notes: general warnings for drug use / addiction, internalized homophobia, period-typical attitudes, and infidelity. three-shot. thanks for reading :)
Norman Morrison, Quaker, of Baltimore Maryland, burned, and while burning, screamed.
No tip-off. No release.
Nothing to quote, to manage to put in quotes.
Pity the unaccustomed hesitance of the newspaper editorialists.
Pity the press photographers, not called.
["Of Late," by George Starbuck]
Velia says she's leaving you twenty minutes before the call from Darry comes through. You know she's been sleeping with one of the other students in her program for months. The truth from her lips stings anyway, no matter that you're not surprised.
If it were ten years ago you would have turned the conversation into a shouting match, tears from both sides and accusations that aim for the heart. Because it's '76 and you're more bitter than you should be, you ask her which of the two of you is going to be moving out. It seems to take the wind out of her sails. Maybe she was expecting a fight, too—maybe that she's found none is all the more reason for this marriage to finally end. The two years under your belt must have been disappointing for her, too. You were too young when you married but she was too young for you to begin with, finishing up her freshman year down in Norman while you were working on a master's. She thought you older and interesting; you found her beautiful and full of life, reminding you of all the things you've ever loved. That was enough to get you to the alter but of course it's not enough to keep you happy. You married the summer after her sophomore year and now, almost two years to the day, you know the marriage is over.
You're insisting she stay in the apartment, that the lease is up in August anyway and you'll pay your half until then, when the phone rings. The two of you stare at it for a several long seconds, and then at each other, bewildered to realize the outside world still exists. You look at her and think you might remember why you loved her: the wide brown eyes, the expressive eyebrows, not a secret on her face. It's how you know she's been seeing someone else, besides the biggest clue: unsigned note scraps with poetry better than your own, which stung, too, in a different way.
Finally, she snaps, "Well, pick up!"
When you hear Darry speak, your stomach sinks. He calls once a week on a strict schedule; there's no room for surprise in his life these days, though really, you'd say there hasn't been time for that for going on eleven years. His voice trembles, and you feel numb as he announces your worst fears are coming come true: "It's Soda."
Like any all-American boy who knew the war would catch him anyway, Soda enlisted after his eighteenth. He waited until after Christmas, as much for his sake as yours and Darry's.
One last normal Christmas, he said, smiling, as of it wasn't an obvious lie.
That story didn't end with Soda in a body bag. In your selfish moments, you think it might have been better if it had.
He comes back not a new man but inverted. Still quick to smile, there's nothing behind his eyes when he drops an arm around your shoulders to tell a story. Steve was sent home before Soda was—a broken leg that healed so badly that the doctors kept him drugged up more often than not, Evie now a nurse who spends her time taking care of Steve and patients alike. Soda returns whole but hollowed. He prefers a needle in his arm to any other pleasure in life.
That he's now between this one and the next is not a surprise.
The drive home takes two hours, but you make it in less than that. In the backseat are all the things you can fit in a duffel and backpack, both overstuffed—you won the argument despite Velia's best efforts, knowing already that you won't be returning to that little apartment until you're ready to pick up the last of your things.
You go straight to the hospital; there's nothing waiting for you in your family home anymore, no matter that Darry still lives there, too stubborn to acknowledge things have changed for good. Soda has been in and out of treatment programs for about six years, now. This has always been a possibility: hospitalized, barely breathing, a product of his own demons. Your chest aches with the finality of it.
Darry is haggard when you find him. He's still in his work clothes, construction gear no matter that he's nearly the boss now and doesn't have to do any sort of manual work these days if he doesn't want. Still, he looks worn down, exhausted, dirt smeared over the knees of his jeans and his face carrying the expression of a man with nothing left. He says your name and you're surprised when he hugs you.
"How was the drive?" he asks before you can ask after Soda.
"All right," you say, his hand still clasped over your shoulder. His grip is nearly painful—you wonder if he's worried you'll disappear, too, or if he needs your help to stay standing. Then you say, because you can't stand the silence that starts to settle over both your heads, "How's Soda?"
