Chapter Seven

I remember the next couple of weeks stilted and fragmented, like tuning into different channels on our black-and-white TV and watching scenes from different shows. Some channel's had signals that caught quicker. Sometimes you had to adjust the antenna and the picture flickered. Sometimes the volume dial was turned too far left, and there was no sound. Sometimes it was just static and whitenoise. Sometimes a valve blew and even that cut out.

Steve cornered me and gave me a slap on the back of my head. "What the fuck was that Saturday? Was it Jennings?" - He knows. He knows. He knows. He knows. - "Are you doin' drugs with him?" - He didn't know. - "What were you on? You were so fuckin' out of it. What the hell's wrong with you lately?" He slapped me again and gave me a furtive lecture on drugs that I didn't ask for. "... do you wanna be like that? Like a fuckin' zombie in the gutter on 11th? They'll fuck up your life. Are you gonna do that to Soda, huh?"

I walked into History class late. Everyone stared. Some snickered, then whispered. The rest of the week went like that. My neck was apparently the most interesting thing going on at Will Rogers.

A paper football hit the back of my head in Geometry. I knew it was from a boy. Boys folded notes into footballs. Girls folded their notes to look like little envelopes. I didn't pass notes, so I didn't fold them. It said, 'Don't ignore me. 3:15 - south parking lot.' I threw away the note and wondered who he got to deliver it.

Darry asked why the door was locked, when he got home from work. "I don't know," I said. "It must have got bumped." Great answer, genius.

The coach shouted, "Boys, quit faggin' around!" Then later pulled me aside to tell me my times were lousy. I already knew this. I was tired and sore. My body still hurt when it sat, and it hurt when it ran, and it hurt when I saw Mark walking out of the main office. I told the coach I would pick it up by next Saturday. He said, "You better. Recruiters are gonna be there. They won't talk to you yet, but you want them to remember you."

Two-Bit made jokes. They weren't funny anymore.

I wished Johnny was still around. I thought he might understand. But then I felt like a whiny kid, because it wasn't like I'd been hurt as bad as Johnny had been.

I took showers to get clean. Sometimes I touched myself in new places and considered things.

Mark tried to talk to me in the locker room. He punched the metal door by my head so hard it left a dent. I almost kissed him.

I was being held down, but I wasn't paralyzed this time. I was thrashing and hitting and kicking and screaming. Then I was being shook so roughly I got whiplash. Holding me at arms-length, Darry looked at me like I was possessed. Panting and drenched in sweat, I thought I might have pissed the bed. The picture came into focus. Sodapop was there too. His left eye was red and watery, in a day it'd be black. "Shit, but you got Dad's right hook." I had nothing of Dad's, but I wished I did. He was strong; I wasn't. I said, "I'm sorry." Soda stroked my hair, but I didn't like it. "It's okay, honey. You're fine, it's just a dream." His hair was golden in the moonlight.

Cigarette after cigarette, I smoked in search of the one that might soothe me. I wished I had grass, but I never bought drugs myself. Mark always got them for me. I missed grass almost as much as I miss Mark. I almost called him to apologize.

I let the phone ring.

Mom and Dad kept the hunting equipment in their closet behind a locked door and the key on Dad's keyring. Now we kept the key on their dresser. When no one was home, I went to their room and laid on the bed and stared at the arsenal. I wondered if they could see me. I wondered if I'd get to see them again. I imagined Soda seeing me without a face and closed the closet door.

Sometimes since Windrixville, I still smelled burning flesh, even when nothing was hot. I didn't realize it was real this time, when I took the pan out of the oven without mitts. Not until Darry grabbed my wrists and forced them under cold water. I didn't feel it. The pan left a black scorch mark on the linoleum.

On the top of my assignment, Mr. Syme wrote, 'See me after class,' in red ink.

I didn't take a shower for four days. "You're ripe," Soda said. I ran a bath. It was nearly cool by the time I stepped in.

