The Alley Cats: Prologue

[union_jack]

Sure, we grew up tough. The Alley Cats had it rough as any other click around these parts, maybe worse, it makes no difference. You see the thing that brought us together is we were all street kids. By the time things got so we had to start The Cats, to make it through the night in one piece, I'd been living in Tremont doorways for about six years. A third of my life.
Tremont was a tough town, bad neighbourhood – that's why there was so many of us out on the street, I guess. We started sticking together in the Winter of '77. It was freezing at night so we started hanging out in the evenings at the subway station. Back then it was Leo, he was a couple years older than me, he had these heavy, heavy eye lids, he always looked wasted but that was just Leo. Panther, he was dark skinned cat, mom kicked him out for getting into trouble. He says his dad was a Black Panther, I guess he admired that. He had a great sense of humour and you'd never make out how he had such a shit life from looking at him. We became pretty good friends. Jake had short black hair was smaller guy maybe 16 he was pretty slick though. There was this other dude we called Tiger 'cus we were always teasing him about his hair color. And, of course, there was me Tom some people called me Tomcat. “But close friends call you TC?” Panther said one night in the station. He was a joker, for sure. The name stuck though.
One night we were telling our jokes and spreading out the food and money we'd managed to hustle that day when we realised Jake hadn't turned up.
“We should go check out his corner. I know the way.” said Panther. We marched to where Panther said he'd be and when we got there The Orphans were beating him up bad. Sully had this big old razor right in his face.
“..and you tell those hobos you hang out with not to fuck around on The Orphans turf.”
“Fuck you.” he spat through clenched teeth, held back by two greasy Orphans.
Sully narrowed his eyes and grabbed him by the jaw, tightly. The others laughed and taunted. Jake screamed as Sully dug the blade into his cheek. That's how we ended up calling him Scar. It made sense, I suppose.
“We can't just stand here, do something man!” Panther barked at me as we approached them.
The Orphans dropped Scar and he staggered back into the brick wall. “TC..h-help me!” he was holding the side of his face, blood over his hands.
“Well look at these losers. Orphans, waste 'em!” Sully commanded his troops, grinning at us.
“You guys are never gonna take cheap shots at us again, man.” I warned him. I was so furious with these punks, everyone thought they could push us around. It was about to stop.
There was five of them and four of us plus Scar... I wasn't expecting him to rumble. Two Orphans came at me and Leo. We looked at each other and then before we knew it the bigger Orphan hit me square in the jaw. I didn't really feel it, adrenaline took hold and before I knew it I was beating him to the ground and laying into him and when I looked up Leo had the other guy against the wall, banging his head until he collapsed. The other Orphans came down on us - our men stepped up, and we rumbled.
“You little runts!” Sully waved his razor at us again, punches flying all around us. Then Scar came up behind him and grabbed him round the neck. Sully struggled. “Get off me!”
“Panther, get his blade!” he pulled it from him and Scar knocked Sully to the ground. Our men had done us proud and the other Orphans lay wasted around him.
“You son of a bitch Sully. Look at you now.” he slugged  him hard in the face.
“Come on you pussies.” Tiger shouted at the other Orphans trying to get up and run away. Panther got down on his knees and held the razor to Sully's face.
“Maybe you'll think before fucking with us next time, man.” He slammed his palm into his face hammering it into the ground. He was out cold.

“Are you alright, man?” I held out my hand for Scar to get up
“Yeah we better get you patched up.” said Tiger trying to get a good look at the damage.
“It's ok, we've all had our beatings from these punks. You got it coming as an alley cat.”
“Well I'm tired of it man. We should do something.” Panther said raising his fists.
“Yeah, we just proved we can do it!” said Leo. We all roared in agreement and helped our man back to the station and we worked out how it was all gonna change.
So we were The Alley Cats and we were ready.


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this is the start of an idea i had that papa arnold developed with me, dont know where its gonna go from here so i thought id just put this up as a good foundation, hope you like it

[Rocko]

  Aww man your stories are great. I had a story with the Alley cats as well. They weren't main or anything... any way great story

[Dud]

Rocko's right, this was a good piece. I know you might currently be busy with other projects, like your When I was a Moonrunner collaboration with lady warrior, but I'd love to see you come back at some point and so some more work on it. Lookin' good, jack. 

[union_jack]

thanks for the good feedback guys... truth is im busy in general.. way behind on revision and still planning on making this short film this month so it'll be a while till i get on with everything but I'll do my best to get back to it!

[union_jack]

this originally started as a collaboration but that never seemed to materialise so if anyone wants to write the next chapter and then i could follow up or someone else even .. feel free

putting this up as a completely forum fan fic

[union_jack]

might write some more of this one of these days, anyone interested?

[Dud]

I would. *Raises hand.*

Any activity in this forum would interest me, but this especially -- gopher it.  8)