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The slamming of the synagogue door was loud enough it made both Randy and Pony jump and look back. Neither of them knew who or what they were looking for, just that they were looking not to get caught.
It was Ponyboy’s eighteenth birthday and Randy had kept his promise, more or less. Picking Pony up from his house a couple hours ago in a crappy grey van he had traded in his blue mustang for about two years ago. Three bottles of the best whiskey, bourbon, and white wine that he could get his hands on resting on the floor of his passenger seat. The back door to the synagogue that Randy happened to know was unlocked. Tipsy heads and excited voices echoing through the empty midnight halls. ‘Mazel tov, Ponyboy’. ‘Thank you, Randy’.
If Pony didn't think too hard about it, it was almost perfect.
“Shut up” Randy hisses with a drunk laugh, cupping a hand onto Ponyboy’s shoulder to steady himself upright, “you don’t want the cops to come and haul your ass away for breaking and entering, do you?”
Pony doesn’t bother to shake off Randy’s hand but instead lets it warm him along with another small sip of the old bourbon, “this was your idea.”
“Not my idea” Randy points a finger in Pony’s face to correct him, “I made you a promise didn’t I? That we’d have ourselves a nice little bar mitzvah for you once you turned legal.”
“I’d hardly call you getting me drunk on stolen liquor then breaking into synagogue ‘nice’.”
“Sorry Ponyman, it’s the best I could do.”
The concrete steps are cold and hard but somehow the bottles are warm and melt right into their hands. They liquefy any bit of bitterness before it can even bubble up to the surface. The clinking drowning out any thoughts before they even start to form. It felt like forever.
The wind of the usually warm summer night seems to be cooler than normal, a whisper as it blows by swirling around them like the ounce left at the bottom of Randy’s bottle. Catching the curls of Pony’s hair, which he had gotten from his mother, and sweeping them back and into a new position. A new place.
The stars seemed a bit brighter that night too. Shining and reflecting on the other small silver star that Randy let dangle into his bottle like a toy of some kind. Mesmerized by his own constellations instead of the ones Pony can’t seem to rip his eyes off of. The Big Dipper dancing in a pool of glassy firm emerald green.
“You got anything to smoke?” Randy speaks up and sets his bottle down, letting his necklace drop into the liquor at the bottom and sit there at the bottom like stone.
“Yeah” Ponyboy sighs and pulls out two cigarettes, passing one to Randy who puts it in between his lips and waits for Pony to light it.
He hadn’t seen Randy smoke before. Granted, he hadn’t really seen Randy in a little over a year and a half, after his dad had finally kicked him out. But he came back to town just in time for Pony’s eighteenth birthday. Knocking on the front door of the Curtis house already a bit tipsy and asking Soda if Pony was ready for his ‘big night’. Sure it definitely gave off the wrong impression. And sure Pony would later get the same lecture he got before dating Curly Shepard, especially after their breakup. But he was just glad someone cared.
Cared enough to lie about becoming a Rabbi and get Pony wasted enough he couldn’t even really do his reading at all. But it didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Not the cold or the constellations or the liquor and smoke, not any of it.
“Since when do you smoke?” Pony laughs and let’s out a long exhale.
“Since now.”
Randy smirks as he drops the cigarette into the liquor bottle and watches as it sparks a small flame but then dissolves in on itself and the flame disappears. And he looks disappointed.
Pony nods and takes another long drag, “where are you living now, Randy? I haven’t seen you in forever. Not since- where’d you go?”
“Daphne.”
“Daphne? Where’s that?”
“She’s parked just around the corner” Randy grins and kicks at the bottle by his feet, sending it rolling, clinking, down the last two concrete steps.
“Oh” Pony says, “for how long?”
“You’re eighteen?” Randy shrugs and Pony nods again, “then since I was eighteen.”
Ponyboy can’t help but let out a single laugh at that, “yeah I remember I guess. You traded the mustang for the van- Daphne. When you were kicked out.”
“Gee” Randy smiles and looks over at Pony, “casual much?”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
A lot of questions come to Pony’s mind. It’s kinda hard to miss things like that when your brother comes home from work talking about this customer with this bright blue mustang he got for a couple thousand and in return for a crappy old van. Hard to miss when it’s all over town that Randall Adderson finally got kicked out for drinking. For getting a girl knocked up. For wrecking his dad's car. For dropping out. There were a lot of rumors.
“Randy, why did you get kicked out?”
Randy takes a deep breath and leans his head back, “do you want my version or his?”
“Yours.”
“Good, because I couldn’t tell you his even if I wanted,” Randy chuckles bitterly, “I just know he was really fed up with me. He wanted me to get into a good school like Princeton or Yale and become some successful lawyer. I didn’t want that. But it didn’t matter what I wanted, it only mattered that I didn’t get in. And when he found the rejection letters he blew up at me. We got into a nasty fight. Called the cops on me and everything. Told me he wouldn’t do anything if I got the hell out before they showed.”
“Oh” Pony says again and fiddles with the bottle in his own hands, “I’m sorry about that.”
“Don’t be sorry, I didn’t need him anyway, I’ve been doing just fine on my own.”
For many reasons Pony isn’t sure if he can believe that. Whether that’s the scars or slight stench to his clothes, Pony didn’t believe it.
“I’d been wanting to leave anyway. Travel. Now I can, just without the pressure of his money and his religion and his ‘legacy’ and everything else he always held over my head like a sword.”
Pony’s head jerks up, “you’re not Jewish anymore?”
“I don’t have to be” Randy shrugs.
