Nonofficial Love - Ace Merrill (Stand By Me) (New Version)

Chapter Four: Drinking In Style

After an uneventful game of 'Mailbox Baseball,' Rebecca had gone home to her usual chores; clean up after her father and watch her two younger brothers. It didn't take her long to bribe Emery and Sheldon with the television and the promise of candy if they kept their mouths shut and behaved.

Rebecca then hitched a ride to Ace's. Her long legs hiked through the tall grass wearing a pair of high-waisted shorts that left little to the imagination, as she joined The Cobras in the field beside the Merrills.

Throughout the years the place had turned into a sort of junkyard, a dumping ground for everything and anything from beat-up cars, and abandoned furniture, to mountains of empty beer bottles that were scattered around the place, although the latter was due to The Cobras. It was their usual hang-out, aside from Irby's.

Vince Desjardins was playing a game of poker with Fuzzy Bracowicz, he peeked over his hand of cards as he gawked at her legs.

"Nice set of pins, you got on ya today, Chambers," he remarked.

Rebecca shrugged him off, she was well used to The Cobras and their fascination with the female body.

Stepping over a fresh new pile of empty beer bottles she sat down behind Charlie Hogan who was flicking through the latest edition of Hot Rod.

Rebecca then observed Ace, he was sitting in his usual spot, leaning against a beat-up truck, the sleeve of his white shirt was rolled up to his shoulders and there was a fresh bloody wound on his left bicep, the words 'COBRAS' was now permanently a part of him.

Billy Tessio and Jack Mudgett sat across from them on an old abandoned table, both shirtless. Rebecca noticed Billy chewing on his fingernails, he was still as fidgety and nervy as he had been during their game of mailbox baseball earlier.

Jack was deep in concentration as he sharpened a razor blade with a flat rock, and a cigarette hung from his lips. He then yanked Billy's arm forward and handed him the cigarette. "Take a drag and hold still!"

Billy winced in pain when Jack began to drag the razor into his skin. He took a deep draw from the cigarette and the pain eased.

"Geez!" Rebecca remarked. "I leave you all for a couple of hours and you maim yourselves."

"Who died and made you Mom?" Jack spat, although his eyes never strayed from his work.

"Well," she sighed holding her head up high. "I'm the only one who brings a certain maturity to the group."

"The only thing you bring is a headache," Ace said smoothly. "Now make yourself useful and pass me that cloth."

Rebecca tossed him the cloth from the table beside her and she studied him as he began to shine the compressor from a car that he had been working on with his Uncle Pop.

She hummed along with the song that played on the radio and decided to annoy Charlie by kicking the back of his crate.

"Knock it off," Charlie grumbled after the fifteenth time. "I ain't in the mood."

"You've been such a buzzkill today, Charlie!" she replied. "What's up with you?"

"He's tired is all," Billy answered giving Charlie a look that only the two of them would be privy to. "We went with Connie and one of her girls to the drive-in last night." 

"What girl?" Rebecca asked looking back and forth at them. After all, if she wasn't the gossip of the week, she was the one who started it.