by SE Hinton
The meaning of that last line finally hit me. “You mean . . .”—I swallowed hard—“that they’re thinking about putting me and Soda in a boys’ home or something?”
Steve was carefully combing back his hair in complicated swirls. “Somethin’ like that.”
I sat down in a daze. We couldn’t get hauled off now. Not after me and Darry had finally got through to each other, and now that the big rumble was coming up and we would settle this Soc-greaser thing once and for all. Not now, when Johnny needed us and Dally was still in the hospital and wouldn’t be out for the rumble.
“No,” I said out loud, and Two-Bit, who was scraping the egg off the clock, turned to stare at me.
“No what?”
“No, they ain’t goin’ to put us in a boys’ home.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Steve said, cocksure that he and Sodapop could handle anything that came up. “They don’t do things like that to heroes. Where’re Soda and Superman?”
That was as far as he got, because Darry, shaved and dressed, came in behind Steve and lifted him up off the floor, then dropped him. We all call Darry “Superman” or “Muscles” at one time or another; but one time Steve made the mistake of referring to him as “all brawn and no brain,” and Darry almost shattered Steve’s jaw. Steve didn’t call him that again, but Darry never forgave him; Darry has never really gotten over not going to college. That was the only time I’ve ever seen Soda mad at Steve, although Soda attaches no importance to education. School bored him. No action.
Soda came running in. “Where’s that blue shirt I washed yesterday?” He took a swig of chocolate milk out of the container.
“Hate to tell you, buddy,” Steve said, still flat on the floor, “but you have to wear clothes to work. There’s a law or something.”
“Oh, yeah,” Soda said. “Where’re those wheat jeans, too?”
“I ironed. They’re in my closet,” Darry said. “Hurry up, you’re gonna be late.”
Soda ran back, muttering, “I’m hurryin’, I’m hurryin’.”
Steve followed him and in a second there was the general racket of a pillow fight. I absent-mindedly watched Darry as he searched the icebox for chocolate cake.
“Darry,” I said suddenly, “did you know about the juvenile court?”
Without turning to look at me he said evenly, “Yeah, the cops told me last night.”
I knew then that he realized we might get separated. I didn’t want to worry him any more, but I said, “I had one of those dreams last night. The one I can’t ever remember.”
Darry spun around to face me, genuine fear on his face. “What?”
I had a nightmare the night of Mom and Dad’s funeral. I’d had nightmares and wild dreams every once in a while when I was little, but nothing like this one. I woke up screaming bloody murder. And I never could remember what it was that had scared me. It scared Sodapop and Darry almost as bad as it scared me; for night after night, for weeks on end, I would dream this dream and wake up in a cold sweat or screaming. And I never could remember exactly what happened in it. Soda began sleeping with me, and it stopped recurring so often, but it happened often enough for Darry to take me to a doctor. The doctor said I had too much imagination. He had a simple cure, too: Study harder, read more, draw more, and play football more. After a hard game of football and four or five hours of reading, I was too exhausted, mentally and physically, to dream anything. But Darry never got over it, and every once in a while he would ask me if I ever dreamed any more.
“Was it very bad?” Two-Bit questioned. He knew the whole story, and having never dreamed about anything but blondes, he was interested.
“No,” I lied. I had awakened in a cold sweat and shivering, but Soda was dead to the world. I had just wiggled closer to him and stayed awake for a couple of hours, trembling under his arm. That dream always scared the heck out of me.
Darry started to say something, but before he could begin, Sodapop and Steve came in.
“You know what?” Sodapop said to no one in particular. “When we stomp the Socies good, me and Stevie here are gonna throw a big party and everybody can get stoned. Then we’ll go chase the Socs clear to Mexico.”
“Where you gonna get the dough, little man?” Darry had found the cake and was handing out pieces.
“I’ll think of somethin’,” Sodapop assured him between bites.
“You going to take Sandy to the party?” I asked, just to be saying something. Instant silence. I looked around. “What’s the deal?”
Sodapop was staring at his feet, but his ears were reddening. “No. She went to live with her grandmother in Florida.”
