Chapter 24
I woke up early the next morning but I wasn't the first one up so I didn't have to make breakfast. Ponyboy was in the kitchen already making the eggs. Ponyboy was wearing my DX hat that I wear to work every day. I guess it was to cover up that blonde hair.
"Morning" I said cheerfully.
"What the hell happened last night? Who did this to my hair?" asked Ponyboy, sort of angry.
"Well, if I remember correctly, when we found you and Johnny, you were making out with some chick, you said that Dallas was lookin' good and he was your best friend, you ran out in the middle of street and almost got hit by a car, actually you forgot what to call a car, you called Soda by your dad's nickname for him, and you threw up on the side walk. Oh, and I called you a dumbass. Plus we had to sneak you in threw the bathroom window so Darry wouldn't find out" I said.
"Shit. I'm dead" said Ponyboy.
"Not yet, he still doesn't know" I said.
"He'll find out sooner or later. What am I gonna say when he sees my hair and that I've got a hangover?" asked Pony.
"Just hang around with us all day. Come to work with Tori and I" I suggested. Just then Darry came into the kitchen and we immediately changed the subject.
"So, Pony, what did you think of the movie last night?" I asked.
"It was just ok. It could have been better" replied Pony honestly.
"Did y'all have fun last night?" asked Darry, sitting down at the kitchen table.
"Yeah. Lots of fun. Listen, Dar, I gotta go to work early this morning. I was thinkin' maybe Ponyboy could come with me since he'd be here all by himself if he stayed here" I said.
"I don't see why not. I've gotta work all day and I won't be home till late tonight" said Darry. With that, Pony and I finished up our breakfast pretty fast and made our way to the DX. On the way there Pony started feeling sick.
"Kelsey, I don't feel so good" said Ponyboy, stopping dead in his tracks.
"Is probably just the hangover. Take really deep breathes it'll go away in a minute" I said. Ponyboy kept walking and even though I don't think the nausea went away completely I think it helped.
"This hangover sucks" said Pony between breathes.
"That's what you get for drinkin', kid" I said.
"Why are you yelling?" asked Pony.
"I'm not yelling."
"Yes you are. Stop it. Man, it's bright out here. It's giving me a headache" said Pony, holding his head.
"It's the hangover. Here, have my sunglasses" I said, tossing the glasses at him. He looked funny with my sunglasses on. Not that they were girly glasses or anything it was just a different look for him because he never wore them.
Ponyboy and I walked the rest of the way in silence. As soon as we got there, I got straight to work and left Pony in the garage. I was filling up a customers car when I could see the rest of the gang coming down the road in Steve's red pickup. Seeing that car again made me shudder. Soda and Tori waved at me frantically when they noticed me standing at the pumps. One thing I really liked about Soda was the fact that he was always happy to see me. He was always happy to see everybody unless you were a Soc, which in that case, I think he might of wanted to kill you. I didn't really understand why Greasers wanted to kill Socs if they didn't do anything or vise versa. It just didn't make any sense to me. Maybe the Greasers had some sort of instinct to kill them? Maybe Socs had an instinct to kill greasers? I don't think I'll ever know.
"Would you watch it? Your dripping gas everywhere" said the customer. I had gotten so caught up in what I was thinking about, I wasn't paying any attention to the gas. I said sorry, put the pump up, and the customer paid me.
"You outa be careful" said Soda.
"I know, I just got a little distracted" I said, walking with Soda to the gas station.
"How's Ponyboy doin' this morning?" asked Soda.
"Why don't you
ask him yourself? He's right over there" I said, pointing to
Ponyboy who was laying down on the counter top.
"How ya doin'
Pony?" asked Soda.
"I'm sick" said Pony.
"Your hungover. You was quite a site to see last night, wasn't he Tori?" asked Soda.
"Yep, it was kinda funny too. You said that you thought Dallas was kinda cute" said Tori.
"Just rub it in. What'd he do?"
