Gone With The Wind
Ponyboy's Point of View
The laughter that I had once heard was dead; we all were lately. No more goofing off and driving up to the Dingo on a Friday night but remembering to ditch the car at Buck's just so we could sneak in over the fence at the drive-in's just to please Two-Bit and Dally.
There would be no more laying back in the vacant lot and looking up at the stars with Johnny and dreaming of what-if's while reality was just a world out of reach of our own daydreams. No more Saturday mornings listening to Soda and Steve wrestling while Two-Bit would make wise-cracks and turn the radio up real loud with Mickey Mouse dashing around on the television. This world wasn't a dream, but it wasn't reality: It was the world of the living dead, and we were the worst off of zombies.
A war was raging outside of our little world, and all we could do was sit around drinking beers and watching the news because Darry didn't give a shit anymore. Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper were dead; everything good seemed to die. No more music to bop around to, no more sock hops with grinning teenagers kicking off their shoes and cat-calling like mad. It just seemed to me that the good days died along with Johnny and Dally; the good weren't the only ones to die young this time: they dragged the bad along for the ride.
Being a greaser didn't matter anymore because we were all dead: Darry just went to work and made dinner each night with not a single word; Sodapop's eyes no longer danced in tune with the world, but instead stared hazily as the world rushed past, going to work everyday just because the memories of the house were too depressing; Steve stopped his tough front completely, softening up instead. He always seemed to talk in a whisper and he would stare down at his shoes wherever he went and then there was Two-Bit. Two-Bit stopped getting drunk because he was too lazy to do that. He would walk over every morning, get a piece of cake and a beer and turn on Mickey, but he would just stare blankly at the carpet, never touching the beer or cake and never laughing at Mickey; he didn't laugh anymore.
I needed a feeling of security, but I knew that it would never come; everything was dead to help. I hadn't left the house in ages, seeing as how it was summer vacation without any school and me and the gang were supposed to go back to out normal lives, going out into the bright sunlight of the summer to play football, but the sun just wouldn't shine on the East Side of town. I longed for Darry to yell at me, but he didn't have it in him to do that; our souls had perished.
The music had died, the security had died, the love had died, the laughter had died and the spirit had died, snuffed out like a candle put to water; gone in less then a second. How had things changed? We had believed that things would go back to normal, but they wouldn't. There just seemed to be no hope left in anything. I mean, if everything we love dies and we are forced to watch, what's the point of living? I had asked Darry that after Johnny and Dallas had died and he had looked me in the eyes and said, "I don't know, Ponyboy. I just don't know anything anymore..."
None of us did, we were just so confused. What did we have left? We would all sit in our house that had once been the home of music and laughter, but now it was a house of the living dead with nothing but the hope that one another wouldn't completely die; and we would hold on, even though it wasn't worth it. I loved Darry, Sodapop, Two-Bit and even Steve, but these dead souls weren't the boys I grew to love with all of my heart; these were the crying souls of lost...