Chapter 7: The Smoke

Tulsa May 1976

They say a woman becomes a mother when she finds out she's pregnant, and a man becomes a father when he first sees his baby. I can't speak for Grace and Soda, but I'll put up a fight against anyone who tries to tell me that Darrel Curtis didn't take his fatherly duties seriously the second we found out I was pregnant. There's a certain way Darry's brow furrows when he's set in his unbreakable determination, and as soon as I saw his eyes laser focus in on the doctor's face six years ago, I knew that man had shouldered any and all responsibility he could in this new role. Whatever task is being done at Darry's hands is a task that'll be done with ultimate precision and dedication. It's one of the things that attracted me to him most.

Still, I didn't realize just how intense he could be way back in 1970 when we were newlyweds, but I learned pretty quickly. It started with his baby-proofing of the house. I'll never forget coming home from a double shift at the hospital to find Darry in the soon-to-be baby's room, hunched over next to the crib, filing down the corners of the dresser like a madman because they were 'too pointy to be safe for a crawling baby'. Then, Margaret Palmer down the street tipped him off to a new mothering book that sent him spiraling, as he practically engineered locks on every medicine cabinet, knife drawer, and cleaning closet in the house. Once Jackie was born, he knew every single swaddling method, burping position and diaper pro and con there was to know. And he still caught no lip or jabs from any of his buddies.

My husband raised two teenage boys not long before we started dating, but he never did have the responsibility of a baby. He was feeling a bit unprepared and educated himself every way he could, and I admit, it was humorous to watch this obsession unfold at first. However, it wasn't long until I learned that these were the kind of worries that kept him up at night, pacing the living room and brainstorming solutions to problems we didn't even have. Neurosis, diagnosable probably, but it comes from this solid place within him that makes him as reliable and steady as he is.

"She won't be walking anytime soon, Darry, let alone trying to run away." I say as he continues to nail in those two-by-fours to finish his weekend fence project to enclose our backyard. I stifle a smile because neither of us take too kindly to being patronized.

"I just want everything to be ready for her. I just want her to be safe."

Of course, as he does with everything, he managed and adapted and soon, being a father became second nature to him... although he took it no less seriously. Between holding her hand at all times in the grocery store, or providing constant supervision if she decided to play in the front yard, Darry will never be someone who trusts fate when it comes to those he loves. And how could anyone blame him for that? He's got to have his fingers in the pot too, he likes to pretend he's got some cosmic hand in all the things he doesn't. I love him so much for how hard he tries, all that effort that people don't usually see because he doesn't draw attention to. I see it, and I'm grateful for it, because nobody cares as much as he does, and it makes me want to care for him all the more.

His strides are long and quick down the hospital hallway, his brow set yet again in that determination, so much so that I don't think he realizes how many paces I am behind him. My giggle is the only thing that has him turning around to see that I'm nowhere near up to speed with him.

"Sorry, Deb." He stops short, allowing me just a couple of seconds to catch up and starts shaking his head at himself. "I'm just excited is all."

I lock arms with him mid-stride and tug him closer to room 324, which should just be around the corner by now. "Then hurry up, slowpoke."

He clears his throat and straightens his back to his perfect vertical posture as we reach the door, trying to compose all those butterflies he likes to pretend he's immune to. We step in, confidently, cooly, collected, just how he wants.

I think Soda must be the type of guy who needed to see a real life baby in front of him before he was able to comprehend what is expected of him as a dad. As soon as we turn into that room, his eyes meet mine and a big smile pastes itself across his face, little baby Marley tucked in the lock of his arm and he's already got that fatherly aura about him where he didn't before. And Soda, who's usually as colorful as they get, looks like his recent black and white self has been given a fresh coat of paint. Maybe not fully restored yet, but certainly an upgrade from the last time I saw him.

"Debbie! Darry!" he yells excitedly, but quickly shushes himself before anyone else can as he remembers the sleeping baby. He waltzes over to me, hardly breaking his smile when he gives me a toothy kiss on the cheek. He looks up at Darry, and pivots himself slightly so Marley's face can be fully displayed with the zeal of a little kid in a candy shop. It's like the last three months weren't hell for us all. Like it's all been forgotten, and for this moment, I'll take it, because even if Soda's still not so steady on his feet, you have to soak up the little wins in a family like this. At least Darry and Soda are speaking to each other. At least for right now, we can pretend and enjoy. "Isn't she just the cutest damn baby you ever saw?"

