Thanks again for keeping up with this story!
For those wondering, Soda's suffering from situation-specific amnesia (a type of psychogenic amnesia). Because it occurs as a psychological response to trauma or stress, it is not actually considered memory loss, because the memories still exists, they are simply repressed, awaiting the right series of triggers to bring them forth again. I did my best with research on the subject, though there's no guarantees what follows is totally accurate.
Sorry it's such a long chapter, but I hope you enjoy nonetheless!
Chapter 14: The Phoenix
Tulsa 1958
"Now hold it still, Darry," I instruct my eldest, and he does just that with duty, body completely still and rigid as he holds the tire up so I can work the pin back in place. "Now y'all pay attention, 'cause I ain't teaching you how to drive a car 'less you know how to fix one."
"You two listening to Dad?" Darry asks seriously, already knee-deep in indignation towards his brothers. His eyes are trained hard on that bolt, an unbreaking focus always about him like he'll miss something. Soda's attention is on that little horny back toad that's hopping our way, sleeves rolled up like he's ready to pounce. Pony's right between him and Darry, glancing up at the sky and the airplane overhead, mind way far away from us here or the spare tire.
I can see what's about to happen before it does, but it's too quick for me to intervene. Soda winds up to catch that toad, recoiling back in pride when he does and colliding into an oblivious Pony, sending both tumbling bodies into Darry, whose hand slips off of the tire as he's knocked right over with the rest of them.
I don't need to hear the sound of the snap to know that rusted over linchpin has broken from the weight of the unsupported tire. I take a second to calm my rising blood pressure before I do anything because it's already been a long day with the truck breaking down a few miles from home. Not to mention listening to the three of them bicker and wrestle one another all day long, each of them smack dab center of that age and dynamic where they're always just looking to pick a fight with the closest offender.
Sure enough, the surprise of the collision quickly turns into thrown fists and bitter blame being tossed around.
"Clumsy dumbass," Darry says, wrestling Soda off of him. Soda's got a lock of his older brother's hair, while simultaneously trying to push Pony out of the way.
"Shut up!" He warns, though his cool is long gone. Pony's trying to figure out how to be part of the fight, still trying to do whatever Soda and Darry do, but sort of just stays on the sidelines.
Pony and Soda are still easier to lift than Darry these days, so I grab them two by their collars, one in each hand because I know Darry will quit fighting if I look at him the right way. Pony seems to be surprised he's suddenly floating in the air and his fight ceases, but Soda keeps socking the air around his older brother who's too far away to reach, though that doesn't stop him from trying. Darry catches my glare, stands up tall and brushes himself off, already ready to tell me how this ain't his fault.
"Cut it out," I say to Soda's swinging, with a voice that doesn't even try to hide my exhaustion or impatience. When I set the two youngsters on the ground, they all three begin at once to defend themselves, and not each other.
"You saw it Dad," Darry starts, "They wasn't even payin' you no attention, Soda was watching that stupid toad."
"The toad was headed for the truck, I was tryna keep the work area clear from all distractions," Soda goes off, unconvincingly.
"I didn't even throw no punches," Pony's green eyes are furious at being blamed for another thing he had no part in.
They shut up in my silence, finally cued into the fact that I don't give a damn whose fault it is and I'm getting real tired of how quickly they'll turn on each other. I point down at the three broken pieces on the ground next to the truck.
"Do you know what a linchpin is, boys?" I ask firmly, and they look back at me, confused until they see the part on the grass next to the fallen tire. I raise my eyebrows and 'hm' when nobody says anything. "A linchpin is the most important piece of something. Without it, you got nothing. This little piece here, the one that's now broken in three? Without it, it don't matter how fancy or fast a car we got, we don't get to go nowhere."
Darry crosses his arms over his chest and rolls his eyes, surely aimed for his brothers that they've yet again fiddled with the process. Soda scratches the back of his neck sheepishly as they all three look back at me with their equally intense pairs of eyes of contrasting colors and tides.
I go on, "D'you know people can be linchpins too?" Pony and Soda shake their heads at that and Darry thinks on it for a bit until he nods, deciding that might be able to make sense to him. "Everybody's a linchpin one way or another. Take you three for example." They look at one another, still mid-grudge and tired from our long day, so I press on. "When y'all work together, y'all are unstoppable. Like when ya team up to play football against those other kids on our street, y'always win. But when y'all turn on each other like you just did, like you been doing all day, y'all ain't shit. Each of you is a linchpin in your own right, a vital piece of the puzzle."
