Four days later, I was sick to death of being at home. Books held no interest, there was nothing on TV that I wanted to watch, and I'd filled my sketch pad with attempt after attempt to draw the Stovepipe and still wasn't happy with the results. I lived for company, even Steve. We played a lot of cards but now I was sick of them, too.
With Darry and Soda both working, I parked my crutches against the sofa in the living room and left them there unless anybody was around. My knee was getting better every day. I still had a limp, but it got less and less pronounced. They didn't seem to notice that the house was staying clean, though I figured it wouldn't be much longer before Darry got to wondering why dust wasn't piling up anywhere yet. The only thing I couldn't do is make the beds, because that would be obvious. We never made our beds unless the social worker was due. Why bother? You just mess them up again every night to go to sleep.
Even in broad daylight, Darry wanted the door locked. He said I could just as easily doze off and start wandering around when nobody was home. I didn't really think it would happen, but I knew he wasn't going to budge. Besides, all the guys knew the key was just sitting up on the lip of the jamb.
So far, I guess it was working, though every morning Soda whispered my latest adventure. I'd been found in the kitchen scrubbing potatoes (KP), mopping the kitchen floor (barracks clean up?), and last night I started pulling the sheets off my bed for laundry detail. If you want to know the truth, I thought it was sort of funny. I tried to picture myself, zombie-like, wandering all over the house doing chores. But Darry and Soda were still awful spooked, so I felt guilty every morning when Soda told me about my latest adventure. I wanted to stop so they'd feel better, and it was sort of frustrating that I couldn't if I wanted to.
It was Friday, and I hoped that I would be able to convince Darry to let me go out. I didn't care where. Anywhere. Just out. The most I'd been able to do is go out to the curb for the mail. I only had a dollar to my name, but I didn't have to do anything that cost money. Darry was always too tired after work to go anyplace, and we didn't have any money, anyway. Soda was working the evening shift tonight. Steve…well, we didn't tolerate each other well enough to hang around when Soda wasn't there. Maybe I could sweet talk Two-Bit into doing something with me. As long as it wasn't the movies, he'd probably be okay with it.
I was just trying to get interested in the second L'Amour book, just like I'd been trying to do every day for the past four days, when I heard Darry's truck pull up outside. Since it was only a few minutes after three, my heart started hammering in my chest. Was work slowing down? That was the last thing we needed.
He clomped up the steps, forgot about the door, and smacked into it when he twisted the knob and it didn't open. From the way the key sounded jamming into the lock, he was annoyed. "Ponyboy," he said, "Get your shoes on. I made an appointment with Dr. Joseph."
"What for?" I asked, getting up from the couch. I was so excited to be leaving the house I almost forgot to grab the crutches.
"What do you think?" he retorted as he ducked into the bathroom to clean up a little.
I put my shoes on and smelled my shirt. I figured I'd better change it just in case. The heat wave had kept up, and I'd been sweating all morning even sitting still. Darry was pretty angry when he saw the last electric bill. Soda always turns the cooler down and the table fan on high, and this time he went too far with it.
"Pony!" Darry called as I ducked into the shirt. He was impatient. He'd probably waited until the last second to leave the site to keep Murphy from climbing all over his back.
I left the house behind him, and since he was hurrying to the truck with his back to me, I skipped the crutches until he was in a position to see me. I'm surprised he didn't wait to put them in the bed for me so I wouldn't have to take that extra step to get into the truck.
"Darry, do you think Dr. Joseph will be able to help?" I wondered as he backed out of the drive so fast he could've been Soda.
"I don't know," he said flatly. "The last guy didn't do much for your nightmares. No sense in going back to him."
"I like Dr. Joseph better than the last guy," I said, remembering how he talked more like Two-Bit than a doctor. He always had something funny to say even though he said all the important stuff. And he didn't look at us like we were greasers. He looked at us like we were just regular guys.
"I do, too," he agreed absently. I gave up talking to him. He was a million miles away.
I knew he was hanging some serious hope on this visit, though, because Dr. Joseph's receptionist asked Darry to go on back first, and she told me I could stay out front for a little longer. I guess Darry wanted to tell Dr. Joseph what had been going on with the sleepwalking. I think he knew it didn't bother me and he didn't want that to be the first impression Dr. Joseph got.
I wondered if Dr. Joseph would start looking at me like Darry and Soda had been. I hoped not. It was starting to make me feel about four years old. But it was more than just making me feel like a kid. It made me feel defective somehow. Ruined. That doesn't make a guy feel too hot, especially coming from his brothers. I'd just started getting them to understand I wasn't just some goofy, crazy little kid, and it seemed like this sleepwalking stuff was going to ruin all the growing up I'd done in their eyes. And if that happened, forget working or driving or dating girls. They'd be too busy locking doors and watching my every move to make sure I didn't self-destruct.
