Chapter Five

I didn't notice it at first, which is funny because it'd end up changing my entire life.

I took my normal seat in the back of English that day. Mr. Syme made eye contact with me, then tapped the tan case sitting humbly on his desk. The typewriter. He had finally brought it in.

I couldn't react right then, as other students were filtering in the room, but excitement thrummed through me. I could barely pay attention for the rest of the period, but that was okay. I had already finished the book.

When I returned and knocked on his door after my last class, he motioned me in through the window pane.

"You can leave it open, please," he said as I stepped inside. He was never behind a closed door with a student. Someday I would think about that.

There were still a lot of kids in the hallway. Their shouting mixed with the scent of ditto fluid in the air, pungent and warm. He put a folder over a stack of papers with purple writing - must have been tomorrow's quiz - and stood to walk around to the tan metal case. He squeezed the latch, revealing a turquoise Smith-Corona Sterling. It was small, as far as typewriters go. I guess it was supposed to be portable, but it was still too cumbersome to carry around.

Mr. Syme started talking about it. He was probably close to 40 years old. His hairline was receding, but it didn't look bad. He wore cardigans, unlike most male teachers who wore sport coats.

"I oiled it last night, the 'e's' a little misaligned, but …"

I could hardly hear him; I wanted to use it right then.

He opened the hood and the type-bars looked like the mallets inside a piano. Our piano at home was out of tune. Mr. Syme walked me through changing the ribbon. I already knew most of what he was saying from when they made us take a typing class in junior high, but didn't want to sound rude or ungrateful.

"Are you sure I can have it, sir?" I felt unsure, awkward about accepting it.

"There's no point in having two typewriters. I can only write one thing at a time." There was something humorous in his voice, but his smile was kind. He had a dimple - just one, on the left.

"I can pay you back." I didn't have much money, but I could figure something out.

"I wouldn't think of it. You're an uniquely gifted writer, Ponyboy."

I liked the fancy way he talked, and when he said my name, because a lot of teachers couldn't bring themselves to. Like it was distasteful or something. My first grade teacher called me 'Michael' until November, then Mom found out. Mom wasn't normally the one to lose her temper, but that really bothered her.

"As such, it's prudent you have the proper tools, " he told me. "Someday if you are recognized for your talent, I'll get to tell people, 'He was my student. I gave him his first typewriter.'"

Something bloomed in my chest. "You really think I could - be a real author, I mean?"

"I do. If you do not, I have no doubt it will just be circumstance."

I tried not to look too pleased.

"What do you write?" I asked, because he must write something. I just had the feeling we were the same somehow. Maybe it was like how Miss Doris said, we were reader-types and it made sense that readers wrote.

"Mostly homework instructions these days, but there was a time I wrote short stories. I even had a few published."

"Like in a book?"

For some reason, I think he thought this was funny. "Like in literary magazines."

I didn't know anything about literary magazines at the time, but I still thought this was impressive. I wanted to read what he wrote. He had never shared any of this with the class. I wondered why that was and why he was sharing this with me now. It meant a lot to me to get this information. Maybe it was because since Mom and Dad died, I didn't really get to talk to grownups much.

I was about to ask if I could read his stories, but he said first, "I want to ask you, Pony, if I could use your last assignment as an example in class?"

"If you take my name off it."

"You can do the honors." He handed a master sheet, and I rolled it into the type writer, as he found my poem. But I knew my poem mostly from memory. (I actually changed it a little bit between the original and what the typewriter produced, but Mr. Syme didn't say anything.)

I watched it manifest, sliding the carriage after each line break. The 'e' was off-center, like he said. I liked it, though. It had character.

I hated the typewriter room in school, the dissonance of keys and dings and zips. It grated on my nerves. But when it was just my own staccato keystrokes, I didn't mind. I might have even liked it.

I pulled out my poem. It almost looked real.

"Me and Stevie are goin' downtown, you wanna come?" Soda asked when he got out of the shower. I was sitting at our desk at my typewriter. I typed everything. Even the grocery list.