I pick up the broken pieces and put a part in each of their hands. "Supper is at six, it's 4:30 now, y'all got just a little over an hour to figure out how we're getting home."
Pony's about to pipe up and surely add in his two-cents but my cocked eyebrow deters him and he shoves his hands in his pockets.
"And I ain't never wanna hear you rattin' on each other or callin' each other names like that again. Ain't nothing you can do to change the fact that you're brothers, and that's one of the best gifts you got, whether you see it or not. This life is a tough one, one that'll break you, and I ain't gonna be around forever to pick you up when it does. That's why you always have each other's backs, no matter what. I don't give a damn about much else."
I nod to them each individually, then open the passenger door and climb inside.
"Where you going?" Soda asks.
"Mr. Jenkins' auto parts store is just a quarter mile down the road, and Soda and Darry, you've got your paper route earnings, don't ya?" Hesitant nods as they think on having to give it up for Dad's old truck. "Figure it out. I don't want to hear no more arguing, or I'll come back out and show you with the back of my hand what I think of it."
With that, I slam the door and close my eyes, but listen in as they start to work it out, because in the end, they always seem to.
Pretty soon, Darry's hashing out a plan, Soda's got his arms around the both of them, and Pony's tuned in for the adventure as they head down the road towards Mr. Jenkins' store.
Tulsa, November 1976
"None of those talkin' heads said there'd be snow," Murphy says with sunken eyes that stare out the window as I wind up to slide him his third Budweiser.
"I ain't gonna have to fight you for your keys again, am I?" I ask him, narrowing my eyes in as his grin is too mischievous for my liking.
"Nah, Martin, I'll walk, it ain't that far." He declares, watching that pint I'm holding hostage and wiggling his fingers out to take it, leaning in on his habit for support even as it drags him down each and every time. I tsk and shake my head at him and sigh, then pass it over.
"I'll drive ya soon as we close. I ain't about to let you freeze to death on my watch."
"You're a real pal." He's grateful, not looking at me, just that yellow liquid in the glass. I wonder if he's been baiting me all along as he stuffs a dollar into my tip jar, even though that's not what I was after.
Suddenly, the front door to the bar swings open and slaps the wall outside from both the great effort of the figure now standing in the doorway, and the whipping wind. Startled, I snap my head to see Gracie Mae Walker, recently Gracie Mae Curtis, standing there, baby bundled up tightly and draped over her shoulder with about a million snow flurries bouncing in the air around the two of them.
"Well if it ain't my favorite ex-waitress!" I raise my hands, always happy to see her, albeit surprised. But then I remember the hour, the fact that it's the night of Thanksgiving and the lack of Sodapop Curtis right beside her and my stomach begins to shrivel. The expression she's got on tears me down even further.
The wind sucks the door back shut in a slam that knocks her all of the way inside the bar and almost clear off her feet, but she recovers quick enough to use the momentum to make her way towards me.
"Martin…" she starts with a panicked look.
"Is everything okay?" I'm already out from behind the bar, but she's just about running towards me now, securing the baby with both hands in the jostling of her speed.
"He ain't here, is he?" Her voice is demanding and curt, as she continues on stripping the bar clean with her eyes like this is some life and death version of hide and seek.
I respond, not needing to ask who, "No, sweetheart. I haven't seen him in months." This should be a good thing for them, but tonight, it disturbs the cork of her brokenness, I wonder if she'll pop off right here. I reach for her elbows to sturdy her, afraid she'll topple over by the look of her disheveled self. Still, she holds that baby with the utmost delicacy in all her unsteadiness, and the little one remains undisturbed in her mother's arms, fast asleep.
"I lost him, Martin. He ran off outside without his coat and now it's snowing," her free hand grips my forearm like these are dying words.
"Hell, if it's a man you're looking for, you got one right here, babe." Murphy hiccups, but we're both working to ignore him.
"Did you call Darry or Pony?"
"Power went out on our street from the storm. I've been driving around looking, I was hoping maybe he came in here to stay warm, and he trusts you when he's low."
My own heart sinks a bit thinking he didn't come here first. He would've been welcome any time, he knows that.
"What happened?" I probe, immediately sensing it's both none of my business and must be bad by the way she looks away from me. She wasn't designed for desperation, but that's all she's wearing now.
