"going home"
It was raining the morning when Sodapop Curtis nervously piled Ponyboy into the beaten-down truck. It was a good two hours to the airport in Oklahoma City and it was still technically too early to leave now, since the plane wouldn't land for another four hours. But Sodapop couldn't wait.
One year. After one year away, Darry was finally coming back home. It was what both brothers had been talking about insistently for the past few days; now on this given morning they looked at each other from across the leather seat and both knew just how nervous the other was.
Their two-member family would soon be back to three- thank God- and hopefully now it would remain that way.
"Injured," Ponyboy said quietly, clutching his package in white-knuckled hands. "That's what they said the other day. Injured." He shook his head. "How injured?"
Sodapop carefully kept his eyes on the road. "I dunno, Pony."
Pony hadn't slept well the night before. "Soda, what if he's crippled?"
"Ponyboy!" The name slipped out harsher than he'd intended. He swallows past a sudden lump in his throat and he very nearly says the worst thing he could have in this moment, but he quickly bites his tongue and takes a deep breath. "Just- don't think about that none, 'kay, Pone? He's fine. Darry's gonna be fine, you'll see. He's Superman." He didn't dare let his kid brother see any of the anxiety Sodapop himself was feeling, because he had been entertaining those exact same thoughts himself; you weren't honorably discharged from the army just for nothing. Injuries were the reason why soldiers were sent home early.
And Darry hadn't been drafted, per se, but he sure as hell hadn't volunteered out of patriotic duty either.
"You what?" Sodapop's voice squeaked like it hadn't since he was thirteen but he hardly noticed. He could only gape at his older brother as Darry worked on folding up his clothes from his dresser.
"I ain't explaining it again, Sodapop. You heard me the first time."
Soda mouthed around an exclamation soundlessly for a long moment, fear suddenly closing up his throat and tightening his chest. "Darry, that draft letter was addressed to me! Not you! How in the hell did you manage to talk them into taking you instead of me? You're the legal guardian!"
"Not anymore," Darry replied. "We signed for co-guardianship three months ago, remember? So Ponyboy will still have a guardian to watch him which is all the State really cares about."
It had been on Sodapop's eighteenth birthday that the three brothers had gone to Tulsa's courthouse and had the Curtis' guardianship of Ponyboy changed to be shared between his two elder brothers. It had been a bittersweet moment for all of them- there should never have been a need to make Darry the guardian in the first place but now he wasn't the only one to be recognized as Pony's caretaker.
It was that signing that was their only saving grace where Sodapop was concerned, because only three days ago he had received a crisp military letter in the mail saying he had to report to the army in a week.
Unbeknownst to Sodapop or Ponyboy, Darry had only just gone to the army and vied for Sodapop's draft to be revoked under grounds that he would take his younger brother's place.
And incredibly, the army had accepted the exchange.
The plane landed at precisely four in the afternoon, unloading the few young men who had been sent home from the jungles of Vietnam. Two of whom, and it was a kick to Sodapop's stomach seeing it, came home in wooden caskets. Ponyboy swallowed audibly when seeing that himself, his grey-green eyes round and wet as he watched the coffins being carefully carried away. Sodapop had been careful to keep the news playing on the television to the bare minimum but it still did no good, the death toll of american soldiers across the ocean was one of the most reported things. Riots and protests were becoming more and more prevalent around the United States, and the news had been practically screaming about the recent Kent State Shooting where four students had ended up dead.
"Don't look at them, Pone," Sodapop muttered quietly to his kid brother. Ponyboy looked scared to death and he didn't think it was just because he was imagining what could have been if Darry hadn't just been injured. Ponyboy was sixteen. In two years, if the war wasn't over, then he faced the same awful chance of being drafted. Facing the same end that those two unfortunate young men had.
"Why don't they just leave, Soda?" his kid brother whispered. "Why can't they call an end to the whole war?"
"I dunno. I ain't a politician." If he was he would be demanding the American army leave Vietnam to itself and just let them kill each other if that was what the Vietnamese wanted. He gripped Pony's shoulder and squeezed it for just a moment, the most comfort he allowed to give him in public. And then a familiar figure appeared at the door of the plane and Sodapop didn't allow himself to worry anymore about potential futures as he and Ponyboy rushed forward to greet their eldest brother.
Darry seemed somehow thinner when they all met in an embrace; Sodapop could feel his ribs and he could feel a shoulder blade against his palm when he ran a hand down his oldest brother's back. It was unlike Darry to be so thin.
"We missed you, Darry," Ponyboy was saying, his voice muffled against the former's shoulder. "Every day. Sodapop even kept a calendar so we could count down the days until you got back home."
Soda felt himself blush at the confession but he hadn't told his brother to keep that a secret. And he wasn't going to be ashamed of it either and he merely summoned his sunniest smile when he drew back. "I just wanted you to get back home so you could take sole guardianship of this kid again."
