Chapter Text
“Guys! Come quick!” Ponyboy yelled, unable to tear his gaze away from his reflection in the mirror.
A few seconds later, Sodapop slid into the bathroom on socked feet. “What? What is it?”
Darry was not far behind, asking, “Are you hurt?”
“Look!” Pony pointed proudly at his upper lip. One of the tiny little hairs there was darker and coarser than the rest. His brothers leaned in close to examine it.
“Hey, congratulations!” Darry said, clapping him on the back.
“You sprouted your first whisker, huh?” There was something odd in Soda’s expression, but as soon as Pony noticed it, it was replaced by his signature grin. Pony figured he must’ve imagined it.
“Sure is,” he said, pleased.
“Aw, our baby’s finally growin’ up!” Soda crowed, taking Pony’s face between his hands and squishing his cheeks.
Pony tried to squirm away, but Soda wouldn’t let him. “Let me goooo,” he complained. This was a lot, even for Soda.
Soda ignored him. “You know, I remember when he took his first steps,” he continued, looking wistfully off into the distance. “It seems like yesterday he was wearin’ diapers, and look at him now. He ain’t Ponyboy anymore. He’s Ponyman.”
“That’s enough, Pepsi,” Darry said, shooting Pony a pitying look. “The man’s gotta finish gettin’ ready for school.”
With one last pat to his cheek, Soda released him. Pony shoved him out of the way so he could grab the tin of hair grease. The bathroom was way too small for two people, let alone three.
Soda took the opportunity to scoop up some grease and start styling his own hair. “Hey, Dar, can I teach him how to shave? Now that I’m grown” — he puffed out his chest — “I figure it’s time I started passin’ on my wisdom to the younger generation.”
Darry exchanged a dubious look with Pony through the mirror. “I dunno about that, buddy,” Darry said. “I hardly trust you with a blade so close to your own throat, let alone someone else’s.”
“I definitely don’t,” Pony added.
Darry moved out of the way of Soda’s jabbing elbow, opting to stand in the doorway instead. “Guess I’ll be the one to teach you, then,” he told Pony. “After all, I learned from the best.”
“Really?” Ponyboy asked, excited. “When? Today?”
Darry chuckled. “Hold your horses, pal. Ain’t no need to shave ‘til you’ve got at least ten hairs on that face. Anything else is a waste of shavin’ cream.”
“Aw. Okay.” He tried to hide his disappointment.
“Hey, don’t be in too much of a hurry to grow up, you hear? Adulthood ain’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Soda said, combing his hair back. “Right, old man?” He lightly kicked Darry’s shin.
Darry rolled his eyes. “Like you’d know. You ain’t even been eighteen for two whole months yet.”
“Hey!” Soda threw the comb at his head and chased him out of the room, laughing. Pony watched them go, shaking his head fondly.
Alone at last, Pony finished up in the bathroom. After making sure every stand of hair was perfectly in place, he took a minute to stare at his upper lip in the mirror, admire the way his cheeks were starting to lose their baby fat, and enjoy the fact that he was closer than ever to being on a level playing field with his brothers.
—
Besides wondering whether his classmates noticed his shiny new facial hair and the extra little spring in his step, his day at school was pretty normal. Nothing out of the ordinary happened until someone from the front office interrupted Pony’s math lecture to hand his teacher a slip of paper.
“Ponyboy Curtis to the front office,” Mr. Jones announced, reading off the paper.
Pony’s head snapped up when he heard his name. A couple kids snickered. “Ooh, someone’s in trouble,” someone taunted.
He knew he hadn’t done anything wrong. At least, not wrong enough to get him called into the principal’s office. So what could this be about?
Ignoring the curious looks from his classmates and trying to quash his rising concern, he grabbed his bookbag and walked as fast as he could to the office. When he got there, the secretary was there to greet him from behind the front desk, a grim smile on her face.
His heart sank. “What is it?”
“I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you. Your brother Darrel was in an accident at work, and your other brother is on his way to come pick you up and take you to the hospital,” she said apologetically.
Darry. Accident. Hospital. The sound of telephones ringing and typewriters clacking faded away, leaving only the sound of his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. His vision narrowed to a stain on the carpet below his feet.