"Soda."

"Sorry, minus the damn. I mean, she looks a kinda like a raisin, but somehow she's still the prettiest damn thing I've ever seen!"

"Soda."

"Shit, sorry, minus the damn again."

Darry pauses to take stock, because he doesn't dole out fake answers. He gets a decent look of the baby- I mean, a real good look up and down- and it's too much for him to try and suppress that smile, so he doesn't. "She's perfect." he says finally, nodding over to Grace, who's sitting upright on the bed, looking equal parts exhausted and fully energized.

"Congratulations, you two!" I pepper in my own elation since Darry's tone is flat, even in all his sincerity.

"Where's Pony?"

"He had an assignment in the city, but he'll be back tomorrow." The longing in Soda tone only lingers for a moment before he goes back to rocking back and forth like he's been playing this part of 'dad' his whole life.

"How's mama doing?" I ask. Even though I see that postpartum, maternal glow, I know Grace has been braving all kinds of harsh weather lately.

Not one to over-communicate, she gives me a small smile which is good enough for me because it's a real one. Soda jumps in anyways, riffing off his tale of her heroism and triumph on that living room floor, his face contorting a bit as he mentions the gory details, too, while Darry clears his throat awkwardly probably from his own PTSD. As a mother of three, I can't imagine having a baby outside of a hospital. In fact when Darry got Soda's call, I swear I had sympathy pains for her. I wouldn't change a thing about my husband, but he wasn't exactly the most encouraging labor buddy. Especially during our first birth, he sort of just stood there, eyes wide in shock, shifting his weight on either foot as he tried to find the words to coach me through it all without passing out.

But with Soda's usual energy and humorous reenactments, it sounds like Marley's chaotic birth may have actually brought them a little closer to one another.

"Oh, Grace, she's so beautiful." I chime in as little baby Marley does a yawn and a stretch, and Soda beams in pride.

"Soda, bring her back over here, I want to look, too." Grace demands with a soft impatience. Soda's already become captivated all over again. In a single leap, he's already by the side of the bed and the two new parents look on the rest of their life right there in his hands. It's been a while since Darry and I have seen them, but I know well enough that they haven't looked this together in a long time. While their souls will always be entwined with one another, lately they've been a bit tangled. Today I think they're starting to straighten out.

"We're going to have so much fun." Soda says, and I feel Darry's arm wrap around my shoulder.

I can only hope it lasts.

cont.

"I think this is exactly the reset they needed." I say, noticing the ache in my cheeks when I can't quit smiling like some idiot. "Did you see how good he was with her? I was never worried about Grace with a baby, but Soda can be a handful on his own sometimes."

Deb doesn't say anything for a moment, and when I look up, she's burning a hole in my bagel in a deep and thoughtful gaze, chewing on the inside of her lower lip.

"What is it?" I ask when she doesn't respond. She looks up at me.

"Yep." She nods with a forced but still stunning smile, "Marley sure won't be short on love, that's for certain."

"But?"

She sighs, "I don't want to rain on this parade, Darry, but it just isn't that simple. You know as well as I do a baby brings its own set of problems, and it doesn't fix everything. And the two of them already had a lot of things needing fixing before this."

Deb's always been able to see the whole board, to stay constant even while she can be so involved in her emotions all the same.

"I've just seen this with my patients before. Having a baby doesn't fix addiction." She fiddles with her thumbs, a little quieter this time.

I knew it all along, but it was a nice break to think that we could be done with all this. Usually Pony's the one for wishful thinking, not me.

"I'm sorry, we can talk about it later. This is a day for celebration!"

I shake my head, "No. I just..." my bones start to ache all over again just entertaining all that comes with what she's implying.

"You're tired of being on the sidelines." She always gets it.

"I guess."

"Then don't be on the sidelines." She straightens up to state her case, "I know... no, I really don't know... about how hard it was bringing him around the first time. And that you just want to keep us separate from all this mess, but you haven't slept through the night since this all went down three months ago. Stepping away was supposed to bring you some peace, and it's not. You can still be there for him like you want to, and keep our kids out of it like you want to. I don't think it has to be one or the other."

"I don't like it, but he needs to know what he's capable of doing in all of this, he needs to know we're serious. It's something that affects us all." My head and voice always manage to team up together, even if they betray what's stirring in my heart.

