Sodapop: When I grow up, I'll turn the tables. I think the time has finally come.
"Trying hard to fit among you
Floating out to wonderland
On a cruise to freak you out…."
-"When I Grow Up" by Garbage
I'm known to everyone as the "Happy Go-Lucky JD", with his movie star looks and his ability to get high on life. If you see me on the street, I'm almost always smiling or grinning. I can't help it; I use to think there was so much…potential in life. Even though I don't live in the rich boulevards on the other side of town, I don't drive an expensive mustang and hell! I don't even own a single madras shirt; I thought those things didn't earn you happiness. The people around you were the ones who gave you that emotion. That feeling where you think if all your belongings we're stolen right about now and it seems like it's the end of the world for you; your friends will forever be by your side.
Sure, they might not be able to do anything. Even as your house could be getting evicted at this moment, at least you had a shoulder to lean on, maybe even cry on.
Friends come and go in a lifetime yet when you meet those certain people, don't ever let go of them. Never, hold on to what you guys have before it fades. Before it's all taken away from you in an instant and all you're left with is…confusion and despair. To this day, I'm still baffled right along with the rest of the Greasers. No one knows the truth in anything; they think they do yet quite the contrary to popular belief among us hoodlums.
I don't see the gang as merely buddies that I hang around with. They're my partners in crime, they're my other half or in this case, my other half's.
They're my brothers. The only family I have. We were like one person, all fighting in the same war. The same reason.
And there was so much more motive to that than the hatred we felt for the Socs.
I wish I could cry, and fall upon my knees and just beg for the lives of my two friends. God, I haven't ever really asked you for anything. Not even when my parents died, I thought you had abandoned us. Tried to break my family up yet I didn't let you!
I kept my two brothers, Ponyboy and Darrel. I love them with my entire being; I would give up everything to know that they were safe.
I guess I forgot about the others around me by doing that. The pain I haven't felt since the funeral of Mom and Dad, returning to me like a switchblade plunged into my stomach, like a gun shot from the fuzz….
I wish I could have changed the outcome of everything. This sounds childish and something a pathetic bum would only say, but if I could go back in time and fix this. I would.
I should have gone after Ponyboy that night; I should have urged Dallas more to let me see him. I just…Should of.
But right now, when the entire "family" needs each other the most, we have to band together, I won't fail them like I did with Johnny and Dally.
Darry told me I shouldn't blame their death on myself since I had nothing to do with it but every night, it's the same thing. I cry for my parents, I cry for Dally and Johnny,….I cry for my life.
I can't do this anymore. I can't smile any longer and cheer everyone up. It's not fair to me, did anyone ever think about that, huh?
Everyday it's getting harder to take things, everyday all I want to do is live a normal life with my two brothers and our friends. "Greaser" use to have a strange significance and importance to it. It dignified our strength. Even with our lifestyle, we weren't going to let shit get to us. Nothing and no one.
Now, that meaning doesn't spark any longer. It just makes me want Ponyboy away from all of this; he shouldn't have to defend himself to any Soc, to any other person. I'm sick of being labeled a JD, a juvenile, a filthy Greaser…I'm me, simply myself.
I'm not saying I don't want to be in the gang anymore. What's coming across in my head, my heart, is that Sodapop Curtis has finally grown up. A real thought, real motivation has finally struck me and I'm not letting it slip away. Not at all.