A/N: I actually live near Niagara Falls. Well, in western New York anyway. I've only seen the actual Falls twice...and irony wins again! XD
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Seriously: Sorry. I'll have to delete the one-shot thing in the first chapter's A/N. Cookies for you, whoever you are!
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The strange new world looked just like Tulsa. In the early hours of the morning the land was flat and black except for some grey treetops scraping a shimmering gold-blue sunrise. The only difference was that—
"Why'd we have to pit stop in the middle of Niagara Falls?" Two-Bit said, shivering. "It's fuckin' cold as hell out here!" Then, thinking about what he just said, he blinked. "...Wait."
"New road map," said Dally, managing to flick out his light in the showers of mist that came and fell on the pier, "since someone just had to use mine for his own purposes."
"Hey, don't blame it all on me—don't be tellin' me no gas station has no fuckin' toilet paper in the middle of Indiana either! You can't go in the field, they say to me—bullshit! Then just what the shit do they use all those corn husks for, wiping your fucking nose? Jesus!" Two-Bit wailed, exclaiming it so loudly that a few tourists stared at him.
One woman took a picture.
Dally sighed, then spit out his cigarette butt over the brink of the massive swirling turquoise waters.
"Hey. Hey Dally. Look. Look at me, man, got your fuckin' Kodak moment right here—I'm takin' a leak the size of Niagara Falls," said Two-Bit, grinning blithely.
"You touch yourself once and I'm pushing you over," said Dally.
And Two-Bit laughed...
...and laughed...
...and laughed...
...and laughed...
...and laughed...
...and laughed...
...and grew quiet.
"Hey—" he said. "Don't do that."
Dally blinked.
"Do what?"
"That."
"What—that?" Dally said. "I'm just slappin' my good buddy on the back." He tapped his palm a few times on Two-Bit's back. "Good times at the eighth world wonder. Yup. Yup. Yup."
The last one nearly knocked him over and he glared at Dally, who was now innocently looking up at the pretty sparkly mist rainbows.
"You're giving me the fucking jeebies," said Two-Bit. "Stop it."
"What?" Dally blinked again. Looking around, he lifted his hands up in protest. "Ain't doin' nothin'."
"Do that again and I'm fucking dragging you down with me."
"Fine," Dally muttered. "Chicken-shit."
Silence reigned for a moment—too long a moment. An uneasy thought of home passed between them like the alien waves of water that tumbled about the rocks hundreds of feet below.
"You really afraid of heights?" said Dally.
"You really afraid of spiders?" said Two-Bit.
A pause.
"No," said Dally.
Two-Bit blinked.
"What?" said Dally.
Two-Bit blinked again.
"That's not—"
Two-Bit blinked a third time, this time a corner of his mouth lifting.
"I ain't afraid of no little—stop that—that's my collar, don't you fuck with it—what are you d—go away, you creeper—I said go the FUCK—"
Dally ripped off his jacket and whipped it against the ground, stomping on the spider in the midst of an evil howl. Then there was a sickening snap, along with a flash of white light.
Dally looked up.
"Was that what I think it was?" he said.
"No," said Two-Bit, with one fluid motion tossing the poor tourist's expensive camera over the Falls.
"Good. Joke. Buddy," Dally smiled through gritted teeth, and "slapped" Two-Bit even harder on the back.
And Two-Bit ran away in the midst of a soft malevolent chuckle.
"The drinking age in Canada is nineteen." Dally put down the pamphlet to stare at Two-Bit. "You nineteen yet?"
Two-Bit shrugged, thinking it was irrelevant that Dallas Winston should care about any kind of legal limit age.
"Come on. I just wanna know so the Canadian fuzz don't deport our asses for stupid shit like that."
"No, I'm not nineteen yet. Almost there though, I only got...oh, lookee here! Happy birthday for me in two days," Two-Bit said joyously, waving his driver's license in the air before directly smacking his head against the happy dashboard. "Two. Boozeless. Days."
"Got some blood in your alcohol system?" Dally said, also smacking him upside the head. "Geez, you wino—it ain't like we're gonna die without it."
Two-Bit said nothing.
"Well, just me, anyway," said Dally. "You might."
Two-Bit stuck out his tongue like a spoiled, boozeless child.
"Look," Dally said. "Just stay here and I'll swipe some."
"Whatever," he said to Dally's figure, which by the time of his miserable utterance was muttered had dissolved into the grocery store.
He looked down while he was sitting on the hood, staring quite forlornly into his cigarette. The smoke sometimes rose out of the filter to spill hot ash on his face, falling like tears of tar; but an hour of this stillness had passed and he did not once blink until—
"Go away," he said to a group of passing kids.
He sneered as a little girl giggled.
"What?" he said.
Another kid threw a large tomato at him, which covered the side of his face with blood-red pulp. All was silence as he looked down to the pulp that dripped down his jacket arm.
"Oh," he said. "It's on."
"Return enemy fire!" Two-Bit shrieked, ducking behind the car. "Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow!"
He threw some grapes at the little girl standing nearby and the girl, smiling, walked over and tapped him on the shoulder to offer him the ones he had spilled.
"NO! They got me, Tommy! They got me," he staggered, clutching at his shoulder. He lunged at Tommy's shirt with dying fists, "Go on without me...tell my...wife...I...I..."
"You love her?" Tommy offered.
