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Johnny was lying on the wood floor of his bedroom, eyes screwed shut and head pounding. Three loud, heavy footsteps approached him and he braced for impact. Just as he felt the cool breeze of a wind-up, his eyes snapped open and he bolted upright, chest rattling with the force of each ragged breath that left his mouth. He reached up to tug at the collar of his shirt with a shaky hand and found it soaked through with a cold sweat.
“Just a dream,” he muttered to himself, rubbing his eyes and taking in his surroundings. It was the middle of the night and he was tucked into the dilapidated car seat he kept underneath one of the few trees in the lot. It didn’t do much good seeing as it was early fall and the cold was already eating through his worn jean jacket, but it was better than the ground. Or home.
Johnny stared off into the night sky, attempting to calm down and far too awake to acknowledge the idea of going back to sleep. He’d already woken up tossing and turning several times tonight and it felt pointless to keep trying. He thought about heading over to the Curtis’ to spend the night but decided it was a bust. They were probably all asleep already and even if they weren’t, he had overstayed his welcome for this week. He crashed there almost every night after school, taking up space someone else could’ve used.
Earlier this evening, he had worked up the courage to venture home and get some fresh clothes before his father could make it back from work but had no intent to hang around. Instead, he posted up in the lot for the night with a pitiful fire that had long since smoldered out. He could already hear Dally scolding him for sticking it out through the cold and ‘putting himself in danger’.
Speaking of Dally, he’d been MIA this past week, too. Not once did he show up at the Curtis’, and the only mention Johnny had heard of him came from Sodapop, who said he’d popped into the DX once to get some cigs.
He considered going over to Buck’s to see if he could find Dallas. He hated the place, he really did. It always reeked of sweaty bodies, booze, and cigarette smoke, but it was arguably better than sitting in the lot any longer. The smallest sounds continually made him jump and he could’ve sworn he’d seen figures moving down the sidewalk on the other side of the street.
Johnny pushed himself up from the old seat and dusted off, checking to make sure he had Dally’s lucky switch in his back pocket before heading out of the lot. Buck’s was a good twenty-minute walk away, but he didn’t think much of it. Most Socs don’t venture this deep into the east side at normal times, and especially not past midnight. He kept his guard up while he walked anyways, his hand hovering periodically over the switch for comfort.
As soon as Buck’s was in sight, Johnny hesitated a moment, face contorting in mild disgust. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. Hell, Dally might not even be there right now. Maybe he skipped town and went back to New York, or maybe he landed himself in the cooler again.
His thoughts were cut short by a pair of drunkards hanging off to the right of the door and whistling in his direction. Johnny tried to set a hard expression and ignore their following comments, walking up to the entrance and going inside. He was stopped almost immediately by Buck who had been monitoring the door.
“Whaddya doin’ here, kid?” he asked over the music blaring from the stereo, confusion riddling his features. Johnny turned his attention away from the chaos of the lobby and up to Buck.
“Was lookin’ for Dally, ’s all.”
“Gonna have to speak up louder than that!”
“I’m lookin’ for Dally!” Johnny shouted over the music.
“Oh yeah, he just got back. Head on up!” Buck pointed up the stairs to the right of them. Johnny nodded his thanks and climbed up the carpeted steps, dampening the sound of the music a bit. He was faced with a hallway and went over to the white door on the left side, rapping off a set of knocks.
Johnny rocked back and forth from the balls to the heels of his feet waiting for a response. He had on a beat-up pair of black converse, complete with torn holes where some of the grommets had fallen out and a few faint, red-brown stains on the toes. He knew he wouldn’t be getting a new pair anytime soon. After a minute of no response or sign of movement, Johnny knocked on the door again, hoping Dally hadn’t passed out on his couch already.
This time, he heard the thud of boots on wood and Dally’s voice shout, “Christ, Buck, I really ain’t in the mood!” as the door swung open. Dally was clearly pissed, but his expression softened as soon as he realized who was on his doorstep. “Oh, shit. Hi, Johnnycakes.”
“Hey, Dal.” Johnny smiled as he processed his friend standing in front of him. Dally was holding the door open in his white t-shirt, dark-washed jeans, and work boots. He was wearing the steel ring he kept on a chain around his neck, which means he must’ve broken up with Sylvia, again, which was nothing new. His white-blonde hair was longer than ever and all over the place, falling in and around his face without any grease to hold it back. He was also sporting a fresh black eye on the right. It was a nasty one too, starting to swell and accentuated by a good-sized cut running just underneath. “Jeez, man, what happened to your eye?” Johnny reached a hand up to inspect the side of his face, but stopped and pulled away at the last moment.
“Oh, it’s no big deal. I was helpin’ Tim out, owed him a favor. You should see the other guys. We messed ‘em up real good.” Dally spoke with a wild glint in his good eye, and Johnny frowned.
