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His Mama loved picnics. Every Sunday, just after church, she’d take Pony and his father out to a secluded hillside and pull out roast chicken sandwiches made from the leftovers of the night before. Sometimes, if it rained, they stayed dry and toasty in the car, but they were still parked on that same hillside. Today, it was sunny, which was his Mama’s favorite kind of weather. The spring flowers were poking their heads above the earth, but few had bloomed, so there was no pollen to disturb the gentle quiet with sneezes or coughs. It was as perfect as it could get.
Even at the young age of 12, Ponyboy knew that these were the good old days. This, right here, was his golden hour. He closed his eyes for a second, just soaking in the light breeze and the rays of sun caressing his skin. His parents bantered beside him. He could still taste his mother’s cooking in his mouth.
I wish this moment could last forever, he thought to himself, listening to the birds serenade each other.
-
Birthday songs always came with a kind of warm embarrassment Pony wasn’t sure whether to hate or love. His parents sang to him, gathered around their round dining room table with a little cake in front of him. His father, a cartoonist, had found a way to cover it in drawings of whatever characters he’d liked the most in years past, but this one was different. The moment he lifted the lid of the box (his dad always drew princesses and ponies on the outside. It sort of became a joke in the family), he gasped.
The cake, cut into a square, was decorated with small, sugary paintings of cars, maps, and road markers. The sides were frosted completely white, interrupted only by small gray stripes meant to represent pages. On the top, in his mom’s smooth cursive, read the title On The Road.
“Happy fourteenth birthday, Ponyboy,” Papa said, placing a real copy of the book in front of him. He could have cried for joy right then and there.
I wish this moment could last forever, he thought as he hugged his parents as tight as he could.
-
In the first months following their deaths, he forced himself to accept that the good old days were over. They were never coming back because the people who had made those days good were long gone and buried. The world seemed to dull itself around him. Pony had always thought that was a stupid way for someone to describe a character’s inner state, but he’d never be criticizing those authors again. It didn’t matter how sunny and bright it was if it was all blocked out with gray curtains and heavy eyelids.
He figured his foster home wouldn’t be any different; almost immediately, he was proven wrong. Darry was calm and sturdy in a way Ponyboy didn’t know he’d missed until he saw it. Sodapop forced the sunshine and vibrance back into his life one smile at a time. With each new meal, each hug, each secret whispered between brothers, his world came back to life. He didn’t even realize it at first.
Smiling became natural to him again. That was good. He’d missed the sensation of a smile, the way it felt in his cheeks, the crinkling in his lower eyelids. That came gradually, over towers of rainbow pancakes and lots of games of football out in the yard. The laughter came next. It started in the form of small giggles that appeared when Soda told those awful jokes he liked to tell and only Two-Bit laughed. It continued with banter at the dinner table and teasing on the walks to and from school. The first time his brothers heard him laugh for real, Ponyboy could’ve sworn they looked at him like he was their whole world. Those looks didn’t fade for the rest of the day.
I wish- he thought, before stopping himself. Those wishes didn’t do him any good. They never had.
-
“No, get your dirty ass shoes offa me!”
“Shut up! People are lookin’!”
“Forget the people lookin’, the opening credits are rolling! Now shut up!”
Soda, Two-Bit, and Steve had taken him to the drive-in to celebrate . . . something? Pony wasn’t entirely sure. Darry and Soda were always finding new things to celebrate, and their favorite thing was dragging him into the festivities- not that he minded it one bit. Ever since they found out how much Ponyboy loved Paul Newman and his movies, they’d been looking for excuses to take him to every showing the Nightly Double had. Sure, none of them were new movies, but hey, he wasn’t gonna complain about seeing his favorites a second time (or a third, or a fourth, or . . . you get the idea).
The moment Newman made his first appearance, he completely forgot about all the commotion happening around him. He was safe here with his brother and friends. He was warm and comfortable wrapped in an old jacket of Darry’s that he said hadn’t fit him since he started roofing (Pony kind of doubted that was true. There was no way his brother had grown that much that quickly) and he got to look up at his favorite actor for hours on end. He really couldn’t ask for much more than that.
When he got home that night, practically leaning on Soda’s shoulder with how tired he was, it was nearly midnight. Darry was still awake- he never went to sleep until he knew Ponyboy and Sodapop were safe and sound at home. After quick, predictable small talk, the three brothers split to get ready for bed. As Pony buried his face in the sheets and felt Soda’s arm wrap around him, a new thought entered his mind:
I hope this moment doesn’t last, and one day I’ll get to live it again.
Wasn’t that something? Ponyboy knew now that nothing lasted forever. He’d given up wishing for it. Now, he just wanted to see the next day with his family by his side. It was better than before, he supposed.
-
He woke up to Soda shaking his shoulder a little more roughly than normal.
“Get up, Pony!” He sounded excited, that’s for sure.
“Glory, what’s goin’ on?” he asked, already fearing the answer a little bit.
“Darry’s got the day off!”
Ponyboy shot up, almost smacking Sodapop’s forehead with his own on the way up.
“No kiddin’?”
“No kiddin!”
“Shoot, is he up yet?”
“Nah, not yet. Tha’s where you and I come in.”
Ponyboy grinned deviously.
“I know where he hid your last stash,” he whispered. Soda gasped.
“No.”
Ponyboy leaned in.
“Yes.”
By the time Darry was awake, they had managed to build up a whole half a stack of rainbow pancakes, just like the ones Sodapop made for Pony when he first arrived. When he made his way to the dining room, Pony was pretty sure he already knew what was going to happen- but he burst out laughing anyway, loud and hearty, and the sound of it was music to their ears. Hours later, Ponyboy would realize that this was the first time he didn’t think of anything in the moment. He had simply lived it without dreading its end.