"He already knows that. Honey, he can't help it, and you know well enough that the last thing he'd ever want is for someone to have to go through this with him. Why do you think he's been so silent in your distance? He's trying to give you space to deal with this, too."

"Well, maybe things will start to get better now with Marley. Maybe this will be a push in the right direction for him." It's a wish that hardly carries any weight in our conversation of reality.

"Darry, I've got your back either way, whatever you decide to do. I won't pretend I know better than you when it comes to Soda, but you know I won't just sit by silently either." she takes my hands, "Just remember that this round, you're not alone, and I'm a fighter just like you. It doesn't have to be us or him."

Even if she disagrees with how I deal with my brothers, I will always count it as a blessing that she's somehow got mine and both of their backs in her own Debbie way.

Tulsa 1969

With an air of confidence and purpose, a woman with strawberry blonde hair glides in to meet me on the examination table. "Hello, my name is Debbie, I'll be your nurse today. How did you cut your hand, Mr... Curtis?" Kind and shockingly familiar blue-purple eyes look up at me from the chart, and it's then that we both recognize one another.

"Darrel?" she asks with an inviting grin I remember well from home games and championship wins from my years on the field. Now she's traded out her cheering uniform for scrubs, looking sophisticated and capable.

"Debbie Thompson?" My face instantly flushes, and I wonder when the hell I lost all that suavity I used to have in my days as an athlete. "How long has it been?"

"Gosh, years at least, I don't think I've seen you since..." but she trails off, and I recall then that my most recent memory is of her dressed in a black dress, helping to distribute hors d'oeuvres back in 1965 at the wake in our living room. Hardly anything about that day is clear, but for some reason, she is.

"It's been a while." I deflect.

"How have you been?" she asks, eyes wide like she's really curious, but as I'm about to answer, some of the blood from my hand drips and splats hard onto the floor from off of Hendrick's truck rag he lent me for the ride to the hospital. .

"Sorry." Is all I can find to say, and her laugh soothes any insecurity I felt before.

"Mind if I take a look?" She takes my hand so delicately, gently unwrapping my lousy patch work. She takes a hard and focused look at that angry slice that runs from the middle of my palm down the side of my wrist. One stupid second of distraction while I was cutting packaging with my blade, that's all it took. Explaining that to anyone would be embarrassing enough, but it's humiliating thinking about admitting it to Debbie. Maybe she'll think I'm clumsy, when I'm not really, things have just been wearing me out more lately. "You don't need any stitches, but I'll need to clean and bandage it so it doesn't get infected."

She places a clean wrap of gauze in my hand and tells me to hold it tightly while she tosses Hendrick's rag in the trash and gathers up some bottles and tape from the counters behind her.

"So you're a nurse?" I ask in her quiet rummaging, immediately feeling like a total bust because we've already established that in her introduction two seconds ago. I've been out of the game a while now, and where I used to be a smooth talking quarter back, now I'm a single twenty-something-year-old who gets butterflies at the sight of a pretty girl. Not to mention the last time I went on a date was, well, so far back I couldn't tell you. Definitely well before Pony went off to school, and that was last year.

"No, I'm a patient, but they let me play doctor from time to time." She jokes, giving me a friendly wink as she starts to clean away the mess I've brought in."This'll sting a bit."

"Good for you." Eyes still focused on the task, she smiles small but proud, and I wonder if it's not a congratulations she gets often enough.

"How're your brothers?" She asks. My stomach tightens a bit. There's no easy way to tell people that the Soda they know and love isn't the same one they'll see these days. Not by a long shot.

"They're good." I lie, clearing my throat immediately like it'll erase my dishonesty. I hate lying, but Soda's worth a lot damn more than that. "Pony's up at Columbia, working towards being a journalist, and Soda's, uh... he's home from overseas." And with his return came all my clumsy, hand-slicing exhaustion, but that's a fact I alone need to bear.

She stops wrapping and looks up at me, her eyes instantly connecting with mine in a way that I think she sees through everything I haven't said, and understands it completely.

"I've been working with veterans for a couple years now." Her sympathetic nod is a bit melancholic and she looks back down at my hand and continues. "You tell him to keep his head up. Tell Pony the same, for me too, will you?" It's like she already knows about Pony's chronic homesickness.

