The Celts (West Side Story: Riff X Reader)

Chapter 5

(TW: Mention of drugs and guns.)

"I scared you." I heard a voice say in my ear in a low growling tone. Not demise. Riff released me and I turned around to face him.

"Yeah, nice." I said, sitting down a bench that was near the light. 

"What took you so long?" Riff asked, sitting down on a separate bench. 

"I ran into a couple Jets." I said with a shrug.

"Yeah, I recognized the jacket." He said. "They give you any trouble?"

"No, but I'm sure they're going to be giving you some trouble tomorrow."

"Now, why would you do that?" Riff asked in exasperation, leaning back. Unfortunately, he had clearly forgotten that there was no back to the bench he was sitting on, thus causing him to fall, landing on his back. I let out a guffaw of laugher. Riff glared at me and went back to his bench. 

"How old are you?" I asked. 

"Twenty-four." Riff said as he pulled two bottles out of a box and handing me one. "This is sarsaparilla, by the way, and you're nineteen."

"How do you know?" I asked, taking a swig of the drink that was presumably stolen.

"I know everything about you, Liza." He said matter-of-factly. "I got eyes everywhere, remember?"

"Yeah? How much do you know about me?" I asked with a quizzical expression.

"Well," Riff smiled, taking a sip from his drink, holding it by the nose of the bottle, and placing it beside him. "I know that you have a little sister named Antoinette. And I know that you steal from the racing grounds every other day. And that you lie about being from Galway. And that you're afraid of larger fires and the ocean, which is a little bit ironic seeing as you get one by escaping the other."

"Okay," I said with a small smile on my face. "Did you know that Antoinette and I agreed to tell a made-up story about our parents when we got to America?"

"Did you now?" He cocked his head. "What's the true story?"

"I will only tell you if you promise to tell me something you haven't told anyone either." I said. Dodge shook my hand and I smiled. "When I was nine, my father lost his job at the hospital. So he started drinking because the world, and all his sorrows, fell away when he had a few glasses of Jameson Whiskey. The next year on Nettie's ninth birthday, she snuck into the living room and fell asleep behind a chair. My dad got home about an hour later and he was hammered, and our mother said something that ticked him off. He said that he had had enough and took the gun from the mantel and shot her. Nettie watched our father shoot our mother and then himself."

"Oh," Riff said, unsure of how to reply to such a story.

"You're allowed to say something," I laughed. "We're over it."

"I'm not sure I want to say anything." He said.

"Okay," I said. "It's your turn."

"It is my turn." Riff said, taking another sip from his drink and thinking about what he wanted to say. Before telling me anything, he pulled his shirt off. "I used to live with my old friend Tony. Before that, I was shot in the back by my uncle. He was high on cocaine at the time and he caught me trying to pour out his whiskey, so he shot me. The neighbors got him arrested, but there wasn't really anything they could do for me. At that point, I'm pretty much dead until Tony's mother and father decided that they would fund whatever the hospital had to do. And they did. They paid for a surgery to reconnect the severed tendons in my back." After finishing, he turned around and showed me a gnarly scar across his shoulder blade, which was accompanied by a scar left from a bullet.

"Wow," I breathed. 

"Tony and I agreed to never tell anyone about it." Riff said as he put his shirt back on before looking at me pointedly. "If you tell anyone, I will kill you."

"I won't tell a soul." I said seriously.

"I know." He said as he sat down. There was a brief moment of silence before turning back to me with a business-like expression as he passed me a cigarette. "Liza, there was a reason I asked you to come over here." 

"What would that be?" I asked. 

"I want you to become a Jet." He said.

"I'm a Celt, Riff." 

"I know you're a Celt." Riff said. I could still hear the rain pounding against the building overhead. "Imagine not having to run away when you see another gang. You'll be high on the food chain 'cause you're with me."

"Can I have one foot in each?" I asked. "Part Jet and part Celt?"

"When you're a Jet, you're a Jet all the way." He said firmly. "From your first cigarette to the day you die."

I pondered for a moment. "What if I pretended to be a Celt?"

"Sounds like a trial run." Riff said. I nodded. He stuck his hand out to me to shake. "You're a Jet now, Liza. Light her up." The two of us then lit our cigarettes and shared my first smoke as a Jet.

(By writing this, I do not condone smoking. It's absolutely awful for you and I almost just lost my grandmother to lung cancer.)

Riff walked me all the way back to the abandoned apartment complex, all in the rain. I left Mouthpiece's jacket in the deli so that Riff could return it for me. Riff watched from a distance as I climbed back up the fire escape. He was hiding because neither of us wanted to be seen, which would cause some trouble. 

"Goodnight, Riff." I whispered from the metal railing of the fire escape. I was only about three feet from my bedroom. He gave me a friendly salute before turning and heading back to his old deli.