sodapop curtis & johnny cade enthusiast

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 the 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, except maybe Keils in her own strange and unique way. But she’s more keen on flowery poems and dramatic plays, or the kind of stuff that teaches more than entertains, like huge novels with pictures of all sorts of critters and trees or old records of why folks on some faraway mountain pray to rocks or something. She gives my kind of books and movies a fair shot, but I know it doesn’t get under her skin like it does for me, and that’s just how it is. So I loned it. Soda tries to understand too, 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. The same rules apply for Mikeila — or Keils to anyone who actually knows her. Truth is, she’s been close to our family for about as far back as my memory stretches. Her old foster home wasn't cruel, just packed so full of kids that she got lost in the shuffle, and nobody blinked when she’d slip away to our place for a handful of days. I used to wish she’d stay forever — she’s the big sister I never had and I love her almost as much as I do Sodapop. Mom and Dad never minded either; they treated her like she was one of us. So now that her current foster dad’s locked up and she’s staying with us all the time, we just say what we’ve always figured: she might as well be a Curtis already. Anyway, Keils tries to stay clear of any trouble too, like Soda and I. (Well, aside when it comes to keeping up her stash of grass, but she’d argue that’s a minor detail.) She’s only recently turned seventeen and so unless she wants to be thrown in a hundredth foster home, she has to avoid the fuzz’s attention just like us. So 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 or greasers 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 or until Keils was done grocery shopping. 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. Keils might’ve not minded coming with though. Actually, I could have gotten any one of the gang to come along, one of the four boys Darry and Soda and I have grown up with and consider family — almost just like we do for Keils. We're practically as close as siblings; 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 told Keils to swing by after the groceries, I would have ridden the bus with her. I could even 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.

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 corner 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 and Keils’ 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, Keils, 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."

By then I had figured that all the noise I had heard was the gang coming to rescue me. I’d caught a glimpse of Two-Bit throwing a punch at one of the Socs and of Steve shoving one of them back in their car. I’d vaguely made out Keils reaching into the driver’s window and slamming the guy’s head against the car door before the Socs hurriedly started driving away. That didn’t stop most of the gang from trying to run after them though.

Sodapop came loping back, Keils not far behind him. They dropped down beside me, examining my face.

"You got cut up a little, huh, Ponyboy?"

I only looked at Sodapop blankly. "I did?"

Keils huffed out a laugh, and tugged loose the bright scarf she’d had holding up her curls. They tumbled down everywhere, wild and springy the way they always got by the end of the day. And right then I'd half-remembered how she’d come bursting through the front door just the other week, waving that same scarf like it was a treasure. She’d found it in one of those thrift shops she loves digging through, and she kept bragging about how she’d snagged it for a quarter, like it proved something special about her luck, or maybe the way she saw beauty in things most other folks overlooked.

I opened my mouth through my daze to tell her not to ruin it on me — that she’d regret messing up something she’d been so proud of. But she was already using it, wetting it with her tongue and pressing it right up against the side of my head. "Pony, hun, you're bleedin' all over yourself."

"I am?"

She raised both eyebrows and held up the piece of cloth, reddened as if by magic.

Sodapop shook his head at me. "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.

Keils is similar to him in that way. I guess that’s why they get along so well; they’re a lot alike. Though by now it’s hard to tell if they were born that way, or if they just rubbed off on one another after the twelve years they’ve spent glued at the hip; Keils is Sodapop’s childhood best friend and they sync up in ways that make the rest of us stop and wonder how on earth they keep doing that. Both of them laugh like it’s bubbling out of them, like two bottles of Coke shaken too hard, and end up clutching at whatever’s nearest — usually each other — just to stay upright. They tilt their heads the same when they’re curious about something, chew the end of their straws when they’re thinking. I swear I even once saw them trip over the same crack in the sidewalk — same foot, same yelp, same tumble too. It’s strange, really. They couldn’t possibly look more different — Soda’s light and golden, like the sunrise, while Keils’ darker all over, like dusk — but when they’re together, you sort of forget all that. They both shine like the sun.

Mikeila Yzeala is the only girl in our gang and she’s real stunning too. I mean it. She’s got the kind of looks that knock the breath out of your lungs, especially when it’s one of those moments where she's still for once in her life and you get to take a good look at her. Her skin is brown like sundried earth and she’s got a head full of the thickest, most untamable curls I ever did see. They’re never greased or anything like that either, she just lets them fall naturally or puts them up into one of those flowery scarves she’s so fond of. Her eyes, thin and framed with thick lashes, are a deep hazel and they always seem a little far off, like she’s dreaming of something beautiful the rest of us can’t see. The thing about Keils is, she’s got this heart that’s just… wide open. She loves the world in a way I don’t really understand but kind of envy. She’ll talk about trees like they’re old friends and can tell you what kind of bird’s singing just by hearing it. Half the time she’s got that sketchbook tucked under her arm, with pages covered in bright colors and soft lines. She won’t ever draw in pencil alone; she says color’s the way life talks to her. Her hands always end up looking like she dipped them in a paintbox 'cause of it, and she doesn’t even care. Keils wants to see everything — mountains, jungles, beaches, all the things she’s read about in those travel magazines she keeps stacked by her bed. Says she wants to understand how people live everywhere, not just here in our little patch of the world.

