Well, I go bored last night and pulled a binger. Gotta love those…So here is an update, and of course the moon is blue right now…So if it looks odd or makes no sense, blame that. Oh, and the fact I was at five pages when I picked it up last night….

Disclaimer: The usual

Dedication: ToGreaser4Life for poking me along every so often.

On with the shoe!

The cemetery was cold and dreary that morning and it was fitting somehow. Cemeteries were not supposed to be cheerful and happy. They were supposed to make you remember the loss and the pain you'd gone through because you loved someone so much that living without them was torture. I knew there was a reason I avoided the places at all costs, but today I felt like I needed to be here. I wasn't so sure after spending nearly half an hour weaving between graves trying to find the one I was looking for, but I finally made it. Shoving my fists in my pockets, I hunched my back at the cold October wind that was stirring things up. Water was starting to freeze at night and it wouldn't be long until snow and ice would strike Tulsa. It made me wonder if I would miss the jungle just for the warmth. What a laugh that would be. I finally shifted from side to side and wondered how I was supposed to start.

"Hi Dal," I offered and looked down at the graves, trying to picture anything else but rotting corpses "Its Pepsi. Well, You probably figured that one. I'm just gonna sit down and maybe you and me can have a talk."

I sat down on Dallas grave and glanced over at the empty plot beside it. Johnny should have been there. His parents, though…they didn't want their boy anywhere near this hood. It just didn't sit right with me, with any of us, but then Mom always told me it didn't matter what was left over; it was what was gone that lived on. For Johnny and Dallas, I was willing to believe it. If you wanted the truth, Johnny's death didn't impact me like Dallas' had and I found myself never thinking of him. Any time I did, I couldn't get past the thought that Dallas and I should have been the ones to stab Bob and run away and maybe save those kids if we were sober enough. Maybe then there wouldn't be a grave here and it just hurt to think shit like that. So I shook my head and reached into my pocket for the crumpled cigarettes I had picked up on my way over and laid them on what should have been Johnny's grave. I turned my attention to Dallas' headstone.

"Brought you something," I said and pulled a bottle out of my jacket "Nicked from your old man's place. Looks like he was only half way through this bottle."

I poured the whiskey over the grass and watched as it soaked it up greedily. I felt bad then. We hadn't shared a drink since the first anniversary of his death and now it was three anniversaries since that night and I'd been back in Tulsa for about two months. He'd be pissed if he didn't know I'd been thinking about him a lot lately.

"I know you never liked listening to my sob stories, so if it's ok with you I'm just going to sit here for a while."

I sat and watched his tombstone for a while. No one could afford anything decent, so he got the basic "Dallas Winston. Nov. 9 1948 – Sept. 22 1966." Johnny's was the same, but the dates were different. Johnny was only sixteen and Dal…damn, he was just a couple months short of being eighteen. They were both too damn young.

"Stop staring."

"I'm not staring," I muttered back "Just looking."

"Then stop lookin'."

I sighed. I wasn't having a real conversation – Dally'd been dead for three years. But I was it really that unreasonable to know what he'd say and imagine it? This is why I didn't do grief. I didn't do it then and I sure as hell wasn't going to start now.

My mind drifted as I sat there and I didn't like any of the places it went. So I decided on the most pressing one just for the hell of it. It had nearly been a full week since I had seen hide or hair of Ponyboy – which was something when you considered he was supposed to be home all day spending his suspension doing homework and the like. But like I said, the next week went by without a hitch. I came home, slept, got up, went to work and repeated the process over and over again.

I was dreading the weekend. I knew Darry or Soda would want to talk about whatever the hell they thought went on in the car between Ponyboy and I, but I knew if I was going to get a talking to it was going to be both serious and one sided since I had nothing to say back. If they wanted to know, they could get Ponyboy to spill a hell of a lot easier than they could get me to talk. That was the one good thing about this job; I went on just as Darry and Soda were walking through the front door. It left little time for me to see anyone. Two-Bit had even been mysteriously absent, even at the bar. I was starting to think the only people who didn't mind my company were Dottie and Dallas. I smirked to myself and imagined he might be a little annoyed at me for sitting on his grave like this. Wouldn't that be perfect – to have a corpse mad at me, too. I shook my head and shivered a little from the cold wind.

