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His lungs burned with every stride he took. The evening summer air crowded his face as he ran forward, doing nothing to stop the beads of sweat from forming across his forehead. The energy filled his limbs as he continued down the road, fueling him as he chased some sort of goal. He didn’t know what the goal was, but he needed to get out of his pounding and loud mind. The sidewalk he was running down seemed to stretch on for miles as it dipped and turned, always providing more to be conquered.
The last time Ponyboy Curtis ran was with Johnny Cade, as they sprung into the fire he feared that he’d started. It was still such a detailed image in his mind, something he could never shake the feeling of. The trickling and popping of the smoke. The clouded vision that consumed him. The screaming of the blond headed boy telling them to turn back. The screaming of the children. Then, that damned noise from Johnny seconds before the beam came crumpling down. It all haunted him, and still occasionally plagued his nightmares that just seemed to get worse by the day.
The next day, two of the people closest to him died. Although Dallas Winston would have backhanded him as he read the theme, Dally and Johnny were both heroes. At first, he’d forced himself to believe they weren’t dead. That maybe, just maybe, if he tried and believed hard enough he’d wake up to the sound of Dal busting into the house with a hand on Johnny’s shoulder, his voice filling the hallway. When Darry had finally let him out of the house again, he’d walk past the lot and force himself to believe Johnny was sitting on the beaten seat, smoking a cigarette. That hadn’t worked for long though. He soon had to accept the fact of their death, just as he had done with his parents 8 months prior.
Everything stung for the many months that followed. Pony constantly felt like he was drowning in his own guilt and sorrows. He hated himself for the deaths of Johnny and Dallas. Anytime he felt himself finally becoming comfortable again, everything would come crashing down. He blamed himself for their passing too. If he hadn’t ran into that church Johnny wouldn’t have followed him, and if Johnny was alive Dal would be too.
He had the joy of living a fulfilling life up until January of 1965. Even though the threat of the Socs constantly hid silently in the back of every greaser’s mind, he was still able to find solitude when his mom and dad were alive and thriving. Although he was tired from hours out in the sun, his dad would come home and swing him around. His mom worked her ass off to keep the household running, but still managed to comfort all three of her boys, plus the gang. They died because he’d forgotten the frosting for his eldest brother’s birthday cake, at least, that’s how he saw it. It truly wasn’t his fault, he wasn’t driving the train. But that didn’t stop him from believing it was.
Everything seemed to go downhill after that fateful moment. After they passed, Darry had to take on far too much responsibility to handle alone and was drowning in the wave of things that flooded his mind. He needed to prove to the state he was the right fit for his younger brothers, he needed to figure out how to budget their money, he had to work on getting himself out of their parents debt, and he needed to make sure both his brothers were as healthy as they could be. Darry worked himself to death day and night. He wouldn’t stop. He became more short tempered and fell out of that loving older brother position he once filled. To Pony, Darry wasn’t much of a brother to him anymore, but nor was he a father figure. He was just Darry. They constantly were on edge with each other, always bickering about the ant sized details. It was hard to live with, and Ponyboy was growing sick of it, and so was Darrel. There was a tightening thread that wove in the Curtis household, always threatening to snap at the drop of a hat.
Soda dropped out of school at the start of the next semester and went full-time at the DX to help with the bills. That didn’t stop him from always comforting his little brother, though. The first night Pony woke up screaming, he opened his eyes to Sodapop, right at his bed-side. After the nightmares that shook Pony awake once or even twice a night never seemed to stop, Soda immediately moved himself into the bedroom, no questions or statements asked. Ever since the beginning, Sodapop had always been there for him. Sure, Darry was there too, but Soda and Pony being closer in age helped to fuse their bond from the beginning.
The 8 months after Jane and Darrel Curtis sr. 's deaths went by at a sickening pace. The household was constantly overwhelmed with papers, home visits, soc problems and bill issues. Somehow, throughout the entire thing, Soda kept that happy-go-lucky smile on his face the whole time. At one point, Ponyboy was half-convinced his brother wasn’t worried about all that was going on. He was a ball of sunshine in the dull world surrounding the household’s lives.
Even though his brother was always there to coach him through life, Pony noticed he kept forgetting to do the same. The night Soda pushed himself away from the dinner table and sprinted out the door woke Pony up more. Both Darry and Ponyboy realized how much they’d been pulling their brother apart. After a good talk, they made up. Darry tried not to holler at his brother for every little thing, and Pony tried to listen to his older brother better. Soda accepted that he should talk about his feelings more and put himself first sometimes. Things seemed to finally look up, maybe there was good left in the world.
So Ponyboy didn’t know why he found himself sprinting down the drive one late August evening. It wasn’t like he was running from something. Darry and Soda both had late shifts that night but they knew where Pony was. It wasn’t like that night he got late home from the movies and ended up running away with Johnny a few moments later. Or like the time he tried to run from the socs. Or when Two-bit had decided to teach him how to steal a hub-cap and they almost got caught. Or even like the time he, Dally, and Johnny had chased those kids through a field. He was just running for himself.
It was like all the thoughts and feelings that he had kept bottled up inside were finally being extinguished and left behind. Running gave a chance to think. Not to think about the sea of problems in his life, but rather sort things out with himself. He was able to feel like he had a chance at living a fairly normal life again.
Normal wasn’t the right word, though. Things had sort of gone back to normal after Johnny and Dally died. Their death wasn’t what caused the blissfulness, if anything it made it worse. But slowly and surely, things looked up a little. The Socs were still a little mad about Bob’s death. Who wouldn’t be. But the entire trilogy of events caused the tensions between the east and west to subside a little. Ponyboy had started to talk to Randy Adderson and Cherry Valence a little, but also greasers, like Curly Shepard and Mark Jennings. It hadn’t been an end to all situation. It’d be great if it was. Greasers still got jumped and stabbed, socs still flaunted their easy-going lifestyle, and people still got into fights every once in a while. Life seemed to just always be a roller coaster of events, one after another. As soon as things were good, something seemed to make it bad again. But then when things were bad, light was always found at the end of the tunnel.
When he ran he just focused on the adrenaline flowing through his veins. In the moments his feet padded rhythmically across the ground his foggy brain felt relieved. Ponyboy Curtis was able to breathe again. That’s what Johnny had wanted him to do. Through the letter left in the battered copy of Gone with the wind, Pony was able to realize what Johnny meant by “Staying gold”.