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The Pepsi was cold in my hand. The wind was brutally slapping me as I pulled my thin jumper tighter around me and fastened my pace, aching to get home after a long day.
I shivered slightly as I slowly walked back towards the neighbourhood. My bag was heavy as it thumped rhythmically against my back, and I couldn’t wait to dump it in my room before heading out to the drive-in with Johnny. A new Paul Newman flick was showing tonight, and I was determined not to miss it.
I turned in towards the lot, hoping to catch a quick glimpse of the quickly forthcoming sunset and head home when I heard a noise that made me feel sick to my stomach and sent a shiver down my spine.
I whipped my head around, searching for the source. It sounded like a wounded animal who was in great agony.
My blood turned cold when I saw a yellow pair of Converse peeking out through the bushes, a red, bloody handprint barely visible on the dirty sole of one of the shoes.
The pop bottle shattered on the ground, my feet pounding against the grass as I tore over towards the bushes, dropping to my knees, slowly pulling Johnny out, being careful not to injure him further.
I took one good look at him, and I nearly got sick to my stomach. Someone had beaten him badly.
His face was all cut and bruised, and his eyes were swollen shut. The yellowish discolouration of the bruises forming was already covering his face, barely visible under all the blood oozing from various areas.
I took a deep breath and tried to collect my thoughts. Think, Pony, think.
My skin went cold as I noticed the amount of blood that covered his entire body. That was coming out of his body. There was a small puddle of bright red blood where he had been in the bushes, another slowly growing around him from where he was lying right now.
It was coming from his torso; the crimson stain that was slowly growing on his t-shirt told me that much. I slowly moved his jean jacket out of the way, and I nearly threw up, bile rising into my throat.
There was a switchblade sticking right out of him.
It was the exact switchblade Dally had given to Johnny after he had gotten jumped by a couple of Socs a few months ago. Johnny would never think to use the blade on himself, so my best bet was that he had gotten jumped and overpowered by some asshole who then used his own weapon against him.
Dally was going to go ballistic.
I racked my brains, trying to figure out what to do.
Darry, Steve and Soda were all at work, so it would take too long to try to get them. Dally was still in the cooler, and I didn’t even know where Two-Bit was, and leaving Johnny to run to the phone booth was out of the question; in the state he was in, he’d probably be dead by the time I got back.
It was just me.
I could patch up dislocated fingers and cuts real good, but this? Even Darry would have been dumbfounded.
“Johnny?” I whispered, hoping my voice would, by some miracle, awaken us from this terrible nightmare.
I stared at his chest, which was rising and falling slower by the second. I shook his face slowly, careful to not touch any of the bruises or cuts.
Fuck.
I had to do something, and fast. We were already running out of time.
What do I know about stab wounds?
I knew that you shouldn’t pull the knife out, as it would just make the person bleed out quicker. Applying pressure to wounds, I heard Darry mention that a few times.
I pulled off Johnny’s jacket, tying it around his torso to apply pressure to his wound, which stopped him from bleeding out so quickly.
I paused, hoping that by some miracle, that small miracle would bring Johnny back again and make him okay. It didn’t, but his face gained a little bit of colour and he opened his eyes slightly.
He opened his mouth a few times, attempting to speak, but no words would come out, but finally, he was able to make noise.
“Ponyboy?” Johnny’s voice was quiet, real quiet, too quiet. It was only a whisper, a small gust of wind you’d miss if you weren’t listening real hard. I brought my ear closer to his mouth, worried I’d miss a single word he spoke.
“Yeah, Johnnycakes?” My voice was quiet as well, as I kept trying to find something more adequate to tie around the wound.
“Wh-what happened, Pony? I don’t remember nothing.” His voice was more breathless now, making me panic more.
“Nothing happened, Johnnycake; we’re just lying here watching the sunset.” I lied straight through my teeth, one of the only things I felt I was good at doing in this situation. I took off my own shirt, trying to ignore the cold wind, and tied it around his torso tightly to try and stop the bleeding.
I couldn’t tell if I was imagining how quickly his face was paling again. His skin was colder as well, and I couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or the loss of blood. I hoped it wasn’t the latter.
“Oh yeah?” Johnny’s tone was sassier now, but I could tell it was draining all of his energy. “Then why am I bleeding so damn much? And why the hell are you shirtless?”
