I do not own The Outsiders.
Nor do I own Between Here and Gone by Mary Chapin Carpenter. But I do highly recommend listening to it if you can find a copy of the song- it's a hauntingly beautiful piece that always makes me think of what happened to Dally and what might have happened to Ponyboy after the events in the book. I hope you like it! I'm hoping to write a companion piece to this based on another song from the same album called 'In my Heaven'. For anyone concerned, I will also be continuing with "So You're Leaving". I got to a tricky part in the plot and had to take a break to work some things out!! Sorry for the delay!
"Between Here and Gone"....
"Why do you bother helping people, huh?" Dally screamed through bitter tears at the doctors passing by him. They all kept their distance, some whispered to eachother, some just stared. "...Doesn't do any good..."
He could feel his sanity slipping away from him. It had to. There was no other way to deal with the pain. In his life he had been abandoned, beaten, abused, nearly killed on more than one occasion. But he had never felt pain like this. Inside of him was screaming. Painful agonizing screaming, coming straight from his soul. His entire life was crumbling before him and all he could do was hope the screaming inside him would eventually kill him.
His breathing was ragged, as though his lungs no longer possessed the ability to take in air. His blood had turned to ice and his muscles could barely support his weight. Dally looked up as he began to walk. The moon was full and bright, a light from heaven calling to him.
"WHY?" he tried to scream it, shout it at the top of his lungs. But it came out as only a whisper.
He had to get out of here. He had to leave. He didn't know where, but he had to go.
Tonight the moon came up, it was nearly full
Way down here on Earth, I could feel it's pull
The weight of gravity, or just the lure of light
Made me want to leave my only home tonight
He headed towards the car. The overwhelming emotional pain he was experiencing was completely overpowering any physical pain he had felt from his cuts and bruises.
He startred Buck's T-Bird and sped off down the road, the radio blaring some Elvis song... the one about the boy in the ghetto, he noted ironically.
His whole life he'd never worried about right and wrong, he just did what he wanted. He didn't care about anything or any person. Except one.
Johnny was gone. And now Dally, too, was waivering somewhere between life and death.
Yeah I'm just wondering how we know where we belong
Is it in a photograph or a dashboard poet's song
Will I have missed my chance to right some ancient wrong
Should I find myself between here and gone?
"Oh, God, don't shoot!" the clerk pleaded with him as he handed over the money.
Dally took it from him, teeth clenched, tears streaming down his face. He heard the gun shot as he ran out of the store, but he didn't feel the pain. All he felt was his heart growing tired of beating.
Now I could grab my keys and peel out in my truck
With every saint on board bringing me their luck
I could drive too fast like a midnight thief
As if there was a way to outrun the grief
Breathless, he reached for the phone. He didn't know why he was calling them. Maybe they would tell him it was all a dream, maybe they would tell him it wasn't true...
"Johnny's dead,"
"Yeah, we know."
Maybe he called just to hear their voices one more time.
Yeah I'm just wondering how we know where we belong
In a song that's left behind, in a dream I couldn't wake from
There was nothing left now. There was no where else to go. And he knew he couldn't stay here. He had felt Johnny leave the earth. It had torn out his soul. He raised his hand and aimed the gun into the darkness and as he did, he felt a peace come over him.
Could I have felt the brush of a soul that's passing on
Somewhere in between here and gone
As he fell to the ground, the light from the street lamp shone in his eyes. He saw movement. Swirling colors, hazy faces, faces he recognized. Mr. and Mr. Curtis. And Johnny. He smiled.
Up above me, wayward angels, a blur of wings and grace
One for courage, one for safety, one for just in case
Ponyboy sat up and turned off his alarm clock. It was the second day of school in the new school year. He got up, made his bed and threw on a t-shirt and a pair of sweat pants for his morning run. He touched an old, framed photograph of the gang on his way out of the room, as he did every morning. It was a little ritual he did. To prove to himself that he was moving on, but he would never forget.
I thought a light went out, but now a candle shines
I thought my tears wouldn't stop, but then I dried my eyes
He would never forget. And neither would anyone else who read his story. He had started writing the essay with some trepidation. After the first two sentences, it flowed like a river. He wrote and wrote, during his study halls, his lunch period, and all hours of the night until he finished. It had taken him five days.
Mr. Syme had approached him after class the day after he'd turned it in.
"Uh, Ponyboy," he had said sitting on a desk across from him as all the other kids got up to leave. "I read your essay."
Ponyboy just looked at him.
"I... I was blown away. I'm going to do something I've never done before in my 14 years of teaching. I'm going to recommend that we prepare this for publishing. This has to be shared with the public."
And it was. The book was set to come out at the end of the fall. And then the world would know.
There would still be a hole in his heart, a void that could never be filled, but now their deaths had some meaning. Now he could go on, knowing that the empty spot inside him was there for a reason.
And after all of this, the truth that holds me here
Is that this emptiness is something not to fear
Yeah I'll keep wondering how we know where we belong
After all the journeys made and the journeys yet to come
When I feel like giving up, instead of going on
Somewhere in between....
It was just starting to get light out as Ponyboy finished up his run in front of their house. The kitchen light was on. Darry was awake and probably trying to wake up Soda. He sat out by himself on the porch for a few moments, listening to the first birds and watching the sun come up.
Yeah I'm just wondering how we know where we belong
Is it in the arc of the moon leaving shadows on the lawn
In the path of fireflies and a single bird at dawn
Singing in between here and gone