Darry's hand drops away from you immediately. You feel the absence, like a limb's gone numb suddenly. You remember it felt the same when news of your parents came, the way it seemed as though a part of you was suddenly missing. You wonder if it will feel the same this time around.
"The doctors have him hooked up," Darry says. The turn of his mouth is bitter. "He's stable, they said."
"Have you seen him?"
"He's not awake," he says. He puts both hands in his pockets, seeming smaller that way. You're almost his height, have been since you hit twenty and shot up another couple of inches, finally beating Soda. He was almost like his old self when he realized it, joking with Darry about how he finally had someone who could take him, as if you'd ever be able to catch up to the bulk Darry's earned first through football and later through work's labor. Even now he's solid, Curtis through and through, while you've remained lean like a sprinter, no matter that you haven't competed in years. Your mother was the one who used to laugh when you would sprint through the house, at once impressed and scolding. Guess your name's a good fit, huh, baby? she would say. The memory is bittersweet.
You say, "He hasn't woken up yet?"
Darry hesitates, and you know what he's going to say will hurt. Of course it will—he wouldn't call you at seven on a Tuesday if it weren't serious. For years now he's been the one to look after the two of you when you were sick—after Soda shipped out, your appendix nearly burst, and he was nearly unbearable those first few days post-op, as if you hadn't been hurt worse before. Ever since Soda came back, it's been him cleaning up the mess. Taking Soda to a new therapist every few months when he inevitably decides the old one is no good, the AA meetings that don't make a difference (the two of you learned, quickly, that NA just made it easier for Soda to score), calling and asking for quotes when it was clear he needed a real detox at a center and not in the childhood bedroom he bounced in and out of at his own leisure.
Soda is always good to you. When you visit, it's to find him in new clothes, freshly starched, his smile strained but genuine, like he needs to prove to you that he's okay. Darry doesn't have that luxury, and though you've had to drag Soda home before, wasted off cheap beer, you never see him with a needle in his arm. Darry has. Darry has counted breaths and washed the half-asleep body and seen the crazed eyes. That you haven't is a small mercy for which you hate yourself, this gratitude so unearned.
Today, Darry says, "They said he's not goin' to wake up," and as he so often does, leaves you speechless.
The next day, the sun still exists. It's early June, weather warm as it has been for weeks. You stand on the back porch as you have for hours, chain-smoking the last of your pack. You don't react when Darry joins you, bringing with him the scent of coffee, a mug pushed into your grip nearly as soon as you realize it.
"You sleep okay?"
"Yeah," you say. How odd, to sleep in your old bedroom again and alone. When you would visit during undergrad, Soda would fall asleep next to you, no matter that he had moved back into his own room when he returned to find you settled in Norman. Before that, you would often fall asleep, mid-conversation, in the living room, waking up to a blanket over you. Now married—no matter that this will be over, soon, too—you're used to Velia's body next to yours, even if she hasn't been yours for a long time.
The truth of the evening made sleep even more difficult, and once asleep you find yourself waking often. As the sun rose, so did you, and you've been outside despite the night chill. Darry doesn't seem surprised to find you here, and it's almost a comfort to know he recognizes you so well. The two of you drink coffee in silence, yours with cream and sugar, Darry's with just the latter.
When it becomes unbearable, you say, "What do we do?"
"I have to get to work," Darry says, and for a brief moment you hate him. He's too good at compartmentalizing; you, too, though this time the skill slips from your grasp, the thought of Soda finally dying too real a possibility (or perhaps guaranteed is a better word). Soda was the one who let his emotions bleed into everything, afterwards, like he couldn't hide any sort of truth. The only one he did try to hide was this one, back from 'Nam and needing to numb the memory of it more than anything else.
This is not a surprise. No matter how you repeat it, it doesn't hurt any less.
You say nothing, so Darry says, "Visitin' hours start at ten."
"I'll go see Soda," you say, as if there's anything else for you to do in this town. You could go see Steve, maybe, or try to track down Two-Bit, whose mother still lives down the block even if her son drifts the city like a ghost. Otherwise, the only place of interest left here is the cemetery, where your parents' lonely headstones could greet you, Dally and Johnny on the opposite side, but you don't want to think about death or drugged out soldiers right now, even if you must.
