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The radio was Darry’s compromise.
All night, Ponyboy and Soda had made sneaky attempts at the television, only for Darry to not-so-sneakily turn it off again. (Yelling was involved. They looked cowed for all of ten minutes, before making their next strategic pass.)
“Come on, Dar, what’s wrong with a little distraction?” Ponyboy said, and was promptly hit in the face with the nearest projectile available to Darry, a wadded up sock. A dirty wadded up sock.
“You don’t need a distraction from your homework.”
“I need a distraction from your sour face,” said Soda, and laughed all the way out of the room. In an uncharacteristic display of self-initiative, he’d offered to do the dishes (no rock-paper-scissors necessary!) and happy splashing soon emanated from the kitchen.
Ponyboy continued to gripe about the lack of entertainment ( “You’d think it was a prison ‘round here, gee whiz, ”) until Darry finally relented. The TV stayed off; the work day had been long, and his eyes were too tired for flashing lights. But the radio went on instead. Soda, with his buzzing, infectious energy, couldn’t stand a silent room, and Ponyboy— well, Darry wasn’t sure what Ponyboy got out of music (he never fully understood the kid) but it was likely something poetic and beyond his comprehension. The boy’s mind was a jigsaw puzzle. Darry lost most of the pieces years ago.
As the evening wore on, they settled into a peaceful rhythm: Darry, dissolving into his chair, eyes closed, body humming. Clinking plates and the clatter of dropped silverware from the kitchen. Ponyboy on the sofa with homework spread around him like a paper nest. Swaddled in soft music, Darry’s consciousness drifted. Ponyboy turned a page. The song on the radio changed.
Suddenly Soda bolted from the kitchen, skidding in mismatched socks toward the radio. He tripped over Darry’s legs, half fell into his lap, and clambered across the living room on hands and knees to claw at the volume. As the radio boomed to life, Darry jolted from his drowsy stupor.
“Were you taking a bath in the sink, little buddy?”
Soapsuds covered Soda’s arms up to the elbow and soaked the front of his t-shirt. He beamed, flicking water at Darry. “I love this song,” and as loudly as he’d come, returned to the kitchen.
“I hate this song,” Darry grumbled.
“That’s ‘cause you’re ancient and boring,” said Ponyboy, who thought anyone whose age started with a two was on the brink of geriatric.
Darry scoffed. It was one of those jazzy, upbeat numbers, all trumpet and trombone, with some idiotic crooner yowling about girls, or good times, or whatever sickeningly optimistic drivel currently boomed from the speakers. Darry enjoyed music, but not this kind. He had enough Sodapop-cheer in his life without needing it to blare from the radio too.
Sodapop himself belted the song from the kitchen. Being tone-deaf as a bullfrog had never (and would never) stop him from going at it with his entire chest. Ponyboy, not taking his eyes off his textbook, nodded his head to the rhythm.
Darry closed his eyes again.
“Y’know,” said Ponyboy, interrupting Nap Attempt #47, “for someone who hates a tune, you’re an awful good dancer.”
The kitchen-yowling cut off with an abrupt gasp. Darry sighed. “Now look what you’ve done.”
“Darry!” Sodapop skidded back into the living room and fell over the coffee table. “Dance with me!”
Darry eyed him. “You’re sopping.”
Soda wiped his hands on his shirt, his body vibrating with excitement. “C’mon,” he pleaded. He had this way of looking at a guy—bright-eyed and tousle-haired, his cheeks glowing with that secret zeal only Sodapop could find, excitement so big it took up all the air in the room. Electricity glowed in his eyes and lit up the ends of his hair. Sometimes, Darry wondered if touching him was enough to get zapped by it all; the sheer force of Soda’s joy burned through you like a lightning bolt.
Darry covered his face with that morning’s newspaper. “I’m beat, man. Dance with Pony.”
“Pony don’t dance.”
“I don’t dance,” Ponyboy confirmed, edging away from them. He kept a switchblade on him at all times, and would use it without hesitation on the first person who tried to make him jitterbug. Ponyboy was that way: real opposed to violence, until it was about something dumb, and then he’d come at you like a rabid cat with no lives left to lose.
