I'm sitting with my youngest son, his words still cuttin' into me like barbed wire.
"I wanna be an oil man when I'm grown."
There's something so damn pure about that boy. All my boys are good boys, real good kids. Oh don't get me wrong, the act up, go a larkin' every now and then, cuss probably more than they should, which I only got myself to blame for, but when push comes to shove, I'd put my three against anyone's.
But Pony? He's smart, they put him up a grade in school and his imagination? That boy can create worlds in his mind. I never knew no child, cept Paddy, that could be so smart and yet so good at the same time.
I look at my youngest, the Texas sun bleached his hair bright copper red and I'm wondering why the hell my boy, my bright boy, wants to be like me.
I stare at the fence which surrounds the oil field. The fence which keeps me locked in like a caged steer. The fence which reminds that I'm here cause I failed the only test that matters, taking care of Jo and the boys. There ain't nothing wrong in working the fields. Hell, right now this job with it's backbreaking labor and constant risk of death is the only thing which keeps my family afloat, the only reason Jo hasn't done what she's got every right to, kick my sorry ass to the curb.
There's a strange irony to this job, I risk death everyday cause this job keeps me alive. Cause without Jo and my three, I'd be dead. So I ain't knockin' this job, only that there's something real off kilter in getting a job from an old acquaintance because you gambled everything away, including your pride.
A small ember of self-rage builds up in my stomach, but I'm too tired to give a shit no more and the only thing we got close to a fire is rings of smoke which emit from the cigarette. After I drop Pone back at the motel, I get about 4 hours of sleep, then it's off to work again. My family is driving back to Tulsa the next day.
None of my boys are gonna be working the fields. It'll kill me.
I look at my son, he's fixing his eyes on the same fence.
Look up, I wanna tell him, look at the sky. That's your inheritance. That's where your gaze should be Pony, on 'em blue heavens that expand for miles. That's where you belong, boy. My boys, I don't know what the hell life's got in store for them. But I know one thing about my wild stallions, they were made to bust through fences and reach for the skies.
I don't care what Dad says, I still want to be an oil man. I look at my skinny bird-thin white arms and at his thick, muscle brown arms and there ain't no contest. But Dad blew a gasket, or rather an oil well, when I told him that I want to be like him. His words gush out of him, "don't be like me." It's not so much the words that stain me, but the hurt. My dad is hurting. He doesn't want to be like him either.
I try to think of something to say, but my mouth is dry.
I'm sitting in my dad's red Ford; eyes zoomed in on a baby crow sitting on a barbed wire fence post, her new feathers bleat and against the apocalyptic Texas sun, my eyes flutter in a simpatico rhythm.
The rate they're blinking, if my eyelashes were rockets, I'd be on the Moon. I think about that Russian dog they took up to space, I picture her in her little space suit and helmet and giggle to myself.
I'm sure that there are tiny men on the moon. Soda and Darry don't believe in moon men.
"Well them moon men sure as hell don't believe in you guys!"
Darry shrugged, "I'll try to go on." He paused, "you shouldn't swear, Pony." Darry swore like a banshee when he cut himself shaving a few nights ago. He's always trying to tell me what to do, sayin' in Dad's absence he's the 'man of the house.'
But Soda looked almost sad. Soda believes in everyone but Soda. I almost wanted to tell him that moon men still believed in him. Almost.
Dad is blowing smoke rings out his window.
The moon men can glide right through the smoke rings.
I'm alone with my dad, a rare treat, but something strange is happening, neither one of us speaking. Our tribe can be divided into two camp; the talkers: Dad and Soda and the non-talkers: Mom and me. Darry has the rare ability to transverse both camps, one football cleat firmly aligned in the valley of silence, one on the hill of loquacity.
Unlike Soda who can talk the ear off of anyone, and me, who'd rather have my ear bitten off than socialize with people outside a tight group of family and friends, Darry possessed a rare genetic mutation of knowing when to talk and when to keep his mouth so tight that not even a moon man can rocket his way through.
The talkers in our family were blessed with one unusual gift, they, and they alone, can get me to really open up. When I'm with Soda or Dad I freely betray my peoples' ways and start chatting away, telling jokes and stories.
I think it's because both Soda and Dad are so comfortable in their own skin, that when you're with them you can't help but feel comfortable in yours.