"He tackled you and you threw up all over the concrete" I replied. About two hours later the rest of the gang went out for lunch. Tori and I had to stay behind and help Steve with one of the cars that had to be done by the end of the day. I guess he had gotten so far behind on the car that he absolutely had to work during lunch hour.
"How come your weren't at the party last night, Steve?" I asked.
"I had to watch Kristy" replied Steve from under the hood of the car.
"How's she doing?" I asked.
"Not so good."
"What happened?"
Steve thought for a little while before answering. Then he said "I can't tell you."
"Was it your dad?" asked Tori.
"How did you know?" questioned Steve.
I said "your sister told us about him. She told us that he hits her and you and does all this other bad stuff."
"Did she tell you about our sister?" asked Steve.
I tried hard to remember I couldn't recall anything being said about a sister.
"No" said Tori.
"I had a twin sister named Stephanie" said Steve.
"You wanna tell us what happened?" I asked.
STEVE'S STORY FROM HIS POV:
I remember it like it was yesterday. We were 14 going on 15. She went to this party and ended up with this guy. A couple of weeks later she found out she was pregnant. My mom sent her to live with my aunt in Alabama for 9 months until she had the baby. When the 9 months was over and she had the baby she brought the baby back here to Tulsa. She had no idea what to do with it. If I'm not mistaken, it was a baby girl and she named her Cherie. My father never knew about this whole thing until she had come back with the kid. I remember that night so clearly. I was sitting in the living room, rocking the baby's cradle, and Stephanie was in the kitchen making dinner for the baby. My dad came home early that night from the bar, which is unusual because he usually came home around two in the morning. He was really drunk that night. As soon as he came home he screamed at me "what the hell is that!" At first he thought it was my kid, but my sister stepped in before he could hurt me. My dad dragged her into the kitchen and started beating her with random objects. Her screaming was so loud it killed me cause I knew that I couldn't do anything or else I would get it too. Then I saw him bring out the frying pan and he hit her hard on the head twice. There was no more screaming after that, just silence except for the baby crying. I knew what had happened but I didn't want to except it.
My dad started making his way towards the baby with this evil look in his eye. He was going to kill her. He said "there's only one way to get rid of that mistake." I said "like hell there is." I picked up the baby and wrapped her in her pink blanket that she got from the hospital. Then I went to Kristy's room, got her up, and we ran out the door with the baby in my arms. I remember hearing once that the hospitals and police stations took in babies. I don't like the police so I took her to the hospital. I stood outside the hospital in the freezing cold for a long time. I couldn't help but wonder if I was doing the right thing. I looked down at the baby and I saw my sister and I couldn't help but cry. I must've been out there for an hour before finally deciding to giver her up but not without a good-bye. I said something like this: "I know your not going to remember me kid but I'm your uncle Steve. Your mom was my sister. Your mom was a pretty good person and she would've made an awesome mom had someone given her the chance. She loved you a whole lot. She even died for you. Your gonna be just fine, I know you are. You'll get sent to a nice, rich family that lives far away from here and they'll give you everything you would ever want and need. They'll love you like your grandparents never would. I'll make sure they're a good family" by this point I was crying, "I love you a lot even though your not my kid." I gave her a kiss and then took her and my sister into the hospital. I asked the receptionist where the nursery was and she pointed me in the right direction.
I found the nursery on the second floor and found the nurse I was suppose to give her to. I said "I'd like to drop this little girl off for safe keeping." I slowly handed the baby over to the nurse.
The nurse looked at the baby then looked at me and said "God bless you. It takes a lot of courage to do what your doing." The nurse put the baby in one of those clear carts and gave me some papers to fill out. They were just basic info papers like what was the baby's name, her birthday, stuff like that. I gave the papers back to the nurse and she said "she's in the room where they keep all the newborns if you would like to see her one last time."
I took one finale look at Cherie through that big glass window and knew that she was going to be ok. I blew her a kiss and started my long walk home. Well, actually, my long walk to the Curtis house. We had a small funeral service for Stephanie and surprise, surprise, my dad wasn't there.
BACK TO KELSEY'S POV
The garage was deadly silent except for Steve's crying. No wonder he was always mad all the time.
