"You want a cigarette? That's traditional, ain't it?"
I remembered the first time I'd ever had a conversation with Curly longer than 'is Ponyboy here, 'cause Dad's gonna kill him if he is', sharing a pack on the playground, how much things had changed since then. "Sure," I said, taking light, breathy drags. "Sure. Why the hell not."
The springs from Curly's lumpy mattress dug into my back, and there was a deep, persistent ache between my legs; even if I hadn't been thrumming with nervous energy, I still wouldn't have been able to get comfortable. "You gonna take that off?" he asked with too much nonchalance to be believed, pointing at Dallas's ring dangling around my neck. "Or are you keepin' it until he gets tired of you?"
"Keepin' it until he gets tired of me." I hadn't bothered to put my shirt back on yet, my jeans lying in a crumpled heap at the foot of his bed. I wondered what'd happen if Tim walked in. I wondered if I'd even care. "Sorry."
"Nah, I don't give a shit." He gave me the kind of perverse smile that'd look at home on one of his uncles, but not on him, not on the kid who'd shyly asked me if he was my first, too. "I get to fuck you behind his back, don't I?"
"Quit tryna sound tough, you ain't Tim." I rested my head on his chest and listened to the unsteady whoosh of his heartbeat, the wiry hair making the sides of my neck itch. "You're a damn romantic. You want me to be your girlfriend."
"Yeah, well, you ain't gonna be, are you?" He put another smoke between my lips and gave me a light without me having to ask for it. "Guess I'll take what I can get."
Nicotine didn't smear the hard edges of my world like alcohol did, just settled me down somewhat, and it was a dirty, cheap sort of high; nausea crawled up my irritated throat, and I stubbed my second cigarette out after only a couple of drags. "I can't go back home," I said, though I knew I'd have to. "I can't. It feels like the day my parents died."
Curly snorted. "Man, if I ran away every time my brother hit me, I'd live on the damn streets."
"Don't be an ass, he slammed him into the fucking door, I saw it myself."
"Hey, look, you know I like Pony fine, I ain't callin' him a pussy." Only implying it. "But if he'd just slugged Darry back, shit, me and Tim fight all the time. Now he's on the lam for murder 'cause he couldn't take it like a man."
"He's not the murderer, Johnny Cade is," I tiredly corrected, though I couldn't imagine it going down in my head no matter how hard I tried. Gentle, skittish Johnny, who looked and carried himself like a kicked puppy, stabbing Bob Sheldon in the chest? He'd been too frightened to even say a word to him at the Dingo.
The whole scenario had some poetic justice, though, Bob bleeding out on the ground thanks to the boy he jumped and left for dead. I liked that.
"Don't worry about your brother, seriously."
"What do you mean, don't worry about my brother?" I knew that Curly had a devil-may-care streak to him, and that the Shepard brothers expressed affection more through wrestling matches than hugs, but... not worrying about Ponyboy right now, despite the shit he'd caused for me? God, between him and Johnny, they had the street smarts of a scared goose. "Wouldn't you be a little worried 'bout Tim if he was runnin' from the law?"
"If that got me all hot an' bothered, I'd never get a good night's sleep again—" I punched him in the arm, hard. "All right, all right, you Curtises go off like fuckin' firecrackers— that ain't what I meant. Johnny's Indian, ain't he? Pretty obvious just from lookin' at him."
I gave him a sidelong glance out the corner of my eye. "So's Ponyboy."
Curly emitted a cross between a laugh and a cough. "You could never tell, shit, unless someone saw... you, I guess. He ain't like the rest of us, he'll get the sympathy vote from a jury. Johnny's the one who's gonna fry, c'mon, a redskin from the wrong side of the tracks? Pony, he'll be fine."
It was funny, despite our entire childhood— the cruel jokes that had followed us like ticks attached to a dog, that Pony was the milkman's broken condom and not really Dad's kid— it took until those lines for me to realize why, even more than Darry, he had so many middle-class friends and looked down his nose at the greaser girls. I groaned and flung an arm over my eyes, turning away from Curly. "I'm still worried."
Curly rolled over and planted a kiss on my open mouth. "It'll be okay," he said. "It'll be okay."
He looked young and washed-out in the wan light, and I had to laugh at my own naiveté, my stupid, childish delusion that all I'd needed to fix myself was a change of scenery. Having sex with Curly hadn't felt like sliding into a warm bath, finally comfortable and secure. It had felt like nothing at all.
I came home to Darry and Dallas circling each other like two wrestlers about to pounce, neither one willing to make the first move. The circles under Darry's eyes made them look as though they'd been blacked, but that couldn't compare to Dallas's face, trails of dried blood coming out of both nostrils and a gash cut into his left cheek. Was it the police? A fight? Did I want to know if it was both?