I've been telling my dad knock-knock jokes every day. Bad knock-knock jokes. And every day no matter how corny my jokes, Dad laughs like it's the first time he's heard this joke which is, judging from the sound of his laughter, the funniest joke he, or anyone, will ever hear.
But sitting in the car, I got no jokes.
"Why did the chicken cross the road?" Nah. Even I know that one's a dud.
For a second, looking at the scrubbed Texas grassland, the oil rigs dotting the background like black ink crow feathers, no words come to me. I touch my throat, remembering last winter when I got a real bad sore throat and lost my voice for a few days.
Dad scratches his stubble of beard. My father is always clean shaven.
"If Dad can grow a beard, why can't I?" Darry asked Mom at our motel last night, his face covered in Burma Shave lotion, he reminded me a small, angry Santa.
"Your Dad isn't trying to grow a beard," Mom said, opening the takeout of chicken pot pie we got from a nearby diner. We had to get take out cause we didn't have enough money on us to tip the waitress, even though Darry offered to pay for the tip from his own money.
Darry picked at his shaving scar.
I think I hear Dad talk, I lean closer to him, smell the mix of sweat and oil that clings to his skin, but it's only a bit of wind blowing through his smoke rings that I hear.
The wind in Texas speaks with an Ozark accent.
My father is a perpetual motion machine, constantly moving, constantly talking, telling me stories and asking me questions.
"What's goin' on in that beautiful noggin of yours Ponykid?"
But today, my beautiful noggin is as empty as outer space, not even a Russian dog or moon men can fill the craters of blankness.
Dad combs his fingers through his hair and his hair is so thick, his fingers get caught and they have to weave their way out. He sure looks different without Brylcreem. The hair that meets the nape of his neck is thick tufts of brown tumbleweed.
I move to turn on the radio, that always gets Dad in a good mood, but here in Eastern Texas the only reception we get is static. My dad loves cowboy songs, especially Gene Autry songs. For a minute, I think about singing my dad's favorite song, the song that I think was written for him, "Don't Fence Me In" but there is a thick rug growing inside my throat.
I turn the radio off, and curling my knees in front of my face, so that my red-sunburned skin covered in cuts and small bruises from climbing trees in Crutchfield Park, forms a sort of sun visor, sigh.
We're in Texas due to Dad's summer job working the oil fields; we are alone due the flu bug which struck Mom and my brothers. The thick, sour smell of regurgitated chicken, mashed carrots and stomach acid settling into the crepe paper walls of our cheap motel when Dad picked me up in the morning. I hardly noticed a difference between that smell and the wafting scent of the pot pie Mom unsuccessfully encouraged me to eat the night before.
The left side of her face looking like a Mack Truck had ran it over, the right side looking like the road kill under the truck's tires. She held out the garbage can in front of Soda who spewed out carrots, peas and corn chunks and a pitiful moan.
"Glory Soda!" I stepped back and pinched my nose, "you just upchucked more vegetables than I'd ever seen you eat!"
I look at the crow. Baby birds eat regurgitated food. "Soda and Darry sure was sick, Soda mostly though."
I thought Dad would crack a joke, something about Soda and Darry not having stomach of steel, but he says nothing.
I wonder if he's got a rug in his throat too.
Dad throws his cigarette butt on the ground, and opening the car door, stomps on it.
Almost like an afterthought he pulls a crumpled brown bag from under the seat, it's filled with candy.
I try to think of something to say, something more interesting than thank you. Something my dad might find interesting.
"Johnny's Dad drinks outta a brown bag, just like this one," I say as I paw through candy, looking for the chocolates first. From what I understood from Mrs. Mathews and mom, adults always liked to gossip about other adults behind their backs.
"I ain't nothing like Johnny's dad." His expression is blank and as cold as a steel toe boot.
The Chuckles grin quickly turns into a Twizzler grimace and I change tact.
"Do I gotta share?" Mom was real big on sharing. That, and shaving.
A small smile moves across Dad's face, "nah, you ain't gotta share it. It'll be our little secret, okay Pony?" That's what Mr. Cade told me when I saw his drinking on the side of the school one day when he was waiting to pick up Johnny. "Our lil' secret Ponyboy." I liked my dad's secrets a whole lot better.
"We oughta shake on it," I say, my mouth stuffed with Charleston Chew.
He moves his thick calloused hand towards me, just as our fingers are about to meet, I pull back.
"Hold it! We gotta spit. It ain't official if we don't spit." I spit a chocolate laced spitball onto my palm.
