I was laying in bed thinking about what I could do next, and I thought, "What if Dallas and Soda were best buddies instead of Soda and Steve?"
That's where this little thing came from. I may or may not continue it, so please let me know what you think!
LESSON NUMBER ONE
When I was younger, I used to get so caught up in everything. Everything anybody did, everything anybody said; where they went, how they went, and when they went. I was so obsessed with other people, with their dreams and nightmares and compulsions and obsessions, that I found myself warped into a time space that I couldn't escape.
Being Steve's friend, I was known as a misfit in school. I was always a reckless kid. I ran around my house in just my underpants, I threw my toys at Darry's head in an attempt to make him play with me, and I always came home with mud or some shit on some part of my body. Momma complained she had to do two extra loads of laundry just to clean the muck out of my white T-shirts, but did I give a shit? Hell no.
I was also known as the hotter, but ultimately dumber version of Darry. I was compared to my brother constantly, and though I whined and even cried to my dad to do something about the school pressuring me to do better, to get better grades, to be successful in sports or equations or music, nothing ever happened. I was always the better-looking, but blockheaded brother of Darry Curtis.
Hell, I still am. I'm just shy of twenty-three, and Darry's coming on twenty-six, and he looks like he's about forty. I look like I'm still seventeen. I guess that's what happens when your older brother gets Pops's looks, and your youngest gets Momma's, and you're in the fuckin' middle of everything, including genes. I got both sides; Momma's brown eyes and rockin' metabolism, with Pops's long, thick hair and his famous crooked smirk.
That smirk has done me some good with the ladies, lemme tell ya. I ain't ever had so many broads come up to me and ask me if I wanted to come over when I was just staring at 'em across the room.
I remember when Dallas was standing by me as I stared down this hot brunette. I'd asked him how I should go about snatching her before some other guy did. He'd whirled my chair around, put his hand on my shoulder, blew some cigarette smoke too close to my face, and said:
"Lesson number one, Sodapop. Ya gotta flash a little teeth, wriggle ya eyebrows as you drink from a beer. That's what gets them; that's what gets them walking over to you in their shorter than hell skirts and their too-tight tank tops, and gets you in bed with them every damn time."
It fuckin' worked like a charm.
Darry says I hang around Dallas too much, or at least take his words a little too literally. Can't say I've ever been steered wrong with Dallas Winston's advice. It's gotten me laid more times than Darry's simple approach of just going up to a woman and trying to woo her with one-liners. Dallas, whether my brother wants to admit it or not, can really teach valuable lessons when he wants to.