"Can I use the telephone in your office? Please, I don't know what else to do, I'm worried he's gonna do something..."
Murphy comes in again, I can see him reaching for her in the corner of my eye like he reached for that beer, "Come on home with me, darlin', I'll calm you down real good."
Before I can say anything, Grace whips around to face him, grabs the pint out of his hands with her free one and tosses his precious Budweiser in his face, setting the emptied glass down only to pick up the bowl of communal peanuts on the bar and dump it over his head.
"Don't. Test. Me." She warns, waving a dangerous finger and getting right in his face, then adjusts the baby without breaking gaze before turning back to me, having said all she needed to say. Murphy stares back at us, dumbfounded, but works to stand on intoxicated feet and meet his match rising high above her no-taller-than 5'3" frame. What he doesn't know is that Gracie worked in my bar for three years and got real good at dealing with this sort of thing, and big as he is, even if he were sober, he wouldn't stand a chance.
I tug Grace towards my office gently by her elbow before she can reduce either of us to dust.
"That's right, Martin, get her out of here before she gets herself into something she can't handle." Murphy's words stumble all over each other in an emotional fury as if he thinks this is what's tarnished his reputation.
"It ain't her I'm worried about, shut up and drink your poison." I mumble under my breath, watching Grace, who's already forgotten about Murphy as she marches forward. She waltzes right into my office and plants herself on my chair, and picks up the phone to dial with her back turned to me.
"Grace, you're sopping wet," I tell her but she's all focused on the phone, I can hear the muffled rings from my spot in the doorway. After a few seconds and the ringing stops, she slams the phone on the receiver and picks it up again without pause, this time dialing a different number just as violently.
"Please, Pony, pick up. You'd know how to bring him back," she begs in a whisper to nobody in the room. I feel like an intruder just listening.
"You're shaking," I note aloud.
"I'm fine," she waves me off. I guess Pony's not home either because she slams it back down and sucks in a bunch of air like she's trying to stifle a cry. "Stupid son of a bitch, come home and we can figure this out." I swear nobody has ever been called a stupid son of a bitch out of more love than Soda by his Gracie.
"What happened?" I ask again, pretty sure I have no way of helping unless she throws me a bone.
Her shoulders slump for the splittest of seconds, "I messed up… he won't be coming home any time soon, so I need to find him."
That's all I needed to know.
"What about the DX?" I offer, watching from the sidelines, unsure of what to do, still amazed that the little baby hasn't even opened an eye to all this ruckus.
She nods, her fingers quickly and ferociously punching in the numbers on the pad. She puts the receiver to her ear once more, and enough seconds pass that I lose a bit of hope. Her eyes look up at the ceiling for the last ring, and then she slams it back down when the call goes unanswered.
I'm startled when she swivels in my direction and shoots up like a rocket from off of the chair towards me.
"Power's out in a lot of places, maybe that's why they ain't picking up." I assure her, but it doesn't do that at all.
"What if he's still outside, Martin? You know how crazy he can be sometimes."
"We close in forty-five minutes, I'll go out with you to look and we'll find him."
She shakes her head, always stubborn as hell until she gets her way.
"No, that's too long. I have to go out now. I have to find his brothers." Her eyes light up as she gets an idea, "Please, Martin, can you watch Marley? Please? She shouldn't have to be a part of this."
She starts in a beg like she already knows my answer is a hard no when it comes to kids. I've never been responsible for something so small and I ain't about to start at 68 years old.
"Gracie, just wait and we'll all three go together, the snow's coming down awful hard and it's dangerous to drive-"
"He left without his coat, Martin!" She repeats. She's got a wild look in her eye, too, like she could be crazy herself, and when Soda's involved, maybe she is just that. "He doesn't have a... coat." She says again but I get the feeling it's a placeholder for whatever else it is she didn't tell me.
I stutter over my own tongue trying to come up with some better solution than her going out in the snow on her own and leaving a tiny baby at a bar on Thanksgiving with an old bartender and Murphy of all people, but somehow I come up with nothing as she's already shoving Marley in my arms.
"Please… she'll just be sleeping, she won't bother you none." She's the most stubborn person I've ever known, that paired with her level of independent courage and my passionate pleas don't stand a chance. "Please, you know I ain't got nobody else to go to."
