become more neglected than what he remembers back in the day. A single, naked bulb gleams through the warehouse's dusty window. Its faint glow barely cuts through the years of grime, yet somehow the vague flicker seems to give the dilapidated lean to a small breath of life.
Shutting off the car, Tommy replays his options in his mind. He wasn't sure what sort of welcome his son would get, now he's caused such a stir, but he didn't want his son to sit out here alone, not with Bambini's goons on his tail. Weighing out the options, with a heavy sigh, Tommy turns and says," Stay here."
Timmy's eyes dart around the dark, desolate street that surrounds him to find the stillness unnerving. The lad shifts his weight; in a cracked, high-pitched, childlike voice he says. "But Dad."
Tommy stands firm on his decision. "I think you've caused enough trouble for the night."
The car door gives one long squeak when he pushes it open like an old rotten branch that's been caught by the wind. Locking the doors, Tommy turns and says, "I'll be right back." His voice was steady and refined but laced with tension that's been brewing beneath the surface.
Tommy's heavy footsteps crunch across the thick layer of weed and mounds of debris scattered across the yard. Each step echoing through the silence as he makes his way across.
Reaching the warped door, Tommy does the usual three-tap knock, a code they used back in the day. He smells the stale scent of pot seeping through the cracked surface as he waits. Somethings never change, he thinks as a memory from the past repays in his mind. His friends have been heavy into drugs since they were young.
Tommy hears footsteps, then a deep voice says, "Who is it?"
"It's Tommy, you moron." He impatiently shifts his weight.
The flimsy plywood door slowly creaks opens, first catching at the top and then on the side. "They never did fix that thing," Tommy snorts. The gap widens; Tommy looks up to find his pal in the doorway.
Larry's eyes were bloodshot and heavy, his lids drooping as though they weighed a ton. His one tan skin is now chalk white. His once-golden blond curls hung in tangled dreads well past his shoulders, looking as if they hadn't seen a brush in weeks. Tommy imagined bugs crawling across his scalp while others settled into a nest.
Larry's torn shirt and faded jeans sagging from his toothpick-sized body look like they hadn't been changed in months. The horrid sight takes Tommy aback.
Larry sways to the right then the left as if the floor keeps shifting under him.
"You really need to lay off that shit, bro," Tommy muttered. "Or at least slow down." Tommy has lectured him numerous times before, but it never seems to do any good.
Larry shrugged, his voice rough. "It helps me cope with shit." The same excuse he'd used since his mom passed.
Tommy's jaw tightens as he sweeps his hand through the thick smoky air. "Don't you want more for yourself than this, wasting away in this dump?"
Glancing down at the floor, with sagging shoulders Larry says, "That's all there is to do in this town."
Tommy grabs his friend's shoulders, shakes him, and then states, "Then get out. Go somewhere new."
With a sarcastic laugh, he says, "I'm not like you, Tommy. I can't pick up everything and start again."
"Sure, you can."
Larry Contemplates the thought, then sighs.
Tommy watches as the last bit of hope seems to escape from his friend's body like someone was draining his remaining ambitions.
Tommy rolls his eyes and shakes his head, the disappointment impossible to hide.
Seeing it, Larry bristled. "At least I'm not hitting' the bars like my old man." His father has been drowning himself in liquor shortly after losing the love of his life.
"How is the old man?"
Larry shrugs again. "Not well I'm afraid, cirrhosis, the doc says, but he keeps drinking despite peeing out blood."
Tommy winces at the thought. He then recalls Larry's older brothers; one is doing life in prison, and the second is dead. Tommy then remembers what a happy family they were back in the day. How he secretly wished his life was the same. The family went to hell after Patty's demise, Tommy sighs.
There's a long awkward pause before Larry clears his throat and says, "I guess you're here to pick up your kid."
"I heard he caused quite a stir here tonight."
Tension creeps up Larry's back as the memory of how his buddies' tempers flared relays in his mind. The way a few of his milder-tempered buddies chased after the kid as he stormed out the door. How it took the remaining crew to hold the five back. "A lot of the crew were seeing red by the time he was done."
"That bad, huh?" Tommy then recalls how hot-tempered some of his friends can be.
The only thing that saved him was he's your kid." Larry shakes his head and adds. "He's a stubborn hardhead, just like you used to be."
Tommy exhales sharply, recalling the endless arguments over the course of the past two years. With a roll of his eyes, he says, "I know."
"So, I suppose you're headed back once you find him?"
"That was my original plan, but after what Timmy told me on the way over, it looks like I've got a score to settle before I go."
Larry's eyes widened to the size of saucers. His jaw nearly drops to his chest. He finally manages to say, "You don't mean…"
Fury rises to surface. Tommy nods and says, "They've targeted my son three times since he's been here and there's no way in hell; I'm letting that go."
Larry exhaled sharply. "Jimmy was telling us about what happened at his house."
Tommy's jaw clenches when he recalls the research he'd found. How the city government seems to be run by either shady men or dirty cops who traded their badges for gold. "I can guarantee you that the Berryville PD didn't investigate, not with the mob in charge of things."
"You think the cops are a part of this corruption spreading through the town?"
"I know so, and I plan to take every last one of them down."