…………………………..Backward Reasoning

I found myself wandering the streets of Tulsa quite late, a bit drunk and craving a pain med.

I thought Jennifer was sort of cute, in an uptight, professional manner. I thought she might be almost wild under that buttoned up exterior.

Oh what did I know?

A chill went through me and I watched the dark shadows of the leaves on the chain link fence, leaves and fence both rattling in the wind, and I heard at once the different sounds they made…a symphony.

I remembered both Ponyboy and Johnny had mentioned how cold it was that night. Ponyboy had noticed a scim of ice on the fountain in the park, and Johnny had sat shivering after he'd killed Bob, clutching the bloody knife, but shivering from cold or reaction, well, both, I supposed.

I was walking and doing that type of thinking where it's loose, different thoughts kind of bouncing off each other. I didn't really like Jennifer's explanation about Johnny's parents. They abused him because they were abused. They were alcoholics because their parents were, and Johnny would be, too, if he cared to pick it up. Fine. But what about choice? Free will? Didn't his parents, on some level, choose to treat him as they had? Choose to drink?

The wind picked up the ends of my hair, dragged a leaf across the pavement. I barely remembered leaving the bar, ushering Jennifer into a cab, kissing her fingertips, promising to see her later.

I remembered something Ponyboy had said awhile ago, that the murder, the running away, Johnny facing capital punishment, he said it was Darry's fault. 14 year old logic. Darry slapped him, hit him, causing him to run away, wake up Johnny, and set the whole terrible chain of events in motion. If Darry had been cool, left him alone, none of it would have happened.

But where does backward thinking like that stop? If Johnny's dad didn't beat the shit out of him he wouldn't have been sleeping in the lot, and therefore wouldn't have been there for Ponyboy to wake up. If Dallas hadn't started harassing the soc girls Ponyboy and Johnny may never have even talked to them. How far back can blame be placed?

My footsteps were echoing loudly, and I was acutely aware of the dull throbbing, my body protesting the missed dose of medicine.

I remembered when Johnny called me, called me, at my hotel, and wanted me to come to the jail. And he'd said, something about his parents. My head throbbed with the alcohol, with the missed dose of medication. It was right there, at the tip of my brain, that thing he had said. What was it? He'd said it wasn't his parents fault, or the socs fault. That it was his fault. He'd done it.

I sat down on the edge of the sidewalk and looked up. Why hadn't I seen it then, when he called me to the jail? My whole defense for him was the backward reasoning of a 14 year old. I'd been so focused on saving him, on culling sympathy from that jury anyway that I could, by whatever means, that I'd ignored him. Did I, did that disregard for how he felt, for what he wanted, contribute to his suicide attempt?

I held my head in my hands, shook. A dawning horror was spreading through the spaces of my body. Had I, in some way, contributed to that? After all, I'd come up with the abuse based designer defense, and I'd forced Johnny to talk about things he didn't want to talk about. When he spoke with Jennifer maybe it was like reliving it, 16 years of neglect and abuse, and maybe…

Was I saving him after all? Sure, he seemed better now, but how could he be worse? He'd been in a steady decline since I'd met him, and it stood to reason that I was the cause.

I stood up, stretched, felt cold.