Keils looked at me more closely. I looked away hurriedly even though I knew that wouldn’t do much against her — she’s always read me like an open book — 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 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.

Keils looped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me into a tight hug against her side. I didn’t protest against it. Her lips pressed against my forehead. “You’re alright now, bud. It's over.”

Soda reached over and rubbed my hair. "You're an okay kid, Pony."

I had to grin at them — these two can make you grin no matter what. I guess it's because they’re always grinning so much themselves. "You're crazy, out of your mind."

That got a laugh out of Keils and she shook me a little. “Don’t talk as if you’re any better, honey.”

Darry looked as if he'd like to knock our heads together. "You're all nuts."

Soda merely cocked one eyebrow, a trick he'd picked up from Two-Bit. "It seems to run in this family."

Keils’ smile grew. “Pretty sure you were the first one to catch it, actually.”

Darry stared at them for a second, then cracked a grin in his turn. Sodapop and Mikeila aren't afraid of him like everyone else and enjoy teasing him. I'd just as soon tease a full-grown grizzly; but for some reason, Darry seems to like their teasing.

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, Keils and Soda's kid brother and I kept my mouth shut good.

Steve Randle was seventeen, tall and tan and lean, with thick greasy curls he kept combed in complicated swirls. He was tacky, smart, and Soda's best buddy since grade school and so, naturally, Keils’ too. Keils liked to rub it in that she met Soda first, and she sure milked it for all it’s worth. Said it meant she’s Soda’s “number one,” which Steve insisted was about the dumbest thing he’d ever heard. They were always tossing insults or shoving at each other like it’s a sport, but it was all in good fun until someone else tried picking on her — then Steve was the first to jump in swinging. 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 and Keils’ friend. He didn't like me — he thought I was a tag-along and a kid; the three of them hung out together all the time and unless Soda and Steve were taking girls (Keils usually bowed out then since as she put it, she has “better things to do than watch those two idiots make fools of themselves”), Keils or Soda always took me with them, and that bugged Steve. It wasn't my fault; Soda and Keils always asked me; I didn't ask them. Sodapop and Mikeila don'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 sideburns — dark as midnight, just like the rest of his springy curls which bounced back no matter how often he slicked them down. He had gray eyes, skin dark enough you might miss his freckles if you looked too quick, 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 black-handled 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.

If I had to pick the real character of the gang, it would be Dallas Winston — Dally. I used to like to draw his 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 skin was a smidge lighter than Mikeila’s, but his hair — almost white it was so blond — still stuck out real funny against it. He dumped bleach over it so often the stuff looked like it’d break off if you pulled; his curls just hung dead over his forehead and all the way down his neck. Keils said it hurt her just looking at it. But Dally liked it that way. 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 around 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 tuff-looking Mustang or a tuff record. In our neighborhood both are compliments.

Keils hummed and grinned at Two-Bit’s words. “Mhm, real tough. We’re just about matching now, huh, Pony?”

She was talking about the scar running clean across her neck, a thin, pale line that caught the light whenever she turned her head. It hadn’t been deep enough to kill her, but it came awful close, and none of us’ll ever forget the night she got it. Keils had been out at the Dingo with Two-Bit and Johnny and Dally — just a regular night, the kind where the jukebox was probably too loud and the laughter flowed easy — when a bunch of hoods started mouthing off. One thing led to another, switchblades came out, and the next thing anyone knew, one of the guys — too drunk to stand straight — had his knife pressed up to her throat like it was some kind of joke, some dumb way of showing off. Then, clumsy as he was from the booze, he stumbled and the blade did just what it’s meant to do. Thankfully, it turned out to be more of a surface cut than anything, but the amount of blood it gushed convinced everyone she wouldn’t even survive the rush to the hospital. Now she laughs about it sometimes, says it “contributes to her charm,” but for a long while every time I saw that scar, I just remembered the unsettling quiet of the gang that night — like the whole world had gone still until we knew for sure she’d make it.

However, in spite of her remark, my cut was really nowhere near as large as hers. She still had me grinning though — Keils was tough, and maybe not in the way the rest of the guys were, with loud mouths and busted knuckles, but in how she knows just who she is and won't let anyone push her around, how she refuses to let anything harden her, and I liked the idea of resembling her, even if just ‘cause of a stupid scar I got.

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."

