A Girl in New York (Pre/Sequel to The Outsiders: A Girl in the Gang)

Chapter 14- Don't Depend On Anyone Else

         The only reason I didn’t worry about Dally being dead in a back alley or thrown in a dumpster somewhere was because I saw him about every two days.  He’d be at our apartment one night when I came in, but then he’d be gone the next morning and the next night, and the morning after that.  But he always came back, and occasionally, when I was home, I would find signs of him having been there.  Maybe some more food in the stock we kept in our room, or it took a couple extra days for our parents to start arguing and fighting about some bill or another cause Dally had paid it with money he got from who knows where.

        He was always taking care of me, and I never gave it a second thought.  Until the next morning when I was woken up to the phone ringing.

        I lay on my mattress, covered in three blankets cause they were so thin they barely kept me warm and wondered which one of our parents I’d hear stumbling around to answer the phone first.  I heard our mother tripping over something as she made her way through the filthy house.

        I could always tell when it was her, she didn’t make the whole two-bedroom apartment shake or bellow swear words when she tripped and fell, unlike our father.

        The phone stopped ringing, as she answered it, I’d assume, and then a few seconds later I heard her bawling.  It could be the side effects of one of the billion drugs she was on, or something was wrong.  Either way I didn’t care, it wasn’t any of my business.  Or so I thought.

        I had decided to ditch school after lunch that day, seeing as how I wasn’t missing anything extremely important except for double-digit addition which I could do without a problem way before we even started that unit.  I was a smart kid in school, but I didn’t like any of my teachers, ever, so I ignored them every time they asked a question.  Eventually they gave up, but not without a few more trips to the guidance counselor or principal’s office.  But  no one would miss me anyways, I was freaking seven years old and ignored by basically everyone.

        Wandering the streets away from school and home, I overheard a group of guys about eleven or twelve that I had noticed Dally talking to the few times I saw him away from home.  Usually I wouldn’t bother listening, but I heard ‘Dally’ and ‘gun’ in the same sentence and grew curious, stopping and ducking behind the corner of a building, peering around it at their huddle on the sidewalk.

        “What did Dally do?” one of the boys asked, like he couldn’t quite believe what he had just heard.

        "Last night, he stole his old man’s rifle and went around town blowing people’s heads off,” the second of the three boys said, and for some reason, it didn’t sound as farfetched as it should have.

        “No way!” Boy Number Three exclaimed.

        “Well he didn’t really kill anyone, but he shot a policeman’s car,” Number Two modified his exaggeration.

        “I wish I would’ve seen that,” Boy Number One of the trio said, sounding a bit envious.

        “He did it all right, I saw it,” the second boy bragged.  “The cops caught him and who knows what they’re doing to him now,” he added.

        My gut clenched in fear.  If my brother was in jail…the sound of the ringing phone that morning flashed in my mind and I headed home, hurrying along the sidewalk against the nipping cold.

        I slammed the door open, looking around.  Sure enough, our father’s rifle wasn’t where he usually kept it leaned up against the wall by the front door.  I didn’t know how I could find out for sure what had happened, but taking the word of three adolescent boys wasn’t going to cut it. 

        I would ask my mother, but seeing as how she was drugged up and nearly passed out, sprawled across the couch, I knew I wouldn’t get much information from her.  But it was worth a try, so I sat cross-legged on the floor in front of her, by her head, so I was looking right at her…eyelids.

        “What was that phone call about this morning?” I asked a bit louder than necessary to get her attention, but still trying to sound unconcerned.

        No answer, as I had expected, but I prodded again.

        “Hey, why did you get a phone call this morning?”

        She moaned in response and shifted on the couch, and I rolled my eyes and decided that it must have been the police station telling her her son was in jail for stealing a firearm and—what, assaulting an officer?—and that was why she’d broken down in tears.  My seven-year-old brain couldn’t think of anything more complicated than that, but as it turned out later, I was right.

        My big brother, though he was only ten, was in jail.  He was ten!  And I had no idea what to do about it, if anything.  I had always counted on him to take care of me, but seeing as how I had no idea where the police station was, I couldn’t really go see, or even take an educated guess, as to when he would be out.

        I suppose I couldn’t count on him to do anything for me anymore, and about then is when I decided that it wasn’t safe to depend on anyone else for anything.  Ever.