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Your brother's funeral is at two pm on a Saturday. You're not sure why a Saturday, or why two pm, but that's what time Darry tells you to be ready by, so you don't question it.
It's eleven thirty on Saturday when Darry cracks your door open, checking if you're still asleep. You don't know how, but he's gotten the day off. You guess burying a little brother is enough for his boss to have some fucking decency for once, memories of missed birthdays flashing in your mind. "Get up," Darry says, opening your door fully once he confirms you're still in bed. "Two pm. I ain't waiting for you if you're not ready." He turns on his heel, heading to his own room to get dressed. You hear his heavy footsteps as he goes, the old wood of the house sighing under the weight.
You hear your heart beat in your ears as you lay in bed. You had the whole bed to yourself the day Sodapop left, and you enjoyed it the first few nights. After a week or two, enjoyment of the space became missing your brother, and a few months after that you couldn't stand the sight of the bed you'd used to share with him. You slept on the couch for a few days after the army officer came, until Darry told you that you couldn't sleep on the couch for the rest of your life. So you slept, fitfully and never fully, in your own bed.
After what feels like hours, you drag yourself out of bed. You don't have funeral clothes. You barely had nice clothes. Of course, neither did anyone else who would be attending, so it doesn't weigh too heavily on you. Besides, you figure, Sodapop wouldn’t mind. You don't doubt he'd attend his own funeral in casual clothes if he could. You feel sick to your stomach.
Half an hour later, you hear Darry in the bathroom, brushing his teeth. You haven't had a conversation longer than a few words in months. He doesn't ignore you, far from it, but you can feel the distance growing every day. "Scuse me," you mumble as you squeeze past him. You grab your toothbrush, glancing at him out of the corner of your eye. His eyes are red, puffy, yet he brushes his teeth like nothing's wrong. You always wondered how he handled everything so well. "I miss him," you say quietly, squeezing toothpaste onto your toothbrush and running it under water from the tap.
"Yeah," his voice is weak as he rinses his toothbrush. He sniffs, muffling a cough. Silence falls over both of you as you brush your teeth, Darry standing in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest.
"Talk to me?" You ask, spitting a glob of toothpaste into the sink. Darry stares up at the ceiling, his jaw clenched. "I won't even say anything back, just talk to me."
Darry lets out a breath that makes his whole body shake, letting his eyes fall shut, but not before a couple of tears squeeze their way out. "Puttin' mom and dad in the ground was hard enough," he starts, clearing his throat midway through. “Having to take care of you and Sodapop both made it all so much harder. And then Sodapop decides to drop out of school and the state nearly has a heart attack about it. But—" his voice cracks, the first time you've ever heard it do so. "But I never thought I'd have to bury you or Sodapop. 'Specially not Sodapop." He wipes a hand across his eyes, standing up straight. Your eyes are focused on the floor of the bathroom as he tells you to hurry and finish getting ready.
Your brother's funeral is at two pm on a Saturday, but you feel as though the world around you has died instead of him.
The drive to the church is uncomfortably silent. The radio in the truck hasn't worked since before Sodapop even left and despite how much Darry fiddles with it, the thing refuses to play anything other than static. You sit in the passenger seat with your hands unsure of what to do with themselves. They fold in your lap, your thumbs twiddling.Then they're fiddling with the hem of the shirt you deemed nice enough to wear. Darry, on the other hand, seems as though he knows what he needs to be doing. His hands grip the wheel tightly, his knuckles threatening to split themselves open if he tightens his grip any more, and his eyes are staring at the road ahead. Blank, devoid of emotion, he stares at the road ahead as he takes the turn towards the church.
Once the car stops in the parking lot, you take a second to glance around. Cars are scattered around the lot, some with people in them and some empty. You know not all of them are for the funeral, but the ones that are are the important ones—Steve's old pickup and Two-Bit's trans am with the chips in the paint. You feel a weight settle in your chest at the thought of seeing Two and Steve again. Two's number was the first of your gang to be called, and he'd come over to tell Darry to take care of his mama and little sister. Darry agreed, of course he did, and every week he would go over to the Mathews house to see little Katie Mathews and her mama. Sodapop was called a little while later, and there was nothing Darry could do but sit in his armchair, the color drained out of his face as he read the letter the military had sent his little brother.
“Ponyboy!” Darry snaps, a strong hand shaking your shoulder. You snap out of your thoughts, turning your attention to your brother. His brows are furrowed and he looks at you like he's been talking and you haven't been listening. “Did you hear anything I just said?”