Keils let out a sigh alongside a puff of her herb, muttering a quiet “Here we go again.” She nudged his boot with hers. “Give him a break, Dar, please.”

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 — and much less at Keils, despite her pretty much being our sister as well and pulling some real sketchy stunts at times. 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 been a good excuse to cut him to ribbons."

“Soda’s right, Darry. Carrying a blade would’ve just made matters worse. So lay off of him, will you? He’s been through enough for the day.”

Soda and Keils always take up for me.

Darry said impatiently, "When I want you kids to tell me what to do with my kid brother, I'll ask you — alright?" But he laid off me. He always does when Sodapop or Mikeila tell 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 or Keils, because they really like 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."

Keils grimaced in sympathy.

Dally looked at the rest of us. "How about y'all? Keils? Two-Bit? Johnnycake, you and Pony wanna 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.

“Well, if y’all are going, I might as well join.” Keils smiled while putting out her grass and tucking the rest away for later. “It’s one of my rare days off of work tomorrow.”

"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 — outside of Keils, I mean — that would look at us. 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, just like Keils. Still, lots of times I wondered what other girls were like. The girls who were bright-eyed 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? Or maybe they dragged them out of trouble before the fuzz could even get involved like Keils did for us? 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. There 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. Keils lifts stuff often too, I guess, but it’s different with her. She actually cares about whatever she takes — she uses each colour of eye makeup until the tin is scrubbed clean, lines up trinkets on her dresser like high art. And she won’t touch places run by people struggling like us. I can also understand why Sodapop and Steve get into drag races and fights so much — 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 and so did Keils, who was busy getting ready for a night out with some girlfriends.

Usually at this hour Keils would’ve long since been buried under too many blankets, sleeping the night away. I swear that girl truly has the habits of a grandma sometimes — she goes to sleep right after supper, with the setting sun, then wakes up at the first light of dawn. We often make fun of her for it, but Keils always simply grins in response, letting out one of those dramatic lines like she’s in some play; “I’m following the teachings of the sun, the laws of nature, my dear boys — you reprobates would do good to learn a thing or two from them as well!” Truth is, I’ve always just suspected it was because Keils juggles a handful of jobs year round, that she must be exhausted from running all sorts of errands around town. I mean, just this past month, she’d been shelving books down at the library, trimming bouquets at the flower shop, and even delivering the daily paper on her bike by the time most other folks are just starting to wake up.

But she’s got her reasons for all that hustling. Keils is one of the few kids around here who still talks about the future like it’s something real and not just some pretty picture you keep hidden up in your head. She carefully tucks away every dollar, like little seeds she’ll grow something beautiful out of one day. And that something lately seems an awful lot like it’s taking the shape of California; some far away college she keeps a stack of brochures about, surrounded by palm trees and salt air.

Ever since Mikeila graduated early — she’s a smart girl, got moved up a grade when she was in middle school, so she earned her diploma this past June — I don’t see her half as much as I used to. I’m lucky if I catch her rushing out the door in the mornings and, by the time she’s waltzing back in, it’s already supper. She’s hurrying around the kitchen, cooking up dinner since she always insists on making sure it’s ready before Darry gets home. And, sure, she asks about my day while roping me into cutting vegetables, but it’s not the same. It feels like the only true conversations we get are when she’s tucking herself into bed and I sure have grown thankful for those. If I’m honest, I usually wish I could capture those moments in a bottle — everything just seems so picture perfect then. She sits at that old vanity she fixed up from a yard sale, brushing out her curls or rubbing in lotion she swiped from the drugstore, and the sun setting outside paints everything golden. She lets me thumb through whatever books she snuck home from her latest shift at the library, lets me lounge in her stupidly excessive pile of mismatched pillows she's collected over the years and it all just feels right for once.

That’s usually when California comes up — somewhere in between dumb stories and genuine musings, she gets to dreaming aloud about how the sun will feel different out on the West Coast, how the ocean waves will sound rolling in, how warm the beach will be underneath her feet. Some nights she says she wants to study art, to teach it one day, while other nights it’s cultures, or wildlife — she’s still figuring things out, and to her that just makes the adventure all the more fun, I guess. But the way she makes better days sound so sure… I find myself hoping she doesn’t rush too far ahead without taking me with her.

But, that night, we’d had to skip our usual routine and I tried my best not to be too bummed about it. Unlike most of our gang, Keils actually hangs out quite a bunch with other people — I swear, if the saying “social butterfly” was a person, it’d be her. Keils is funny that way; she works like she’s got a hundred lives to live, but she still somehow finds time to know the entire town. Socs, greasers, middle-class kids — she says she doesn’t make friends with just anybody, but I’d argue otherwise. It’s hard not to be fond of her.

Still, Keils always circles back to our gang. She swears up and down that we’re her favorites, and none of us ever truly argue with that — not when she's always dropped whatever she’s doing the second one of us needs her.