"I told you, man, it's a little hurtful you don't believe me." Dallas's body language belied his words, though, the way he couldn't quite make eye contact as he said it. "C'mon, how am I supposed to know where them crazy kids ran off to? You think they just showed up at my door last night or somethin'?"
Darry had him by the collar before another smartass remark could leave his mouth; Dallas sure seemed to end up in that position a lot. "You're involved in everything that happens on this turf, where the hell is my brother?"
"What's it to you?" Dallas put his palm against his broad chest and shoved him off— his v-neck had ripped from the force of Darry's grip, and he pawed at the jagged bit disgustedly. "Didn't get your kicks enough last night, want to have some more fun with him?"
"What?" Darry gaped at him, too dumbstruck to form a coherent sentence. "Who told you—"
"Yeah, you must feel like a big man now, Darry," he sneered, traces of his Brooklyn accent coming out in his anger, "slappin' around some fourteen-year-old kid the size of a border collie. That get your dick real hard?"
Unbidden, the memory of Norm and Dallas rolling around on the floor sprung to my mind. He never talked about the scars that littered his back, the ones on the insides of his wrists, the ones carved into his forearms, cringed away if my hands ever carelessly fell onto them. Of course this bothered him. Of course he cared.
"Dad would be ashamed of you."
Darry cocked his fist, even drew it back, but dropped it at the last second— maybe out of remorse, maybe because he feared the feral gleam in Dallas's eyes, itching for a fight. Even Darry didn't like to tangle with him, he was dangerous. "You're lyin' to me," he said, "you ain't gonna distract me that easy. Buck says he was down at the roadhouse last night, why else 'cept to see you?"
"You're the one who sent him runnin' for shelter," Dallas said, "don't think you got the right to ask much from me— or beat my head in." He shoved right past me like I was a shadow or a ghost, something insubstantial, and his fingers brushed against the doorknob. "Johnny's in this mess too, in a hell of a lot deeper than Ponykid. I got enough problems worryin' about him."
"Dallas." His head swiveled backwards the tiniest bit, more mocking than if he hadn't turned around at all. "You know if anything happens to him, I'll kill you, right?"
"Trust me, I already wanna kill you, so you better step off." He slammed the door hard enough to knock a mug off the coffee table, like when he was fifteen and fighting with Dad; Darry just clutched his head, too wounded by his words to go after him, but I didn't have any of those reservations.
"Hey," I called down the street, thinking he'd already hightailed it out of there, but found him leaning against the side of the house, a Kool between his cracked lips. "You look like shit. What were you really up to last night, huh?"
"Fightin' with Tim, Curly caught me slashin' his tires and ran right to tattle to his big brother," he said smoothly. "It was worth it, though, prick won't ever screw me over again with that little sugar-in-the-engine trick. He won't see out his left eye for a week, at least, that's good enough for me."
"This ain't the time for your fuckin' jokes, Dally, you better open that mouth of yours and tell me where my brother is—"
"I told the fuzz he was cruisin' on down to Texas, last I heard." He missed striking the match, cussed as the phosphorus head flopped loosely around on the cardboard base. "You wanna go lookin' for him, you can take a ride in Two-Bit's truck, he's tryna organize an expedition down to El Paso right now."
"It don't take Albert Einstein to figure out you got information, so why won't you just cut the shit—"
"Honey, you know what makes me such a good criminal?"
"Enlighten me."
"I never confide in nobody." He managed to strike it and smiled triumphantly— smoke curled around his head, as he exhaled from a drag that would've bent me over coughing. "Ever. No exceptions, not even for family... or my bitchy ex-girlfriend."
I stretched my toes out in my socks, pressed them up against the thick, uncomfortable seams. It didn't help calm me down; I still felt my anger crawl out of me, an anger I didn't know I could have on Pony's behalf. "Dally, please, goddamn you—"
"No, I'm not gonna tell you, and don't give me them big, manipulative eyes," he snapped. "The more you know— the more anyone knows— the more can be beaten outta you."
"He's my brother, Soda and Darry are his brothers too," I said, "you really think we're gonna call up the Tulsa World and announce where to find him?"
"He didn't rob a fucking gas station." Dallas slashed his hand through the air— I supposed I should count myself lucky he didn't bring it down on my face again. "Bob Sheldon's daddy owns half this town, he was the goddamn ringleader of the Socs, the whole city's on fire right now... and my best friend's a murderer, not that I'm judgin' him. I got enough to take care of without managing the Curtis clan's fucking feelings on top of that."
I was more surprised by him actually admitting Johnny was his best friend than by any of his vitriol. "Anythin' at all that could convince you to grow a soul and tell us?"
He gave me a mocking grin. "Get back together with me."
"Fuck you."
"I don't actually give a damn about you, ya know." The words would've stung a lot more if he hadn't bitten down on the corner of his lip as he said them. "No matter what you wanted to believe. You were just a fuck, same as Sylvia."