Her words weigh thick in my stomach when I remember her mother ran off when she was little, her dad drank himself into an early grave, and her only brother got himself killed overseas. If she can't find Soda himself, her best bet is to go after his brothers.
Marley nestles her nose into my neck, still mid slumber and unbothered by the movement. I notice she's completely dry even as her mother is drenched, which must be some kind of metaphor. Grace is still trained on me, maniacal expression and all still waiting for me to give her an actual 'yes'.
"All I need's an hour," she continues. "Please."
A bob of my head is all she needs before her eyes fill with tears of gratitude that break my heart, "Thank you, Martin, thank you." Her palm goes to Marley's back and she gives her a quick kiss on the back of her baby's head, having to stand on her toes to reach us. She looks for a moment like she might not be able to leave Marley, but shakes it off before she can think on it too long.
"I'll keep calling around, maybe the power gets fixed real soon and we figure it out. We're gonna find him, Grace."
Before I can say much else, she's darted out the door. I get a sickening feeling in my stomach over it all as I'm left standing in the flickering light of my office, sleeping baby in my arms, and hearing the door slam shut again to signal Grace's departure into the unknown.
Greaser, greaser, greaser!" I hear him yelling like some madman. "O victim of environment, underprivileged, rotten no-count hood! Juvenile delinquent, you're no good!"
Pony's wearing a look of complete horror just hearing our middle brother in there. A fragmented Soda is a frightening Soda on so many levels because it's often the one people are so quick to discard in its foreignness, and that makes it an all the more broken Soda. I can't help but think of what Mom used to say...
"Your brother really ain't all that different from a can of sodapop if you shake him up enough"
And shaken up is a gross understatement.
I glance over at Dave who's stationed behind it all at the front door of the DX, fingers grazing his holster. His eyes are still trained hard on an unbothered Curly until they fall back on me, confused but starting to put the pieces together. I look back at him for only a moment, trying not to see how he might look a little betrayed, how he might've figured it all out by now, how he was never stupid. I give him a nod, a reassurance that I'll explain it all later, just not while my brother's circling the drain in there. It can't all be for nothing.
"Man the door, Dave, would ya? I got it in here." I try to sound uninhibited, thankful when he nods, because he's nowhere near letting up on that gun and I'm not about to have a repeat of the night Dallas was killed.
Curly gives me the subtlest of looks, and I return one of gratitude for his efforts tonight. With that, the door chimes signal his departure from DX and Dave's harsh stare.
I take another look at Pony, who finally finds me, and we nod simultaneously at each other as I raise my hand to the door.
The sound of my knock is futile against the commotion in that office.
"Soda, it's your brothers!"
He starts to cough between the loud crashes on the other side of the door, and I worry. "Darry, we gotta get in there…" Pony starts, concern plaguing his face with a voice not quite strong enough to join in all our shouting. "There's more than what he's told us about the day Parson died. We gotta get in there."
I frown at that, but we haven't the time for him to spell it all out for me. I trust he knows best.
Desperate for a solution, my fists ball up, I slam my boot on the ground hard as I can and Dad's deep, scary, not to be tested tone consumes me entirely as if it's come from above.
"Sodapop Patrick Curtis, open the damn door!"
The complete silence that follows is deafening, my throbbing heart in my ears is the only reason I know I haven't mysteriously lost all hearing. I narrow my eyes dangerously on the grains of the wooden door in front of me like they're Soda's demons themselves.
Shivers, even with beads of sweat running down my face.
There's an uneasy chuckle, devoured by the insulation of his office walls, but even as it sounds nothing like him, I have no doubt my little brother lies somewhere in there. He has all along.
"Well, shit, Darry, you sounded just like Dad just then. I thought that maybe, somehow…" There's only a moment of insecure silence before more clamor ensues. "A bad dream, is all..."
"Soda…" Pony's quick but soft plea somehow cuts through it all.
"Ponyboy?" Soda's turns immediately tender and the smashing stops again, because Pony and I can silence Soda in completely different ways. Those two have always had some sort of telepathy with one another since they were little. "Is that you?" He sounds, above all else, relieved even in his shock. The crunch of glass crushing footsteps signals his approach to the door. I will him to open up at least a little so we can see his face and then I might just know what to do next.
"'Course it is. We'll sit here all night, Soda, so you might as well open the door." Pony is calm somehow, maybe purely by necessity, he's always amazed me by the underlying strength he's got in these moments of chaos. He looks at me, and I give him a nod, an encouragement to keep going because I know he's got this. He's able to see the whole board in a way that sometimes is all that keeps us together.
