Jesse found himself in Tulsa once again. He sat in his hotel room, a rather nice suite in the better side of town, staring out the window through a gap in the floral curtains. Nearly the end of February, the major snow and ice storms had come to a halt. Spring lay just around the corner. Right now, the clear night sky showed a sprinkling of the brighter stars shining through the light pollution.
With a sight, Jesse stepped away from the window, flopping down on his bed. The events from the last month played in his head, over and over again, like a movie reel. It seemed surreal, like a dream. Nothing like that ever happens in real life, does it?
Jesse's mind left the present moment, sending him back a month ago, to the day he got out of the hospital and released back to his half brothers' home. His youngest brother, Ponyboy, seemed like the most peculiar of them all. Pony, apparently, held a very high IQ and brought home good grades semester after semester. Yet, the boy seemed daft at times, quiet, empty headed. Jesse couldn't figure it out.
Then Jesse read the theme. A whole bunch of things came into perspective, almost blinding in their clarity.
As Jesse drove home, Pony's written words kept on popping into his head.
...Darry wheeled around and slapped me so hard that it knocked me against the door...
… A dark pool was growing from him, spreading slowly over the blue-white cement... "You really killed him..."
He didn't bat an eye when Johnny told him what had happened, only grinned and said "Good for you" when Johnny told him how he knifed that soc.
Jesse found himself highly disturbed by the words he read. He knew how easy it was to accidentally fall in with the wrong crowd. For a few months after Grandmother died, he found himself hanging out with a group to tough-looking youths. Fortunately for Jesse, his status in the gang went on hiatus when he found himself in the hospital, recovering from his ruptured appendix. Looking back on it, Jesse was glad things happened they way they did. If he had gotten in trouble with the law, all the hard work he did to get to college would evaporate in the police department as an officer booked him.
Ponyboy didn't share the luck of his eldest brother. Already, it was evident that Pony found himself mixed up with the wrong set of people.
That kid was going somewhere?
Jesse snorted.
Not unless he stopped getting involved with the murders of his peers.
Jesse wanted to help Soda, too, but no one could legally make him live with Jesse since he was past the age of sixteen. In Jesse's opinion, Soda still had hope for a future. He didn't have to work at a gas station for the rest of his life. In fact, Jesse felt sure that if he got Soda to complete high school, he could make the young man an educated, well respected member of society. Perhaps Soda wouldn't go on to college, but Jesse could definitely see him going on to a trade school.
The young dentist though about it all the way home. He made better time, getting back to LA in a day and a half including a few breaks.
He bypassed the city, driving straight to his suburban haven. When he opened the door, he found, surprisingly, Laura in the living room, arranging Grandmother's furniture in the living room. Already, the house felt like home. Jesse shrugged himself out of his coat, hanging it on a wrack that Laura must have set up earlier that week.
"Hey," she said, smiling as she walked up to her fiance. "How was it? Tell me all about it!"
Jesse shook his head, incredulous at the turn of events, embracing Laura in a warm hug.
"Let me comfortable," Jesse replied. "Then, I'll tell you all about it."
XXX
"Wow," Laura whispered when Jesse had finished his saga. They sat together, curled up on the couch. "I just don't know what to say. That's just... wow."
Jesse had edited his tale slightly, telling Laura he had sustained his injuries by tripping on a particularly slippery section of ice and landing on sharp piece of discarded metal. Laura held so much trust for Jesse, she didn't even point out the obvious flaws in the tale.
"That's not it," Jesse replied, shaking his head. "You've got to read this. You're not going to believe it."
At this point, Jesse found his bag, digging in it until he found Pony's composition book. Without questions, Laura took the book, opening it up and beginning to read.
As she read, Jesse watched as her face contorted with horror, sympathy, disbelief, and, finally, sadness.
"Please tell me this is fiction," she whispered, her voice sad and distant.
"I wish it were," Jesse replied, shaking his head. "I even stopped at a public library on my way out of town and fact checked the information written in that composition book to newspapers. It's all true."
"Wow," Laura repeated. "Why do people let kids live like that? Where's social services? Who's protecting these kids?"
