Dog Eat Dog by Chris Lynch

immediately, as if he was prepared for it. “I don’t think you’d like it where I’m going.”
    I looked all around. “Bet it’s better than here.”
    Toy turned and fixed me with his under-the-hat stare. He threw his leg back over the bike and took the couple of steps toward me. He looked like now he was going to clock me, maybe for what I did to his mother. Good, I deserved it. I closed my eyes.
    He kissed me. Barely touching my lips. Then so slightly, slipped me the tongue.
    When I opened my eyes again he was there, all straightened up, hands on his hips, looking down on me. He had tipped his hat back on his head, exposing those eyes, those impossibly huge, unbelievably innocent brown eyes that he never showed and that didn’t go along with anything else about him.
    “So, still want to go there?” he asked.
    I sat down on the curb, practically threw myself down, put my face in my hands. “That’s not a place,” I snapped angrily.
    “What is it then, Mick? A color? A flavor? A race? An illness?” He sliced me with the tone.
    I couldn’t come up with an answer.
    “Like I said, Mick, for you there are only black things, and white things.”
    I listened as the engine kicked over. By the time I looked up again he was gone.

The Difference
    W HEN I GOT BACK to the Sullivans’ that night, Mr. Sullivan was waiting for me in the front room. He was sitting in his wing-back easy chair, with his gun in his lap.
    “Mick,” he called. “You had a visitor tonight.”
    “A big one?” I asked.
    “Looked like a bear with a leather cap.”
    “I’m sorry, Mr. Sullivan,” I said meekly.
    “I ran him off. He went to your folks’ place first. Your old man directed him here.”
    I covered my eyes with my hands. “I’m sorry, Mr. Sullivan,” I said again.
    “A fine guy, that father of yours.”
    “I know. You can shoot him if you want to.”
    “Ah, if only, boy. If only.”
    There, I thought, is a father. Sully’s the luckiest guy of us all.
    “I really am sorry, Mr. Sullivan. I appreciate everything you’ve done. I’m really, really sorry.”
    “I know you are, Mick,” he said with a sigh. “It ain’t even your fault. You can’t help it. It just seems to follow you.”
    I started up the stairs when it seemed like he’d said what he wanted to. “It does, Mr. Sullivan,” I said. “But I’m going to lose it.”
    “Hope so, Mick,” he said.
    I went right to the phone at the top of the stairs. I dialed Terry.
    “Tomorrow morning,” I said as soon as I heard his heavy, ignorant breathing. “You get Bobo and meet me. But it’s not gonna be a show. No spectators, no Bloody Sundays, no Augie. Five A.M. at the O’Asis. There’s room out back.”
    He listened quietly to it all. In the end he just hissed, “All right. It’ll be great ta have ya back again, brother.”
    I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t even consider it. I had this thought over and over: I must have been the first person ever to tongue kiss both a guy and the guy’s mother. Was there lower than me? Maybe I should lay one on Carlo too when he catches up to me, so he doesn’t feel left out.
    A year ago I would have been out with Terry and Augie and Baba and Danny and the brave fat Cormacs all together beating Toy’s ass.
    I couldn’t believe Mr. Sullivan was down there patrolling the lawn, harboring me instead of throwing me out there. Even though he probably half enjoyed it, he should have just cut me loose.
    I had to do it for him. It was four in the morning when I went down, quietly packed my duffel bag, and shook Sully awake.
    “I’m goin’, Sul,” I whispered.
    He didn’t open his eyes. “So go already,” he said.
    “No, I mean I’m really going this time. I’m not coming back after this morning. I’m going home.”
    He sat up, rubbing his eyes in the dark. “Really? You sure?”
    “Ya,” I said. “I’m taking care of everything this morning.”
    “I don’t like the sound of that,” he said. “You gonna be