Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Johnny wasn’t fast enough, and now Pony was gone. As he knelt next to the cool body he had dragged from the fountain, Johnny turned to face Bob, who had yet to run off with the others. “I-I didn’t mean to.” Bob stumbled over his words. “Your hands held him down! You did mean to!” Johnny charged at him and began hitting him anywhere he could. His fist flew, but he never landed an actual punch in his grief. Bob kicked the kid off of him, sending Johnny into the dirt. Before Johnny could get back up, Bob was gone. Johnny just kind of lay there for a second. If he stared at the ground long enough, maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t look up to see Ponyboy lying motionless on the grass next to that wretched fountain. Jonny stared so long at the ground that he drifted into sleep.
Johnny awoke to sirens in the dark hours of the morning. Who died? He thought. He felt a hand on his neck. “This one’s alive,” a voice yells to some far-off place. Johnny was shaken, and he opened his eyes. He noted the uniform and badge that the man was wearing. “What’s goin’ on? I fall asleep in the lot?” The cop gave him a sympathetic look. “I don’t know what happened here, kid, but we gotta take you in for questioning.” Johnny looked around, confused. He sees tape being rolled out around the area. He noticed an ambulance, but the siren had now been shut off, and there was a body on a stretcher, covered by a white sheet, being pushed into it. As if a tidal wave had hit him, everything came rushing back. “They killed him… Ponyboy, they killed him!” Johnny tried to get up, to run to Pony so they couldn’t take him away, but strong hands held him down. Johnny thrashed, but it was no use. The officer was telling him something, probably trying to calm him down, but Johnny wasn’t focusing on that. All Johnny could do was watch as his friend was taken from him.
Johnny didn’t remember how it happened, but he ended up at the police station. He was sitting across from an officer, who looked like he’d rather be anywhere else than trying to get a kid to open up about watching his friend get murdered. He had a notepad in front of him and a pen in his hand, prepared to write down whatever Johnny told him. “Tell me everything you remember from last night.”
Johnny stayed quiet for a moment, wondering how to begin. “I had fallen asleep outside, and I woke up to Pony tellin’ me we had to go. We ran to the park, don’t know why. Pony said he’d had a fight with his brother, and he had hit him-”
“Who hit who?”
“Darrel hit Ponyboy, but I don’t think he really meant to. Darrel would never do anything to hurt either of his brothers.” The officer nodded as a sign for him to go on. “A blue Mustang pulled up. I recognized it from when the same socs jumped me a week ago. They started sayin’ how we were trying to pick up their girls and how greasers are white trash with long hair. Pony mouthed back. They said something about giving him a bath. Two of them tackled me and held me down.” Johnny stopped talking. He didn’t want to say it. He didn’t want to say how he had watched as his friend flailed about, how they brought him up only to push him back down, his movements getting weaker the longer he was under, until he stopped moving altogether. “They stuck him in the fountain and drowned him.” Johnny’s voice broke as he said it. He looked up to the window in the room to see Darrel and Soda running in. He could hear muffled yelling from Darrel; no doubt, he was demanding answers.
