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the outsiders s e hinton chapter 1 when i stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house i had only two things on my mind paul newman and a ride home i was wishing i looked like paul newman he looks tough and i don t but i guess my own looks aren t so bad i have light-brown almost-red hair and greenish-gray eyes i wish they were more gray because i hate most guys that have green eyes but i have to be content with what i have my hair is longer than a lot of boys wear theirs squared off in back and long at the front and sides but i am a greaser and most of my neighborhood rarely bothers to get a haircut besides i look better with long hair i had a long walk home and no company but i usually lone it anyway for no reason except that i like to watch movies undisturbed so i can get into them and live them with the actors when i see a movie with someone it s kind of uncomfortable like having someone read your book over your shoulder i m different that way i mean my second-oldest brother soda who is sixteen-going-on-seventeen never cracks a book at all and my oldest brother darrel who we call darry works too long and hard to be interested in a story or drawing a picture so i m not like them and nobody in our gang digs movies and books the way i do for a while there i thought i was the only person in the world that did so i loned it soda tries to understand at least which is more than darry does but then soda is different from anybody he understands everything almost like he s never hollering at me all the time the way darry is or treating me as if i was six instead of fourteen i love soda more than i ve ever loved anyone even mom and dad he s always happy-go-lucky and grinning while darry s hard and firm and rarely grins at all but then darry s gone through a lot in his twenty years grown up too fast sodapop ll never grow up at all i don t know which way s the best i ll find out one of these days anyway i went on walking home thinking about the movie and then suddenly wishing i had some company greasers can t walk alone too much or they ll get jumped or someone will come by and scream greaser at them which doesn t make you feel too hot if you know what i mean we get jumped by the socs i m not sure how you spell it but it s the abbreviation for the socials the jet set the west-side rich kids it s like the term greaser which is used to class all us boys on the east side we re poorer than the socs and the middle class i reckon we re wilder too not like the socs who jump greasers and wreck houses and throw beer blasts for kicks and get editorials in the paper for being a public disgrace one day and an asset to society the next greasers are almost like hoods we steal things and drive old souped-up cars and hold up gas stations and have a gang fight once in a while i don t mean i do things like that darry would kill me if i got into trouble with the police since mom and dad were killed in an auto wreck the three of us get to stay together only as long as we behave so soda and i stay out of trouble as much as we can and we re careful not to get caught when we can t i only mean that most greasers do things like that just like we wear our hair long and dress in blue jeans and t-shirts or leave our shirttails out and wear leather jackets and tennis shoes or boots i m not saying that either socs orgreasers are better that s just the way things are i could have waited to go to the movies until darry or sodapop got off work they would have gone with me or driven me there or walked along although soda just can t sit still long enough to enjoy a movie and they bore darry to death darry thinks his life is enough without inspecting other people s or i could have gotten one of the gang to come along one of the four boys darry and soda and i have grown up with and consider family we re almost as close as brothers when you grow up in a tight-knit neighborhood like ours you get to know each other real well if i had thought about it i could have called darry and he would have come by on his way home and picked me up or two-bit mathews one of our gang would have come to get me in his car if i had asked him but sometimes i just don t use my head it drives my brother darry nuts when i do stuff like that cause i m supposed to be smart i make good grades and have a high iq and everything but i don t use my head besides i like walking i about decided i didn t like it so much though when i spotted that red corvair trailing me i was almost two blocks from home then so i started walking a little faster i had never been jumped but i had seen johnny after four socs got hold of him and it wasn t pretty johnny was scared of his own shadow after that johnny was sixteen then.

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i knew it wasn t any use though the fast walking i mean even before the corvair pulled up beside me and five socs got out i got pretty scared i m kind of small for fourteen even though i have a good build and those guys were bigger than me i automatically hitched my thumbs in my jeans and slouched wondering if i could get away if i made a break for it i remembered johnny his face all cut up and bruised and i remembered how he had cried when we found him half-conscious in the comer lot johnny had it awful rough at home it took a lot to make him cry i was sweating something fierce although i was cold i could feel my palms getting clammy and the perspiration running down my back i get like that when i m real scared i glanced around for a pop bottle or a stick or something steve randle soda s best buddy had once held off four guys with a busted pop bottle but there was nothing so i stood there like a bump on a log while they surrounded me i don t use my head they walked around slowly silently smiling hey grease one said in an over-friendly voice we re gonna do you a favor greaser we re gonna cut all that long greasy hair off he had on a madras shirt i can still see it blue madras one of them laughed then cussed me out in a low voice i couldn t think of anything to say there just isn t a whole lot you can say while waiting to get mugged so i kept my mouth shut need a haircut greaser the medium-sized blond pulled a knife out of his back pocket and flipped the blade open i finally thought of something to say no i was backing up away from that knife of course i backed right into one of them they had me down in a second they had my arms and legs pinned down and one of them was sitting on my chest with his knees on my elbows and if you don t think that hurts you re crazy i could smell english leather shaving lotion and stale tobacco and i wondered foolishly if i would suffocate before they did anything i was scared so bad i was wishing i would i fought to get loose and almost did for a second then they tightened up on me and the one on my chest slugged me a couple of times so i lay still swearing at them between gasps a blade was held against my throat how d you like that haircut to begin just below the chin it occurred to me then that they could kill me i went wild i started screaming for soda darry anyone someone put his hand over my mouth and i bit it as hard as i could tasting the blood running through my teeth i heard a muttered curse and got slugged again and they were stuffing a handkerchief in my mouth one of them kept saying shut him up for pete s sake shut him up then there were shouts and the pounding of feet and the socs jumped up and left me lying there gasping i lay there and wondered what in the world was happening people were jumping over me and running by me and i was too dazed to figure it out then someone had me under the armpits and was hauling me to my feet it was darry are you all right ponyboy he was shaking me and i wished he d stop i was dizzy enough anyway i could tell it was darry though partly because of the voice and partly because darry s always rough with me without meaning to be i m okay quit shaking me darry i m okay he stopped instantly i m sorry he wasn t really darry isn t ever sorry for anything he does it seems funny to me that he should look just exactly like my father and act exactly the opposite from him my father was only forty when he died and he looked twenty-five and a lot of people thought darry and dad were brothers instead of father and son but they only looked alike my father was never rough with anyone without meaning to be darry is six-feet-two and broad-shouldered and muscular he has dark-brown hair that kicks out in front and a slight cowlick in the back just like dad s but darry s eyes are his own he s got eyes that are like two pieces of pale blue-green ice they ve got a determined set to them like the rest of him he looks older than twenty tough cool and smart he would be real handsome if his eyes weren t so cold he doesn t understand anything that is not plain hard fact but he uses his head i sat down again rubbing my cheek where i d been slugged the most darry jammed his fists in his pockets they didn t hurt you too bad did they they did i was smarting and aching and my chest was sore and i was so nervous my hands were shaking and i wanted to start bawling but you just don t say that to darry i m okay sodapop came loping back by then i had figured that all the noise i had heard was the gang coming to rescue me he dropped down beside me examining my head you got cut up a little huh ponyboy

