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Darry sure feels like he did something real bad in a past life to deserve a present life like this.
Work is hell, life is hell, and yet the weather is only getting colder. Colder means less roofing work but higher electricity bills. And his second shift at the factory doesn’t pay nearly as well.
So far too early on a frigid Thursday of whatever month it is now, he drags himself out of bed. It’s not like he has a choice. Soda’s check sure don’t cover the mortgage.
He tucks his shirt into his pants as he walks towards the kitchen. Except this early in the morning, he’s usually the only one awake. Pony doesn’t get up until the very last minute so he’s left running to catch the bus. But right now, perched around the living room, is the whole gang.
Darry didn’t even know Two-Bit could wake up before ten.
“Why are you all here?” He asks just as Steve asks, “Why are you dressed for work?”
“Don’t you have school?”
Pony frowns, “Darry, it’s Thanksgiving.”
“It is?” His gaze flashes to the TV, showing the grainy broadcast of the parade out East.
“Yeah, Dar,” Soda chuckles, “Didn’t you realize? We got up early to watch.”
He just stands frozen, halfway into the kitchen like his feet have grown roots.
“Does this mean…” Pony’s eyes flash to the empty, cold oven with sadness.
Shit, he forgot Thanksgiving. Which means he doesn’t have a turkey or dressing or-
The vines around his feet loosen and he’s moving before he realizes. His jacket winds up around his shoulders and his shoes in his hands, “I’ll run out-”
“Store’s closed today, Superman,” Dally pipes up helpfully, not breaking his stare from the Rockettes highkicking on 34th Street.
Right. They’re closed because it’s a holiday. A holiday Darry forgot.
“Does that mean we’re not gonna have any turkey?” Steve tosses a potato chip in his mouth, “Then what’d we come over for?”
Darry feels everyone’s eyes sink into him and the walls seem to lengthen like that Hitchcock movie they saw last year.
What is he supposed to say? That he forgot? That life has broken him down so easily he forgot one of the biggest holidays of the year? Or that maybe a part of him knew it was coming but didn’t want to confront that this was their first Thanksgiving without Mom and Dad? That maybe he was hoping someone would appear out of nowhere to rescue him, to make all the decisions for him? So that he would have a break from being in charge.
Glory, does he miss when his biggest concern was his next chemistry test or the Friday game against the Hale Rangers.
But he is the oldest, so he is the one in charge, and he can’t just turn and run. So he squares his shoulders and meets Ponyboy’s big eyes evenly.
“I’m sorry, little colt.” He feigns rubbing his nose so he can’t see how Pony’s face falls, “I forgot. Work’s been real busy-”
“It’s fine,” The reply is clipped with anger, “It’s totally fine you forgot Thanksgiving, Darry. Totally fine you forgot. Not like there was anything else important in your life to remember.”
He winces, Oh there is, Pony, there is. The mortgage, the electricity bills, the leaky roof, the crumbling porch, the truck that probably won’t last the winter, Pony’s college fund, Soda’s future, Johnny’s old man, Two-Bit’s drinking. There are so many things on his mind that sometimes it sure feels like he’s got a symphonic band tuning up in there, all cacophonous and chaotic.
(Someday, looking back, Darry will realize none of his worries included himself. His future, his health, his life. But when has he ever cared more about himself than the gang? He doesn’t have time to think about himself. No matter how much he lays awake at night begging someone to notice how badly he’s drowning.)
“Pony, I’m-” He tries after all those words inside fail him.
But his little brother storms off in a blur of copper hair, a slammed door, and a muffled shout of “You ruin everything!”
Soda’s hands brush his arm as he walks by, following after Pony, “It’s okay, Dar. We know you didn’t mean to.”
Ever the peacemaker. Even when this whole family’s broken to bits.
“Hey Supes,” Two-Bit pipes up - the Rockettes must’ve finished dancing, “My Ma’s probably got extra. I could call and-”
“No, no,” He interrupts, “I don’t wanna mess up her plans. I’ll figure it out.”