“How come?”
“Look,” Steve said, surprisingly angry, “does he have to draw you a picture? It was either that or get married, and her parents almost hit the roof at the idea of her marryin’ a sixteen-year-old kid.”
“Seventeen,” Soda said softly. “I’ll be seventeen in a couple of weeks.”
“Oh,” I said, embarrassed. Soda was no innocent; I had been in on bull sessions and his bragging was as loud as anyone’s. But never about Sandy. Not ever about Sandy. I remembered how her blue eyes had glowed when she looked at him, and I was sorry for her.
There was a heavy silence. Then Darry said, “We’d better get on to work, Pepsi-Cola.” Darry rarely called Soda by Dad’s pet nickname for him, but he did so then because he knew how miserable Sodapop was about Sandy.
“I hate to leave you here by yourself, Ponyboy,” Darry said slowly. “Maybe I ought to take the day off.”
“I’ve stayed by my lonesome before. You can’t afford a day off.”
“Yeah, but you just got back and I really ought to stay . . .”
“I’ll baby-sit him,” Two-Bit said, ducking as I took a swing at him. “I haven’t got anything better to do.”
“Why don’t you get a job?” Steve said. “Ever consider working for a living?”
“Work?” Two-Bit was aghast. “And ruin my rep? I wouldn’t be baby-sittin’ the kid here if I knew of some good day-nursery open on Saturdays.”
I pulled his chair over backward and jumped on him, but he had me down in a second. I was kind of short on wind. I’ve got to cut out smoking or I won’t make track next year.
“Holler uncle.”
“Nope,” I said, struggling, but I didn’t have my usual strength.
Darry was pulling on his jacket. “You two do up the dishes. You can go to the movies if you want to before you go see Dally and Johnny.” He paused for a second, watching Two-Bit squash the heck out of me. “Two-Bit, lay off. He ain’t lookin’ so good. Ponyboy, you take a couple of aspirins and go easy. You smoke more than a pack today and I’ll skin you. Understood?”
“Yeah,” I said, getting to my feet. “You carry more than one bundle of roofing at a time today and me and Soda’ll skin you. Understood?”
He grinned one of his rare grins. “Yeah. See y’all this afternoon.”
“Bye,” I said. I heard our Ford’s vvrrrrooooom and thought: Soda’s driving. And they left.
“ . . .anyway, I was walking around downtown and started to take this short cut through an alley”—Two-Bit was telling me about one of his many exploits while we did the dishes. I mean, while I did the dishes. He was sitting on the cabinet, sharpening that black-handled switchblade he was so proud of—“ . . .and I ran into three guys. I says ‘Howdy’ and they just look at each other. Then one says ‘We would jump you but since you’re as slick as us we figger you don’t have nothin’ worth takin’.’ I says ‘Buddy, that’s the truth’ and went right on. Moral: What’s the safest thing to be when one is met by a gang of social outcasts in an alley?”
“A judo expert?” I suggested.
“No, another social outcast!” Two-Bit yelped, and nearly fell off the cabinet from laughing so hard. I had to grin, too. He saw things straight and made them into something funny.
“We’re gonna clean up the house,” I said. “The reporters or po
lice or somebody might come by, and anyway, it’s time for those guys from the state to come by and check up on us.”
“This house ain’t messy. You oughtta see my house.”
“I have. And if you had the sense of a billy goat you’d try to help around your place instead of bumming around.”
“Shoot, kid, if I ever did that my mom would die of shock.”
I liked Two-Bit’s mother. She had the same good humor and easygoing ways that he did. She wasn’t lazy like him, but she let him get away with murder. I don’t know, though—it’s just about impossible to get mad at him.
When we had finished, I pulled on Dally’s brown leather jacket—the back was burned black—and we started for Tenth Street.
“I would drive us,” Two-Bit said as we walked up the street trying to thumb a ride, “but the brakes are out on my car. Almost killed me and Kathy the other night.” He flipped the collar of his black leather jacket up to serve as a windbreak while he lit a cigarette. “You oughtta see Kathy’s brother. Now there’s a hood. He’s so greasy he glides when he walks. He goes to the barber for an oil change, not a haircut.”
