I've made a few subtle edits and decided to take this story back to a T rating. Hope you enjoy!

THE TRIP

PART XXI

Tulsa's only five miles behind us and Darry's already studying the map in the passenger seat, its accordion folds spread open across his lap and partially propped against the dash. His finger traces the spiderwebs of tiny pink lined highways as he double-checks the itinerary he worked up last week, calculating all our possibilities. Every now and then he nods or shakes his head in this silent conversation with himself, confirming he's found the best route, the best camping sites, the best places to stop for gas or to take a leak.

Soda's driving the first shift, foot heavy on the gas, excessively speeding to make up some time we lost from our late start. I guess he feels like he owes it to us, since it was his fault we didn't get off at Darry-the-self-proclaimed-Travel-Expert's recommended time of eight sharp. With Soda not in his bed and nowhere to be found, Darry burned up the front sidewalk where he paced back and forth, waiting, checking his watch and going over everything in the trunk a hundred times, making sure not a single item had been forgotten.

Soda finally rolled back home about ten, carrying nothing but a vague apology and an almost empty pillowcase with his bare minimum essentials. "Hey sorry I'm late guys. Had some business to tend to."

Now we're heading south and east, the road inviting and endless, and whatever made Soda late doesn't appear to be bringing him down so far. In fact, nothing's holding any of us back as we shoot for the state line and let our spirits stretch out a little. Remembering there's a whole universe outside this town, outside this weathered little family and it's as much ours as it belongs to anyone else. And that there'll always be a far greater story than the little one we're writing every day.

Darry's giving Soda directions as he struggles to fold back the map. "I say we cut over here and we'll make it to Texarkana by nightfall. Tomorrow mornin' we'll get to Natchitoches by lunch and look around, find Mom's old house." Darry finally gives up and throws the crumpled map against the windshield in frustration. I chuckle under my breath at the temper that always gets the best of him.

Soda blows a bubble then inhales, sucking it loudly back into his mouth and adds, "Then out to Kisatchie right, Dad's old bayou?" His tongue works at removing the gum strand stuck just below his lip.

Darry nods and I envy the way they throw these Louisiana names around so easily like they belong. To me they sound foreign and I'm reminded how much better they knew our father.

"Hey look at that," Darry says quickly and points at a used car lot on the side of the highway. I turn to catch a glimpse as we fly by it. "There used to be a motel right there. I remember that windmill sign. We stayed there with Dad one night, a long long time ago."

"Yeah I think I do 'member that," Soda says slowly, like he's allowing the memories to settle into place. "We got rained out of our campsite and he took us there instead," and I crane my neck to look again, this time out the back window as the windmill grows smaller until the horizon swallows it whole.

I figure I was left at home with Mom when nothing about it strikes a chord, and I tell my brothers, "I must not've been with y'all that night."

"Yeah you were," they say at the same time, without any kind of doubt. And once again I'm finding out how I played a part in some long-ago play I never knew existed.

"Speaking of campsites, I found a real good one at the state park on Cane River." You can tell Darry's excited when he starts talking fast. "Has bathrooms and showers, we can rent a boat, and they got grills for our fish and maybe some frog legs if y'all wanna go giggin'," and as he's listing off all the perks of our accommodations, we both notice that Soda's shaking his head and we stare at our brother as he keeps his eyes on the road.

"We don't need all them things Dar," Soda says soft but firm, and I'm thinking yeah we do, but I stay silent, because whatever Darry or I get out of this trip is not the reason we're on it. Whatever Soda wants, whatever he's looking for this week, we're ready to give it to him. So we watch him intently and wait for him to tell us what to do.

"If we're gonna camp, let's camp. Fuck all them state parks and the ready-to-go sites and waitin' your turn for the bathroom and borrowin' some toilet paper from some weirdo family who drove down from Missouri in matchin' t-shirts." Soda throws his blinker on and pulls over to a deserted spot on the side of the road. "Sorry, gotta take a piss."

He climbs out, already unzipping his fly and Darry and I look at each other with a shrug and a nod, like maybe Soda does have a point in all this. Though I feel a little sorry that Darry did all that research and his plans are on the verge of falling through.

Soda has his back turned to the passing cars while he unleashes a stream and marks his territory, the Earth as his. And an occasional honk brings about his casual half wave. Really, I'm kinda surprised he's not facing the road, his audience, without inhibitions.

He climbs back in and I scoot forward, lean in between my brothers' seats and pick up where he left the conversation. "So you wanna go somewhere more remote you mean?"

