I snuck back upstairs and finished uncle Ponyboy's essay. I sat kind of slack jawed, amazed. It was a bit disorienting because I'd never really pictured my dad and uncle as teenagers, my age. And for a dizzy second I realized that I'd be as old as they are one day, maybe.
I heard the racket of my dad coming home with Steve, heard them greet Ponyboy and wake him up. I came downstairs.
"Hey, kid," Steve said, smiling at me with his gap toothed grin. My eyes trailed over the fading tattoos on his arms.
My dad was drunk, I could tell by the glassy look of his eyes, the slight slur to his speech.
"Give the kid a beer," Steve called to my dad as he grabbed beers from the fridge. He shook his head no.
They were all smoking. Before this trip I'd never seen my dad smoke.
"Hey, dad?" I said, sitting next to him on the couch. Ponyboy was across from us, looking sleepy, his hair in sleep corkscrews. He held his beer in both hands.
"Yeah?" Dad peered at me, blew the smoke away from me.
"Who are Johnny and Dally?"
"Johnny and Dally?" He looked at me quizzically.
"Yeah. At home you told mom you miss Johnny and Dally. Who were they?"
His eyes got the distant look and I could almost feel him remembering.
"Friends of ours. Good friends. They were like brothers," He looked down, called to Ponyboy and Steve for help.
"Kevin wants to know about Johnny and Dally,"
Steve bounced over, sat on the edge of the couch, leaned drunkenly onto my dad.
"Who should we tell him about first?" Steve said. Ponyboy frowned.
"Soda, you never told him about them, us, any of it?"
I was alert, like a cat around dogs. Ponyboy was looking at my dad with sharp disappointment. Dad was beginning to look guilty, it gathered slowly, like that weird tension before a thunder storm.
"I, uh, well I haven't…"
It wasn't going to be a fight, an argument, or anything. But there was like this buried fight between them.
Steve either didn't notice or chose not to, took a long swallow of his beer, and set it down with some finality on the coffee table.
"Alright, kid, I'll tell you about Johnny first," Steve said, sitting next to me.
"Johnny…that kid had the blackest hair, and he put more grease in it than anyone," Steve laughed, remembering, touched his own receding hair.
"And that ratty old jean jacket he wore all the time? 'Member?" Ponyboy said, smiling wistfully, and took a small sip from his bottle.
"He was so quiet. It was almost torture sometimes get tin' him to talk," My dad said, smiling a little, too.
"You would of liked him, Kevin," Ponyboy said.