"Ew," I exclaim, watching the chocolate river run down my palm. If Soda was here he'd make a crack that it looks like diarrhea.
It's the chocolate river which opens the flood gates. Dad slaps he knee and grins the size of Texas, no, the size of the moon. "Y'all still do that? You still seal things with a spit? Glory Pone, I used to do that when I was growing up."
I laugh; I had trouble imaging my dad as a kid. Unlike Mom, there were no pictures of Dad growing up, no pictures of Uncle Pat either. It was like Dad didn't exist until he married Mom.
I nod, "Soda says it's the only way to make sure the other guy ain't bluffin'. He says spit has magical, um, properties."
Actually, Soda insisted that the only true-blue way to seal a deal was to prick your fingers and become blood brothers.
"But we're already blood brothers," I point out, inching away from mom's sewing needle he's got in his hand.
"It don't hurt none, Pone." Soda says in an almost gentle voice, and there's part of me which almost wants to move closer to him. But an even larger part of me is scared of needles and shots and I back away.
He slides the needle between his fingers.
"I ain't scared," I say through a clenched jaw and eyes so tight they tear up.
It's Darry who spots what we're doing and chews Soda out.
"Mmm," Dad says with a wink, a bit of his old bite roaring back, "Soda says."
I nod.
I think he's going to make a crack, but his face grows serious and there's an almost hush in his words, "you really love him don't ya?"
A Necco wafer sits on my tongue like a disc I saw an African tribal chief where on the cover of National Geographic, I grab his forearm, "Soda knows everything."
November 1966
The autumn wind feels like a bunch of cobwebs spreading across my chest, my throat burns and my thigh muscles tighten. Glory, at this rate I don't know how I'm gonna be in shape for track by the time March comes and now it's not just about not wanting to let down coach or my team, I'm a junior now and I'm dependent on both my track skills and my grades if I want to go to college, and I do.
Course I'm still smoking like a fiend and it's amazing how one year makes such a difference, last year I could smoke a pack a day and still win most of my track meets. I ain't trying to brag, just stating the truth, I'm a damn good runner.
I guess 'was' would be more apt. Now, my times are still decent but I feel out of breath and look even worse, the beads of sweat that I used to wear like a garland have grown into a three piece suit.
I'm really gonna need to quit smoking. And I will, I will.
But not today. Not this month. It's November. Dal and Johnny have been dead for fourteen months. It's funny, I don't mean funny ha-ha, but strange funny. We all thought that September would be real hard, the first year anniversary of their deaths. Just like the first anniversary of Mom and Dad's death whopped us. But after counting down the days in a warped anticipation that comes whenever some horrible anniversary is approaching, the day itself brought in only a numbness.
It was weeks later when the band aid of self-protection ripped off.
Now when I close my eyes I see Johnny and Dal. They're under the bridge, one of Dal's hideaways when he's pissed off at Buck and his Dad doesn't want him around. Johnny is blowing smoke rings.
And how the hell can I quit smoking now? Smokes are a great way to keep warm in the cold weather.
I'm running and there's a truck edging slowly towards me. It can't be my brothers. Darry is on a date with Gretchen and Soda, well he's never driven the speed limit, never mind under it.
The truck honks it's horn and I'm thinking of flippin' this asshole the bird, but seeing how I don't know who's driving, I bunch my fists up instead.
"Hey Pone!" A familiar drawl calls out. It's Soda. I guess he can drive slow.
"Hop on in!"
I feebly try to protest that I really should continue my run, something about getting into shape, blah, blah, blah. But for Soda the fact that I run at all on my own volition is proof both that I'm in great shape and missing a few marbles.
Opening the door, Soda slaps the passenger seat, "come on."
Knowing that this is a battle I'm not prepared to fight never mind win, I plop my ass on the beat up leather seat.
He drives in the opposite direction of home.
"Where we goin'?" I ask as we pass The burned out carcass of the Dingo, the Ribbon and cross the train tracks.
"Muskogee," Soda says casually.
Dad's hometown.
He turns the car radio up as high as it can go without shattering our ear drums, tells me to roll down my window, his window is already rolled down, and smashes his Converse against the accelerator. His jeans are torn at the ankles, but Soda keeps clothes until they're barely salvageable.
The wind slaps me hard across the face, the few strands of my hair that are not greased down by sweat and hair oil fly all over the place, like the sails on the windmill, getting in my eye and in my half-opened mouth.