“How? Last I checked, the cupboards are as bare as your dating life,” Dally adds, again proving just how helpful he is.
“I said I’ll figure it out. Unless you’d like to contribute to the household for once.”
Dally huffs, a clear indication he’s most certainly not going to do that. But he’ll continue to mooch off Darry’s hard work anyday.
What was Darry really going to do? He’d planned on tuna noodle for dinner but that sure ain’t worthy of a Thanksgiving meal. Not when they have it nearly every week. But the stores are all closed and most of the restaurants oughta be too.
Alright, time for some good ol’ pantry ingenuity.
Soda wanders back in, bare feet soft on the linoleum. Darry doesn’t turn around from where he’s standing at the fridge, hoping if he stares long enough, a turkey will appear.
“Dar, Dar,” The voice gets closer, “Darry.”
Eventually Soda grows tired of waiting and shuts the door, “You’re wastin’ electricity.”
Now that snaps Darry out of his trance quick, “Sorry, Pepsi, what did you say?”
“Nothing ‘cept your name. Listen, you know Pony don’t mean it when he says things like that, right? He’s just fourteen and you know nothing makes sense then.”
“He don’t gotta mean it when it’s true.” Darry mumbles, moving his search to the cabinets.
“Hey,” Those hands sink back into the stiff muscles at his neck and Darry groans despite his frustration, “I know you got a lot of worries. Someday Pony’ll too. But it’s our first big holiday without Mom and Dad. Can’t we cut each other a little slack?”
An ember of anger warms his stomach. And each breath he tries to take only fuels the fire, “A little slack? A little slack? Everyday I’m busting myself to pieces to provide for him, for you. I’m working two lousy jobs and all I ask for when I get home is a little help. Doing the dishes, taking out the trash, cooking dinner without changing its color. But I’m always told, “No, Darry, I’m too tired,” or “No, Darry, I’ve got too much homework,” or “No, Darry, I’m going out with a girl tonight.” I give the two of ya slack every goddamn day but I don’t even get a single inch of it in return. And I’m sick of it! Someday I’m gonna break and none of y’all know how to pick up the slack.”
He slams the empty cupboard shut and turns for the front door.
“Darry, c’mon, please-”
He shrugs on his coat - Dad’s coat, Dad who always provided for this family, “I’ll go find us some dinner.”
The cold air that breezes through the room after he’s gone feels so much colder than it should. Anger burns hot after all.
---
He doesn’t have a plan. He barely remembered to grab the truck keys in his tirade. The engine turns over once, twice, three times before it ignites. What were they gonna do if this thing finally gave up the ghost? A new one’s twice Darry’s salary for a whole year and getting parts ain’t cheap either. Well, now that he’s got it started, he might as well drive the sucker around a bit so it don’t go immediately cold.
The town’s deserted. Even the Reservoir, that seedy dive over on Admiral is all locked up. God, even Fletcher, the grimy old man behind the bar there, is having a better holiday than he is.
He passes by the familiar shape of the high school - only to see a different familiar shape on the sidewalk out front. With a curse, he slows the truck and rolls down a window.
“What the hell are you doing out here?”
Paul spins around with a curse, “Oh, it’s you.”
“Seriously, Paul. Why are you out here? There aren’t any greasers to jump.”
A faint smile, a ghost of how it used to be between them, “Except you.”
He jokingly lunges but Darry just rolls his eyes unimpressed. He parks the truck, very much ignoring that he’s in an illegal spot, and hops out.
“Didn’t know you were running away,” He teases and lowers himself down onto the curb.
“Not running away. Just a temporary period of absence.” Paul murmurs diplomatically and joins him in sitting down.
“You gonna tell me what happened?” Darry finds himself asking. He’s not sure why, they haven’t spoken casually in months.
He shrugs, “The usual Holden family antics. My uncle was getting a little too into the punch and I was sick of hearing my father nag my mother about the turkey. So I went for a walk.”
“Paul, your house is over a mile from here.”