"Hey!"
But Darry was laughing at the joke, which was exactly what Sodapop had wanted. "Too late to go back now on that one, Pepsi-cola. You're stuck with him."
"I'm not that bad," Ponyboy muttered, still glued against Darry's shoulder. He had grown taller in a year- he was only a few inches shorter than their oldest brother. Very much not a kid anymore.
Sodapop could have stood there in the hug for the rest of the day but he could see how exhausted Darry was even through his joy of being home. It was written all over his face. "C'mon," he said. "We've got a long drive back home."
The drive home was quiet, almost uncomfortably so. Darry's duffel bag of clothes had been placed in the back of the truck, along with the crutches.
Darry's left leg was stretched over Pony's lap as much as possible to make sure it could lay flat. The bandages were still wrapped thickly around his calf; he'd been shot with a bullet that had gone clean through. Even given painkillers, Soda could tell that his older brother felt it.
Ponyboy caught his eye at one point, unable to disguise the worry in his eyes as his hands softly rested on their brother's leg. Soda and Pony had always had a close relationship and the past year had strengthened that bond, so it was easy to tell that the youngest of them was still terrified.
Sodapop managed to grin just a little. He'll be alright, he said without words.
They would have to be.
But time, despite the saying, didn't heal all wounds. Or so Sodapop found as the days stretched on. Sure, Darry settled back into regular life without a hitch but there was still something that had changed and it wasn't just the lame leg. He'd known some veterans of the war who had come home blank-eyed and burnt out from 'Nam, who could do nothing but drink and smoke weed until they left their horrors behind them. What made it worse was the blatant disrespect those soldiers received from their fellow Americans. Spat on, cursed at, it didn't matter, it only showed how little America's citizens actually cared about its fighting men. And Sodapop would be damned if he allowed anyone do that to Darry.
They really didn't have that to worry about yet, though. Two-Bit was really the only one any of them saw and even then it was a quiet, somber affair.
The last few years had seemed to age Two-Bit Mathews in a way nothing else had. He was still quick with a joke or a laugh but he found it harder to be so happy all of the time. He had laid off the booze in an attempt to find a job but he had only been able to go a couple of weeks before he was out stumbling around drunk again, and because of that he was finding it difficult to keep any job steady. But he came to visit the Curtis household readily enough, if less often than remembered.
Steve was still over in Vietnam. "Saw him once," Darry said one night when it was just him and Sodapop and Ponyboy. He could tell that Soda was dying for any information on his best friend. "After I'd been shot. He visited me in the hospital, said his platoon was makin' its way to the front lines." His expression was strained as he looked Soda in the eyes. "He was fine then, Pepsi-cola. He'd seen action before, but he was in one piece."
Which was more than what could be said about a lot of the boys fighting over there. The television had shown plenty of footage of the aftermath of a mine exploding in a road and it was enough to give them all nightmares.
Ponyboy looked up from the sketch he was working on. His clothes smelled like smoke, which let Sodapop know that he'd snuck a cancer stick. "His tour should be almost done, right?"
"Yeah. Told me he only had three months left." Darry stretched out his leg and winced.
"You okay?" The question slipped out unbidden from Soda's mouth, and he quickly shut it before he could embarrass his oldest brother further. Darry never took no pity.
"Fine." The answer was short but not entirely cold.
Sodapop wanted to kick himself for the slip-up but couldn't allow himself the luxury. The habit of the past year of being the sole guardian made him turn to his kid brother. "Pony, I thought we'd agreed you weren't gonna smoke no more."
Pony frowned, pausing in his drawing. "It was just one Kool, Soda. I ain't gonna die from it."
"That ain't the point and you know it. You said that smokin' was affecting your runnin'."
There was the threat of an argument hanging in the air between them, one which both of them could sense and wanted to desperately avoid- especially since Darry could sense it too and was looking between them in concern and confusion.
Ponyboy took the high ground this time. "I think I'll go get a shower," he said and closed the sketchpad, carefully ignoring the previous statement.
Sodapop struggled to hide his relief. "Sounds good."
Darry waited until the door to the bathroom had closed before he started asking questions. "What was that?"
"What was what?" Sometimes it was easier to play dumb.
Clearly Darry wasn't in the mood. "Sodapop Curtis, I know when you and Pony are havin' a beef between you. What happened?"
"What happened, Darry, was that you left." And abruptly he was angry, irrationally furious with his oldest brother. "You left and I had to step in as guardian. Which meant discipline and fightin' him on things he didn't agree with." He didn't mention the difficult first few weeks when both he and Pony had to rediscover their relationship and fill in the gap of their missing oldest brother, or of Ponyboy's moments of confusion and asking why Darry had chosen to do what he did. He was careful to never let Darry know that for awhile their youngest brother had felt oddly abandoned.
The hurt he saw on Darry's face was more than enough to banish his anger. "You know why I left, Soda," he said quietly.
