I think the weird thing about death is that after a little while, you kind of just ignore it ever happened. I don't really know how to explain it. I used to have a mom, now I don't. I used to have a brother, now I don't. The Curtis boys used to have parents, now they don't. Ponyboy used to have a best friend, now he doesn't. It kind of just becomes a fact of life.
Or at least that's how it worked for me. But obviously that isn't how it worked for everyone.
Johnny's parents fought enough when he was alive, but they fought even more after he died. I should know; Johnny's parents didn't live very far from me and of course I could hear them fight. I mean, you could hear them fighting all the way down at the Curtis house sometimes.
And boy were they fighting around the time that a year had passed since Johnny and Dally's death.
"It's a wonder they haven't yelled themselves hoarse yet," Dad grumbled. We were babysitting Dulce, and the screaming was making it impossible for her to nap. I was just about to answer my dad when we heard the loud pop! of a gunshot.
It made me jump nearly out of my skin, and I almost dropped Dulce. I had been rocking her, trying to get her to go to sleep. I knew it was a gunshot, there was no way it was anything else. You don't forget a sound like that when someone you love dies because of it.
"Stay inside," Dad told me. "Take Dulce to your room and lock the door."
He'd gone into his bedroom and grabbed his own gun, a little handgun he kept in the house since we didn't live in the greatest of neighborhoods. He went to stand out on the porch.
Dad didn't have to use that gun, though. There was only the one shot and then there were police sirens. Johnny's mom had shot his dad dead. Right through the heart.
"Maybe if the dumb broad'd done that when Johnny was alive, things would be different now," Two-Bit grumbled when word spread around the neighborhood. Johnny's mom yelled a lot, but she never put her hands on him the way Johnny's dad did. I don't know for sure, but I'd bet without Johnny around to beat on, his dad started beating on his mom.
I tell you, Johnny and Dally dying sure made everything different in Tulsa.
There were changes that didn't have anything to do with Johnny and Dally dying, either, though. Like when Ponyboy was offered a full-ride scholarship at a private school across town.
"St. Peter's," I read aloud when Ponyboy had showed me the brochure that had been mailed to their house. Apparently Ponyboy's grades and track star skills were so good that they wanted him to do his last two years of high school at their school.
"I bet that's a Catholic school," I told him.
"How would you know?" Two-Bit asked, reaching over Soda where we all sat on the couch so he could flick my nose.
"Because I went to Catholic school in New York, for your information." I told him, swatting his hand away.
"Do the nuns really hit your knuckles with rulers when you get in trouble?" Two-Bit asked, suddenly curious.
"Yeah, and if you got detention, you had to write Bible verses. Or so I heard. I was a perfect little angel, but Dally told me stories." Two-Bit rolled his eyes at that part, but I ignored him.
"And guess what else, Ponyboy? You have to wear a uniform. You have to wear a tie every day." I told Ponyboy, leaning across both Sodapop and Two-Bit.
"So the school's gonna turn you all Soc-y is what I'm hearin' here, Ponyboy," Sodapop teased him while Two-Bit ruffled up his carefully greased hair.
We were giving him a hard time, but of course all of us thought he should go. Especially Darry. He was so excited for Ponyboy.
Being the only girl they knew who could sew, I had to hem the too-big uniform St. Peter's gave Ponyboy.
"I think you stabbed me again," Ponyboy said when I was trying to pin his pants so I could sew them.
"Yeah, will quit movin' and you won't have to cry about it." He wouldn't stop fidgeting.
"Soda," Ponyboy called to the kitchen where Soda was making some coleslaw. It was purple, mind you, not because of the cabbage he had used but because of all the food coloring he'd poured into it. "Your girlfriend is sassy!"
"Yeah, I know!" Soda called back. I could hear the smile in his voice. "You're just gonna have to deal with it, Ponyboy. That's what I do."
I ignored that little comment.
"Just so you know, Ponyboy, if they make y'all go to Mass during school and they give y'all Communion, it's wine in the cup, not grape fruit."
"What?" Ponyboy said, his cheeks flushing. "They give wine to kids?"
"It's the blood of Jesus," I told him. "And yes, they give wine to kids. But not until they're eight. That's when Catholic kids take their first Communion, and then they get wine every time Communion is given."
"Did they do that at the school you went to in New York?" Ponyboy asked.
"Yeah, but we left before I ever took Communion. Dally had it, though." Our dad kept us in Catholic school even though only our mom had been Catholic because it was a good school. We left New York before I ever went through the whole first Communion thing. It's a big deal, though. There's a whole process to it.
"And in February, you have to start Lent. You have to give something up while you mourn the death of Jesus and you can't eat meat unless it's Friday. And you have to do that from the time Mardi Gras is over until Easter. It's not fun."
My mom always made me give up peppermint candy for Lent, because I used to eat them all the time when I was little and that was the only way she could get me to stop.
I don't know why, but it was easier for me to talk about New York after Dally died. I don't think I ever talked about it when he was alive.
New York was something that Sodapop asked me a lot about. I think he liked the idea of New York, that he saw it as some kind of adventure.
"What was it like?" He asked me one day while we were lying on my bedroom floor. We had been lying on my bed, but someone had the great idea to tickle me until we both fell off the bed. We were both out of breath and still laughing a little and neither of us had bothered to get up.
I knew he meant New York, so I told him.
"It was huge. There were people everywhere. I could go for days without stepping on grass or dirt, just sidewalks and streets, 'cause no one had yards. Everyone lived in apartments or hotels."
"In hotels?" Sodapop asked. He sounded amazed.
"Yeah, rich people did that sometimes. Instead of having an apartment, they'd just live in the nice hotels because the rooms were big and you didn't have to clean it yourself."
"What else?" he asked, tugging me so that I laid on top of him and we were face-to-face.
"There was always somethin' going on. Construction, new people moving in somewhere, plays in theaters. Nothing ever stopped moving. The city was always lit up, even at night."
While I told Soda about it all, I watched his dark brown eyes danced around. Ponyboy always said there was too much excitement in Soda for Tulsa, Oklahoma, and on that day I started to think he might be right.
Things like this gave me hope. Not Johnny's mom shooting his dad… I don't mean that part; that was just something that happened. I mean things like Ponyboy getting to go to a better school and Sodapop's eyes lighting up when I told him stories about New York. That gave me hope that life would be good, despite the pretty big bad things that had happened so far in my sixteen years.
I still think about the excitement in Soda's eyes sometimes when I need to remind myself that hope is a thing that exists. Lord knows I need some nowadays.