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I knew I would die one day. After all, us on the East Side don't go far.
Not that the Socs on the West Side do. I mean, look at Bob.
And with my kind of home situation... well, it's not like Dally's was much different, but at least he didn't complain.
So, I didn't, either.
Dally... my role model and idol. My hero, who was always there for me. Seemed to have a soft spot for me too.
I always wondered why. Maybe it was because he knew how I felt.
I was always the favorite—out of all of the gang, now that I think about it—even though Dally seemed to have a sort of tough love for Ponyboy, too.
And Ponyboy...
Man, was he a looker. Not like that—who gave you the idea?—but he did seem to have more game than any of us. Except Soda, of course. “Like honey draws flies,” Ponyboy had said about Soda’s ability to get girls.
But just because Soda was attractive didn’t mean that he was exactly able to keep a relationship. Mainly it was the girls that freaked out and ran away. Like Sandy.
Naturally I had none of that. After all, what girl would want to hang with a kid from a rough home that looks twelve for sixteen?
Plus, none of the gang expected me to get any attention other than from the beatings at home. So they gave theirs to me. Dally especially.
Dally. The guy that had stuck by me and Ponyboy even when we ran away the night I killed a Soc. The guy that gave us a gun, a hideout, and money for a head start on true criminal life.
The guy that always showed care behind his rough, glacier blue eyes.
Yeah, I figured it out.
Even if it was just a minute ago, when everything happened too fast and suddenly we were in a burning church and we got a group of kids out and I...
I don’t quite remember what happened after that. I remember an unbearable heat—to which I screamed, of course, I’m not like Dally in that regard quite yet—and then everything was numb.
It wasn’t even a soothing numbness. It was the type of feeling I got whenever my old man would hit me and everything else would melt away and I felt nothing.
I was burning. Then cold. And now I only feel pain.
”We beat the Socs,” Dally’s voice takes me back to the bright lights and stiff bed of the hospital room. “Chased them right outta our territory.”
My eyes are closed, but I can still speak. “... Useless... Fighting’s no good...”
Because, really, it isn’t. I tried to fight, and look where that got me. A hospital as my deathplace and the crime of manslaughter on my broken, burned shoulder blades.
My throat is dry, but I can’t really feel it. The same pain I’ve felt since I’ve woken up is gathered together in my chest, only this time it’s more urgent. Like it knows I’m going to die, wanting me to notice it as much as possible in my final moments.
It stabs at my heart, saps the air out of my lungs, crumbles my ribs until I’m helplessly void of all feeling.
And then it’s back. Off and on, on and off. It’s been like that for God knows how long. How much time has passed since Pony and I escaped that church?
I barely remember any of it.
”You know,” Dally switches the topic, “they’re still writing editorials about you in the paper. For being a hero and all.”
I don’t know exactly what to say to that, so I just stay silent.
So I’ve been recognized for my apparently heroic acts, but that hardly matters to me. It might to Ponyboy, but not to me. Probably not to Dally either, come to think of it. My own folks would only beat me and holler at me for "worrying them," though they don't give a hang whether I lived or died. They just want something to yell at me for.
I tell myself that I don't care. But I do. It's hard—Dally can manage on his own, just 'cause he's the type of guy to take anything, but I can't. Not the way he does, anyway. Dally acts like everything's fine without parents, and it ends up being believable because he's, well, Dally.
I don't seem to have the same grasp of cold reality the way he does. Probably because I'm the type of guy that needs someone to look after him. I spent nearly my whole life—which, I would soon find out, isn't so long—calling myself too dependent and good-for-nothing when there were six other boys that I knew I could count on, but naturally I didn't because—be real, what sixteen-year-old looks to a fourteen-year-old for advice?
I know better now.
"We're all proud of you, buddy," Dally continues.
Proud of me... so Dally was proud of me, huh?
Well, that's certainly news. I manage a small smile to tell him how happy I am at his words, but it seems to do little to ease his anxiety. I hate seeing Dally like this. It rarely happens, but when it does it basically means that we should run.
Kind of hard to do that in my state.
Regardless, the breaking news that we three have made it to the headlines sends me both relief and frustration.
Recognition has come to the East Side too late, but my time here was spent well.
Yet there's still one thing I need to say.
I wrote the letter for him as a just-in-case, and it looks like that'll have to come in handy once I'm gone. Maybe the nurse'll remember and give it to him.
I turn my half-lidded gaze to Ponyboy and call his name softly.
I've been thinking these past few days about our time in the church together as I slipped in and out of consciousness, but it's given me enough time to know exactly what I'm going to say if I get the chance.
That sunrise was really something. It's covered my thoughts ever since I got here. And now I can see it fading. Melting not into the light of day, but the same bland palette of our pictures in the papers.
"Stay gold, Ponyboy..." I whisper to him, my voice hoarse. "Stay... gold..."
The bright, pink-orange sky dims. The clouds speeding across the country landscape slow to a stop. The tree leaves waving in the wind cease movement.
Everything is dark.
It's time.
The last thing I feel is the hospital pillow sinking underneath my head, and all goes dark.
Some time passes. I'm half-aware of my surroundings now. I find myself waiting for something. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but I won't leave until it arrives.
I gradually begin to see, and my photographic memory of that gray masterpiece of a sunset is screaming with color again. It's vibrant, and from here I can see Ponyboy.
Then, Dally. Soda. Darry. Slowly, the members of our gang all come into view in this dream-like state of my death.
Nothing is in focus, but it's them. Two-Bit cracks a joke, Steve lets out his car engine laugh. Darry chuckles, Soda smiles. Ponyboy glances at the sunset, Dally ruffles my hair.
They may be figments of my afterlife imagination, but they're here.
I'll do what I've always done. I'll listen. I'll follow. But I know what I'm doing now.
I've left out details, sure.
I want Ponyboy to live a life I couldn't have. I want Dally to find purpose and appreciate the little things. I want so much more for the rest of my gang—my friends, my support, my family.
But sixteen-year-old Johnny Cade can only say so much on his deathbed.
And as the Golden Boy of the East Side, I’d say I did pretty well.