"I really ripped this thing to shreds, didn't I, Pony?" Though his voice is low, I hear it clearly, so he must be just right there on the other side of that door. Pony follows suit so that all that's separating the two is that lousy plank of wood.
"What's going on in there, Soda?" He says gently. I hear Soda slide down the door and thud to the floor, and watch as Pony does the same, so I squat down too.
"Grace went behind my back." Soda says in a sigh. I can't control the way my head droops and my forehead rests against the door in instant mourning. I see Sandy then, and remember what that did to him all those years ago, and I never would've thought Grace had that in her. "She did it 'cause I pushed her away, you know? Made her feel like I'd forgotten how to love her, just like I made Darry feel like he couldn't trust me, and made you feel like I didn't trust you."
"Do you trust me?" Even as he's talking to Soda, Pony looks up at me as he says it with brows stitched together, but with those emerald eyes unrelenting in their search for the truth no matter how scary it might be to him.
"More'n anybody. The both of you."
Pony's eyebrows relax at that. I clap my hand on his shoulder so he knows I've been seeing all along how hard this has all been on him, too, that we've all been suffering this year, not just Soda. He looks back at me again like he's finally understanding we can't do any of this without him. I wish I'd made that as clear to him as it was to me sooner.
"Well it ain't for nothing, Pepsi Cola." I chime in just as a sea of childhood memories flood back in when I use that nickname. Memories that used to hurt to remember, but now make me feel like the three of us could be whole again if we could just work together.
Now it's Dad's voice that chimes in my ear, "Each of you is a linchpin in your own right, a vital piece of the puzzle. But when you turn on each other, you ain't shit"
My voice breaks without my permission as I feel the sudden urge to speak, "I'm sorry I ever left you to do this on your own, I should've never done that. This life ain't been fair to you, Soda." I think of all the times Soda was pushed to the side as we struggled those first years after Mom and Dad. How it was always Pony I was trying to keep going. How I'd forgotten Soda might've needed something from me too. I wonder how much of this is my fault.
Pony's got hold of my forearm and holds it tight.
The phone starts to ring from the checkout counter behind us but neither of us dare get up.
"You only say that 'cause you don't know what I done." Soda admits, pushing us back again even as he's on his last ounce of whatever's been keeping him going lately.
Pony's eyes bounce all over the place like he's searching for the right thing to say, like he knows something I don't, but Soda's too quick for either of us. I hear him stand, before he says under his breath, "I don't even remember what I done."
The smashing resumes immediately.
He's coughing again, this time harsher than before, sounding a bit too much like the day of the parade. Pony and I don't need anything but subtle glances to communicate now. In a fraction of a second, we're on our feet as I count us into breaking down that door ourselves.
By three, the two of us throw ourselves into the door, the hinges jingling from the impact, but it remains sealed shut. Adrenaline racing, I count down for us to try again.
Darry counts down from three again.
In the second attempt, Darry and I go down with the door, hitting the floor hard but bouncing back up immediately, ready for whatever's awaiting us. The single fluorescent bulb that lights the office swings precariously behind him in the ceiling like a fighter in the ring, Soda its relentless opponent. Shadows cascade all over the walls of the office as the light swings every which way, making it all just a bit more disorienting to make out what's remaining. All I see is the silhouette of his lean frame and untamed hair standing upright every which way as his shoulders heave for air, his old, childhood bat he claimed the DX's protective detail in hand.
The office is a picture of natural disaster, papers strewn and torn all over the floor, his mirror shattered in bits under his feet, those filing cabinets in the corner dented from four or five good hits. Still, I can't help but take it all as the sign of a beating heart, the destruction a sign of a discontented, though haunted person battling for the bough to break to keep from dangling precariously. The fight in him has been what we've been missing all along, and there's a sense of sheer relief that comes with seeing it again, no matter the damage it brings with it.
"Just leave me alone!" he yells at us, waving the bat around clumsily. If I didn't know him so well, I might be scared he'd use it on us, but even without being able to be comforted by the reassurance of his face, I know he's pushing us away because he's terrified we'll be lost in the storm.
We've just got to find the eye of the hurricane and drag him there.