"Neither of you have to work?" I asked. They normally worked Saturday morning. I looked at the clock by the bed, they should have been gone by now.

"Old Man Floyd hired his nephew, and he keeps changing his hours, so Floyd keeps changing our's." He put on his underpants. "You ain't been by the DX in a while."

I shrugged. I guess I hadn't been.

He gripped my shoulder. "Come on get ready."

I shook my head 'no.' "I wanna stay home and finish this." Mark didn't like me going out without him. He had community service until four. If he wanted, I'd go out with him then. "Ain't you takin' Christine and Evie?"

Christine was Soda's new girl. She was kinda pretty, but in a loud way and laughed at everything Soda said, even if he wasn't meaning to be funny.

"We might meet up later."

"You like Christine?" I knew he didn't like her like he liked Sandy. Maybe he'd never like anyone like that again.

"She's just a good-time, you dig?" He grabbed some jeans from off the floor and looked them over, before sniffing the crotch.

I didn't think Christine knew that she was just a good-time. I thought about how she beamed when she was with Soda and figured she had fallen in love with him, but who wouldn't? I kinda felt bad for her.

"So you're just sleeping with her?"

"Not yet, we've been holding at third base, but I'm sure I'll make it home soon." He pulled on the jeans. He put them on both legs at a time and shimmied into them. That's my brother, for you.

"What about you?" - I startled, scared that we were on the same base and he might recognize me there - "Any girls you fixin' to make a move on?"

I thought about lying then, about inventing a character that could stand in for Mark and be the subject of all the things I wished I could talk over. Only I knew it wouldn't work. "Not really."

"Okay," he said skeptically.

He left, and I stayed home until Mark called.

I would plead temporary insanity later. There was no other possible explanation for what I did. They were the actions of a crazy person. I typed one of the poems I wrote about Mark, folded it and put it in my back pocket. Took it with me when I met Mark at the vacant lot. Then I read it to him. I'm not kidding. I don't know what compelled me. That's just how lovesick I was. It seemed reasonable, until he responded.

I never knew what I was getting with Mark. I could show him a drawing I drew or tell him an idea I had for a story and he might say, "Hey, that's pretty good," or "You really made that? Is there anything you can't do?" or he might laugh in my face. That's what he did when I read him that poem. He laughed.

It was not a funny poem. Maybe the hard ground could open up and swallow me.

"What's that supposed to be?" he asked.

"It's just something I had to do for English," I lied, saving face. Then to defend my poem and sanity, I said, "I don't think it's very good," - that was true, now - "but Mr. Syme says I could be a real writer someday."

"Man, that's so stupid." - something broke in me, maybe it was rib - "Why are teachers always tryin' to sell us that phony encouragement?"

"What?"

"Mrs. Roberts was just telling me how I had potential, how I was smart, and could be something if I'd just apply myself."

"You are smart, Mark."

"About some things, but there ain't no point in us dreaming about stuff like that. It's the natural order of things. We'll be lucky to make it past the Arkansas River." He put his arm around my shoulder. "Come on. Let's find somewhere to fool around before we meet up with Bryon."

I nodded and crumpled my poem. Mark was right. It was dumb. I'd be a fool to take Mr. Syme seriously.

We met up with Douglas at the Dingo. Angie Shepard was sitting on his lap on the hood of a car. It had been a long time since I had really seen her. She looked like she was trying to look grown up, with too much makeup and too little clothing.

"I'm gonna be right back, stay put." Mark said, and left me with them.

"Hi, Angie."

"It's Angel now," she told me.

I said, "Okay."

Douglas glared at me. I don't know why. I think he might have suspected something was off with me and Mark. Truthfully, I didn't much care for Douglas, but he was Mark's brother so I put up with him.

Mark was taking a long time. Tom Wright, a soc in our grade, came over. "Hey Ponyboy, Bryon! How's by you?"

Douglas said, "Hey, Tommy. Nothin' much."

