ladybird curtis was spinning out. dallas winston decided to spin with her.
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“Dal’s gonna kill me, ain’t he?”
I held the phone pinched between my shoulder and my ear. Sylvia called, once again, just to complain about Dally. The whole thing bored me out of my goddamn mind, and I found myself studying the wood grain of the wall.
“Has he been around yours? Buck said he ain’t been there and I’m worried.” Her question pulled my attention for a moment, my brain racing to catch up to the conversation.
“Nah, he ain’t,” I said. My eyes found the kitchen table, where the entire gang aside from Pony sat playing rummy. One Dallas Winston included, but Sylvia didn’t need to know that. I didn’t need her barging into my house all riled up and hot mouthed, Darry’d never let me see her again.
“Will you call if you see him?” I fought an eye roll she couldn’t see.
“Yup,” I answered. I prayed she’d hang up already.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow mornin’, Birdie.”
“See ya,” I mumbled, waiting to hear the line go dead before I hung it up on my end.
I reached the kitchen in a few quick strides, finding myself leaning against the wall of the entry way.
“All good, girlybird?” Darry asked, briefly glancing up from the cards in his hands. They’d moved on to playing poker with pieces of trail mix.
“All good,” I said.
Darry nodded once, already back to his hand. I stayed where I was anyway, arms crossed as I watched the steady focus of boys I rarely saw sit still. Dally’s fingers tapped against the beat up table as if he was counting something only he could hear.
“Sylvia?” he asked without looking up.
“Yeah,” I said too fast.
He finally glanced up at me, the side of his mouth quirking up just enough to be irritating. “She sound happy?”
“When is she ever?”
A couple of the boys snorted despite themselves. Was pretty sure me and Dal were the only ones that could stand her on a good day, but that didn’t change her being my best friend. Even if the sound of her voice made my head hurt some days.
Darry cleared his throat. “Bird, you mind putting the coffee on?”
I hated that I still jumped when he said my name like that- soft, careful. I nodded and moved towards the counter, feeling Dally’s stare burn into my back the whole way. I set the pot, still half full from the morning, onto the stove.
I kept my back to the boys as I watched it bubble up and boil, the sound of their game falling on deaf ears as I stared intently. Daddy used to take his coffee black, would send it back if the waitress at the Dingo put even one sugar in it. Said he could tell by the smell- didn’t even need to taste it.
I poured a mug for Darry, flipping Two-Bit the bird when he asked me for one too. Darry swatted my hand down.
“Watch it, Ladybird,” Darry said, talking out of the side of his mouth the way mama used to when she snapped at us. I don’t think it was on purpose, but I had to suck in my lips to keep from laughing.
That was until I made eye contact with Sodapop, and the floodgates opened.
His laughs spilled out first, slamming his cards down on the table and covering his mouth with a hand. He threw his head back causing his faintly-greased hair to fall in his eyes. Soda’s laugh was enough to bring a smile onto anyone’s face, but the giggles I’d been suppressing came crackling out. My hands shook as I placed the coffee pot back on the stove top.
“What y’all laughin’ at?” Two-Bit asked with more than one or two of their makeshift poker chips in his mouth.
I could tell Darry’d caught on when I turned back around and his ears had gone red. It was one of his tells when he was annoyed, but the blush hadn’t spread to his face or neck, so I knew he hadn’t been too mad.
“You’ve done it now, Pepsi-cola,” Darry said, throwing his cards down now and starting around the table. Soda’s cackling didn’t stop as he threw himself out of his chair and went the other way ‘round.
It was a messy race, and Darry always won those, still broad and strong from his football days but now more toned from his roofing job. I blinked tears of laughter out of my eyes and Sodapop was already in a headlock in Darry’s grasp. The others started jumping up then, not fully in on the laughter but never passing up the chance at a good ‘ol rough housing.
Before I knew it, there was a pile of shouting teenage boys on the floor of our living room- coffee table kicked out of place and one of Pony’s stray textbooks now flat out on the floor somehow.
My smile pressed so wide my cheeks hurt and sucking in a full breath became hard. I watched them kick and scrap in a way that would’ve had daddy barging in with his belt already off to tan some asses and felt my stomach start into summersalts.
I didn’t fully grasp when the tears of laughter and gasps for air between giggles turned to fear threatening to spill over my waterline and labored breathing, but it all hit me suddenly in a way I couldn’t explain.
I spun on my heel and slipped away before any of the boys could take notice of the sudden change in my demeanor- they were busy anyway.
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The heels of my scuffed up loafers rubbed at the back of my ankle as a constant reminder of why I never wore them. A hazy mist hung over our neighborhood as I walked to school with Johnny and Ponyboy coating our line of sight in fog. My legs were covered in goosebumps from the light breeze that continually graced the hem of my skirt. It was an old hand-me-down from some other greaser girl in our neighborhood- maybe even someone’s mother for all I know. It was just barely too big, so I had to roll the waist band a couple times for it to even stay up.
I cursed Will Rodgers for forcing me into skirts everyday.
“Man, I hate goin’ to English class when Two-Bit ain’t around,” Johnny spoke up as we passed over the half way mark of our walk. The stick we’d been passing between the three of us hung out the side of his mouth. “Drives me nuts when I’m stuck in there with all those Brumly hoods and that nasty teacher.”
“This rate he won’t be a senior ‘til he’s twenty-five,” I said, pinching the cigarette between my fingers as he handed it over.
“I don’t get it,” Pony spoke up. He’d been particularly quiet that morning. “He’s got nothing to do all day, and he gets a kick out of messin’ with his teachers. Why not just go or drop out?”
I passed the cigarette on to him. “I think that’s the point, Pone. It’s Two-Bit, none of it makes all that much sense.”
The parking lot of Will Rogers came into view before too long and we cut up through the grass leading into it.
“What do you reckon’s going on over there?” Johnny asked, having to use his head to nod because his hands were shoved in the pockets of his jean jacket. Mine and Pony’s heads turned to see what he was looking at.
Towards the back of the lot, where all the greasers parked their beat up cars, was a group of people circled around a pickup truck. I recognized Curly Shepherd standing up in the bed, speaking to the crowd as if it was the sermon on the mount. A few girls sat up on the side of the bed, two of them being Angela Shepherd and Sylvia. The latter of which caught my eye and waved me over.
“Let’s see,” I shrugged, tossing the cigarette onto the black top and stepping over it. Johnny and Pony followed, of course.
When we got closer to the group, I noticed a common denominator- Indian-ness. I was glad Two-Bit wasn’t around that morning, he never picked up subtleties.
Curly’s words were just in earshot when a figure stepped out in front of us.
“Reds only,” a tall greaser by the name of Jimmy Locklear spat, blocking our path. His eyes were trained on Ponyboy, not bothering to look twice at me or Johnny. Pony recoiled slightly at the tone.
“He’s a Curtis, jackass,” I snapped, grabbing my little brother by the arm. “Back off.” I pushed past him, dragging Pony with me as Johnny followed.
“Ladybird Curtis!” Curly announced once we got close like I was some kind of contestant on Hollywood Squares. “Come to hear the good news?”
Sylvia reached out a hand, beckoning me into the truck bed with her. I rolled my eyes at Curly as I stepped up next to him before sitting down.
“You thinkin’ you the second coming or somethin'?” I asked. He barked out a strange kind of laugh.
“Naw, think bigger than that,” he said, all smug. I glanced at Sylvia.
“Curly met some guys from further down the east side,” she whispered to me as Curly became distracted with greeting Johnny and Ponyboy. Her hot breath fanned close to my ear. “Some rez transplants, he said. Told ‘em about this club- something about the Indian Youth Council. They’re trying to rile up interest out here in Tulsa.”
“What’re they doing?” I asked.
“They fight for us,” Curly interrupted, clearly hyped up on some kind of prideful high. “S’all about red power, baby. Fuck gangs and tribes and the rez. ‘Bout getting back at the government for screwing us over all these years.”