"That why you were beggin' me to take you back last night? Not so confident you can score more pussy?"
"This Soc broad, Cherry Valance?" He smirked at me, like he expected me to be impressed that a Soc broad would give him the time of day— but I thought even he didn't deserve her, that spineless, soft little thing, a man who respected strength above all else. "She and Sheldon were together, before he kicked it... she said she could fall in love with me, if she ever saw me again."
I leaned against the side of the house too, leaves crunching under my feet. It was getting colder; wherever Ponyboy was, did he at least have a sweatshirt on him? "Curly and I are fucking. Just thought you oughta know... it wouldn't have happened if you hadn't made such an ass outta yourself."
"Yeah, I heard, half the school saw that lil' show the two of you put on." He flicked the ashes at me. "Guess that's my type. Whores."
"Eat shit," I said, a tiredness permeating my entire body like I was weighed down with stones; I didn't want to fight with Dallas anymore, not when he was far more inventive, and nasty, and impossible to wear out. "If Mom knew you were gamblin' with Pony's life for your goddamn ego trip—"
His icy blue eyes spat fire at me; he didn't so much like getting a taste of his own medicine. "I made myself a fucking accomplice for your brother, I even gave him a gun, so don't you fuckin' dare tell me—"
"A gun? You gave him my daddy's gun, you mean?" My eyes narrowed against the bright Tulsa sun. "So you did see him, huh. Sent him on his way."
His finger was pointed an inch away from the center of my nose; I was mesmerized by it like it was a barrel. "You shut up."
"Remind me what's so special 'bout you that I gotta tail you?"
In exchange for selling his soul to the devil, Soda had managed to procure me a rotation of bodyguards. Unfortunately, he hadn't counted on Eli being savvy enough to only spare the kind of guys he could count on not being missed.
"Joe wants me dead," I said, surveying the seedy layout of the Ribbon like Columbus surveyed the New World, "and I needed to get out of the house before I spontaneously combusted, 'cause my kid brother's an accessory to murder. Any more questions?"
Sid glared at me from behind his sandy eyelashes. "I got taken offa my corner for this shit. That's real money I'm losin'."
"How old are you, fourteen? Count yourself lucky you got any corner at all." Tim hadn't even given Curly his own yet— I didn't really blame him. "You want a smoke?"
"Yeah, sure," he said between slurpy chews on the dip in his mouth— the first and only time I'd tried it, I'd ended up vomiting in the bushes outside the house and had to tell Mom her chicken pot pie hadn't agreed with me. Dad never gave me another wad after that. "You want to make out?"
"Uh-huh, you wish." His acne scars made the skin on his cheeks look like the surface of the moon. "Ain't those kinds of benefits to this job, sorry."
"So you're some mafia princess like Angela Shepard," he said scornfully, "guess you're less of a slut than her, though."
I was too busy cussing him out in my head to notice the barrel pressed into the small of my back. "Don't move," a reedy voice told me, "don't move."
I'd never listened to anything I was told, not even when my life was at stake, and of course I immediately spun around fast enough to dislodge the imprint of the gun against my spine— to find Evie's kid brother, Tony, sticking me up. He had a cowlick on the back of his head. He didn't take enough showers.
"Kid, you're not gonna do anythin', put it down." My blood rushed in my ears like an ocean wave, the time Dad took us down to the Gulf of Mexico, crashing and crashing and crashing around me, but I was more afraid for him than I was for myself. "You ain't gonna kill me."
I couldn't believe this was who Joe had thought a decent enough assassin for me, Evie's dweeby little brother, who I'd eaten peanut butter crackers with in her den less than a year ago. He fumbled with the safety and got it stuck. "Hey, buddy, you wanna help me out here?" I hissed at Sid, who was lighting a goddamn joint when he was supposed to be saving my life.
"Help you out with what?" he said. "Kid's never seen a heater before today, I'll give you five bucks if he knows what end the bullet comes out of. Here, it's like this—" he snatched the gun out of his hands and managed to flick the safety off, then snorted hard enough to dislodge the dip buried in his cheek. "Fucking hell, you moron, this thing ain't even loaded. This really the Kings' finest?"
Tony was sweating so hard his entire face shone, like it had been covered in a layer of plastic wrap; he grasped at the bricks on the alley wall, his legs trembling just from the effort of keeping himself upright. Sid silently passed me the joint, and I took a long drag from it before I said anything. "You'd think Joe would have enough money from all them whorehouses to at least get you some ammo."
"I had to do it," he gasped out like he was drowning on the words, "I can't just not do what my leader tells me, he'll kill me—"
"Yeah, I know," I said before Sid could jump in with something more cutting and harsh— I wasn't up to cussing out some eighth grader in over his head who, judging by the growing wet patch on his crotch, had pissed himself at the thought of having my blood on his hands. "Joe doesn't want me dead."