"Do you know what happened to Cherie?" asked Tori.
"Last I heard she was being adopted by some by the last name of Stacey in New Jersey. That was three years ago when she was just a baby" said Steve.
"What about the dad? What happened to him?" I asked.
"He's still around. When he found out, he didn't do anything to help Stephanie. I got so mad at him I gave him a broken nose. The last time he spoke was two years ago when I told him I had given the baby up for adoption. All he said was 'that's cool'" said Steve.
"That's it? He didn't care about what happened to her or anything?" asked Tori.
"No. He's a druggie so he was probably stoned when I told him" said Steve.
"I'm sorry. I had no idea" I said. In situations like these, I automatically feel the need to apologize even though none of it was my fault.
"It's ok. It happened a long time ago" said Steve. At that moment, I could hear a car horn blasting from outside and I knew the gang was back. We finished up the day at the garage and then everybody came back to our house (whoa, how did the Curtis house become our house?) It was around seven thirty and everybody was hanging out in either the living room or the kitchen. Then, Soda and Steve came up with the idea that everyone go to the movies. I figured it was going the be the same as last time, everyone else go and have fun and Darry stay home alone.
I was about to leave with Soda and Two-Bit and the rest of the gang when I noticed Darry sitting alone in the living room. Once again I felt sorry that he had to stay home while everyone else went out and had fun. I decided that that night I would stay home with him.
"Kelsey, ya comin?" asked Pony.
"No. You guys go on without me. My knee is botherin' me so I should probably stay here" I said.
"Ok" said Pony, making his way to join everyone else, "see ya later!"
"Bye!" I called out after them.
I went back inside and shut the door quietly behind me.
"How come you didn't go with them?" asked Darry from behind his paper.
"I don't feel like goin' out tonight" I said, lying down on the couch.
"You feelin' ok?" asked Darry.
"Yeah" I said. I picked up the switchblade that Dallas left behind and began playing with it, flicking it in and out, in and out.
"Having fun?" asked Darry.
"Yeah cause switchblades are just so much fun" I said sarcastically.
"You know you could have gone out tonight with everyone else. You didn't have to stay here" said Darry.
"I know but I wanted to stay home. You wanna play a game?" I asked.
"What game?"
"I dunno. I don't even know if we have any board games" I said. That was kinda sad. I had been there for months and I didn't know if they had any board games.
"I think there's some in the hall closet if you wanna go check" said Darry.
So I got up and looked in the hall closet. There were about seven games in there, most of which I had never heard of except one. Since I didn't know which one to pick, I brought all the games out and put them on the coffee table.
I sat down on the floor and said "let's see what we got here. There's Careers, Coppit, Headache, Nile, Sorry, Scoop, and Spy Ring."
"You pick" said Darry.
I picked Sorry since that's the only one I knew how to play. I set the game up and Darry joined me on the floor. I picked the blue game pieces while he got the red. We played for what seemed like hours and, surprisingly, I actually had fun. I think Darry did too. For once, in a long time, he was smiling. We were in the middle of our 3rd game when the phone rang. I answered.
"Hello?" I answered.
"Hello. Is this the Curtis residence?" asked a guy from the other end.
"Yes. Who is this?"
"This is Officer Brown at the Tulsa Police Department. We need for you to come and pick up the following kids: Sodapop Curtis, Ponyboy Curtis, Steve Randle, Keith Mathews, Johnny Cade, Dallas Winston, and Victoria Lewis" said Officer Brown.
I said "alright, we're on our way" and hung up the phone.
"Who was it?" asked Darry.
"The police. Everyone's down at the police station and they need for us to come pick them up" I said.
"What! What happened?" asked Darry.
"I don't know. He didn't tell me" I said. Without saying another word, Darry got up, got the car keys, and got in the car with me close behind. The car ride was silent. Darry was mad and I knew better then to try to talk to him when he was mad. When we got to the police station, we met officer Brown at the front desk.
"I'm Darryl Curtis. You called us earlier" said Darry.