My eyebrows tucked themselves together. I’d never seen Curly expressing an emotion aside from aggression or pure disinterest while doing anything besides getting in a good fight. He seemed zealous. That kind of attitude never fared well for angry boys in our neighborhood.
I looked down where Johnny and Pony stood on the pavement. They didn’t seem all that sold on it either.
“What’s going on over here!” a harsh voice barked.
Every head in the circle spun to look who it was.
A balding science teacher with a red angry vein popping out of his forehead stood, arms crossed and glare harsh. Socs stood around on the outskirts of the row, looking at us like some kind of circus display.
“Disperse!” the man snapped now that we were all looking. “Shepard! With me.”
Curly got the kind of grin on his face Dally got when a good fight was in his sights. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it before jumping down out of the bed. He let out a long puff as he approached the teacher who was growing redder by the minute.
I felt a tap on my arm, looking down to find Pony staring up at me. I took the hint, slipping myself off the side panel and out of the truck bed.
“Rest of y’all will be coming with me too if you don’t get!” the teacher shouted.
I took Pony by the arm again, glancing back to make sure Johnny was close, and started weaving back through the parked cars. We were quiet ‘til we got closer up to the school entrance.
“How much trouble you reckon he’ll get in?” Pony asked, breaking the silence and shrugging off my hand.
“For the meeting? Maybe detention,” I shrugged as we scaled the concrete steps. “For the mouthing off he’s about to go do at the principal, probably suspended again.”
I thought of Curly’s grin, his pride. How at the end of the day he was just another angry boy with a cause and no plan. We had too many of those, even if he was right.
“It makes me so mad,” Johnny said, suddenly. “Ain’t nothing wrong with standing around in the parking lot before school. They just hate us.”
ladybird curtis was spinning out. dallas winston decided to spin with her.
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Buck’s truck had a bench seat that we all shoved into to varying levels of comfort. And by that, I mean I was forced into the middle and was therefore up against someone no matter how I sat. Dally kept the windows down the whole way to the liquor store downtown with the stereo blasting some country station that seemed to have an affinity for Bob Dylan.
I remember when daddy came home with the then new truck that Darry drove and kept raving on about that in-car stereo. That kind of thing was a bit of a novelty in our neighborhood back then and daddy was very proud of it. He loaded us all up in the car- there wasn’t quite enough room so I was on Mama’s lap- and we drove around for a while just listening to the radio. Me and Pony were asleep by the end of it, still young enough to have strict bedtimes that rarely got broken.
I vaguely remembered being loaded up onto Darry’s back and being carried back to bed, only to wake up to mama and daddy hollering back and forth in the kitchen. I was little, maybe six, and still scared of the dark and monsters and liked to crawl in bed between my parents when I got scared at night. But in those days, they weren’t sleeping in bed together all that much. The daddy that used to scare away the monsters under my bed was barely home enough to do so.
I was small enough then to be able to slip through the crack in my door without opening it enough to make it creak. I padded down the hall to the room that Sodapop and Darry used to share and peaked through the slightly open door.
“Darry?”
My brother’s tired eyes found mine, partially obscured by the old wood door.
“Come on, Birdie,” he said with a huff that I could now recognize as him hiding his annoyance. He was looking out for us even then. His words and another particularly loud shout from the kitchen was enough to prompt me in a small sprint up into his bed. I was surprised to find Pony and Soda already tucked in next to him when I jumped up onto the comforter.
“Why they fighting?” I whispered, crawling up between him and Soda. The latter grumbled as I pushed in next to him and got under the quilt.
“Daddy spent a lot of money on the new truck,” Soda whispered back. Something shattered followed by more screaming and from the corner of my eye I could see Pony latch onto Darry’s arm.
“S’alright, Pone,” Darry said, untangling himself from him only to put the arm back around the youngest. “We just gotta go back to sleep. They’ll be done when we wake up.”
Darry got us all settled eventually- the bed barely accommodating all of us. I’m sure Darry didn’t get a single minute of sleep with the combination of the yelling and the restlessness of the three children in his bed. Soda was a sleep kicker back then.
It was memories like those that floated around in my brain and clouded my view of my parents. Stuff I’d been too young to make sense of only to get too old to remember the surrounding events. It was easier to just ignore it all now that they were gone.
“We gotta focus on the good, Birdie girl,” Soda had told me after the funeral. “No point in digging up the dead just to be mad."
I figured he was right, in a way, and I took his advice despite not wanting to.
There was so much I still wanted to know.
“Do you got your fake on you, Johnnycake?” Dally asked, pulling my thoughts away from in-car stereos and eleven year old Darry.
“Yeah,” Johnny answered, tapping his cigarette ashes out the window. The shock must’ve been apparent on my face because Dally laughed.
“What, Bird, didn’t know ol’ Johnnycakes got out like that?” he said, reaching around me and messing with Johnny’s hair. I suppressed a laugh while they did some light roughhousing as Dally swerved on the road.
“Cut it out, Dal! Watch the road!” Johnny said, swatting at Dally’s arms. Dally laughed, leaving his arm stretched across the back of the seat. Behind me.
“Boy howdy, look at that thing,” Dally said, his eyes now on something else that also wasn’t the road. I turned to look, spotting the light blue corvair speeding past us in the other direction. “What I’d give for a car like that.”
“You’d total it in a week running from the fuzz,” Johnny shot back, not missing a beat.
Dally smacked him up the side of the head. He ducked down with a snort.
“Ain’t wrong.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Dally said. “You’re just jealous I’d look good doin’ it.” He glanced at me then, a sideways look that felt like he was checking something out. “Ain’t that right, Bird?”
“I think the fuzz would miss you too much,” I said. “Whole town’d feel empty without you causin’ problems.”
That earned me a sharp grin, the kind that meant I’d hit the mark just right. He flicked his cigarette out the window, sparks flying back at us for a second before disappearing into the road wind. The liquor store sped into view not long after- a squat little building with peeling paint and a sun-faded sign that had probably been there longer than all of us combined.
Dally pulled in too fast, tired crunching over gravel. He killed the engine and pointed at Johnny with two fingers. “You’re up, cakes.”
Johnny sighed like a man headed for the gallows but pushed the door open anyway. “If I get pinched-”
“You won’t,” Dally cut in. “And if you do, I’ll bail you out. Maybe.”
Johnny shot him a look and then glanced at me. I gave him a small nod, what I hoped passed for reassurance, but truth was I'd never done anything like it before. He tucked the collar of his jacket up a little higher and headed inside.
We sat there a minute, just the hum of the cooling engine and whatever Dylan song was still bleeding faintly from the radio. Dally drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, restless. I picked at a loose thread on my sleeve.
“You alright?” he asked. It was quiet in a way that was particular to Dally. Not Quiet like anyone else. It caught me off guard.
“Yeah,” I said automatically, then shrugged. “Just tired, I guess.”
He studied me for a second longer than was comfortable, then scoffed and leaned back. “You’re always tired. Kid your age oughta be bouncin’ off the walls.”
I thought of Darry, bone-tired at twenty, of Soda pretending not to be, of Pony trying to grow up too fast. “Guess I’m learnin’ from the best.”
That got a laugh out of him, rough and real. Real Dallas. “Yeah, you got lousy role models.”
Johnny came back quicker than I expected, a paper bag tucked under his arm like a secret. He slid back into the truck and shut the door, breathless.
“Good?” Dally asked.
Johnny nodded. “Didn’t even look twice.”
“See?” Dally said, already starting the engine again. “Told ya.”
We pulled back onto the road, the bag crinkling softly every time Johnny shifted even a little. I watched the way the buildings flew past, familiar in a way where you don’t really see them anymore. Tulsa looked the same no matter how much time had passed- same corners, same storefronts, same ghosts hanging around whether you wanted them to or not.
“Buck ain’t gonna like it if the bottles clink,” Dally said, reaching back and shoving the bag farther down by Johnny’s feet. The car swerved a little as he bent forward across my lap. “Act natural.”
Johnny rolled his eyes. “I am actin’ natural.”
“Natural my ass,” I muttered.
Dally barked out another laugh. “Hear that? Kid’s got opinions now.”