If Darry was in the hospital, that meant he was alive, right? But he couldn’t help but jump to the worst-case scenario anyway: Darry’s injuries were too severe for the doctors to save him, and Ponyboy was going to be ripped away from his only remaining family and left to rot in a boys’ home ‘til he turned eighteen, leaving Soda all alone.
Feeling a telltale pressure behind his eyes, he stammered, “Thanks. I’m, uh — I’m just gonna go wait outside. If that’s okay.”
The secretary waved him off, and he wasted no time in booking it out of there before he could burst into tears in front of everyone.
The overcast December day was cold enough that he had the front steps to himself, which he was glad for. He sat down on the concrete, then lit a cigarette with shaking fingers. He sucked in down in record time, scanning every car that passed and hoping it was his brother. All the while, he tried to calm his racing heart and swallow the steadily growing lump in his throat.
Despite himself, he began to spiral. He wondered what the boys’ home would be like. Was it really as bad as he’d heard? How many boys would be there? Would they make fun of him for reading so much? Would he be allowed to call Soda on the phone or visit Darry’s grave?
He knew what his mom would say: Worrying ain’t gonna get you anywhere. But that didn’t stop his stomach from feeling like it was turning inside out. He really hoped he wasn’t gonna puke.
When Sodapop finally pulled up to the front — driving Steve’s car — Pony shot to his feet and wrenched the door open with shaking fingers.
“He’s fine,” Soda said before he could demand answers. “He broke his arm and had to have surgery. He’s got some bruises, too, but he’s lucky it ain’t worse.”
Pony breathed a sigh of relief as he slid into the passenger seat. Darry was okay. Ponyboy wasn’t going to lose yet another person he loved.
“What… what exactly happened?” he asked, twisting the strap of his bookbag between his fingers.
Soda put the car in park and turned to face him. His voice was calm —maybe too calm — as he explained, “This mornin’ at work, he somehow managed to fall off a roof and ended up landin’ funny on his arm. His boss called me to come pick him up, and I took him right to the doctor.” He pointed to his own forearm. “Man, that arm didn’t look so good. It was swollen real big and he could hardly move his fingers.”
Pony would rather not picture it. “What happened at the doctor’s?” he asked, ready to move on.
“Well, they did an X-ray on it, and sure enough, his bone was broken into a bunch of pieces. They said they’d have to do surgery to put it back together, so we went to the hospital and they took care of it. He’s got a bunch of screws — or pins, or whatever — in his arm, and he’s all doped up on painkillers, but he’s okay.” Soda’s smile was bright, but it didn’t quite meet his eyes. “He just woke up, actually, and he wanted to see you.”
It was all too much to think about at that moment. X-rays, IVs, a surgeon slicing into his brother’s arm…. That nauseous feeling returned, and he tried his best to put it all out of his mind.
As he shook his head, one thought rose to the surface. “How are we… we don’t have enough money to pay for all this, do we?”
“Don’t worry about it. Since it happened at work, it’s all paid for. They even put him in his own private room. Pretty tuff, huh?” Soda nudged him with an elbow.
“I — I guess.” He’d prefer it if his brothers stayed out of the hospital altogether, no matter how fancy the accommodations were. “How come you didn’t tell me right when it happened?”
Soda shot him an apologetic grimace before pulling out of the parking lot. “Darry told me not to. He didn’t wanna worry you. ‘Sides, there wasn’t anythin’ you could do while he was in surgery. I just sat there, bored outta my gourd.” His voice sounded reassuring, but his red eyes, combined with the fact that he smelled like cigarettes, meant there was likely more to the story than he was letting on.
He hated when his brothers kept secrets from him. He was fifteen, for cryin’ out loud, not a baby. He understood Darry’s reasoning, but that didn’t mean he liked it. What if something went wrong during the surgery and Pony didn’t get to say goodbye? He’d never forgive him for that.
Pony huffed, deciding to let it go for now. No use yelling at Soda for something that wasn’t his fault. He’d give Darry a piece of his mind once they got to the hospital.
