Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
When Darrel Curtis Jr. was four years old, he learned he was going to be a big brother again. All of a sudden, there was the fear of another war brewing in the Curtis house: Darrel Jr. versus two squalling baby boys. No drafts this time, no backup. It was a one-man battle.
There was no question about it: young Darrel was going to have another little brother. His father's side of the family only had boys (his grandfather had five brothers and all of them had sons). Darry remembered when his mother had her second pregnancy, his father gave a hearty laugh and promised the baby would be a boy. And that baby was Sodapop. It was almost a no-brainer and they had already begun discussing boy names at six months. Darry saw how his mother's face glowed like the sun and the horror of a battle-torn home faded with that joy.
Then to the surprise of not just the family, but the entire neighborhood, a little girl was born. The storm broke and the Great War began.
At the age of four, Darrel didn't have any real fondness for the girls at school, much less one invading his home For nearly two months, he prayed to God that he would have a brother and instead he got a hair-pulling baby sister who coincidentally broke into tears whenever she was placed into his arms. For a year after that, he had resented that squalling, writhing child and had tried on more than one occasion to stick a postal stamp on her and leave her out on the porch for the mail carrier to take.
With a little sister, there also came the tightening of his role as big brother. He had to watch out for her in school, make sure no one was picking on her in their rough neighborhood, and when the time would come, he would assist his father in selecting a good husband for her to keep her well off. Darry didn't want any part of that trouble. Until one night.
When Sodapop came down with the chickenpox and was tended to by their mother, Virginia had been crying one rough and painfully fatiguing night. After a long day at school, all Darry wanted was to finish his grammar homework and sleep. Her crib was in Sodapop's room and while her brother had slept with their parents until his pox was over, she had been filling the tiny space with her high-pitched cries. Finally fed up, Darry marched over to the bedroom (to strangle her perhaps) and peered over the wall of the crib with a great, big scowl on his face.
His frown softened when he realized she stopped crying and smiled up at him.
Suddenly, every thread of hatred disappeared in young Darry's body. He understood the joy his mother had and he spent the rest of that night with his little sister, all the while making a promise to himself that she would never be hurt, not as long as he was alive. Maybe it was the reminder of that promise, the return of that warm feeling that spread in his chest that night, or the fact that the one man whom he had sworn he would never let near his little sister was the one groping her in the dark courtyard, but Darrel Curtis saw red.
Virginia barely had time to cover herself, much less breathe as the mixture of shock and horror bubbled inside of her, before Darry's body crashed into Dallas's with such force that she, too, was knocked to the ground by someone's flailing arm.