We talk a bit more about her schooling, the long hours at the hospital, my hot summers on top of those roofs. We don't talk about Vietnam, or my parents, or her divorce with Kenny. We just talk about how we're moving forward. It isn't until another nurse comes in to summon her for help, that I realize my hand's been wrapped clean a long while now and we've just been chatting.

Usually I hate chatting.

"It was good to catch up with you, Darry. I think about you and your brothers often, even after all of these years." And maybe I am painfully out of practice when it comes to asking girls out, but at least I'm able to see that she's opened the door for me to walk right on in. So I do.

"Debbie, would you want to grab a drink sometime?" I catch myself fidgeting with the perfectly white gauze in an attempt to corral my amateur nervousness.

She doesn't miss a beat, like we're already on the same page. "Absolutely. Sally at the front desk can give you my number when you check out. I'll be home at 8 tonight if you want to call."

And without waiting for a response, she sails right on into the buzzing hallway.

Tulsa May 1976

I'd forgotten I'd asked for another Mint Julep until the waitress brings it my way. As she sets it down, she collects the other two I've finished and we glance at each other briefly with a hint of concern in both of our eyes.

"Thanks." I say, not hitting the consonants as hard as I would've liked. Usually I might be a little embarrassed, but after a long day of interviewing in the hot Oklahoma sun, heat made hotter with the city's concrete and pollution, I've settled myself down for some unwinding.

Jack was being an ass when he sent me to the city for this fluff piece when he knows well enough that fluff is the last thing I like to write. Jackass.

"It'll do you some good to get out and write about something happy, Ponyboy, don't you think? Seems like you've got some sort of a cloud over you lately."

Okay, he's not so bad. He had no way of knowing Marley would be coming last night, and I'd have no way of meeting my niece until tomorrow's 9AM bus back to Tulsa since Soda's Camaro is at the DX for repairs. Now even Steve and Keith have met her, and I'm stuck at this bar in the city, writing about fluff pieces on anniversary homecomings from a war I want to forget.

I wanted to be there when she was born.

And yet, it's been a while since I've felt wanted there. Resentment's a powerful thing, I never thought mine would latch onto Soda. I've been trying so damn hard to get through to him and he keeps acting like there isn't that emptiness in him. Now he's got this perfectly good baby to fill that hole inside. The both of them have got their families, and there's a certain isolation I feel from it, even if it stems from the strongest of bonds between us.

Suddenly, my third Mint Julep is gone, and I rattle the ice around in the glass for a while, thinking on the prospect of another. I decide against it when the only adjective I can think to describe the way my brain feels is prickly.

I'm not a steady drunk. Of the three of us, only Darry's got a level head while intoxicated. Once, he caught Soda and I completely wasted after Steve challenged us to a drink off, which Steve won no contest of course.

"Darry, we was just messin' around by the Dingo is all. No drinking, swear." Soda had said, though his slurred string of words didn't quite make the cut against Darry's suspicions.

"Then why can't Pony hardly hold himself upright? And why you keep tripping over your damn feet even though you're standing still?" He had probed, serious, angry, ready to explode at the sight of us and our betrayal of his curfew and rules. All Soda and I could manage was to look at each other and burst out laughing, sealing our fate as 'grounded' for the weekend by someone only six years my superior.

But that was years ago. Now it seems we don't share much of anything anymore.

I pull out my notepad from earlier today, glancing over my notes. Messy scribbles about the various soldiers who came home and seemed to fair the aftereffects of the war much better than ours did. I wonder if it's because they're better families than ours, or if they've just lost less, had less to rebuild? Did I not want it hard enough?

That pay phone in the corner of the restaurant sits perfectly in view, like it's calling me directly over to do what I've been wanting to do this whole night and keep trying to bridge that gap between us, and make that call. To check in, see how Marley's doing her first day in this world, to hear Soda tell me everything about her. But I'm just so tired pretending like it doesn't hurt to be begging to help and get turned away every time I do. I'm tired of not being needed at home when there's a long list of papers across the country requesting to need me. Maybe I'm stupid for wishing Tulsa would need me when I've got so many other options. Maybe this is my sign to go back to that other life, that vibrant, vivid city life of possibility, the life that I did come to love no matter how much I fought it initially.

Yet, if I could choose, I would choose to stay here.

'You can't always get what you want', explodes like fire in my brain, so cumbersome that it takes me a minute to gather that's it's just the music over the restaurant's loud speaker, and not my own neurons spinning lessons through Mick Jagger's voice. 92.5 KOMA plays this song at least six times a day, but their timing tonight is especially annoying.