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i only looked at him blankly i did he pulled out a handkerchief wet the end of it with his tongue and pressed it gently against the side of my head you re bleedin like a stuck pig i am look he showed me the handkerchief reddened as if by magic did they pull a blade on you i remembered the voice need a haircut greaser the blade must have slipped while he was trying to shut me up yeah soda is handsomer than anyone else i know not like darry soda s movie-star kind of handsome the kind that people stop on the street to watch go by he s not as tall as darry and he s a little slimmer but he has a finely drawn sensitive face that somehow manages to be reckless and thoughtful at the same time he s got dark-gold hair that he combs back long and silky and straight and in the summer the sun bleaches it to a shining wheat gold his eyes are dark brown lively dancing recklessly laughing eyes that can be gentle and sympathetic one moment and blazing with anger the next he has dad s eyes but soda is one of a kind he can get drunk in a drag race or dancing without ever getting near alcohol in our neighborhood it s rare to find a kid who doesn t drink once in a while but soda never touches a drop he doesn t need to he gets drunk on just plain living and he understands everybody he looked at me more closely i looked away hurriedly because if you want to know the truth i was starting to bawl i knew i was as white as i felt and i was shaking like a leaf soda just put his hand on my shoulder easy ponyboy they ain t gonna hurt you no more i know i said but the ground began to blur and i felt hot tears running down my cheeks i brushed them away impatiently i m just a little spooked that s all i drew a quivering breath and quit crying you just don t cry in front of darry not unless you re hurt like johnny had been that day we found him in the vacant lot compared to johnny i wasn t hurt at all soda rubbed my hair you re an okay kid pony i had to grin at him soda can make you grin no matter what i guess it s because he s always grinning so much himself you re crazy soda out of your mind darry looked as if he d like to knock our heads together you re both nuts soda merely cocked one eyebrow a trick he d picked up from two-bit it seems to run in this family darry stared at him for a second then cracked a grin sodapop isn t afraid of him like everyone else and enjoys teasing him i d just as soon tease a full-grown grizzly but for some reason darry seems to like being teased by soda our gang had chased the socs to their car and heaved rocks at them they came running toward us now four lean hard guys they were all as tough as nails and looked it l had grown up with them and they accepted me even though i was younger because i was darry and soda s kid brother and i kept my mouth shut good steve randle was seventeen tall and lean with thick greasy hair he kept combed in complicated swirls he was tacky smart and soda s best buddy since grade school steve s specialty was cars he could lift a hubcap quicker and more quietly than anyone in the neighborhood but he also knew cars upside-down and backward and he could drive anything on wheels he and soda worked at the same gas station steve part time and soda full time and their station got more customers than any other in town whether that was because steve was so good with cars or because soda attracted girls like honey draws flies i couldn t tell you i liked steve only because he was soda s best friend he didn t like me he thought i was a tagalong and a kid soda always took me with them when they went places if they weren t taking girls and that bugged steve it wasn t my fault soda always asked me i didn t ask him soda doesn t think i m a kid two-bit mathews was the oldest of the gang and the wisecracker of the bunch he was about six feet tall stocky in build and very proud of his long rusty-colored sideburns he had gray eyes and a wide grin and he couldn t stop making funny remarks to save his life you couldn t shut up that guy he always had to get his two-bits worth in hence his name even his teachers forgot his real name was keith and we hardly remembered he had one life was one big joke to two-bit he was famous for shoplifting and his blackhandled switchblade which he couldn t have acquired without his first talent and he was always smarting off to the cops he really couldn t help it everything he said was so irresistibly funny that he just had to let the police in on it to brighten up their dull lives that s the way he explained it to me he liked fights blondes and for some unfathomable reason school he was still a junior at eighteen and a half and he never learned anything he just went for kicks i liked him real well because he kept us laughing at ourselves as well as at other things he reminded me of will rogers maybe it was the grin if i had to pick the real character of the gang it would be dallas winston dally i used to like to draw his

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picture when he was in a dangerous mood for then i could get his personality down in a few lines he had an elfish face with high cheekbones and a pointed chin small sharp animal teeth and ears like a lynx his hair was almost white it was so blond and he didn t like haircuts or hair oil either so it fell over his forehead in wisps and kicked out in the back in tufts and curled behind his ears and along the nape of his neck his eyes were blue blazing ice cold with a hatred of the whole world dally had spent three years on the wild side of new york and had been arrested at the age of ten he was tougher than the rest of us tougher colder meaner the shade of difference that separates a greaser from a hood wasn t present in dally he was as wild as the boys in the downtown outfits like tim shepard s gang in new york dally blew off steam in gang fights but here organized gangs are rarities there are just small bunches of friends who stick together and the warfare is between the social classes a rumble when it s called is usually born of a grudge fight and the opponents just happen to bring their friends along oh there are a few named gangs around like the river kings and the tiber street tigers but here in the southwest there s no gang rivalry so dally even though he could get into a good fight sometimes had no specific thing to hate no rival gang only socs and you can t win against them no matter how hard you try because they ve got all the breaks and even whipping them isn t going to change that fact maybe that was why dallas was so bitter he had quite a reputation they have a file on him down at the police station he had been arrested he got drunk he rode in rodeos lied cheated stole rolled drunks jumped small kids he did everything i didn t like him but he was smart and you had to respect him johnny cade was last and least if you can picture a little dark puppy that has been kicked too many times and is lost in a crowd of strangers you ll have johnny he was the youngest next to me smaller than the rest with a slight build he had big black eyes in a dark tanned face his hair was jet-black and heavily greased and combed to the side but it was so long that it fell in shaggy bangs across his forehead he had a nervous suspicious look in his eyes and that beating he got from the socs didn t help matters he was the gang s pet everyone s kid brother his father was always beating him up and his mother ignored him except when she was hacked off at something and then you could hear her yelling at him clear down at our house i think he hated that worse than getting whipped he would have run away a million times if we hadn t been there if it hadn t been for the gang johnny would never have known what love and affection are i wiped my eyes hurriedly didya catch em nup they got away this time the dirty two-bit went on cheerfully calling the socs every name he could think of or make up the kid s okay i m okay i tried to think of something to say i m usually pretty quiet arotmd people even the gang i changed the subject i didn t know you were out of the cooler yet dally good behavior got off early dallas lit a cigarette and handed it to johnny everyone sat down to have a smoke and relax a smoke always lessens the tension i had quit trembling and my color was back the cigarette was calming me down two-bit cocked an eyebrow nice-lookin bruise you got there kid i touched my cheek gingerly really two-bit nodded sagely nice cut too makes you look tough tough and tuff are two different words tough is the same as rough tuff means cool sharp like a tufflooking mustang or a tuff record in our neighborhood both are compliments steve flicked his ashes at me what were you doin walkin by your lonesome leave it to good old steve to bring up something like that i was comin home from the movies i didn t think you don t ever think darry broke in not at home or anywhere when it counts you must think at school with all those good grades you bring home and you ve always got your nose in a book but do you ever use your head for common sense no sirree bub and if you did have to go by yourself you should have carried a blade i just stared at the hole in the toe of my tennis shoe me and darry just didn t dig each other i never could please him he would have hollered at me for carrying a blade if i had carried one if i brought home b s he wanted a s and if i got a s he wanted to make sure they stayed a s if i was playing football i should be in studying and if i was reading i should be out playing football he never hollered at sodapop not even when soda dropped out of school or got tickets for speeding he just hollered at me soda was glaring at him leave my kid brother alone you hear it ain t his fault he likes to go to the movies and it ain t his fault the socs like to jump us and if he had been carrying a blade it would have