Soda's waiting before he has to merge back in oncoming traffic and he turns to face us with a look I haven't seen from him in awhile. "Let's go get lost in the bayou," he says with a pull that somehow already has me convinced. "I want us to fall off the grid. I wanna be unfound, so we can find each other. God, does that even make sense?" He pauses to adjust the rearview, until it's lined up where we can see each other's eyes. "I wanna go deep with y'all."

Under a thick canopy of dense and rioting branches, we're shaded even more by the Spanish moss that grows heavy here and sweeps the forest floor. We're close enough to water, but far enough to be away from the snapping gators, though we spotted a couple along our way to the protected clearing that my little brother deemed acceptably wild and uncivilized enough.

Setting up our camp was easy for Soda of course, and surprisingly for me as it all came back like second nature, even though it's been almost a decade since I've staked a tent, but we had to help steer the process with Pony, who's never had the proper chance to learn.

It's been three days so far of no human contact except for my little brothers, and Pony and I are catching up fast to Soda's stubbled beard.

We've watched Soda relax into nature and earth, molding to fit into the swamplands as seamlessly as any Creole, and I know we're both imagining our brother as he must've been in the jungle, and though a bit unsettling, it's impressive all the same.

"Ya'll had any bites?" I ask and I know Soda hasn't cause he's already laid his cane pole down and stepped away, wading into the water.

"Just a couple nibbles," Pony mutters and slaps at another kind of bite, a mosquito that leaves a smear of blood, the partial meal it'd already managed to suck out of his leg.

We're as lazy and sluggish as the humidity, and you can't get further away from responsibilities and routines than this, three brothers fishing, isolated in a different kind of country than we're used to, and even the shrieks of some of the birds sound almost exotic to my ear, different than regular old Oklahoma birds.

But our blood roots run deep along this Cajun bayou where Dad was raised, and I see him in every bend and turn of the river we're following.

I notice Soda eying the murky water below as he goes in deeper, and a blinding flash of sunlight on steel exposes the Bowie knife he holds at his side.

"What the hell's he doing?" Pony asks but to himself, and in a matter of a millisecond, Soda's raised his knife and has already hurled it down in agile and fluid form, disturbing the water that now splashes and ripples out from the violent but flawless attack.

Soda, grinning and proud, holds up the fish that's been pierced straight through, still flapping its gills and arching, suffocating on a Southern breeze.

"Whoah did you see that?" Pony asks me in amazement. "Damn, Soda Curtis for the kill," he laughs then calls out, "that was cool as hell man."

And it was.

I feel my father smiling through me.

xXx

The sound of Pony's shot ricochets, slicing soundwaves cleaner and faster than the bullet zipping off through woods, missing its coke bottle mark. "Pony you need to get them eyes checked," I tease him and he's already firing back at me.

"Oh I'm sorry Darry," he says with heaping sarcasm, "I must've been absent from school the day they went over weaponry."

Soda chuckles and takes Dad's old shotgun gently from Pony and hands it to me, mindful of where it's pointing. "So you're not a good shot Pony. Who the hell cares? I'm glad you don't got a reason to be."

With a lanky arm propped on Pony's shoulder, he's leaning in a relaxed stance, his smile now aimed at me, ready to see what I can do. "Alright Mr. BB Gun Backyard Champ, let's see if you still got it, old man."

And at the challenge that's poised in both his grin and his eyes, I laugh knowing I'm about to get my ass whooped by a little brother who's never stopped trying to one-up me.

"Alright," I say casually, and I make a show of stretching out and loosening up my muscles, just to kid around, but I'm all business when I line up my shot. It's been awhile since I've hunted or shot skeet but I still hear all of Dad's patient instructions as I find my aim, the stock of the gun pressed firm against my shoulder, ready for the recoil, eyes locked on my target. I hold tight to wood and steel while willing the rest of me relaxed, and hold a breath when I pull the trigger, releasing all that fire and power that bites back deep inside my chest. In a blink the bottle is nothing more than shards, annihilation in a dust cloud of fine glass twinkling.

"Hey man, nice shot," Soda drawls and his slap on my back is as sincere as his compliment. And along with the proud satisfaction that comes from the expert's approval, it's strange to feel far younger than him in so many ways. Soda knows what it is to be a soldier and hell, now a father. A real one. Not some half-ass guardian to a teenager. Standing next to him, I feel like some kid.

The gun gets heavy when I watch him turn and walk away from us, not even bothering to shoot. There's no reason for showing off. For him, this pissing contest is nothing but child's play.

