Chapter 9

I helped Darry make breakfast in the morning. I made a special run to the store for baking chocolate and chocolate chips for the pancakes.

Several years ago me and my old girlfriend, Cathy, worked out a recipe for chocolate pancakes. I think the recipe was the best thing that came out of our relationship. She was a nice girl, smart and funny. I liked her a lot, but I knew she was only going out with me because she couldn't have the guy she wanted. In the end we both knew we wouldn't ever be anything more than good friends. We kept in touch for a long time. She even visited me in Memphis about a year ago. Back then she told me that she and Bryon were finally talking again. I guess things between them worked out okay, because I hadn't heard from her since.

Darry made coffee and eggs while I fixed stacks of pancakes for us both. I didn't realize until I was done pouring the batter that I'd automatically cut the recipe down, since there were two of us now, not three. The funny thing was; I didn't feel sad. That was the first time I could remember thinking about Soda and not feeling sad.

"Darry, have you thought about names yet?" I asked as soon as we sat down to eat. That was as long as I could contain my excitement.

Darry's fork stopped halfway to his mouth. He shook his head. "I thought I'd leave that to Cynthia."

I must have looked sort of disappointed. Darry said, "If it's a boy maybe we can name him after Soda."

"No," I told him. I said it more serious than I intended to. He looked kind of shocked, so I followed it up with, "He should have his own name…or she. It could be a girl."

Darry nodded, "Yeah." I could tell he was still a little surprised that I'd snapped at him.

I explained, "He wouldn't be Soda, ya know?" Soda was one-of a kind, not like anybody I'd ever known. It seemed wrong to name somebody else after him, like he could be replaced.

"Right," Darry agreed, still sounding a little sad.

"It should be something original, though," I said, "something unique."

"Well, you're the writer," Darry pointed out.

I was surprised at how good it felt to hear him say that.

"You know, you don't have to go back, Pony."

He said it kind of quiet. At first I wasn't sure I heard him right. When I didn't answer right away, he said, "I've got the space and I could use some help fixing up the house. I know Tulsa's not Chicago but…just think about it, alright?"

I did think about it. Darry left for work, and after I washed the breakfast dishes I half-dozed on the sofa, taking in the familiar smells and feel of the house where I'd spent most of my life. I was almost asleep when I heard a knock at the door. I thought that it might be Two-Bit, coming to visit me during his lunch hour, but it was barely ten o'clock in the morning. Most people knew Darry's hours. They wouldn't come knocking when they knew he wasn't home.

Through the living room window I could make out a dark shape at the door, too large to be a woman or a child; maybe a neighbor or a salesman, then. I opened the front door and stood face-to face with a dark-haired man in a chocolate-brown leather jacket. He was about forty or forty-five years old and easily twice my size. I'm not especially tall. I had to look up to see his face. My eyes didn't stay there very long, though. They traveled back down to his jacket. I'd seen it before, but at the time, I'd thought it was black.

"Curtis," he greeted me, like we were old friends. I couldn't place the accent, but I recognized the voice. The last time I'd heard it had been in a dark alley in Chicago: Don't you dare scream, man. Don't you dare scream.

I felt like the floor had dropped out from under me. I could only think of one thing: Run. I don't know what gave me away, but as soon as the thought crossed my mind, the man's thick arm darted out and snagged me by the collar. He spun me around without any effort, twisting my arms behind my back. My feet were bare, and they scrambled for a hold as he dragged me across the porch and down the front steps towards a waiting car.

I didn't scream.

Even though I used to work on cars with my brothers I've never been very interested in them. Soda or Steve could have told me the make, model and year inside of five seconds. All I knew right then was that it had four doors and that one of them was open, waiting for me.

There were two men already in the car. All I could see of the driver was the bald crown of his head and his dark eyes as he watched me being shoved into the back seat beside an older man. The older guy looked like he was at least fifty. He was wearing a light-colored blazer, the kind that only has one button in the front.

The man in the leather jacket climbed in behind me.

I scanned for a way to escape. I was sandwiched in between two big guys. Both of the rear doors were blocked. If I moved quick enough I could maybe dive into the front seat and try for the passenger side door, but there was no way I could make it before one of them grabbed me. These guys were a lot older and bigger than me, and they looked tougher than anyone I'd ever faced in a street fight.

The man in the leather jacket seemed to read my mind. He said, "Don't even think about it, kid. It ain't worth what we'll do to you if you try anything."

The car started up. We drove off. My old house -Darry's house- got smaller and smaller in the rear-view mirror until it disappeared altogether.

The older man pulled a pack of Camels from his jacket. He took one for himself, but I was surprised when he offered me one. I wasn't too surprised to take it, though. My hands were shaking so bad that I had to put the cigarette in my mouth before he could light it. Now that I was sitting still I realized that my side was aching. I'd probably pulled some stitches.