Soda and Darry talked in hushed voices about how I was 'gettin' bad again.' Soda suggested later that maybe I should see if Mark wanted to hang out.

In our truck, I sat in silence as Darry drove me to a doctor appointment that we couldn't afford, which ended up with a prescription that we couldn't afford. Darry said he couldn't afford to fall asleep on a roof, either. After shining a light in my eyes, the doctor said I couldn't afford to get another concussion. We drove home in silence.

I couldn't be around Darry when I felt so hurt and fragile. This meant I could never be around Darry, as I felt hurt and fragile all the time. Maybe it had been that way all along.

I didn't draw and I didn't write. I basked in the glow from the TV as I fell asleep. The pills helped with that at least.

Then one day, Tom Wright snapped me out of it, if you can believe it. I was walking up the staircase for my first class and Wright shouted at me, "Stay gold, Ponyboy!"

I nearly tripped, turning to look back at him. I thought I must have been hearing things, but I wasn't. Gradually then suddenly, it was everywhere over the course of that week. I must've missed most of the build up.

I don't know why it caught on like it did. It should have seemed like nonsense to anyone else, but for some reason - the rhythm of the phrase, the incongruity? - it had infiltrated Will Rogers High (with a few variations of punctuation and spelling). People kept yelling it, it was written on bathroom walls, in the freshly distributed yearbooks, carved into the top of desks. I couldn't escape it. It was like a competition to see the strangest place someone could write it. Someone even managed to write it across the world map in Mrs. Chamberlain's room. She pulled down the map that centered the United States to show us something dumb about Columbus, and across Australia to the USSR it read, 'STAY GOLD PONY-BOY!' Mrs. Chamberlain didn't think it was funny, either, and she blamed me for it.

I couldn't understand why everyone was doing it. But I knew it was Mark that started it. It was always Mark. I don't know how he did it, but I knew what he meant. "Stay gold" held a new important message: I know your secrets. And I can use them.

I can't tell you what that was like, not really, to suddenly be bombarded in public with something so intimate. It was jarring enough to wake me from the stupor I'd been in. I was antsy.

And the strange thing was, it also made me angry. I hated Mark, with an intensity that scared me. I don't know if you can know hatred until you hate someone you love, like I loved him. And I did still love him. I couldn't deny it, not even to myself. You couldn't hate someone like I hated Mark back then, without loving them too. You can't be betrayed by someone, unless you trust them in the first place, when you think about it.

I wasn't sure what he wanted from me, but I wasn't going to give it to him. Not over my dead body.

It'd been a while since I really hung out with Two-Bit. I hadn't realized it until I approached his car during our lunch hour.

"Hey! Stay gold, Ponyboy!" Two-Bit greeted.

"Aw, not you too!" I climbed into his passenger seat.

"You slummin' it with good ol' Uncle Two-Bit, today?"

I shrugged, feeling guilty about it because he was always a good buddy to me.

Two-Bit was telling me about how he'd crank called the mayor, but I couldn't hear him that well over his busted muffler and my own thoughts. It was just me and Two-Bit. Steve always did the math and quit coming to school every semester when he figured out how little work he needed to do to pass. He'd come back for final exams, if he needed to.

We drove to Dale's grocery store. I bought a coke, then grabbed a candy bar when I noticed Two-Bit staring at me. I hadn't been hungry lately, and I didn't need him reporting back to Darry

I walked back to the car and pretended not to notice a group of girls who were laughing at me behind their hands.

"It really bothers you, huh? The 'stay gold' thing?" Two-Bit asked, as he closed his own door. He didn't know they were Johnny's dying words, or that Mark was taunting me with them.

"Who'd like everyone makin' fun of them all the time?"

He shook his head a little. "You got it wrong, kid, ain't nobody makin' fun. They think you're a legend or something. That's mighty impressive as a sophomore."

"Well, they don't got to be talkin' 'bout me all the time." I didn't care if it was impressive. I didn't want it.

