Other Fan Fiction ❯ Romeo is Bleeding ❯ Romeo is Bleeding ( Chapter 1 )

Rome is Bleeding

an 'original songfic'

Masamune Reforged

Disclaimer: Found this song on a CD my friend gave me, and I just had to write. I really did nothing but add a few, probably shitty details to the song. The song is much better, and my writing can't deliver the same feel that Tom Waits' rough voice and smooth music can. I'm probably butchering this excellent song, but, I needed to write. The CD is 'Blue Valentine'.

 

Romeo is Bleeding

 

Romeo is bleeding, but not so as you'd notice.

 

They're all down on 18th street, like usual. The smell of the barrio hangs over the cracked sidewalks and the crumbling, shitty brickwork apartment buildings. The young Latinos are out in front of the auto body shops, their sisters and mothers off on the front stoops and rusted wire fences, talking and keeping an eye on them. It's too hot to be inside, and, on 18th street, nobody has the money for air conditioning.

 

Romeo is leaning against the hood of his car. He's looking mean and easy, tough and casual. You'd get a shiver down the ridge of your spine just by looking at him. But he's not handsome or ugly, and he's not dressed any nicer than anyone else out there on 18th street on a hot summer night. It's the way he stands. It's the way he holds his head high and keeps his body loose. You look at him and you know, “That guy is motherfucking nails”. It almost hurts to look at him. He has his hands in his pockets.

 

Romeo puts out a cigarette in his hand. It sizzles for a second, then is smothered. Romeo doesn't hardly blink. He doesn't do it to look cool. He doesn't need to do anything to look cool. But the cigarette is down to the filter, and Romeo isn't going to bend down to put it out against the gravel pavement. He's leaning up against his car, and the cigarette's done, but he's not going to move to put it out. He sure isn't going to put it out on his car. So he pushes the burning tobacco embers down into the palm of his hand.

 

The pachucos work the pumps every night. The gas station outside of Romero's Paint and Body is the only thing open now, the small little shops all closed down after another long day of scraping just a little less than enough. They're there every night, even if they're not working. But there aren't ever many customers, and they don't have much to talk about. So the boys stand around and spit, seeing how far they can spit. It's just another night.

 

But now they're all in a small circle around a '58 Bel Air, shoulders touching as they lean in to listen. They all want to hear, and they're more than fine sweating in a small, packed group around Romeo's freely washed Bel Air.

 

He's telling them how he killed a sheriff with his knife.

 

He stuck it in his chest and turned it, and that was it for the sheriff.

 

Sirens make the boys jump, shoulders tensing, eyes darting around in wild fear. The whine of the siren shoots down the avenues and alleys and right through them. It's something they all hear a hundred times a day, but this time it scares them, because it's almost like they were their with Romeo, hands on the blade and twisting it in the sheriff's guts until he spat blood and fell backwards onto the ground. The sirens scream and wail, and it scares them. They jump and look around, all nerves.

 

But Romeo just lets out a little laugh. It's a deep, short, toothy laugh. It brings their attention right back to him. He's not laughing at them or with them. He laughs just because, to Romeo, it's funny.

 

And Romeo says, “All the racket in the world ain't never gonna save that copper's ass.”

 

“He ain't never gonna see another summertime, for gunnin' down my brother.”

 

“Leavin' him like a dog beneath a car without his knife.”

 

And Romeo says, “Hey, man, gimme a cigarette.”

 

And their hands all fly to their pockets, even the ones that don't have on them. It's an impulse. None of them realize or think about how much it makes them look like lackies, and the only reason you might is because you weren't there either. Because if you were, you'd have reached for your pack too, even if you never smoked a day in your life.

 

Frankie lights it and pats Romeo on the back. It's just to touch him, to show others he can touch him, that Romeo is cool with it. Frankie does it without even thinking, and it's a friendly, casually nervous gesture.

 

Like something's rubbed off on him, Frankie suddenly moves away, grabs an empty glass bottle, and hurls it out through the night air at a passing milk truck. It shatters with a tinkle, and Frankie grabs at his crotch through the tight denim of his jeans. There are a few little cheers and laughs, and everyone feels good, even though it was Frankie who threw the bottle, and only because Romeo was there. It was like something Romeo would do, and it reminds them that they could be like him too, if they weren't so chicken-shit most of the time.

 

Because they want to be like Romeo, but that won't ever work. Because they're not Romeo. Only Romeo is Romeo, and he's not trying to be 'like Romeo'. He doesn't want to be 'just like Romeo'. He's just Romeo, and they're not. They want to be like Romeo, and that's why they won't ever be.

 

Romeo is bleeding, but nobody can tell. He's smiling and singing out loud with the radio. The tune is full of static, and Romeo sings off key, but he sings well, sings with everything he's got. You can see the veins in his neck bulge sometimes, carrying the blood up from down in his chest where the bullet is lodged.

 

Romeo combs back his slicked back hair, and the boys all watch him. Beads of sweat on his forehead glisten in the streetlight, but it's all cool now. Romeo is here, and it's suddenly not just another night outside of Romero's Paint and Body on 18th Street, even though Romeo is usually down there anyway. They all feel good, out in the humid summer sweat. They watch Romeo comb back his hair. Some of them catch each other watching, and as their eyes meet, it's not with shame or embarassment, but just silent agreement that it's all good now that Romeo is here.

 

But Romeo is bleeding. He gives a little wince every now and then, a small, quickly forgotten gritting of his teeth, a quickly replaced frown. Romeo is leaning back on the cool metal of his car door. Down in his shoes he can feel the sticky, slowly growing puddle of his own blood. His socks are soaked in it, and it's just mildly annoying, even to Romeo.

 

At the Five Points grocery store, where the old Italian guy stays out late rolling cigarettes for a dime, someone's in the phone booth crying. The sobs are fierce and free, and they pierce right through the scuzzy plastic door and out onto the still, summer night air. Nobody knows who is crying, and they don't really care.

 

Romeo starts his engine, a proud roar of grease and gasoline, the steady churn of heavy metal machinery. The Bel Air purrs like a lion. Romeo sticks his hand out the window and wipes the blood off the door from where he was leaning.

 

He goes straight through the red light, a wave of loud radio and heavy chrome leaving the guys standing around the intersection in a moment of confusion. But then they recognize the engine's departing roar and the way the music was playing loudly, and they know exactly who it was. And they hike up their pants to look a little cooler, talking in Spanish about Romeo, their hero. Now and then they'll look up at the waning crescent moon, so thin that it resembles a curved blade.

 

But Romeo is bleeding. He gives the old man on the other side of the window his ticket with a hand that can't help but shake a little now. He disappears into the dark blackness of the movie theatre, where the slightly sweet smell of burned popcorn and grease slick shag carpet accompany him up the steps to the balcony.

 

He'll die without a whimper, without a cry or a tear or a regret, like the ones they sing about in songs, the ones that they tell stories about until they grow into legends, a death like every Frankie dreams about, like an angel shot down out of the sky.

 

James Cagney is on the screen, acting tough and cool, making all the women swoon.

 

But Romeo is bleeding.

 

-end

The song is Tom Waits' 'Romeo is Bleeding'