He spent the rest of the car ride in silence, a confusing mess of emotions swirling inside him. He knew logically that his brother was gonna be fine, but he couldn’t let himself truly believe it until he pushed open the door to Darry’s hospital room and saw him sitting up in his bed, a smile on his face despite the cast covering his left arm and the IV poking out of his hand.
“Hey,” Darry said, his voice gravelly.
Ponyboy felt like a big old baby, but he couldn’t stop the tears of relief that escaped.
Darry’s face fell. “What’s wrong, little buddy?”
“What’s wrong?!” Pony cried, swiping angrily at his eyes. “You fell off a roof and broke your arm, that’s what’s wrong! And nobody even told me about it!”
“I didn’t wanna worry you. There ain’t no reason for you to miss a whole day of school, not when you’ve got finals comin’.”
“Well, you ‘bout scared me to death anyway.” He wanted to yell, but he figured he should keep his voice down for the sake of the other patients.
Darry waved a hand vaguely in the air. “It wasn’t very high. I didn’t fall more’n ten feet. Fifteen, tops.”
“It was still enough to break your arm! I thought you were really hurt or — or worse — and they were gonna throw me in a boys’ home.”
“Told you he’d be mad,” Soda said, sounding far too amused about the whole thing.
Darry let out a long-suffering sigh and opened his arms — well, arm. “C’mere, bud.”
Pony finally crossed the room to sit on the edge of the bed and embrace him, careful not to bump the IV. The feeling of Darry in his arms — warm and solid and alive — calmed him down some.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” he murmured.
“Me, too. It’ll take a lot more’n this to take Superman down, huh?” Darry replied as he rubbed Pony’s back with his good hand, tone light. But as he pulled away, Pony saw his eyes flick over to Soda’s, something meaningful in his gaze.
Ponyboy looked at each of them in turn. “What ain’t you tellin’ me?”
Soda shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Well… we were gonna wait to ask you ‘bout it ‘til Darry was home, but…”
“But what? Is everything okay?” His eyes scanned over Darry once more, checking for injuries he’d missed, but didn’t find anything.
“You wanna tell him?” Soda asked Darry, eyebrows raised. Pony wished he would quit stalling and get on with it already.
Darry lazily extended his arm, palm-up, as if to say, Go ahead. Pony could tell his energy was flagging.
“Well, uh,” Soda began, “since I turned eighteen, we’ve been lookin’ into me gettin’ guardianship of you, too, just in case. That way we could stay together if, uh” — he swallowed — “if somethin’ happened to Darry.”
Pony tilted his head quizzically. “I thought y’all had to be married to do that.”
Soda chuckled, sitting gingerly at the foot of the bed. “Nah, turns out you can even if you’re just brothers. We’ve been thinkin’ ‘bout it for a couple months, actually,” he said with a glance at Darry, “but after what happened today…well, we think we should do it. But only if you’re okay with it.”
Ponyboy nodded slowly, considering. “Alright. Makes sense.”
“I ain’t plannin’ on fallin’ off any more roofs, though,” Darry reassured him. “Y’all ain’t gettin’ rid of me that easy. It’s just a backup plan. Nothing’s gonna change.”
“Okay. I mean, I’ll be glad to know I’m safe from the boys’ home.”
“Me, too.” Soda grinned at him. “Anyway, whaddaya say, Pone? You got room for one more guardian?”
“Okay, yeah. I dig,” Pony said, nodding. “I ain’t gonna start callin’ you Dad, though.”
“Wouldn’t want you to,” Soda replied. “That man was one-of-a-kind, huh?”
“He sure was,” Ponyboy replied softly. He looked over at Darry and found his eyes closed. He didn’t blame him for being tired; he’d been through a lot today. The pain meds probably didn’t help, either.
“Man, that sure was quick,” Soda said, voice soft. He beckoned to Pony. “C’mon, let’s let him rest for a while. I hear they’ve got Starbursts in the vending machine.”
“Bye, Dar,” Pony whispered before pressing a quick kiss to his cheek. Soda kissed the other.
“Love y’all,” Darry slurred without opening his eyes.
“We’ll be back soon,” Soda told him. “Don’t get into any trouble before then.”
“Okay, Dad,” Darry replied through a yawn.