"NO!" he declared with his last few dying breaths, pointing to his socks. "That she can't even do the goddamn laundry right! She didn't separate the reds from the whites!" He shook Tommy's shoulders about very melodramatically. "MY SOCKS CAME OUT PINK! PINK, I TELL YOU! OH, THE HORROR! THE GODDAMNED GIRLY HORROR!"
Thus, that was how Two-Bit Mathews died valiantly in the middle of a western New York grocery store parking lot: amidst a mob of chuckling kids.
"You asshole," said Dally, smacking himself in the mouth just as a woman rounded the corner and gaped at her lovely fruit-drenched children.
"Wonder what's gone on in Tulsa," Two-Bit said.
"All sortsa wonderful shit—world peace," said Dally.
"Dumbass. Can't have world peace if it's a fucking town."
"Well, shit."
"Well, shit."
They looked out the window for a few minutes.
"I'll tell you what's gone on," said Two-Bit.
Dally said nothing as he watched him tap the dashboard.
"So this is Tulsa," he said. "Pretend this paperclip is Pony. And—gimme your ring—this is Johnnycake. And my blade is Steve. And this bottle of Coke is Soda. And this—" he grunted, pulling out a G.I. Joe from his back pocket, "—is Darry. Oh, and these are you and me," he said, holding up two Ken dolls.
Dally lifted an eyebrow.
"Scene One," Two-Bit said, tossing the Ken dolls aside. "The Curtis House: Yesterday."
It sure is a nice day for some readin', said Pony-Paperclip. Yup-yup-yup. But, oh no! My book! Wherever shall I find one? Darry don't like me readin' much of anythin', and I'll be damned if I get caught readin' the tags off of mattresses!
I got a book, Ponyboy! said Johnny-Ring happily. Will you read it to me?
Sure, said Pony-Paperclip, and started to read Johnny-Ring the book, when, all of a sudden—
I'M HOME! KNOCK, KNOCK, Y'ALL SMARTIE MOTHERFUCKERS! Darry-Joe screamed as he bust open the front door. IS THAT INTELLECTUAL STIMULATION I SMELL?
No, said Pony-Paperclip and Johnny-Ring quietly as they tossed the book—a microscopic piece of lint—away.
Well, then, that's good—NOW IT'S TIME FOR SOME CONTACT SPORTS! YEAH, SPORTS THAT CAN POSSIBLY KILL YOU, WHOO-HOO! Darry-Joe shrieked.
NOOOO! screamed the ring and paperclip as they were almost dragged out the door, when, all of a sudden—
Wait right there, evil-doer! Soda-Coke declared, standing stolidly in the doorway (which was Two-Bit's lap) and billowing an impromptu superhero cape that Two-Bit had made out of a dirty napkin. Then he began to sing the Batman theme song, when, all of a sudden—
"Oh shit!" Two-Bit said. Having forgotten to put the cap back on before the role-play, Soda-Coke spilled in his lap. "Soda's dead! Soda's dead! They killed 'im, you guys!"
NOOOO! screamed Steve-Blade, jumping off the dashboard in a twisted form of suicide. Good-bye, cruel fuckin' Sodaless world!
Pony-Paperclip, Darry-Joe and Johnny-Ring fell over as Dally rolled his eyes.
"Scene Two," said Two-Bit. "The Parking Lot: Three Nights Ago."
A pause.
"Oh wait—I forgot," he said, "these are Angela and Tim."
He assumed an unnaturally high-pitched voice for Angela, who was a piece of string: I'm in love with Mr. Dallas Winston! I act like a tough bitch, but I really like pink unicorns and rainbows and Ricky Martin! But I won't tell my dear old Dally that till later, teehee!
Two-Bit then assumed an unnaturally rumbling-pitched voice as he picked up Dally's designated Ken doll. Shuddup, Angela! I just slashed your brother's tires, and even though I could possibly be murdered in cold blood for it and it'd be all in fairness, I'll give you the fucking benefit of the doubt and pretend to be all fuckin' Brooklyn gangster and run your ass over. But the truth is, I dunno how to drive a fuckin' cardboard box to save my life, and I really like Ricky Martin too!
Hooray for Dally, my pansy-ass hero! Angela-String shrilled.
Two-Bit resumed his normal speaking voice.
Uh, guys, if you hadn't noticed already, Mr. Timothy Shepard is coming to whup our asses, stated a strangely chiseled and shirtless Two-Bit Ken Doll.
I love you too, Angela, said Dally-Ken-Doll. I'm just a dickweed though, 'cause I don't like having less than three girls in the bed with me at any given time.
That's okay—started Angela-String, when, all of a sudden—
Whose keys are these? bellowed the approaching Tim Shepard, who was at the moment a blank crumpled piece of notebook paper.
They're mine, said Dally-Ken-Doll. Wait...oh shit.
The next three minutes were composed of the crumpled piece of paper beating the shit out of the Ken Doll. Then a complete SFX of a nuclear explosion sounded, along with a tossing of the items around the Tulsa-Dashboard, since Tim-Paperwad, in his rage, had forgotten he had left his cigarette butt lying near the gas station, the likes of which blew up everything in a melodramatic explosion, killing everyone—Angela, Dally and Tim, that is—except for Two-Bit, who had wisely run for the hills during their scuffle and was safely out of reach of the fiery 60-foot blast radius.
"And then I get a Penthouse with twenty of those beach Barbies and I live happily ever after," said Two-Bit.
And Dally looked like he was in physical pain.
To be continued.
