Chapter Text
Johnny comes back.
I see him coming up the street, but I don’t go out to him. I lean against the wall just behind the screen door, and watch him come. He walks with that shuffling gait, and he never once looks up. The fire took part of the use of his left leg, and a fight with his dad, just before he moved out, took most of the rest.
I don’t mind, and neither does he. It’s better than what it could have been.
“Hey, stranger,” I say when he’s halfway up the walk. He finally looks up, and all the stupid, sentimental feelings flood back. Every time I think they’re finally gone, I see his teeth flashing out in his face and the electric light that goes on behind his eyes when he smiles. I think I could look at that smile all day and never get bored.
For a second, I’m standing inside and he’s outside. Just the screen door between us. I feel suspended in that moment, like it’s the moment between life and death. I don’t know which side’s which.
And then I throw the screen door open and grab him in a hug so tight I think I hear something pop. “Thought you really weren’t coming back this time,” I mutter into his shoulder.
I feel his chest wheeze a little as he laughs. “C’mon, Ponyboy,” he says. “I’d never do that to you.”
Still, I hold onto him for a second longer, till I’m sure I’ll remember how it feels to have my face pressed against the greasy denim of his jacket, till I’ve memorized the scent of motor oil and dust and liquor and the sea.
⛯⛯⛯
He brought sea salt, the nice stuff, the stuff that still tastes like the sea for true. And a decent suit for Darry, and money. Quite a bit of it. Darry sighs when he sees it, and I let my mind wander away. I know what’ll happen next. Darrel will argue, saying Johnny got that money himself, and Darrel doesn’t want to take from him, especially not when it’s dirty money anyway, and Johnny should keep it and get himself set up somewhere nice.
Johnny will sit back and let him blow himself out and when he’s done, he’ll lean forward and remind him—in his slow, clear way—that Darry let Johnny sleep on our couch when there was nowhere else he could go, and that he fed Johnny even when he could barely feed the three of us, and that the only reason Johnny’s here today is because of—Well.
And Darry will sigh.
And he’ll keep the money, because we need it.
My gig at the newspaper doesn’t pay well; I could be making better money on the roofing crew with Darry, but we both know I’d be miserable. I wanna do it anyway. I’d do anything if it’d take some of the creases from Darry’s face. But he won’t let me. Nah, he says every time I bring it up. You’re gonna be a famous writer someday. And then we’ll have plenty of money.
Sometimes I think Darry wants me to be a kid still. He wants me to keep dreaming forever, even though I’m about to hit twenty and ain’t published anything besides thrilling journalistic pieces on bake sales and town hall meetings. You’d have thought it would have changed by now. You’d have thought he’d have given up on me keeping any of my dreaming. Especially with everything that happened. But I think it just made Darry more dead set on keeping me safe and golden.
⛯⛯⛯
After supper, we go out to the graveyard. We’re quiet on the walk over, the kind of quiet that comes after a storm before the birds come back. Johnny touches my arm as we walk up the hill to the stone. It feels like a butterfly landing on me. It feels like all the stupid cliches in those stupid songs. And I love it.
But it’s gone as soon as we reach the top of the hill and step off the gravel path, because here we are: Right in front of my brother’s gravestone.
It still leaves a strange, metallic taste of panic in my mouth to see the words Sodapop Patrick Curtis blazed across that stone. Steve told me that he and Darry had to hold me back at the funeral, ‘cause I was trying to climb in the grave with him. I wouldn’t know. I don’t remember it. Most of that year’s gone, like it never even happened. The shrink Darry made me see a few times—even though we sure as hell couldn’t afford it—told me it hurt me too much to remember it, so my mind was trying to protect me. Can’t say I’m not grateful.
Johnny’s hold on me solidifies, and it’s only then that I realize I’ve gone shaky. He’s practically holding me up and I let him, leaning back till my head’s resting on his shoulder, right in the crook of his neck. No one says anything.
I wish I could find something that would make it better—some way to scrape the words together and get them out. I think, if I could, it’d feel better. But I can hardly even say the words My brother is dead without feeling dizzy. It’s still so close, like that fire is part of my bones. I remember little bits of it, though I might’ve patched it together from Johnny’s telling of it and the newspaper clippings. But still, I like to think that I remember the last time I saw Sodapop alive.
I think I remember the way the smoke smelled, and the panicky feeling of it in my throat. I think I remember Soda shoving me back and yelling at me to stay out while he and Johnny went in. I remember the feeling of freezing over even though I was right there next to the blazing fire, and seeing Johnny scramble out with a couple of wailing kids. And I remember Soda coming out, after Johnny, with another little boy. And I remember his back turning again. And then a great crash of flame and timber falling, and then—
And then—
That last kid died in the fire, too. Darry says his parents wanted Johnny and me at his funeral, but I wasn’t well.
We all blame ourselves. It’d be a little funny, if it wasn’t what it is. Dallas told me he never should’ve told Soda where we were. Johnny swears he should’ve gone back instead of Soda. Darry hardly slept that year. And I can’t stop thinking of it, turning it round and round in my mind but never getting it all the way out. Somewhere in my head, I think there’s the answer. If I can just find it, then it’ll all make sense.
Trouble is, I can’t find it.
⛯⛯⛯
The sun’s setting by the time we leave. No one’s said a thing for the past hour. I feel like my tongue’s glued to the roof of my mouth. I don’t look at Darry, who looks older and tireder every day. I don’t look at Johnny, who still walks with his eyes down on the ground even though he’s his own man now, even though he don’t even talk to his dad anymore.
I don’t look at anything down on earth with me. Instead, I look up. The sky’s streaked in red and pink and orange and white and yellow, but it’s all a tiny bit bitter to me. After that year, it stopped meaning anything to me. I couldn’t find the magic anymore. What’s the point in it, when my brother’s six feet under?
I wish I could tell him. Even the sunset’s a little dimmer now that you’re not here, Soda. Even the sunset.