Once Darry leaves, you take your time getting ready. You wonder what he thinks of you, staring at your own reflection while you try to catalogue the differences. You've never been able to tell who look most like: your mother or father, Soda or Darry. Velia always says you're all Curtis—You and Darry have the same eyes, she insists, blue and green are barely any different, you're an artist, you know this—but today you see Soda in your face. You wonder if you'll recognize him, unconscious for what must be the last time, finally.
The first thing you notice, once you see him laid up in that hospital bed, is how small he looks next to the ventilator that's keeping him alive. The second? That he's thinner. It's like he's only just gotten back home all over again; when he first arrived he was a stranger before you, thin like how the hoods get downtown from too much activity and not enough nourishment. His hair was still short back then, buzzed, but now it's long, greasy, and unkempt. His expression, even at this angle and despite his being asleep, seems tense. Sometimes, when you would awake from nightmares, you would look to him and see how his eyes moved underneath his eyelids in dream. Today, there's nothing.
You take a seat but don't bother moving closer to him, just watch as his chest moves with shallow breaths. A nurse comes by and seems surprised to find you there, though she says nothing as she takes his vitals.
"Are you the other brother?" she says, when she's done, and nods when you say yes. Soon enough, a doctor arrives to speak with you.
"Mr. Curtis," he says, and you don't bother correcting him. Your students call you Professor Curtis at the beginning of the semester, and by the end they're cheerfully saying, See you next semester, Ponyboy! You know they call Darry Mister at work, but you still think of your father when you hear them.
Whatever it is this doctor needs to tell you, it won't be good. You want to resent Darry for making you an emergency contact, but you can't. You just wish he were there with you, too.
Even to your own ears, your voice sounds weak: "How's he doin', doctor?"
His face is too serious. He must be the age your father would be, gray streaking through his dark hair. The details he gives you aren't surprising, but it's one thing to hear Darry tell you that Soda probably won't wake up and another to know all the details: the failing kidneys, the chronic pneumonia, the heroin heart.
"The odds of him waking up are very low," the doctor tells you. You know this already, but still, you blink away tears when he brings up palliative care, what might happen if the machine is turned off, what this means for Soda and for what remains of your family.
Worse, you have to thank him when he leaves. It's only then that you move the chair closer to Soda, and take his cold hand in yours. He must have done the same during that week after the fire, the same one you can't remember no matter how you wish you could. You see nothing of the handsome boy in his face anymore, and when you say his name the taste is bitter.
You wonder what your parents would think. You wonder if you should feel less relief than you do.
Darry doesn't want to linger when he arrives at the hospital after work. He nods when you repeat what the doctor told you; no doubt he heard a version already and just couldn't bring himself to share the real truth with you. Instead, he spends a few minutes watching Soda, and then he presses his palm to Soda's forehead as if this were just a flu he must overcome. When this garners no reaction, Darry lets his hand drop to his side and suggests the two of you get something to drink.
Buck's isn't Buck's anymore, but the building is the same. He's riding out a sentence up in Big Mac, something to do with all the speed that passed through his bar. It probably made him more money than fixing races did, though you're sure he spent a decent chunk trying to salvage his teeth before they locked him up. It's still a country bar, though, Willie Nelson just this side of too loud as you and Darry take a seat at the counter and get your beers. Even now, sharing a drink with Darry feels odd, and arguing over which of you is opening a tab is worse.
Darry says nothing when you ask him what to do. He hunches his ears up near his shoulders like you used to when you'd come home late from a movie or get a less-than-stellar mark on some assignment. You remember feeling small; Darry, like Soda, looks small today, too.
"They said he's not goin' to make it," you say, like that's news to either of you at this point. Darry just shrinks into himself even further. "Darry, we've gotta talk about this."
"He ain't dead yet," Darry says, finally, and won't look at you afterwards.
You want to snap back at him—yet's a real strong word to use in this context, you think—but it takes too long to formulate the sentence, and instead the crooning of Hoyt Axton fills the space where your voices should meet.