I didn't say anything. It took a lot of nerve for him to slum it at the Dingo with his buddies.

Tom Wright was in my history class. We had never spoken before, but that was a weird thing that had been happening lately, kids who had never talked to me started acting like we were friends. It was partly because of me being in the paper and everything, and partly because it was becoming cool to be poor. But not really, just the worn jeans, not the constant worry about making ends meet or getting jumped when you walked around your own neighborhood.

"Yeah, we're all heading back to my house. My parents are out of town. Wanna come over? I got a billiards table for my birthday."

"We'll come." Mark was back. I was feeling a little annoyed that he had left me there alone so long with Angie and Douglas, and that he volunteered us to go with Tom Wright.

We piled into Tom's corvair. We all had to sit on top of each other.

"Where were you?" I asked Mark, quietly.

"I met some guy. Got you some grass." He put it directly into my pocket, and gave me one of those looks that always made me melt. He could pour me into a mold, after a look like that.

Tom Wright's house was the nicest house I'd ever been in. It was huge. Like a real mansion. Like from a book or a movie or something. There was a lot of art on the walls, but it wasn't that interesting. I couldn't imagine having so much dough, you'd throw your money away on bad art.

About five minutes in Angie announced she was gonna go take a piss and went up the grand staircase. Even if they thought Bryon and me were super-cool, for being poor, you could tell they didn't feel as at ease with Angie. She was the only girl there.

Douglas said a lot about Angela, when she was upstairs. I was shocked that little Angie would do all that, but maybe this was hypocritical, because she wasn't doing anything I wasn't. I was glad Mark couldn't talk about me without incriminating himself.

We drank scotch (it was awful) and shot pool (I was awful). I tried to smoke the grass Mark got out of Tom's father's tobacco pipe. That didn't really work out. All the guys were talking but they didn't say much of anything. Mark was loving it though, even though he knew these guys less than Bryon and me.

Mark never felt awkward. He would size up a situation and become whoever he needed to be. He was always changing. It depended on who he was around. I wondered what he was like by his lonesome. I couldn't picture it. It was like he only existed when he was next to somebody.

I was a little high.

I wandered upstairs, without bothering to excuse myself. I didn't need to go to the bathroom. I was just bored and wanted to leave. I thought I might find a book. This seemed like a house that had books for decoration.

I heard a clatter and followed it to what I assume was the master bedroom, and there was Angie, riffling through the vanity.

She glanced up at me. "Hi, Pony."

"What are you doing?"

"Getting what's mine. You think I'm less deserving than Mrs. Whoever, who spawned that kid who calls pool billiards?" She was studying her reflection and putting on Tom's mom's earrings.

I shook my head. I wasn't torn up about it. If Tom invited us to his house, he got what was coming to him. I thought of Bob Sheldon trying to get his parents to tell him no. Maybe that's what Tom wanted too. Maybe he wanted his parents to come home to a house that reeked of reefer and a pillaged jewelry box.

"That a balcony?" I went out to it. I'd never been out on a real balcony before. I fished out my pack of cigarettes and wondered if Mr. ad Mrs. Wright appreciated this view.

Angie stepped out after me, wearing a floppy hat, the kind a lady might use to stay fair at the beach and spun around, bottle of wine in one hand. "How do I look?"

Her curls were squashed down, but she had a spark in her eyes that most greaser girls lost during puberty. "You look lovely." And I meant it. She reminded me of Scarlett O'Hara.

"Help me with this?" She held up th bottle.

I took it. "I think we need a corkscrew."

She pulled one out of her bra and a gold chain came with it reflecting the setting sun. "There was a few in the wine room. A whole fuckin' room filled with wine. People are starvin' in China."

"We ought to mail them some merlot."

I set out to try to open the bottle. We ended up mangling the cork, and somehow pressed it down into the bottle. It floated in there like a capsized ship. We sat on the balcony in the breeze and passed the bottle and the weed back and forth, taking big gulps and occasionally spitting out bits of cork. It was better than scotch, at least. It tinted Angie's teeth purple. She was shivering.