I leave an extra generous tip for my waitress and start that treacherous walk to the booth.

The phone smells like beer, and I wonder how many desperate calls have been made right here on this line, and if mine counts as that too. How unoriginal I've become. I dial the number, rote just like I've done countless other times but with none of the excitement I usually possess when I call him.

It rings only a couple of times before I hear his cheerful answer, and it's so animated and whole that for a second I believe that we've traveled back a couple months before his relapse.

"Heeeeeeeello?" comes his signature answer. It's so reflexive, these conversations of ours, so I almost launch right into my own greeting before the Mint Junep sits heavy in my stomach and my mind reverts back to the animosity I've been feeling. Ultimately, my mood beats my better judgement. If the pep in his voice is any indicator, I guess he really didn't need me to make him better. Something about that thought has me wallowing in my own self-pity.

I press my finger on the receiver and hear the click just as he's a syllable into repeating himself. I can feel the waitress' eyes on me as the change falls and I punch in another set of numbers I've somehow managed to memorize in so little time.

It rings only a couple of times before I hear her bitter answer, "This better be good, calling me at 11PM."

"Valerie?" I ask, shamefully, imagining the phone with eyes to roll at the cliche desperation in my voice.

"Speaking." It takes her a few seconds to recognize my voice, "I was wondering when you'd give me a call, Ponyboy."

cont.

The electricity of today comes crashing down on me hard in our very own bathroom as I try and squeeze the toothpaste onto my toothbrush. It's too delicate a task for my shaky hands, and I wonder what kind of adrenaline I've been pumping that had me believing I was fit to hold a tiny baby all day.

I've been so distracted, I forgot about those four white pills I had stashed in my pocket just in case. Until now, in the silence and solitude of the bathroom. The quiet always brings out the most noise in me. Funny how nothing is still sound.

My muscles are stiff, my stomach roiling, and even as the cool breeze whistles in through the window and chills me to the bone, I'm still sweating like a popsicle in the sun. Withdrawal has never been anything but a contradiction, I know that, but whenever I throw myself in the middle of it, somehow I forget the intensity.

My hand wanders into my pocket as I fish out those fucking pills, and I stare hard at them, long enough to make me dizzy, which then makes me nauseous, and I have just enough warning to turn the faucet on full blast to cover the noise of my puking so hopefully Grace doesn't hear.

When I'm finished, it takes just about all I've got left to push myself back up to stand. I haven't got the energy to finish brushing my teeth, let alone raise this baby. But I don't want anything else. All I want is her and Grace. I want what we could have together. Something about seeing her in real life makes it seem like it could actually happen.

My stomach churns again.

I look back at those pills and think about tossing them back before turning in, to save getting clean for another, easier night, but then I hear Grace giggle outside, surely fawning over this new gift, and drop them into the toilet with the puke before I can reconsider. I've still got a whole other bottle stashed in secret under that couch, but I feel a necessary mourning for the four in the toilet bowl.

When I finally step out into the bedroom, Grace is already fast asleep, Marley's crib's been pushed as close to Grace's side of the bed as possible. I make my way around for a final goodnight, kissing Grace on the forehead, careful not to wake her after a long day she's championed. Marley has been swaddled up just right, because Grace had been practicing, and she's fast asleep too. I turn off the lamp right by them both, and the room gets so black I can hardly see anything ahead of me.

Carefully, I make my way to the foot of the bed by swiping my foot in front of me every step to keep clear of miscellaneous items on the floor, finally perching myself on the floor below because it's the only place that I feel most grounded. Even as it's so similar to those nights sleeping on the earth in the jungle, the shaggy green carpet is the reminder I need that I'm not out there anymore.

I glance over my shoulder and the bed at the phone on my nightstand, and I wonder why Pony never called me back. Especially now that he's surely gotten the news and the night owl he is, he's probably awake still. Night is usually when we like to chat, anyways, because it's just like old times at Mom and Dad's house. I could call just as easily, I guess. To talk to him, to hear about his day, just to hear his voice. But I've pushed him away enough lately, hurt him enough now that I don't think a phone call 'just to chat' is what he wants from me anymore. I pull my knees in close to my chest to keep the room from spinning and the nausea at bay.

