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A deer, a rabbit, a pheasant, Ponyboy: Each an animal of prey staring down the headlights of their doom. Whether that doom be a wolf, a fox, a man’s rifle or an innocuous pill bottle, it will kill each with the same uncaring nature. The wolf will preen to its pups, the fox will sate its hunger, the man and his devoted rifle will gratify and honour themselves with a trip back to the clubhouse for praise from friends and family, and the pill bottle will remain as it was, unaffected by the death of another. That is how most will react to his death.
Perhaps it is unfair of Ponyboy to compare his small, harmless pill bottle to a wolf. He is doing this to himself and the deer only tried to live. The deer is stronger than he ever will be, though he feels like the deer caught in the jaws of life’s proverbial wolf. Furthermore, the wolf has reason to kill the deer: it is only the circle of life, those pups are hungry and need a meal. His death will not aid anyone more than perhaps the gang: One less gang member on Darry’s tight payroll, one less annoying kid-brother to tag along, one less dreamer to care for because he’s too pathetic even care for himself.
No, the pill bottle has no reason to kill him. It’s aspirin, meant to help with his headaches, and yet they feel powerful in this context, in his hand. It would be more apt to compare Bob Sheldon to the wolf of Pony’s deer: he is cruel, he is a drunk, he is abusive and he tried to drown Pony — only now does Pony wish he had been successful… but perhaps the worst part of this twisted tale is that he is dead.
Ponyboy stares down at the stained bathroom sink, a splotch of toothpaste laying right near the centre, clipping of hair shavings of Soda’s facial hair — Darry would never leave the bathroom a mess and Pony was too young to have to shave — and if you looked hard enough a tinge of orange dye in the left corner from when the brothers were younger and had made “food” out of soaps and bubbles in the sink but had used real dye, Soda’s first venture into dye.
His eyes sluggishly drag up to the mirror, where he can see a haunting shell of the past wonder-boy, Ponyboy Micheal Curtis, in Soda’s old white shirt with minimal stains and some sweatpants, pyjamas. His hair is still majority blond, with his dark roots growing out slightly which give him a deranged and dangerous look… he was probably only dangerous to himself.
Ponyboy hated fighting; ever since he was a kid and everyone was bigger than him did he hate it. It made him feel weak even when Soda or Darry let him win, he could always tell. A victory never feels like an accomplishment if it is handed to you on a silver platter… or in their greaser case, a chipped old white dinner plate. Something about the violence, the anger, the untainted negligence of it all. Ponyboy could never really get himself to hit someone too hard, well before the drowning he couldn’t. But ever since that night Pony has seen the necessary violence of defensive actions. He’ll never blame Johnny for killing Bob, it was Pony’s life or Bob’s and if Johnny and him were to switch places, he would have killed Bob too… or at least he hopes he would.
Before that night he had never been able to fight, Johnny was prepared ever since that beating the weeks prior. Maybe the drowning of Johnny would’ve been that moment: where he wouldn’t act, where Johnny would die, where he would get hard and tough like Dallas and he would swear revenge.
Ponyboy looks back to the pill bottle in hand, vaguely he can hear the soft sounds of Soda snoring. He should be in there with Soda, where everyone expects him to be, sleeping in their bed but rather he is here, and he is sick of expectations. His entire life has been filled with these great, unreachable, expectations. He’s the fastest on the track team so he’s expected to win, he skipped a grade at school so he’s expected to be the first to go to college, he’s the youngest so he’s expected to listen to the others. He’s so done with expectations, even the one’s that don’t bear down on him like the eyes of Dr TJ Eckleberg in the Great Gatsby, all seeing and all knowing. Perhaps it’s ironic that George Orwell wrote ‘1984’ with the antagonist being the eyes, the ever-present watching and omniscient being, of ‘Big Brother”. The expectation that he’s gonna be beat up by some socs, the expectation that Darry is gonna yell at him for the slightest failure or infringement, the expectation that someone will yell at him for being in his head.
That’s probably why he was in his head so much, there were no expectations up there… just himself, his dreams, and his words. He’s always found it pleasant there, even before his parent’s or, Johnny’s or Dally’s deaths. He found his head peaceful in a way his world never was with basically 6 older brothers. Now though his world was too still… too quiet. A house empty of all its joy and laughter. In many ways he has lost so much: parents, Johnny, Dally… but his brothers have lost more. Because that night, when Johnny died and Dally killed himself, they lost Ponyboy too… not to death but to himself and his grips of despair.
Ponyboy wishes he had written a note for his brothers and gang, wishes he could explain to them that this wasn’t their fault, that ever since that night he had been a walking corpse more than their baby brother. He wants to apologise to Darry for every burden that he had placed upon him, apologise to him about how he basically forced him out of college, apologise for every opportunity Darry missed for him. He wants to console Soda, tell him that there was nothing he could’ve done, no amount of radiant smile that could fix what was wrong with Pony, his baby brother. He wants to tell Two-Bit that this isn’t an excuse to dive deeper into the bottle and tell Steve that he will finally be free of his constant annoyance. But he couldn’t. When he tried to write the note earlier all his words and flew and escaped his grasp, words finally leaving him. It felt like his final friend had turned their back and now he was left alone.
Ponyboy swallows down the bile rising in his throat, with his last rays of humour he lifts the pill bottle like a glass of whiskey (something he has yet to indulge in), and downs it quickly.
He stares at himself, the last person to see himself alive will be the one he hates most.
He can slowly feel the pills working their effect, the world is becoming hazy like a distant dream and the edges of his vision blur. Loud ringing envelops his ears and he swears it must be the first ring of hell he hears. He sways from side to side as his muscles weaken so he grips the sink with a weakened tight grip. Feeling his legs buckle he watches as his hand goes limp and knocks the bottle to the ground.
He doesn’t hear a sound.
Slowly he lowers himself to the ground, trying to lean against the bath to be somewhat presentable for the angel of death and whoever is unfortunate enough to find his body. His eyes start falling shut and distantly he realises he can hear banging on the bathroom door, he should be polite and open it but he was far too weak and comfortable to even attempt. He can barely feel anything in this numbed state of being, only the far-off feeling of someone yanking him and the feeling of nausea as they shove their fingers down his throat. In this final moment, his final moment, filled with the cries from hell, Soda’s fingers down his throat, tears streaming down his face, he realises that he is not the prey, rather the predator.