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“Pony, come on, how long are you gonna take at your locker?” Two-Bit’s voice rang from all the way down the hallway, I cringed and slammed my locker shut. I had only stopped to pick up my Science textbook that I needed for some of my homework tonight.
“I was only there for, like, a minute, Two.” He shrugged and his annoying smirk was plastered on his features, “Where’s Steve?” Two-Bit let out a loud laugh and explained that Steve was outside talking to his girlfriend, Evie.
We made our way down the stairs of Will Rogers High School and sat down on the last few steps, waiting for Steve to pull up. However, we both knew that whenever Steve had talks with Evie, they were long and full of arguing. Attempting to pass the time, Two-Bit started talking about one of his wonderful and many blondes, truthfully, I didn’t pay attention to a single word he was saying. “So I used that line again, you know, that I have a twin brother and she totally fell for it!” I nodded and looked around to see if I could spot Steve’s car.
Finally, after a few more of Two-Bit’s stories, Steve’s car came flying around the corner to come to a screeching halt in front of us. Hastily, he threw the door open and ordered us to get inside, we did. “Evie kept lecturing me about how I was supposed to take her on more dates,” Steve clenched and unclenched his hands around the steering wheel. After a minute or two of Two-Bit telling Steve about his new blonde, Steve cut him off, “Hey, kid, don’t you have track practice today?”
“Yeah, but I’m gonna grab a snack at the DX before I go.” He nodded and turned on the radio, cringing when Hank Williams came blasting onto the radio, eventually he landed on a station that was playing Elvis. Two-Bit tried to sing along with Elvis and failed miserably, he stopped when Steve promptly hit him on the side of the head.
“I would drive you back to the school, but I’m pretty sure my boss won’t appreciate that very much.” Steve mumbled over his shoulder at me, I nodded, Steve’s boss had found out that he was punching in for Soda while he was out taking care of me. I shuddered, thinking of how absolutely sick I was after Dally got shot. Heck, I was sick before Dally got shot down by those cops.
I got pulled out of my thoughts when Two-Bit reached into the backseat to grab my shoulder, “I could borrow your car an’ take ‘em!” Steve visibly tensed up immediately shot the idea down. Two-Bit whined the whole rest of the way to the DX until Steve finally gave in and told Two-Bit if he got any scratches on his baby, he’d skin him alive.
When it came to his car, Steve was deathly serious. Once, a bunch of Socs tried scratching up the side of Steve’s car and he broke one of their arms and sent another to the hospital for a week. We all hopped out of the car and made our way inside to see Soda flirting with some chick who was probably part of his fan club. However, once he saw us, he excused himself and practically ran over to swing an arm around Steve.
“Hey, kiddo, how was school, any Socs bother you?” I shook my head and stayed pretty quiet, everyone kept complaining that I got too quiet after my parent’s death, but I just shrugged it off. Soda started chatting with Steve about some Soc car that they had to fix up, both of them got strangely excited whenever some fancy car rolled up. I shook my head and wandered over to one of the shelves that held chips and candies and grabbed myself some Airheads and a Pepsi from the fridge.
I pulled out a few ones and handed them to Soda, he popped open the cash register and slipped in the ones. “Oh, Pony, does chicken and mashed potatoes sound good for dinner?” Steve and Two-Bit chimed in that they’d love that for dinner and Soda said some choice things to them about it.
“Sure, just don’t turn the potatoes blue like last time, okay?” Soda laughed and gave a thumbs up before rushing outside to fill up someone’s car. I looked at the clock in the DX and noticed that practice was soon, “We should get going soon, Two.” He nodded and, very reluctantly, Steve tossed Two-Bit his keys before stalking off into the garage.
Two-Bit whooped and cheering while practically dragging me towards Steve’s dark Ford Mustang. When we got in the car, I sighed real heavily and Two-Bit glanced over at me with an almost guilty look. “Hey, kiddo, could I get serious with you for a moment?”
“Two-bit serious? The world must be ending,” After a moment I added in, “shoot.” The car, unlike any other Grease car I’ve been in, started the first time you tried. Two-Bit nibbled on his bottom lip and peeled out of the parking lot.
“Listen, I know I ain’t like Johnny or anything,” I cringed when the image of my best friend crossed through my mind. “But you know, I’m by your side through and through.” Two-Bit cleared his throat and we both stayed silent after that, thinking.
Honestly, I hated thinking about the past year, it only brought grief. First my parents died in the car accident and then, not even a year later, my two best friends ended up six feet under at the local cemetery. All of the memories of the Windrixville incident flashed through my mind and I shuddered.
Another horrid thing I remembered was Darry hitting me. I looked out of the window and swallowed the lump in my throat. I knew Darry didn’t mean to, but I still choked up whenever I remembered it.
We pulled into the school parking lot and hopped out of Steve’s Ford. Looking around, I saw some girls from the Cheer squad and some kids from my Algebra class. “Are you going to track in those clothes or you changing?” Two-Bit pulled his pack of Kools out of his pocket and lit one up, completely ignoring the No Smoking sign nearby.
“Yeah, of course I am, I can’t run in jeans,” I gave Two-Bit the “Are you kidding me?” look.