You stare at your drink; in the right light it could be the color of Soda's eyes. You'll never catch his mischievous gaze again, that twinkle when he wanted to pull a fast one over Darry or any of the guys, before. It's been ages since he and Steve were buddies, the war breaking them apart no matter that they enlisted together; Two-Bit, like Soda, has been on and off the wagon for years now, though the liquor will take longer to kill him, at least. His old lady kicked him out around the time Darry finally sent Soda to a clinic for the first time, back in '70.
You're saved from your musings about the last time you saw Two-Bit sober—maybe the first Christmas after you and Velia got married—when someone brushes up against you as they order their own drink. You half-glance at them, more out of curiosity than offense, and then do a double take when you realize who it is.
Tim Shepard, no matter that he must be nearing thirty by now, still has that starved look to him, same as he did when he was a mean eighteen-year-old cussing out the Socs that broke his nose the third time. You push the memory of that night away as fast as it comes to you, and unthinking you say Tim's name.
He doesn't look impressed, at first, to hear someone calling for him, but his expression shifts a little when he realizes it's you and Darry sitting next to him.
"Curtis," he says, almost surprised, and reaches out to shake both yours and Darry's hands. His are calloused, warm. There's nothing friendly about him, not the dark, all-consuming eyes or the scarred face or the perpetually serious look he levels at you, but part of you finds him fascinating, still, even after so many years away from Tulsa and the type of gangs that Shepard's once was.
The three of you nod and exchange pleasantries, catching up half-heartedly. Tim asks how the work looks down in Norman and you feel embarrassed to admit you work at the university, your degrees in art pinning you as much as they leave you free to daydream most of the day away. Maybe that's why Velia got so bored—she wanted to travel, go dancing, make something new and wholly hers while you were content to spend the rest of your life in Oklahoma.
Tim just takes your word with a shrug and doesn't ask why you're back in town. Soda's problems aren't exactly a secret: the last you ran into Mrs. Mathews, the pity on her face nearly made you sick. There's only one real reason for you to be home outside of holidays or perhaps birthdays. No one's cruel enough to make you and Darry admit the truth.
Besides, Tim's no stranger to tragic brothers. Curly died a few years ago, the car he was in crashing into another and claiming enough casualties for it to show up in the papers. You're not sure where their sister ended up; you tended to avoid Angela if you could help it, and after they married her off in high school you saw even less of her. Tim doesn't offer any updates on her, not that either you or Darry would ever ask for them, instead telling you that he works the oil fields now, a youth spent committing petty crimes and more serious felonies just a faint memory.
"How're the girls?" Darry says, and you blink at the realization that Tim, once one of the scarier hoods you knew, no matter that he once congratulated you for your involvement in murder, has grown up, too.
"Just fine," Tim says. His shoulders are a stiff line. You imagine what your students might make of him in the studio, how they might transform his image into paper. "See them every weekend, 's long as I got the days off. Lu don't keep 'em from me."
"Are they in school yet?" Darry asks. He's had more beers than you realized, and when you look to him he's loosened up. No doubt he rarely has the time to spend his time freely, given the care he's been devoting to Soda in some capacity for so long. Girlfriends never last long, and he's only ever mentioned a few guys from work. You feel guilt all over again.
"Josie starts this year," Tim says, and clarifies for you, probably realizing you're out of the loop, "my oldest. Vivi's three now."
"Time flies," Darry says, and you find yourself nodding while Tim snorts.
Towards the end of the night, you get up to use the bathroom. No matter that the place has cleaned up since changing ownership, your shoes stick to the ground. As you wash your hands, Tim walks in, and your eyes meet in the mirror. You remember, when a flare of heat, how you described his as smoldering, once. You think the word choice was a good one as he watches you watch him, hair still slicked back, though it seems he's swapped the grease out for good pomade, curls looking soft to the touch even in the dim light of the bathroom.
He says, voice nearly lost to the air between you, "Superman's still waitin' on you, ain't he?"
"Right," you say. When you go back out to the bar where Darry waits, you try to put the memory of Tim out of your head.