"Yes, now, you only have to pay bail for your brothers, but if you like you can pay bail for the rest" said Officer Brown.
"How much is bail all together?" I asked.
"It's about seven hundred dollars. Separately, it only one hundred" said the officer. I took all the money I had out of my pocket. It was about 2 months worth of paychecks that I hadn't bothered to spend yet. It was only about 3 hundred which was enough to get 3 people out.
"I only have three hundred" I said to Darry. Darry took out all his money and began counting it. "4 hundred" said Darry once he was done counting it.
"What are you doing carrying around 4 hundred dollars?" I asked.
"What are you doing carrying around 3 hundred dollars?" replied Darry. We gave the money to the officer and he showed us where they were holding everybody. There were some strange people in jail. Some looked like they had been there about a hundred times before and others looked like it was there first time. And most of them looked like they wanted to hurt me. Lucky for me, I have never been to jail. Well, I have, I just wasn't arrested though.
When we got to the cell, no one could seem the make eye contact with us. Soda had his hand in front of his face, like he didn't want Darry and I to see him or something. The rest of the gang was just sitting around with there backs up against the wall. Except Tori, she was pacing back and forth, like she was trying to think of a way to get out of the mess they were in.
"Alright, you can go" said the officer, unlocking the cell. They got up and filed out of the cell one by one, looking at there feet as they walked. We were all quite until we were about half way home when Darry asked "what happened?"
Nobody answered.
"What happened?" repeated Darry.
"We got in a fight" said Tori in almost a whisper.
"All of you?" I asked. Dumb question, I know.
"Yeah. We were walking past one of the local movie houses when some Socs drove by and called us greasers. They jumped us. The cops came and broke up the fight" said Ponyboy, "the Socs got off easy as usual." For once, I was actually glad I didn't go out with the gang.
We got home and everyone just went to bed. I was surprised that Darry didn't yell at Soda, Pony, and Tori for going to jail. Maybe he was saving it all for them in the morning and he was just too tired to yell.
When I was getting ready for bed, I noticed that Tori looked like she was going to cry. "What's wrong?" I asked.
"Nothing" said Tori.
"Is it about going to jail?"
"yeah, I guess. I guess it's just shock or something. Who would of thought that , out of the two of us, I would be the first to go to jail. I thought for sure it was going to be you" said Tori, getting ready for bed as well.
"Nope, you were first" I said.
"Are you mad at me?" asked Tori.
"No, I'm not mad at you. Darry might be mad at you but I'm not. I'm actually kinda shocked to hear that you got in a fight and had to go to jail for it. You never seemed like the fighting type to me" I said.
"I only fight when I have to. The gang needed me so I had to" said Tori. What Tori was saying made it seem like what Pony told Darry was a lie.
"What really happened tonight?" I asked.
Tori got real quiet for a minute, then she said "we were just wondering around town, ya know, not really paying attention to where we were going. Before we knew it, we found ourselves in Soc territory. We were trying to find our way back when a blue Mustang pulled up along side us. There were about five or six Socs in there. I figured we could take 'em since there were 7 of us and 6 of them. The car stopped and they all stepped out one by one, like we did walking out of that jail cell. Anyways, they had us cornered within minutes. Two-Bit slipped on of his extra blades into my hand when I wasn't looking and in about two seconds, I was on the ground getting slugged left and right. I was about to pull out my blade when the cops came and got us. Like Ponyboy said, the Socs got off with just a warning while we went to jail. It's always the same. They get treated better then we do because they have more money then us. Apparently the cops thought that because they're rich kids, they're better then us when truth be told they're not. In a way, I think we're the same."
Tori was right. What some people failed to see was that greasers and Socs were the same. They had problems just like us. I think the only differences between us were the facts that they liked Beatles and we didn't. We liked Elvis and they didn't. They had money to waste and we didn't. Besides those things, I couldn't really think of any other differences aside from the clothes that we wear. Things weren't only rough for us but they were rough for them too. Hell, things were rough all over. I guess you could say that the sun sets on both sides of town.