"Blech," my nose scrunches up, annoyed and wishing I used more hair grease that morning; I move the hair out of my mouth and pull the wandering strands behind my ear.
Soda used to grease up his hair like me, but the past few weeks he'd been using less and less. It's amazing how different his hair looks without the grease, no longer silky straight and smooth, it waved and curled, and like him, can never sit still.
He leaned his head out the window, "yahoo!" he cries out as the pumped up breeze whips his dark-blonde hair against the air. He looks like a wild stallion, his long golden mane, along with his worries and cares, blowing behind him.
He fidgets with the dial and in unison we make a face when Hank William's twanged-warble comes on the radio. Hank's delivery is so damn slow, he takes a song which should be three minutes and extends it to five.
He quickly turns the dial.
After switching through the static, Soda finds a station with halfway decent reception and to my surprise, grins and pumps his fist in the air when "Hungry" blares through his dusty radio. We're not into Paul Revere and the Raiders, too lame.
The wind is so loud that the drum beat of the song is barely audible, but we feel the vibrations all around us and Soda slams his hand against the steering wheel in perfect timing.
I shake my head, "you oughta be a drummer," I shout over the noise, but Soda can't hear me.
"But I've got this need I just can't control, and it's
A-drivin' me insane"
Despite not being able to hear the words, he sings along and I know he feels every word ride underneath his skin.
"I can't take it! Owww!"
A wildfire from deep inside explodes.
He loses control. In that moment, eighteen years of hurt and anger gushes out of him; his mouth torn open in a rage. He slams his teeth together so they look the canine of a hungry wolf.
His head shakes violently. If his head was a rocket, he'd be on Mars.
I'm pretty sure no one has ever had this type of reaction to Paul Revere and the Raiders before. My God, I wonder what he'll do if Herman's Hermits come on?
Then I look at his eyes. The sarcasm which has always been my second best defense after my left hook, falls with nauseating speed. His eyes burn.
My own head shakes and I blink cause I ain't really sure what the hell I'm seeing. I'm not scared, i could never be scared of Soda, but it's strange watching my normally happy-go-lucky brother for a second at least, lose it.
Or, at least lose it without a reason. I've seen him fight wild before, but that's how you're supposed to fight. But even in rumbles, Soda still grins. He's the only guy I know who will break out into a grin right before getting swung at. Of course, the guy usually misses, and Soda is on top, punching and kicking in no time. Now, lots of guys smile with grim satisfaction after whuppin' someone in a fight. But Soda? Well, even as he's bleeding, and out of breath, he's still grinning. He's never lost a fight, but I think even if that day ever came, he'd still be grinning away.
He's sorta nuts.
I reach out to him, my hand on his forearm hoping to bring him back from whatever hell he just visited.
But before my words can form the mood changes. Whatever rage Soda had, it disappears as quickly as a pulse storm. With a lopsided smile, his shoulders and head at ease, he reaches again for the radio dial, searching for another song that 'speaks to him,' muttering what a damn shame it was they didn't play Jerry Lee Lewis no more on the radio.
He turns to me, as if nothing had happened, and I wonder for a second if I imagined his thunder roar and blazed lightening eyes.
His mouth is wide open and I can see the moon crater cavities in the back.
It's dusk and the first evening stars are lightening up the sky and his brown eyes sparkle with the same intense brightness. Usually Soda drives one handed, in the sort of lose, but steady grip we hold our blades. But now his hand is wrapped so tightly around the steering wheel his knuckles turn bone white. He pulls his other arm around my shoulder and yanks me towards him.
"Ain't nothing to worry about, Ponykid." His voice so easy and accepting I feel like slipping underneath it and yanking it around me like a blanket.
And yet, I realized, even if Soda was still screaming and rippin' it up; there was something about him which I still wanted to grip onto as hard as he was holding onto the steering wheel; even as I had no idea where he was taking us.
And that thought is both frightening and exhilarating at the same time.
I know this sounds batty, but Soda has this remarkable ability to carry and pull people anywhere, even without you realizing it, or even permitting it at first.
He gestures towards the speed limit sign, which we are, surprise, surprise, going over. Way over. "Speed limits are meant to be broken, Pone," his soft, slow drawl a jarring contrast to the dried grass and barbed wire fences which zoom past us with dizzying speed along the empty highway.