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been a good excuse to cut him to ribbons soda always takes up for me darry said impatiently when i want my kid brother to tell me what to do with my other kid brother i ll ask you kid brother but he laid off me he always does when sodapop tells him to most of the time next time get one of us to go with you ponyboy two-bit said any of us will speakin of movies dally yawned flipping away his cigarette butt i m walkin over to the nightly double tomorrow night anybody want to come and hunt some action steve shook his head me and soda are pickin up evie and sandy for the game he didn t need to look at me the way he did right then i wasn t going to ask if i could come i d never tell soda because he really likes steve a lot but sometimes i can t stand steve randle i mean it sometimes i hate him darry sighed just like i knew he would darry never had time to do anything anymore i m working tomorrow night dally looked at the rest of us how about y all two-bit johnnycake you and pony wanta come me and johnny ll come i said i knew johnny wouldn t open his mouth unless he was forced to okay darry yeah since it ain t a school night darry was real good about letting me go places on the weekends on school nights i could hardly leave the house i was plannin on getting boozed up tomorrow night two-bit said if i don t i ll walk over and find y all steve was looking at dally s hand his ring which he had rolled a drunk senior to get was back on his finger you break up with sylvia again yeah and this time it s for good that little broad was two-timin me again while i was in jail i thought of sylvia and evie and sandy and two-bit s many blondes they were the only kind of girls that would look at us i thought tough loud girls who wore too much eye makeup and giggled and swore too much i liked soda s girl sandy just fine though her hair was natural blond and her laugh was soft like her china-blue eyes she didn t have a real good home or anything and was our kind greaser but she was a real nice girl still lots of times i wondered what other girls were like the girls who were brighteyed and had their dresses a decent length and acted as if they d like to spit on us if given a chance some were afraid of us and remembering dallas winston i didn t blame them but most looked at us like we were dirt gave us the same kind of look that the socs did when they came by in their mustangs and corvairs and yelled grease at us i wondered about them the girls i mean did they cry when their boys were arrested like evie did when steve got hauled in or did they run out on them the way sylvia did dallas but maybe their boys didn t get arrested or beaten up or busted up in rodeos i was still thinking about it while i was doing my homework that night i had to read great expectations for english and that kid pip he reminded me of us the way he felt marked lousy because he wasn t a gentleman or anything and the way that girl kept looking down on him that happened to me once one time in biology i had to dissect a worm and the razor wouldn t cut so i used my switchblade the minute i flicked it out i forgot what i was doing or i would never have done it this girl right beside me kind of gasped and said they are right you are a hood that didn t make me feel so hot these were a lot of socs in that class i get put into a classes because i m supposed to be smart and most of them thought it was pretty funny i didn t though she was a cute girl she looked real good in yellow we deserve a lot of our trouble i thought dallas deserves everything he gets and should get worse if you want the truth and two-bit he doesn t really want or need half the things he swipes from stores he just thinks it s fun to swipe everything that isn t nailed down i can understand why sodapop and steve get into drag races and fights so much though both of them have too much energy too much feeling with no way to blow it off rub harder soda i heard darry mumbling you re gonna put me to sleep i looked through the door sodapop was giving darry a back-rub darry is always pulling muscles he roofs houses and he s always trying to carry two bundles of roofing up the ladder i knew soda would put him to sleep because soda can put about anyone out when he sets his head to it he thought darry worked too hard anyway i did too darry didn t deserve to work like an old man when he was only twenty he had been a real popular guy in school he was captain of the football team and he had been voted boy of the year but we just didn t have the money for him to go to college even with the athletic scholarship he won and now he didn t have time between jobs to even think about college so he never went anywhere and never did anything anymore,