I would have laughed, but I had a terrific headache. We stopped at the Tasty Freeze to buy Cokes and rest up, and the blue Mustang that had been trailing us for eight blocks pulled in. I almost decided to run, and Two-Bit must have guessed this, for he shook his head ever so slightly and tossed me a cigarette. As I lit up, the Socs who had jumped Johnny and me at the park hopped out of the Mustang. I recognized Randy Adderson, Marcia’s boyfriend, and the tall guy that had almost drowned me. I hated them. It was their fault Bob was dead; their fault Johnny was dying; their fault Soda and I might get put in a boys’ home. I hated them as bitterly and as contemptuously as Dally Winston hated.
Two-Bit put an elbow on my shoulder and leaned against me, dragging on his cigarette. “You know the rules. No jazz before the rumble,” he said to the Socs.
“We know,” Randy said. He looked at me. “Come here. I want to talk to you.”
I glanced at Two-Bit. He shrugged. I followed Randy over to his car, out of earshot of the rest. We sat there in his car for a second, silent. Golly, that was the tuffest car I’ve ever been in.
“I read about you in the paper,” Randy said finally. “How come?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I felt like playing hero.”
“I wouldn’t have. I would have let those kids burn to death.”
“You might not have. You might have done the same thing.”
Randy pulled out a cigarette and pressed in the car lighter. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. I would never have believed a greaser could pull something like that.”
“‘Greaser’ didn’t have anything to do with it. My buddy over there wouldn’t have done it. Maybe you would have done the same thing, maybe a friend of yours wouldn’t have. It’s the individual.”
“I’m not going to show at the rumble tonight,” Randy said slowly.
I took a good look at him. He was seventeen or so, but he was already old. Like Dallas was old. Cherry had said her friends were too cool to feel anything, and yet she could remember watching sunsets. Randy was supposed to be too cool to feel anything, and yet there was pain in his eyes.
“I’m sick of all this. Sick and tired. Bob was a good guy. He was the best buddy a guy ever had. I mean, he was a good fighter and tuff and everything, but he was a real person too. You dig?”
I nodded.
“He’s dead—his mother has had a nervous breakdown. They spoiled him rotten. I mean, most parents would be proud of a kid like that—good-lookin’ and smart and everything, but they gave in to him all the time. He kept trying to make someone say ‘No’ and they never did. They never did. That was what he wanted. For somebody to tell him ‘No.’ To have somebody lay down the law, set the limits, give him something solid to stand on. That’s what we all want, really. One time . . .”—Randy tried to grin, but I could tell he was close to tears—“one time he came home drunker than anything. He thought sure they were gonna raise the roof. You know what they did? They thought it was something they’d done. They thought it was their fault—that they’d failed him and driven him to it or something. They took all the blame and didn’t do anything to him. If his old man had just belted him—just once, he might still be alive. I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I couldn’t tell anyone else. My friends—they’d think I was off my rocker or turning soft. Maybe I am. I just know that I’m sick of this whole mess. That kid—your buddy, the one that got burned—he might die?”
“Yeah,” I said, trying not to think about Johnny.
“And tonight . . . people get hurt in rumbles, maybe killed. I’m sick of it because it doesn’t do any good. You can’t win, you know that, don’t you?” And when I remained silent he went on: “You can’t win, even if you whip us. You’ll still be where you were before—at the bottom. And we’ll still be the lucky ones with all the breaks. So it doesn’t do any good, the fighting and the killing. It doesn’t prove a thing. We’ll forget it if you win, or if you don’t. Greasers will still be greasers and Socs will still be Socs. Sometimes I think it’s the ones in the middle that are really the lucky stiffs . . .” He took a deep breath. “So I’d fight if I thought it’d do any good. I think I’m going to leave town. Take my little old Mustang and all the dough I can carry and get out.”
“Running away won’t help.”