I leaned my head back against the seat, letting the wind tangle up my hair. For a second, I let myself pretend this was all there was. The road, the noise, the boys on either side. No funerals. No half-remembered fights in the kitchen. No questions I didn’t know how to ask.
The truck hit a pothole and jolted us all forward, snapping the moment clean in half.
“Jesus, Dal!” Johnny gasped.
“Road’s trash,” he shot back. “Ain’t my fault.”
I laughed despite myself, the sound surprising even me. Dally glanced over, looking satisfied, and turned the radio up a notch.
ladybird curtis was spinning out. dallas winston decided to spin with her.
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There was a party going on at Buck's, like always.
I knew Johnny would go out with Dally from time to time, but I didn’t expect him to have enough rapport for Buck’s bartender to let him in with a smile and a handshake.
Johnny’s hand hovered over my back as he ushered me through the crowded joint. It was hot inside, the haze of smoke and drunk bodies milling around like ants added to the drunk fog still lingering in my mind. Most people were too far gone by that point in the night to pay the two teenagers scurrying upstairs any mind.
“You look like hell,” were the first words that came from Dally’s mouth after Johnny knocked on the door. He was shirtless and in a pair of plaid pajama pants, clearly having just rolled out of bed to answer the door.
“Cut it out, Dal,” Johnny said, pushing past him and entering the room. Dally stood expectantly, waiting for me to follow, but I couldn’t get my brain to register. I stared at him blankly.
“Come on,” he said, softer than before. Not exactly nice but not the teasing I was used to coming from him. I blinked out of it, following Johnny into the room.
It looked the same as it did the morning I woke up hungover in his bed- all the way down to the pile of laundry in the corner. Johnny was fiddling with something on the nightstand as I walked slowly into the center of the room.
The door shut and I didn’t move.
Johnny turned around, a lit cigarette now in his hand, and stared at me from where he stood.
“Open the window, would you? I’m renting,” Dally huffed, letting the cool breeze come in through the opening. I found irony in his words that I didn’t know how to vocalize considering the build up of cigarette butts littered across the room. He walked over to his bed and sat down. “So what am I missing? What’re you two doing out at three in the morning?”
Johnny’s eyes flushed over me before turning back to Dally.
“I was sleeping in the lot and Ladybird came walking home from a party,” he said. “Darry didn’t know she was out so we came here.”
“Seem to be making a habit out of getting drunk by yourself,” Dally said. Johnny’s eyes were back on me. Dally sighed, running a hand down the side of his face. “Think you two can both fit in the bed?” He stood up, stretching out his back.
“I’ll take the floor,” me and Johnny both said at the same time. Dally looked between us.
“Whatever,” he shook his head, obviously too tired to deal with this. “Johnny, on the bed, you’ve been sleeping in the lot too much. You’re gonna catch your death out there once the winter comes in.”
He grabbed the quilt off his bed, leaving a ratty looking blanket behind, and put it down on the floor.
“Pick your poison, girly,” Dally said, laying himself down on the quilt. Johnny sat down on the mattress without any complaint and I suspected this was a normal routine for the two. Johnny was barely getting a good night’s rest back in those days, so I was glad someone was making sure he at least got a bed for some of it.
I stood there for a moment longer, waiting to make sense of the world around me. I felt like I was lagging in time, like I was in slow motion but no one else was. I was in quicksand, sinking deep into the hardwood.
“Ladybird?”
My vision blurred and it took a moment to register that it was because tears were filling my eyes and not because I was on the verge of fainting down onto buckled knees. I blinked them back and looked for the voice that said it. Both eyes were on me and I couldn’t differentiate between the two’s voices with the haze clouding my thoughts.
“Ladybird?”
I could see it was Johnny that time, was sure of it, his mouth moving before I could hear my name coming out.
“Come on, kid, sit down.” That was Dally that time. I felt shame bubble in my chest at the nickname. A reminder that I was their friend’s kid sister. Not one of them. Or at least that’s all I could rationalize at the time.
I was choking. On air or something- I couldn’t really tell what. Not when my mind was too focused on trying to scrape the imaginary noose from my neck.
But it wasn’t a noose.
It was hands, hands that threw footballs and wore a blue and white letterman jacket. Hands from the other side of town- where the school was all Socs- preppier Socs than I’d ever met. And they were on my neck, tugging on me and forcing my eyes to cloud shut.
And then I could breathe.
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A few weeks after our parents’ funeral, I’d checked out a book on dreams at the library. I wanted to try to find some way to help Pony, even if it was just finding out why he was affected by them so viscerally.
Greasers didn’t have nightmares. They didn’t get sad, they didn’t cry- they only had anger. So much anger it seemed to be boiling at the seams at all times and spun out in fights and drinking and drugs. They didn’t want to show the capacity for anything else.
But Pony did. He was different than the rest of them, though, even if I’d never tell him. Darry and Soda knew too- the whole gang did. Ponyboy Curtis was special, and I had wished more than anything to help him when the nightmares got so bad I’d wake up in the morning to find him asleep on the porch with the remains of a cigarette pinched between his fingers. Looking so small, still only thirteen but somehow aged by the dark circles under his eyes. So I checked out more books.
But I couldn’t help him, no matter what I tried. I’d gone on runs with him around the neighborhood after dinner to tire him out, I made him tea from herbs I’d picked from some random person’s yard to mimic the ingredients of an expensive one I saw at the grocery store- hell, I stayed up with him and read books aloud on nights where he was too scared to close his eyes again.
They didn’t stop until Sodapop started sleeping in his bed with him. Even then, I don’t know if they stopped or if Pony just stopped telling me about them after he stopped waking up screaming.
I slept so much after that night to the point where I can’t pinpoint when my nightmares even started because the days blended together. I’d scared Darry half to death when I stayed in bed for the better part of a week and had to be coaxed out of my room to even shower or use the bathroom. I think he was convinced I’d caught tuberculosis or something and woke me up every few hours to make sure I was breathing.
Every time he’d shake me out of my haze of sleep- usually induced by some medicinal whiskey I’d found in dad’s old closet- it wasn’t him standing there. It wasn’t my brother with my dad’s face and a strong demeanor, and it definitely wasn’t his blue eyes that were staring at me.
They were too blue to be comfortable to look at, sending the unease in my stomach bubbling up my throat. He looked just like he had that night. Blond hair loose in a way only Socs wore it and becoming messier by the second. A scratch just under his eye where I’d managed to break skin when I was clawing at him.
I’d been so out of it from whatever he’d put in my drink that night that I’d been in and out for most of the affair. I’m not sure if I was passing out from the substances in my system or just blacking out in pure terror. It was like I would blink, and there would be a new position, a new pressure, a new pain pulling screams and cries from my throat.
Maybe that was why I’d wake up thinking I was back in that bed and he was standing over me so often, including that morning in Dally’s bed.
My eyes found the ceiling before anything, realizing not nearly as quickly as I should’ve that the ceiling was far to run down and chipped to be that of any Soc. I found the breathing next to my ear to be Johnny, still sound asleep. He was pushed so far up against the wall- way too far to be comfortable- in an effort to leave enough room for me on the double bed.
The prior night swirled around in my head enough to leave me dizzy, but I was able to pick out a few things. Sylvia ditching me at the party, talking to Evie, and seeing him.
I saw him .
I screwed my eyes shut in a feeble attempt to stop the onset of another breakdown, pulling my hands up and putting deep pressure on the center of my chest. I pushed the panic back down to my stomach where it had taken permanent residence since June and reminded myself where I was.
Or more like who I was with.
“You up, Ladybird?” Johnny whispered softly. I peaked my eyes open to look at him. He was sitting up now, leaning against the wall and stretching out his arms. Johnny always called me by my full name. He did for Pony too. It was a stark contrast from most people- especially my brothers- who seemed to have an onslaught of nicknames falling from their lips at any given moment.
“Yeah, I’m up,” I said, sitting up, taking a second for my head to adjust to the new positioning. I hadn’t even gotten properly drunk, yet I was feeling the effects of the breakdown that involved running for nearly two and a half miles and fainting on a hardwood floor.