(Once, Steve made fun of him when his voice cracked, and the kid dug up a nest of red ants and dumped them down Steve’s shirt. Soda said it was “puberty mood swings” and they “needed to give him space” and a whole bunch of empathetic crap. Darry was too busy laughing to care.)
“Please?” Soda grabbed Darry’s arm with both hands and tried to drag him from his chair. “We haven’t done anything fun in ages .”
“We played monopoly last night.”
“Exactly! Who cares about some lame board game?”
Ponyboy sniffed. “I care...”
(Ponyboy had won.)
“Anyway—” Soda dug his feet into the carpet— “you got real moves, like, west-side dancing, not whatever happens in the pool-hall after everyone’s had one too many.”
He wasn’t wrong. Darrel Curtis had his days in the sun, but unlike most teenagers from the hood, he’d partied in rich-kid homes with fancy champagne and polished floors. None of that boozy slumming after a rodeo, with more grinding than anything else. Nah, not Darry—he could step and swing and lift, good as any snub-nosed soc. He learned how to twirl girls proper-like beneath their daddy’s crystal chandeliers.
But the cracked plaster of the Curtis ceiling wasn’t a chandelier, and his little brother no sharp-eyed dame. Even with his feet braced against the sofa and hauling on Darry’s arm with his full body weight, Soda couldn’t budge him. Though lean, Soda still carried that scrappy greaser strength. But Darry could make the toughest of them look like toddlers.
Soda gave a particularly fierce tug, and the twinge of sore muscles reignited Darry’s annoyance. “Knock it off, Soda. I’m beat.”
His grip loosened. “Aw, okay,” he said, soft and breathless, and stepped back. “Sorry man, I know work’s been tough lately.” He was somehow smaller than the moment before, his shoulders hunching inward. “I’ll go finish the dishes.”
Watching Soda walk away stuck a lousy feeling in the pit of Darry’s stomach. It wasn’t like Darry had a favorite kid brother; he didn’t do the favoritism thing. But, well, who could blame Soda for being special? Darry wouldn’t be surprised if Soda was everyone’s favorite, maybe even the universe’s. You couldn’t look into his eyes without feeling more awake than the moment before.
When Darry entered a room, you knew because he radiated power, and the instinctual knowledge of a threat crawled under people’s skin. Ponyboy, you didn’t know had entered at all. But not Soda. Soda wore the sun on his shoulders, trailing after him like a cape. You felt better just by looking at him.
(Shoot, Darry was gonna turn into a poet if he kept reading that drivel Ponyboy passed for homework.)
He thought of Soda after Johnny and Dallas died, when his golden smile never quite reached his eyes but they were all too thick to see it. When they finally did (when Soda had a mental breakdown ), Darry swore he’d never let it happen again. He’d steal the moon and stars just to give that smile back to his kid brother.
So yeah. Darry felt lousy watching Soda return to the kitchen, slower and quieter than before, with all the excitement drained out of his eyes. And then Darry thought I drained it , and that only added to the knot in his gut—disappointing the one person he’d rather kill himself than hurt.
For the first time since the radio went on, Ponyboy looked up from his homework. They stared at each other for a tense moment, long enough for Darry to wonder how his baby brother got so good at seeing inside him.
Then Ponyboy said, “Shoot, Darry, it’s his favorite song.”
Darry surrendered any lingering hope of a nap.
He followed Soda into the kitchen, where the tap ran again and dishes clicked together in the sink. “Hey, Pepsi,” he said, soft-like, as if he were sweet-talking a puppy. Ponyboy had to almost die before he got that voice out of Darry, but look at this jerk, doing nothing but standing there with his stupid hurt eyes, and Darry had already crumbled to pieces for him.
“Sorry for pushing,” Soda began, not looking up. “I didn’t think how tired—”
Darry grabbed his hand and pulled him into the first steps of a dance.
From the corner of Darry’s eye, he saw Ponyboy smile and turn up the radio volume. Music enveloped their tiny house. Soda burned with it, every inch of him reigniting the spark of intensity. “I love this song,” he whispered, like a secret, like he was sharing something special with just Darry, nobody else.
