15. Darry's Interlude
This couldn't be happening. It was impossible! Even as he knelt next to his fourteen-year-old sister, watching as her eyes finally closed, refusing to open again, and even as he heard Susie's sobs and Dally screaming and swearing at her, he couldn't believe it. It wasn't possible! Bad enough that asshole had jumped her. God knew he'd been ready to kill that soc for laying a hand on his baby sister. But this…
Allen Russell had shot her.
Because…because she'd been the one to kill Bob Sheldon?
No. No! That didn't make any sense! None of this made any sense!
"Pony? Baby, wake up," he urged, trying to stop crying, his voice dying in his throat. Practically since she'd been born, seeing him or Soda cry had freaked her out, and her own tears always followed pretty fast. And ever since their parents had died, it had all been on him…all of it! He had to be strong. He had to be the man of the house and her guardian and he had to do his best to raise her and take care of her! So he couldn't just break down crying if they came up short when it came time to pay bills and he had to beg for more hours at a job he hated, or when they didn't have enough money for food to get them through the week and he had to cut things like Pepsi and he had to see his little sister's disappointed face when she opened the fridge even if she never complained, or when he let himself think too much about their dad and how he'd looked when Darry had graduated high school…so ridiculously proud, and how disappointed he would be now.
Or when it was past midnight and his little sister still wasn't home and he didn't know what to do because he couldn't call the cops and none of their friends knew where she was and he'd been awake since six in the morning and he was so tired he could barely think straight.
The sirens he'd heard in the distance came closer and he pressed shaking fingers against her throat, somewhat comforted by the weak thump of her pulse. She wasn't going to die. He wasn't going to lose her. He couldn't lose her! Not Pony! Not his baby sister!
He was going to kill Dally. He wasn't sure exactly how this was Dally's fault, but it had to be. He couldn't kill him yet though because he was holding that shirt against her chest and keeping her from bleeding out with an expression Darry couldn't stand to see.
He'd never seen Dallas Winston cry, and he'd never wanted to.
Men with a stretcher seemed to appear out of nowhere and they were yelling things he couldn't take in and touching her and pressing against the bloody wound on her chest right where he thought her lung might be, urging Dallas to move aside. He did, sitting down hard in the grass beside Susie who was still sobbing, his hands covered in blood. One of the EMTs was talking to them, and it took him a minute to understand, but then he finally got it, breaking out of his fog for long enough to comprehend the question.
"Her parents?"
"Me," he choked out, wiping his face and trying to hold back the tears. "I'm her guardian."
"Get in if you're coming with us," he ordered, too busy saving his sister's life to be gentle, and Darry couldn't fault him for that.
"Dal, get Soda!" he demanded, jumping into the back of the ambulance, and Dallas nodded, grim-faced and quieter than usual.
He'd deal with Dally later.
The back of the ambulance was somehow tiny and enormous at the same time. It made no sense, but it felt like he was miles away from his sister, with two guys blocking her from view, all while being crammed against the wall. He caught flashes…a tube shoved down her throat and a needle in her side and the cut off cry of pain that made him want to kill someone.
Russell. Allen Russel.
He'd shot her because she'd killed Bob.
He didn't know if he could survive losing Pony. Not her. Not his baby sister.
Darry tried to think back to that night…tried to remember. When Two-Bit had called to tell him that a soc had been stabbed at the drive-in where Pony was supposed to be with her friends, he'd been terrified. Sure, he'd tried to hide it for Soda's sake, but he'd kept picturing that visit from the cops the night they'd gotten the news about their parents. But not half an hour later, she'd come through the front door, Dally right behind her. That had been odd because she never hung out with Dally, but Dal had said he'd walked her home because her friends had left. Now he wondered, what friends? Who had she been with?
