Night Thoughts, Part 2
Ponyboy sat up abruptly in the dark silence of 4 a.m., moving so quickly his feet were on the floor before his eyes opened. He never slept well in Tulsa. No one but Michelle knew that. He'd been prone to nightmares since his parents died, and at one point they were so bad Darry had taken him to the doctor andhe andSoda began sharing a bed. When he was in college, during bad times,he had sometimes picked up women just so he wouldn't have tosleep alone. He sighed, running one hand over the stubble on his face. At least he didn't scream anymore.
Pony looked at his wife, sound asleep, her short brown hair sticking straight up onto the pillow. He wondered again how he had come to be so incredibly lucky to meet his wonderful wife. And Danny, his son. He had tried time and again to write about the love of a parent for his child, but the words wouldn't come.
Maybe there weren't any words. Or maybe it was too painful, even now, to think about losing his own parents.
That was the day Pony realized, though he was only 13, that your whole life can change in the space of a breath. He and Soda and Cinnamon had come around the corner of the block and seen their yard full of cruisers. They sprinted, fearing the worst, but never imagining what news waited for them. Later, Soda confessed he thought Dallas was holed up inside, hiding for some petty crime, while their mom tried to talk him into giving himself up. Ponyboy had collapsed on the couch, Cinnamon disappeared into the kitchen and refused to respond to Soda's tearful pleas to come sit with them, and the boys huddled together until Darry came home and took charge. He'd been in charge ever since, until now.
He couldn't … Pony couldn't even think the word. Darry couldn't leave them. One of them would match and he'd be fine.
Ponyboy pulled on his sweatshirt against the pre-dawn chill and padded down the hallway. The kids were all together, with Laura in her double bed, in Cinnamon's old room. All four of them had that same peculiar shade of red-gold hair the Curtis children had shared when they were younger. Sarah was upside down, her head on Laura's feet. Laura was gorgeous, a beautiful athletic girl who was smart and sweet and candid. She was a lot like her grandmother. Soda – and, to be fair, Darry – had done a good job with her. Danny was sucking his thumb, his bulky Pull-Up butt sticking straight up in the air. Johnny's mouth was wide open. Pony smiled, remembering watching the first Johnny and Cinnamon sleep in the church in Windrixville, thinking that people looked younger when they were asleep.
Johnny. Pony thought of Johnny often, but he tried not to think of what he'd come to call That Night, or sometimes, The Night That Changed His Life. There were things about That Night he didn't even know – for instance, how Cinnamon had been at the fountain when he came to, half-drowned. The last thing he remembered was hearing her screaming – screaming his name, screaming for Darry and Soda, screaming filthy words at the Socs. When woke up, he was lying in Cinnamon's lap, with her sweater torn so badly he could see the cup of her bra. Johnny was by the fountain, his switchblade dark to the hilt, Bob Sheldon dead beside him. It had been years before he realized that not only had those Socs meant to kill him, and probably Johnny, they'd meant to rape his sister too. No wonder Johnny had gone berserk.
Maybe, someday, he'd ask his sister what had happened during those moments he was underwater and unconscious.
It was almost funny to think now that for five days he and his sister had been honest-to-God fugitives from the law. Those days in the church were long and frightening but Pony looked back on some moments almost with nostalgia. He had been nearly content dozing next to Cinnamon, with Johnny on her other side, and it had been funny to watch them making puppy-dog eyes at each other. They'd been in love for years, Pony thought now, we were all just too young to know it. They'd taken turns reading Gone with the Wind to pass the time. Pony still had the book, with his last letter from Johnny tucked inside, in the bottom drawer of the desk in his home office, on top of his unpublished novel.
Maybe it was time to send that out.
Soda was snoring softly on the couch, having given up his room to Cinnamon and Clinton. Pony tiptoed past him. It was a familiar sight – he couldn't remember a time in his childhood when someone or another had been sacked out on the couch. He went into the kitchen to quietly make coffee and wondered what time visiting hours at Saint Francis Hospital started.