It's a warm night, but the lack of breeze makes Dallas feel sticky. The music is too loud even from the back porch. Acrid smells of cheap beer and weed smoke permeate to the outside. Buck is off somewhere, probably drinking his weight in booze. Dally sucks on a cancer stick and puffs it out into the night air. The tobacco is bitter and heavy on his tongue. He feels a presence come up behind him, emerging from the shadows. Dallas grins around his cigarette despite himself.
"Hey," Johnny says, pulling the lapels of his jean jacket close around his body.
"Hey, Johnnycake," Dallas says. He scoots over on the rickety swing, and Johnny takes up the free space. The splintering wood groans under their combined weight.
"Shit, you think this'll hold?" Johnny asks. Dally glances at the wood, it's peeling white paint. He shrugs. Johnny grabs the cigarette from between Dally's lips and takes a puff. The smoke curls away, blending in with the wispy grey clouds above them. "What're you doin' out here? I thought you'd be up with some girl by now."
Dallas shakes his head and grabs the cigarette back, "Nah," He says. Then after a beat, adds, "Dunno. Not feelin' it tonight." He takes a drag and holds the cig out to Johnny, who takes it and puffs it twice. Johnny's eyes stay on Dally while he smokes.
They sit like that for a while, passing the cigarette back and forth, music thumping inside, until that and a second cigarette are smoked through.
Johnny eyes flick away from Dally, "Hey," he says, voice hoarse, "You seen the new convenience store down on Fifth?"
Dally shakes his head, "Nah. Why?"
"I was strollin' through earlier, the clerk is older than god. Lots of good stuff, all kinds of candy, and some fancy new cherry Coke."
Dally smiles around the smoke, "Yeah?"
"Yeah," Johnny says. He leans in and takes Dally's cigarette, his cold fingers touching Dally's lips, "Nothin's nailed down, neither."
"Yeah? You implyin' what I think you are?"
Johnny nods, "Yeah."
"Tuff. When's it close?"
Johnny takes a drag, "Not for another hour."
Dally grins. "You dog. Let's go."
They wander down toward the convenience store on the corner of Fifth and Main, passing cigs back and forth, not saying much. Somewhere on third, a dog tied up behind a chainlink fence starts barking. Dally throws an arm over Johnny's shoulders, letting out a whoop and holler until they pass the house and the dog quiets. Johnny tips his head back and blows a couple rings into the sky, circling the half-moon with smoke.
"Thanks, Dal," Johnny says, and Dally feels Johnny's voice vibrate against his arm.
"Yeah," Dally says. He lets Johnny take another drag before grabbing the cig from him. Johnny grins.
On Fourth street, Dally drops his arm and lets Johnny trail some ways in front of him. The kid looks like he's drowning in his jacket, especially when Johnny is hunched over in the dark like he is. It's nothing like how boys hold themselves in jail, all angles and teeth. Like those birds that make themselves bigger to scare off predators. Dally saw somethin' about them in a documentary once, that his stepdad left on when he passed out on the couch. Johnny doesn't do that, he doesn't make himself bigger like those birds. He may have a big jacket on, but anyone can tell he's small. Hunching over, hiding in his coat, it's like he's willing himself to disappear. Something constricts in Dally's throat. He couldn't stand it if Johnny disappeared. Can't even stand the thought.
Then, Johnny turns around, glances at him, and smiles, crooked. He hands Dal the cigarette, only a toke or two left. Dally finds himself smiling back through the smoke. Johnny turns around every few streetlamps and grins at Dally, shit-eating. Dally can't help but smile back. His fingers are twitching, ready to grab whatever he can and slip it into his pocket. It hums in the air between them, buzzing like the summertime bugs. Nah, Johnny's not gonna disappear, at least not while there's shit to get up to.
They reach the convenience store, or at least what Dally can guess is the convenience store. The sign is made of cardboard, and the whole front of the shop is plastered in graffiti. Pale light spills out from the shop, rows of junk food and pop stretched out, waiting for them. Johnny goes in first while Dally finishes a cigarette. Inside, Johnny scans the aisles a couple times, pocketing little things as he goes. The old man behind the counter eyes him a bit, sneers, but mostly just sighs and checks his watch.
"We're closing soon," The man grunts when Dally walks in.
Dally shrugs, "I'll be outta here soon," he says, running a hand over the pop bottles lined up near the counter. He wants to grab one, but with the old man right there, that'd be as stupid as letting Buck sell him weed, "You got Camels?" He asks instead. Dally eyes behind the man, where the cigarettes are locked.
The man looks him up and down and scoffs, "Not for you, kid."
"Aw, c'mon, Pops," Dally says, leaning into the counter a bit. Normally, Dally wouldn't argue, he'd just wait until the man went back to the bathroom or something. But the smokes aren't the point, right now. Dally needs to keep the old man's attention off Johnny. The old man leans away from Dally. Dally catches a whiff of tobacco on him. Perfect. Dally plasters on wolfish smile, "I know they're rotten for me, but you know how hard it is t'quit. C'mon, I won't tell." Dally winks.
