Chapter 6

"I should go see the guys today…" I said. 'Seeing the guys' meant visiting the cemetery, where Dally, Johnny, Soda and Mom and Dad were all buried. I changed the subject, "Say Darry, shouldn't you be at work already?"

"Naw, my guys can handle themselves for a while. Listen, Pony, why don't you just stay in today? I'm workin' on your old room, so you can take my bed."

"Naw, the couch is just fine. I'll be outta your way by tomorrow." I didn't know where I'd go but I was still having second thoughts about coming here. "You should be at work. I can look after myself. Go on, Darry. I'll be fine."

Darry frowned, but stood up and rinsed out his coffee cup. His tool belt was on a hook by the front door. He buckled it on. "We'll talk some more when I get home. You rest today, hear?"

I nodded, but I couldn't look him in the eye. If I did I was worried that he'd see right through me.

Darry opened the front door to leave. I thought he wasn't going to say anything else, but then he turned and asked, "Pony, why'd you come back?"

I thought back to the alley. I thought about how I'd been lying there, bleeding to death, thinking of Darry and how angry he would be with me.

It was a long time before Darry realized that I wasn't going to answer. "I'll be home at six thirty," he said finally. "You get some sleep. Don't go runnin' all over town."

I didn't look up. I heard the door close and Darry's retreating footfalls down the porch steps. There was a low rumble as Darry started up his truck and drove away.

I sat for a while at that table, just staring at the surface, wondering why I was so messed up in the head. I blamed it on the drugs again, but didn't really believe it.

After a while I stood up and scraped the rest of my food into the garbage. I washed the dishes and put them away. The kitchen was the same. Everything was where I remembered it. Darry was even still using the same brand of dish soap.

I did sleep, just like Darry told me to, but on the couch. I think I could have fallen asleep on the kitchen floor if that had been my only option.

At about four o'clock the phone woke me up. It was Two-Bit. He asked how I was feeling and how everything was going with Darry.

A long time ago I used to only talk to Johnny about sunsets and stuff like that. I used to talk to Soda a lot too, about other stuff. Johnny and Soda were gone now, but over the years Two-Bit had gotten a lot easier to talk to. He'd always been pretty easy-going and funny, but now he talked less and listened more. I think maybe it had to do with living in a house full of girls. You have to know how to listen to girls.

"I don't know what to say to him," I told Two-Bit.

"Start anywhere. You and Darry have a lot of ground to cover," Two-Bit explained.

"What're you talking about?" I was feeling sort of dim.

"Pony, for somebody who's so smart, you sure can be dense sometimes, Darry too. I'd really like to knock your heads together."

"Now you sound like Darry."

"I can think of worse people to sound like." Two-Bit said. Then, "He talks about you all the time. You know he saved every article you ever wrote?"

"What d'you mean?" Boy, I was sounding real smart today.

"After everything you went through, all that stuff with your parents and Soda and the drugs, you still pulled your act together. You still made somethin' outta yourself. You went to college and got a good job. You wrote for that newspaper in Memphis. You got articles published in magazines. You did things that he never got to do. Hell, he's proud of you, Ponyboy."

I was stunned. I hadn't written anything big, just some local human-interest stuff, nothing you'd ever see on the front page of a newspaper or the cover of a magazine.

"I don't…he never said…"

"He wouldn't. He's Darry. He thinks you hate him."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I'd always thought Darry was disappointed in me. Most of the time I thought he hated me.

"I don't hate him," I said dumbly. I was picturing Darry leafing through the newspaper, looking for my name in tiny black print. I pictured him reading the articles that I'd written, cutting them out and saving them in a book. "I don't hate Darry."

"When are you gonna tell him that?"

I was speechless.

"Listen, I've gotta pick up Suzie from daycare tomorrow anyway. I'll take off work early and drive you to the doctor's."

I protested, but Two-Bit wouldn't take 'no' for an answer, "It's clear across town and you ain't hoofin'it and you ain't takin' the bus, neither. And you ain't skippin' out on your appointment so don't even think it."

That was it. I couldn't argue and I didn't have the stamina for it. Two-Bit and I talked about his girls for a little while after that. Eleanor was teething and Susie would be starting kindergarten in a few months.

After a while Two-Bit suggested that I go get some sleep. By then I was answering him in a series of grunts and nods. I was nodding at the handset, for Christ's sake. That's how tired I was.

I didn't go to sleep after hanging up with Two-Bit, though. I was exhausted but restless. I had too much on my mind to be able to sleep.

I took my pills on an empty stomach because I still felt too nauseous to eat. I put my shoes on and I left the house. I didn't have a key, so I left the back door unlocked. I'd be back before Darry got home from work, at least by my own foggy estimation I would be.

The cemetery was about fifteen miles away. I walked most of it. I only hopped on the bus after my knees started to shake. By the time I got there the sun was starting to set. There was a sign posted at the entrance: "Closed After Dark", but there wasn't anyone to enforce the rule except an old groundskeeper who was probably off drinking somewhere. If I had his job I'd drink too.

Mom and Dad were buried side-by-side near a big oak tree in the corner of the cemetery. We didn't have the money for an inscription when Mom and Dad died. They shared a single headstone with the name "Curtis" across the top and their first and middle names beneath it:

Darrel Shaynne Sr. Susanne Carmen

June 12th 1946 - July 19th 1966 March 5th 1947 – July 19th 1966

I stood over their graves for a while, but didn't say anything. I used to come here and talk to them. I think maybe I'd said everything that I needed to say, out loud at least.

Sometimes I couldn't even remember what they looked like. Darry was a living reminder of Dad, but I could barely see Mom's face in my head anymore. I could still hear her voice perfectly, though. Once I'd come across a lady in Memphis who wore the same perfume that Mom used to wear. When I smelled it Mom came right back, just like I'd seen her yesterday.