"Wait Soda, ain't you gonna show us how it's done?" Pony wants to see it for himself, this accomplished marksman in our midst. And hell so do I.

The soldier stops and turns to face us, his brown hand coming up to meet his forehead, not in salute but to shield his squinting eyes from a late afternoon sun and I realize we're all three standing in the exact same way, looking at each other under the visors of our palms and fingers aligned.

His smile is as slow and lazy as his speech, "So I guess you wanna see how I did it in the jungle huh?" and our nods are hardly necessary.

He returns to take the weapon from my hands, treating it carefully in the transfer. But once it's away from me, he handles it more naturally, smooth and relaxed. And Pony and I watch his every move as he gets in position, this brother of ours, this headhunting sniper. It's hard to fuse the two and I don't think I ever will.

He crouches then lies on his belly in tall grass, propped by his own two elbows, because I guess that way feels more familiar to him, how he's used to shooting; hiding, laying low, always tracking. And Soda's hands are almost graceful how they caress the trigger, and I can't help but think of the devastation those hands have caused, when he lived another life.

As he concentrates, I could swear the look that settles on his face is something I don't recognize as his, and I have to look again to make sure he's Soda and not someone more sinister, with far colder blood.

The bayou suddenly darkens when we find ourselves under the racing shadow of a storm cloud. The blazing sun's been overpowered and somewhere high above the skeleton trees, a bird hollers out our hallelujah for this reprieve. I hear the cock of the gun and when Soda does it, somehow it sounds louder and far more dangerous, and I know the remaining bottles have no chance in hell against the prowess of a hunter such as this.

My stomach feels as unsettled as the charged atmosphere and his subtle eye shift to the right is his final look to be sure Pony and I are safe and clear of his line. And before I can say what the fuck, Soda's fired off three quick shots in succession, none of them coming near the bottles, each one aimed in three distinct areas, encompassing the arc of 180 degrees. And we're left with the smell of a smoking gun and the feathered carcasses of two birds and an unsuspecting water snake who'd slithered too far out in the open, all three blown to bits without mercy or mistake.

Pony and I are stunned to silence as we look to Soda who's hopping back to his bare feet. He meets our eyes and all the awe they hold, and lest we think these are unnecessary killings, he tells us, "We can eat those ya know."

Despite the fifteen degree temperature drop, despite the wind and rain that slap and shake our canvased shelter, it's hot and stuffy in this three man tent. I'd strip down to my underwear but I never wear it, and I don't think Pony or Darry would put up with that, at least not in quarters as close as this.

I haven't talked about Vietnam much with them, not since I first came home and they asked a lot of questions that I never minded answering. There's no harm in talking about it, long as you stick to the surface and don't go near the dark stuff. And besides, I like telling stories. But that was all before the subject became taboo in our house. When my brothers decided what I was or wasn't able to handle. And I watched them bury my war in the dirt of the family secrets, and they've tiptoed around it ever since.

Not that I blame them.

And as much as I wanted this trip, needed this trip, I felt a panic rising the morning we were set to leave. There was only one person to call.

"Thanks for meeting me so early. And without hardly no notice."

"Soda," Dr. Fran tells me, smoothing out my profile sheets with plump and well manicured fingers, "I treat all my patients equally. But when the guy who's come up with every excuse to ditch a session, calls me on a weekend morning and says he wants to see me, how can I resist?" Her smile says she's only half kidding, but her eyes have always told the truth. "Intrigued would be an understatement."

It's strange to see her in a jogging suit instead of dressed for the office, and it's almost awkward, intimate even, like she's not wearing clothes at all.

I stretch the neck of my t-shirt away from my throat and take a strangled breath. "I'm leavin' town today. Going campin' with my brothers."

Her eyebrows raise and my stomach sinks, sure she's thinking this is a horrible idea. "I think it'd be nice for you and your brothers to get away," she says instead, pulling her glasses off to see me better. "But how do you feel about it Soda?"

"Nervous." I've been hunted down and shot at and my own two brothers make me nervous. "Scared I'm gonna spill somethin'."

"And what does that mean?" The silence after her question drags me forward. And I'm searching for the words along the way.

"Everything I've kept from them, that they don't wanna hear, shouldn't have to hear, might just come oozin' out cause I can't hide it no more." The arms of the chair feel like the only things holding me up.

"And then what Soda? What would happen if you spilled it? They know you've been to war. They know you've seen terrible things, participated in wartime behaviors." My chest clenches at the thought and she has no idea what this does to me.