I drew my knees up to my chest and rested my chin on them.

"You're moping."

"Am not," I defended

"Just like you weren't starin'."

"Give me a break. My life is shit." I shrugged

"At least you have a life."

"Not my fault you don't."

That seemed to shut him up. Believe you me this is about when Dallas Winston would be giving me a black eye, not talking anymore. I was waiting for the usual "fuck you" to come, but I was interrupted by the sound of an engine. I didn't bother to look up and waited for whoever was going to come over to get on with it. I caught a hint of perfume on the wind and hoped to hell it wasn't Sylvia. To say she and I didn't dig each other was like calling an elephant a mouse; it was the understatement of all understatements.

"Hi –er – Soda?"

I didn't need to look up. At least it wasn't Sylvia. I didn't need to start a fight in a graveyard.

"Pepsi," I corrected dully "Hi, Cherry."

Neither of us said anything for a few minutes and finally she stepped forward so I could see her out of the corner of my eye. Her red hair was loose and she was wearing a black skirt. She had flowers in her arms and I made a promise to myself that I was going to let everyone know that if I ever died people were not to bring me flowers.

She set them down in front of the stone and stood out of the way quietly. She finally shifted from foot to foot and I knew she'd want to talk.

"I go to school in Oklahoma City," she stated "I come every year, though."

What did she want? A Medal?

"I just never see you here," she explained

Imagine that.

"Maybe we just miss each other or something."

Doubt it. Nam doesn't give day passes, Sweetheart.

"If not, I guess you have your reasons."

And I don't have to explain them to you.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" she asked, sounding like she was exasperated with me

"You know, dying is the only thing in this world we were born to do," I commented and glanced up at her for the first time "Johnny and Dally just got to it a little faster than you or me."

"What's your point?" she asked, trying to look and sound much tougher than she was

"If it were you in the ground, Dally and me wouldn't bother," I pointed out

"That's where you and me are different then," she stated, the calm outside starting to fade away to the fiery redhead Dallas had joked about getting into his bed

"You'd do well to remember that," I told her

"I wasn't giving them charity, if that's what you're thinking," she defended

"Wouldn't dream of it, Soc."

I got up then, turning away and wishing I hadn't sat so long that my foot was asleep. I didn't look back at her, but there was one last thing that needed to be said.

"When I'm dead, don't bring me flowers."

/-/-/-/-/-/

"Did anyone ever tell you that you have a strange fixation with death?"

I glanced up at Dottie and shrugged. No one had ever told me that, but it was possible she was right. I'd been to see Dal earlier today and basically told Cherry that I wasn't long for this world and everyone would be better off because of it, but that was out of context.

"Seriously, Curtis. You told me yesterday that when winter got here everything was going to be dead, any kid who comes in is dead and that yowling cat out back is dead when you get your hands on it. Then you start to talk about how we all die and that you think some of us need to remember that before muttering about fruit. Your basic death fixation with cherries on top, apparently."

"You've got a fixation with candy then," I countered, not willing to explain Cherry

"Oh?

"Everything is sweet. 'Sweet this' and 'sweet that' and 'sweet so forth'."

"I have cited examples. Nice try, Curtis. King me."

I sighed and set a Coke cap on top of her shot glass. We'd found the checkerboard out back but had nothing to use as pieces. So she was shot glasses, I was rocks and when either of us got King'd, there were bottle caps. It was working out well. We'd considered chess first, but there was no way to make that work with our current pieces. So I jumped one of her shot glass pieces and figured if we were both 21 we could both use shot glasses and fill them with different colored liquor to tell which team was which. Every time you got jumped you'd have to drink that player down. First one drunk pretty much loses.

Obviously I had a lot of time on my hands. Weeknights weren't half as busy as weekends. You had the usual patrons who came by the bar, got a drink and went to wallow away their self-pity. I glanced over Dottie's head and watched one of them for a minute. I liked to pretend I didn't know him, just like he liked to pretend he didn't know me, either. That was one of the hardest parts of this job.