"It's just one of those things, like 'Kilroy was here' or that 's' everyone always draws in junior high. Don't take it personal."

People either thought I was some hero or a murderer, it was hard not to take it personal. No one at school thought of me as a real person anymore. I started to think maybe I wasn't.

"But it ain't like I did anything," I said.

"You saved those little kids from that fire."

I had forgotten about that, but I didn't think it was that noble when you were the ones who started the fire.

He looked at me, and I feared that he always knew more than he let on. "You know, if it was Soda or Darry, I reckon they'd like it."

"I ain't Soda or Darry, am I?" It was becoming more and more obvious. No matter how bad I wanted, I'd never be like them.

"Well, kid, if it really bothers you, I suggest not lookin' to ya right"

I looked out the window at the watertower standing stalwart and condescendingly over Tulsa. New words were painted across the tank in red bleeding letters:

STAY GOLD

PONYBOY

Holy shit.

I was a wreck. There's always a certain amount of paranoia that comes with hiding something this big, but with one secret exposed I was waiting for another to appear. It was clear that if Mark wanted people to think I was a queer he could. I took some solace, at first, in that he couldn't say I had ever kissed him, without admitting he had kissed me. That we had done so much more. But I knew if Mark got people saying 'Ponyboy Curtis is a faggot,' they'd believe it. People already talked. And I knew he could find a way to walk away scot-free.

Mark always knew how to mess with my head. I chewed my nails so much they bled. I hoped he might get bored and would forget about me, which hurt in a way I didn't understand but it was what I wanted. I wanted to go back before the cemetery, before the water tower, before I knew what it was like to have a brief reprieve from my lonesomeness.

I tried to act normal, as I waited for everything to blow up. I went to school. I ran track. I did alright at that last meet, just barely edged out a freshman from Booker T. on the 110 metres hurdles. I visited Soda and Steve at the Dx, then decided I would never do that again. Evie and Gina came by. Steve and Evie kissed, big open wet mouths like catfish. I could see their tongues. Things like that are disgusting when you're not the one doing them. Gina kept trying to talk to me. She had the same obnoxious giggle as her sister. I didn't think I could ever like anything that came out of either of them. I went home.

Looking for distractions after track ended, I tried to tune the piano but couldn't without Mom. So, I started to weed her garden until my hands were cracked and raw. I went to the library to see if I could find a book that would tell me if it was too late to try to plant the sack of bulbs I found in the coat closet. I ended up taking that job as a library clerk with Miss Doris. Darry didn't want me working at first, but he said I could for the summer then we'd see.

I didn't read any more about homosexuality and I didn't even think about it.

I was determined to move on. I would be neither homosexual nor heterosexual. If some people liked guys and some people liked girls and some liked both, then it made sense that some would like neither. Nothing. I would be that. I'd like no one. I'd never have sex again. I'd die alone. It was fine.

Maybe I could get a dog and live in the woods.

It kept on like that for a while. Then on a Friday, over the loudspeaker it was announced, "Ponyboy Curtis, please report to the principal's office."

It was in the middle of class. Not between bells. That's how I knew it was serious.

I walked down the hall with whatever it is that propels a death row inmate from their cell to the electric chair. One foot, then the other.

I was getting scared that maybe I'd done something and would get paddled, even though I knew I hadn't done anything at school lately. I get real nervous like that sometimes. I always have.

I'd never been paddled before. Not in grade school. Not at home. And I wasn't about to. I wouldn't drop my pants and bend over. No sir. I would refuse. They could call Darry. I didn't care. I just wasn't going to do that. The panic filled up my lungs, then up to my forehead. I wiped my sweaty palms on my pants before I got to the office.

The secretary looked at my curiously, before telling me to go right in.

There were two uniformed police officers with Mr. Matson, which scared me but I tried not to show it. I was going to be arrested for sodomy. I knew it. My secret would be out. They'd send me to the reformatory, where everyone would know I was a queer. I'm sure that'd go over real well with the other juvenile delinquents. Or maybe, if I was lucky, they'd send me to an insane asylum.