Two-Bit gave a curt laugh and nodded towards the bleachers beside the track, “I’ll be watching from up there, usual spot.” I hummed and made my way into the school so I could get to the boy’s locker room. Opening the door, I could hear the whole team making a ruckus per usual. One of the guys gave me a pat on the back and announced my arrival to everyone, I got a mix of smiles and a few glares.
One of the things I liked most about track was that no one cared about what class you were here. Greasers and Socs and middle class could get along fine while we were doing track. Now, if I were to meet an of the Socs outside of track, I wouldn’t be able to just go up to them and act casual.
I sighed, finished dressing out for track, and went to go join one of my friends from track. We walked to track and once there, coach immediately told us to run fifteen laps around the track in eighty degree heat. I shot a lopsided grin up to Two-Bit and he grinned brightly back.
Finally, track had ended a few minutes ago and I was just finishing getting dressed into my regular clothes again. Two-Bit was leaning up against Steve’s car smoking a pack of Kools, he laughed when I fell into the passenger seat. Two-Bit swung himself into the driver’s seat, “You look like a drowned cat, kiddo.”
Sighing, I could only reply with, “I feel like a drowned cat too.” Coach was relentless on us today since we have a track meet next week and boy, if you didn’t feel tired after practice then you were inhuman. Two-Bit found his favorite station on the radio and cranked it up full blast, giving me a slight headache.
Once we had pulled into the DX’s parking lot, I turned the music down and shut off the radio so Steve wouldn’t pitch a fit. We climbed out of his car and slunk into the DX. A fellow co-worker of Steve and Soda’s was at the counter and waved us past into the garage, I nodded at him. Steve was the first one who noticed us and immediately asked, “He didn’t do nothing to my car, right kid?”
I gave him a smirk and shrugged. “We had to walk home, I forgot how bad of a driver Two-Bit is.” The look on Steve’s face was priceless as he raced out of the garage into the parking lot. Soda, catching on, laughed and chastised me on teasing Steve while Two-Bit just laughed. Steve came back in a few minutes later with a frown on his face, but he didn’t say anything about my teasing him.
“It’s almost five-thirty, I’m heading out. Are you coming with, Steve?” Soda mumbled while attempting to clean some of the grease of his hands. Steve said something that I couldn’t hear and slid out from underneath the car he was working on. “I forgot to ask, how was track practice, buddy?”
“Brutal, coach is running us all raggad.”
Two-Bit laughed joyously, “Yeah and I got to see it all! Worth taking him just to see Pony look like a drowned kit.” Steve made a snide comment that I ignored, “I should’ve done that, nice thinking, Steve-o!”
Soda chuckled at his friend’s antics and put his arm around my shoulders, “We can see if we can convince Darry to play football with us after dinner.” I nodded and agreed to help him get Darry to play with us. Soda and Steve clocked out and we all piled into Steve’s car again, Soda sitting in the back with me.
The ride was a short one and once we got home, Soda hopped into a nice shower while Two-Bit and Steve wrestled over the remote. I settled into Darry’s recliner with a book that I’ve been working on in my hands. After a few minutes of wrestling, Steve finally managed to get the remote and flipped it to M*A*S*H, recently he and Soda had gotten into that show, I don’t know how.
I looked back down into my book and got completely entrapped in the book, Cujo, some Stephen King novel. Eventually, before I knew it, Soda had almost finished dinner and Darry should be getting home any minute. “Steve, Two-Bit, make yourselves useful for once and help me set up the table.”
“You have a little brother to help you do that, Soda,” Steve whined.
Soda only laughed and told him that I helped out yesterday, which I did. Despite Steve’s whining, he went into the kitchen and helped fix up the table to Soda’s liking. Just then, Darry walked through the door, greeted us, and hung his tool belt up. “Hey, kiddo, how was school today?”
I shrugged, it was nothing out of the ordinary, “Just fine, how was work?” He shrugged too, “I smell something good, let’s hope it’s not blue this time.” We both gave a little laugh and hear Soda call us in for dinner.
Two-Bit and Steve were already sitting at their spots at the table with a full plate in front of them. Soda set our plates down on the table and sat at his spot, we didn’t waste anytime before we were all chowing down on Soda’s cooking, which was surprisingly not colored. Too quickly, all of the food was gone and we were sitting around laughing over old times.
“How about we all go play football out in the lot?” Two-Bit brought up the idea, we all exchanged looks and agreed to go play football. The lot was only a two minute walk so no one had any real issues with walking there. However, once there, we realized that someone was going to have to sit out, I volunteered.
Soda complained for a minute before Darry agreed to be on his team, lately Soda and I have been ganging up on Darry whenever we play football. I was fine with sitting out though, I wanted to think about everything. I still feel lonely without Johnny by my side, but I know it’ll be okay in time. I wish I had done something different during the Windrixville incident, not running into the burning church would’ve helped a lot.
However, thinking about it, not running at all might have been the best choice for us, Johnny only killed Bob out of self-defense. I shook my head when an image of Dally and Johnny flickered into my mind, I shouldn’t be thinking about sad things like their death anymore. My hand brushed against a photo I had pocketed a while back and sighed, slipping my hand out of my pocket.
Even though Johnny and Dally are dead now, I still have my brothers, including Two-Bit and Steve, by my side and that’s all I can ever ask for.