I wasn’t having the best of day. Johnny had just died, Pony was a mess, and it didn’t help that Dally was dead, too. Pony had been a mess before Johnny died; he blamed himself for Johnny’s pain. It hurt me and Darry to see him like that. The day Johnny died was very…interesting; I guess is the only way to describe it. We had rushed to meet Dally but it had been too late. He had pulled the heater from his waistband.












Everything was a blur. Pony had been asleep for a day now. After Dally had been…killed, Pony had fainted. Carryin’ him back to the house was no easy feat. He didn’t look heavy, but he sure seemed to be. We talked to the fuzz, the police. They had let us say our goodbyes to Dallas and they had taken him away, probably to let the state deal with his body. After Pony fainted, we visited Johnny’s parents, a task the gang dreaded.











I had been volunteered to knock on the door and help Darry explain what had happened to Johnny. His mother told us to ‘go prank someone else because her scum son had probably just ran away after being released from the hospital.’ Before she slammed the door on us, Darry shouted, “He’s dead!”

She didn’t slam the door. Instead she closed it quietly, leaving us on the front porch. I had walked down the stairs first, my hands in my pockets. The gang followed closely behind; nobody wanted to be the first to break the silence. Without a warning, I flew off in the direction of our house. I was mad at Johnny’s mother for not taking us seriously; I was mad at the fuzz for not realizing that Dallas was just a troubled kid. Most of all, I was mad at how sick life could be, at how, in a careless moment, your life can be tipped upside down. The ceiling of your world now being the floor and you don’t know how it happened or which way you’re heading.









All I knew was that I couldn’t let the floor be ripped out from under Pony’s feet. I couldn’t let him make bad choices. I couldn’t let him make a wrong turn, I couldn’t let him become Dallas or Johnny or Mom or Dad. I couldn’t let him end up dead.