A Dallas Winston story with backstory from his life.
One sided Jally.
Right from the start, Dallas Tucker Winston had a hard life, he never expected it to be this hard though... and now he's trapped as a ghost because one kid won't let go... and h...
The Curtis house always reminded me of some good and some bad memories, and I wouldn't be doing this if it weren't for the kid who ain't a kid no more, since he's seen too much of what the world can do to you when luck is stacked against you and you're just another name in an unfair system.
The Curtis house reminds me of Johnny.
And that ain't easy. Shit. I ain't cryin' - I still ain't gone soft, that's for kids like Pony, kids like Johnny, not me.
It was here that I met Johnny, and it was here that I made my home.
I mean, there's just something about this place that calls me home, maybe it's cause of Johnny, he was here near every night, as was I - I came for Johnny, but stayed for the good food and the sense of worth and belonging I got with the gang.
That sense of belonging and not belonging was always playing out a little war inside my head, I never could tell if people around me actually cared for real bout me, I knew for certs that my ol'man wouldn't care if I wound up dead in a ditch somewhere, my insecurities from past wrongs, past abuse, made me doubt everyone and their motives. The first time I ever met Mrs. Curtis, for example, I was completely concerned that she'd cared about me enough to take me in, they'd been struggling making ends meet and all, then there were about four more boys she cared for. Mrs. Curtis was the kindest woman ever to walk the earth, when she died, a little part of me died too. I still got a picture - well, I did, of Mrs. Curtis and I, she was hugging me something awful, but somehow it felt right.
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The first time I met her and her family, I felt as if I'd come home from a nightmare.
Then that nightmare won out.
I attended their funerals, but even then, no tears came to me.
Now I was back, sort of, staring at the house where it had all happened, where my journey had took a sharp detour down a road of the unknown. I felt truly safe there, till that day.
I guess they trusted me enough to babysit the littlest Curtis, I wasn't too interested, but Mrs. Curtis had asked and try as I might, I could never say no to that woman, all I felt from her was acceptance, a sense that she knew of my brokenness, but loved me even with all of my flaws. I wanted to do right by her. So I was babysitting the kid, not hating a child for once cause with Ponyboy it was different, he wasn't as demanding, as whiny, he didn't pitch fits, it was easy being round him, though I could tell how I scared him.
Then it happened.
I was sat on the porch swing and Pony was sat on the other side, pencil in hand, drawing, lord knows what, when Darry came home with a shattered look in his eyes.
I don't think he understood, it shattered me just as it did them.
It was a Greaser's luck, or lack there of, that started it into a string of bad events.
Starting with the jumping of Johnny by them Socs.
Here's an idea... I wonder if I could haunt em. Would serve those bastards right. I'm a ghost, but I ain't lost my ability to be terrifying.
There was a sense of belonging there that I never felt anywhere else, there was always a place at the table, on the rundown couch... actually, as I look around with inquisitive eyes, lighting a cancer stick, I notice it's more rundown than ever, Darry ain't doing what he used to, nobody is, and there's a Sodapop shaped hole cut deep in everyone's hearts, this feeling of emptiness that comes with loss.
Ponyboy comes from his room and he don't look like Ponyboy.
It's such a startling sight that I try and talk to him, only to find, he can't hear me.