But there's something that calms me whenever she returns to the one constant in my therapy, like she's lighting and relighting the same tiny candle, the one message she's been banging in my head this entire time. "Hiding your truth is holding you back. When you can let it go by opening up and talking about it, only then will you truly be free of the war Soda."

And I knew that's what she was gonna say. Maybe I just had to hear it one last time.

"Did you ever shoot at night? And what were the nights like over there anyway?" Pony asks, sprawled out bored on top of his sleeping bag, his arms bent, hands clasped behind his head. Darry's crawling to the corner stuffing socks where the rain's found a way in and the thunder threatens and growls, restless.

I roll to my side and face my little brother, his eyes searching and forever curious. "Depends, if I was on patrol or not. But it was so dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face, and I mostly stayed real still and listened, got real good at decipherin' sounds, or sometimes I was on a mission and I walked or even crawled all night for a sneak attack, and sometimes I just sat there and tried not to think about home, and oh, sometimes, on a crazy night we'd..."

I meet myself in my past again as the memories come bubbling up unforced, and Pony and Darry hang on every word.

xXx

Gunshot eyes and stolen breath, I jerk awake. Where the hell am I? Searching fingers meet a body, a live one next to me who groans and rolls over at my touch. The rhythmic breathing of men asleep can't compete with the pulsating waves of bullfrog croaks and all those other cries of the night roamers. I grab my head to keep it from splitting open and I've gotta get outta here. I crawl out of my tent and out of my pants and out of my mind.

Wake me up Dad. Wake me up.

I walk until the earth gets cooler and mud rises up soft between my toes. I keep going where the moonlight meets the river and takes me in. I'm naked and waist deep, back to water, back to birth, back to where I started.

I'm a broken man, a stolen life, a walking sin. Nothing but a mother's disgrace and a father's fear. They gave everything they had to keep me good. But nothing could set me straight, not her Bible, not his belt.

Christ Almighty Soda why can't you keep that mouth shut boy?

Because I asked for it.

Palms up against the flow of the current, wrists exposed. Burning flesh, a human ashtray.

We got a live wire here Doc. Self harming with his own cigarettes. Fought us. We had to restrain him. Had to.

Yes, tie me up, hold me down. You have no idea who all I've burned.

Can water cleanse? I sink down and let it take all of me, the air escaping my lungs through my nose. My eyes and mouth closed tight against my past and this river and all my father ever was. I hear my mother praying feverishly over my sins.

But I don't wanna burn in hell momma...Soda baby, you best fall to those knees and ask His forgiveness...

How long can you hold your breath before your life is snuffed out? I start to struggle, my head whips wildly on its own, back and forth, back and forth, my brain begging, my body clawing for air. I need to hold it just a little longer.

I rise to surface, head thrown back and mouth open wide, greedy for air, water flings and splashes like fireworks against an inkblot sky, each droplet its own universe, reflecting light from the moon like crystals. Glory's crystals.

An eye for an eye though ain't that right?

And I'm still a killer when the baptism fails.

In the eastern sky there's a hazy slip of pink and somewhere I hear the meditative praying of the Holy Rosary and the sound of a wild blues harmonica. The sound of a maniacal laugh. It takes a moment for me to realize the shrieking laughter is coming out of me.

I know where forgiveness lay.

It's our last night. We're sick of fish so we pass our one can of Spaghettios around. Darry's spoonfuls are huge and he ends up wiping out half the can on one turn.

"Damn Darry save some for the rest of us," I complain, eyeing what's left when it gets back to me.

"Pony you can have my share," Soda says, leaning back in one of our three lawn chairs that circle the fire, "I ain't all that hungry."

I've been wondering if something's going on with him since he showed back up to camp this morning, wet and naked. But except for this turndown of food, he's been acting pretty normal today and besides, skinny-dipping's nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to Sodapop Curtis.

The sticks crackle and burn and the smoke snakes up and around us, our protector against the no-see-ums and mosquitos. Beyond our smoky veil, they're dined upon by the twilight bats that swoop and dive down, putting on their show of aeronautics.

It's a relaxing evening listening to the nightbirds call, mostly cause it's over soon, we made it, we survived our trip and tomorrow brings the comforts of home. River water just doesn't get the job done. I need a shower. I need a shave. My beard's already past the itchy phase, but I can't keep my hands out of it and that's what's driving me crazy. "Darry you look pretty cool with a beard," I compliment him to make up for bitching over the food.

