His Last Time
Everyone in the hospital must have stared at Dallas Winston as he ran blindly down the hall. There was a look of wild pain in his eyes and bloody bandages were trailing off his left arm. People were staring and shooting him startled looks. But Dally couldn't see or hear them and didn't care. Their faces became a red blur to him and there was a slow, painful pounding in his head. Everything else was strangely muted; it was as if someone had turned down the volume of background noise.
Dally felt someone grab his shoulder just as he burst out of the hospital doors, jolting him back into himself. "Son? Son?" He stared, and found that his world had slid back into focus. It was a doctor. "You don't look so good, why don't you sit..." the doctor started to say in a concerned voice, but before he could blink, Dally had slugged him hard on the jaw and the doctor was knocked to the floor.
Everyone was staring.
"Why do you even bother helping people, huh?" Dally yelled hoarsely at him, barely hearing his own voice. The pounding in his head was growing louder. "It doesn't do any damn good." He took off for the streets, hands shoved into his jacket.
A million thoughts were racing in his head, tumbling over each other, caught in a whirlpool of emotions…
Johnny… that stupid kid… if only he'd looked out for himself instead of being such a goddamned hero and saving those kids. In his mind he replayed the moment the roof had crashed down on Johnny in the burning church. Remembered how his heart seemed to stop beating when he heard Johnny's terrified scream. The fear of the pain of losing Johnny that he kept within himself ever since…
God, he needed some booze.
By now he was walking rapidly on the sidewalk past a row of houses. Homes that glowed with light and seemed warm. His heart twisted in pain. For Johnny, a proper home was probably too much to ask for, but Dally knew it was all he ever wanted. Family. Johnny's folks never cared much about him, even when Johnny needed them most. The gang was all he had.
He thought of the way those dark, scared eyes had glowed only a few moments ago when he praised Johnny for being a hero. He kicked savagely at a trash can and it clanged noisily as it overturned, its contents flying out across the pavement. He thought of the way the light had gone out of Johnny's eyes as his last breath left his body.
It was starting to rain. Dally jogged across the street and walked into a grocery store. There, he began picking up random magazines, rifling aimlessly through the pages. It didn't matter, because every single face he saw on the photographs belonged to Johnny's. Johnny's dark, tanned face. His curly black hair. His haunting eyes. Dally wasn't never one to deceive himself. The truth had hit him cold and hard and left him reeling. Johnny dead. Johnny dead. It didn't seem fair. Why Johnny? Why the hell did it have to be Johnny?
I loved that kid, Dallas realised bleakly. So that was it – he finally knew the reason for this nearly unbearable anguish; he loved Johnny. Fuck, he should have told Johnny or something. But Johnny knew, didn't he? He knew it, saw it all along during those times when Dally yelled at him for being a stupidhead, when Dally looked out for him, when Dally ruffled his hair affectionately.
"Hey, you gonna buy that?"
The shopkeeper was looking pointedly at Dally. The look that said: get your greasy, troublemaking self out of my respectable store.
But Dallas Winston was not going to be intimidated. A shadow of a sneer crossed over his face. Staring straight back at the shopkeeper, he tore the magazine he was holding on to slowly and deliberately into half, and then dropped the pieces on the floor.
"You're going to have to pay for that."
Dally strode to the counter, whipping his gun out of his jacket. He shoved the gun against the shopkeeper's cheek. It wasn't loaded, but the shopkeeper didn't know that.
"Give me the money." Dally was breathing shallowly. His knuckles whitened as he gripped the gun tightly.
The shopkeeper's eyes widened with fear. "Don't do this, please..."
"HAND OVER THE GODDAMN MONEY!"
Dally knew exactly what he was doing. His mind had never been clearer … and a part of him knew, beyond a shadow of doubt that he would not escape this time. That he had already gone down the path of no return.
The man handed him the cash and Dally ran out of the store into the rain-washed streets.
I can't take it anymore, Johnny. I don't know how to go on.You died a hero tonight... But I'm what I always will be.