So Dal left. I felt so weird, my thoughts were different, more real than they ever had been. I kinda felt like if I closed my eyes I might die.
"Johnny?" It was a doctor, but not the same one who put in the I.V. thing. This doctor was older, short gray hair, lines in his face.
"Yeah?"
He sat down next to me and took a deep breath. He had on a white coat and a stethoscope was around his neck.
"We've done all we can do for you, but with the extent of your injuries…" he trailed off. I stared at him, my breath coming in harsh little gasps.
"You're going to die," he said, and he didn't look away. Oh, man. I knew it anyway but to hear someone say it, man.
He left. I started thinking about the week in the church, how I thought I knew Pony so well. I mean, we grew up in the same neighborhood and everything. I knew he liked to read and shit, and liked school. But I didn't really know him before that week in the church.
That poem, I liked that poem he said that morning. I couldn't remember it word for word but I remembered the sense of it. Pony said he didn't really know what it meant and that kinda surprised me cause I always thought he understood all that stuff. I knew what it meant, well, I knew what it meant to me.
It was funny about Ponyboy. He hated being a greaser, hated when Cherry told him she wouldn't say hi to him at school. It doesn't really mean nothin'. We're all people underneath whatever we're called, greaser or soc or whatever. A place with just people after all, funny I hadn't noticed before.
So tired. I felt like I was just barely hanging on. It would be so easy to go, to let go, like going under water. So tired.
But I struggled against it, against that tiredness cause I wanted to see Dally and Pony again, I missed them already.
The nurse was always in and out, checking stuff, looking worried.
"Hey," I said to her. I could just barely keep my eyes open. My voice sounded like shit, all scratchy, barely above a whisper. She leaned down to me.
"Can you get me a paper and pen?" She nodded, went off to get it.
Pony would be okay. He was smart. He'd be whatever he wanted to be. But Dally, I didn't know. He was so cynical. Pony noticed all the clouds and the colors and shit cause he, I don't know, he saw the beauty in the world. He made me see it. Things were gold, like the poem said. For Dally it wasn't that way, but no one had ever told him, pointed it out like Pony did for me.
I was worried about Dally cause he was gonna miss out on stuff. He'd miss out on the good stuff in the world unless maybe someone told him to notice it. And I felt so tired I was afraid that by the time they finally showed up I wouldn't be able to tell him. To tell Pony to stay like he was cause it was like gold.
Being near death I saw things clear and wanted them to, too. But shit, man, I was gonna pass out. I couldn't see as well, I wanted to go to sleep.
"Here," the nurse said, giving me the pen and paper. I wrote Ponyboy a note, telling him all the shit I'd been thinking. There was no way I could explain it to him when he comes, if he does. Cause that rumble, who the hell knows what kind of shape they'll be in, if they'll even show up at all. I ain't mad, though. I know they'd want to come, it's only that they might not.
I put the paper in the book after I'd written the note, gave it to the nurse.
"Can you give this book to Ponyboy Curtis?"
"Yes, sure," she said, taking the book. Good. I closed my eyes.
I thought someone was in the room. Maybe Dally and Pony, I'd see them. But it wasn't. It was the gray haired doctor who said I was gonna die.
"How are you feeling, Johnny?"
"Tired," Shit, man. I could barely keep my fucking eyes open.
I thought I heard people in the hall, then the doctor said, "I'm sorry, boys, but he's dying."
"We gotta see him," Dally. I heard him flick out Two bit's blade. He'd slice this doctor up to get to see me.
"We're gonna see him and if you give me any static you'll end up on your own operatin' table,"
"You can see him," the doctor said, "but it's because you're his friends, not because of that knife,"
I heard them come in and breathing like they ran all the way here.
"Johnnycake?" Dally said, "Johnny?" I moved a little and opened my eyes.
"Hey,"
"We won," Dal told me, "we beat the socs. We stomped them…chased them outa our territory."
Dally and Pony both looked like shit, all bloody and beat up.
"Useless…fighting's no good…" I could barely get the words out.
"They're still writing editorials about you in the paper. For being a hero and all,"
"Yeah," Dal went on, his voice kinda calm, he never lost his cool, "they're calling you a hero now and heroizin' all the greasers. We're all proud of you, buddy." That was somethin'. Imagine that, Dally proud of me.
"Ponyboy." I said. He came closer and leaned over me, his ear right next to my mouth.
"Stay gold, Ponyboy. Stay gold…" It was all I could say, I knew he didn't understand, but maybe he would. Maybe they all would before it was too late.