“I never said it would be a short walk. Now are you gonna tell me why you’re out here alone?”
There’s a lightness to their conversation that Darry didn’t realize just how much he missed. Sure there were times he wished he could just pick up the phone and call Paul to tell him about something. But to actually sit near each other - even if it’s on a concrete curb that’s so cold it’s biting his ass through his jeans - feels different, more welcome. It reminds him of conversations on the locker room bench after practice, of seats at the drive-in when they brought their girls. Maybe it’s just that it’s a holiday and people are kinder on holidays, but it feels safe here.
“Don’t know,” He finally mutters after realizing Paul was still waiting for an answer.
“The great Darrel Curtis Junior without an answer? That’s a first. What, you burn the turkey or something?”
“Can’t burn it if you don’t got one,” He grumbles, bitter and angry at himself.
“No way,” Paul exhales a laugh, “You forgot Thanksgiving?”
“It ain’t funny.”
“You have to admit it is, just a little. You, who never forgot a single English assignment, forgetting a major holiday?”
Frustration rises to sit just behind his throat and he swallows hard, “I’ve been busy. It’s not like you have to work two jobs. You’re off at college, living it up.”
“I’m not actually,” Paul near-whispers.
Darry’s neck cracks as he turns, “What?”
He looks up at the watery sky, “Washed up. Yeah, another reason I didn’t want to sit at home. Tired of hearing my old man tell me about all the ways I'm ruining my life.”
At least you’ve still got him, Darry thinks but the thought rots just as soon as it appears. Paul’s father was a pretentious ass who always thought his son deserved better than palling around with a delinquent low-life like Darry. Paul might still have his dad but was it worth it when he is who he is? Why did the universe have to take Darrel and Karen Curtis away when it could’ve taken Mr Holden or Mr Cade or Mr Randle? Why couldn’t it have rid the world of some bad instead of so much good?
“You want to come over?” Paul asks, knuckles tight in his pressed trousers like they were keeping him together, “You could bring Ponyboy and Sodapop. I’m sure there’s enough food.”
“I don’t need your charity, Paul.”
“It’s not charity. You can be a buffer for us. Maybe my dad’ll lay off me if you’re around.” His voice is desperate, like he needs this.
“Your dad hates me.”
“But-”
“We’re not your Eagle Scout project, Paul! We’re not some poor, starving strangers you can take in off the street so you can feel good about yourself!”
He shouldn’t have stopped, he should’ve just kept driving past the school, past Quincy Bridge, past the railroad tracks. Far enough where he could figure this out alone but not far enough where the urge to run away became too strong to deny.
“That’s not what I’m trying to do. It’s just a temporary olive branch. We can go back to hating each other after.”
Paul sighs, “Listen, I didn’t mean-”
“You asked me when I was sending Pony and Soda away so I could go to college. You asked me in front of them when I was tossing them away like trash. The day after we buried Mom and Dad. Do you know how long it took to calm Pony down from that? To convince him that he wasn’t going to be split up and torn away? He slept on the tile bathroom floor for two days because he just kept getting so sick. He’d barely let us out of his sight to grab him a glass of water. We haven’t been friends since, because of what you did. So I’m not going to sit at your fancy house at a table that probably cost more than my truck, and pretend that we’re a happy little family. ‘Cuz me and Pony and Soda ain’t happy and your house sure ain’t one either!”
He stands with a huff, suddenly unable to imagine this as one of those locker room talks. Paul doesn’t rise with him. He looks so defeated, sitting there.
Good.
Glory, he hopes the truck will start again. He couldn’t stand being trapped here.
“If you won’t take charity,” Paul starts, finally looking up at him, “Then at least do it for Pony and Soda’s sake? They deserve to have a good holiday… I didn’t mean to hurt them.”
There it is. This conversation could’ve been studied in a lab as a perfect example of their friendship. They could be horrible to each other, beat the hell out of each other, throw mean and cruel words at each other, and then someone will say something that aches in their chest more than a blindsided punch.