Before I could say anything, Johnny’s eyes fluttered shut. He looked peaceful for a moment, and I thought I had lost him, but his face contorted in pain, and I realised he was still fighting, fighting to survive.
“No!” I yelled, tapping Johnny’s face lightly. “Please, come on, Johnny, no.” I was bawling now, but I couldn’t stop it. I hated getting juiced up in front of other people, but Johnny was the exception.
I picked up his head gently, resting it on my lap as I ran my hands through his long, black hair that was greased back, hoping to provide him some comfort as I tried to figure out what to do.
“Pony?” Johnny breathed out as I watched in despair as his normally rosy cheeks grew paler by the moment.
“Mhm?” I couldn’t get any words out, my tears flowing freely down my cheeks.
‘’Can you lie down with me? It’s real cold, and I don’t want to be alone.” He mumbled, his voice becoming harder to hear. His cheeks went slightly pink again, and he looked embarrassed. I lay down immediately, tucking him gently into my chest the way Soda did when I had a nightmare. He weakly wrapped his arms around me, and I felt the warm, sticky blood mix with the heat of the tears that ran down his cheeks on my bare skin.
‘’Pony, I gotta say- if this is – if this is it,” Johnny mumbled as I moved my ear closer to his head to hear him better and rested my head on top of his. “It’s okay, alright? Don’t beat yourself up ‘bout it. It’s okay. I’ve got sixteen years; that’s better than some people get. I had good friends.”
My heart broke as I realised Johnny was trying to list all the things that were positive about his life.
Was that all he could come up with?
“Don’t talk like that, man; you’re going to be fine. You have to be, man; we’d never get on without you. You're the gang’s glue, Johnny; we need you.” I cried, holding him tighter towards me as though my grip on him alone meant he wouldn't be taken away from me.
“Pony, hold me, don’t – don’t let go, please.” Johnny said, curling himself up into a ball as I pulled him in close, hoping the beating of my heart will help his beat as well.
‘’Tell me a story, Pone, a real nice one – like the ones about what we’re going to do when we leave Tulsa one day. Console me with a dream, Pony, like you used to when we were just little kids.” He whispered, his voice soft and gentle, heavily reminiscent of how he sounded when I first met him 10 years ago and everything he believed hadn’t been shattered yet.
I didn’t have to rack my brain for a story. There was one that resided constantly in the forefront of my mind. It was one I had been writing in my head for 10 years, one that a 4-year-old Ponyboy and a 6-year-old Johnny had begun, and now a 14-year-old Ponyboy and a 16-year-old Johnny were finally going to finish.
“We’re going to get far away from Tulsa, where people can be people, and no one can put us down just because they don’t want us around. It’ll be far out in the country, with blue skies overhead, like in the movies we’ve seen and the books I’ve read. Do you remember Johnnycake?”
“It’ll be somewhere we can be free, and we can be whoever we want to be. It’ll be a house with open spaces, and we’ll be able to watch the sunset over golden rolling hills. We’ll have flowers on windowsills, like Mama used to; remember how pretty they looked? I can read us stories, and we can have ourselves a beautiful garden, but we won’t have to work too hard, and every night we can look up at the stars.”
“We’d be each other's family, Johnny, and we can start this life anew. The gang can come live with us and visit us, and we’d have a jolly old time. Darry wouldn’t have to work so hard, Soda won’t worry so much, and maybe the country could even warm Dally up a bit, like how he used to be when Mama and Pa were still around. Maybe the beauty of the country may get good ol’ Two-Bit to dry out even, but that’s a bit of a stretch, ain’t it, Johnnycake?’’
I’m not sure how long we laid there, he and I, beneath the orange sky that slowly bled to darkness. I sang, told stories, whistled, anything to keep him here. With me. I don’t know how long it was before he went still and his body went cold. I didn’t really know anything for sure after that.
Johnny Cade’s life didn’t have a dramatic ending. Sure, there had been a fight, but he didn’t die in it. He wasn’t a hoodlum or trash, as many perceived him to be. No, he was gentle and quiet, someone you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t searching for him.
So gentle, in fact, that in his dying moments, instead of vengeance at always being mistreated, bullied, and beaten just because he was a greaser, he asked to be held. He asked to be told a story of better times that we should have spent together but were robbed of.
But he left, without a trace, no one knowing the impact he had. He didn’t know his loss left a mark upon everyone who had known him and loved him.
But I knew. I’ll always know.