Scene 6
It was night. We were still bleeding. We were still convinced that everything was fine because we had done something amazing. Something people would remember. Or at the very least; something we would remember. We thought, for a few hours, that we had changed something. That we, a group of young, restless, naïve, kids, had made things right again.
That everything was okay.
For a moment- a second in time that was frozen like the lips of a person who was held under water for too long- we had forgotten about the three empty spaces in the living room air. We had almost given in to the temptation to be kids again. To be happy.
And then I choked on the absence. Pony, Dallas, Johnny. My throat constricted with guilt as I noticed I had put Pony ahead of our dying friend. For a whisper of a second I had almost even forgotten that Johnny was lying in a hospital, never to be the sixteen year old kid he once was. I remember thinking that maybe I had already gotten used to the fact. That maybe I had already knew what Pony was going to say, even before he walked through the door.
Even before he said the words. Even before the awkward silence became a thick quilted ghost that would haunt us forever. That I knew the very night I had hit Pony that it would come to this. That I knew the very day I met Johnny Cade that he would die long before he would ever become an adult.
Legally speaking.
Because bad things happened to good people. All the time. Everyday. And because Johnny was a good person. A great person even. A savoir. I thought about all those times our parents had dragged us to church to hear about what the Good Lord had done for us.
The phone was ringing. But I was thinking- Johnny Cade. J.C.
J.C.
Like Jesus Christ.
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Author's Note: Since I first read the Outsiders, I always thought o Johnny Cade as a Christ archetype. After all- they were hiding out in a church. And what did the pastor call them? Angels?