“Oh, hell, I know it,” Randy half-sobbed, “but what can I do? I’m marked chicken if I punk out at the rumble, and I’d hate myself if I didn’t. I don’t know what to do.”
“I’d help you if I could,” I said. I remembered Cherry’s voice: Things are rough all over. I knew then what she meant.
He looked at me. “No, you wouldn’t. I’m a Soc. You get a little money and the whole world hates you.”
“No,” I said, “you hate the whole world.”
He just looked at me—from the way he looked he could have been ten years older than he was. I got out of the car. “You would have saved those kids if you had been there,” I said. “You’d have saved them the same as we did.”
“Thanks, grease,” he said, trying to grin. Then he stopped. “I didn’t mean that. I meant, thanks, kid.”
“My name’s Ponyboy,” I said. “Nice talkin’ to you, Randy.”
I walked over to Two-Bit, and Randy honked for his friends to come and get into the car.
“What’d he want?” Two-Bit asked. “What’d Mr. Super-Soc have to say?”
“He ain’t a Soc,” I said, “he’s just a guy. He just wanted to talk.”
“You want to see a movie before we go see Johnny and Dallas?”
“Nope,” I said, lighting up another weed. I still had a headache, but I felt better. Socs were just guys after all. Things were rough all over, but it was better that way. That way you could tell the other guy was human too.
Chapter 8
THE NURSES WOULDN’T let us see Johnny. He was in critical condition. No visitors. But Two-Bit wouldn’t take no for an answer. That was his buddy in there and he aimed to see him. We both begged and pleaded, but we were getting nowhere until the doctor found out what was going on.
“Let them go in,” he said to the nurse. “He’s been asking for them. It can’t hurt now.”
Two-Bit didn’t notice the expression in his voice. It’s true, I thought numbly, he is dying. We went in, practically on tiptoe, because the quietness of the hospital scared us. Johnny was lying still, with his eyes closed, but when Two-Bit said, “Hey, Johnnykid,” he opened them and looked at us, trying to grin. “Hey, y’all.”
The nurse, who was pulling the shades open, smiled and said, “So he can talk after all.”
Two-Bit looked around. “They treatin’ you okay, kid?”
“Don’t . . .”—Johnny gasped—“don’t let me put enough grease on my hair.”
“Don’t talk,” Two-Bit said, pulling up a chair, “just listen. We’ll bring you some hair grea
se next time. We’re havin’ the big rumble tonight.”
Johnny’s huge black eyes widened a little, but he didn’t say anything.
“It’s too bad you and Dally can’t be in it. It’s the first big rumble we’ve had—not countin’ the time we whipped Shepard’s outfit.”
“He came by,” Johnny said.
“Tim Shepard?”
Johnny nodded. “Came to see Dally.”
Tim and Dallas had always been buddies.
“Did you know you got your name in the paper for being a hero?”
Johnny almost grinned as he nodded. “Tuff enough,” he managed, and by the way his eyes were glowing, I figured Southern gentlemen had nothing on Johnny Cade.
I could see that even a few words were tiring him out; he was as pale as the pillow and looked awful. Two-Bit pretended not to notice.
“You want anything besides hair grease, kid?”
Johnny barely nodded. “The book”—he looked at me—“can you get another one?”
Two-Bit looked at me too. I hadn’t told him about Gone with the Wind.
“He wants a copy of Gone with the Wind so I can read it to him,” I explained. “You want to run down to the drugstore and get one?”
“Okay,” Two-Bit said cheerfully. “Don’t y’all run off.”
I sat down in Two-Bit’s chair and tried to think of something to say. “Dally’s gonna be okay,” I said finally. “And Darry and me, we’re okay now.”
I knew Johnny understood what I meant. We had always been close buddies, and those lonely days in the church strengthened our friendship. He tried to smile again, and then suddenly went white and closed his eyes tight.
“Johnny!” I said, alarmed. “Are you okay?”
He nodded, keeping his eyes closed. “Yeah, it just hurts sometimes. It usually don’t . . . I can’t feel anything below the middle of my back . . .”