At the time, he'd been so relieved to see her home safe that he'd almost forgotten how distant the two of them had gotten lately, so he'd wrapped his arms around her. She'd just stood there, though, not pushing him away, but not hugging him back either. And from that moment on, she'd been acting…different. All last week, Soda had kept trying to tell him that something was wrong with her, and Darry had known he was right. But what could he do? Heck, that night, after she went to bed so early that Darry had worried she was sick, Soda had come up to him in the kitchen, voice pitched low. And Darry had tried to brush it off at first. After all, she got good grades and she was running track. By all accounts, she was fine.
But they'd both known better. And finally, he'd cracked, dropping into a chair at their kitchen table, head in his hands. "I know, Soda. But what do you want me to do? She don't talk to me. Glory, some days I think she can't stand me." He'd stared down at the table as he'd spoken, ashamed to even admit it.
It was true. More and more, she avoided him whenever possible. And Darry didn't know how to fix it…how to balance being her big brother who loved her more than anything with being the person responsible for raising her when he'd never in his wildest dreams thought he'd be the parent of a teenage girl at just twenty years old. What kind of guardian did that make him? What kind of brother? Hell, he'd thought, their parents sure would be ashamed of the shitty job he was doing.
And that had been before he'd hit her.
Soda's voice had been even quieter when he'd answered him. "She thinks you hate her, Darry."
He'd thought Soda was exaggerating. That he'd been blowing this rough spot in their relationship out of proportion. He'd gone from being her big brother to her guardian…there was bound to be some fighting. And he'd brushed the words off when he'd gone into her room that night to make sure she didn't have a fever. Of course Pony didn't think he hated her. He'd given up going to college for her without a moment's hesitation. He worked two jobs so that their family could stay together. He checked her homework and gave her money to go out with her friends and he did everything he could to fill the gaping hole their parents had left in their home. Even if he could never be enough, surely she had to see that he was trying.
But now, trying to stay out of the way as they opened the back doors of the ambulance and watching as they rolled her bed into the hospital, Soda's words echoed in his mind.
She thinks you hate her.
Did she? Really? Was his baby sister going to die thinking he hated her?
Why not? He'd slapped her in the face and had barely spoken to her since…had been too ashamed of himself to try when she wouldn't even look him in the eye anymore. Because she'd looked up at him that night, betrayed and heartbroken and even a little afraid, and he'd felt his own heart break. His little sister wasn't ever supposed to look at him like that. She was never supposed to back away from him like she was scared. She was never supposed to trip over herself to get away from him.
Why hadn't he tried harder to apologize? Why hadn't he listened to her? Why hadn't he tried to understand? Why couldn't he be better?
Darry jumped out of the back of the ambulance and just managed to drop to his knees in the bushes beside the double doors before he threw up the sandwich he'd thrown together for dinner. She'd been scared…she'd hadn't wanted him to leave her. Pressing a hand to his mouth he fought the sob that wanted to escape. Not yet…not when Soda would be coming to the hospital because Soda would need him and he'd have to keep it together for his little brother. He had to.
But he didn't think the sight of Pony lying prone on the ground, Dally kneeling over her, and the feeling of horrible comprehension when he'd realized what was happening, would ever leave him.
When he climbed back to his feet, he glanced back and saw the ambulance driver watching him with something like pity before he drove away. In a daze, Darry walked into the building and up to the front desk, then handed over his insurance card and filled out the papers with all of Pony's information on it. Date of birth. Social security number. Known allergies. Medical history.
He'd thought that he knew everything about his sister. It wasn't like they'd had a lot of privacy in that house growing up, even if she was a girl and got her own room from the time she was real little. And she'd never kept things from him and Soda. At any given moment, at least before their parents, she'd been ready to talk about just about anything that was on her mind. He always knew her favorite color (pink at the moment, a change from blue a year and a half ago) and her favorite music (her and Susie both loved Elvis) and her favorite food (chocolate. Always chocolate.) He knew that Soda was best at comforting her after a nightmare and that she slept best wrapped in too many blankets because she got cold so easily and that she was sort of afraid of Dally sometimes, even if she'd never admit it, and even if he would never hurt her.
