This is gonna be a depressing story...just warning you.
I think my tear ducts are permanently dried up. This must be an unexplained medical phenomenon because, the last time I used them was when I was about 6 years old.
I envy my brothers, Soda and Ponyboy as tears flow down their faces in torrents. We were at Dally and Johnny's funeral. Even Tim didn't have the usual smirk that always played across his face.
Two-Bit is bawling, his sobs punctuating the preachers voice as he talks about "spirt and the holy water..." none of it mattered. None of it explained Dally and Johnny as people.
Just as the sermon that had been spoken at his parents funeral didn't show who they were.
You couldn't capture in an hour the entire personality of a person. Especially not Johnny or Dally.
How would you explain Dally's love for Johnny? How could you ever summarize the way he laughed and smiled, a smile reserved only for the gang.
And Johnny, those sweet puppy dog eyes. The way he would look up at Pony and could make anyone feel better, no matter how in the dumps they were.
And a miracle happened. I felt a brief prickling sensation behind his eyelids. relief flooded through me, and then the prickling stopped, not even strong enough to produce one tear.
Numbly, I stumbled outside with the rest of the gang, who were all clinging to each other. I kept my distance. I knew that if Pony or Soda needed comfort, they would turn to each other. Steve would turn to his girls, and Two-Bit to alcohol.
And suddenly, I felt an insurmountable pain in my heart. I was not needed.
Sure, I was needed to pay the bills, to drive Pony and Soda places, to provide a place for Two-Bit and Steve to crash for the night, but not in the way the rest of the gang needed each other.
The moment passed as I shook my head.
"Pony, Soda, Two, Steve, lets go home." I felt like a kindergarten teacher, herding my friends to the car.
When we arrived at home, everyone collapsed on the couch.
"I can't take it!" Pony said, finally breaking the silence. The others looked dully at him, not even bothering to reassure him. after another few minutes of unbearably silence, I decided to console him.
Pulling him on to my lap, I hugged him tight and let him cry onto my shoulder until my shirt was soaked and his sobs had subsided to slight snores.
The rest of my family left after I put Pony to bed. I had insisted Two-Bit and Steve take my room.
"Try to get some sleep." Two-Bit made a slight choking sound, that might have been an attempt at a laugh.
When the others had gone to bed, I walked to the kitchen, to do the neglected dishes.
Halfway to the sink, I collapsed, my body racked with shudders as the horrible truth hit me like a wall.
Johnny and Dally would never walk through that door again.
The man forever remembered as a juvenile delinquent would never tackle me as I ran down the field with the football.
Johnny, the one person who ever saw me as a human being, would never ask me "How are you holding up?" again.
The shivering continued, and I drifted off to an uneasy sleep, my dreams haunted with my family crying over Johnny and Dally's dead body, providing no escape from the reality that is life.
I knew Ponyboy meant it when he said he couldn't take it anymore. His grades dropped, he stopped talking, to even Soda.
Two-Bit had indeed turned to alcohal. Every night at about 5:00 he would walk in proudly on a buzz he had bee wasting his money on all day. He would start out really rowdy, and I felt like I was taking care of an overenthusiastic puppy.
We let him out into the back yard to blow off steam, and then we brought him inside when his cryings for Dally and Johnny became too loud and annoying to handle. Than one of us would have to put him to sleep with yet another bottle of beer and then deal with an incredibly annoying and moody Two-Bit the next day, and the cycle would repeat.
Not like I had much help with anything. Pony was acting rebellious and grief stricken, Soda was too busy being anti-social, Steve was too busy getting into any kind of trouble he could without actually crossing the line, and Two-Bit was too drunk to help.
Soda had even stopped going to work, relying on me to pay for his food clothes, and general well being.
But when I was about to fall asleep each night, I thanked god for my family. What would I do without them?
But for the time being the question was really "What would I do with them?"