When I took this job I knew I would get people I knew, like Two-Bit, through here all the time. And I would know most of them just because I lived on the east side. A lot of the guys who graduated a year ahead of me were here on the weekend and I had to call a few of Tim's boys on being under 21. But the one person I knew I was expecting deep down was the one person in this entire place I could barely stomach being there. Every time he came up and glared at me, or worse smirked at me like we shared a secret, I just wanted to put my fist through his face. It was lucky for him that Dallas looked so much like the Winston side of the family or I would have; job or no job. There was just something about punching the man Dallas got his looks from that was like punching Dallas himself. I couldn't do it. Didn't matter if he was dead and I wanted to.

So I'd pushed on through the night and had the satisfaction of pitching him out on his ass after he became too drunk to stagger out on his own. I never did understand how people could drown themselves like that unless someone was going off to war or I they just lost their parents or something enormously life affirming. I blame him for the fact I kept losing at checkers.

"So," Dottie broke me from my thoughts as we were cleaning up the bar "There's a party in the Student Centre this weekend, if you want to go?"

I often had to remind myself that she was a college chick. I often had to wonder why I had to remind myself. She was a hell of a lot smarter than anyone else I knew.

"You know, if I'm not grounded until the end of my life, I'll drop by."

"Grounded? Seriously? You're like what, 20?"She asked

"Give me another week and I will be," I corrected, wiping the bar free from the rings of condensation that had dripped from the cold beers served throughout the night

"So, what's up with being grounded?" she asked again and I shrugged

"It's a long story."

"And you have anywhere else to be at one in the morning on a Thursday night?"

I sighed then. She did have a point. Like I said, she was probably the smartest person I had ever met.

"I'll cook you something," she offered "Or are you still too rattled to eat?"

She'd invited me to a burger earlier, but I hadn't been in the mood. Something about the fact Dally would never eat again and the fact not eating eventually led to death had been appealing at the time. My stomach made an appreciative noise at the thought of food and I nodded.

"Good. Let's go to my place – you can tell me the story on the way."

Now, it wasn't like I didn't know where Dottie lived – I'd been dropping her off every night since her car had decided to 'throw a tantrum and was serving a time out for the foreseeable future.' Apparently that meant it was broken down or something. Shirley had suggested that meant something closer to 'she just wants you to give her a ride'. I was so tired of trying to figure out the women I knew. Lily was enamored with a Soc who beat her, Two-Bit's mother was sleeping with the boss that hated me, and Dottie was making excuses to get me alone. If they made any less sense, I was going to…hell, I didn't even know anymore. Probably just let them continue to confuse me or something equally unproductive.

I shook my head and finished locking up while Dottie sat in the idling T-Bird. As far as I knew, Merrill was happy to be rid of the thing, so there was no hurry to get it back. With that thought in mind, I made my way around the car slowly and climbed into the thing like a tired old man probably would. Dottie raised an eyebrow at me and a quiet 'huh' escaped her lips. I sent her a look and she sighed.

"You know, this whole 'the whole world should feel sorry for me' vibe is doing nothing for you, Princess," she stated and I blinked

"I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me," I informed her

"Then you should really check your body language," she replied and I pulled the car out onto the street without comment "So, this grounding story…"

"I may have put the fear of god into my kid bother," I said, remembering the way he had looked at me like I was the scariest person alive

"Why?" she asked simply and I appreciated it

"Long story."

"It always is with you. Try again."

"He doesn't understand anything, but he has this 'holier than thou' attitude about everything that he uses to make you think otherwise," I paused as we turned the corner "I got sick of it and took him on a joy ride that was anything but."

"Huh. What doesn't he get, specifically, that's pissing you off so bad?" she asked and I denied myself the drawn out sigh I felt getting ready to make itself heard

"The war, the veterans, me mostly…I just wish he would leave me alone about it, you know? He keeps telling me I'm hiding from it all because of these nightmares I keep having."

"Might help the dreams if you talk about it."

"Don't you start, too," I ordered and she waved me along "We had a blow up over this guy begging for money by the store. You know what that guy will spend it on? Drugs and booze. So what does he do? He gives the guy money behind my back and essentially accuses me of being just as helpless."