But she'd been lying to him about friends that didn't exist and keeping secrets from him with Dally of all people and…and killing Bob Sheldon.
No. There had to be an explanation for that. There had to be. Pony didn't get in fights. Not ever. She was a good kid! She always had her nose in a book and she did good in school and had sleepovers with Susie where they listened to music and painted each other's nails for God's sake! She wouldn't just kill someone for no reason! No way. She wouldn't even kill spiders! Ever since she'd been a kid, she'd insisted they trap the little things in a cup and carry them outside. It drove Soda nuts because he hated them so much, but they all did it anyway. For her.
So the question was, what had Bob Sheldon done to her? What would have driven her to kill him?
Darry felt his blood go cold at the only answers he could think of that made any sense.
He needed to talk to Dally.
Sodapop came bursting into the waiting room just a few minutes after he finished filling out the paperwork, the rest of the gang not far behind. They all looked shaken, but Soda…Soda was wrecked. He wasn't even trying to hide the fact that he was crying, and Darry jumped to his feet and grabbed his shoulder, both to comfort him and to keep him from falling over. He was pretty sure he was wrecked too, but he felt more numb than anything at the moment. Or he had been until he spotted Dallas.
"Pony?" Soda asked, looking around like she might be in the waiting room.
"They took her back as soon as we got here. They ain't said nothing yet."
"Dal…he said…he said she passed out before the ambulance came."
"Yeah." Darry nodded, wrapping an arm around his brother and pulling him close. This was why he couldn't fall apart. Soda needed him. Pony would need him.
"Did…did she say…"
Last words. He was asking for her last words. Just in case. Because Soda knew as well as Darry did how quickly someone could be gone, and how little would be left of them. But Darry didn't want to tell him…didn't want Soda to know how terrified she'd been.
He did it anyway. When did he ever get what he wanted?
"She said she was scared. Asked me not to leave."
Sodapop went from pale to gray, then pulled away, dropping into a chair, head in his hands, shoulders shaking as he sobbed. Every instinct told him to sit down beside his brother and hold him and try to give him some kind of comfort. Instead, he turned to the guys, zeroing in on Dally. What he wanted to do was start throwing punches, but getting himself kicked out of the hospital before he could even see his sister was a stupid idea. "Talk," he demanded, and the others moved to circle around, all of them keeping an eye on the almost empty waiting room and the nurse behind the front desk keeping an eye on them. When Dally was silent, Darry took another step forward, heart pounding in his ears.
If he lost his sister…
No. He wasn't even going to think about it.
"Talk, Dallas. Now."
Dally glanced around at the gang and sighed, leaning in and keeping his voice low. "Russell and his friends showed up to the park. Said he wasn't going to let me get away with killing Bob. The kid couldn't keep her mouth shut."
"I already know all that." Well, he knew enough. "I want to know why my baby sister killed Bob Sheldon."
Not one member of their gang so much as flinched at that, and he felt his jaw literally drop. Even Soda didn't look up.
"You all knew," he whispered, looking around at them, and every one of them lowered their eyes but Dally. The confirmation just made the stab of betrayal hurt more. "Soda?" he asked, imploring. How could Sodapop have kept something like this from him?
His brother tried wiping at his eyes to stop crying, and when he spoke, his voice was hoarse. "She just told me Sunday," he admitted, all of them keeping their voices down. There was no one nearby, but they still didn't need a doctor or nurse or someone overhearing them.
"She told you?"
"Yeah. When I went to pick her up from Two-Bit's. I knew she'd been acting weird. I tried to tell you, Darry! I tried to tell you something was wrong with her."
"I overheard her telling Soda," Two-Bit put in with a sigh, taking a seat across from Soda in the little cluster of chairs in the back corner where they were all huddled.
Steve sat beside his brother, putting a hand on his shoulder. "The kid was acting weird. I didn't know for sure but…it made sense." He shrugged, and Darry remembered him questioning her at the table and how Soda had jumped in before he could, telling him to lay off. How Steve had looked…sad. Now Soda's friend shrugged. "Figured the asshole got what he deserved."
