"You got the needle?"
"Yeah, man."
"And the ice cube?"
"Yeah, man, I got it."
"And the apple slice?"
"Jesus Christ, Pony, I have all the shit we need." I rolled my eyes. Ponyboy Curtis was such a baby sometimes. He sat there, on a kitchen chair looking like a five year old while I numbed his ears with ice.
A couple of weeks ago after drinking my weight in cheap tequila, I stumbled down to my current girlfriend, Katie's, place. She was a weird broad; she wore too much black and had weird kinks, but she was good in the sack so I kept her around. She was naggin' me before to let her pierce my ears and I thought it sounded tuff, but my older brother, Tim, said it would make me
look like a fuckin' pansy. I usually listen to Tim, 'cause he knows what he's talkin' about, but I was pretty drunk, and sometimes I don't wanna follow Tim's orders. I remember Katie did something to the needle, then numbed my ear with an ice cube before putting the needle in. I don't remember what it felt like, but when I woke up my pillow was stained with dried up blood.
Even though Tim cuffed my ear and called me a stupid shit, I had spent the last week or so braggin' to Ponyboy, the only person who's patient and dumb enough to listen to my stories.
Pony was usually pretty level headed, but hey, after hearing about it for the past few days, even he got fed up with it.
"Will you shut up about it already?" He had interrupted me. "Girls get their ears pierced all the time, it ain't a big deal."
I had felt real embarrassed right then. He made me sound like I was weaker than a girl. "If it's so easy, then fine, I'm comin' over tomorrow and piercing them for you."
Ponyboy had agreed, so here we were.
"You've done this before, right Curly?" He asked as I passed him the ice cube to numb his ears. I nodded quickly and busied myself sterilizing the needle with my lighter so that he couldn't read my expression.
So I had never done it before, no big deal. It ain't rocket science or something.
Pony's eyes grew wide as he saw the needle. I rolled my eyes, what a baby. He saw my expression and toughened up by making his eyes narrow and slouching.
"Count to three, and I'll put it in." I instructed him. He bit his lip as he eyed the needle warily. Probably wondering how his oldest brother is gonna react.
"One," he folded his hands together so tightly that his knuckles turned white under the strain.
"Two," he placed the apple slice behind his ear, and shut his eyes. I refrained from rolling my eyes as a focused.
"Three!" I pushed the needle forcefully into his earlobe and watched, fascinated, as the needle came out on the other end. A faint line of blood trickled onto Pony's shirt as he reached up to feel the new change.
He shot me a small grin, "tuff enough." I had to admit, I had done a pretty good job; the needle looked that it had made a straight hole and there wasn't too much blood.
"So where's the earring?" Pony asked me as he continued to admire his one pierced earlobe.
Oh shit, I knew I was forgetting something.
"The earring?" I repeated dumbly.
Ponyboy looked up at me slowly with disbelief in his eyes. "You didn't bring earrings did you?"
At that moment I could hear Ponyboy's oldest brother, Darry, open the door and let himself in. "Hello? Anyone home?" he called.
Pony and I made panicked eye contact as footsteps approached the kitchen.
"What about the earring?" Pony whisper-screamed at me. He looked hilarious, with a needle stickin' out of one ear.
I chuckled quickly before saying, "gotta go, see ya later," I sped to the back door that I swung open and ran along the dirty backyards of Pony's neighbourhood.
I could hear him yelling after me from his back porch, but I wasn't gonna go back and face his brother.
I almost fell over from laughing so hard and had to stop twice on the way to my house 'cause I was so out of breath.
I chuckled again as I thought of Pony walking around with a needle sticking out of his ear. God, it was so fun to mess with Ponyboy Curtis.