"Did he say that?" she asked and I growled

"Might as well. Accused me of hiding, not confronting it. He said more, but I was done listening. He didn't know shit about it and he was acting like I was the one who knew shit. I wanted to smack him."

"But you didn't."

"No, I held off. I tried to pretend everything was just peachy in my life. So I get a job and everything is starting to calm down again. What does the kid do? He gets himself in trouble and I have to go and bail him out."

"Jail?"

"No, suspension. Had to meet with the Principal and everything. Had a parent teacher conference with Tim Shepard and his kid brother there, too. So we get to the car and he starts accusing me of not defending him and to being a good enough role model and basically screwing up big time even though I didn't know I was. He was mad at me and it wasn't fair."

"Sounds rough," she stated as I pulled up out front her building "Tell me the rest up top so we don't wake the neighbors."

"Sure," I gritted out and cut the engine

I was riled up again and there was nothing I could do about it. I had lost my chance the moment we pulled over. I should have circled the block a few dozen times and screamed until my lungs gave out. Too late now. I got out of the car and followed Dottie upstairs to where her apartment was. She was on the top floor and the whole building was quiet. Yeah, definitely no yelling. I followed along behind her, acutely aware of the fact I had never been in a girls apartment before. It wasn't bad, like I expected. She had nicer furniture than we did at home, there were stacks of books around the room and everything was mildly messy. It felt like Dottie lived here.

"Ok, so your brother seems to have lost faith in you and it's bugging the hell out of you," she summed up "But this has been going on for at least a month. What made last week in the car special?"

"I said something in that car," I sighed "It just came out and it hit me like a wave."

"Something to do with death?" she asked, pulling out a carton of eggs from the fridge "How do you like them?"

"Sunny side up," I told her and she looked at me until I nodded "Yeah, something to do with death."

"Your death?"

"Yeah."

"Pepsi, I'll admit a lot of what I know about your past is second hand, but I would be surprised if it wasn't affecting you. You went and fought in Vietnam, right?" she asked and I nodded "Well, there was a lot of death. It seems reasonable you would be forced to deal with it."

"You don't know the half of it. I was declared dead for four months or something."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Army mix up or something."

"And…?"

"And everyone moved on with their lives. I lost my gal, my kid brother and I grew apart, nothing makes sense anymore and…I dunno."

"You've used up that card, try again."

I sighed, wondering why I wasn't telling her off. Maybe I needed to talk about this or something, but I really didn't want to give her an answer. She just watched me with piercing blue eyes until she had to tend to the eggs. I took that opportunity to get it out before I chickened out.

"I told the kid I was better off filling up that grave."

She turned to look at me then, nothing but honest caring in her eyes. It had been a long time since I got a look just like that. Four whole years. Had it really been that long since my mother died?

"Since then it's the only solution that seems to make sense. I even went to see my dead best friend today and the dead kid who worshiped him. They can't hurt anyone anymore. They can't keep screwing things up and…maybe the Army had it right."

Dottie sat down the spatula and came over to the table. I was forced to crane my neck to look up at her.

"Pepsi, I doubt anyone would prefer you dead. That statement scared someone who loves you enough to tell you the things you don't want to hear. If you told your brothers what you just told me, they would be in a state because they love you. Right now, the only person confused about this death thing is you," she pointed out gently "And when you get it figured out, everyone else will still feel the same way."

She turned away from me then to tend to the eggs and I mulled over what she had said. A lot of it made sense and that was the most confusing part of it all. I was glad we ate in silence and I was glad when she suggested I sleep on her couch instead of driving home. I knew for a fact I needed a few days of thinking before I dared go home. She was right. Death scared the hell out of my family, even if I needed it, but what I needed more was to figure this out before I did something stupid and got everyone worried for nothing.

Something told me it was going to be a long couple of days.

Huh. Not really sure what I wanted to accomplish in this chapter, but it gets the ball rolling. Hopefully this was a good recap for everyone and everyone enjoyed and all that.

Any comments at all are welcome and flames are accepted.

See ya in the funny papers!!!

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