Because Paul is right. Pony and Soda deserve more than Darry can give them.
“It’s not like you’ve got a lot of options. Everything’s closed. The turkey won’t be ready but I bet I could smuggle you some of the other stuff. You know my mom’s a good cook.”
Darry thinks about every meal he had there, porkchops, steaks, lasagnes. Mrs Holden was a really good cook. Better than Darry ever will be.
And despite the memory burning in his brain of that day after the funeral, with Pony so sick he couldn’t keep anything down, he pops the truck door open.
“C’mon, get in. For Pony and Soda’s sake.”
---
“Whoa! Where’d you get all this?” Pony ogles the stack of dishes Darry carefully lowers onto the countertop.
“Big brother secrets.” Darry winks and ruffles his hair. The sight of food has greatly improved the kid’s mood and he swats away his brother’s touch to try to snatch a bread roll, “Nuh huh, wait for dinner.”
“Hey!” Soda calls from the living room, “The Price is Right is on! They’re giving away a Corvette and a boat!”
Pony and Two-Bit vacate the kitchen with a scramble of socked feet but Darry can still feel someone’s gaze heavy on him.
“Dally, you tryin’ to set me on fire with your eyes or somethin’?”
The hood peels off the wall, “I know you didn’t break into nobody’s house, so you wanna tell me where you got green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, rolls, macaroni, and a whole pie?”
“None of your business.”
“These dishes,” Dally’s thieving fingers pry a lid off the macaroni, “Are way too fancy for anyone but a Soc. So which one of your rich friends did you grovel at on your knees?”
“I didn’t do no groveling,” He grumbles and fiddles with the stove knobs until it finally kicks on, “Pass me the beans, wouldya?”
The dish meets his hands, just barely, and he has to tense to keep it from shattering against the floor.
“Well you ain’t a magician either so this has gotta come from somewhere.”
“Glory, you’re like a dog with a bone, Dallas. I ran into Paul. He offered and I accepted.”
“Paul? You took food from that loser? After the shit he pulled?”
“I did it for Soda and Pony and Johnny so they can have a good meal. Someday you might know that feeling.”
“You won’t catch me begging for scraps at the foot of some rich Soc trash.”
“I didn’t beg either.” Darry rises to his full height, “Sometimes you gotta do things that embarrass you or make you feel like less than shit ‘cuz you’re trying to make things better for others. Paul offered and I accepted. End of transaction and end of discussion.”
He can hear Dally’s eye roll but the kid still lets it lie. Good. Darry doesn’t have the energy to fight him anymore.
The rest of the gang stays occupied watching all of the shows on for Thanksgiving while Darry heats up the food, bakes another cake, sets the table, washes last night’s dishes, sweeps the floor, and scrubs the coffee pot to sparkling.
But all his labors pay off the moment his brothers sit down at a full table (minus a turkey) with beaming smiles. The light in their eyes cures all his ails, aches, and anger. And though they still ain’t friends, Darry finds himself grateful for Paul. Maybe there’s hope out there someday.
Everyone lets Pony say grace, even though they haven’t done it since Mom and Dad died. But the very second that amen reaches its last syllable, the pack descends on the servingware.
Johnny’s plate is 90% macaroni with only a tiny helping of green beans Soda insisted he have. Steve pours enough gravy over his own to drown the dish entirely. Dally has a little of everything, watching the others with a smirk on his lips, daring them to start something. And Two-Bit cracks open a beer and tells them he’s just waiting for the pie.
“Darry?” Pony asks later, much later, as his brother is elbow deep in soapy dishwater.
The kitchen is untroubled by the chaos in the living room, the light over the sink the only one left on. It casts an amber pool over Darry’s broad shoulders like he’s suddenly been sculpted of sandstone.
“Yeah, Pon?” He doesn’t glance up but tilts his head towards the sound, “There’s leftovers in the fridge if you’re hungry again.”
“No, I’m-” Pony picks at a chip in the countertop, “Can we talk?”
