This is a story I started to post ages ago then took down. I recently decided to rewrite and put it up again.
I took a last drag of my cigarette and flicked the butt toward the rising sun.
Twenty-four days since Johnny had died. I couldn't help but add it up each morning as I stood out on the porch and watched another day come.
I'd lose track eventually of all the days. Just like I did with my parents. They would become weeks, and then months.
One day when I stood out there the past would be years behind me. It was hard to imagine the day would come. I turned and headed inside for a shower.
XXX
Water streamed down over my head. Something banged against the door.
I kept my eyes shut and stood in the muffled darkness.
The water was hot and it was the damp wall of the shower my hand pressed against but still it reminded me of that night.
The icy water closing over my head and my lungs screaming for air.
"Ponyboy, hey Ponyboy!"
I opened my eyes. Blinked against the light. By the fountain I had opened them to night and to darkness.
I scrubbed a hand over my eyes as the water ran from my hair.
"Pony, man, I got to get ready," Soda said. His tone pleading, impatient.
"Alright, I'm out," I yelled back.
I ducked my head under for a final rinse and snapped the water off. The old pipes banged. I swallowed and stepped out.
XXX
I cracked the blinds open enough to cast rays of light across the top of the desk.
I lit up a cigarette and let it dangle from my lips as I shuffled through the paper I'd written for English.
Words in my hurried scrawl jumped out at me.
Dally … gun … desperate.
I put them down and held the cigarette in my fingers, contemplating burning a hole through the words.
I'd already handed the first half in to Mr Symes, just to show him I was doing something. It was taking a lot longer than I'd expected but last night I'd gotten to the end.
A knock startled me out of my thoughts. A knock at the front door.
It wasn't even seven in the morning. The door was unlocked and any of the boys would have just walked right in.
I ground the cigarette out in the glass ashtray and pulled on jeans and t shirt.
It had to be cops, or welfare making a surprise visit. I couldn't think of anyone else that would knock on our door at this time.
I stood in front of it, hesitant. Another knock came, louder.
Darry kept a baseball bat leaned up by the front door and I glanced down at it before turning the door handle.
A man old enough to be my dad, or someone's dad, dressed in overalls.
But he was no police or welfare.
"Sodapop Curtis home?" the man asked.
"Who wants to know?"
I was ready to be bawled at for my smart mouth. Most any adult would have but the man only stood still, the pale blue sky behind him.
"Dennis Ross."
I felt a prickle of nerves, the same uneasiness as when the knock had come at the door. Something out of place.
Ross was Sandy's name.
"Wait here," I said.
I wished Darry was home, but he'd already left for work. He'd come into our room and shook us awake, ruffled my hair and said morning and hurry up and bye.
I burst into the bathroom, shut the door and leaned back against it.
"Sodapop!"
He was a dark shape behind the shower curtain, humming and running his hands through his hair.
"Yeah?"
"A man called Dennis Ross is at the door for you."
There was a beat of silence. Then Soda snapped the water off.
"That's Sandy's old man. What the hell is he doing here?"
Soda grabbed his jeans off the towel rail and stepped into them without drying. He headed for the door with water dripping from his hair onto his shoulders.
I followed and stood up beside him, keeping my hand down near by the bat.
I'd heard stories of fathers with guns coming after the boys who got their daughters into trouble. But surely it was only that, a story? I didn't know anyone who that had really happened to.
Dennis Ross was average height but a heavy guy, broad shoulders, gut popping out the zipper of his overalls. A man who looked like he could throw a solid punch. Or fire a gun.
"Curtis," Dennis Ross said.
"What do you want here?" Sodapop responded, not bothering with niceties.
Dennis cleared his throat.
"You heard anything from Sandy?"
For a minute I saw Soda flinch, saw his throat move as he swallowed.
But when he spoke his tone was casual.
"Nah, haven't seen her since the day she left for Florida."
If I didn't know better I'd have thought he didn't care at all, Dennis Ross never could have guessed he'd cried over her.
I felt the anger at her burning in me again, and at her father for bringing it all up again.
Only last Friday he'd come home talking about a girl he'd met. He'd flopped down across the bed beside me and smiled at the ceiling and said, "man, I think she likes drag races almost as much as I do."
"Last night I phoned my mother in Florida to see how Sandy was getting on. And she didn't know what I was talking about, said she'd never been there."
Dennis shifted his weight from one foot to the other. I had thought he looked ready for a fight, but now I saw he was just tired, struggling to keep on standing upright.
Soda turned from Dennis to look at me. I saw the hurt in his eyes, the confusion. Then he turned back.
"She might have gone somewhere else, sir."
I could see what he was really thinking. She hadn't gone to her grandma after all, but off with the other boy. The one who got her pregnant.
Sandy's father straightened, his demeanor changing, stiffening. I found my gaze going to the baseball bat again.
"Now the day she left she told me she was going to meet you. Said she was going to say goodbye. So I thought you might have an idea where she went if it wasn't Florida."
Soda shook his head a little.
"She asked me to drop her off at the bus stop. I said I'd wait with her but she didn't want me to and ... well, I had something on."
"You didn't see her on the bus?"
Her father said it like an accusation. I glared at him, wanting to point out he was the one who sent his own daughter away, who never saw her to the bus.
"I had family stuff on," Soda said, his tone harder. He meant me. The week I was gone with Johnny was the same week Sandy left.
Dennis Ross sagged again. It was hope, I realized. Hope tensing him up, hope holding him together. Now it was gone.
"I had thought you would know," Dennis said. "I thought maybe you and her came up with some scheme."
Soda shook his head.
"Far as I know she was in Florida," he said. "I even wrote to her there."
Her father nodded a little.
"My mother mentioned a letter came for her. She thought it must be a mistake. Can you ask around? Her friends, I don't know who her friends are, but she used to go out and meet with girls ..."
He trailed off, looking lost.
"I'll ask," Soda said stiffly. "I have to get ready for work now."
He shut the door and pushed past me as he headed back to our bedroom.
"Man, I don't know what's clean and what's dirty here," he said.
I watched him sort through his clothes for minute, picking out his work shirt and trousers.
I waited for him to say something and he just dressed in silence, sat down on the bed to put his socks and shoes on.
"Where do you think Sandy went?" I asked finally.
Soda shrugged.
"How would I know? You better get ready if you want a ride to school with us, Steve ain't going to wait."
"I guess I could ask Evie and the girls at school, since you'll be at work," I said.
"If you want."
"You think she never got on that bus?"
"Pony I don't know and it ain't my problem anymore," Soda snapped.
I shut up and headed down to the bathroom. My hair wasn't growing out fast enough. Somedays I considered shaving it all off just to get rid of the blonde.
"Then everyone will think you just got of reform school," Soda pointed out when I told him.
But maybe that wouldn't be so bad. I already got looks from people who recognized me from the news. Who thought they were looking at a hero.
If they thought they were looking at a criminal it would seem no less a lie. All the things I should have done different ran through my head in a loop each night.
I was combing my hair when I saw Soda's reflection in the mirror, standing in the door way. I pretended not to notice him, just kept running the comb through my hair, watching the lines it left.
"Pony, I'm sorry," Soda said. "It's just, sometimes I feel like she was someone I never knew at all, you dig?"
I thought of Johnny killing, Dallas breaking. Darry crying. I put the comb down and turned from the mirror.
"I know," I said.
I wished I'd never pushed it. Soda was right. It wasn't his problem.
