Chapter Text
July, California 1975.
Camera Interview:
“When the doctors told me that I was going to die, I wrote a letter to Ponyboy..." Johnny Cade leant back on an old patchwork couch, less slouchier than he used to sit though similarly fidgety. Sometimes it did still hurt. He appeared wiry and solemn on grainy 8mm footage, eyes wide like his teenaged face that was once pictured in the local paper for being a murderer, and a hero. "Well, a nurse helped me write it really, back then I couldn’t sit up right without it hurting real bad. You know what I mean? Got burnt up pretty bad.” The scar on his temple remained mostly the same, embedded into his skin like it was just as much part of his face as his eyes or the small bump on his nose. He had grown to be a little taller, broad shouldered in the way that a man of twenty six ought to be. Those old burn scars grew like ivy around his hands and crawled up the back of his neck, peaking out through the collar of his sweater.
A young woman who bared a name awful similar to his own sat across from him. That would be Junie. Junie and Johnny. It had been quite funny when he first heard it, akin to a bad hippie-dippie Beatles track. Unsure of whether to look back at her or at the old camera propped up on the table beside her, round dog eyes darted between the face interviewing him and the secondhand equipment that had seen better days. Weathered and well loved, it looked a bit like the one that Mr Curtis once owned. Johnny fixed his gaze on the motel ceiling fan instead.
“You wrote a letter to Ponyboy?” The young woman prompted. “He must have been an important friend to you then, writing to him in a time like that?”
Johnny felt his brows disappear under his shaggy bangs for a quick second, fidgeting absentmindedly with his bottom lip. “Sure.” He nodded slowly, shifting his eyes from the popcorn ceiling back to Junie. “Pone’s a good buddy. At the time I remember feeling like death was right around the corner and that if anyone was going to make it out of our hometown it would be Ponyboy. I only hoped for him that he’d stay good, all clouds and colours and stuff like he was. He told me ‘bout this Robert Frost poem that meant a lot to me at the time. I guess I just couldn’t stop thinking about it.” He surprised himself talking as much as he had just done. “Yup, Ponyboy was a good kid.” He stared down blankly at his hands, bumpy with scars that never healed over quite right.
With a small sigh, shifting in his seat he glanced over at the floral wallpaper behind the camera, figuring that it was miles prettier a sight than his hands, aged beyond his years. The wallpaper, a warm tone of terracotta made the tiny motel suite reminiscent of autumn leaves even in the middle of July.
Johnny shrugged, and cracked a knot in his neck to alleviate the stiff feeling. “I ain’t been asked about all this stuff in years, it’s coming back to me now but I didn’t expect it to feel so weird… You know… It’s not easy to live with something like what I done.” He admitted quietly.
Junie looked him once over, then promptly leant over to pause the recording equipment. “You’re upset.” She more stated than asked. “We can take a break, if you’d like?”
Johnny rubbed his face, resting his elbows on his knees. He knew better than to start slouching again. “Yeah.” He nodded, “It’s just, when death kind of grips around you, you get that way, declaring all kinds of things and trying to say something worthwhile before it’s all over especially when you’re not ready for it. I mean, I sure wasn’t. Hell, I thought I was at one point in time, but I wasn’t. Not really anyway.”
“Well…” Junie pondered, allowing for the silence to linger comfortably between them. “Who would be?”
Johnny only shrugged. “I was pretty bad off, huh? Them doctors said I’d probably never be able to walk again but I guess they were wrong about that.”
Junie slowly nodded. “I think I read that in the paper, yeah.” She thought out loud. From California down to Tulsa, she had practically been on a road trip or wild goose chase rather to find him, travelling from state to state after a man on the run. The mess had begun back in December having uncovered a yellowed newspaper clipping. The headline, ‘Delinquent Youths Turn Heros’ that of which instigated the long train ride from California in the first place.
⭑
Mid December, Tulsa 1974
“What are you, some kind of nosy true crime fan? Get outta here, I’m not talking to no reporters and Johnny Cade ain’t here, he’s dead. So beat it.”
Darry Curtis had slammed the door right in Junie’s face when she arrived at the Curtis House, having found the address thanks to the Yellow Pages and some asking around.
“Mr Curtis! Hey!” She called through the mail slot. “I’m not a reporter, I’m a film student. I don’t mean to give you a hard time, really. I just wanted to talk.”
A stray dog barked in the distance and Junie sighed, watching the Christmas lights strung up at the front of the house blink as though they were laughing right in her face. Teasing and blinking. No response came from inside the house other than a distant, disgruntled, “Get lost!”
She huffed, her disappointed breath coming out in cold misty puffs. “Shoot, you must be lying Mr Curtis, Johnny Cade isn’t dead.” she grumbled to herself, kicking up gravel as she left the Curtis property, hoping that she hadn’t travelled all this way for nothing.