Guilt twisted his stomach and he nodded. "Yeah," he admitted miserably. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way. It's just... I wasn't prepared for it all, ya dig? I never quite got what you had to do bein' the one in charge of the house bills and upkeep and us. And I only had Pony to watch. You were stuck with both of us."
Darry was watching him quietly. "Yeah, I dig. And you weren't that bad to watch over. Pony's the troublemaker in the family." The grin on his face made his last sentence a joke, and Sodapop couldn't help but laugh.
"He'll give you your first grey hair, that's for sure."
"Too late. I've already got 'em."
The leg caused him the most trouble. It took several weeks for the wound to heal and even more for Darry to be able to put weight on it. For a man who was used to action and exercise it was enough to drive him stir-crazy, especially once he found out that Ponyboy had found a part-time job to help pay the bills. That had caused a fight between him and Sodapop that had ended in shouting and slammed doors.
Things weren't better. After nearly four months since Darry had made it home Sodapop had to admit that, and it confused and angered him. He should be wholeheartedly grateful that his oldest brother had made it back alive and most of the time he was, but then there those times when he would feel a block between them which had never been there before. In a surreal change of events it was Ponyboy who acted as peacekeeper between them, trying to keep his two eldest brothers from pulling away from each other. He could rarely keep them from not speaking to each other, however, and as time went on it only grew worse.
Until the fifth month, that is, when an accidentally dropped plate shattered on the kitchen floor, and Darry jumped half out of his skin. Suddenly white and uncontrollably shaking he spun on his good leg away from the sound and crouched behind the kitchen table.
Ponyboy watched him in a mix of horror and fear. "Sodapop!" he screamed, unable to move from the pieces of plate surrounding him. "Soda, come here!"
It took both of them nearly ten minutes to convince their oldest brother it was safe to leave his spot on the floor and that he wasn't back in Vietnam. Even then Darry's color was off and his breathing was still shaky, and finally Sodapop called it quits on the evening.
"C'mon, we're goin' to bed." Together he and Ponyboy helped Darry to his room and there they all piled on his bed.
"I'm fine," Darry tried to tell them over and over again, ashamed of what had happened, "it was nothing-"
"It ain't 'fine'," Ponyboy interrupted impatiently. "Not when a plate makes you think about the war."
"You coulda told us you've been strugglin' with that," Sodapop said, grabbing a pajama shirt from Darry's dresser and tossing it to his oldest brother.
"Didn't want you guys worryin'." The reply was quiet and almost ashamed, and Darry couldn't look them in the eye. "I thought it was gettin' better, but there'll be moments and it all just... comes rushin' back. Like tonight."
Ponyboy rubbed his back. "That don't mean you're weak, Dar," he said hesitantly. "Plenty of guys come back like this. Right, Soda?" He looked up at their middle brother still standing by the door, expecting an affirmation.
When had their roles been reversed? Before the war it would have been Sodapop right there comforting Darry while Ponyboy stood at an awkward distance wondering what the right thing to say was. But that was the answer, wasn't it? That was before the war.
This was after.
Soda swallowed. "You know, I hated you for awhile, Darry," he admitted quietly in the silence. "After you left. You took my place and risked your own life so I wouldn't have to. And all this time- I guess I feel like I've let you down somehow." He could feel tears burning in his eyes fighting to escape his hold and he choked back a sob.
Darry knew exactly what he was saying, though. Careful not to jar his leg- it was healed except for a white scar- he patted the bed on his opposite side. When Sodapop sat he answered, "You ain't let me down, Soda, you should know that. Neither of you have. I promised Mom and Dad I'd protect the two of you, and I don't aim to call this a mistake just because of what I saw over there."
That broke whatever self-control Sodapop still had and he broke down and buried his face in Darry's shoulder. "I'm sorry," he sobbed. "I'm sorry I've been such a hard-ass, I'm sorry for everything!"
He could feel Darry's arms wrap around him, drawing him closer. Distantly he sensed Ponyboy join the hug, trying to bring what comfort he could to both of his brothers. When finally he calmed himself and he could see clearly he sniffed and disentangled himself from the group embrace, wiping his nose.
Darry managed a half-grin, looking as tired as Sodapop felt. "We good, little man?"
And Soda knew instantly that he was forgiven. "Yeah. We're good."
He and Ponyboy wordlessly decided to take up a spot on the bed on either side of their big brother that night. In the darkness Sodapop heard heard Pony say quietly, "I'll help you with your exercises, Darry. You'll be back to work in no time. Bet you won't even walk with a limp."
They would have to find someone for Darry to talk to about those flashbacks. Soda and Pony were only able to help so much, and it wasn't fair on any of them to shoulder this all alone. Darry was too proud for his own good sometimes but Sodapop was confidant that he would give in to the fact that he needed some help.
That was, after all, what brothers were for.