"It's just a dream… I didn't ask for anyone to be here! Why'd you have to go and get 'em Curly?" But Curly's been gone a while now, probably fled as soon as he figured we had it under control, before I had a chance to thank him.
"Put that damn bat down, you ain't gonna use it." Darry says, unapologetically.
Soda points the end of the bat my way, maybe I'm an easier target, but he doesn't know I hold the truths of his past, finally. There's nothing he can threaten me with that'll push me away now because now I can understand his behavior.
"Aren't you scared, Pony? It ain't so pretty down here, is it?" It's like a dare to reject him, and his voice is vicious and accusatory, something I'd be afraid of if I didn't know it was coming from such a damaged place within him. I know the light's shining directly on my face even as I can't see his, so I straighten up and narrow in on where in his shadowed figure I think his eyes must be. Now's the time more than ever to pull off my John Wayne in a duel.
"People are only scared of what they don't know." It'd be a real movie moment if my voice didn't tremble, "You can't scare me, Soda, because I know you."
"That's because you don't know what I done." He heaves, gripping the bat tighter, "You don't know what I did over there."
Before I can tell him he's wrong, that I know it all now, he raises the bat and brings it down hard on top of his desk just once, the wooden shards of the top go flying every which way. I flinch from the explosion of sound. As he brings it up to do it again, his coughs take over once more and he wilts a little, but catches himself on the side of the desk. Darry and I jump on the opportunity while he's incapacitated.
Darry gets hold of him first, wrapping his arms around Soda's waist so his arms are secured like he's in a straight-jacket. As if under attack, he violently squirms in the restraints in an attempt to break free with Darry dodging that damn bat swinging with every movement like Soda can't see that Darry's hold is the safest refuge you can get.
I'm able to grab the bat out of his hand and I toss it behind me without a second thought just as the force of Soda's writhing knocks Darry off balance, off his feet and to the floor, Soda tumbling down on top of him.
"Goddamnit Soda, why you fighting us? It's just your brothers!" Darry grumbles in a wheeze, airless from the impact yet somehow still managing to keep Soda in his hold. "Nobody's tryna hurt you!"
"It ain't real! I'm dreaming!" Soda's yelling to nobody in particular, like he's trying to wake himself up. I go for his shoulders and try to hold them steady before Darry gets full on smothered. But Soda's kicking his feet every which way, and the three of us are sprawl out on the floor among the debris as if we're apart of it.
We're spinning out of control. I go for steady, calm, collected to contrast the chaos around us. Still, my hands tremble tremendously.
"You ain't dreaming, Soda, you're just mixed up is all. There ain't nothing to be afraid of, we ain't going nowhere." I say as loud as necessary to be heard over the commotion. Tears obstruct my vision as I beg him to meet me here, to surrender because I'd never let him get hurt. I'm not sure if it's my words or the realization that he can't outpower the both of us, but his fight reduces to gasps of air, his whole body inflating like a balloon with each inhale. My mind flashes back to that memory that's been tattooed onto my brain of us all crammed in that station wagon. How he was right there in our grasp and still managed to slip away, how he could slip away again right here, and how there's nothing I wouldn't do now to prevent it.
But then he starts to cry, and though he's clearly winded, he's breathing just fine. Only then can I breathe freely, too.
"Sodapop..." Darry starts but probably doesn't know where to begin as he releases his grip on our brother only enough to get to a sitting position. I watch as Soda then turns in towards Darry's chest, fingers wrinkling up that police uniform shirt tightly in his hands, as he clings to our eldest brother for dear life. The three of us lean on that desk that's somehow still standing after such a harsh beating.
I've never seen Soda sob like this, I've never seen Darry look so tender, I wonder what I must look like now, too when all I feel is shattered.
"I ain't gonna make it." He says finally, voice muffled by Darry's uniform tie, right next to the police badge sewn in on the breast pocket. "And I shouldn't make it. Y'all don't know who I am." He continues on, trying to push Darry away even as he's holding so tightly to him at the same time.
There's got to be a meaning to all this, there's got to be some resurrection, some kind of redemption whenever someone has to fall so hard. I won't quit until I find the reason. I refuse to believe that anyone's interest, or their soul, could possibly reside in such deep and dark depths. People aren't engineered for that, especially not people like Soda.
"We know you, Sodapop. Ain't nothing you can do about that," Darry says, reaching his arm around to pull Soda in tighter. I force my hand into his since his face remains buried, but he squeezes it back, hard. I do my best to maintain our electric current by squeezing tight as I can because the harder we squeeze, the less we tremble. Something in that soothes Soda enough to work the lid open just a little.
