I could be going crazy. Growing crazy. Who knows what it's like? Maybe that's why things have been looking funny, not bad, but weird. And why my friends seem different. Everything can't be different. It's gotta be me.
It got pretty late pretty fast, and Two bit took off for greener pastures, some crazy party.
Johnny stuck his head in the house and told Darry and Soda we were taking off, too.
"Tell Pony we said bye," Johnny said, his voice soft like always. He was so sweet. Of all my friends he was far and away my favorite.
We walked toward our houses but slowly, neither of us wanting to get there. Every day Johnny stayed away from his house was a day he avoided a beating.
"Why do you even go there at all?" I'd ask him. He'd shrug, look sad, "I have to sometimes," he'd say.
"Wanna go to the lot instead?" he said, and I nodded.
At the lot, the little fire crackling, I turned to him.
"Something's wrong," I said.
"What?" Soft concern in his voice, in his eyes.
"That's the thing. I don't know. But lately I've been having this weird feeling…it's hard to describe,"
He waited for me to describe it, so patient. Patience was a virtue the others didn't seem to have, no one but him. My mom was in a constant state of frazzle, and if I tried to talk to her about anything she'd want to listen, she'd sort of pretend to listen, but she wasn't. Not really. She'd make listening noises like "oh" and "mmm hmmm," but her tone wouldn't go with what I was saying.
Ponyboy never seemed to focus on what you said to him, he was always thinking of abstract shit, or at least it seemed that way. Two bit tried to cheer me up, which could be good, but it wasn't always good.
So Johnny waited, and I tried to think how to express it to him.
"It's kind of like déjà vu, like I've done all this before, but it's been going on for days…"
I shook my head, that wasn't quite right.
"Um," I started again, fiddling with the sleeve of his jacket, feeling the course material between my fingers, "it's sort of like that moment you wake up from a dream, but the dream still seems real, and then you start to realize it was a dream, but it still feels like it was real. I feel like that constantly,"
It still wasn't quite accurate but I couldn't describe it. I was off kilter, out of whack, out to lunch. Could cliches help? Probably not.
And Johnny nodded, lit up a cigarette. If I'd told that to Dallas he might say, "Ann, you're fucking crazy," Dallas tends to attack you with your worst fear. But not Johnny. He doesn't judge.
Things were slippery, the world covered in oil, or an oil like substance, and I was just slipping along, unable to grasp anything.
I thought a cigarette might help, clear my head a little or at least calm me down.
I puffed away and turned out it did neither. I was still lost and beginning to get scared.