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except work out at gyms and go skiing with some old friends of his sometimes i rubbed my cheek where it had turned purple i had looked in the mirror and it did make me look tough but darry had made me put a band-aid on the cut i remembered how awful johnny had looked when he got beaten up i had just as much right to use the streets as the socs did and johnny had never hurt them why did the socs hate us so much we left them alone i nearly went to sleep over my homework trying to figure it out sodapop who had jumped into bed by this time yelled sleepily for me to turn off the light and get to bed when i finished the chapter i was on i did lying beside soda staring at the wall i kept remembering the faces of the socs as they surrounded me that blue madras shirt the blond was wearing and i could still hear a thick voice need a haircut greaser i shivered you cold ponyboy a little i lied soda threw one arm across my neck he mumbled something drowsily listen kiddo when darry hollers at you he don t mean nothin he s just got more worries than somebody his age ought to don t take him serious you dig pony don t let him bug you he s really proud of you cause you re so brainy it s just because you re the baby i mean he loves you a lot savvy sure i said trying for soda s sake to keep the sarcasm out of my voice soda yeah how come you dropped out i never have gotten over that i could hardly stand it when he left school cause i m dumb the only things i was passing anyway were auto mechanics and gym you re not dumb yeah i am shut up and i ll tell you something don t tell darry though okay i think i m gonna marry sandy after she gets out of school and i get a better job and everything i might wait till you get out of school though so i can still help darry with the bills and stuff tuff enough wait till i get out though so you can keep darry off my back don t be like that kid i told you he don t mean half of what he says you in love with sandy what s it like hhhmmm he sighed happily it s real nice in a moment his breathing was light and regular i turned my head to look at him and in the moonlight he looked like some greek god come to earth i wondered how he could stand being so handsome then i sighed i didn t quite get what he meant about darry darry thought i was just another mouth to feed and somebody to holler at darry love me i thought of those hard pale eyes soda was wrong for once i thought darry doesn t love anyone or anything except maybe soda i didn t hardly think of him as being human i don t care i lied to myself i don t care about him either soda s enough and i d have him until i got out of school i don t care about darry but i was still lying and i knew it i lie to myself all the time but i never believe me chapter 2 dally was waiting for johnny and me under the street light at the corner of pickett and sutton and since we got there early we had time to go over the drugstore in the shopping center and goof around we bought cokes and blew the straws at the waitress and walked around eyeing things that were lying out in the open until the manager got wise to us and suggested we leave he was too late though dally walked out with two packages of kools under his jacket then we went across the street and down sutton a little way to the dingo there are lots of drive-ins in town the socs go to the way out and to rusty s and the greasers go to the dingo and to jay s the dingo is a pretty rough hangout there s always a fight going on there and once a girl got shot we walked around talking to all the greasers and hoods we knew leaning in car windows or hopping into the back seats and getting in on who was running away and who was in jail and who was going with who and who could whip who and who stole what and when and why we knew about everybody there there was a pretty good fight while we were there between a big twenty-three-year-old greaser and a mexican hitchhiker we left when the switchblades came out because the cops would be coming soon and nobody

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in his right mind wants to be around when the fuzz show we crossed sutton and cut around behind spencer s special the discount house and chased two juniorhigh kids across a field for a few minutes by then it was dark enough to sneak in over the back fence of the nightly double drive-in movie it was the biggest in town and showed two movies every night and on weekends four you could say you were going to the nightly double and have time to go all over town we all had the money to get in it only costs a quarter if you re not in a car but dally hated to do things the legal way he liked to show that he didn t care whether there was a law or not he went around trying to break laws we went to the rows of seats in front of the concession stand to sit down nobody else was there except two girls who were sitting down front dally eyed them coolly then walked down the aisle and sat right behind them i had a sick feeling that dally was up to his usual tricks and i was right he started talking loud enough for the two girls to hear he started out bad and got worse dallas could talk awful dirty if he wanted to and i guess he wanted to then i felt my ears get hot two-bit or steve or even soda would have gone right along with him just to see if they could embarrass the girls but that kind of kicks just doesn t appeal to me i sat there struck dumb and johnny left hastily to get a coke i wouldn t have felt so embarrassed if they had been greasy girls i might even have helped old dallas but those two girls weren t our kind they were tuff-looking girls dressed sharp and really good-looking they looked about sixteen or seventeen one had short dark hair and the other had long red hair the redhead was getting mad or scared she sat up straight and she was chewing hard on her gum the other one pretended not to hear dally dally was getting impatient he put his feet up on the back of the redhead s chair winked at me and beat his own record for saying something dirty she turned around and gave him a cool stare take your feet off my chair and shut your trap boy she was good-looking i d seen her before she was a cheerleader at our school i d always thought she was stuck-up dally merely looked at her and kept his feet where they were who s gonna make me the other one fumed around and watched us that s the greaser that jockeys for the slash j sometime she said as if we couldn t hear her i had heard the same tone a million times greaser greaser greaser oh yeah i had heard that tone before too many times what are they doing at a drive-in without a car i thought and dallas said i know you two i ve seen you around rodeos it s a shame you can t ride bull half as good as you can talk it the redhead said coolly and turned back around that didn t bother dally in the least you two barrel race huh you d better leave us alone the redhead said in a biting voice or i ll call the cops oh my my dally looked bored you ve got me scared to death you ought to see my record sometime baby he grinned slyly guess what i ve been in for please leave us alone she said why don t you be nice and leave us alone dally grinned roguishly i m never nice want a coke she was mad by then i wouldn t drink it if i was starving in the desert get lost hood dally merely shrugged and strolled off the girl looked at me i was half-scared of her i m half-scared of all nice girls especially socs are you going to start in on us i shook my head wide-eyed no suddenly she smiled gosh she was pretty you don t look the type what s your name i wished she hadn t asked me that i hate to tell people my name for the first time ponyboy curtis then i waited for the you re kidding or that s your real name or one of the other remarks i usually get ponyboy s my real name and personally i like it the redhead just smiled that s an original and lovely name my dad was an original person i said i ve got a brother named sodapop and it says so on his birth certificate my name s sherri but i m called cherry because of my hair cherry valance i know i said you re a cheerleader we go to the same school you don t look old enough to be going to high school the dark-haired girl said i m not i got put up a year in grade school cherry was looking at me what s a nice smart kid like you running around with trash like that for i felt myself stiffen i m a grease same as dally he s my buddy

