THE BEGINNING
Chapter Four
one year later (late summer, 1954)
"Mom, it's hot. Mrs. Greene's lettin' Jack go. Please ma," Darry begs me from the hallway.
My head's too thick to argue like this but I can't give into him. I silently curse the invading sliver of sunlight that's found it's way past closed curtains and summer's working against me. I wish for winter, when nobody wants to go outside.
I use every muscle I have to turn in my sheets, lying now on my side to face him standing in the doorway. "C'mere Darry," I say without any force. And I watch his eyes sink to the floor before he walks slowly over to my bed. He knows where this is going.
My voice sounds hoarse when I ask him, "Haven't we gone over this Darry?"
His "yes ma'am" holds more than the disappointment of not being able to go swimming; it's tangled up with all his disappointments in me. I extend my limp arm, stretching my hand for his, but he won't take it. I didn't expect him to.
I watch him study his bare feet. "Then tell Momma why I don't want you swimming in that water." I want to know he understands it's for his own good.
Softly and downtrodden, Darry recites back why I keep him from all the swimming holes and even the pool. "Cause you don't want me gettin' the Polio."
I nod and cringe at the word, the disease that could take them all if one of us missed a simple hand washing. Suddenly my mind, once sluggish, starts taking off and I'm trapped as it runs away with me. Maybe the word should never have touched my little boy's mouth. We shouldn't even whisper such things that might draw up attention from the Fates. Oh why did I make him say it? I hope Darry can't hear me breathing fast. I close my eyes and fire up a quick Hail Mary, hoping to cancel out the damage we've done.
When I open my eyes Darry's already walking away. "Watch after Ponyboy. Don't let your brothers leave this house," I call after him.
He doesn't answer. I didn't expect him to.
She seemed in better spirits when I kissed her goodbye today. She was actually out of bed, even making French toast with Sodapop up on the counter. There may've been a trace of something, a taste on her lips that spilled her secret of a quick nip or two, but she ain't been real drunk lately, not since she had that little fender bender with the grocery cart in the Winn Dixie parking lot in June. Now I'm just happy when she makes her way out of the bedroom, and this morning I'm pretty sure I saw a glimmer of light in her eyes that's been missing.
It's already a scorcher high up on this roof and it's not even quarter past nine, but hope has lightened my hammer and I'm swinging it easy today. I even laugh at one of Dan Braden's corny jokes, and I can't stand that son of a bitch.
I'm lost in thought now as I work, my mind on a possible camping trip this weekend. It'd be good to take the family out of the city, head for the cooler country air. And Maggie finally seems up to it. Or maybe she'd rather take a real trip. Stay in one of them fancy roadside motels on Route 66. She's always wanted the boys to stay overnight at a motel and I've saved up some money.
I suck in air between my teeth, hissing when the hammer hits my finger, now throbbing. Par for the course in this roofing life, I think, as I watch some buzzards circling overhead.
"The fog truck's comin'. I hear the fog truck!"
I race through the cluttered house to look for my shoes and Soda's on my heels, and for once Mom isn't stopping us from joining all the neighborhood kids who climb on their bikes and follow the fog truck like he's the ice cream man. There's no time for Soda's shoes as I bang through the screen door and ignore Mom's pleas to watch after him. Pony's crying cause he wants to go too, but he's so little we'd probably lose him in the blast of fog that covers everything around us like a fluffy white cloud.
I find my bike under the porch foundation, and run it out, giving Soda a couple of seconds to climb on the back and Mom's trying to tell a wailing Ponyboy he'll get to see the fog too cause they'll stand out in the yard and wait for it. She wants us all to get good and covered with the DDT cause it's killing all them bugs that spread those diseases she keeps worrying about.
Soda sits back and holds my belt loops while I stand and pump the pedals. It's harder to get going when you've got dead weight in the back. But I'm strong and I manage to reach the perfect rate of speed we need for us to meet the truck up by the lot where it rounds the corner. The air is filled with the sounds of a rumbling diesel motor and kids hollering back and forth, ready for this excitement on an otherwise hot and boring evening.
"Faster Darry," Soda keeps urging and slapping me on the back like I'm his racehorse, forever wanting more.
We make it to the truck and are covered in it's wake, lost in the blasts of repellant, our friends disappearing even while they're riding alongside us. Soda loves to breathe it all in and uses his two fingers to pretend he's holding a cigarette, blowing out the wispy trails of pesticide smoke. With nothing but our shorts on, I can almost feel my skin dropping ten degrees cooler as we bike up and down all the area streets, passing by the grownups who stand in yards waving at the kids' parade, and the men on the truck wave back smiling, happy to be the heroes bringing all the adults some sense of relief.
We've circled back around to our street, the last one to be sprayed and this is where our journey ends. For a moment it seems our little white house has vanished, and I don't like that feeling, even though I know it isn't true. The smoke starts clearing and I hear Mom and Pony before the house returns solidly to view. The fog carries their laughter as it bounces around the atmosphere, sounding close and then so far, echoing off the houses and down the street to meet us.