"You're awfully quiet for a newspaper man," he observed. He said it so calm, like the man on my right hadn't tried to kill me a week ago. I felt like I was in a dream that I couldn't wake up from.

"You know why we're here?"

I did.

For the past few days I'd convinced myself that since I was home with my big brother, I was safe. It's like when you're a kid and you think that as long as you hide under the covers, the monsters in your closet can't get you. But the monsters had come anyway.

I thought about not answering, or denying it. I might have been able to convince these guys they had the wrong man, but I kind of doubted it. I'd met guys like these before. I was sure they wouldn't appreciate being lied to.

"You're here because I talked to Murray," I said.

"Murray," he laughed. "Was that what he was calling himself?"

I didn't answer.

"Relax, kid. It ain't all your fault. I warned Charlie that he was digging somewhere he shouldn't be. I also warned him what would happen to him or anyone who helped him. Charlie's got a hell of a big mouth, but he doesn't listen."

"What happened to him?" I asked, afraid that I already knew what they'd done with my boss.

He gave me a long, measuring look, like he was sizing me up for a fight. "You're not much of a writer if you can't guess how that story ended."

I risked one more question, "How did you find me?"

The older man pulled something out of his pocket. I recognized it. It was my wallet, the one that I'd lost the night I'd been stabbed. I kept my very first driver's license inside, the one with my old address –Darry's address- printed on it.

Charlie was dead, and I was about to die for a story I hardly knew anything about. It didn't seem fair, but I've known for a long time that life isn't fair.

I tried to think, to figure a way out of this, but all I could think of was Darry. I wondered what would go through his mind when he came home to find the front door wide open and my shoes lying under the coffee table.

"Let me call my brother," I said. "He's the only family I've got. Just let me tell him myself. I don't want him to find out from some stranger."

"No can-do, kid," the older man said smoothly, like he was a cop telling me I couldn't talk my way out of a speeding ticket. "I think you'd try to run off on us."

He was right. I would have.

The car slowed to a stop at a traffic light. Through the windshield I could see a tall gas station sign looming over us. DX, it read in big blue letters. It was the same DX where I used to work, where Soda had worked. I got a strange feeling then, like my brother was looking down on me, like he knew what was going on. It gave me the chills.

The light turned green and the gas station disappeared behind us, along with that strange feeling. We were heading out towards the edge of town. My chances of escape were thinning out along with the houses. There were more spaces between them now. Fenced-in horses stood around cropping the grass in the early spring sunshine, totally oblivious to the danger that I was in. I envied them.

"I'm just curious kid: What did you know about the story that Charlie was working on?" the older guy asked me.

I told him what I knew. It was mostly stuff I remembered Murray saying in his interview. When I was done, the older guy looked at me carefully, and then he burst out laughing. I didn't see what was so funny.

"Damn, kid. Didn't Charlie even tell you what the interview was about?"

"He said I'd be better off if I didn't know." I guess Charlie was wrong.

I kind of expected him to tell me the rest of the story, like they do in movies. I wanted to know what was so important that Murray and Charlie and now I had to die, but life isn't a movie. No one is ever going to tell you the whole story.

"How old are you, kid?"

"Twenty-four," I said.

All three men rumbled with laughter. "They get younger every year," said the man in the driver's seat.

The older man finished his cigarette and snuffed it out in the ashtray near his elbow. "Naw, I think we're just getting older." He lit another one. "You surprise me, kid. Tougher men than you, sitting where you're sitting would be bawling their eyes out right now."

"Wouldn't do me any good," I said.

"No, it wouldn't," he agreed.

The man on my right, the one who had stabbed me last week, the one who had dragged me across our front lawn and thrown me into the car, said, "This isn't personal, you know, kid? It's business." He said it kind of quiet, almost like he was sorry. Maybe he was.

"Yeah," I said, "I know."

The houses disappeared, replaced by miles of barbed-wire fences and green-gold fields. The rolling hills looked like the ones that Johnny and I had passed on our way to Windrixville, and I thought we might be close to that old church on Jay Mountain. Then I remembered that it had burned down years ago. There was nothing left now but splinters and ash.

Clouds rolled in. The sunlight faded to a dim glow, giving everything a kind of gray look. Raindrops peppered the road in front of us, slowly at first, then faster, until the highway was one long shiny black ribbon.

My right heel hammered out a fast, steady rhythm on the floor of the car.

"What kind of a name is 'Ponyboy' anyway?" the older man asked. He was examining my driver's license, which he'd pulled out of my wallet.

"It's just a name, something my dad came up with," I said absently. "You never told me your names."

"Didn't figure you'd be interested."

