Darrel curtis stopped through the front door, taking care not to let it bang open or shut. He turned on the TV and threw himself into his recliner.
A 2pm finish. He dragged a hand down his face, they could do without losing half a days pay but you can't roof houses in the rain. He looked out of the window, watching the raindrops hammer again the glass. Definately raining.
Already feeling the weight of the world (and utility bills) on his shoulders, He took off his tool belt and paid attention to the TV.
Vietnam.
Birthday ballots.
Darrys mind flicked to soda. 3 years of birthday ballots and they'd been lucky so far, but the war didn't seem to be ending and Darry suspected that luck was pretty thin on the ground in the Curtis House.
Enrolling at college avoided the ballot, which seemed excessively unfair. Darry briefly imagined Soda at college. Then remembered what he'd been like at school. He imagined soda enrolling in classes, but he couldn't see it happening. The only night class the school ran was typing, for ladies wanting to work in the secretarial pools of big companies. A mental image flashed into his brain of Soda typing memos on a fancy typewriter in a class full of women. Darry shook his head as if to clear the picture, no chance. That would be a disaster.
No worries on that front regarding Ponyboy. Over the last 2 years he'd got his head down, matured a little and pulled his school grades back after the horrors of 1965. At 16, he'd started to look a lot more like his brother, remarkably similar, except the hair and eyes. And the absent mindedness. Infact, appearance was really where their similarities ended.
At 22 Darry felt the weight of responsibility for his brothers. They'd all been through so much. So many of his colleagues and school buddies had their own families now that he rarely had the feelings of jealousy and missing out that he'd had in the past- he was just another family man now. Except his high school peers were raising their baby sons and daughters through their todder years and he was raising surley, hormonal, teenagers. Maybe he'd be able to offer them some valuable tips in a few years.
Finding no solace in the TV Darry sighed and got up to fix himself a much needed coffee.
Collecting abandoned plates and cups on his way to the kitchen.
Hot coffee had just been made and the washing up completed when Steve, Two bit and Ponyboy tumbled through the front door out of the rain.
Steve running straight to the bathroom to check on his complicated hair before joining Darry in the kitchen, snagging a coffee and leaving again to head over for the DX to work.
Two bit and pony argued over the TV, but settled for cartoons indicating that two it had won.
Darry 's uneasy thought returned. Steve would finish school in the summer and was expecting to work at the DX full time.
Two bit too would finish, but currently without any employment.
He regretted the coffee. Dumping the rest of the cup down the drain. Too jittery. Too anxiety inducing. He willed himself to stop thinking about things that haven't happened yet. Things that might not happen. Darry Curtis did not feel old enough to have this many worries.
He knows as well as anyone that the future will do as it pleases. He also knows that he has to be strong and level headed. Pony is predisposed to think the worst- seeing the world in grey rather than black and white. Soda is all emotions and poor impulse control- although he's still only a teenager and can't quite get a grip on himself. He's getting better though.
Two but blunders through life taking chaos in his stride and never worrying for tomorrow. Of all his buddies, Steve is the pragmatic pessimist but very much living in the "here and now". Any discussion around Conscription and the war in Vietnam is therefore a topic best avoided. But it is becoming quite an elephant in the room.
They all know it.