Well, nearly empty. The Oklahoma State Patrol had a difference of opinion with my brother over the validity of the speed limit. When the cops pull us over, I expect Soda to try to talk his way out of it. He's good at that, he could almost talk mom out of punishing him, and our mom, well, she never fell for any bullshit. If he couldn't talk his way out of ticket, he could at least make the cop smile in spite of himself and cut Soda's fine in half. Me? Well, I'm still kinda scared of cops.
But Soda, he isn't afraid of anything. He's always willing to try new things, to dive in head first.
I sit ramrod still, my breathing tight, eyes focusing straight ahead at the street sign announcing 20 more miles til Muskogee. My finger nails, already bitten to the quick out of habit, tap against the side of my thighs. Otherwise I don't move an inch.
My eyes only widen slightly in surprise when I realize that Soda isn't trying to talk his way out of a ticket, doesn't even try to charm his way into a lesser fine. He nods, accepting the ticket without complaint or even a smile. As the cop moved on to catch other evening speeders; Soda tosses the ticket on the passenger seat floor. The carbonated paper lands on the exact spot the stitching in the ankle of my Converse is frayed.
I expect him to do an impression of the cop, who sounded as hackneyed as Hank Williams, but he's silent.
Turning towards me, his face serious and almost elegiac, "Pone, don't let no one put up limits around you, okay, kiddo? You were meant to bust through all 'em fences and barriers. You and Darry both. "
He subtly eyes the speeding ticket, now lying on the dashboard, "even if you gotta pay some tickets along the way, it's worth it."
He turns away from me and bites the bottom of his lip and the air in his red Ford becomes heavy with a sadness that I feel but don't know.
"Soda, you okay?" my voice a nervous whisper, the breeze, now lulled to a gentle tug, brushes against my eyelashes.
"Yeah, Pone, I'm fine." He smiles at me, but his lively, expressive eyes are drawn deep into their sockets.
"But I mean it kiddo, don't let no one or nothing fence you in."
I give him a worn grin that is too old for my age, but too young for my life. If there is one person who was never meant for enclosed spaces or rules, it's my middle brother. Me? Well, I kind of like a few guideposts along the way.
Without realizing it I begin to hum the old cowboy song ('cowboy hymns' our churchless father used to call them) Dad used to sing to us three. Dad had a gorgeous voice; it was low, and melodic, soothing and powerful all at the same time. When I was little, I felt like I could close my eyes and float on his voice. It would lull me, and just before I hit the current of sleep, his voice would swoop in and pick me back up again, and I would continue to float.
Even Gene Autry, the Singing Cowboy, couldn't compare to my Dad; at least, in my mind.
Soda though, our father's son in so many ways, didn't inherit our Dad's vocal talents. His enthusiasm was great as his talent was small; so out of tune, but with plenty of emotion, Soda belts out the song each of us knows by heart.
I wish Darry was with us. Of course if Darry was with us Soda wouldn't dare drive as fast. Though he claims not to dig music the way Soda and I do, he's got Dad's voice.
He claims not to sing, but one morning I overhead him singing to the radio while flipping flap jacks. If he drawled his words out more, I would swear Dad was singing through him.
I close my eyes and wished that my parents were with us. That the 1960 Red Ford Soda drove was my Dad's 1951 Ford F1, the truck I was born in and the truck my parents died in. That Dally and Johnny and even Bob Sheldon were still alive.
But of course my parents were still dead when I opened up my eyes and saw the vast night sky, now a navy blue, lit up with silver orbs.
We get closer to Muskogee, passing the same spot where years ago our Dad helped a couple stranded on the road. We were supposed to see a Gene Autry matinee at the old theater that day. We missed it.
I watch as Soda turns to me, his million dollar grin slowly spreads across his face, his back cavities and fillings 'fenced in' as it were, by his white front teeth. "Come on, Pone join me," he cajoles gently, but he doesn't need to coax me. It's our father's song, it's our song. We know it by heart.
Our voices fill the vast landscape and we belt out, in voices more rowdy than ol' Gene Autry would probably appreciate.
"Let me ride through the wide-open country that I love
Don't fence me in
Let me be by myself in the evening breeze
Listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees
Send me off forever, but I ask you please
Don't fence me in"
Later...
He leaves the porch light on and the front gate open. He doesn't say goodbye. The door of chain link fence swings back and forth.
A/N: Thank you so much for reading and any reviews. I truly appreciate it.
S.E. Hinton owns, I also do not own"Hungry" or "Don't Fence Me In"