"I'm not really, but I figure it's only fair."

The older man laughed out loud at that, and the other two chuckled along with him. I felt like I was a five-year-old sitting at the grown-ups' table.

"You're right, kid. It's only fair. You can call me Frank. That's Ellis" -he indicated the driver- "and you've already met Dino." The man in the leather jacket gave me a nod. Unconsciously I wrapped my arms around my chest.

"Your old man must be an interesting guy," Frank said.

"Yeah, he was." It sounds strange, but sometimes it's easier to talk to complete strangers about personal stuff than it is to talk to people you know. Maybe it's because you don't have to worry about what strangers think. Maybe that's why I liked writing so much. "I used to have a brother named Sodapop."

I could see that the driver, Ellis, was smiling in the rear-view mirror, not cruel, just amused. I realized how it must sound to a stranger and I kind of smiled too. This whole situation seemed so surreal.

"So…what, are you an orphan or somethin', kid?"

"I've got an older brother. He pretty much raised me and Soda after our folks died."

"Oh yeah? I had a brother myself." Frank's guard seemed to drop. "Sam. He was a good kid, loved football-"

"-a real hit with the ladies," Ellis finished. They were both smiling, like they were silently sharing the same memory of Sam. I kind of got the impression that Sam wasn't alive anymore.

"What happened to him?" I asked.

The smile faded from Frank's lips. "It was an accident. At least, that's what the guy who shot him said."

I didn't ask for the details. Instead I said, "Soda died six years ago, in the war. I'm not even sure how. They didn't even send his body. It was just a box of sand."

I'll never get used to talking about Soda in the past tense, never.

"That's too bad, kid," and he did sound sorry.

I'd smoked my cigarette down to the filter. Frank offered me a new one and lit it for me.

"Yeah, it is. He was a real good guy."

"Only the good die young," Frank said.

I imagined Sam: a younger Frank, more hair and less weight. I'd thought a lot about death, probably because of all the people I'd lost in my life. I used to wonder all the time why good people had to die, but then I realized that people aren't really good or bad. They're just people…like Dally and Johnny, boys who are hoodlums one minute and heroes the next. It's all how you look at it.

"You scared, kid?"

The cigarettes had steadied my nerves. Inside I was shaking like a leaf. I didn't see the point in lying. "Yeah," I said.

"That's good. It means you got sense."

I think maybe that was the first time anybody said that to me.

I lost track of time after that. My side was hurting more. We'd left the highway a while ago and I was sore from bouncing along the dirt road that we were following. I'd been holding myself so tense I was almost grateful when we finally pulled over.

Gravel crunched under the tires as the car slowed to a stop on the side of the road. My heart leapt into my throat.

"Turn around," Frank ordered me. When I didn't obey him right away he grabbed my shoulders and turned me. Then he tied my hands behind my back. Whatever he used, wire or string, it cut into my wrists something terrible.

Frank hauled me out of his side of the car, and things happened real quickly after that. For a second I felt Frank's grip loosen. I knew that might be my only chance to get away and I took it. I twisted out of Frank's grip, shoved him away from me and bolted off into the tall grass, still thinking clear enough to know that they couldn't take the car after me.

I ran for all I was worth. My heart pounded in time with my bare feet on the ground. The wind roared in my ears and tore at my hair. I didn't dare look back. The whole world shrank down to the endless stretch of dirt and grass beneath my feet. It seemed like I ran forever but it was probably only a minute or two.

I couldn't hear anything except for my own breathing over the wind. Without any kind of warning something large and heavy hit me from behind. My hands were tied behind my back and I had no way of protecting myself. I fell hard, right on my face and I actually felt my chin split open. The air shot from my lungs. I smelled leather and I knew what had struck me. Dino weighed a lot. He had me pinned to the ground under him.

For a long time all I could do was lay there, struggling to breath. Eventually I heard two sets of footfalls over the ringing in my ears.

"Stupid, kid. Really stupid," Frank wheezed as he and Ellis caught up to us. His forehead was shiny with sweat and the single button on his blazer had come off.

Frank took me by the right arm and stood me up. I saw stars when he did, and almost blacked out for a second. "Don't you pull a stunt like that again," he threatened.

When the stars cleared from my vision I saw that I hadn't gotten very far at all, maybe only a hundred yards or so. I felt like I'd been running for miles.

Frank and Dino walked me further away from the road through the tall grass. I felt it brushing against my bare ankles. Ellis followed close behind us. The rain had stopped but the wind was blowing, cutting right through my t-shirt. Hot blood ran down my neck and my chin was numb where I'd struck it.

I don't know how long we walked. My feet were numb. I kept stumbling. I'd just about resigned myself to the fact that we were going to keep walking forever when I heard Frank say, "This is good."