Johnny spoke up last, looking up at him with sad, frightened eyes. Darry had come out on the porch when he'd heard that gunshot, and then the distant screaming. Then Johnny had come running like a bat out of hell, pointing back in the direction of the park, not a five minute walk away. "Pony…Dally…the park!" he'd gasped out, and Darry had been running before he'd realized that Johnny was going into their house to call an ambulance.
He'd known that Pony was at the park with Susie…Two-Bit had called him and told him so he wouldn't worry. His first thought had been that one of those socs had shot Dally. He'd thought that his sister might be scared…might have even gotten jumped again.
He'd never dreamed that Allen would shoot her.
"That night…she went to the bathroom on her own," Johnny told him. "Dal didn't go with her like she kept saying. He went to find her when she didn't come right back and…I just figured something was wrong. She didn't tell me or nothing. But she was real upset that night." He sat down next to Two-Bit who patted him on the back, and Darry turned back to Dallas.
"What did he do?" Darry demanded.
His friend lowered his eyes, sighing softly, then when he spoke, it was like he was dragging the words out…like he didn't want to say them. Like he didn't want any of this to be true any more than Darry did.
"I guess he was drunk. That's what his girl's saying. Had her down on the ground out behind the bathrooms in the grass…had her pants half off. No one else was around. It was dark…I almost didn't see her. He must have been on top of her. She stabbed him in the back." He ran a hand through his hair, not meeting Darry's eyes as he recited the facts. "She was just sitting on the ground when I got there. She grabbed me…shit, man, I'd never seen her so scared. I told her to leave the knife, but she wouldn't do it. Said it had Soda's name on it. So I…I told her to leave it with me." He finally looked Darry square in the eye with eyes that were red-rimmed, keeping his voice at just above a whisper. "I was gonna take the fall, man. Call it self defense or something…get Tim and figure it out. But the stupid kid wouldn't give me the damn knife. She said no one was around…said no one had seen anything. So I told her to get cleaned up and we went back to the movie until somebody found him."
It took a long moment for Darry to compose himself.
Bob Sheldon had tried to rape his sister. The whole gang had known, or suspected, that Pony had killed him, and not one of them had told him. Not even Soda.
Pony hadn't trusted him enough to come to him. Not even with her own life on the line.
Darry was glad she'd killed him. Hell, he'd have killed Sheldon himself if he'd caught him hurting his sister like that, his future be damned. But he couldn't believe they'd all kept this from him.
"Why the hell didn't you tell me?" He'd meant to sound angry, but his voice came out small, and he couldn't quite manage to hide the hurt. No one would look at him except Dally.
He huffed out a sigh. "Jesus, man. The kid killed a guy. You think the first thing she should have done was tell everyone?"
"I'm her guardian," he hissed. "Dallas, that is my baby sister! I ain't saying you should have told everyone. I'm saying you should have told me!"
"Look, I ain't about to get mixed up in your messed up family shit. That kid thinks you hate her. It's stupid, but she's sure of it. She wasn't going to tell you nothing. So I told her to keep her head down and to keep her trap shut. Figured she could lay low. No one is going to suspect little Pony Curtis of killing a football player."
"Russell did."
Dally shook his head, voice soft and urgent. "No, Russell suspected me. That Cherry girl too. They thought she knew something and was keeping quiet to protect me. Nobody knows anything for sure. The cops don't really think I did it. So…she'll be fine. She's just gotta stay quiet."
"But she told Allen she did it," Johnny put in, blinking hard as he stared at the ground, like that might keep him from crying. "He was gonna shoot Dal, and she told him she'd done it. That's why he was pointing the gun at her."
Dally stared at the floor, jaw right, his hands in fists at his sides as bit out a curse. "We say she was lying. We…we figure something out. That kid ain't getting put away for this," he snapped, as angry as Darry had ever seen him.