"I don't know," Jesse shrugged his shoulders. "But they're my brothers. I have a right, I believe, to be able to protect them in every way I can."
"I know what you're thinking," Laura said as she listened to Jesse's speech. "You want them here, don't you? At least two youngest ones?"
"Yes. I don't think I could get Soda because he's old enough to make those kind of decisions on his own. But Pony's young enough that I could win custody of him."
They sat in silence for a while. Jesse didn't know how Laura would respond to this information. They sat at the threshold of their own journey, waiting to embark on marriage, of the young, childless marriage life. Having Soda and Pony there would impede on that alone together. Even Jesse didn't particularly like the idea. But they were his brothers. He had an obligation to them, written in blood, if not words.
"I think it's a wonderful idea," Laura finally said, breaking the silence.
"So you're not completely opposed to it?"
"No! Not at all! We have enough room here. And they're old enough, they'd be out of the house by the time we'd want to have children."
"Well," Jesse said, his face set. "I'm going to need a lawyer."
XXX
At first, Jesse called around, trying to find a good lawyer in Tulsa. Finally, though, he realized that the best resided in California. It would cost a little more to fly his chosen representative out to Oklahoma and pay for accommodations, but Jesse believed that it would be his best, if not only, bet to get his brothers to a functional home.
He finally found Mr. Oliver S. Card, attorney at law, family law. Jesse came to his consultation meeting with Pony's composition book, his mother's diary, and a series of letters his father sent his mother before her death. Jesse stole the last collection of items from his brothers when they weren't looking, back when Jesse's custody conspiracy was still in its infancy.
"Dr. Larson, please take a seat," Mr. Card said pleasantly as Jesse walked into his office. "Can I get you anything? Coffee? Water?"
"No, thank you," Jesse replied pleasantly. "I just want to get down to business."
"Of course, Dr. Larson. I understand you want custody of a minor?"
"Yes. But this won't be your regular, every day custody battle."
"Oh?" Mr. Card cocked one eyebrow. "Now tell me. Why is that?"
For a quarter of an hour, Jesse went through his story, about finding his mother's diary, meeting his brothers, and learning of his father's death.
"Now," Mr. Card said, leaning back in his chair. "I think the hardest part about winning the case is convincing the judge you are, in fact, related to the minor in question. Blood always wins and without, we almost have to case."
"My mother references my father several times in her diary," Jesse explained. "Also, my father sent these letters to my mother."
Jesse handed over the diary and the letters. He watched as Mr. Card analyzed them for a moment before setting them back down.
"Right now, this is all circumstantial evidence," Mr. Card said. "Do you have anything else?"
"Yes," Jesse replied. From his brief case, Jesse took out a picture he had taken from the mantle of the Curtis' house. It was a relatively recent picture of Darry, Soda, and Pony.
"This is you?" Mr. Card asked as he looked at the picture, still in an ivory frame, pointing to the eldest Curtis.
"No," Jesse replied. "That's my half brother, Darrel."
Mr. Card nodded his head up and down, methodically, as digested the new information.
"All right," he said. "We have bloodline established. Now, why do you want to have custody of this boy? What about his current home life do you find dissatisfying."
"For the first thing, he's being abused by his brother."
Jesse opened up Pony's composition book and pointed to the portion where Pony described being hit by Darry. Mr. Card read, nodding his head.
"Is that all?" he asked.
"Is that all?" Jesse repeated. "There has to be more?"
"He could have been making it up."
"He turned it into his English teacher as fact. Besides, the other things in this are true." In a brief, abridged version, Jesse detailed the contents of the rest of the book. He then told how he had read Pony's exact story through newspaper articles in the local paper.
"Your brother was involved in a murder?" Mr. Card asked, incredulous.
"Yes," Jesse replied, exasperated, but glad he had finally gotten through to the man.
"Well, Dr. Larson, I do believe we have a case."
Mr. Card stood up. Jesse followed suit.
"It'll be my pleasure to represent you," Mr. Card said, strictly business, as the two men shook hands.
"I'm glad to here that. Don't plan on losing this case."
"Oh, Dr. Larson, I never do."