I took the bus home, my skateboard useless under my arm. The sun was so bright and I noticed the fine film of dirt on the bus windows.
My dad told me to go home and pack and then wait for him. He knew my tendency to take off.
"Hi, sweetie," my mom said. She was watching a soap opera.
"Hey," I said, tossing the skateboard into the corner and heading to my room. I threw a bunch of clothes into my suitcase and slammed it shut. Packing done.
I looked out my window for our car. It wasn't there.
"Mom," I said, looking through the refrigerator for a snack, "did you know dad's brothers?" I found an apple and bit into it.
My mom lowered the t.v. and turned to look at me.
"No. They were at the wedding but Darry, he was older than your dad, died shortly after. Ponyboy came to visit once. I didn't really know them at all."
My mom had blond hair and freckles from all the sun. In the wedding picture of my parents she doesn't look much different except her hair was longer. My dad's hair was longer, too.
"What were you, a hippie?" I'd say to him.
"Not exactly," he'd answer.
My dad came home, kissed my mom's cheek, ruffled my hair.
"Let me change real quick, then we'll go," he said.
In the car my dad put on some oldies music and I rolled my eyes.
"Oh, c'mon," I said. I put on a song that came out in this decade, at least.
I felt the air change in Arizona, dry desert air. Through Arizona, New Mexico, endlessly flipping through the radio stations. During one stretch all that would come in was some maniacal Bible thumper ranting about the end of the world.
"Kevin! Just leave it!" Dad snapped at me somewhere along a desert road in New Mexico as I flipped past some Elvis song.
"Okay, okay,"
As we got closer to Oklahoma my dad got a little quieter, tapped out the beats of the songs on the steering wheel and dash board.
"Want anything?" he said, pulling up to a little one pump gas station and convenience store. The New Mexico sky was so blue behind it that it hurt my eyes.
"Yeah, a coke," He nodded at me and went inside. I looked at the newspapers in that glass thing, the headline something about a gay disease, AIDS, and some financial shit.
He came back with my coke and we headed off again. As we edged into Oklahoma he lit up a cigarette.
"What are you doing?" I said. I'd never seen him smoke before. He looked guiltily at me.
"Uh, it just helps with tension," he took a drag and I squinted my eyes at him, I could almost see what he looked like as a teenager.
We headed down red dirt roads and the closer we got to Tulsa the less we had to look at the maps. The maps had started out as neatly folded smooth squares in the glovebox but had ended up as crazily creased jumbles of paper.
We got there late, streetlights were on. The neighborhood looked kind of shabby but the house we pulled up to had a neat lawn and a neat little fence. I saw a light on inside and the flicker of a t.v.
"This is it," dad said.
"Let's go," I said, jumping out of the car. I felt so stiff. We weren't halfway up the walk when the front door opened and someone stood in the doorway.
"Hey, y'all," Ponyboy.
The house was only a little smaller than ours, but no pool of course, and no cable.
"What!" I said, flipping through five channels. Five!
"Kevin," dad said in a low warning voice.
"Yeah, but dad, no cable! I mean jeez…"
"Deal with it,"
I sighed, flopped on the couch and watched 'Three's Company'. Five channels, God.
My dad and Ponyboy sat at the kitchen table with beers. I had a coke. Ponyboy lit his third cigarette since we got here.
They talked a little, asked how things were. Each gave evasive answers. I looked over at them from the corner of my eye. They looked alike, I thought. But maybe Ponyboy looked older, even though I knew he was two or three years younger than my dad.