They forced me down onto my knees, then onto my stomach. I felt something cold on the back of my head and realized that it was the barrel of a gun. Up until that point I thought that I'd used up everything I had. I was wrong. I went wild and tried to buck them off of me. I felt my elbow make contact with someone's face. I knocked one of the men, probably the Ellis, on his rear end. Then somebody punched me in the back of the neck. I don't remember what all happened after that, but I do remember that it took all three of them to hold me down, and they were all sweating and cussing by the time they got me under control.

Afterward, with all of their weight crushing down on me, I remember laying there on my stomach thinking: This is it.

The air smelled like rain. The sound of the wind moving through the grass was the loudest thing I could hear. I never stopped fighting, Darry. I never gave up, I thought. Somehow it seemed important that he should know that.

I heard a loud bang, and then…

…nothing happened. The ground was still wet and cold underneath me. The wind was still blowing in my ears. My neck still hurt where I'd been punched.

I felt the hot barrel of the gun pressing up against my cheek. I wasn't dead. I gasped out a breath into the mud.

"Let him up."

The hands on my arms and on my neck didn't loosen up a hair.

"What are you doing, Frank?"

"I said let him up!"

The hands went away.

"Sit up, kid. I ain't gonna kill you."

I sat up, not all the way, though. I rolled over, but I had to lean back on my elbows. I felt out of breath, like I'd just run a four-minute mile.

The other two men were looking at Frank now, confused. I could tell this wasn't part of the plan.

Frank wiped his gun down and holstered it under his jacket. In my defense he said, "He doesn't know anything. He's just a stupid kid who got wrapped up in something he had no business being wrapped up in. We're done here."

"It ain't exactly good business to leave loose ends," Dino reasoned.

"There wouldn't be a loose end if you'd done the job right in the first place, would there? This ain't a democracy. We're done." Frank asked.

"He's seen us," Ellis pointed out.

"He's seen us, so what? He's seen three old guys in a black car, that's who he's seen. He doesn't know who we are. He doesn't know anything. He doesn't even know our real names," Frank pulled the gun out of its holster. His voice rose in an angry tide, "Look, I didn't get where I am by killing people I don't need to kill. You want the kid dead so bad, you plug him."

Frank offered the gun around, holding it by the barrel. A tense moment passed while I waited for someone to take it from him. Ellis had his fists jammed in his pockets and Dino stood as motionless as a photograph. Nobody took the gun.

"He isn't Sam," Ellis said unexpectedly.

I felt confused, like maybe I'd blacked out and missed part of the conversation. Then I remembered that Sam was Frank's brother.

Frank's eyes went wide and for an instant I thought he was going to turn on his own guy and beat the tar out of him.

Ellis had his hands in his pockets and he was giving Frank a calm, level look. The driver was a skinny guy, but now that I could see him from the front he looked older than Frank. I got the feeling that these two had known each other for a long time.

After a few breaths Frank said, ice-cold, "He's somebody's Sam. Now do what I told you and get back to the car."

"Hey, Frank," said Dino. He was looking off into the distance. "We've got company."

Frank looked up. I had to squint, but I finally saw what they saw: a blue pickup winding its way down the empty country road. I felt a surge of relief: it was Darry's pickup.

"Get moving," Frank said.

Dino gave me one last look and turned his back. Ellis shrugged calmly and did the same. They started walking back towards the car.

Frank knelt down beside me, so close that I could feel the heat of his breath. He said to me, deadly serious, "Let me give you some advice, Ponyboy: Go home to your brother. Forget this ever happened. This is a gift. If I see you again, in Chicago or anywhere else, I'll take it away."

And I knew that he would.

The last thing he said to me was, "Tell the cops whatever you want. It won't make any difference."

Frank tossed my wallet into the grass beside me. He didn't untie my hands. The rain was falling again. My chin was oozing blood, so was the old knife wound in my side.

I lay there for a while, just breathing. When I finally stumbled to my feet the black sedan was gone and Darry's blue truck was skidding to a halt in the gravel. Two figures climbed out. I could tell that they saw me, because one of them started waving his arms. It was Darry. As they started towards me I realized the other was Steve. I was suddenly taken back ten years, to a time when I'd been jumped by five Socs in a red Corvair. It didn't occur to me to be confused why Steve was there.

Darry was yelling my name. I tried to walk toward him but my feet wouldn't move. I was so relieved to see Darry and Steve that I could have cried. Instead I started laughing.

"Ponyboy, are you alright?" Darry asked as he approached me.

I wasn't. I'm sure he could see that. And I must have broken some ribs when Dino tackled me, because when Darry's arms closed around me I felt a blinding pain in my chest. I passed out cold.

Continued in Chapter 10…