They’re gonna hate me.
“And then what happened, because all we know is that you were the one next to the body.”
“His name is Ponyboy.” Johnny practically cut the man off. “Was Ponyboy. Sorry.” Suddenly, the man looked a little softer. “Could you identify the names of the boys who you’re saying killed your friend?”
“I know the one who held his head in the water’s named Bob Sheldon. And there was Randy… don’t know his last name though. And I heard Bob call one of them Dave or David. Something like that. I couldn’t tell you the others’ names, but they were all friends with him.”
The man sent Johnny back out to the station's lobby. He was greeted by the two remaining Curtises, quickly embracing him. Johnny began to sob. “I’m so sorry, I couldn’t save him.” He took a shuddering breath between his sobs, “I’m so sorry,” he repeated. Darrel was shushing him with cries of his own mixed in, and Soda was sobbing with him. As much as Johnny felt sorry for himself losing his best friend, he knew that Darry and Soda had just lost their little brother. The guilt of being too slow, too scared, too weak, to save Pony was eating Johnny alive. Even if he could tell they didn’t blame him.
Darry pulled away, “We oughta let the others know now.” Darrel ran a hand over his face and took a deep breath. He walked up to the front desk and asked for a phone. The receptionist pointed him to a wall near the entrance. Johnny could hear Darrel’s broken voice trying to find the words to inform whichever of their friends was on the other line, and he began to count the ceiling tiles, because it was all he could do to keep himself from crying at the sight.
The rest of the day was a blur for Johnny. It seemed like he was just floating, expecting Pony to walk in the front door and tell him about the last movie he’d seen. He noticed cop cars headed to the west side of town. They seemed in no hurry, but Johnny could tell where they were going. They were heading to pick up a murderer. Why aren’t they going faster? Don’t they want to bring justice to Pony? Johnny thought. But of course, socs look out for socs, and the cops were definitely looking out for the socs. They weren’t looking forward to arresting Bob. His dad had money and would make their investigation as difficult as possible. Johnny thought it unfair. This kid who beat up greasers just for being greasers was still alive to be arrested (and if he’s being honest, probably bailed out too), and Pony, who watched sunsets and dreamt of leaving Tulsa, was lying on a mortuary table in the morgue. Pony had told Johnny once during a late night, sitting in the lot, that he felt like he was the cause of his parents’ deaths. Johnny thought it was a crazy prospect at the time. Pony wasn’t driving the train, so it wasn’t his fault. But then again, Johnny wasn’t holding Pony in the water, and he still felt a crushing sense of blame. Now he understood what Pony’d meant.