“It’s not ‘no big deal’. That’s gonna get infected,” he replied, pointing at his own eye for emphasis. “C’mon.”
Johnny squeezed past Dally, grabbing his free wrist and pulling him into the apartment. He led Dally past the couch that had his jean jacket haphazardly thrown over the back and the small, poorly kept kitchen, going straight for the even smaller bathroom accessed via a door off to the left of a cutout hallway.
“Sit,” Johnny ordered, pointing to the toilet narrowly wedged in between the shower and sink.
Dally stayed standing, leaning against the doorframe of the bathroom with his arms crossed in front of him. “Johnnycakes, I think you’re overreactin’ a little. There’s not even room in here for the both of us.” He looked concerned, but Johnny could tell there was humor laced through his words. He only responded with a hard look, standing his ground.
“Okay, alright.” Dally held his hands up in an easy surrender and took his spot on top of the toilet lid, softly chuckling to himself. “I don’t think I’ve seen you so serious before.”
Johnny moved to rummage through the medicine cabinet over the sink. He set aside a near-empty bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a few loose cotton balls. “No bandages?” He peered around the open cabinet door to see Dally shrug and rolled his eyes. “I’ll be back.”
He left the bathroom and returned a few moments later with some ice shoved into a plastic bag and wrapped in a paper towel. Dally still looked less than pleased but didn’t complain while he carefully watched Johnny sit on the floor and douse a cotton ball. The younger’s head lifted when he finished preparing the supplies and met his gaze. Johnny always had an air of wonder about him and it was beautiful, the way it shone in his eyes.
“What are ya lookin’ at me like that for?” Johnny asked, quietly.
“Like what?” Dally feigned innocence.
“Like...” I hung the moon, Johnny thought. “Like I’ve got three heads.”
Dally shrugged again and grinned. Johnny hardly ever saw him smile so much, unless they were alone, or Dally was drunk, or both. “Just didn’t know you knew how to do all this ‘s all.”
“It’s not hard or anythin’,” Johnny said, rising up to his knees and shuffling over to Dally with the cotton ball. “Two taught me some things a while ago when he needed help after that nasty fight at the drive-in. But you don’t even have the right stuff.” He gently tapped on Dally’s right temple. “Close your eye if you can. You know it’s gonna sting so don’t come swingin’ at me.”
“Yeah, yeah, wiseass,” Dally muttered. His face scrunched up in pain the moment Johnny came into contact with the cut, and he bit his lip to keep from swearing. The burning subsided after a few seconds, and Johnny pulled away, handing Dally the makeshift icepack before standing up.
“Keep that on for a while so the swelling’ll go down.” Johnny grinned, “That wasn’t so bad was it, Dal?” Dallas only glared daggers in his direction, getting up off the toilet and migrating back into the living area holding the ice over his bad eye.
“I can and will throw you out, you know,” Dally lied through his teeth as he searched for a decent record to throw on. He’d never do that. “What’re you doing here anyway? I thought you didn’t like coming ‘round Buck’s.”
The Rolling Stones started sounding out from the record player, just loud enough to make out the lyrics. Johnny kicked off his shoes by the door and sat cross-legged at one end of Dally’s couch. “Oh, right. I, uh, had some bad dreams and I didn’t wanna bother the Curtis’ again, so I took my chances that you’d be here.”
Dally had moved away from the record player now and instead went digging through the pockets of his discarded jacket. He ended up pulling out his half-blown pack of Camels and lit up before offering one to Johnny too. The younger nodded and he lit the new cig with the end of his own before handing it over and taking a seat at the other side of the couch.
“So you were at the lot again?”
“Yeah.”
Dally didn’t say much else after that. The two sat and smoked in a puzzling silence, somewhere in between comfortable and unbearable with nothing but fuzz guitars and harsh lyrics moving through the room. After a while, Johnny’s cigarette had been long gone but Dally kept going, lighting cig after cig until the carton was near tapped.
“You’re chainin’ again, Dal,” Johnny spoke up after the fourth one. He noticed Dally had been sneaking glances at him every so often, too, but decided not to mention those. “Somethin’ up?”
Dallas had looked lost in thought before, but the expression only intensified with Johnny’s words. He shrugged, not looking over at the other. “I dunno,” he paused. “Do you ever just feel wrong, Johnny?”
“Wrong how?”
Dally sighed. “Like when there’s somethin’ ya think you’re not supposed to do, but you really wanna do it anyways. And no matter how many times you try to forget about it, it always comes back to your head.”
Johnny nodded. “Yeah... yeah, I get that.”
The two had fallen into silence again, and Johnny eventually couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore. He fell asleep, curled up on Dally’s couch.
~
In the morning, Dallas was nowhere to be found in his apartment. Not unusual, but disappointing nonetheless. Johnny stretched when he woke, and out of his jacket pocket fell a familiar steel ring on a silver chain and a crumpled piece of paper.
“Keep it safe for me.”