"How come I came out, y'all? I ain't even finished high school, ain't got no wife or kids back then, all those guys had people who they needed to get back to, people doing important things with reasons to get out of there alive. How come I got to come home?"
At first Darry looks hurt, defeated at that, but he builds himself back up with a power and vengeance.
"You shut the hell up." He growls, holding Soda firmly, eyes watering though his face is now of stone. "Don't be talking like you did something to deserve not coming home. You can't make sense of shit like life and death, so don't even try. You think Mom and Dad weren't good enough to keep around? What about Dal or Johnny? No, sometimes the world is a fucked up place and you just got to roll with it. But you came home because we needed you, because we wouldn't've been able to go on without you. I don't know why those other guys didn't get to, Soda, but I know Pony and I wouldn't've made it if you didn't."
It's then that I can see through Darry's anger that maybe he actually would've dissolved into the black void of dictatorial grief if Soda hadn't made it out of the war. I knew I would've, but somehow I thought Darry immune to that sort of heartbreak. I put my hand on his shoulder then to return the favor, even as we're here for Soda, I've realized I've never really, truly been there for Darry. I want nothing more than for that to change.
He glances up at me in acknowledgement, but takes the focus right back off of himself like he always does.
"I been having nightmares." Soda confesses, "I did something bad over there, but I don't even know what I done except that it must've been real bad."
I scoot a little closer to them, not sure if what I'm about to say is the right thing while we're sitting on the landmines of Soda's psyche, but if his imagination is at all like mine, the unknown will steer him to much darker depths without at least a shred of the truth.
The phone by the checkout counter chimes out again with piercing authority.
I clear my throat.
"Soda, I got a call tonight." I struggle to believe that it could've only been an hour ago when it feels like the world has completely shifted on its axis and changed orbit since then. "Someone named James Crawford."
Soda freezes in Darry's hold, then slowly turns towards me, and I can finally see his face from the light above. His skin is red hot and wet, his hair as tumultuous as his office, but his eyes are always the one thing I can cling on to when all else seems to be lost. Eyes that, unlike the rest of him, cannot hide whatever's going on inside him. I see my own reflection in them now. I can feel Darry's on me too, and those blue irises that used to deter me away from him seem to encourage.
"...Crawford?" Soda finally says like the rusted wheels of his memory are starting to turn again.
"He was one of your buddies, you remember? You wouldn't tell me anything, kept pushing us away. Then after everything with the parade, and you couldn't remember it anymore, I tried to get the answers myself." I try as best I can to ease him back into what he's forgotten, afraid that bluntness could stir disaster. "I made out letters to a James Crawford, Larry Liniewicz and Joseph Parkinson. There was one of them I couldn't write a letter to... Eddie Parson."
Soda sits upright at this and faces me directly with wide-eyes that hold me hostage in their desperate search for clarity.
"I... remember Parson..." he starts, examining my face for a couple of indigestible seconds as memories must be flooding his mind again. "God, you look just like him, Pony." He frowns when he says it like I'm an old friend bringing back both nostalgia and deep wounds all at once. I shiver, thinking on the random faces who would stir memories of Johnny and Dally, and that incapacitating grief that would often follow
"Sometimes I'd look at Parson and see you, and I get so afraid that they'd get desperate enough to send you over there too. Then when he..." he trails off, I wonder if the rest of the memory has come back.
"You remember what happened to Parson?" I probe as gently as I can, hand holding him a little tighter in case he tries to run again.
He nods finally after a moment of thought, and those tears streaming down his cheeks do a good job of cleaning the settling dust from the demolished office in their path.
"They shot him down before he could pull the pin…" He shakes his head and I grab both his shoulders to steady him and keep his eyes on me for something to hold on to that isn't Vietnam. He swallows hard as he looks at me, "He wasn't but a year older than you, Pone. I couldn't tell you, I didn't want you hurtin' over it, I didn't want to remember it."
"There was a lot of 'em like that, Soda." I say, heart punching against the wall of my chest, "But it wasn't your fault he was killed."
He shakes his head again, "That ain't what I did wrong. I don't think I ever told anyone what I did…"
He's starting to get worked up again so I move one hand to his cheek so he's got nowhere else to look but back at me. Darry's still stationed close behind him for back up, looking at me like I'd better know what's coming next since he hasn't a clue.