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Darrel never fell asleep after he hit Ponyboy. His mind was a battlefield, going back and forth between blaming himself and justifying his actions. He never meant to hit his brother, but his brother never listened. Darry would try to tell him how much trouble he could get in if something ever happened to Pony or Soda, but Pony didn’t understand. Darry looked up from the kitchen table to see Soda tiptoeing in. They made eye contact. “Sorry, I needed a glass of water.”
“Soda, what am I gonna do with him?” Soda stopped short of grasping the cabinet handle. “I think you need to explain your way of thinking to Pony in a way he’ll understand.” Soda paused. “When you start yellin’, he just gets defensive and stops listening.” Darry mulled over Soda’s words. “How do I do that then, huh? I don’t understand him.” Darrel sighed, and Soda began to speak again, “He needs you to sit down and have a productive conversation, not a yelling match.” There was a long silence.
“I didn’t mean to hit him, Soda.”
“I know that, Darry.” Soda went back to filling his glass with water before giving a small sigh and walking back to his room. Soda wasn’t exactly mad at Darrel, but he was exasperated. He keeps asking Soda what to do after a squabble with Pony, and Soda will always give him an answer, but boy, was it getting tiring repeating the same advice over and over. The same could be said for Pony, too. It was always the same repetitive conversation with him:
“Soda, why does Darry hate me?”
“Darry doesn’t hate you, Pone, he just worries. His worryin’ comes out as anger, but he’s not actually angry.”
“Sure seems like he’s angry with me.”
“He’s been handed a lot of responsibility at a pretty young age, and he’s tryin’ his hardest to keep us all together.”
“If he’s tryin’ to keep us together, then why does he hate me?”
And Soda would try to rephrase what he’d said earlier.
Soda just wished his brothers would stop pulling him every which way. It was so tiring trying to play mediator. It got especially frustrating when they would fight and then ask him whose side he was on. He hated it because he wasn’t on either side. He was the middle ground. He agreed and disagreed with arguments from both sides, but for some reason, they couldn’t grasp that.
“Whose side are you on anyway?” Soda hated it when they would ask that. Soda guessed he was doomed to this since Pony was born, though. Once he was in the middle, he was never getting out. Soda fell asleep after a while of thinking.
In the early morning, he awoke to the sound of a phone ringing. Darrel walked over to the phone and answered it. “Soda! Come ‘ere!” Darry sounded urgent, so Soda got up faster than he usually would have. “What’s wrong?” Darry made eye contact with him. The look on his face was torn, and Soda knew something bad must’ve happened. “Darry, what’s wrong?” he repeated. “We have to go down to the police station. They’re sayin’ Ponyboy was… they’re sayin’ he was killed last night.” Soda felt his world crashing down on him. He ran to get dressed, hoping that the sooner they got there, the sooner they could confirm that whoever it was wasn’t Ponyboy.
Darrel, who hadn’t changed out of his clothes from the night before, started up the truck and waited for Soda. Darrel felt a weight all around him. This was his fault, wasn’t it? Pony was only out of the house because Darrel had hit him. He rested his head on the steering wheel and prayed that the cops were wrong, that it wasn’t Pony they had found, but rather some other kid that Darry didn’t know. Soon, Soda was fumbling with the door handle of the truck, hurrying to get in. The drive to the station was fairly quiet, save for the sniffling coming from Soda. Soda watched as the orange from the sunrise turned blue and thought of Ponyboy. He always did love those. Sunsets too. He’d said that he didn’t like to talk about them with anyone else, because nobody else understood.
When they got there, a woman at the front desk asked for their name. After getting an answer, she gave them a sad, pitiful look. An officer brought them to an interview room in the back. On the way, Darry was demanding to be told what had happened. Soda noticed that they had passed a window, where he could see Johnny Cade sitting, being questioned. Soda just hoped Johnny hadn’t watched it happen.
Once they were in a private room, the man handed them a file. “There are some pictures of the body in there. We have a witness saying it’s Ponyboy, but we wanted to have confirmation from his next of kin.” Darry didn’t know if he could open the file. Soda didn’t want him to. With shaking hands, Darrel carefully opened it, revealing the pictures of who really was his kid brother, lying lifeless on the ground next to the fountain he had passed so many times. Soda choked out a “That’s really him,” before bursting into tears. Darry just sat there for a moment, not sure what to do. While Soda tore his eyes away from the gruesome images, Darry couldn’t help but stare. Pony, even in death, looked peaceful. Or maybe he looked scared. Maybe it was more of a look of longing.
The longer Darry stared, the more he couldn’t figure it out. He felt like he needed to know. Had Pony felt angry at Darry for letting this happen? Was he wishing his brother were with him? What was Pony thinking when he had his last thought? “What happened?” Darry was shaken out of his thoughts by Soda. “We’re getting an eyewitness account right now, but from what we can tell, he was drowned in the fountain.” The officer didn’t have much emotion in his voice, and Darry figured he’d probably had conversations like this a thousand times before. Soda spoke again, “Who’s the witness?”
“Johny Cade.”

