"Why'd my dad leave?" I said, and traced the pattern on the table cloth with my finger. I kind of felt like I shouldn't ask, like it wasn't my business.

"I don't know," he said, kind of sad. But like it was an old sadness that he'd gotten used to.

"What happened? I mean, when he left?" After reading the essay he wrote I looked at Ponyboy like a storyteller, and there was a story with my dad leaving. It was a story I didn't know.

He glanced over at my dad, still sleeping.

"I'll tell you, but let's go for a walk, okay?" I agreed, and it would be better that way. Dad wouldn't wake up, and then I'd never know. Being here, meeting Ponyboy and Steve, reading 'The Outsiders', I realized how much I really didn't know about my dad, how much he had never told me.

We left quietly, holding the screen door so it wouldn't slam. The day was bright, hurt my eyes.

"See that house?" Ponyboy said, pointing. I looked. A small square house with a new front porch, new wood that looked out of place next to the old wood. Flower boxes. An old guy sitting on the front porch smoking a cigar. Ponyboy waved and the old guy waved back.

"That's Johnny's house," I stared, mouth open. I knew Johnny had lived in this neighborhood but it seemed strange to see his house.

"Do his parents still live there?"

"Yeah. That's his dad. He's kind of mellowed over the years,"

We started walking, and I tried to imagine my dad growing up here, getting into fights, making out with girls.

"Well, where my essay ends, Soda was all upset over Sandy. He'd really loved her. He would have married her. But she got pregnant and it wasn't Soda's. He was so crazy in love with her that he would have married her anyway,"

We walked, and then Ponyboy pointed out another house. This one was newer than most of the others, a ranch, probably built in the 70's.

"See that house?" I nodded.

"That's where the vacant lot was. They built that house around '75 I think. '76 maybe. Progress," He laughed.

"So Sandy went to Florida to have the baby and Soda just moped around for a long time. I thought he'd never get over it. And in a way he didn't,"

We were coming up on a park. With a fountain.

"Is that the park?" I said. Ponyboy nodded. It was like having a tour of a book I'd read, and it was weird. In the essay he'd said that the park would have made a pretty cool hangout, but his gang liked the vacant lot and Shepard's gang liked the alleys somewhere or other, and that the park was left to lovers and little kids.

I noticed a skate ramp in the park and smiled. Ponyboy noticed me noticing and he smiled ,too.

"That's new," he said.

I kicked a rock, and Ponyboy pulled out a cigarette.

"Hey, can I have one?" He shrugged, handed me one.

"Don't tell your dad I let you smoke. He'd skin me,"

I lit it and nodded at him, I wouldn't tell. Dad would skin me, or at least yell, or tell my mother.

"So in the essay I wrote I was in 10th grade then, Johnny was, too, even though he was two years older. I got moved up in grade school, and Johnny got left back in 9th grade, or 10th. Soda had been a junior when he dropped out of school, and the year I was a junior was the year he moped about Sandy,"

We kept walking, leaving the neighborhood behind. I liked Ponyboy's voice, his way of speaking. Kind of like my dad, but calmer. You could hear it in his voice, you could hear how many books he's read.

"So the next year when I was a senior, Darry got a better job. A job at some company, and I had a part time job, too. So we didn't need Soda's income like we did before. And that's when he left. Just upped and left, left us a note. I still remember it. It said, 'Sorry guys but I can't stay here anymore. I'll go crazy. I'll miss you guys but I just can't stay. Love, Sodapop,' "

We walked, and he was quiet, remembering.