And Pony found that hard to believe too. That Randy could so easily just let go of such a big part of himself as soon as his dads no longer in his life, but here he is still hanging onto any piece of his mom like a loose thread on an unraveling sweater. It felt indescribably unfair.
“How come you get to let go” Pony sighs and the words don’t even mean to come out, they just do.
“Let go?” Randy asks, “of what?”
Pony lets himself think for a second, playing with the bottle in between his fingers again, “of everything. How come you get to do that. It’s not fair.”
“Life isn’t fair, Pony. I didn’t really have a choice.”
“You had a choice, Randy, you had lots of choices. You just made the wrong ones.”
“The wrong ones? Pony, would you rather me be in college studying to be some fancy ass lawyer I didn’t even want to be?” Randy is now looking at Pony, eyes narrow and lips pressed thin.
“That’s not what I’m saying” Pony grumbles, “I’m saying that maybe you took it for granted.”
“For granted? Ponyboy, the guy was a dick. He never let me do what I wanted to do. It was all whatever he wanted. Whatever he told me to do.”
“Randy, for your bar mitzvah you got a car, a fucking mustang. What do I get for mine? Acute alcohol poisoning and a reminder the only other person that gave a shit about it is gone? It’s not fair.”
“That’s not fair” Randy warns and looks away, looking down at his hands and twisting the rings around on his fingers, “you don’t get it.”
“No” Pony states simply, “I don’t.”
The silence is just as cold and bitter as the air. Crisp and cutting like the understanding that neither of them really understood at all. It’s cold until it’s not and then it’s a warm hand on Pony’s cheek, turning him into an even hotter pair of lips.
Randy tastes like fireball and ice and cheap metal all at once, so much so it almost makes Pony sick. But he doesn’t pull away. He’s afraid if he pulls away he just loses another part of himself. And even though he hasn’t seen Randy in over a year, he couldn’t afford to do that. All his friends were gone. Curly was gone. His parents were gone. Darry and Soda might as well be gone. His religion felt gone. So he let himself get lost in it too.
That’s until Randy’s hand works it’s way up Pony’s chest and wraps around the Star of David that hung from his necklace, tugging on it lightly at first, then harder.
“Randy, what are you doing?” Pony tries to push Randy and his hand away but it doesn’t seem to be working.
“Getting this the fuck off you” Randy mumbles and with one final tug, the clasp on the necklace breaks and the chain falls down into Pony’s shirt and around them into a million different linked pieces, the star now held tightly in Randy’s closed fist.
“Randy!” Pony screams and shoots up, hitting Randy’s lip on the way and staring down at the shattered necklace, “Randy what the fuck?!”
Randy’s hand flies up to his lip but leaves a second later to look down at the blood now on his fingers, “I’m bleeding.”
“Randy you broke my fucking necklace! My mom gave that to me when I was a baby do you know what the fuck you just did?” Pony ignores Randy and bends down to scoop up any parts of the necklace he could.
“Oh come on Pony, it’s not that big of a deal” Randy smiles with a laugh and leans in to kiss Pony again before being hastily shoved away.
Randy wipes his lip on his shirt and goes back to watching Pony scramble over the necklace, “what’s wrong? I thought your Shepard was in jail?”
Ponyboy doesn’t bother to look up, “he is.”
“So then you could’ve just said no.”
“You broke my fucking necklace, Randy” Pony sighs out and his voice shakes, letting his head fall into his hands as he tried not to cry. This was supposed to be a good night. The best night of his life. His unofficial bar mitzvah Randy promised him three years ago. It was supposed to be special and meaningful. His mom was supposed to be there. His brothers, best friends, and boyfriend were supposed to be there. And Randy was none of those things.
“I didn’t know it was that big of a deal to you, I’ll just buy you a new one-“ Randy shrugs and reaches a hand out to touch Pony’s shoulder, still holding tight to the star.
Pony jerks away and looks back with red eyes, “you will? With what fucking money, Randy? My mom is dead, I’m pretty sure you remember that.”
“I didn’t mean to break it, Ponyman. I’m sorry.”
“Christ, Randy, what the hell else were you trying to do?” Pony snaps and turns to face him, “not everyone is like you. Not everyone gets to run away and reject everything they’re given. Maybe you don’t give a fuck about your parents or religion or friends, but I do. I thought you were the one person that would understand that. Tonight was supposed to be special, Randy. Tonight was supposed to make me closer to my mom. But now?” Pony let’s the broken chain pieces fall from his hands, “I feel like I have nothing left at all.”
“I didn’t run away.”
“Yeah, sure.”
The two of them are silent for far longer than it’s comfortable but neither of them seem to care. Whether it’s because Randy’s too drunk or Pony is too tired to let him. But Randy is fumbling with his lip and finally sets the star down next to him, getting up without saying another word, he starts to walk away. Stumble away. Yet he pauses, still not turning back around.
“I’m sorry for ruining your bar mitzvah.”
Pony doesn’t respond, he doesn’t even look up. Just down at the pendant that lay on the cold concrete steps. And if it was possible for an object to look lonely, to be lonely, Pony figured it might as well be that. Pieces lying all around it but none really connected anymore. Just there.
He’s only taken away from his thoughts when he hears a car door slam and an old engine start up. And then Randy is gone again.
There’s only one cigarette left in the pack and Pony figures he might as well make it last. Taking slow drags as he let himself melt back into the cool pavement below him. Soothing his back and head with an empty touch. Looking straight up at the constellations through the smoke and twiddling with the one single star in between his fingers. Mazel tov, Ponyboy.