I really, really hoped that Dr. Joseph would talk some sense into Darry.
"How've you been?" Dr. Joseph asked over his shoulder as he walked us to the last of the three exam rooms. The other doors were closed, with little colored tags hanging on the doorknobs. I wondered what they meant.
"Well," I shrugged, "I wouldn't be here if things were going great."
He nodded, closing the door behind me. "You wanted to talk about Ponyboy," he said, sitting on a rolling stool. He gestured to a hard plastic chair in the corner.
"Yeah," I nodded. "He had some trouble at camp." I explained as quickly as I could about the situation, about his disappearance and what had happened to him there. By the time I finished, Dr. Joseph was listening intently, scrawling all over a yellow legal pad in what looked like shorthand.
"You mentioned that he's been sleepwalking since he's been home," Dr. Joseph nodded again. "Tell me about that."
He seemed fascinated rather than afraid. And he didn't seem to be all that concerned, either. That alone made me feel like I'd made the right decision in coming to him rather than a head doctor. I thought maybe he knew what was wrong and how to fix it. When I wound down, admitting that my fear was probably only making things worse, he just looked at me for a long time.
"Okay," he said after a moment's silence, "here's the thing, Darrel. I'm not a psychologist or a psychiatrist, but I do know a little bit about sleepwalking. I've got to ask, though…did Ponyboy ever sleepwalk as a little kid? Say, before age twelve?"
"A few times," I admitted, "when he was really little. Maybe two or three. That's what our parents said, anyway, you know, when they used to tell us funny stories." I didn't add that I didn't think his sleepwalking was funny now.
"Typically, sleepwalking affects children and tends to fade away around age twelve or thirteen. It's unusual in adults in the absence of mental disorders. But before you panic, Ponyboy isn't an adult yet, and one of the primary triggers seems to be anxiety. Given his life lately, I'd say he has every reason to be a little jumpy."
I nodded. "Sure."
"If you're locking the doors, you've won half the battle. I'll tell you what I think. I think Ponyboy became accustomed in a very short period of time to a lot of rough conditioning. We humans are pretty brainy folks," he said, leaning toward me. "We learn really, really quickly to do anything that avoids hassles and pain and other crappy stuff. It's a bonus if we can also learn whatever will bring us something really good. Ponyboy learned that unless he behaved in a certain way, he was going to get singled out, yelled at, roughed up and kicked around. So he did whatever it took to avoid that. Smart kid. Meanwhile, he got used to being worked to the bone every day from sun up to sun down. No big surprise he doesn't know how to sit still anymore, even in his sleep."
"Do you think it will just be a matter of time before the sleepwalking stops?" I asked, half hoping that he did and half hoping that he didn't. I wanted a quicker fix than that. I wanted my baby brother back to his usual self…even if that meant he'd be a little scatterbrained and dreamy.
"Yes and no. I think he's working through something here. With everything that's been thrown at him lately, he's like the Department of Motor Vehicles…all backed up, lines a mile long, hungry, sweaty, grumpy, tired, bored, frustrated, angry, nervous…you name it, he's probably feeling it." Dr. Joseph shrugged.
I laughed for the first time in what felt like years. The knot in the back of my neck finally loosened.
"I do think you need to give him a little time and not sweat the 'yessir' stuff so much. And I think you may be partly right about your anxiety feeding his anxiety. I know asking you to act like everything is groovy is like asking for a new roof in two hours, but Ponyboy needs to know you think he's okay."
"Okay," I sighed. This time, Dr. Joseph laughed.
"Keep the doors locked, and be sure to wake him up if you catch him at it. All those things you hear about it being dangerous to wake sleepwalkers is bunk. He might look at you like you're from Mars, and he might talk like he's from Pluto, but you won't scare him to death." He pulled a prescription pad from his coat pocket. "And let's see if a mild sedative slows him down a bit. It's sort of hit or miss, but let's give it a try for a couple weeks. If it doesn't work by then, it's not going to."
"Thanks," I said, and he laughed again at the relief in my voice.
"Sure. Take it easy on yourself while you're at it. If you're not used to seeing people sleepwalk, it's probably a pretty spooky experience."
"You say that like you aren't one of those people."
He grinned at me. "My lovely wife has been afflicted since she was a wee little girl, and somehow, she's never grown out of it. Whenever I catch her at it, I just waltz her back to bed. Most of the time, she's none the wiser."
"Bet she's not climbing any porch rails, though," I said.
"True. But she nearly burnt the house down with her sleep baking, so I do know a little bit about the danger." He patted my back and walked me to the door. "Let me take a quick gander at your brother before you leave."
"Thanks, Dr. Joseph." I shook my head, trying to find words to express just how much better I felt.
"I know," he grinned again, winking at me. "You're welcome."