Johnny and Dally were buried in different parts of the cemetery. Instead of headstones they had little plaques. Both were modest, with no inscriptions, just names and dates. That's all they were now, just names and dates on cheap little pieces of metal in a cemetery. Anyone who passed by would only know that they were John Cade and Dallas Winston, and that they died young, and that was all. If they had any imagination they might fill in the blanks themselves, picture the boys as heroes or hoodlums, which they were both. But they'd never know the whole story.

One section of the cemetery had a tall flagpole in the center of hundreds of headstones, almost all of them shiny and new. Under it was a white cross and an inscription that I'd read a dozen times but could never remember.

One of the headstones marked Soda's grave, but Soda wasn't buried here. Two of his army buddies had told us so. They were with Soda when he died. One of them was missing his left arm from the elbow down and the other one was missing half his hair. It had been burned away along with half his face.

It had been the guy with the missing arm who told Darry and me about the sand in the casket; one hundred and thirty pounds of sand in exchange for a brother. "They couldn't send you a body because there wasn't one to send," he said. Then he told me, "You look like your brother." I wish he hadn't said that.

The burned guy didn't say anything.

I didn't ask for their names and I didn't ask how Soda died. Maybe one day I'd want to know, but not then and not now.

I thought about Soda coming home like them, missing an arm or a leg or burned and disfigured. I couldn't picture it, my handsome brother with half his face burned away. I had bad dreams about it sometimes, especially after I cleaned up my act.

I knew a lot of guys who fought in that war. Some of them came home and picked their lives up right where they'd left them. Some of them came home scarred on the outside, like Soda's buddies. Some guys came back scarred on the inside, like Steve had.

Steve came back from the war in one piece, but he wasn't Steve anymore. We'd never been buddies. He'd always been Soda's best friend, and thought of me as a tagalong, even when I got older. Steve joined the army the same time that Soda got drafted, hoping that they'd get put in the same unit. They didn't.

I'd already gone off to college when Steve came back from the war. He went back to work at the DX, fixing cars, just like he used to. Two-Bit had gone by the station a few times to see him. He said that Steve was quiet and that he didn't smile or say much. Two-Bit also said he got angry real easy. One of Sherri's friends had gone out with him after he'd been home for a few months. Halfway through the date Steve slapped her after she made some comment about "baby killers" and the war. Two-Bit didn't try to set Steve up with any more dates after that.

I'd only seen Steve once since the war. It was at the cemetery about three years after Soda died. He was visiting Soda's grave. I saw him from a distance, and I barely knew that it was him. I didn't go over and say "hello". Like I said, we'd never been buddies, and now Steve was kind of a stranger to me. I'm not sure if he knew about the sand in the casket, so I didn't tell him. I turned away and let him have some time with his best friend.

Maybe it was the fading light that made all of the headstones look the same or maybe I was just tired. I couldn't find Soda's grave. After about thirty minutes of wandering in circles I was too tired to keep going. My brother wasn't buried here anyway.

When I left the cemetery it was pitch dark. I didn't have a watch, but I knew it was way past six thirty. I hoped that Darry wouldn't be mad that I left the back door unlocked. He used to do that all the time, so that any one of the guys in our gang could have a place to crash if they needed it. But there hadn't been a gang in a long time, and all the people Darry knew probably had a place to go now, everyone except me.

There was a pair of headlights circling the cemetery when I left. I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised when they pulled up right along side me. Darry rolled down the window and called my name.

I climbed in the truck sheepishly. Darry had said I should stay home and rest. I hoped he wouldn't be too mad. He looked a little red.

"I figured you'd be out here. Didn't you bring a coat, Ponyboy?"

"No," My suede jacket had blood on it. I'd thrown it away at the hospital, figuring that the blood would never come out. I only noticed how cold it was outside when the blast of heat from the vent hit me. I tucked my hands up under my arms to warm them up.

"I'm sorry Darry," I said.

"You're grown up now. It ain't like you'll get sent to a boys' home."

"No, I guess not."

Darry put the truck in gear and pulled onto the road. "How's everything up there?"

I shrugged. "Good. I pulled some weeds off Johnny's headstone. I don't think they clean it." It cost extra to have the headstones cleaned. Johnny's parents didn't have that kind of money, and I never saw them out there. Someone was keeping Dally's headstone clean. There had been flowers on his grave too. There were flowers on his grave almost every time I visited. Maybe one day I'd find out who was leaving them.

"I couldn't find Soda's grave," I told Darry. That bugged me. How could I not remember where it was?

"It ain't goin' nowhere, Pony. I'll help you find it later."

I was quiet for a while. I don't know why it bothered me so much, but it did. Darry was right, though. It wasn't going anywhere.

"You eat anything yet?" Darry asked.

I shook my head. For the first time in days I was actually feeling hungry.

"I've got a couple steaks in the freezer. You feel up to peeling potatoes?"

"For a steak I'll peel as many as you want," I said gratefully.

Darry smiled, and then frowned, concerned. "You look awful thin, Ponyboy. Ain't you been eatin'?"

"I eat when I remember," I said absently.

"It's a wonder you remember to breathe," Darry told me sarcastically. He immediately looked sorry, but I was grinning. I'd forgotten that it felt good to be teased by my brother.

"Hey, Darry?"

"Yeah?"

"You ever talk to Steve?"

"Sure. Sometimes. He worked on the truck for me last month. Why?"

"I was just thinkin'. I haven't seen him in a long time."

The rest of the ride home passed in silence. When we got there I peeled potatoes and carrots while Darry cooked up the steaks. I sat down at the table hungry but only finished half of my dinner. Darry knew I wasn't feeling so hot, so he didn't push it.

Continued in Chapter 7…