"What?" Sid snatched his precious joint right out of my mouth and took an angry huff on it himself. "Then what the hell am I doin' here?"
"Shut up," I said without looking at him, "you know I'm right. Joe's one of the biggest kingpins in this city, if he wanted a bullet in me, one would've driven right by me by now."
"I'm not in the mood to play Nancy Drew." Sid blew marijuana smoke right in Tony's face; he looked like he'd pass out from the unfamiliar smell. "Eli gave me a job, you're right, I should finish it— goddammit, we can't even shoot him, because his fucking dumb ass didn't even bother to make sure there were bullets in his gun first." He turned the heater over in his hands— Remington 1100, an outdated model, even. "Guess we could pistol whip him some. Might be fun."
I just loved the little teenage psychopaths the major gangs recruited— I didn't know if it was the copious amounts of drugs or exposure to gratuitous violence that did it to them, but either way, I was reasonably certain they were all one careless insult away from becoming spree killers. "Leave him alone, Jesus, he's my friend's kid brother... he's as dangerous as a lost puppy." I remembered when we used to say that about Johnny, before he stabbed a man to death— no, don't think about that. "Don't strain them muscles."
"What am I supposed to do?" Tony demanded with more balls than I'd expected. "I can't go back without finishin' the job. He'll string me up from a telephone pole."
"Come on, kid." I smiled at him. "You really wanna pump Dally Winston's girl full of lead?" My smile only widened as I considered my next threat, fingered the ring I hadn't been stupid enough to throw away. "Run on outta here, and maybe I won't tell your big sister what you're up to."
He took off like a shot.
"You're tuff," Sid said, with the lack of inflection that characterized a Tiger. "My sisters, somethin' like that happened to them, they would've just turned on the waterworks or fainted dead away."
"Gee, thanks—"
"Tuff like a bulldyke."
Nothing could've stopped me from punching him in the arm, I hoped hard enough to bruise.
I needed a drink after that, I think understandably, and ended up dragging Sid down the Ribbon with me, useless as he was; he bailed the second he found some buddies in the kind of grimy hole-in-the-wall that would serve to minors, and I couldn't be bothered to search out anywhere better. "Vodka cranberry," I told the server tiredly, sliding two quarters across the bar and undoing a button on my shirt, and didn't even have to pull out my fake ID.
"Miss me yet?"
I spun around fast enough to give myself whiplash, and found Angela sitting at the end of the bar, nursing a piña colada. She gave me a little wave and made no move to get closer to me; I had to acknowledge the power move, and after tipping the bartender an extra dime and cussing under my breath, I grabbed my drink and scooted on over to her cobweb-filled corner.
"Hey, Jas," she said, popping a handful of reds into her mouth and washing them down with hard liquor, like she'd learned exactly nothing from her hospitalization. She grinned at me, wide enough that I could see the lipstick smeared on her front teeth. "So looks like some shit's gone down since I left, huh?"
"How'd you even get out at all?" I sputtered instead of answering her. "Knock out the attending nurse?"
"Girl, what do you think that place is, a maximum security prison?" She rolled her eyes. "I yanked my IV out, changed into my roommate's clothes, walked right outta there. Like a hospital wants you takin' up any more of the nurses' time."
"How the hell did you even get all the way back here? Don't tell me you hoofed it."
"Hitchhiked." She tossed her long mane over her shoulders, shook it out into what still didn't approach her usual volume— I didn't imagine hospital shampoo had done her many favors, or that she'd been home long enough to announce her presence to her brothers, much less shower. "Anyway, Ponyboy and Johnny, they're on the run for murder, huh, it's the talk of the town. I'm surprised you ain't bein' swarmed right now for autographs."
"I mean, technically, it's just Johnny on trial for murder," I said miserably. "Pony's... an accomplice or somethin', I guess. Not sure if he's gonna be charged."
"I got an idea for us," she said, manically bouncing from topic to topic— maybe it was everything she'd taken. "A big one, biggest one we've ever done."
"Yeah, well, I'm done dealin'." Dad would be ashamed of Dally— he'd be ashamed of me— I couldn't stomach holding onto another cent of dirty money. I wanted to throw what I already had into the river. "Dally and I broke up—" I wasn't certain if her fragile psyche was up to knowing I'd promptly shacked up with her brother— "I'm done."
"I had a lot of time to get some thinkin' done, just me and my cryin' relatives every now and then." She gave me another brilliant smile. "I got a whole new lease on life. More thrillin' kicks than sellin' shit."
"Do I... want to know what that lease is?"
"I don't want to die anymore. It ain't me who should be lyin' six feet under." She shotgunned the rest of her drink. "Let's kill Joe."