“Sorry,” you mumble, casting your eyes down to the fabric of the passenger seat. It's almost worn completely through.
Darry sighs, his grip on your shoulder softening. “I said that Two-Bit and Steve are waiting inside, and they're different than when they left, okay? Steve's a bit jumpier, Two's a lot more high class on account of his positioning. Just...treat em like you used to, but be gentle with Steve. He lost Sodapop just like we did.”
You nod, feeling the tears prick at the corners of your eyes. You swore to yourself that you wouldn't cry, wouldn't bawl like a baby because Sodapop wouldn't want you to. Yet, sitting here in the pickup with Darry, you feel the tears force their way down your cheeks in ugly sobs that shake your whole body. Darry sits for a moment, surprised, before wrapping his arms around you and pulling your head to his chest. You cry until your throat is dry from sucking in breaths and your eyes are puffy, and Darry lets you go, his chest shaking as tears fall silently down his face. You cry for Sodapop, and Johnny, and Dally, your mom and dad, and everyone else you used to know but that wouldn't be around anymore. It's when Darry hiccups while breathing that you realize this is it—Darry, Steve, Two-Bit, they're all you have left.
“I love you,” Darry mumbles into your hair. “I know I don't say it half as much as I should and I'm sorry, Ponyboy.” His voice cracks as he pulls away from you and wipes a hand across his eyes. “I'm sorry I'm so hard on you, I just don't want you endin’ up like me.” He attempts a smile, and you offer one back, before he sighs and leans his head against the headrest of his seat. “Guess we better get in there, huh?”
You nod, hesitating to open the door until Darry steps out of the truck. Your feet are a ton of bricks as you shut the door behind you, and your heart pounds in your ears as you make your way to the door of the church.
Your mind is filled with things you wish you could say to him. All the times you never told him you loved him, or thanked him for looking out for you. When he hugged you so tight you thought you'd suffocate after you told him you made the track team. When he waited until he thought you were asleep to go talk to Darry about Canada, the day he got drawn in the lottery.
You barely register Steve crushing you in a hug, or Two-Bit saying how big you've gotten as he messes up your hair, like you're a child and not a seventeen year old. It's all static in your mind as the memories flood into your brain. Your feet carry you to the pew, and you sit, staring at the coffin that the military paid for. You try not to imagine Sodapop in it, his body in a suit that doesn't belong to him and the bullet hole in his chest reminding everyone how he died.
It’s a somber event, with the few attendees and the context. A military officer speaks a few words about Sodapop as a soldier, and you try your hardest to shut it out. You don’t want to hear how good your brother was at killing people, or how well he handled seeing kids his age get blown to pieces by IEDs. Your brother gave the military two years, you figure they could just fuck off and leave your family alone to grieve. Apparently not.
Steve speaks, as well, though he thankfully just talks about the memories he had with Sodapop from their childhood and teens. “There was one time,” he continues, “I was late to school.
So late that the principal woulda told me to just go back home.” The crowd is silent, as though they expect the punchline to come any second. “And Soda - well, Soda had dropped out by then, so it really didn’t matter to him. 'What’s the rush?' He asked me, 'You’re gonna graduate in a few weeks anyway.' And I thought, You know what? What's one day?"
You smile, the smallest of smiles, as Steve continues his story. He and Soda went down to the lake, fishing poles and tackle box from Steve's old man in hand. They spent the day there, reeling in tiny fish that wouldn't be worth eating. You remember that day—Sodapop had finally gotten a decent one, a trout flopping on the line as though it was going to escape. He'd thrown it on the table, proud and beaming, and you had fish for dinner. Bland, because seasoning was expensive, but it was something different. Steve finishes his story with tears in his eyes, though he laughs as he does, and glances at the coffin. He clears his throat and begins waxing poetic about how good of a friend Sodapop was to him, how he wishes he had treasured the moments as they were happening because now they were just memories. He finishes by reaching underneath his shirt, the clinking of metal following his fingers as he pulls a ball-chain from his neck. Dogtags, you think Darry called them. He steps toward the coffin, laying the chain inside as he whispers a farewell to his best friend. He sits back in the pew, on the other side of Darry, and you can see his shoulders shake with silent sobs.
Your brother’s funeral is at two pm on a Saturday, and you carry him to the graveyard at three pm. He’s lowered into the ground at three fifteen, and you say goodbye to him for the last time at three-twenty.