Stay Gold

My hospital stay lasted a week and one day, because of a fever I had. It drained the life out of me...not like I had much of a life before. I wasn’t allowed to do nothin’ by myself. Couldn’t get up by myself, couldn’t eat by myself, couldn’t even go to the bathroom by myself. Let me tell you -- it was pretty embarrassing having someone following you every time you had to go about your “business”. I didn’t mind so much if it was Pony, Soda, or Darry following me to the bathroom, but it got a little odd when one of the other boys in the gang followed me, like Two-Bit or Steve. The two of them constantly cracked jokes. They were mature enough to not look while I went to the bathroom because they knew I’d beat them senseless if they did. Dally though, was a different story. The last night I was in the hospital, he stayed with me. I didn’t get why he did, I was capable of staying by myself. I wasn’t sure what to think about that one; it baffled me. I had to go to the bathroom -- which meant he needed to escort me. Now that was embarrassing. Being the way he was, he looked at me up and down while I went and did my business. I scolded him a few times about it, he’d reply with,

”Nothing I haven’t seen before.” I would cuss at him after that, usually calling him a sick fuck. He’d just laugh. I finally figured out that Dally got a kick outta see me angry or upset. It was like he lived to see me turn red all the time.

I was so happy when I finally gotten word that I could go home and recover. I damn near ripped the tubes out of my arms because I was so excited. There were certain exceptions, however. I’d have to be on bed rest for another week to two weeks. That didn’t fly by me too good. I’ve had it with lying around all day staring at the ceiling. It got boring after the first two days. I wanted to go out, have fun, continue on with my life but that didn’t fly by with Darry so good.

“You heard what the doctor said, Elaine,” He’d say and I’d get mad. I did everything I could to bargain with him, almost like selling your soul to the devil. He stood by his word. I had to stay in the house and couldn’t go out until my stitches were taken out. Lucky for me, everyone was still allowed over because of Pony and Soda. I still got to buddy around with everyone, even though I couldn’t do too much. That whole week we sat around doing nothing but eating junk food and watching Mickey Mouse reruns. I was dying to get out of the house. The only time I’d ever get to see the outside world was if I sat on the front porch to smoke a cigarette. I wasn’t even supposed to do that but Darry thankfully looked the other way.

By the fifth day, I was moving around more. I was feeling less sore and less tired. I still didn’t risk going out any place, in fear that I’d get a fever or something and end up back in the hospital. I woke up late in the afternoon, surprised to find no one in the house. Not one greaser was in that house, unless you wanted to consider me one.

“Probably went out to the movies or to get boozed up,” I thought. I walked carefully out onto the porch. It was only about 48 degrees out. It was a little bit chillier than Texas was in December. I wasn’t used to it just yet. I gently sat on the stairs looking at the area around me. Before long, I wound up back inside because I was too cold. No sooner than two minutes I was back in the house, a familiar person came up behind me.

“How ya feelin’, Elaine?” Dally called out, nearly making me jump right outta my skin. I quickly turned to face him, cocking my eyebrow.

“Yer lucky I don’t have a blade on me,” I began glaring at him, “otherwise you’d be dead meat.”

Dally simply smiled. “So you are feeling better!”

“I guess you could say that,” I couldn’t help but smile at him. It was weird, I never smiled around him; I just bitched and moaned and told him to go to hell. I began to question my own sanity, or if it was just all these damn medications I was on now. “I ain’t in as much pain as I was before and I can make it to the bathroom on my own -- too bad for you,” I said winking at him and returning to my place on the couch.

“Darn, what a shame,” Dally said sarcastically. The off thing about what he said was that I knew he wasn’t being completely sarcastic. And it made me insane.

“What’s up?” I asked, “Why are you here?”

“Can’t a guy just stop by to see how his lady buddy is doing?”

“Not after the last time you showed up unexpectedly on my birthday, douche.”

“Oh my, I didn’t realize you had this problem with calling people names, Elaine,” He paused. “But honestly, I was just checkin’ to see how you’re doin’.”

I nodded then shrugged. “I guess I’m alright. I’m still breathin’, ain’t I? You gotta cancer stick, Dally? I ain’t had one all day.” And that was the truth, too. I hadn’t had a cigarette all day. Then again, I hadn’t been up longer than half an hour.

“Sure thing,” He said, pulling two cigarettes out of his jean jacket pocket. “You wanna go fer a walk or somethin’? You look like you need out of the house for a bit.”

Dally was right. I did need out of the house. I had been inside damn near all week. Even before that, I was condemned in the hospital for a week. I was itchin’ to go somewhere -- even if it were just around the block for a minute. It was still something to do. Without hesitation, I followed Dal outside. We got to the end of the street before he started cussing at me for walking too slow; not realizing that I was incapable of walking fast right now.

“You walk like an old lady,” He groaned, “can’t ya walk any faster?”

“No,” I bluntly replied. “No, I cannot.” I sat Indian-style on the corner. I wasn’t planning on moving anytime soon either. Dallas Winston would just have to wait to take his walk...I needed to rest. We sat there for a while, talked, smoked cigarettes, almost jumped a few socs for calling us hoods. This is going to sound crazy, but I didn’t see Dally as a hood. Sure, he caused trouble left and right, said crude things and beat up people. But to me, I thought hoods were more dangerous. Don’t get me wrong, Dally was dangerous and I knew that he was too. Just...he secretly had a soft side and that was the side I was seeing now.

“D-Do you ever miss your home?” Dally stammered.

I took a long, hard drag off my cigarette and shook my head. “What’s there to miss?” I asked, “I got molested and abused. Sounds like a fantastic life back home, huh?” It really did pain me to talk about the things my old man did. I felt like I was reliving ‘em. It caused me to be a nervous wreck, to shake uncontrollably, to have nightmares. All I did was put on a brave face for everyone. One thing I learned since living on the east side of Tulsa. You had to be tuff and act tough, otherwise you might as well commit suicide or something because you sure as hell wouldn’t make it out alive here. I glanced at Dally and took a deep breath, “Do you miss New York?”

I didn’t know much about Dally’s New York life, other than that he lived there for a few years and was in the cooler for a little bit. He’s seen some stuff he shouldn’t have. He’s done some stuff he shouldn’t have. It made him all the more appealing to me.

“There’s nothing to miss there either,” He began. “Yeah, the girls were cute, money was good, it was a rough place. You couldn’t walk down the street without seeing someone getting mugged or shot or stabbed to death. Ain’t a place you wanna be. You think it’s bad here, go to New York -- it’ll make Oklahoma look like something outta a movie.”

“Sounds dangerous,” I said flicking my cigarette butt into the road. “I like dangerous.” I didn’t just like danger, however. I loved it. I loved thrill. I never really showed it, but it was in me somewhere, somewhere deep deep down. Dallas just laughed and we continued our walk. We really opened up to one another during that walk. It was nice, almost like I broke through Dally’s tough guy shell; something I couldn’t even begin to explain. After that walk, we began buddying around a lot more, to a point where we were together nearly everyday. We did everything together. We made fun of socs, we chased around little kids, we even went to the bar together where all the “magic” started. Hell, I was acting like a natural-born hood. It felt great. Spending all this time with Dallas Winston made me feel weird. But it wasn’t a bad weird. It was almost like I was infatuated with him; all I wanted to do was be with him, be close to him. The way we sometimes acted around everyone, you probably would have guessed that Dal and I were together. It was officially safe to say that I took a liking to him, and not just in a pal type of way. I kept telling myself not to get involved with him because he was bad news. But you could say that I don’t listen very well because I just kept on getting closer with him.