Darry wanted to scream. He wanted to throw a punch. He wanted to start throwing chairs across the room.
Instead, he sat down on Soda's other side.
Pony had been scared, just like when he'd woken up in the recliner and found her on the couch…when she'd told him that she'd had a nightmare and had wanted him, but she hadn't woken him…she'd just curled up on the sofa, trying to be close to him. And when she'd been laying there, crying and bleeding on the ground, she'd reached for him and…
What if they lost her?
"I can't believe you didn't tell me," he whispered, turning to Soda and shaking his head. "Damn it, Soda. How the hell could you keep something like this from me?" He hated how weak his voice sounded…how he sounded on the verge of breaking down.
"She didn't want you to know."
"Why not?"
Soda just looked at him, and Darry knew the answer. Because she genuinely thought he hated her. Because she hadn't thought he would help her. But God as his witness, he was going to make this right. He'd die before he let anyone take his sister. He turned back to Dally, keeping real quiet. "Do the cops have any other leads?"
"Not as far as I know. I told them Bob was drunk…said he was always jumping greaser kids and getting in fights. Told them I figured he'd smarted off to the wrong guy or something. They never said anything about Pony."
That was good, at least. His brain was already working, trying to figure this out. Allen would tell the cops what she'd said. No way he wouldn't. How the hell could he protect her when she'd already confessed?
As if summoned by his thoughts, two men in uniform walked into the waiting room, guns prominent on their hips, and Darry felt his heart in his throat like he did every time he saw a police officer. They tended to hate greasers on sight, and he knew his buddies did plenty of stupid stuff, but cops around Tulsa were known for beating on greasers just for fun. Not to mention, he could still lose custody of his siblings. If Pony got into trouble, even if she survived and even if she didn't get locked up, they could still take her away.
He couldn't let that happen.
Dallas jumped to his feet first, Darry right behind him. "You arrest the asshole that shot a little girl?" he demanded, and the cops exchanged a look, the two of them oddly somber.
"We've got Russell down at the station. A couple of his buddies too."
"Good. He might have killed that kid," Dally snapped, pointing a finger at them, and Darry felt his stomach turn again
Killed her. He might have killed her. If he'd had anything left to throw up, he would have, right there in the waiting room. Beside him, Soda sobbed into his hands, and Steve patted him on the back, looking sick himself.
"For once, maybe you could lock up the right guy, huh?"
"Dal," Darry tried to warn, but the cops were giving him a considering look.
"Allen Russell is saying that Miss Curtis confessed to killing Bob Sheldon."
Before Darry could even start to freak out or try to explain why she would have done that, Dallas scoffed. "The kid didn't kill no one. Jesus, man, she's fourteen. She don't even carry a blade. She was scared. We were playing basketball and that prick shows up and starts pointing a gun at me…she was trying to keep him from shooting. Guess she didn't think he'd kill a girl."
"So you wouldn't mind walking us through what happened that night? Until Miss Curtis is able to verify your story?" The cop standing almost behind the other had pulled out a notepad, and Dal shrugged.
"Whatever, man. I already told you what happened that night. The kid ran into me and Johnny at the movies."
"'The kid' being Pony Cutis?" the cop in front asked, and Dally rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, man. The kid being Pony Curtis," he snarked. "She wanted to go home but I told her to wait until we could walk her. I went with her to the concession building and we got popcorn and drinks. I gave her my jacket because she was cold and hadn't brought one. She came and sat with us, then when we heard that some rich kid got killed, I took her home. I figured her brothers would be freaking out if they heard. We never even saw Bob that night."
Johnny nodded from his seat, doing a real good job of looking like he wasn't scared, and Darry was surprised when he spoke up. Usually Johnny wouldn't say 'boo' to a ghost, but he looked that cop right in the eye. "That's right. We were sitting behind Bob's girlfriend Cherry and her friend, Randy's girl. They said they were only at the movies because their boyfriends were drunk and they didn't like it."