“If you weren’t already laid up, I’d whup ya for that,” Soda teased. And with that, he carefully closed the door to Darry’s room and led Pony down the hallway.
“When can he come home?” Ponyboy asked as they turned a corner and started toward the vending machine.
“Doc said tomorrow morning, as long as he don’t start bleedin’ internally or whatever.”
“That could happen?” Pony exclaimed, alarmed.
“Geez, kid. He’s gonna be fine.”
“Promise?”
“Hey, would I ever lie to you? Tomorrow mornin’, we’ll be drivin’ him home, and he’s gonna be gripin’ about bein’ in the passenger seat, and he ain’t gonna stop moanin’ about it ‘til the cast comes off, I can guarantee.”
“And when will that be?”
Soda shrugged. “Eight weeks or so. Maybe less if he drinks his milk.”
“Poor Darry.” Pony shook his head ruefully. “He ain’t gonna know what to do with himself.”
“Tell me about it. I ‘bout lost my mind readin’ the same magazine three times over while I waited for him to get outta surgery, and that was only for two hours.” Soda fished some change out of his pocket and inserted it into the machine. “Hey, you at least got your bookbag in the car, right? You can get some homework done while we’re here. That oughta keep you busy.”
Pony elbowed him in the ribs. “Hey, you ain’t my guardian yet!” he exclaimed, but a laugh bubbled up in his throat anyway.
—
That night, as Ponyboy laid in bed and stared at the ceiling, imagining Darry falling off a roof with a sickening crunch, he couldn’t help but shiver. He sure was glad Sodapop was there to hold him close.
—
Sodapop’s guardianship wouldn’t become official until nearly a month into the new year.
Darry was itching to get his cast off — literally — and get back to work. His boss had had him doing bookkeeping since the accident, and while Ponyboy was glad that he hadn’t lost his job, he was ready to stop hearing Darry complain about his butt being sore from sitting around all day.
As luck would have it, the hearing was scheduled for the same day Darry was supposed to get his cast off. After adding it to the calendar hung on the kitchen wall, Darry gestured to his cast and said, “I’m sure the judge’ll be glad not to have to look at this hideous eyesore.”
Instead of signing his name like the rest of the gang, Steve had scribbled a crude drawing across his forearm, which Pony had tried his hardest to turn into a cartoon smiley face.
“Hey, I thought I did a pretty good job!” Pony protested as he finished setting the table.
“Yeah, you can hardly even tell!” Soda shot Pony a grin, then looked over at Darry and shook his head with an exaggerated frown.
Ponyboy rolled his eyes. “Whatever. The judge ain’t gonna be payin’ attention to Darry, anyway. The hearing is about you.”
“Good point. You ain’t plannin’ on gettin’ any conspicuous tattoos before the hearing, are ya, Pepsi?” Darry asked, checking the pot of soup on the stove.
“Nah. This body’s already a work of art.” He flexed his muscles and kissed each of his biceps in turn before plopping down in the seat next to Pony.
“You’re just scared of needles,” Darry teased.
Soda nudged Pony with an elbow, waggling his eyebrows, before he turned to Darry.
Pony grinned at him. Oh, this was gonna be good.
“Hey,” Soda began, a self-satisfied smirk on his face, “I’d rather be scared of needles than be stuck with my high school jersey number on my hiney forever.”
Darry’s face blushed bright red. “How many times do I — I was wasted, and Paul dared me! What was I supposed to do, huh?”
Ponyboy erupted in a fit of giggles. No matter how many times he heard this story, it was still funny. “Uh… use your head, maybe?” He tapped his own forehead a couple times for good measure.
Leaning against the counter, Darry crossed his arms over his chest defensively. The redness had spread to his ears. “Paul got one, too, you know!” he said, like that would help his case.
“Oh, that makes it better,” Soda groused. “Matching tattoos with a soc.”
“Yeah, y’all do a blood pact, too, Darry?” Pony teased.
“The only blood pact I have is with you two hooligans,” Darry grunted, but the beginnings of a fond smile turned up the corners of his mouth. “Now shut up and come get some dinner.”