“Is Dal?” he nodded over the edge of the bed where the other greaser must’ve laid down the night prior. I leaned over, hands holding me on the thin mattress. Dally was there with an unlit cigarette sitting loosely between his lips that he seemingly fell asleep trying to light.
Renting my ass .
“No,” I said, snatching the cigarette from his mouth and the abandoned lighter next to him. His face twitched at the removal and I saw the beginnings of consciousness as I pulled myself back over the edge of the bed and began to light the cigarette for me and Johnny. “Got the time?” I asked, taking a single drag before handing it to him.
He checked his watch as he sucked in the smoke.
“Just after 10,” he said. “When’ll Darry want you home by?” I shrugged and attempted to use my fingers to fix the frizzy hair blocking my eyes.
“Sunday, right?” I asked, taking my turn with the cancer stick. Johnny nodded. “Soda was working this morning, I’ll probably wait ‘til noon for him to get home. Avoid an interrogation from Darry.” Johnny didn’t say anything as I passed it back to him.
Dallas let out a grunt from the floor and the boards under him creaked as he sat up. He turned to us from where he was sitting on the floor and flushed his eyes between us.
“What’re you two kids up to?” he asked, already patting his pockets for his smokes. Leave it to Dallas Winston to keep a pack in his pajamas. Johnny handed me the stick again and by the time I looked up, Dally had a matching one between his lips. Those boys and their obsession with Kools, I never understood it. “Either of you seen my lighter?” He was shuffling through the quilt on the floor.
I fished the cool metal device out of from the old blanket on the bed and tossed it down into his lap. He looked up at me with an incredulous look that definitely wasn’t supposed to be taken as a thank you, but I smiled anyway.
“Morning to you too,” I said, already feeling his mood dilute the quiet of the room. He grumbled out something that sounded somewhat reminiscent of “morning” and I didn’t push farther. Johnny plucked the cigarette I’d forgotten to pass back to him from between my fingers and took a drag.
“Got any plans today, Dal?” he asked. Smoke floated out of his mouth as he spoke and the smell caught my nose again, as if it hadn’t been why I was the one blowing it out. I swore up and down by Woodbines back then, but I didn’t hate Kools- even if I used to tease Soda about the smell always lingering on his work clothes. They reminded me of my brothers. Of the gang. They were a comfort in themselves.
“Buck’s got me running some errands,” he shook his head, his own smoke filling the air. “Can tag along if you want. Taking his car.” Johnny nodded, and that was enough of a confirmation for Dally. “Got time to kick around with us, Birdie?”
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"Hey, Ladybird, have you seen-"
Ponyboy stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the blunt pinched between my index and thumb.
"Shut the door!" I hissed. I didn't mean for that to be an invitation in, but Pony rushed over to my bed with the click of the latch on my door.
"Is that real?" he asked, sitting down next to me. He looked at the bud with wide, kid-like curiosity. I held in an eye roll, taking another hit before answering.
"Yeah, bummed it off of Sylvia." I was practically sitting halfway out the window, my entire upper body resting on the windowsill to keep the smell out of my room as much as possible.
"Does Darry know?" he asked.
"Take a guess."
Ponyboy watched as I took another hit and blew out the window.
"Can I try?" It was barely over a whisper, but I hate to say that just talking about weed knowing Darry was in the next room made me antsy.
"Promise you won't tell?" I said even though I was already holding it out for him to take.
"'Course," he grinned at me, taking it gently in his fingers and leaning over the windowsill next to me. "Is it just like a cigarette?"
"Pretty much," I said. "Just try it, you won't really feel much 'til you get a few drags in you." He coughed on his first puff but tried again without hesitation once he quelled his coughs. I smiled fondly at him. "Aww, Pony's first blunt," I giggled.
"Tastes funny," he said, smacking his lips a few times before going back in for another hit.
"Okay, take a second." I pulled the blunt away from his face and took it from his hands. "You can't go too fast, you don't know how you'll react."
"What ways can you react?" Pony asked, an edge in his voice that made me worry he'd get an anxious high.
"You just don't know how high you'll get and how fast you'll get there," I told him. I took a drag myself. "You don't have any tolerance."
"So it's like alcohol?" he asked. I narrowed my eyes at him.
"What do you know about alcohol?" I said, trying to push down my smirk as I watched him get flustered.
"Come on, you drink, you're not that much older," he said. I handed the spliff back to him and watched him take a slow drag.
"Ten months and ten days," I reminded him. "Mama and daddy were clearly not stoked about having a girl and decided to get right back on it." Pony's face screwed up and he shivered.
"Don't talk about that." He looked purely disgusted as he gave me one last pass of the blunt.
"What, they got a month full of me and sent for a new order from the stork catalog, no one ever told you that?" I took a puff. "Clearly something got messed up at the baby factory." I reached out and messed with his hair. That was the one way I still could mess with my brothers- hell- I could sucker punch one of them straight in the nose and I think they'd laugh, maybe start roughhousing with me if I was lucky, but their hair was the one thing that got them angry.
"Stop that," he whined, smacking my hand away. If Ponyboy was bad at one thing, it was hiding his smile.
"You gotta wash that grease out, Pones," I said, scrunching my nose and wiping my hand on his jeans. He swatted me away again.
"I like my hair," he said proudly. "Makes me look tuff." I just smiled and took another drag.
The door swung open suddenly and we both jumped. I stubbed out what was left of the bud quickly, flicking the rest of it out the window.
"What have I told you two about smoking in the house?" Darry said, his hand on his hip. Pony looked like he was about to shit himself.
"Sorry, Dar," I said sheepishly. I knew he didn't smell the weed, otherwise we'd get an earful the entire neighborhood would've heard. "We were just talking and I got bored." Pony glared at me at the implication he was boring me.
"Well you can keep being bored and come help me with dinner," he said, dipping out of the door.
I groaned, already wishing I had another bud in my hands. I walked over to my dresser and spritzed some drugstore perfume over my bed. Pony coughed as the sickly sweet smell filled the room. I stalked over to him, pinching his ear like mama used to when we'd fight.
"No word of this to anyone, even Soda, savvy?" I said as he hissed.
"Cut it out! You think I wanna get in trouble for this?" he said, ducking out of my hold.
"Trouble for what?" Sodapop asked, another unwelcome visitor into my room. I needed to get a working lock. Or brothers who knew how to knock.
"Nothing you wanna hear about." I turned on my heel. "Leave the window open, Pony," I said before leaving the room.
Dinner was one of the hardest adjustments after the car crash. Mama used to handle it, like most families back then, and she'd barely begun teaching me what she knew. For the first few months, I handled it mostly by myself. Trial and error left us with burnt chicken and unseasoned rice for a few months. I'm not sure when, I think it was around the time I started going out with Sylvia on weeknights and hiding medicinal whiskey under my bed that Darry began helping out more. I felt bad, making him come home after a long day and help me fix a meal, but I was glad to have a little weight lifted off my shoulders.
"Leftover meatloaf is in the oven," Darry told me. He looked silly in one of mama's old aprons, still wearing his work clothes.
I opened our vaguely barren pantry to find a canned vegetable for a side. I was sick of corn- it being the least expensive and therefore the most of one kind we had- so I settled on green beans. We worked side by side, Darry and I, him dicing up and boiling some potatoes to make up for the lack of meatloaf we actually had. Some of the boys had eaten over the night prior, meaning we didn't have as many leftovers as normal.
And we couldn't afford another day's meal.
"I'm serious about that smoking-in-the-house thing," Darry said, breaking the silence as we watched our respective dishes simmer on the stove. "If you make a lazy habit lazier, you'll be smoking three packs a day before you know it." I looked up at him. He was tall, I think even taller than daddy was, and probably a head and a half taller than me. But he wasn't looking at me, too focused on the potatoes. Or focused on something else, I guess I don't know.
"I know," I said quietly. "I'm sorry."
