Disclaimer: Hintons owns The Outsiders. I only borrow, sadly.
If there was one thing I had ever learned from my dad, it was to look through the rubble and see what you can pull out of it. "Some folks just don't understand the value of what they've got, son," he'd tell me.
When I was younger, I thought he was referring to anyone who had money—any kid that was spoiled. Like when I'd come home with grass stains on my pants and Mom would be so mad at me. "Darrel Shaynne Curtis, get to your room right now!" she'd yell, waving the dish towel that always seemed to be in her hand whenever we did something wrong. "I want those pants off and outside the door! Those are your good pants, Darry!"
To which I'd yell back, "But Mom . . . Chris Dudd gets his pants dirty too! And he doesn't get in trouble."
"You're not Chris Dudd," she'd quip.
Then I'd wait until Dad got home and gave me a stern talking to for talking back. And he'd always end with, "Some folks just don't understand the value of what they've got. Sometimes you've got to look through all the shit that life throws at you, and realize some things are worth more than you think—like people and words and actions. Materials can always be replaced." Then he'd stand up, ruffle my hair, and whisper, "Don't tell your mother I cussed, alright?"
I'd nod and a little while later I'd apologize to my mom. That was how it went every time until I hit middle school and playgrounds were suddenly for kids. Of course my brothers were kids, so playgrounds were fine for them. And since playgrounds were fine for them, grass stains thought they were fine for their good pants, and the same talk Dad used to give me was given to them.
"Sometimes you've got to look through all the shit that life throws at you and realize some things are worth more than you think—like people and words and actions."
When I hit high school, Soda had just made it to middle school and had discovered hair grease. I never went for that stuff, and as ashamed as I am of it, having Soda come up to me with his shirttail out and his hair slicked back embarrassed me when I was with my football buddies.
I'll never forget it—when he and Steve came up to me after football practice that first time. It was my first practice with the high school team and I had been making a decent enough impression on the seniors until then.
We were on break, sitting around and joking with each other when the two approached
"Hey, Dar," Soda called, grinning from ear to ear. Steve was with him too, smiling, and they both had cokes in their hands. They were in dirty jeans and dirty t-shirts that their hands had left smudges of oil on.
I could hear the snickers behind me—"Curtis, you know the little greasers?" and "Gee, maybe we should let 'em use the showers."
"Hey, Soda . . . Steve," I greeted, careful not to let my ears burn up in embarrassment.
"Guess what?"
"What?"
Soda smiled proudly. "Dad taught us how to change the oil on his car!"
A few more snickers erupted from behind me—"So that's how their hair got so greasy…"
"Neat, Soda," I told him and silently wished he weren't my brother, or that we weren't poor, or that he'd at least changed.
He nodded, still grinning. "Oh, and Mom told me that if I saw you to tell you that you should come home right after practice."
And I did. But before I went home and after Soda and Steve had left, Paul Holden's older brother, Eric, had come up to me. "Was that your brother before?" he asked. I nodded slowly. "I would've never guessed you were related to a greaser."
He said "greaser" with such contempt that despite the compliment towards me laced into the statement, I still felt like trash—like my whole family was trash. I should've said something and stood up to him, but I didn't. I was embarrassed, and I shouldn't have been. After all, the only difference between most of the guys on my team and me was their money and my lack of money.
"Materials can always be replaced."
Now I was sitting on the porch in the middle of the night, wondering why I had ever been embarrassed. Soda never knew about it, and if he had, he never brought it up or showed me a dirty look for it. Maybe he and Ponyboy had learned more from Dad's talks than I ever had. They were proud to be who they were—of their names, of being greasers, and I'd always tried to avoid it.
Mom and Dad died in a car wreck a few weeks ago, and all I heard was Dad's talk once the officer had told us. I held onto Ponyboy and Sodapop, barely registering the gang and the football fifteen feet away, and listened to his talk replay over and over again in my head.
I couldn't replace my parents, I couldn't replace any thing I'd ever said to anyone, and I couldn't replace my actions. What Dad had been trying to tell me was that when it gets down to it, materials mean nothing, family means everything, and what you say and what you do defines you as a person.
When Mom and Dad died, everything crashed around me. I had college and a career and a life ahead of me, funeral costs to pay, and arrangements to make, but despite my mind being the mess that it was, I still heard that talk Dad used to give me. I had to look through the shit that life was throwing at me, and when I did, I saw my brothers staring back.
". . . some things are worth more than you think—like people and words and actions."
Today I gained full guardianship of my brothers, and the judge asked me why I wanted it when there was so much I could do with my life.
I told him, "Some folks just don't understand the value of what they've got. Sometimes you've got to look through all the shit that life throws at you, and realize some things are worth more than you think—like people and words and actions. Materials can always be replaced."
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