Mr. Matson smiled when I came. The cops didn't.

Mr. Matson wasn't a bad guy, just a little clueless. He cared a lot if kids thought he was hip or not, which made him pretty rank, if you asked me.

"Ponyboy, just the kid I wanted to see." - well, he had called me down - "Please have a seat. These are Officers Ward and Patterson."

I sat down across from his desk in an uncomfortable wooden chair. The cops stayed standing.

Mr. Matson glanced between the cops, before he said, "You know I've always liked you. I liked your brothers. Darrel was a senior, my first year as principal." - I had heard this before - "I was fine with just letting this blow over. There's a week left of school, I don't see why we have to make any waves; however, the officers have informed me that this 'Stay Gold, Ponyboy' trend, has spread beyond our school walls."

"There's been a string of vandalism to city property," Ward cut in. "It's been written on the water tower and several police cars."

"It wasn't me."

Mr. Matson said, "No one thinks it was." - judging by the cops' faces, I don't know if that was strictly true - "Look, you're a popular guy. The other kids look up to you." I stared at him. I didn't think any of that was true for one second. "So just tell them to ease up, okay?"

What did he want me to do, hold an assembly? I would just tell everyone to stop. I should have thought of that weeks ago.

Patterson was blond and seemed a little nicer than Ward. (This was the first time I ever met Patterson.) "No matter who's doing it, we can't have these drug references defacing our community."

This was the first I heard they thought it was a drug reference. I had no idea what was going on. At all.

I looked at Mr. Matson. "Am I in trouble?"

"Of course not, we just had to have this conversation." Did we? It seemed like a big waste of everyone's time.

"Okay. I guess I'll tell everyone to cut it out."

I left the office, but turned back when I remembered I had to see the guidance counselor to sign up for Creative Writing next year. Mr. Syme had asked me if I wanted to.

A knock on my bedroom window woke me up on Saturday. The clock said 5:12, which meant it was about 5:25am.

I was drowsy and confused as I made my way to the window and peeked through the blinds.

It was Mark. He saw me. The sun was just coming up and Mark was outside my window.

I spread the slats wider and mouthed, 'Go away.'

He said, "I need to talk to you." I could hear him clearly through the window pane.

He made a motion like he was going to start knocking on the glass. I brought my finger to my lips to tell him to stop. He'd wake up Soda. I didn't know what to do. I jerked my head to indicate, 'I'll see you outside.'

Vaguely disoriented - the sleeping pills did that to me - I pulled on yesterday's jeans, crepted past Steve's sprawled form on the couch, and stepped out onto the porch.

Mark was there. I looked at his jeans that were as wrinkled as mine.

"What do you want, Mark?"

"You have so much fuckin' nerve." His voice was loud and shaking. "How do you think I feel? You ignore me for weeks, without any warning, you just - I know you're mad at me, but how can I fix it , if you won't even talk to me?" His voice cracked.

It was the first time I had looked him in the eye since that night. His eyes were red and gold and wet, I noticed with a start. I hadn't seen him cry before, I figured he didn't. He looked oddly brittle, like a twig about to be snapped. I wanted to hold him together.

I hadn't considered that he might feel as stressed as I did by our lack of contact. Maybe I hadn't considered his feelings enough. Maybe it was cruel to sleep with someone for the first time and then ignore their calls. "Let's go talk at the lot, okay?"

Since that night at the cemetery, I had begun to think of Mark as inhuman. I knew that was terrible, to forget someone's complexities. It wasn't how I was raised. But it was easier to reconcile my hurt and anger when I could pretend he wasn't a boy who loved westerns and a child who'd watch his parents kill each other and that he wasn't the first person I ever really felt connected to. I ripped him apart in my mind, into disjointed pieces. Eyes. Mouth. Hands. Knees. Dick.