Darry hadn't done anything close to praying in a long time…probably since he'd been a little kid. But just then, he prayed with everything he had. The three of them had all pretty much stuck to the same story. Pony had told anyone that asked her the exact same thing. Dallas had walked her to the concession building. She'd been with him the whole time. Neither of them had seen Bob. And Bob had cornered her when there was no one around, which meant no witnesses.
One of the cops turned to them, looking at Soda first, then Darry. "Are you her brothers?"
Darry nodded. "Darrel Curtis. I'm her guardian." He held out a hand, shaking the older man's, putting his other hand on Soda's back.
"Did your sister say anything about what happened at the drive-in that night?"
He shook his head, praying again that they could get these cops to back off. "No. I was worried when I heard a boy was killed at the drive-in my sister was at, but Dally walked her home and she was safe. Allen…he had it out for Dal from the beginning. He cornered Pony at school, asking her if she knew anything. She kept trying to tell him she didn't. Then he jumped her a couple of days ago."
The cops both looked surprised at that, eyes widening, and the one writing looked up from his notepad for a second. Everybody in their neighborhood, the fuzz included, knew that girls usually got left out of the rough stuff.
"If Soda and his friend hadn't come along, I don't know what would have happened." That part was true. He'd never been madder than when he'd seen her sitting on the sofa with a black eye. Bad enough those socs went after Sodapop sometimes. But Pony was a girl. She was a kid. She wasn't supposed to get caught up in all that!
"It was those same guys," Soda told them, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand and clearing his throat. "Allen and Randy and their buddies. They were holding her down and he was hitting her."
"Pony kept telling them that she didn't know anything, and that Dally didn't have anything to do with it, but they wouldn't leave her alone," Darry put in.
"You didn't report it when your sister was attacked?" one of the cops asked.
"She wasn't hurt too bad. We've all been jumped in our neighborhood, especially when those rich kids come around. Besides, I chased them off. She's a tough kid." Soda crossed his arms, defensive.
The cop with the notepad flipped it shut and pocketed it, and the other one softened a little. "We'd like to talk to your sister. Ask her some questions about that night. Give me a call when she wakes up?" He held out a card that Darry made himself take, trying to be glad that he'd said 'when' and not 'if.'
He'd seen how much blood she'd lost…how it had pooled underneath her. He'd watched her face drain of color, and had felt her grip on his arm go loose. That bullet might have hit her lung…she'd been wheezing when he'd gotten there, struggling to breathe, barely able to string a couple of words together.
The cops both backed away, and he figured the pain that had hit him full force right in the chest must have shown on his face. They both muttered some kind of condolences before they left, words that Darry barely managed to take in. He sat back down next to Soda, pocketing the card and running a tired hand through his hair.
"They ain't gonna charge her with nothing. She'll tell the same story she's been telling, and they'll just write it off as some rich asshole picking a fight with the wrong guy. Some drifter, probably. And that'll be that."
"Yeah? And what if she don't wake up?" Darry asked, glaring at Dally. Beside him, Soda shuddered, closing his eyes and hiding his face in his hands. "What the hell does any of it matter then?"
Dally glared right back. "That kid's tough, you hear me? She's gonna be fine."
"What if she ain't?" It hurt…just asking the question made it feel like he'd been the one shot in the chest, making it hard for him to breathe as the walls all seemed to close in around him. She'd been crying…she'd looked up at him, laying there in a puddle of her own blood, and she'd apologized.
She'd told him she was scared.
What if that was the last conversation he ever got to have with his baby sister?
"Quit!" Soda snapped, choking on the word as he sobbed. "Darry, quit!"
He quit.
Soda was right. So was Dally. He couldn't sit there and fall apart. Not now. Not with Soda and the rest of the gang watching and looking to him to be strong. So instead he jumped out of his chair and stormed to the bathroom, not leaving until he could catch his breath and pull himself back together, pushing his terror down so deep he didn't have to deal with it yet.
And if he was in there for a long time, no one said anything about it.