"Ain't nothin' to be sorry for, baby bird," he said. His southern accent had gotten vaguely thicker since starting his roofing job. "Just don't do it again, dig?" He finally looked back down at me.
I nodded, feeling myself shrink under his gaze.
He had a way of making me feel young. Like I was still a little girl. Pony had complained to me about the same stuff- feeling like he treated us like little kids. It was strange, seeing as he didn't treat Soda like that and we were closer in age than me and Pony, even if it was by a margin of a few days.
"Smell's good in here," Soda said, appearing behind my shoulder and giving me a rough pat on the back. He had a knack for sneaking up on people despite his loud and clumsy personality. I smiled back at him, using an old wooden spoon to move the beans around in their pan.
I could see Darry out of the corner of my eye shifting from foot to foot.
"You can sit down, Dar, I'll keep my eye on it," I said, nodding my head towards the connecting living room. He didn't protest, which is how I knew he was tired, and thumped his feet over to dad's old recliner.
Soda was talking his ear off as I could hear from my place at the stove and Pony joined them eventually. He was quiet, my little brother, sensitive even. But when Soda got him going, he was going. About track or a book or a cartoon- whatever he was talking about- I rarely heard him as lively as he was with Sodapop.
I still don't know how Soda managed to be everyone's favorite sibling. Didn't seem fair.
There was a knock at the door- which was strange considering everyone in our gang knew to just storm right in- but I paid it no mind as one of my brothers stood up to answer it.
"Ladybird, s'for you," Soda called to me. I leaned around the edge of the wall, Darry already standing to take my place, and saw Sylvia standing there.
Her big doe eyes irked me as I saw her flashing them at Soda. It was the look she gave Dally or any other boy she wanted that made them swoon. Girls like her never got to Soda though, he could see right through them. I wish I could too.
"Somethin' up?" I asked, handing off my spoon to Darry. Sylvia barely spared a glance in my direction.
"I'm looking for Dallas," she said. I watched Pony roll his eyes to Soda out of the corner of my eye. "He hasn't been returning my calls and he ain't at Buck's."
"Hasn't been around here," I shrugged. "You seen him, Soda?" Soda glared at me for bringing attention back to him.
"Nah, he's probably down at the track," Soda said. I bit my tongue to keep from laughing at his discomfort. Sylvia shook her head.
"Just, give me a call if he stops by," she said, her eyes on me again. "You got plans tonight?" I couldn't hide my grin that formed in spite of myself.
"Nope," I said, taking a few steps toward her. I hoped Darry wasn't listening too hard.
"Wanna come over?" She had a smirk on her face. One I hoped Soda and Pony couldn't see so they wouldn't squeal to Darry.
"Dar, can I stay over at Sylvia's tonight?" I called to the kitchen.
"Long as that's actually where you're going," he answered. Darry wasn't stupid, even if he turned a blind eye to a lot of shit. Sometimes I wondered how far I could push him.
"See you at 8?" she asked.
"'Course."
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There were things that set me off in the months after.
Little things, the type I couldn’t always pinpoint why or control. The feeling of nylon stockings rolling down my knee, even just smelling Miller High Life, and wet clothes were just a few I learned the hard way.
It was just my luck that it rained as Sylvia and I walked across the neighborhood to some party Danny had told her about. It was boarding into the more middle class areas- where you’d find the type of kids bragging about living in the greaser neighborhoods to look tuff but wouldn’t tell you which street.
The party was more low key than Buck’s typical events, mainly due to the lack of people over the age of twenty one. Sylvia was off the second we were in the door, and, to avoid following her around like a lost puppy, I walked off in a separate direction tugging at the collar of my shirt.
The table of alcohol was in the house’s kitchen and had an array that would make Buck Merrill drool. I poured myself a hefty cup of vodka, figuring it measured up to a few shots and downed it. It burned all the way down, settling with the feeling of unease deep in my stomach.
“Hey, Ladybird!”
A drunk whirl of eyeliner and red lipstick was quickly approaching me in the form of Evie MacDonald, Steve’s girl. Steve and I got along alright, I guess. Wasn’t like him and Pony who seemed to be in a fight for Soda’s attention at any given moment. But I didn’t know either of their girls that well- third-wheeling my brother on a double date wasn’t my idea of a good time- but we’d met around enough to know each other.
“Hi,” I stuttered out, somewhat in shock as she threw her arms around me in a hug.
“It’s great to see you again, honey,” she said, pulling me back by my shoulders. Evie was a sweet girl, more than I could say for most greaser chicks, how she ended up with a guy like Steve, I didn’t know.
Steve.
“You too,” I said as she grabbed my arm and started drunkenly pulling me further into the house. “Is Steve here?” I prayed for a “no”.
“Nah, him and Soda are stopping by later,” she said and my stomach dropped. “Girls, this is Ladybird, she’s Sodapop’s sister.”
I found Sandy’s china-blue eyes in the circle and forced out a small smile towards her. She pushed one back, not meeting my eyes.
“Look, Sands, it’s your future sister-in-law,” a girl I recognized as Harriett Barker chided.
“Not if Neil gets to her first!” some other girl screeched with a laugh that made Sandy pale.
“Margaret,” she snapped, smacking her arm. I felt like I was on the outside of a joke, one that I decided I didn’t want to be in on, as I caught a few wayward glances from the circle.
“I should go find my friend, I’ll see y’all around,” I said. I didn’t stop to hear Evie call a rushed goodbye out to me and pushed my way back into the crowded muck of the party.
I cracked open a beer with shaky hands as I waded through bodies upon bodies. They didn’t have one of those fancy record players that let you play more than one at a time so some scrawny-looking kid was flipping the records every so often. It was between one of those seconds of silence that I saw the jacket.
It was Union High blue and white with their logo embroidered in the center.
My feet stopped without my body registering and I felt myself sway forward, a letterman jacket.
“Watch it, red,” some drunk partygoer slurred out at me.
I didn’t pay him any mind, even as he spat at my feet. I was too busy keeping my breathing in check, feeling like the wind would slip out of my lungs if I didn’t pull it back in fast enough.
It’s not him, not every person with a Union letterman jacket is him, the working, sober part of my brain tried to tell me. I stood stagnant in what I think was the dining room, shoulder to shoulder with those around me. My gaze was fixed on the back of his head, waiting for any indication of who it actually was.
I couldn’t feel my legs underneath me.
I watched, waiting for his head to turn, but I didn’t need to.
I saw more green and white jackets appear around him, all of them giving each other a drunken clap on the back. It was one of those boys, I saw as I watched in my daze, that had the face and mouth and eyes from that night.
From that night.
I was knees down on the carpet vomiting before I could register anything else. Tears squeezed themselves out of the corners of my eyes as I gagged and coughed. People shifted away from me where they stood, I could tell by the retreating feet, but no one seemed to spare me a second glance. My stomach spasmed a few more times before the only thing I could feel was the carpet digging into my palm.
I heaved as I stood up, stumbling through the dining room, then the kitchen, then back down the main hall to the front door. I was a path of destruction- knocking into everything and everyone to push my drunk and disoriented way through the house.
I caught a glance at the letterman jackets again and I pulled the door open. I tried not to look, I really did, but my eyes pulled themselves to them.
And he saw me.
I ran for the better part of two miles before I had to stop to puke again in someone’s yard. I scrambled back up when I finished, dead grass stuck on my knees, and kept running.
My feet carried me all the way out to the lot, which was the only way I knew part of my brain was still working. My momentum didn’t stop until I caught myself against one of the big trees on the outskirts, one of the ones daddy used to lift me onto the branches of when I was a kid.
I leaned on it as I gagged up stomach acid, my stomach fully empty of the dinner me and Darry cooked by then.
I still couldn’t seem to catch my breath- whether because of my run or the panic spinning my vision in circles. I held the crook of my elbow to my mouth, trying to muffle the desperate gasps and sobs that were tumbling out.
“Ladybird?”
My eyes squeezed shut with a flinch before I pulled them open to see who it was.
Johnny.
