The Golden and the Tarnish

Chapter 22: The Tarnished Minority

The room is small and square, with two plastic chairs, a table and an empty water dispenser. The window is cracked, allowing a faint but pleasant smell of moisture into the room. The walls are cream and bare, the corners curling inward where the cheap wallpaper is beginning to peel and rot. The light outside is now fading, the watery sun shining a single, dust-laden bar of brightness into the room.

I pull out one of the chairs and sit down, my body immediately uncomfortable, my tongue already asking for a drink of water. I tap my fingers against my jeans. The skin is moist and hot. I wipe my hands roughly while watching the window of the office's door. A woman with blonde hair tied into a strange twist and blue eyes held the phone's receiver against her ear. 

She was my social worker. Simply speaking, she was plain. Ultimately didn't care for what happens to me. She probably did this so many times that she acted more bored. Probably couldn't wait to go back to her family.

The white woman places the phone down. She had the same bored look on her face as she opens the window. Shutting it without twisting knob, her heels clicks against the floor. 

"So Anita, I called your aunt." She says chewing her gum. "She said she would take you in."

I was at a loss of words. My entire life here was gone. 

The blue eyed woman looks at me almost like she was expected something. Some sort of reaction. Maybe happiness, shock, anger, or rebellion. I was simply empty. 

I guess bottling up my feelings for such a long time had finally back fired on me.  I had finally come to terms with what had happened. What my current circumstance. My father was dead, my mother a living corpse, Buddy was locked up, Kenny has disappeared, and she was the shell of her former self. She had sold her soul to fit in. 

Maybe I should have done the same thing.

Then the good in my life had fell onto my frail shoulders. Just when things with Ponyboy and the Curtis' were getting better. Just when me and him started to rekindle our friendship. 

In a desperate attempt to hold the cracking bottle, I shut my eyes and bring my hands against my face. However the pain came out like an uproar from my throat in the form of a silent scream.

The tears burst forth like water from a dam, spilling down my face. I feel the muscles of my chin tremble like a small child and I look toward the window, as if the light could soothe me. There is static in my head once more, the side effect of this constant fear, constant stress I live with. 

I hear my own sounds, like a distressed child, raw from the inside. It takes something out of me I didn't know I had left to give. That's the way it is when people are hard. It's like a theft of the spirit, an injury no other person can see.

Through my tears, pain, and hurt the woman simply continued to chew that gum with a satisfied look on her face. Not one of sadism or pleasure in my pain. More like a had check an expectation of hers.

  ---  

All I truly wanted at the moment was someone to hold me.

I vacantly stared at the cars driving in front of the Girl's Home. My eyes felt dry and my chest felt slightly lighter. But my mind constant thought of what I would tell Ponyboy. Would he feel sad? Would he be angered? Would he even care?

No, Ponyboy would. He always did. 

My eyes fall on two bodies pressed against each other. The male had his face buried against the girls neck. She held his head pressing him closer. His head moved to her face. They moved in a constant pattern. He was probably kissing her. 

I realized I never kissed a boy before. 

It never really occurred to me. I was always caught up on taking care of my mother and sister that I realize that I hadn't taken care of myself in a long time. Maybe I never did. 

As the two had pulled away from each other, I see the boy's face. Its was Dallas. He was kissing one of the girls from the previous night. The one who had pointed me out to her friend. She was white, with sun-kissed blonde hair and big blue eyes.

Isn't that what guys want? Beautiful white women. 

Is that was Ponyboy wants? He likes that girl Cherry. She was beautiful white woman. With her red hair, she caught all those men's attention. The kind of attention that would want someone to take her out for dinner.

I had got attention from the random Mexican or black men who usually worked on the streets as a construction workers or some other labor. Those didn't make me feel anything but disgust. Of course a girl like her wouldn't get that kind of attention. 

I watch as the white girl pulls away from Dally and waves at him. He gives a grin to her, watching her walk towards the stairs I sat at. She walks past me and enters the Home. 

"Hey Dally", I call out. 

He squints at me, seeming to try to remember my face. Was I seriously that unrecognizable? He walks over and sits on the step, next to me. He pulls out a cancer stick and puts it into his mouth. 

"Did you hear from Mel?" I ask. He looks at from the corner of his eye. He nods. 

Dally and I have a strange relationship. Sometimes he would tease me or just silently sit next to me like now. Usually I would be silently sitting as well. But maybe because today I know would be my last day, I felt like talking.

"I'm leaving to Stilwater." 

He pulls the stick out of his mouth and turns fully to me, "Why?"

"My Ma can't take care of me and Mel isn't old enough." I explain. He nods and takes a puff of his cigarette. 

I pull out my own and he gives me a match. I started it with the corner of the step. It flare into a small flame and I place the other end into it. I watch as it blackens. 

After taking a couple of puffs, I felt a bit better.

"It's probably good." Dal comments. "You wouldn't last another day in there."

Wiping my nose with my sleeve, I grimace. He of course doesn't care. We weren't friends, merely just mutually polite to one another. We always had that, so I shouldn't be disappointed by that comment. 

I stand, wiping the seat of my pants. Throwing the stick and stepping on it, I give Dallas a nod. He returns it with his own. Starting towards my neighborhood I hear Dally call for me. 

"Goodbye Anita." He says, with an indistinguishable look in his eye. 

Maybe, just maybe he will miss me. And maybe I would miss him.