Mikeila came drifting into my room then, smelling like vanilla and flowers — probably three different perfumes mixed together like usual. She was slipping on some earrings, the kind that swung when she laughed, and I’d thought then she looked like she belonged in one of those fashion magazines she’s always fawning over — curls all done up, pastel tights underneath this dress you could hardly tell was secondhand. It fit her like it had been made special, and I figured that was because she’d spent an afternoon hunched over that old, beat-up sewing machine of hers, fixing it until it was just right.

Before I could say anything — or duck — she bent down and pressed a cheerful kiss to my forehead, sticky lip gloss and all, “Try not to miss me too much!”

“Keils, c’mon,” I grumbled, scrubbing at my skin. “That stuff’s nasty.”

She just laughed and stuck her tongue out at me, gravitating towards the living room to Darry and Soda like second nature — same ritual, different victims. Touching is just the language Keils shows her love through. We all got used to it.

Soda looked up from Darry’s shoulders just as Keils came, humming under her breath and swaying with her own tune, which meant she must've been in a particularly good mood. Mikeila leaned onto the tips of her toes to brush a quick kiss to Soda’s cheek and his face lit up with the same grin he’s been saving just for her since they were little.

“Shoot, look at you!” he whistled, eyes sweeping from her curls down to her feet, “You clean up real nice, Keils.”

Keils did a little turn on her heel then, just to make the skirt flutter around her knees, the usual way she does when she’s proud of something she’s wearing. And Soda reached for her natural as breathing, like he’d read the thought straight out of her head — pulling her into a full twirl as if for good measure.

She nearly stumbled as they both cracked up though, grabbing his arm to steady herself, “You think so?”

“Think so? I know so. You’re gonna be turnin’ heads all night.”

The bubbling sound of her laughter followed as she slipped away from Soda to grab her purse. “You gotta find new material, Curtis,” she turned back just to beam playfully, “You say that all the time.”

“‘Cause it’s always true,” he grinned, “Go have fun, ‘kay? You’ve earned it.”

Darry was still sunk into his armchair, head tipped back and eyes closed like he’d already drifted off, but somehow he still caught everything, and he piped up without even budging, “You drivin’ or somebody pickin’ you up?”

“My girls are supposed to be on their way—” Mikeila glanced toward the clock, her eyebrows jumping up at the time, “right about now, actually.”

Darry cracked one eye open just enough as she hurried past him, fixing her curls, fussing at her dress, and hunting for whatever trinkets she might be forgetting.

“Which one’s driving? What time you comin’ home? You got a jacket? You know evenings are starting to get cooler this time of year. And I don’t want you wanderin’ off alone, you stay with who you came with, you hear? And I better not find out you’re hangin’ around anywhere sketchy—”

“Golly, Darry,” Soda chuckled, “I think she’s gonna need a notepad to keep up with all that.”

“—and, for heavens’ sake, don’t be out where cops can see you doin’ anything stupid.”

Keils didn’t so much as hesitate, just ran through her answers like she’d studied for it — which she had, I guess, thanks to the hundred times they'd had this same conversation before. “Cindy’s driving, sober as a judge, and she’s droppin’ me back here herself. I’ll make sure to be home by midnight. I got a cardigan in my purse. I’m not gonna stray off anywhere. We’re just hanging out at the roller rink, not some dump. And I’m not stupid enough to light up my grass out in the open.”

Darry finally opened both eyes and fixed her with a glare that tried real hard to be strict but it sure didn’t have the same bite as the ones he usually saved for me. I figured he’d given up months ago on turning Keils clean, after all the talks and lectures went nowhere. Maybe if she didn’t cook half our meals and patch up our clothes and keep our place running he’d push harder. But he’s just never known how to be hard on her, not really. “You better not be smoking that stuff at all.”

“Mmh, best I can do is not be getting caught,” Mikeila slipped up behind his chair and looped her arms around his shoulders while he sighed and accepted his fate, “You just focus on getting a good night’s sleep, big man — you work too much.”

It was true. 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, except work out at gyms and go skiing with some old friends of his sometimes.

The sudden honk from out front made Keils jump and just like that she was hurrying off, calling one last goodbye at us as she rushed to slip on her heels. The screen door banged shut behind her and a second later there was a burst of giggles from outside, bright and loud enough to drift all the way to my room.

My eyes followed the car as it pulled out of the driveway and 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, not with Keils graduating just a few months after, too.

"'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 paused. “Can Keils know?" I could hide stuff alright from Darry but it was practically impossible against Mikeila, so I’d figured I might as well ask then.

Soda smiled. "She already does, bud.” It was his turn to pause, before continuing, “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 and Keils with the bills and stuff."

"Tuff enough. Wait till I get out, though, so you can help Keils 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 Keils and 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 and Keils are enough, and I'd have them both 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.