"No," The old man says, scratching his arm. He sighs, "Listen, it's been a long day, why don't you head out before I call my buddy down at the police station?"
"Aw, Pops," Dally sighs.
The old man glances away from Dally, and his eyes harden.
"Hey!" He barks.
Dally's blood goes cold and he whips around. Shit. Johnny's a couple rows behind them, his fingers on a chocolate bar too big to fit into his jacket pocket. Johnny meets Dally's eyes. The man clamors out from behind the counter, swearing. The boys shoot off, the doorbell jangling behind them. The man curses them after them, shakes his fist in the air, threatens them. But doesn't follow them beyond the parking lot.
Dally doesn't hear him. He only hears the wind whipping in his ears, the slapping of feet on gravel, and Johnny's laugh, hiccupping through the dark. They run, and run, until Dally's lungs are ready to burst. They're somewhere between Buck's place and the Curtis' when Johnny curves into a vacant lot before skidding to a stop, panting with his whole body, his hands on his knees. Only then does Dally realize he's holding a bottle of Coke, one of the ones from the front of the store. Huh. Guess he snatched it without thinking.
Johnny looks up at Dally and they burst into fits of laughter.
Dally wheezes and gasps. "Fuck, Johnny," he says once he gulps a few solid lungfuls of air. He really needs to stop smoking, "The hell were you thinking?"
"Wasn't," Johnny wheezes.
"Obviously," Dally says, "Dumbass." His breath comes in steadier now. Dally pants a few more times, "What'd you snag?"
Johnny, still breathing hard, moves over to the dim bug lantern on the side of one of the buildings. He pulls handful after handful of shit out of his pockets. Dally's eyes get wider the more Johnny reveals in the blue light: candy, nail clippers, little rubber bouncy balls. A broken candy bar.
Dally laughs again, a deep belly laugh, "Fuck. Didn't think you'd swipe that much." Dally pops the lid off his prize Coke, "Fuck. Fuckin' tuff, man." He takes a swig, "Cheers." He swallows. Johnny's eyes are on him again. Johnny licks his lips. "Want a sip?"
"Sure," Johnny says, taking the glass from Dally carefully. He swipes his lips with his tongue before pressing the bottle to his mouth. He downs half the bottle. When he's done, he lets out a satisfied sigh. "Thanks." A beat. "Hey, Dal?" He asks, holding the bottle out to Dally.
Dally's hand curls around the neck of the pop bottle, brushing Johnny's first two fingers. "Yeah?"
"Look at that," Johnny says. With his free hand, he points up.
Dally follows Johnny's finger out to where it's pointing. Stars. Dozens of them, dotting the sky in patterns Dallas doesn't know but feels like he ought to. Way, way more stars than he ever saw in New York. Not that he looked up much there anyway. Sure, sometimes he'd sneak out onto the fire escape of his mother's apartment for a smoke and there they'd be, indistinguishable from the airplanes. Dally would suck his cancer stick down to the orange and watch the ashes fall five stories, and think about how that's what God sees when he makes shooting stars. At least, he'd think it until his mother caught wind of where he was and started hollering.
"Beautiful," Johnny breathes, and Dally is thrown back into the now. Now, in Tulsa. Now, Johnny moving to Dally's side, pointing to a cluster of stars off to their left. "That's the Big Dipper."
"Yeah?" Dally asks.
Johnny blinks slowly, a smile pulling one side of his mouth, "Yeah. And over there's Cassiopeia, the Queen," He says. He looks away, "Pony knows more than I do, about constellations and stuff."
"Shoot," Dally says, "Well, you know more than me."
Johnny smiles, and its brighter than any star or moon or stupid bug lantern.
"I guess so," Johnny says.
"It's tuff," Dally says.
"Shit, naw," Johnny says, but he's grinning.
Dally takes another drink of pop, and watches Johnny watch him as he drinks it down, as he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Dally whoops and throws the empty bottle hard enough that it smashes with a satisfying splinter. "Shit, Johnny," Dally smiles, his mouth sticky with the aftertaste of Coke, "That was some tuff stuff you pulled today."
"Shoot," Johnny says, shoving his hands in his pockets, "It ain't nothing." A beat, "It got you feelin' better."
Dally blinks, "What?"
"Yeah," Johnny looks away, fascinated by the bug light, "You're laughin' an' stuff now. You weren't before."
Dally blinks again, "Uh," He says. Huh. He hadn't noticed. "Yeah. I guess so."
Johnny smiles, his skin lit up, his eyes crinkled at the edges. Half his face is shaded in the blue light.
Dally smiles too, an unfamiliar stretch of his face.
Johnny huffs a laugh and looks away.
"Thanks," Dally says, tasting the words in his mouth before he says them, "Thanks for that, Johnny."
"Yeah," Johnny says with a one-shouldered shrug, "Any time, Dal."