Pony's running around happy in all the clouds, and I speed up, one last gust of power to bring us home, and I slam back on braking pedals and turn the handlebars sharp, causing our bike to slide in sideways, gravel flying, the tuff way to make an entrance. Soda grabs my waist to hang on, but appreciates our wild return, although he sighs cause the trip is over and the truck has left us now with nothing to do. Soda can't stand the end of things.
Night is starting to take over and Mom, leading Pony by the hand, calls out, "Come on inside boys, 'fore you get snatched up, ya hear." We're slow to follow her in, having been inside all day, then getting this one shot of freedom.
I put my hand on one of Soda's slumped shoulders and tell him, "Don't worry. The fog man'll be back in a few nights."
Slapping windshield wipers are having a hard time keeping up with this monsoon, and I'm bent over the wheel squinting to see the dark highway. All three boys are crammed in the front seat beside me, Pony standing up in the middle of us, Soda sitting up forward leaning over the dash and Darry smashed against the car door, mad our camping trip got rained out at the last minute. He's still helping me though, eyes glued out his passenger window looking for a vacancy sign. "There's one," he says, quick on the draw.
We pull up beside the lobby doors, and it looks pretty good and cheap. Sign says kids stay free, televisions in all the rooms. "I'm gonna go check in, y'all wait here." I turn off the car and take the keys, still not trusting that middle boy of mine. I race through the raindrops and wish Maggie was with us.
We park right outside our room, and I tell the boys they don't need to bring in their camping equipment. Sodapop insists we bring the lantern though and Pony wants his sleeping bag, so we end up bringing in most of the stuff anyway, and the kids can't control their excitement as I work the lock with the key. They fling themselves on the king size bed, the only kind of rooms they had left, and I turn on the lights and notice the sparse room smells like stale cigarettes and mold, but the boys don't seem to mind. Darry and Soda are fighting over the ice bucket and I tell them they can both go get the ice, even though we've got nothing to ice down but an empty cooler meant for the promise of caught fish.
With the boys out hunting for the ice and vending machines, Ponyboy, in his rain coat with the hood still up, starts looking at me with his sad eyes and I know what's coming. "I want Momma," he says, and I flip on the tv hoping that'll distract him.
"We'll see Momma bright and early tomorrow. She just needed a little time to herself," I say, knowing it won't make a difference.
Even with the older boys' bickering, I'm relieved when they return and Pony finally seems content to watch the ruckus his brothers make when they pour the ice in the cooler. Of course, both Darry and Soda have to be the one to do it, struggling over who's holding the bucket, all four of their hands intertwined and grasping the small bucket, locked in like it's the task of the century, both of them telling the other how it's done.
After several trips to the ice maker, and after our dinner of peanut butter crackers and sharing a Dr. Pepper from the vending machines, we turn in, all four of us piled in one big bed. "It's kinda like we're campin'," Soda says after the lights are out and all we can hear is the noisy highway and our peanut butter breaths.
"No it ain't like we're campin' at all," Darry roughly says back. So far the motel night is kind of a disappointment. "We can't see no stars, we ain't caught no fish, no fire to sit around, Dad ain't playin' his harmonica, and we can't hear the lonely coyote callin' out to us in the night."
My chest feels warm to hear him list the things he loves about our trips, but I appreciate Soda's bright side. "Well, it is kinda like we're sleepin' in a tent, ain't that right Sodapop?" I feel his head beside me nodding in agreement.
"I want Momma," Pony starts up again.
"Why didn't she come?" Soda asks softly.
"Cause she's busy doing Mom stuff," Darry answers before I can. I always wonder how much he knows.
"Like what?" Soda won't let it go. I hear Pony going to town on that thumb, which means he'll fall asleep soon, thank goodness.
"Sometimes ladies just need time to themselves," I try and explain, and the general mystery of females is always answer enough for them.
Sleep is having her way now, boys are dropping off right and left. I turn left, then right, then end up on my back, trying to find a comfortable space. My heart hurts though. Even with three bodies draped around and across me, I imagine myself crying out like that lonely coyote.
Dad's radio blares from his shed where he's sanding down a wooden desk he wants to paint. I'm calling out tips to Soda who's trying to perfect his layups, but his ball ends up everywhere but the basket. Pony's sitting beside me on the back steps of the kitchen door, enjoying a popsicle, the juice running all over him. I try to scoot away so he doesn't touch me. I hate being sticky.
Soda throws his ball against the house in frustration and I try to shush him. It's Sunday and Mom's still in bed. "Soda half your battle is your temper," I tell him, repeating a line from Dad he uses whenever Soda quits something he's not good at. He stalks off to the front yard to lick his wounds.
Left with only my youngest brother, I look over at him and shake my head, thinking he needs a good hose down. I guess he thinks I wanna talk cause he starts up with his billion questions. "If you could be any animal in the world what would you be Darry?"
I can't believe I'm actually putting thought into it, and I answer "A lion. He's king of the jungle."