But when he walked beside me to the vacant lot, I thought I could see the whole of him. Like I was looking at a picture of him, taken at a great distance. I didn't throw away any of my drawings of him. I hadn't looked at them in a while, but I didn't throw them away either. Maybe I knew I'd go back to him.

I pretended I didn't see him wipe his eyes on his sleeve or take those eyes and rake them over my body like a gust of wind. The hickeys had healed. It was like nothing had ever happened. I crossed my arms over my chest. I should have put on a shirt.

It was chilly. The grass in the lot shimmered with dew. There was no one else around so early.

I sat down on an abandoned bench seat from a passenger van. Mark sat next to me. We weren't touching at first, but he spread his legs wider until his knee bumped mine. I couldn't move.

"So?" He said, like he was expecting me to lead this conversation, as though I had ever controlled anything between us.

"So what?"

"I don't want to keep guessin'. It's eatin' me up inside. Why are you mad?" Was he serious?

I didn't want to say it, so I just shrugged.

"Baby," he said softly. "I can't stand you being mad at me. Just tell me, so we can go back to what we was like before." He started caressing my hair and my face with his left hand, and put his right one on my thigh. I slunked down on the bench so we wouldn't be seen from the street.

I blinked, and hard. Why did I always have to be such a fucking girl? "You miss having someone to get off with and do your homework for you." I wished my voice was firm and indigent, but it wasn't. It was small and desperate. I wanted him to love me back, but the distance made it clear; I was just warm and willing, no better than the cheap broads I used to scorn.

"It ain't like that." - I wanted to believe him. - "I like foolin' around with you, I won't lie. But it ain't just that." His hand on my leg kneaded.

If we weren't outside, I'd have laid back and let him have me, however he wanted. I inched away from his hands and pulled my knees up to my chest.

"Why you got to spread the 'stay gold' thing around like that?"

"Would you believe I was tryin' to be romantic?"

His face seemed open, but I still couldn't read it. I didn't understand.

"The drugs, the sass - were you plannin' on that? Is that why you got it, so I'd take some? 'Cause you wanted to - do that?"

He shook his head. "I'm gonna start sellin'. I met a guy on the Ribbon, and it sounds like I'll be makin' some good money. He said I should try it out with my girl, that it would heighten things. I only ever wanted you to feel good."

"You're gonna push?" I asked, for some reason surprised.

He told me about everything he was getting involved in. I knew, even at fourteen, it was a terrible idea. I'd seen movies. I'd read books.

"That sounds like a scam, Mark. What if you can't sell enough of it? How are you ever gonna to pay him back?" I thought of Two-Bit's mom and her garage filled with Holiday Magic cosmetics.

He smiled, and it was almost like old times. "I missed the way you worry. It's almost like having a conscience or common sense or somethin'."

"Mark, it's not funny. What happens if you can't pay him back?"

"Don't be bugged. I already found a few spots to sell. I found this bar. You're gonna love it."

I knew I shouldn't get involved. If I used my head, I'd have left him in the lot tight then and walked home. But I think it's well established I ain't ever used my head.

I turn toward him. I had so much I wanted to say to him, but they were all things that were too hard to say. I took a deep breath, before speaking quietly. "I - I didn't want to. I told you I didn't want to."

"No, you didn't."

I shook my head, because I knew the truth. But I also knew it was never about what I wanted with him, was it? Even the gifts he gave me were all just a way to get what he wanted. It was about him doing exactly what he wanted, whenever he wanted, everyone else be damned. I should have seen it long ago. He was beautiful, but unkind. Selfish and deviant, everything I had read about homosexuals. "I'm not like you. I'm not a queer."

He rolled his eyes, and ignored me. "Maybe I got a little carried away, but you liked it just as much as me. That was obvious."

My nails were too short to bite. I gnawed at the tip of my thumb. "You hurt me."

"I figured that part out. It's too dry there next time we fu-"

"Mark!" I glanced frantically around the street. It was still empty.