"James Crawford told me everything, you don't have to say it," I offer before he can do a full kamikaze dive, but he's still white as a sheet.
"I took that little girl's parents away, Pony… Just like Mom and Dad were taken from us. 'Cept it was my fault, I killed 'em," he says before another sob rises from deep within his throat. I glance over at Darry who's working the puzzle out himself.
"It isn't your fault, it just happened," but then my voice stones up a bit, eyes brimming with angry tears, "Why didn't you tell us before, Soda? Why have you been keeping us out, trying to do this all on your own?" My voice quakes in the hurt I've been harboring, anger and emptiness bubble up, too.
"I was scared you'd hate me like I hate me, I was scared maybe you'd have good reason to if you knew what I'd done." I grip his shoulder tighter like it'll wring out those lies he's been telling himself. "What if she didn't have nobody like we did? We wouldn't've made it if we didn't have each other, what about her?"
I shush him, first pulling him in so our foreheads rest against each other, maybe I can pass reassurance through our skulls that way. His shoulders jostle from his weeping.
"I've been trying to help you, Soda, I'd never hate you." I try to keep myself from crumbling.
"I'm so sorry, Pone, you didn't deserve none of that." He sees my pain right away.
I start to sob, too, then, and he puts his own hands against the sides of my head to keep us steady now. We stay there for a moment before I can't help but pull him in closer and wrap my arms around him so I can hold him as tight as I've wanted to all along. He holds me back just as tightly, and a part of me soars, because it means he's not pushing me away anymore.
Suddenly, I get it, I see his pain, his self hatred, I feel it because I felt it after Johnny and Dally died and I got to keep living. I get it now how his guilt over that little girl is so interwoven with his own pain, our pain over losing our parents, becoming orphans. The anger of losing, and the culpability of taking. I know exactly what to say now, how to tear his walls down from the inside, because this boy's been seeking to stand still by running away for too long, and now at least Darry and I have both got him pinned to one spot.
"We know the truth, Soda, and we ain't going nowhere. You're gonna be alright." Though Darry doesn't know the whole truth yet, I speak for him without even a shred of doubt of where he would stand on this; and he doesn't even try to ask for more of the story, because he trusts me and he'd do anything for Soda. I wish I would've trusted him a bit more through all of this when I didn't have all the answers.
We pull away, wiping the tears and snot. Soda shakes his head.
"Marley won't let me hold her anymore," he pulls out of thin air, "She's been real scared of me. Like she knows all of it. You think that's possible?"
"We've all been a little scared of you lately, Soda," Darry admits, "but only 'cause we haven't known what's been going on. Give it some time, she'll get over it. She loves you a whole lot, she and Grace both." It takes the stone hard face of Darry talking about love for it to finally sink in.
"I really ain't dreaming, am I?" Soda says softly, like the answer alone could silence him for good.
I swallow the lump in my throat, but press forward as sturdy as I can, "No. You got us right here with you, flesh and blood."
"Thank God." His eyes go from mine to Darry's, who nods confidently in all that's been said before reaching over to pull us both in a firm embrace. We're a pile of arms and legs intertwined together, not fixed, but in the cracks is where light can finally shine through as we hold each other and Soda's sobs over that little girl, over Parson, over our parents and Johnny and Dally.
In the midst of the power of surrender, we start find our way back.
Author's Note
Thanks for reading and sticking with me, friends. This chapter is especially dear to my heart for many reasons.
'The Lightening Strike' by Snow Patrol was a big inspiration for this whole story, and 'My Blood' by Twenty One Pilots really infused this chapter.
In the spirit of gratitude, wanted to thank my dear friend SimonaK1 for helping me out with this chapter (and really this whole story) with her never-ending wisdom and honesty and humor. Without her, this chapter is quite literal garbage.
And to metacognitive whose wonderful renderings of the Shepards are the only reason I've given them a second thought. To PandaGirl2019 for writing stories that challenges the stigmas behind trauma and recovery. And to lulusgardenfli and HappierThanMost, whose quality of writing and depth of character development are of constant awe and inspiration for me.
I am no writer without first being a reader, and it's a gift to read all of y'alls work. There's so many more of you, too, know that your writing is cherished!
Anyways, I hope each and every one of you reading this are doing well. Keep your heads up!
Sarah