He didn’t have to tell them twice. Pretty soon, all three of them were slurping from their bowls of soup and chatting idly about their days, teasing forgotten.
“Hey, Soda,” Darry said between bites, “did you go to school with that Wayne kid? Douglas or David or something?”
“Yeah, Dennis. I think he was a grade older than me. Why?”
“I played football with his brother, Andy. Anyway, I ran into him at the grocery store today and we chatted for a minute. Turns out poor Dennis got drafted.”
“Really?” Soda’s eyes were wide. “He didn’t seem much the soldier type back in school.”
“Well, the board must’ve thought different, I guess. He’s shippin’ out next month.”
“Crazy.” Soda shook his head before shoving another spoonful in his mouth.
As he listened to their conversation, Ponyboy gripped his spoon tighter and tighter. Until now, he had only thought of the draft in abstract terms — some guys were gonna be forced to fight in some far-away war, but not anyone he or his brothers knew. Suddenly, he realized that just because it hadn’t happened to his family yet didn’t mean it wasn’t going to. It was only a matter of time before one of those letters showed up at the Curtis house.
“Are any of us gonna be drafted?” he blurted.
Soda paused his story about the collection of lone right shoes that had been left in the trunk of a car he and Steve were working on. The words hung in the air for a moment, the house silent.
“Hey, ain’t none of us goin’ to war,” Darry told him, voice firm. “You don’t gotta worry about that."
“But how can you know for sure? I bet that’s what Andy thought ‘til it happened to his brother,” Pony argued.
“Well, first of all” — Darry pointed his spoon at him — “you’re only fifteen.”
“Fifteen and a half.”
“Can’t forget about the half,” Soda said, grinning.
Pony ignored him. “But you guys are old enough to go.”
Darry’s eyes shifted over to Soda, then back at Ponyboy. “Well,” he said, “there’s exceptions. Like if you’ve got a kid.”
“That’s why Darry’s safe,” Soda added, mouth full of food. “‘Cause he’s gotta stick around and take care of you.”
That was a relief. Pony released his death grip on his spoon. “But what about you?” he asked Soda.
Soda swallowed, then glanced over at the calendar on the wall. “Well, as of next week….”
Ponyboy suddenly understood. “Once you’re my guardian, they can’t draft you.”
“Yeah. I’ll get to stay here with y’all.”
Glory, he didn’t want to even contemplate a world where Soda went off to war. Sure, he got into fights sometimes, but that was only to blow off steam. Sodapop wasn’t built for carnage and cruelty. He was born to speed down the highway with the windows down and have tickle fights with his brothers and dance to Elvis in the living room.
“Good,” Pony said. “I’m glad we decided to do it, then.”
“Me, too, buddy. You know, you’re doin’ me a real favor here by agreein’ to this. I bet the food they feed those soldiers ain’t near as good as Darry’s soup.” He slurped up a noodle, then aimed a grin in Pony’s direction.
“I bet the officers don’t let them sleep ‘til noon on Sundays, either,” Darry pointed out.
Soda shuddered. “Can you imagine?”
“They spend all day marching, too,” Pony added.
“Gah! I’d lose my marbles,” he said with a woeful shake of his head, his mouth pulled into an exaggerated pout.
Darry waggled his eyebrows. “No pretty girls to keep you company, either.”
“Now that” — Soda slapped a hand on the table — “is truly unacceptable.”
Ponyboy grinned at him. “Guess it’s a good thing you’re stayin’ here, then, huh?”
“Sure is.” Soda leaned back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head. “Man, it is good to be a guardian.”
Balanced precariously on two legs, Soda’s chair wobbled a bit. Darry warned, “Careful —”
It was too late. Soda tipped backwards, landing in a heap on the floor. After a few seconds of stunned silence, he casually remarked, “Hey, that was kinda fun,” then started laughing. Pretty soon, his brothers joined in.
No one could make Pony crack up as hard as Sodapop. It wasn’t long before tears were streaming down his face and his sides ached.
Eventually, their laughter began to die down, and Soda pushed himself up to a seated position. Ponyboy extended a hand to help him up. Through his giggles, he said, voice fond, “Glory, am I sure glad you ain’t goin’ anywhere.”