It comes right back in the air around me, and settles itself thick on my shoulders. Parson. Grenade. Lemon Head.

The second stash is just in the next room, I could end all this pain right now...

Parson. Grenade. Lemon Head.

Suddenly, there's a little whimper from the crib next to Grace, and before I know it, I'm reaching in to pick her up before she can cry harder and wake her sleeping mother beside her. The pules that come from that little body are both gut wrenching and adorable. I bounce her as carefully as I can, because she's so tiny I feel like it'd be all too easy to hurt her and I'm still figuring the right way to hold her.

She starts to quiet down before her eyes flutter shut again, and even though she's fast asleep, I can't help but keep her right there in my arms and stare. That unsettling feeling in my stomach easier to ignore now. That cyclical script in my head starting to fade.

Parson. Grenade. Lemon Head.

Vietnam 1967

There's that all too familiar sound like rocks against wet cloth as bullets rip through the kid's chest right there in front of us, his body recoiling from the impact of each one. I watch the grenade he had queued up to throw at his assassins roll from the palm of his hand onto the ground and tumble just meters away, pin still lodged inside. He falls to his knees reaching up to the sky as if in surrender just as another strikes him between the eyes, forever silencing him and he falls to the ground face first, unmoving. Watching someone take their last breath will never be normal, but my recovery time has gotten quick. So when I see Curtis running toward the boy who's now nothing more than just a body, I've already gotten my rifle raised and combating down anyone who starts to shoot his way.

"Get the fuck out of there, kid." I'm screaming at him in a whisper that's hitched in my throat, the rifle ricocheting back at me with every bullet I fire, warring off those who dare try to take him down too. I won't lose two today. My eyes bounce back and forth at three men closing in on the body and Curtis out there in the open, exposed. Curtis flips Parson onto his back, tapping the kids cheek like it'll wake him, trying to shake him back to life. The idiot doesn't even have his hand on his weapon, maybe he really is as stupid as he says he is. Somehow I can hear his cries with complete clarity over the ruckus.

He starts to drag Parson by the arms towards the safety of the jungle behind him, only making himself a larger and easier target to hit in his slowness.

"I can't hold them all, Curtis!" Finally belts from my lungs and without looking up at me or the men, eyes still on Parson, he stands upright, pulls his rifle from around his shoulder and fires a single shot at Parson's failed grenade, and it explodes by the feet of the men, demolishing not only their existence but the two little village huts around where they'd tried to use as cover.

I'm discombobulated for only a few seconds, and as the smoke clears from the blast, so does my head. Curtis is pulling Parson onto his shoulders now, shielded only by the tall blades of grass that mask him only a little. I'm on him quick, running in his direction with my weapon still ready to protect, as more enemy fire is starting to take aim to us.

As I get closer, I see that Parson's eyes are wide open, empty, staring that familiar expired glare at the ground as Curtis works to stand with the kid's dead weight on his back.

"Leave 'im. There's still five or so of their guys out there and we gotta take cover!" I pull us both to the ground on our bellies when more bullets spray towards us. I use the time to try and unload this burden he's trying to bring with, but he's fighting me off. "Let him go, Curtis."

"I can't leave him, he's my brother!" He shouts back at me in vicious protectiveness with wet cheeks, pushing my probing hands away defensively as he continues to lift the corpse. I know he's confused, and it fires me up to think of how war can get in and twist our heads around in this way.

"No he ain't!" My voice is low, like a growl, guarding Curtis from his own grieving mind, not sure if I'm talking to him or his confusion right now. "He's dead, Curtis, and he ain't your brother. Your brothers are in Oklahoma."

He stops, eyes blazing back at me like he hates me for everything that's not my fault but I'm forever associated with. But we don't have time to break it down, so I pull Parson's mangled carcass from Curtis' shoulders and he lets me, watching with a horrible sadness as he falls into the mud next to us.

"Ponyboy is home." I repeat and he looks like he's miles from his body right now.

I have to pull Curtis by his t-shirt to get him to move with me once I stand us up between shots, but I know his eyes never leave Parson's body even as we run further from the clearing and deeper into our cover in the bushes.

Author's Note:

'You Can't Always Get What You Want' The Rolling Stones (1969) is the song playing during Pony's identity crisis in the city.

Thank you, always and forever for reading this story and dropping your feedback if you are. To the anonymous guest reviewers who I don't get to thank on PM, thank you thank you!