“Ladybird, what happened?” He was on his knees in front of me by the time I opened my eyes, his big, brown puppy dog ones scanning my face. “You okay? Get jumped or something?”
Johnny had been wearing this deer-in-headlights look around since he got jumped a few months back and I could see the fear on his face as he gave me a once-over.
I managed to shake my head, a hand still clasped over my mouth to hold in the air desperate to break past my lips.
“What you doing out here for?” he asked gently. I shook my head again, trying to find the wherewithal to snap myself out of it. “You’re…. you’re alright, just sit down.” I shifted from the awkward squat I’d gotten myself in to be level on the ground next to Johnny.
He sat with me for a while. He stayed quiet mostly, letting me cry until my tears dried up and then some. Johnny was a good friend. He always had been, even back when we were little and people liked to push Pony down on the playground.
I was glad he was the one that found me.
“We should get you back home, your brothers are probably worried something awful,” he said after a long while. He’d passed me the jacket off his back maybe twenty minutes prior, draping it over my shoulders even as I refused to take it from him.
I shook my head.
“They think I’m at Sylvia’s,” I said. They were the first words leaving my cracked lips in what felt like hours, my voice hoarse from hacking up stomach acid.
“Well, you can’t stay out here. You’re shakin’ like a leaf.”
It was true, even with the jacket fighting off the biting chill of the night, my teeth were still chattering.
“Why were you out here so late?” I asked, tucking my arms into myself. “You know our door’s always open and the couch is always free for you.” Johnny shook his head.
“It’s just easier,” he answered.
I didn’t push further.
He stood up eventually, smacking the dirt off his jeans, and looked down at me.
“We gotta get you inside somewhere,” Johnny said, holding out a hand to me. “Doesn’t have to be your house, but we gotta.”
I grasped his hand. It was nearly as cold as mine. He pulled me up with one tug.
ladybird curtis was spinning out. dallas winston decided to spin with her.
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Hungover was an understatement as I walked to the DX the next morning. I'd called Darry from Buck's phone- pretending it was Sylvia's house phone- telling him me and Sylvia were gonna knock about town for a bit to give me a few hours to recover.
"Mornin', sunshine," Soda said, ever his cheery self. He was sat behind the register flipping through some car magazine when I walked in. Even though I knew he'd gone out with Steve and his broad the night before, Soda never got hungover, and it made me incredibly angry.
"Someone had a rough night," Steve said as he walked past me, followed by a loud, bolstering laugh. I flipped him off and went to the drink case, pulling out a coke and popping the lid on the counter.
"Sure, I'll spot you a drink, little sister," Soda mocked. I ignored him, taking big gulps to get the aftertaste of booze off my tongue.
"Darry home?" I asked, taking a deep breath as I leaned on the counter across from him. He nodded.
"Leaves for his shift in an hour though," he answered. "Where'd he think you were last night."
"Sylvia's." Soda cringed at the mention of her. He was never a fan, not after all the shit he heard from Dally, plus the added on "bad influence" Darry was always whining about with her.
"Where did you spend the night?" was his next question. I traced a picture into the fog on my glass bottle.
"Stayed at Buck's," I answered him without looking up.
Soda hummed, but I didn't feed into it. He could read me too well, punch holes in any slightly flimsy story I came up with.
"Scale of 1-10, how hungover do I look?" I asked him, rubbing at my eyes and then looking up at him.
"Bad."
It was a little joke we'd had since we were little, asking "scale of 1-10" then answering with something other than a number. Was never funny to anyone but us, but it stuck. Longer than it should've probably.
I groaned, leaning my head on the counter. I pressed my forehead into the cool veneer and let my hair fan around my head.
"Remind me to never take mystery blunts from random men ever again," I said. My head was pounding.
"I'm gonna pretend you didn't just tell me that and go do my job," Soda sighed. He messed with my hair. "Chill behind the counter for a bit. Darry'll be out of the house soon."
He left to go mess with a car or fill someone's gas or something and I took his place at the stool behind the counter. I tried to read through the magazine he'd been flipping through, but I didn't know what half the words meant and the tiny print made my head pound even more.
"There she is."
I blinked the light out of my eyes as I picked my head up to look at him. He dropped a paper bag in front of my face.
"Went out to get you breakfast, but you were gone by the time I came back," Dally said, leaning on the counter across from me. "And to think, you didn't even say thank you."
"Your bedsheets smell like mildew," I said, looking back down at the mag and pretending to read it.
"We could make 'em smell like something else."
I ignored his comment. I'd woken up that morning with the sun in my eyes and the same pounding in my head I had sitting at the counter. Dally was gone- I didn't even know where he'd slept- and Buck's building was the quietest I'd ever heard it. I'd stumbled out of bed, stealing a few clothes from Dally to save some face when I walked halfway across the neighborhood, and made my way downstairs to phone Darry before he started banging on Sylvia's door.
"Is that my shirt?" he asked suddenly, using his hands to push himself up on the counter to look over it. "And my jeans?" I just stared blankly at him.
"I'll wash 'em for you and have it back by tonight," I said after a beat of silence. "Drop your sheets off and I'll wash 'em too."
"You're too sweet, doll," he said. "Some no good greaser might go off and take advantage of that."
"Aye, Winston, you messing with my baby sister?" Soda said, putting Dally in a playful headlock. I smiled softly at their brotherly roughhousing, covering my mouth to let out a giggle when Steve joined in without any care to whose side he was even on.
They were brothers, the whole gang was. They were my brothers. I loved them like brothers. For the most part.
"That's enough boys."
Everyone's faces dropped and the boys straightened up. I looked at the tall cop standing in front of us. He was on the younger side, maybe 40s, but he had an old look in his eyes. A mean look.
"Sorry, officer, we were just messin'," Soda said. He anxiously tugged at his shirt. I knew he hated cops. He'd never been arrested- got taken down to the station once because he and Steve were doing something stupid like walking downtown in a handstand or something and I'd never seen him cry like that. Until our parents died, that is.
The officer looked each of them up and down, his eyes stopping on Dally. Dally on the other hand had been arrested more times than I could remember and even got put in the cooler for a bit awhile back.
"I'll have a coke, little lady," the officer said suddenly, turning to me. I grabbed it for him, Soda stepping behind the counter to ring him up. "Didn't know they let people like you work at places like this. 'Specially behind the counter."
He was looking directly in my eyes. My cheeks burned.
I saw a small commotion between Dally and Steve, but I couldn't pull my eyes away from the man with the badge standing in front of me. Not when he was looking at me like that.
"That'll be 15¢," Soda said. I knew he was angry too- he was overcharging the man by about 5¢- but he'd gotten better about holding in his anger. We'd all had to with the threat of care homes breathing down our neck from the state, and getting in a fight with the cops would not be a good look for us.
"Have a good day, boys," the officer nodded to them all. "Stay out of trouble."
None of them said anything.
"Think Darry left yet?" I asked quietly, breaking the silence as we all watched him get in the car. Soda checked his watch and sucked in his lip.
"Why don't you hang around here a little longer, I'll walk you home," Soda said. His eyes drifted back to the cop, still in his car and watching us through the window.
"Aren't you here for like two more hours?" I tried to keep the whine out of my voice.
"Your face is gonna freeze like that if you keep making it." He slipped past me and tapped my cheek.
"I'll walk her home," Dally spoke up from where he was leaning against the door frame, his glare sharp on the cop car in the parking lot.
"You don't need to, Dal, she's fine here," Soda said before I could get a word in.
"It's fine," Dally shrugged. "Not like I didn't just babysit her all night." Soda side eyed me where I sat.
"Fine," he said. I smiled up at him, giving him a chaste peck on the cheek as thanks before making a dash for the door. I grabbed Dally by his leathered arm and pulled him out after me.
"Thanks, Dally," I said.
"It's all honey, honey," he smiled down at me. I let go of his arm but he seemed to mindlessly loop his back around the crook of my elbow. I'd seen the boys walk like that jokingly before with each other, but otherwise, I only saw them do it with their girls. I tried to ignore it.
I should've known better. Nothing Dally did was mindless.