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i m sorry ponyboy she said softly then she said briskly your brother sodapop does he work at a gasoline station a dx i think yeah man your brother is one doll i might have guessed you were brothers you look alike i grinned with pride i don t think i look one bit like soda but it s not every day i hear socs telling me they think my brother is a doll didn t he used to ride in rodeos saddle bronc yeah dad made him quit after he tore a ligament though we still hang around rodeos a lot i ve seen you two barrel race you re good thanks cherry said and the other girl who was named marcia said how come we don t see your brother at school he s not any older than sixteen or seventeen is he i winced inside i ve told you i can t stand it that soda dropped out he s a dropout i said roughly dropout made me think of some poor dumb-looking hoodlum wandering the streets breaking out street lights it didn t fit my happy-go-lucky brother at all it fitted dally perfectly but you could hardly say it about soda johnny came back then and sat down beside me he looked around for dally then managed a shy hi to the girls and tried to watch the movie he was nervous though johnny was always nervous around strangers cherry looked at him sizing him up as she had me then she smiled softly and i knew she had him sized up right dally came striding back with an armful of cokes he handed one to each of the girls and sat down beside cherry this might cool you off she gave him an incredulous look and then she threw her coke in his face that might cool you off greaser after you wash your mouth and learn to talk and act decent i might cool off too dally wiped the coke off his face with his sleeve and smiled dangerously if i had been cherry i would have beat it out of there i knew that smile fiery huh well that s the way i like em he started to put his arm around her but johnny reached over and stopped him leave her alone dally huh dally was taken off guard he stared at johnny in disbelief johnny couldn t say boo to a goose johnny gulped and got a little pale but he said you heard me leave her alone dallas scowled for a second if it had been me or two-bit or soda or steve or anyone but johnny dally would have flattened him without a moment s hesitation you just didn t tell dally winston what to do one time in a dime store a guy told him to move over at the candy counter dally had turned around and belted him so hard it knocked a tooth loose a complete stranger too but johnny was the gang s pet and dally just couldn t hit him he was dally s pet too dally got up and stalked off his fists jammed in his pockets and a frown on his face he didn t come back cherry sighed in relief thanks he had me scared to death johnny managed an admiring grin you sure didn t show it nobody talks to dally like that she smiled from what i saw you do johnny s ears got red i was still staring at him it had taken more than nerve for him to say what he d said to dally johnny worshiped the ground dallas walked on and i had never heard johnny talk back to anyone much less his hero marcia grinned at us she was a little smaller than cherry she was cute but that cherry valance was a real looker y all sit up here with us you can protect us johnny and i looked at each other he grinned suddenly raising his eyebrows so that they disappeared under his bangs would we ever have something to tell the boys his eyes said plainly we had picked up two girls and classy ones at that not any greasy broads for us but real socs soda would flip when i told him okay i said nonchalantly might as well i sat between them and johnny sat next to cherry how old are y all marcia asked fourteen i said sixteen said johnny that s funny marcia said i thought you were both sixteen cherry finished for her i was grateful johnny looked fourteen and he knew it and it bugged him something awful.

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johnny grinned how come y all ain t scared of us like you were dally cherry sighed you two are too sweet to scare anyone first of all you didn t join in dallas s dirty talk and you made him leave us alone aid when we asked you to sit up here with us you didn t act like it was an invitation to make out for the night besides that i ve heard about dallas winston and he looked as hard as nails and twice as tough and you two don t look mean sure i said tiredly we re young and innocent no cherry said slowly looking at me carefully not innocent you ve seen too much to be innocent just not dirty dally s okay johnny said defensively and i nodded you take up for your buddies no matter what they do when you re a gang you stick up for the members if you don t stickup for them stick together make like brothers it isn t a gang any more it s a pack a snarling distrustful bickering pack like the socs in their social clubs or the street gangs in new york or the wolves in the timber he s tough but he s a cool old guy he d leave you alone if he knew you i said and that was true when steve s cousin from kansas came down dally was decent to her and watched his swearing we all did around nice girls who were the cousinly type i don t know how to explain it we try to be nice to the girls we see once in awhile like cousins or the girls in class but we still watch a nice girl go by on a street corner and say all kinds of lousy stuff about her don t ask me why i don t know why well marcia said with finality i m glad he doesn t know us i kind of admire him cherry said softly so only i heard and then we settled down to watch the movie oh yeah we found out why they were without a car they d come with their boyfriends but walked out on them when they found out the boys had brought some booze along the boys had gotten angry and left i don t care if they did cherry sounded annoyed it s not my idea of a good time to sit in a drive-in and watch people get drunk you could tell by the way she said it that her idea of a good time was probably high-class and probably expensive they d decided to stay and see the movie anyway it was one of those beach-party movies with no plot and no acting but a lot of girls in bikinis and some swinging songs so it was all right we were all four sitting there in silence when suddenly a strong hand came down on johnny s shoulder and another on mine and a deep voice said okay greasers you ve had it i almost jumped out of my skin it was like having someone leap out from behind a door and yell boo at you i looked fearfully over my shoulder and there was two-bit grinning like a chessy cat glory two-bit scare us to death he was good at voice imitations and had sounded for all the world like a snarling soc then i looked at johnny his eyes were shut and he was as white as a ghost his breath was coming in smothered gasps two-bit knew better than to scare johnny like that i guess he d forgotten he s kind of scatterbrained johnny opened his eyes and said weakly hey two-bit two-bit messed up his hair sorry kid he said i forgot he climbed over the chair and plopped down beside marcia who s this your great-aunts great-grandmothers twice removed cherry said smoothly i couldn t tell if two-bit was drunk or not it s kind of hard to tell with him he acts boozed up sometimes even when he s sober he cocked one eyebrow up and the other down which he always does when something puzzles him or bothers him or when he feels like saying something smart shoot you re ninety-six if you re a day i m a night marcia said brightly two-bit stared at her admiringly brother you re a sharp one where d you two ever get to be picked up by a couple of greasy hoods like pony and johnny we really picked them up marcia said we re really arabian slave traders and we re thinking about shanghaiing them they re worth ten camels apiece at least five two-bit disagreed they don t talk arabian i don t think say somethin in arabian johnnycake aw cut it out johnny broke in dally was bothering them and when he left they wanted us to sit with them to protect them against wisecracking greasers like you probably two-bit grinned because johnny didn t usually get sassy like that we thought we were doing good if we could get him to talk at all incidentally we don t mind being called greaser by another greaser it s kind of playful then hey where is of dally anyways he went hunting some action booze or dames or a fight i hope he don t get jailed again he just got out