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     The night after their parents' funeral, Soda and Ponyboy lay in bed and talked. Mostly about memories of their parents, but something else too; their own funerals. Soda wants something pretty, by the water maybe, with all his friends and family and whoever else wants to be there. “I just don’t want to leave everybody without one final goodbye, y’know?” Pony didn’t know. “I don’t think I could stand it. Today was so awful, with everyone coming around, pretending they knew us. What’s the point? Why go stand around a dead person while they’re being buried? It’s not like they can hear you anyway. And that body in the casket isn’t them.” Soda let Pony’s words wash over him, trying to understand before asking, “So what would you have us do?”

     “Cremate me. Don’t have a service, just have a dinner with the gang, and talk about me. And I’d rather you not spread my ashes anywhere, because then I wouldn’t have all of myself when I’m dead.”

     Soda listened and absorbed every word, hopeful to keep Pony’s wishes if he should pass before him. He just never thought it would be eight months later.

It was now the day after that fateful call to the Curtis home. The morning was quiet. Nobody had gotten up yet, neither brother wanting to face the newest empty spot at their table. Soda had woken up to the empty space next to him and had to roll back over, just to pretend for a second that Pony was still next to him. He shut his eyes tight, but all he saw were the pictures of Pony lying dead and wet at the park. He tried for about ten minutes before he gave up and dragged himself out of bed. As he rifled through his closet, he came across Pony’s side. It was mostly full of hand-me-downs from Soda himself, but Pony always wore the clothes best. He averted his eyes as they welled with new tears, quickly grabbing a shirt and shutting the door. 

Darry awoke to the smell of burnt eggs and bacon and the sound of sniffles coming from the kitchen. He ran quickly to see what the matter was. Forgetting for a moment about the events of the day before, hope rose in his chest that Ponyboy had made his way home, but his heart dropped to his stomach when he saw Soda crying at the kitchen counter and remembered he had one less brother now. He didn’t want to ask what was wrong, because everything was wrong right now, but he approached his brother and asked anyway. “I can’t make breakfast.” Soda began to cry harder. Darry was confused because why would his brother be crying about not having a skill that he never had? “Soda, I don’t understand why you’re upset about this. You’ve never been a good cook.” Soda looked his brother in the eye and whispered, “Pony always ate my food anyway, even if it was burnt to nothin’, but now I just gotta throw it out.” Darry sighed and lowered his head. He didn’t particularly understand Soda, but he tried his hardest to comfort him with a hug. “Pone wouldn’t want ya to cry about a burnt breakfast, so you better go throw it out back for the birds, just like he did.” Soda wiped his tears and grabbed the pans and spatula before opening the screen door and walking out. It was already about eleven by now, and Darry figured he should call into work and explain his absence to his boss, maybe ask for bereavement. 

He was barely off the phone with his boss when it rang out. He picked up the phone and answered with a tired “Darrel Curtis speaking.” The woman on the other line sounded worn and old; she had probably been doing this for a long time. “Mr. Curtis, this is the morgue that is holding the body of Ponyboy Curtis. We’re calling to inform you that the autopsy is finished. His cause of death was drowning, as suspected. You and your family are free to make funeral arrangements from here on out.”

Darry had done this before, but he still didn’t quite know where to start with it all. He wanted to give his brother the best, but he knew he couldn’t afford a good coffin. Pony would be buried in the same cheap box of wood as their parents were. “Alright, I’ll- I’ll contact the funeral home. Um…” Darry didn’t know what to say to her. He ended up deciding on “Thank you.” He hung the phone back on the wall and walked to the couch, where Soda now sat. He held his head in his hands and sighed, “That was the morgue. We need to plan Pony’s funeral.”

Soda heard Darry’s words, but instead of replying, his mind just went back to that conversation from months before. After a moment of silence, and Darry asking him if he was alright, he mustered up a real smart “No.” Darry actually looked upset with him. “Soda, I know this is hard, but you can’t just say no. This is Pony’s funeral we’re talking about here.” Darry sounded exasperated. 

“No! Pony didn’t want one!” Soda raised his voice, trying to get the point across, but too tired to explain further. “Soda, don’t go sayin’ things to get out of this, we’re planning this funeral whether we want to or not!” Soda shot up from his seat and began to yell, “You don’t think I don’t want to have the closure of that? I do! I want to say goodbye and give him a tombstone, but that’s not what he wanted!” he began to tear up and sat back on the sofa. “The night of mom and dad’s funerals, he told me that he hated funerals and didn’t want one when he died.” 

Darry wished he could say he wasn’t hurt that Pony hadn’t confided in him as well, but at least he had Soda to talk to. He began to understand Soda’s refusal and decided to ask what Ponyboy wanted. Soda explained through tears what Pony had told him. He listened, but he couldn’t help but find himself saying yes. It reminded him of how special Ponboy was. Of course he wouldn’t want a normal funeral; he wasn’t a normal kid. Not to mention how much cheaper Pony’s wishes were when compared to the price of a proper funeral. “We’ll do it. Pony deserves this. Now we’ve just gotta come up with the money.”