"You got a light?" I looked up at him, an unlit cigarette hanging from his lips. I fished the lighter out of the same jacket I'd worn last night and tossed it for him to catch. "Thanks, doll."
We shared most of the stick as we walked in silence for the most part. He'd make his normal commentary here and there, and I listened. Otherwise, I tried to keep my eyes from taking in too much light as my head pounded in on itself.
Yeah, no more mystery grass for me.
"Dammit, his truck's still here," I groaned. Dally finally dropped my arm, looking at our shabby little house. I watched as he stubbed out the cigarette we shared under his old leather boots.
"Here." Dally grabbed me by the shoulders, forcing me to face him. He pushed back some of the frizzy hair on my face and playfully slapped my cheeks a few times. "All good." He pushed me towards the door.
I bit back a giggle.
"Bye, Dally," I mused from the steps of my porch. The sun was in my eyes, but I blinked away the fog to look at him. He smiled.
ladybird curtis was spinning out. dallas winston decided to spin with her.
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Football games drew in a weird crowd at Will Rogers High School. The loudest and proudest Socs always took their place in the front row of the bleachers on the right home side. They were rowdy and obnoxious- the Mondays after home games all spent with morning announcements denouncing the "detestable behavior", only for it to return the very next weekend. Most of them spent the majority of the games trying to discreetly take sips out of the flasks they kept in their pockets, but it wasn't like anyone would say anything to them anyway.
The greasers, on the other hand, seemed to get shit just for living.
The real rough gangs rarely made appearances at places like that. I remember Dally saying that once you see a River King or Tiber Street Tiger down at William Rogers, you know someone's leaving in a body bag with a bullet in their head. The toughest you'd get at community events was Tim Shepherd's outfit or some Brumly boys beating on a few Socs here and there.
I still remember not too long ago, my hair braided up nice by Mama, standing up at the chain link fence blocking the patrons from walking all over the track. Sodapop stood with me while we watched Darry play football. I'd been thirteen, so not in high school yet, and stood about two heads shorter than Soda, so I tucked my Oxford shoes into the gaps and stood on it to be able to rest my arms on it like him. He always said I copied him too much.
Soda had just stubbed out a cigarette, hadn't even been smoking it when a teacher walked up.
"I think it's best you two get goin'."
I didn't know who he was then- some high school teacher who tried to cover the smell of booze with his heavy cologne- but Soda did, and my brother, my hot-headed, fight-on-the-weekends brother, tapped my shoulder and signaled for us to walk away. I jumped down, letting out a petulant whine, mumbling about wanting to see Darry play a little longer.
"Shut that squaw up while you're at it."
I thought Soda was about to jump the fence and give him a good beat for those words with the way he whipped around. I could see his nostrils flaring and, though I'd never tell him it was there, the matching vein Darry had in his forehead seemed to burst out of his skull.
But he didn't, he didn't say anything either.
He pushed my shoulder, turning me around, and marched us to the gate with his hand between my shoulder blades.
"Goddamn, girlie, if we hadn't been on school grounds, lordy, I would've shown that son of a bitch-"
Soda and I had spent the rest of the night sitting on a log where the gravel parking lot met the woods. Darry had been our ride home, and we both knew Mom and Dad wouldn't have been too keen on the two of us walking home all the way across town. So we sat there, Soda chain-smoking, hearing the cheers coming from the stadium as our all-star brother scored more than a few touchdowns.
What I didn't know then was that us being kicked out had just about as much to do with Daddy's reputation as it did with his half-breed blood coursing through our veins.
No one had bothered to mention to me about the letter from the school kindly requesting Daddy not make an appearance at any of Darry's football games after his time inside. In fact, he wasn't supposed to be near campus at all, even to drop his kids off. Soda knew this, which is why he didn't fight the old racist that kicked us out.
We weren't targets now because we had an Indian daddy, we were targets because our Indian daddy was now a convicted felon.
He just liked to add stuff to the laundry list of things we had to be ashamed of.
"Soda?" I'd asked quietly, the cheering of the crowd roaring at the game next to us. He hummed over the stick in his mouth as he lit it. "Do you think mama wishes I'd gotten lighter like you?"
Growing up, Soda and I had been the Indian siblings. Dark, tanned skin that neared our daddy's in shade. We were the ones that got spat at when out with mama and never got stopped when out with daddy. I remember visiting the rez on hot summer nights and Pony being jealous when the other kids would immediately include us but not him. But then, as we got older, Soda's skin faded and his features softened into the movie star look he was known for to the point that Darry started looking more Indian than him. I hadn't been quite as lucky.
"Nah, not like that at least," he hesitated. He was good at stringing words together, finding them was always the issue. "Think she wishes you didn't have all the trouble that came with it."
"I think she wishes that I didn't look so much like Daddy."
Soda didn't have much to say to that.
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Two years later, that night stuck in my mind as I made my way through a pack of Woodbine's underneath the bleachers.
"Goddamn, Birdie," Sylvia said, peeking through the gaps in people's feet on her tiptoes. We'd been watching the game through the bleachers with the rest of our "kind". Not Indians, just greasers. "Why're we here again?"
"'Cause we couldn't find anywhere else to kick for the night," I shrugged. I pulled out a fresh stick, fishing through my jacket pockets for my lighter.
"I thought some Brumly hood would at least show up with some booze," she said. She turned around, resting the back of her head against the metal bleachers. "Think Buck's got something going on tonight?"
"I'm sick of Buck's," I said, blowing smoke out of the corner of my mouth. And you of all people should know why we didn't go there in the first place, I imagined myself saying to her.
A hood named Dallas Winston was that "why", Sylvia's on-again, off-again, fuck-again boyfriend. He'd started living at Buck Merrill's after his deadbeat kicked him out a few months back, which meant, for Sylvia's sake, starting our nights at Buck's parties had become a rarity for us. His were the only parties on our side of the hood that were a constant every weekend- and most weekdays- and rarely involved heaters, so not having him as an option had us at a bit of a loss.
"Where'd Steve and Soda go tonight?" she asked me. I could see the cogs in her brain spinning through the potential places we could run off to.
"Took their girls out," I answered. "Doubt anywhere special. Probably down to the races."
Sylvia let out a groan, tossing her head back against the metal behind her. I'd smoked my cigarette down to the filter by then and threw it to the ground, crushing it under the toe of my hightops.
"We can try Buck's if you're that desperate," I said, stuffing my hands in the pocket of my jean jacket. I think it was one of Darry's old ones, beat up and scuffed. "But I'm not spending the whole night keeping your drunk ass away from him."
She seemed to think for a moment, but the roaring of the crowd above us over another touchdown reminded both of us why we didn't want to be there any longer. She let out a long sigh.
"Let's go."
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"Ladies," Buck greeted as we entered his house (Bar? Apartment building? Whore house?).
He slammed the door behind us, immediately getting lost from sight in the crowd of people. I didn't have to look behind me to know that Sylvia was following me to the bar and asked the greaser behind it for two shots each. Starting off the night easy.
"Do you think Dally's here?" Sylvia asked after downing her second one. I was already motioning to the bartender for more.
"You got to be at least a little more drunk before you start talking about his lousy ass, babe," I said, already tossing back another one. "Or I have to be more drunk. Either way, give it a minute."
"Who's lousy ass?"
I slammed my shot glass back down on the counter. That goddamn New York accent floating into my ears, smooth. Not as harsh or as drawling as the southern ones all around us. He was close to my face, leaning on the bar to my left with Sylvia on my right.
You are not about to use me to make her jealous, my mind spat out at him.
"What's a couple nice girls like you doing at a party like this?" he asked, sarcasm packed deep under his charm. "See, wonder what Darry would think of you bein' here and all." He used a single finger to push a strand of hair out of my face.
I slapped his hand down.
"Back off, Dal," I said. The bartender filled up my glass again and was hardly finished pouring before I started downing it. "I'm not drunk enough to deal with you right now." He tsked.