"I'd be an eagle, so I could fly," he tells me, though I didn't really ask.
"Are Jack and Joe Greene twins?" Pony asks about my friends down the street.
"Yeah, can't you tell? They look exactly alike." I lean forward, elbows on my scabbed knees, half listening, half thinking about school starting up again, hoping Jack's in my class. I don't really like Joe.
"Soda and I are twins," Pony announces and I smile. He's always wanted to be Soda.
"You are not," I say, "Soda's older than you. You gotta be born at the same time to be twins."
"We are so," he says louder, and I know he's ready to launch into some fit, but I'm bored enough to egg it on.
"Ponyboy, y'all can't be twins. It's impossible. You gotta be exactly the same age and share a birthday. If you have a twin, he's gotta be in Mom's tummy at the same ..." my speech is cut short by Mom in the screen door.
"Ponyboy run on and go play. Darry, get in here right now." My heart speeds up cause I know by her tone I've done something wrong. I can't think of anything though, so maybe she's just not feeling well again. Or maybe we were being too loud.
I walk into the kitchen, my eyes adjusting in the dark after the bright sunlight. Before I have time to get my bearings, my mother's hand comes across my face, and the sting it leaves against my left cheek is shocking. I immediately raise my hand up to the heat, my mouth dropped open in disbelief. She's never slapped me, ever. Before I can ask what I've done, she's clawing the neck of my shirt, making me follow her across the kitchen floor.
"I heard you talking about twins," and I can't deny it, I was, but why is that so wrong? This isn't my mother, this woman is absolutely crazy. "We trusted you with one thing, one thing Darry Curtis, and I can't believe you'd stoop so low." Now she's off and crying, but I don't feel bad for her at all, cause she's swatting me all over my body as she's half-dragging me down the hallway to my room.
My mind escapes the scene, but I hear myself saying over and over, "Mom, I didn't do nothin', what'd I do Ma?" and I only know I'm crying by the sound of my voice.
I drop to the floor of my bedroom and cover my head against the assault. Her slaps are frantic but weak, the stings they leave all over my body don't hurt that bad, and yet the pain is overwhelming. Something's invaded my mother. I stare at a lone Lincoln Log that Pony's left out on my floor, and I pray for her to stop. I hear running footsteps, and I look over at eye level to see my old battered sneakers on Soda's feet which suddenly stop, then pivot abruptly and scramble away.
I don't know how much time has passed. I can't see but I feel my father's presence in the room. And he easily lifts my mother away and forces her back to their bedroom. It's over. I stay in the same guarded position, not believing yet what happened. I can tell Soda's still in the room, breathing rapidly after his race to get Dad, and he gently puts his hand on my bent back. "What'd you do Darry?" he asks and I wipe my face before I stand back up.
I feel a thousand years older as the tie to my mother is cut forever. My eyes narrow and my voice is without any emotion, though my words feel like steel through clenched teeth, "I didn't do shit."
She's calm after the muscle relaxant. But she's a wreck.
By the look on Soda's face I knew he wasn't messing around when he flew in the shed and told me to come quick. I never expected that though.
I forcibly held her down when she was still going after me in our bedroom, our paper thin walls doing nothing to hide the sounds of our life falling apart. She kept yelling that Darry spilled the truth, the secret I asked him to keep.
I was seething as I yelled back, "I never told him Maggie. I knew he'd forget, and he did, till you brought it up." You crazy bitch, I'd like to say. And I hate that I hate her right now.
Maggie coming back to her senses is never good, cause she falls apart even more when she realizes all that she's destroyed. She wanted to apologize to Darry, begged for him, but I told her to give it time. Sober apologies are always better. Now she's taken a muscle relaxant, one of the pills her doctor prescribed after I forced her to see someone, and she's lying in our bed, lost in a sea of despair, with muscles too relaxed they can't swim, only sink.
I'm sick, I can't help her, something's gotta give. Thank God Ponyboy was outside on his tire swing during this episode, but it's only a matter of time before he catches on. Soda just thinks Darry got in really bad trouble, that surely he did something to deserve it. Hell, I spank the kids, but he doesn't need to think the kind of discipline he saw today is normal. Something in him must know it's not, since he ran for help. But now he seems completely unaffected by the scene that played out before him, rationalizing it somehow to keep his mother good.
It's been three years and she's only gotten worse. Her depression, her anxiety, her drinking.
I walk to the boys' room, the door's closed. Soda and Pony are watching tv out on the couch. I open his door and Darry's already in bed. His back is turned to me, he's facing the wall. I'm here to explain something that can never be explained. "Darry," I say timidly, "are you okay?"
He doesn't move a muscle. His words are quick, acidic and to the point. "She didn't hurt me."
I go on. "Mom's not thinking right. She never should've done that to you and..."
He cuts me off so I guess I'll have to explain it tomorrow. "She didn't hurt me." His anger is wrapped around his words like toxic vines. "She didn't hurt me," is all he can repeat.
A/N: Outsiders by SE Hinton