Darry would’ve been touched, if Soda didn’t have his hand on Darry’s waist as if he expected Darry to follow his lead like some starstruck chick.
“Well, that ain’t happening,” Darry said, snatching Soda’s hand off his hip and dropping it on his shoulder instead. “I’m leading and you’re the chick.”
Soda made a wounded noise. “Aw man, but—”
“You wanna dance or not?” he snapped, and pulled him into a spin.
They moved easily after that, bodies synchronized to the music and the comfortable rhythm of each other. None of that slow waltzing crap, no, Darry liked dancing that stole your breath and made the blood pound in your temples. And Soda was a cyclone. You could push him and push him, and just keep pushing, but he gave back everything Darry asked for and more.
Reading people had never been Darry’s strong point, but this was Sodapop , his original partner in crime, his first kid brother and (if he were completely honest with himself) the better version of himself. They’d lived their entire lives in tandem; a mess of arms reaching for food and shoes kicked off by the door, football tackles and breathless laughter, late nights staring at the sky while tangled together on the porch.
So they moved together, comfortably harmonious, anticipating the other’s motion. The music was fast, and Soda, for all his enthusiasm, didn’t know the right steps. But Darry led him through it. Darry was made for this, after all. Whether shoving Pony onto the school bus or picking up an extra shift to pay the bills, making breakfast or folding laundry, guiding Soda through the complicated steps of the Charleston (an older dance, sure, but still his favorite):
Darry led.
Grab Soda’s hand, twirl him around. Jump, kick, step. Grab his waist. Pull him close.
They stepped together lightning quick, fast as cats, better than any money-addled broad he ever twirled under hokey crystal chandeliers. Laughter spilled from Soda’s tongue like luxury wine, so bright , so happy , that the world ached with his existence. Music wrapped them in a daze of light. Darry thought— maybe his brothers were right. Maybe this tune ain’t so bad.
They twirled again, but it wasn’t enough. Swept away by the freedom of impulse, this rush of joy he hadn’t felt since he was eighteen and unfettered. The music pulsed in his veins, more, more, more , and as the chorus swelled to a crescendo, he grabbed Soda by the hips and swung him around.
Soda shrieked as his feet left the ground, hands scrambling for purchase against Darry’s shoulders. Compared to a bundle of roofing, Soda’s compact frame was no challenge to lift. Darry, 6’2” and several hundred pounds of pure muscle, easily whirled him through the air. He set him down just as gently. But one glimpse of Soda’s flushed, glassy-eyed face, and Darry realized his mistake. Ever the adrenaline junkie, Soda lost interest in actual dancing the moment lifts entered the scene.
“Again,” he wheezed, breathless, the music forgotten. He shook Darry’s arms like a little kid demanding snacks. “Do it again . ”
Darry would steal the moon and stars for this kid.
They swung a bit more, Darry hauling him around the kitchen like the blade of a ceiling fan until Soda’s laughter morphed into wheezing. When he looked green enough to pass out from dizziness, Darry set him down.
Soda stumbled the moment his feet touched the ground. He fell into Darry’s chest and stayed there, grabbing the back of Darry’s shirt for balance. The song finally ended and another came on, softer and slower, all crooning. Darry’s arms closed around Soda.
The energy melted away, replaced with panting and breathless giggles. They swayed together. Darry never liked slow dancing, but this was different, comforting in a way he didn’t fully understand. Just him and his little brother, waltzing in the kitchen after a long day, bumping each other with their socked feet. Soda’s breath tickled his neck.
From the corner of his eye, Darry glanced at Ponyboy. He’d relocated to Darry’s armchair. With notebook closed and textbooks forgotten, he sprawled comfortably, perfectly still, watching. So much raw affection spilled out of the kid’s eyes, Darry thought he might weep.
The arms around Darry’s waist tightened. “This is nice.”
“Just can’t resist ya, Sodapop,” Darry grumbled into Soda’s hair.
A soft hum. Darry couldn’t see it, but he felt the smile pressing into his shoulder, radiating warmth as Soda melted further into him. “Thank goodness.”