"Already said that one, honey, gonna have to try again," he said. I glanced at Sylvia. She was looking at him like a lost puppy, but, having known her since middle school, she was just desperate to get him in bed. I knew where this was going and I knew where it was going to end.
"I'll leave you both to it," I said.
I slipped off the stool, wandering farther into the house.
I really, really tried to not let getting ditched by my so-called best friend for her ass wad of a boyfriend ruin my night, but I couldn't help myself to a good drunk wallow.
They'd become a common place more recently.
I couldn't remember sitting down, but I found myself on a dirty couch. It smelled like booze, but that might've just been the bottle of vodka I'd started nursing on my way over. A popped spring poked through the terrible upholstery and into my upper thigh, but I didn't try to move even as it dug in sharply to my skin. A couple was sat next to me, practically dry-humping each other. I took a few big gulps just to ignore their lewd noises.
"Seems like you need it," some man said, a blunt appearing in front of my face. He was missing a front tooth and had a scratchy-looking beard, that was the only thing I could think about before I saw the blunt.
I don't know how it got lit, probably the toothless man, but I smoked the spliff down until it burnt my fingers at the edges and stubbed it out on the stained wooden floors. The man was sitting next to me, talking, but I was too far gone to hear him. It felt like time was spinning around me, looping me up in circles.
The room grew fuzzy as I leaned my head back over the back of the couch. He'd help me tip the bottle up to my lips from time to time. I was gone.
Lips were on my neck, outlined by that old scratchy beard, but I didn't make any moves. I stared up at the ceiling, waiting. I couldn't think for what.
I managed to clumsily bring the vodka up to my lips in my head's bent back position, coughing as the last chug went down until it was hollow glass against my mouth.
What am I waiting for?
His rough hand ran across the section of my stomach exposed by the top I'd borrowed from Sylvia.
I wondered where she was.
There was a thud, the hands and lips were gone, and I suddenly realized how hot I was. My skin stuck to itself and my hair was attached to my neck. But I was shivering.
"Jesus, you're faded," the smooth voice said. Dally appeared in my vision, one of my eyes being pulled open. I grunted, trying to force both of them closed. "Damnit, Birdie."
I wasn't processing much as arms looped under me and I felt my head lull back in midair.
"Where are we going?" I slurred out in a groan.
"You're going to bed," he said, narrowly avoiding banging my head off his door frame as we entered the room. My back hit his thin mattress and I let out a huff, but didn't make any moves to leave. Or move at all.
"Noooo, those are my favorites," I whined at the feeling of my shoes being removed.
"Don't worry, you can have them back in the morning, doll," Dally said, pushing my limp legs back onto the bed and throwing the blanket over me.
"Are you gonna tell Darry?" I slurred. I turned my head to look at him on the other side of the room.
"Depends on where he thinks you are," he grinned, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips.
"Don't tease me."
"Aw," he said, taking slow steps across the room. He struck a match on his necklace and lit the stick. "Are you always this whiny when you're drunk?" Condescension was dripping from his voice.
"Not like you'd ever notice," I grumbled petulantly. I clumsily crossed my arms over my chest. Drunk me really knew how to lay on the melodrama.
"And what's that supposed to mean?" He was standing over me by then, the smoke puffing from his mouth filling my nose.
"Too busy shoving your tongue down my best friend's throat," I said. I tried to sit up suddenly, but the fog in my brain pushed me back down. Or maybe that was Dally. "Where's Sylvia?"
"She went home with Danny," Dally said. He turned away from me again. I tried to read his expression from the sliver of his face I could see.
Danny was some middle class wannabe hood that Sylvia always let in her pants when she wanted to make Dally mad. I felt the words forming on my lips to ask what happened, but I was too tired and faded to push them out.
"Where does Darry think you are?" Dally asked, leaning on his nightstand as he took a drag.
"Sylvia's," I mumbled.
"I won't tell him you're here long as you don't tell him I'm covering for you." He finally looked at me again.
"Okay."
"Now go to bed," he said, standing up and walking over to the light switch. "You look like shit."
summary: you and james spend a summer day with a drive and picnic
note: this was written almost 2 years ago and i never posted it
masterlist
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You weren’t sure where James had acquired the bright red muggle convertible, but you figured it was too late to be asking those kinds of questions.
The sun was beating down harshly on the two of you in the white leather seats as James drove along the coast. He’d promised a picnic, and you had been expecting your usual day out at a park, not a day trip to the beach in a car you were pretty sure he couldn’t be legally driving. But you weren’t one to turn down a chance at seeing him sun kissed and shirtless.
Your hair whipped wildly around your face as he cruised passed beaches crowded with people trying to soak in the last of summer. You grinned at James when he glanced your direction, his normal dopey smile appearing on his face. His free hand found yours, the other firmly on the steering wheel.
“Almost there,” he said, giving your hand a squeeze. The wind made it hard to hear, but James’ voice was something you were so accustomed to that the faintest whisper could be understood from across a crowded room.
Once past the main stretch of beaches and into what seemed like a large park, he finally parked the car off on the side of the road. The trees were thick but the sunlight still shined through the gaps left by the road.
The frilly sundress you’d thrown on that morning over your swimsuit was one of James’ favorites on you and you smoothed out the wrinkles while he got the picnic basket from the trunk. You tried to take the blanket and beach bag from him so he wasn’t carrying everything, but he shooed you away.
“This way, my fair lady,” he said cheekily, looking back to you as he started towards the tree line.
You stumbled through the woods behind him, your strappy sandals not exactly the best shoes for tripping over tree roots. Your left hand found its place on his bicep to keep you steady as you walked.
“You’re not leading me all the way out here to murder me without witnesses, are you?” you laughed lightly. You were starting to get out of breath from hiking through the underbrush, your cheeks flushed and your legs beginning to burn.
“‘Course not,” he shook his head, laughing. “I’d never get away with it either way. Moony and Lily would figure it all out before you’d even go cold.”
It was then that you saw the break in the tree line and noticed the thin layer of sand sticking to the blades of grass under your feet. You could hear the waves before you saw them, but once you got to the edge of the clearing, your breath was taken away.
It was a gorgeous white sand beach much like the ones you’d passed in the car, but this one was empty. No screaming kids, no grumpy old people, no garbage and coolers sinking into the sand. It was peaceful, quiet aside from the soft crashing of the waves and the soft sound of birds back in the trees.
“James-“
“Moony told me about it,” he said, not even needing you to finish your question. He led you further out onto the sand. “S’just like he said- the shore, where to park and everything.” He seemed proud of himself.
“It’s beautiful,” you said, your eyes glued to where the water met the shore. You could see his mouth open from beside you. “Don’t say it,” you told him, turning to look at him. He laughed, shaking his head.
“Used all my tricks on you, haven’t I?” he said, squinting in the bright sunlight. You hummed.
“I’m sure you’ve got a few more tricks up your sleeve,” you grinned, elbowing him. He laughed again, his same old bubbly laugh that sent butterflies swarming your stomach when you were younger.
“Shall we?” he said, nodding towards the beach.
The lunch he’d packed the two of you was the same as always: your favorite- an oddly specific sandwich that Sirius used to tease you for- and James’ favorite- peanut butter and jelly. And he could never forget the strawberries, both plain and chocolate covered.
“It’s not excessive! You have to have some for the meal and some for dessert, but they can’t be the same,” you’d told him one day on the floor of the common room back at school. “Don’t laugh at me!” you scolded him when he let one of his long held chuckles slip.
“Sorry! I’m sorry!” he laughed, his head dipping down.
His curls shook with his shoulders and the crease by his eyes that you would come to know crinkled with the weight of his laugh.
“You’re right, you’re right, it’s not excessive. It’s a perfectly normal amount of strawberries.”
“I think this is the best you’ve ever gotten the strawberry to chocolate ratio,” you said, using the back of your hand to wipe away the juice left on your lips, staining the back of your hand slightly pink.
“Learned from the best,” he smiled at you. You smiled back as you placed the leafy part of the strawberry on a nearby napkin.
“We should swim,” you said, placing the plate and napkins you’d used in the picnic basket to be cleaned later.
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