"You cold?" I asked. She wasn't wearing much.

She shook her head, but accepted my jacket. I was warmed by alcohol.

"You ain't been by lately. I'm surprised you and Curly haven't been at it lighting each other's pubes on fire, or whatever you idiots do together."

I didn't know why she had to be so crude. "I been busy with track."

"I know. You're on the a-squad. It's just" - she swirled the bottle, it looked like water circling the drain - "He thinks you're mad at him."

"Huh?"

"I know, it's stupid. He can't help it, I came out first and he didn't get enough oxygen."

I couldn't tell if she was joking. I didn't know what to say.

She looked at me, then abruptly took off the floppy hat and put it on my head. I shrugged it off and she said, "Please, please, please."

"Angie!"

"It's Angel. Remember when we used to play dress-up?"

It was funny, I hadn't until after she asked. But then I did. It unearthed a memory of going through Barb's closet. She seemed really glamorous when we were young, before I knew better. She had all kinds of dresses and accessories that my mother didn't. I remembered going through them all with Angie. I hadn't thought about her as anything other than Curly and Tim's sister in so long. But there was a time, when we were little, before every game was divided into boys versus girls, where we were just as much friends as Curly and me.

"Yeah," I took a drag. "I remember."

Suddenly, I heard Douglas's voice. "Angel!"

But she held my gaze for a second longer. She had blue eyes, just like her brothers, only a little lighter. She might even have been a little pretty, if she didn't have all that crap on her face.

"Hold your fuckin' horses, Bryon. I'll be out in a second!" She shouted and stood.

"Angie," I called as she walked away. She didn't correct me. She turned back. "My jacket. You don't want to make Bryon mad."

"Oh, I might just."

I didn't dig. I hated making Mark mad. Dread started curling in my stomach. I started getting worried I was gone too long.

She let the jacket slip past her arms and took a couple steps toward me, before handing it over. She leant in and kissed my cheek, which seemed grown up and charming, yet painfully young.

I smiled and wondered what it would be like to have a sister. I thought I might like it.

That night I thought about the time we played baseball with the neighborhood kids, and I lost my two front teeth. We used pie pans for bases. I was in the outfield but I didn't even really know how to play though I had insisted I did. I was sitting in the dead grass and watching a sparrow soar across the sun, when the baseball eclipsed it and hit me in the face, knocking my teeth back - not out, back. They were flat over my tongue. My mouth was filling with blood but I clapped my hand over it and cried and refused to move my hand to show Mom and Dad. Do you know that feeling? Like maybe you're not really hurt until someone sees the damage. Eventually, they pried my hand away. My teeth had to be yanked out. We didn't go to the dentist. Dad heated pliers on the stove and waited for them to cool, though they were still warm when they touched my quivering lips, before he pulled them away and handed the pliers to Mom ("Josie, I just can't."), so she had to do it, while he held my head to his chest. I heard his heart pounding, through his other muscles. I looked at his face and it was all scrunched up like a pile of dirty laundry. Mom snapped the teeth out with efficiency, one and then the other. The sound was more painful than the act. They were just baby teeth, nearly rootless. I got to eat icecream for dinner that night.

We'd never believed in the Tooth Fairy, because Mom refused to lie to us. I read before that in Egypt the tradition is to throw baby teeth up into the sun, but mine were still in a Gerber jar in the junk drawer along with our umbilical cords (Except for the one that I planted in the garden to see what would sprout from it. You can probably guess that nothing did, butthat tooth's still buried there, in its guileless grave).

I laid in bed and wrote a short story about the sun and babyteeth in my head. I called it "Icarus and The Tooth Fairy." I did not type it. It would've been stupid to type it. When I woke up the next morning, I had forgotten it all but one line: The teeth in her pocket were worthless. I'm sure it wasn't that good. If it was good, I would have remembered it, but I would never know the rest.