The book caught my attention when I walked past the book store as it sat on the new release shelf. But it wasn't the cover or the title of the book that had caught my eye. It was the name of the author. A name I was very familar with, even if it was just his initials on the cover.
P. M. Curtis, or as I've known him, Ponyboy. The younger brother of my best friend from childhood.
"So, you've become an author," I said, still looking at the book in the window. "Figures, you always were writing and daydreaming."
I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my wallet. When I saw that I still had money, even after purchasing more heroin the day before, I went into the store and bought the book. Once I was back outside, I took the book out of the paper bag that the cashier had placed it in and lightly ran my finger over the raised letters of Ponyboy's name.
It had been fifteen years since I had last seen Ponyboy. Fifteen years since the funeral. Yet, it only seemed like yesterday when I was sitting in that old church, looking at the closed casket that held my best friend. But asking God why He took Soda instead of me seemed to go on for a lifetime. Soda had more to live for than I did. His brothers needed him, especially Ponyboy who was only sixteen when Soda died. There wasn't a day that went by when I didn't think about Soda. No amount of heroin could bring him back or erase the horrors I had seen while in Vietnam. Soda was supposed to come home in time for Darry's birthday. Instead, he came home two weeks before his own birthday in a box. His life taken by a bouncing betty as he tried to get other soldiers out of the way.
That was the last time that I saw Ponyboy and Darry. It was also the last time that I saw Two-Bit. There was no way any of them could understand the pain that Soda must have gone through in his last moments. I on the other hand, knew the screams and look of pain all too well. I saw it many times while in Vietnam and still see it most nights when I go to bed.
I walked home and as soon as I locked the door, I opened the book and read the inside of the back cover that was supposed to be about Ponyboy. It said that he was living in Toronto with his wife and son. So, even Ponyboy hadn't stuck around after Soda's death. I wondered if Darry still lived in the old house that they had grown up in. It had been so long since I had been in that old neighborhood that I almost felt like I had never been there at all. It all seemed like a dream.
I read Ponyboy's book that night instead of taking heroin like I normally would. While I read, I could see the young kid that Soda brought everywhere. The kid who got on my nerves as much as I got on his because we both wanted Soda to ourselves. But, Ponyboy was no longer that little kid and Soda was no longer around to be stuck in the middle of everything. I wished he was. I missed Soda and the rest of the gang. My life hadn't been the same over the last fifteen years. And for the first time, I was ready to go back to the old neighborhood that I had grown up in. I was ready to face the past that I had ran away from and to reunite with what was left of the gang. I was ready to face my fears and the demons that had been haunting me ever since the war.