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he ll probably find the fight two-bit stated cheerfully that s why i came over mr timothy shepard and co are looking for whoever so kindly slashed their car s tires and since mr curly shepard spotted dallas doing it well does dally have a blade not that i know of i said i think he s got a piece of pipe but he busted his blade this morning good tim ll fight fair if dally don t pull a blade on him dally shouldn t have any trouble cherry and marcia were staring at us you don t believe in playing rough or anything do you a fair fight isn t rough two-bit said blades are rough so are chains and heaters and pool sticks and rumbles skin fighting isn t rough it blows off steam better than anything there s nothing wrong with throwing a few punches socs are rough they gang up on one or two or they rumble each other with their social clubs us greasers usually stick together but when we do fight among ourselves it s a fair fight between two and dally deserves whatever he gets cause slashed tires ain t no joke when you ve got to work to pay for them he got spotted too and that was his fault our one rule besides stick together is don t get caught he might get beat up he might not either way there s not going to be any blood feud between our outfit and shepard s if we needed them tomorrow they d show if tim beats dally s head in and then tomorrow asks us for help in a rumble we ll show dally was getting kicks he got caught he pays up no sweat yeah boy cherry said sarcastically real simple sure marcia said unconcerned if he gets killed or something you just bury him no sweat you dig okay baby two-bit grinned and lit a cigarette anyone want a weed i looked at two-bit admiringly he sure put things into words good maybe he was still a junior at eighteen and a half and maybe his sideburns were too long and maybe he did get boozed up too much but he sure understood things cherry and marcia shook their heads at his offering of cigarettes but johnny and i reached for one johnny s color was back and his breathing was regular but his hand was shaking ever so slightly a cigarette would steady it ponyboy will you come with me to get some popcorn cherry asked i jumped up sure y all want some i do said marcia she was finishing the coke dally had given her i realized then that marcia and cherry weren t alike cherry had said she wouldn t drink dally s coke if she was starving and she meant it it was the principle of the thing but marcia saw no reason to throw away a perfectly good free coke me too said two-bit he flipped me a fifty cent piece get johnny some too i m buyin he added as johnny started to reach into his jeans pocket we went to the concession stand and as usual there was a line a mile long so we had to wait quite a few kids turned to look at us you didn t see a kid grease and a socy cheerleader together often cherry didn t seem to notice your friend the one with the sideburns he s okay he ain t dangerous like dallas if that s what you mean he s okay she smiled and her eyes showed that her mind was on something else johnny he s been hurt bad sometime hasn t he it was more of a statement than a question hurt and scared it was the socs i said nervously because there were plenty of socs milling around and some of them were giving me funny looks as if i shouldn t be with cherry or something and i don t like to talk about it either johnny getting beat up i mean but i started in talking a little faster than i usually do because i don t like to think about it either it was almost four months ago i had walked down to the dx station to get a bottle of pop and to see steve and soda because they ll always buy me a couple of bottles and let me help work on the cars i don t like to go on weekends because then there is usually a bunch of girls down there flirting with soda all kinds of girls socs too i don t care too much for girls yet soda says i ll grow out of it he did it was a warmish spring day with the sun shining bright but it was getting chilly and dark by the time we started for home we were walking because we had left steve s car at the station at the corner of our block there s a wide open field where we play football and hang out and it s often a site for rumbles and fist fights we were passing it kicking rocks down the street and finishing our last bottle of pepsi when steve noticed something lying on the ground he picked it up it was johnny s blue-jeans jacket the only jacket he had.

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looks like johnny forgot his jacket steve said slinging it over his shoulder to take it by johnny s house suddenly he stopped and examined it more carefully there was a stain the color of rust across the collar he looked at the ground there were some more stains on the grass he looked up and across the field with a stricken expression on his face i think we all heard the low moan and saw the dark motionless hump on the other side of the lot at the same time soda reached him first johnny was lying face down on the ground soda turned him over gently and i nearly got sick someone had beaten him badly we were used to seeing johnny banged up his father clobbered him around a lot and although it made us madder than heck we couldn t do anything about it but those beatings had been nothing like this johnny s face was cut up and bruised and swollen and there was a wide gash from his temple to his cheekbone he would carry that scar all his life his white t-shirt was splattered with blood i just stood there trembling with sudden cold i thought he might be dead surely nobody could be beaten like that and live steve closed his eyes for a second and muffled a groan as he dropped on his knees beside soda somehow the gang sensed what had happened two-bit was suddenly there beside me and for once his comical grin was gone and his dancing gray eyes were stormy darry had seen us from our porch and ran toward us suddenly skidding to a halt dally was there too swearing under his breath and turning away with a sick expression on his face i wondered about it vaguely dally had seen people killed on the streets of new york s west side why did he look sick now johnny soda lifted him up and held him against his shoulder he gave the limp body a slight shake hey johnnycake johnny didn t open his eyes but there came a soft question soda yeah it s me sodapop said don t talk you re gonna be okay there was a whole bunch of them johnny went on swallowing ignoring soda s command a blue mustang full i got so scared he tried to swear but suddenly started crying fighting to control himself then sobbing all the more because he couldn t i had seen johnny take a whipping with a two-by-four from his old man and never let out a whimper that made it worse to see him break now soda just held him and pushed johnny s hair back out of his eyes it s okay johnnycake they re gone now it s okay finally between sobs johnny managed to gasp out his story he had been hunting our football to practice a few kicks when a blue mustang had pulled up beside the lot there were four socs in it they had caught him and one of them had a lot of rings on his hand that s what had cut johnny up so badly it wasn t just that they had beaten him half to death he could take that they had scared him they had threatened him with everything under the sun johnny was high-strung anyway a nervous wreck from getting belted every time he turned around and from hearing his parents fight all the time living in those conditions might have turned someone else rebellious and bitter it was killing johnny he had never been a coward he was a good man in a rumble he stuck up for the gang and kept his mouth shut good around cops but after the night of the beating johnny was jumpier than ever i didn t think he d ever get over it johnny never walked by himself after that and johnny who was the most law-abiding of us now carried in his back pocket a six-inch switchblade he d use it too if he ever got jumped again they had scared him that much he would kill the next person who jumped him nobody was ever going to beat him like that again not over his dead body i had nearly forgotten that cherry was listening to me but when i came back to reality and looked at her i was startled to find her as white as a sheet all socs aren t like that she said you have to believe me ponyboy not all of us are like that sure i said that s like saying all you greasers are like dallas winston i ll bet he s jumped a few people i digested that it was true dally had jumped people he had told us stories about muggings in new york that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up but not all of us were that bad cherry no longer looked sick only sad i ll bet you think the socs have it made the rich kids the westside socs i ll tell you something ponyboy and it may come as a surprise we have troubles you ve never even heard of you want to know something she looked me straight in the eye things are rough all over i believe you i said we d better get back out there with the popcorn or two-bit ll think i ran off with his money we went back and watched the movie through again marcia and two-bit were hitting it off fine both had