"Hey," he reached for my face again, and I didn't pull away. His hand felt cold on my cheek. His thumb stroked lightly. I wanted this so badly. I had for weeks. I wanted Mark or just some comfort or both. I leaned in. "I'm sorry you got hurt."

I laughed without meaning to. It was incredulous and cruel. Maybe we were more alike now then we'd ever been.

Maybe the sleeping pill was wearing off, because the anger rose in me, making everything vivid and sharp. I hadn't just got hurt, like I fell down the stairs or something.

"I wouldn't put out, so you tricked me into takin' drugs, and then you held me down and fucked me on my parents grave." It was insane. He was insane. I could see it, now.

He rolled his eyes again, and I remembered how much I loathed him.

I stood up to go home. I didn't want to be anywhere near him.

"Where'dya think your goin'?" He stood up. "We're in the middle of a conversation."

"Mark - I just can't - I'm done."

"Sit back down, and talk to me right now." He grabbed my wrist so tight, I could barely rip out of it. But Dad taught me how to fight as soon as I learned to walk, and I pulled through the weakest part of his grip, where his finger tips touched his thumb.

"You don't tell me what to do!"

I was going to walk away, but he kept rushing at me.

"If you're mad at me, then fuckin' hit me like a man."

"I don't want to."

He pushed me, "Why not, faggot?"

"I'm not gonna fight you, Mark."

"Too much of a pansy, that it?" - push - "You don't like fights?" - push - "Ain't that the way it's always been? Big Shane and his sons ran this place, and then there was you. People thought you was a girl with your pretty long hair for a long time." - push - "You're just gonna walk off, write a fuckin' poem about it?"

I wasn't gonna take the bait, but then I did anyway.

I had to duck his fist and, for once, I punched back. I was so fucking angry, my breathing went shallow and jagged. I didn't normally hit anyone out of anger, but that morning I did.

And we went at it in the vacant lot. Circling each other and swinging, but then it was like my brain stopped filming. Of all the things it could choose not to remember, that fight was it. I came back to myself and looked down at my hands that had never looked so much like my father's, as the neighbors all made their way out of their houses to see the spectacle. I stood across from Mark, who looked bad. Had I done that? I felt sick. We should stop, I thought. I don't want to be like this.

"Ponyboy!" I looked over past Mark to see Darry standing at the edge of the lot, with a cup of coffee steaming in the air. Next to him were Soda and Steve. They wouldn't step in; Mark was about the same size as me. It was a fair fight. "Careful with your head!" I wasn't supposed to get anymore concussions, right. I kept forgetting - doctor's orders.

Mark yelled back over his shoulder. "Don't worry, big guy, I ain't gonna do nothin' to mess up that pretty face."

I lunged at him. We went rolling like a somersault. I popped back up, and he had to scramble.

I was getting in more blows, but Mark was stronger than he looked and the fight lasted longer than you might think. He could stand his ground and take a hit, like nobody's business.

He got me good once, and I crashed into the hard ground, before I managed to kick out his shin. He swore as he stumbled back and down.

I stood up and over him. His brow was furrowed. You could tell he was smarting something awful.

I kicked him one last time in the stomach, then I extended my hand. "Come on," I said and nodded toward our house. "I'm done."

He grabbed my hand and turned his face to the side to spit out blood. "You get it out of your system, buddy?"

I pulled him up.

He had a bounce in his step and a grin on his bloodied face. "We're done fightin'."

I nodded, trying to make sense of things.

"What's so important you have to duke it out so early?" Steve seemed real annoyed, as we approached.

Mark just grinned. "Oh, you know, Pony's just sensitive."

"Yeah, but I can kick your ass."

He winked at me, and I knew that he didn't feel bad about what he had done. He just felt bad that I was mad. It was the thing about Mark that scared me the most. How he could irrevocably change me and feel no remorse.

But we fought and now we were square.