Next morning I woke up late, stiff from the couch.

"Good morning," Ponyboy said coolly, sipping a coffee and smoking a cigarette at the kitchen table.

"Morning," I said and stumbled to the kitchen. I looked around for my dad but I knew he wasn't here, I could sense it.

I watched uncle Ponyboy smoke, taking deep drags and squinting his eyes against the smoke. I felt the same way around him that I did at 10, awkward. I couldn't think of anything to say.

"How's your mom?" he said, not really looking at me. I shrugged.

"Okay,"

"And school?" he ground out the cigarette in a clean ashtray and raised the coffee cup to his lips. I hated this torturous conversation with strangers who were also relatives.

"Fine. Uh, where's dad?"

"He went to get some boxes. He'll be back soon,"

I looked out the window. The houses had a certain flimsy look and the lawns were more weeds and dirt than grass.

"Hey!" Dad came in, folded cardboard boxes under one arm, donuts and breakfast sandwiches in a bag cradled with the other arm.

I brightened and so did Ponyboy. We both felt off the hook of having to talk to each other.

…………………………………………………………. …………………

Dismally I flipped through the five channels on the T.V. And those five were staticky. This sucked.

"So, have you heard from Two bit?" My dad said to Ponyboy. They were both smoking.

"No. Last I heard he was in the slammer for robbing a convenience store," My dad looked glum.

"How about Steve?"

"I see him once in a while," Ponyboy blew a perfect smoke ring. We all watched it lose it's shape and fade away.

"Evie's been dragging him to court, he hasn't been paying child support,"

My dad sighed and looked real sad all of a sudden.

"I miss Darry," he said, his voice breaking, and he swallowed hard. Ponyboy nodded slightly.

"And Dally, and Johnny, and mom and dad," he put his head down on his arms on the table. Ponyboy gently touched his shoulder.

"I know,"

………………….……………..……………………

I was in the attic. The day was overcast and it looked like it was gonna rain any second.

I had a box and could take anything I wanted. The house was still. Uncle Ponyboy and dad went to the cemetery. I guess they had enough people to visit there.

It looked like junk. It smelled weird, like mothballs and decay, old paper chewed up by maggots.

Old pictures in silver oval frames. Smiling middle aged people who vaguely resembled Ponyboy and dad, and me. Must be my grandparents. Pictures of babies and toddlers in the 50's, black and white. Dad, Ponyboy, and their brother, Darry.

Mantle clocks that didn't work, clothes that were so out of style the style threatened to come back. Broken chairs, a bird cage with a newspaper from 1968 lining the bottom.

A box filled with yearbooks. One with uncle Darry where he won the "boy of the year". How corny. I looked at him in the picture. A clean cut, square jawed football player. Another year book with dad as a sophmore, laughing in every picture he was in, and he was in a lot of them. Damn he was handsome. He quit school, though, I knew that. Mom made him go get his G.E.D. a couple of years ago because without it they'd pay him less. I'd never seen him more miserable than when he was studying for that test.

Underneath the yearbooks there was a composition book. The cover had Ponyboy's full name printed very carefully…Ponyboy Curtis, English Comp, 1966. 1966. How old was he then? 14. Huh. My age.

I flipped through it and it was full, the whole composition book. Damn. Did uncle Ponyboy write that much at 14? I flipped to the first page, he had titled it, "The Outsiders".

I dusted off a chair that wasn't broken and sat down to read, suddenly very curious about what would have taken all these pages to say.