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the same scatterbrained sense of humor but cherry and johnny and i just sat there looking at the movie and not talking i quit worrying about everything and thought about how nice it was to sit with a girl without having to listen to her swear or to beat her off with a club i knew johnny liked it too he didn t talk to girls much once while dallas was in reform school sylvia had started hanging on to johnny and sweet talking him and steve got hold of her and told her if she tried any of her tricks with johnny he d personally beat the tar out of her then he gave johnny a lecture on girls and how a sneaking little broad like sylvia would get him into a lot of trouble as a result johnny never spoke to girls much but whether that was because he was scared of steve or because he was shy i couldn t tell i got the same lecture from two-bit after we d picked up a couple of girls downtown one day i thought it was funny because girls are one subject even darry thinks i use my head about and it really had been funny because two-bit was half crocked when he gave me the lecture and he told me some stories that about made me want to crawl under the floor or something but he had been talking about girls like sylvia and the girls he and dally and the rest picked up at drive-ins and downtown he never said anything about socy girls so i figured it was all right to be sitting there with them even if they did have their own troubles i really couldn t see what socs would have to sweat about good grades good cars good girls madras and mustangs and corvairs man i thought if i had worries like that i d consider myself lucky i know better now chapter 3 after the movie was over it suddenly came to us that cherry and marcia didn t have a way to get home two-bit gallantly offered to walk them home the west side of town was only about twenty miles away but they wanted to call their parents and have them come and get them two-bit finally talked them into letting us drive them home in his car i think they were still half-scared of us they were getting over it though as we walked to two-bit s house to pick up the car it seemed funny to me that socs if these girls were any example were just like us they liked the beatles and thought elvis presley was out and we thought the beatles were rank and that elvis was tuff but that seemed the only difference to me of course greasy girls would have acted a lot tougher but there was a basic sameness i thought maybe it was money that separated us no cherry said slowly when i said this it s not just money part of it is but not all you greasers have a different set of values you re more emotional we re sophisticated cool to the point of not feeling anything nothing is real with us you know sometimes i ll catch myself talking to a girl-friend and realize i don t mean half of what i m saying i don t really think a beer blast on the river bottom is super-cool but i ll rave about one to a girl-friend just to be saying something she smiled at me i never told anyone that i think you re the first person i ve ever really gotten through to she was coming through to me all right probably because i was a greaser and younger she didn t have to keep her guard up with me rat race is a perfect name for it she said we re always going and going and going and never asking where did you ever hear of having more than you wanted so that you couldn t want anything else and then started looking for something else to want it seems like we re always searching for something to satisfy us and never finding it maybe if we could lose our cool we could that was the truth socs were always behind a wall of aloofness careful not to let their real selves show through i had seen a social-club rumble once the socs even fought coldly and practically and impersonally that s why we re separated i said it s not money it s feeling you don t feel anything and we feel too violently and she was trying to hide a smile that s probably why we take turns getting our names in the paper two-bit and marcia weren t even listening to us they were engaged in some wild conversation that made no sense to anyone but themselves i have quite a rep for being quiet almost as quiet as johnny two-bit always said he wondered why johnny and i were such good buddies you must make such interestin conversation he d say cocking one eyebrow you keepin your mouth shut and johnny not sayin anything but johnny and i understood each other without saying anything nobody but soda could really get me talking till i met cherry valance.

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i don t know why i could talk to her maybe for the same reason she could talk to me the first thing i knew i was telling her about mickey mouse soda s horse i had never told anyone about soda s horse it was personal soda had this buckskin horse only it wasn t his it belonged to a guy who kept it at the stables where soda used to work mickey mouse was soda s horse though the first day soda saw him he said there s my horse and i never doubtedit i was about ten then sodapop is horsecrazy i mean it he s always hanging around stables and rodeos hopping on a horse every time he gets a chance when i was ten i thought that mickey mouse and soda looked alike and were alike mickey mouse was a dark-gold buckskin sassy and ornery not much more than a colt he d come when soda called him he wouldn t come for anyone else that horse loved soda he d stand there and chew on soda s sleeve or collar gosh but sodapop was crazy about that horse he went down to see him every day mickey mouse was a mean horse he kicked other horses and was always getting into trouble i ve got me a ornery pony soda d tell him rubbing his neck how come you re so mean mickey mouse mickey mouse would just chew on his sleeve and sometimes nip him but not hard he may have belonged to another guy but he was soda s horse does soda still have him cherry asked he got sold i said they came and got him one day and took him off he was a real valuable horse pure quarter she didn t say anything else and i was glad i couldn t tell her that soda had bawled all night long after they came and got mickey mouse i had cried too if you want to know the truth because soda never really wanted anything except a horse and he d lost his soda had been twelve then going-on-thirteen he never let on to mom and dad how he felt though because we never had enough money and usually we had a hard time making ends meet when you re thirteen in our neighborhood you know the score i kept saving my money for a year thinking that someday i could buy mickey mouse back for soda you re not so smart at ten you read a lot don t you ponyboy cherry asked i was startled yeah why she kind of shrugged i could just tell i ll bet you watch sunsets too she was quiet for a minute after i nodded i used to watch them too before i got so busy i pictured that or tried to maybe cherry stood still and watched the sun set while she was supposed to be taking the garbage out stood there and watched and forgot everything else until her big brother screamed at her to hurry up i shook my head it seemed funny to me that the sunset she saw from her patio and the one i saw from the back steps was the same one maybe the two different worlds we lived in weren t so different we saw the same sunset marcia suddenly gasped cherry look what s coming we all looked and saw a blue mustang coming down the street johnny made a small noise in his throat and when i looked at him he was white marcia was shifting nervously what are we going to do cherry bit a fingernail stand here she said there isn t much else we can do who is it two-bit asked the f.b.i no cherry said bleakly it s randy and bob and two-bit added grimly a few other of the socially elite checkered-shirt set your boyfriends johnny s voice was steady but standing as close to him as i was i could see he was trembling i wondered why johnny was a nervous wreck but he never was that jumpy cherry started walking down the street maybe they won t see us act normal who s acting two-bit grinned i m a natural normal wish it was the other way around i muttered and two-bit said don t get mouthy ponyboy the mustang passed us slowly and went right on by marcia sighed in relief that was close cherry turned to me tell me about your oldest brother you don t talk much about him i tried to think of something to say about darry and shrugged what s to talk about he s big and handsome and likes to play football i mean what s he like i feel like i know soda from the way you talk about him tell me about darry and when i was silent she urged me on is he wild and reckless like soda dreamy like you my face got hot as i bit my lip darry what was darry like he s i started to say he was a good ol guy but i couldn t i burst out bitterly he s not like sodapop at all and he sure ain t like me he s hard as a rock and about as human he s got eyes exactly like frozen ice he thinks i m a pain in the neck he likes soda everybody likes soda but he can t stand me i bet he wishes he could stick me in a home somewhere and