A dish slips out of Darry’s grasp and back into the sudsy water with a splash. He rescues it quickly, setting it off in the pile of Pyrex he has to return to Mrs Holden.
“Yeah, ‘course, Pon.” He tries to play it cool, like this isn’t as big a deal as it really is. Pony always went to Soda for help. Darry usually wasn’t even an afterthought.
Rather than sit at the table - that might feel too much like Dad’s giving them a lecture - Darry pats the countertop and Pony hops up onto it easily. Glory, he’s getting so big. Where did the days go when Darry had to hoist him up onto it to patch a skinned knee? The kid in front of him now is fourteen and growing too fast for Darry’s eyes.
He leans against the cupboards and like this, they’re nearly the same height. This close he can see that Pony’s been picking at his thumbnail again and the skin around it is red and raw. Soda’s the same way, he must’ve learned it from him. He wants to jump to asking what Pony needs to talk about, the hot water in the sink is cooling more every second, but he forces himself to be patient. The dishes can wait.
Pony chews at his nail like a habit and a work-worn hand reaches up to gently tug it free from his teeth, “C’mon, little colt. What’s the matter?”
“I know you didn’t mean to forget.”
“I know, Pony. But I still forgot. That don’t change.”
“But you fixed it,” He gestures to all the traces of dinner scattered around, “And maybe I should fix things too.”
Darry smooths the copper hair down where it’s sticking up at the back and for a breath of a moment, Pony leans closer to him.
“I didn’t mean what I said ‘bout you. I know you got a lot of things to think about. I heard you in the kitchen before and then while you were gone… Soda told me some of the others. Ones I didn't even know existed. I’m sorry I ruined your day by saying all that shit-”
“Language,” Darry scolds softly but Pony plows on.
“It was probably your first day off in weeks and you spent it driving around Tulsa alone.”
“I spent it helping my brothers,” He corrects. He doesn’t want Pony to feel guilty for being upset. Glory knows how many times Darry’s been upset and taken it out on them.
“You’re always helping us. That ain’t fair.”
“There’s a lot about life that ain’t fair, little colt.”
“Yeah but we can help you with this one. You got work tomorrow?”
He nods, he’s always working. He really did burn his chance at a day off, didn’t he.
“Why don’tchu call your boss and see if he’ll give you tomorrow off too?”
Darry winces, instantly doing the math about this week’s grocery bill with one less day’s pay, “It’s… Pony, I can’t.”
“It’s one day, Darry.”
It’s that tight, Pony.
“C’mon, we’ll be okay. We can take Two-Bit to the store. He’ll lift us anything we want.”
“Don’t you get near him when he’s stealing. I don’t want you taking any chances.”
“Please, Darry?”
It’s such a simple request in theory. And he doesn’t want to have to explain to his baby brother, on Thanksgiving of all days, that they’re lucky to not be out on the street by now. Pony deserves to hang onto his innocence for as long as possible.
“Alright, alright.”
He’ll just have to cut down on his meals, he’ll be okay. He’s done it before.
Pony’s past the age of hugs, at least not to anyone but Soda, but he still knocks his shoulder into Darry’s. It’s enough.
“Say, I think they’re showing a movie on TV tonight. Whaddya say we make a big pot of Ovaltine for everyone? I think there might even be some popping corn in the cabinet.
Those green-grey eyes go as wide as dinner plates and gleam with excitement in the low light. There’s spring to his step as he darts around grabbing mugs and milk. Once Darry finishes the washing up, he joins in too, humming softly.
It’s a fragile, gentle peace as they work without words. Like they’re all doing homework at the kitchen table again, Pony looking up at his brother’s complicated math book with wonder.
And without Darry realizing, Pony watches him putter around the kitchen with that same sense of wonder.
“Alright, kiddo, you ready?” He slings an arm around him even as he balances an enormous bowl of popcorn in the other.
Pony nods, a bit of chocolate sauce stuck to his nose, “Let’s go.”