"Really?" and like me, he runs his hand through a week's worth of growth. "Maybe I'll see what Liz thinks." Something tells me she's gonna give that one a thumbs down but I don't say it.

I look at Soda who's studying the stars, and I'm feeling a bit of peace. Like maybe we achieved what we set out to do this week of roughing it, and Soda found a part of himself again. I think we all did.

"I'm bettin' you can't wait to get your hands on Grip," Darry says right before he spits his tobacco into the flames. And I know we've both not brought up our nephew this entire time since we know how much Soda misses him, but tonight I guess Darry feels he's close enough to having him back, and at the mention of his name Soda's face lights up.

"You can't imagine," he says and folds his very empty arms. "We're takin' him to the doctor this week 'bout his eyes but it's not lookin' like they'll change."

"I hope they stay that way," I tell him and mean it, "I think it's cool as hell to have two different colored eyes. It fits him ya know?" Darry nods in agreement.

We talk a little more about Grip, then we go over our week, talk about what we'll miss, all the things we sure as hell won't, we shoot the breeze and laugh and joke around and we get Soda talking again. Get him to open up just a little bit more about his experiences. And this week, I think it's done him a world of good. My God are we actually getting somewhere?

"Did I ever tell you 'bout this soldier in my platoon?" Soda starts up and Darry and I immediately lock in. "Man, he was somebody you wouldn't wanna know."

Soda drags a stick around and through, tracing the heap of glowing embers and ashes, then stares when he sets the end aflame, the reflection lapping at his dark eyes. And something tells me this story is not the kind we're used to. Knowing the reputation of Tiger Force, I can't imagine the kind of people Soda fought beside. I glance briefly at Darry whose eyes are glued to our brother, and I know he's wondering if Soda might just be about to open up and share a little bit of that darkness.

We're ready. We can take it.

Soda's the best kind of storyteller, leaning forward and engaging, bringing you along on his adventures, and tonight around the campfire, he tells his tale almost like a ghost story.

"It was a free kill zone. Any villager left was our enemy. Our orders by then were to take anything that moved. Shoot first and ask questions later."

A pack of coyotes start their whooping and hollering, like banshees celebrating a fresh kill and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Soda's chewing at his nails and faintly says, "You wouldn't believe the kinda things that guy did," and now it's almost like he's fallen into a trance of sick remembering. He finally shakes his head like he's wiping it away and returns to us, clearer and in the present. "I watched him kill a woman once. Hell a girl. Couldn't have been no more than eighteen, nineteen. But hey I don't know, they're all little bitty over there."

My eyes dart over to Darry, and he hasn't moved a muscle. Soda goes on, "I mean, she was hidin' out with her rifle cocked. She'd have fired a round smack dab between our eyes had we not found her first." He takes his pointer finger and taps above his nose, then glides it along his left scarred eyebrow.

"But that guy, that soldier, man he grabbed that girl from behind and she may've been some rebel but then again, maybe she was just some kid scared shitless, and he beat her skinny arm against the wall until she dropped her weapon. Sure as hell the bones were shattered and broken." He shifts in his seat and takes in a deep breath and the Glory tattoo on his ribs rises and falls with the motion. "He had his arm around her throat in some choke hold, and his hand was coverin' her mouth. We couldn't afford her screamin' and cryin'. It'd give us away. And then I see the soldier's thumb and finger risin' up to pinch her nose closed. He smothered that girl right then and there."

My stomach drops about fifty stories and I swallow at my nausea. Darry's still frozen, his eyes a little wider.

Soda shakes his head like he's just now hearing this news himself, at the same time we are. "Ya know, it's one thing to kill someone fifty yards away standin' behind a gun, but to do it with your bare hands? And a woman?"

"God Soda, that's terrible. Jesus. How long did it take her to die?" And I wince at my question and wonder why I even ask it.

Soda doesn't miss a beat. "I dunno. Felt like forever but it also felt real quick. He had her lifted up real easy, and I can still see her bare feet hangin, not reachin' the floor and they were wigglin' and jerkin' and movin' crazy in a panic and finally, well, finally they just...stopped."

I think we all three open our nostrils wide to take in the breath that was stolen from the strangled woman.

Soda looks as haunted as if he's still living that moment and his eyes keep darting between Darry and me.

"And you know what?" he asks the both of us, clawing his hands through his hair and grasping for dear life, "That soldier was me."

A/N: Outsiders by SE Hinton

Many thanks to anyone who might still be reading this story :)