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he d do it too if soda d let him two-bit and johnny were staring at me now no two-bit said dumfounded no ponyboy that ain t right you got it wrong gee johnny said softly i thought you and darry and soda got along real well well we don t i snapped feeling silly i knew my ears were red by the way they were burning and i was thankful for the darkness i felt stupid compared to johnny s home mine was heaven at least darry didn t get drunk and beat me up or run me out of the house and i had sodapop to talk things over with that made me mad i mean making a fool of myself in front of everyone an you can shut your trap johnny cade cause we all know you ain t wanted at home either and you can t blame them johnny s eyes went round and he winced as though i d belted him two-bit slapped me a good one across the side of the head and hard shut your mouth kid if you wasn t soda s kid brother i d beat the tar out of you you know better than to talk to johnny like that he put his hand on johnny s shoulder he didn t mean it johnny i m sorry i said miserably johnny was my buddy i was just mad it s the truth johnny said with a bleak grin i don t care shut up talkin like that two-bit said fiercely messing up johnny s hair we couldn t get along without you so you can just shut up it ain t fair i cried passionately it ain t fair that we have all the rough breaks i didn t know exactly what i meant but i was thinking about johnny s father being a drunk and his mother a selfish slob and two-bit s mother being a barmaid to support him and his kid sister after their father ran out on them and dally wild cunning dally turning into a hoodlum because he d die if he didn t and steve his hatred for his father coming out in his soft bitter voice and the violence of his temper sodapop a dropout so he could get a job and keep me in school and darry getting old before his time trying to run a family and hold on to two jobs and never having any fun while the socs had so much spare time and money that they jumped us and each other for kicks had beer blasts and river-bottom parties because they didn t know what else to do things were rough all over all right all over the east side it just didn t seem right to me i know two-bit said with a good-natured grin the chips are always down when it s our turn but that s the way things are like it or lump it cherry and marcia didn t say anything i guess they didn t know what to say we had forgotten they were there then the blue mustang was coming down the street again more slowly well cherry said resignedly they ve spotted us the mustang came to a halt beside us and the two boys in the front seat got out they were socs all right one had on a white shirt and a madras ski jacket and the other a light yellow shirt and a wine-colored sweater i looked at their clothes and realized for the first time that evening that all i had was a pair of jeans and soda s old navy sweat shirt with the sleeves cut short i swallowed two-bit started to tuck in his shirttail but stopped himself in time he just flipped up the collar of his black leather jacket and lit a cigarette the socs didn t even seem to see us cherry marcia listen to us the handsome black-haired soc with the dark sweater began johnny was breathing heavily and i noticed he was staring at the soc s hand he was wearing three heavy rings i looked quickly at johnny an idea dawning on me i remembered that it was a blue mustang that had pulled up beside the vacant lot and that johnny s face had been cut up by someone wearing rings the soc s voice broke into my thoughts just because we got a little drunk last time cherry looked mad a little you call reeling and passing out in the streets a little bob i told you i m never going out with you while you re drinking and i mean it too many things could happen while you re drunk it s me or the booze the other soc a tall guy with a semi-beatle haircut turned to marcia baby you know we don t get drunk very often when she only gave him a cold stare he got angry and even if you are mad at us that s no reason to go walking the streets with these bums two-bit took a long drag on his cigarette johnny slouched and hooked his thumbs in his pockets and i stiffened we can look meaner than anything when we want to looking tough comes in handy two-bit put his elbow on johnny s shoulder who you callin bums listen greasers we got four more of us in the back seat then pity the back seat two-bit said to the sky if you re looking for a fight two-bit cocked an eyebrow but it only made him look more cool you mean if i m looking for a good jumping you outnumber us so you ll give it to us well he snatched up an empty bottle busted off the

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end and gave it to me then reached in his back pocket and flipped out his switchblade try it pal no cherry cried stop it she looked at bob we ll ride home with you just wait a minute why two-bit demanded we ain t scared of them cherry shuddered i can t stand fights i can t stand them i pulled her to one side i couldn t use this i said dropping the pop bottle i couldn t ever cut anyone i had to tell her that because i d seen her eyes when two-bit flicked out his switch i know she said quietly but we d better go with them ponyboy i mean if i see you in the hall at school or someplace and don t say hi well it s not personal or anything but i know i said we couldn t let our parents see us with you all you re a nice boy and everything it s okay i said wishing i was dead and buried somewhere or at least that i had on a decent shirt we aren t in the same class just don t forget that some of us watch the sunset too she looked at me quickly i could fall in love with dallas winston she said i hope i never see him again or i will she left me standing there with my mouth dropped open and the blue mustang vroomed off we walked on home mostly in silence i wanted to ask johnny if those were the same socs that had beaten him up but i didn t mention it johnny never talked about it and we never said anything well those were two good-lookin girls if i ever saw any two-bit yawned as we sat down on the curb at the vacant lot he took a piece of paper out,of his pocket and tore it up what was that marcia s number probably a phony one too i must have been outa my mind to ask for it i think i m a little soused so he had been drinking two-bit was smart he knew the score y all goin home he asked not right now i said i wanted to have another smoke and to watch the stars i had to be in by twelve but i thought i had plenty of time i don t know why i handed you that busted bottle two-bit said getting to his feet you d never use it maybe i would have i said where you headed gonna go play a little snooker and hunt up a poker game maybe get rip-roarin drunk i dunno see y all tomorrow johnny and i stretched out on our backs and looked at the stars i was freezing it was a cold night and all i had was that sweat shirt but i could watch stars in sub-zero weather i saw johnny s cigarette glowing in the dark and wondered vaguely what it was like inside a burning ember it was because we re greasers johnny said and i knew he was talking about cherry we could have hurt her reputation i reckon i said wondering if i ought to tell johnny what she had said about dallas man that was a tuff car mustangs are tuff big time socs all right i said a nervous bitterness growing inside me it wasn t fair for the socs to have everything we were as good as they were it wasn t our fault we were greasers i couldn t just take it or leave it like two-bit or ignore it and love life anyway like sodapop or harden myself beyond caring like dally or actually enjoy it like tim shepard i felt the tension growing inside of me and i knew something had to happen or i would explode i can t take much more johnny spoke my own feelings i ll kill myself or something don t i said sitting up in alarm you can t kill yourself johnny well i won t but i gotta do something it seems like there s gotta be someplace without greasers or socs with just people plain ordinary people out of the big towns i said lying back down in the country in the country i loved the country i wanted to be out of towns and away from excitement i only wanted to lie on my back under a tree and read a book or draw a picture and not worry about being jumped or carrying a blade or ending up married to some scatterbrained broad with no sense the country would be like that i thought dreamily i would have a yeller cur dog like i used to and sodapop could get mickey mouse back and ride in all the rodeos he wanted to and darry would lose that cold hard look and be like he used to be eight months ago before mom and dad were killed since i was dreaming i brought mom and dad back to life mom could bake some more chocolate cakes and dad would drive the pickup out early to feed the cattle he would slap darry on the back and tell him he was getting to be a man a regular chip off the block and they would be as close as they used to be maybe johnny could come and live with us and the gang could come out on weekends and maybe dallas would see that there was some good in

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