i could hold you in the dark

1.

The whole gang was crammed in the bed of Darry's Chevy pick up truck, with Sodapop behind the wheel, driving at breakneck speed down the highway across Tulsa, Oklahoma, all the way to the other side of the city. Two-Bit had a friend who was pals with a guy that was opening his own bar there, and all drinks were on the house just for tonight. That was enough for everyone, often too short on cash to do all the bar-hopping they wanted on the weekends. Steve rolled down the window in the passenger seat when they reached a Soc-looking neighborhood, all nice well painted houses and neatly mowed lawns, no pieces of junk strewn around. He let out a loud hoot, and heard his friends do the same a few seconds later, laughing all the while. The fresh night air hit his face and he smiled; on nights like these, he felt high off youth, invincible, like nothing in the world could ever touch him. Beside him, Soda threw his head back in laughter and pressed down on the gas.

The bar was almost on the outskirts of the city, a two-story building painted white and blue with a neon sign hanging above the door displaying its name, Chuck's. There were other cars parked, some looking posh enough to belong to Socs, and Steve exchanged a glance with Soda. His friend shrugged, probably thinking they were enough Greasers to take any Socs down in a fight if it happened. The truck bounced as Two-Bit and Dally hopped down from the bed, Johnny Cade and Ponyboy following suit. It was the first time the two youngest Greasers ever went to a bar, so this night was kind of a baptism for them, which meant they were in for getting smashed drunk on free booze until they threw up on the side of the building. Steve remembered his own from a few years back, with Sodapop by his side. Darry had been the one to take them both bar-hopping with his first pay from fixing roofs. By the third shot, Soda was too drunk to even talk, but Steve hadn't even felt a little buzzed, already used to draining the last two fingers that remained at the bottom of his old man's bottles that he picked up off the floor before he picked the old man himself and threw him unceremoniously on the couch.

Now, if Darry knew that they were all the way across the city, with his truck and taking his fourteen year old baby brother for a night of flowing booze and dancing, he'd skin them alive. But what Darry didn't know wouldn't hurt him; that night he had come back to the Curtis home exhausted from work and barely mumbled a hello to the gang getting ready to go out before he disappeared down the hallway towards his bedroom.

So here they were.

Steve and Soda finally got out of the truck and joined the others, walking inside the establishment like they owned it. Steve could still smell the fresh paint of the walls under the mingling smell of teenage boy cologne, sweat, and Jack Daniels. It was packed; there were some Greasers that he knew from around town and nodded back to Steve when they saw him, as well as others he didn't know. The Socs that those cars outside probably belonged to were hovering over the jukebox placed on the other side of the bar, well away from the Greasers, wasting mommy and daddy's coins to play shitty music. Steve scoffed, grabbing Soda by the wrist and tugging him to the counter. By the time they reached it, they had already lost Two-Bit to a gaggle of tuff-looking guys blowing cigarette smoke to the ceiling and Dally to a stray Soc girl leaning on the wall next to the entrance door, sipping on her drink and coyly playing with her hair while Dally chatted her up.

Johnny and Ponyboy looked out of place, and they were. While the latter had started to fill out this past few months and was starting to look like a proper Greaser should, Johnny still had a baby face even though he'd deny it to death, that made you want to ask him what his bedtime was. Steve asked him regularly, just to piss him off. Now, under the shifting neon lights, he asked the boys what they'd like to drink. Sodapop was already perched on a stool, observing the improvised dance floor, a bottle of beer in hand. Steve guessed the bar owner, Chuck, was the guy behind the counter and he raised two fingers, calling for a round of shots over the loud music. Chuck eyed the younger boys for a moment before he shrugged and poured them the shots, along with slices of lemon and a little bit of salt.