The Outsiders (the rest of Chapter 2)

outsiders the rest of Chapter two.

It was almost four months ago I had walked down

to the DX station to get a bottle of pop

in to see Stephen 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 because that

there is usually a bunch of girls down there flirting

with soda, all kinds of girls socials to.

I don't care too much for girls yet Soda says.

I'll grow out of it.

He did.

It was the warmest 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

fistfights. We were passing it, kicking rocks down the street,

finishing our last bottles of Pepsi.

When Steve noticed something lying on the ground, he picked

it up.

It was Johnny's blue jean jacket, the only jacket he

had. Uh, 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 stay in the color of rust across

this color.

He looked at the ground.

There was some more stains on the ground.

He looked up and across the field with a stricken

expression on his face.

I think we all heard the low moment 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, so to

turn 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 matter than heck, could 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 the rest of 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 moment and muffled groan

as he dropped on his knees beside soda.

Somehow the gang sensed what had happened to bit was

suddenly there beside me, and for once, his comical grin

was gone and his dancing gray eyes were stormy.

Dairy had seen us from our porch and ran toward

us, suddenly is getting to a halt.

Dolly was there to swearing under his breath and turning

away with a sick expression on his face.

I wondered about it vaguely.

Delhi had seen people killed on the streets of New

York's west side.

Why do you look sick now?

Johnny Soda lifted him up and held him against his

shoulder. He gave the limp body of slights.

Shake, he johnnycake.

Johnny didn't open his eyes, but there came a soft

question. So, soda?

Yeah, it's me, sort of.

Pop said, Don't talk.

You're going to be okay.

There was a whole bunch of them.

Johnny went on swallowing, ignoring sodas, Command blue Mustang.

Well, I got so scared, he tried to swear, but

suddenly started crying, fighting to control himself.

and sobbing all the more because he couldn't.

I've 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 John his hair

back out of his eyes.

It's okay, Johnnycake.

They're gone now.

It's OK.

Finally, between sobs, Johnny managed to gas about his story.

You've been hunting our football to practice a few kicks.

When a blue Mustang pulled up beside the lot.

Four socials in it, they caught him.

One of them had a lot of rings on his

hand. That's what 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.

He had threatened him with everything under the sun.

Johnny was high strung anyway.

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 Donny.

He had never been a coward.

He was a good man in a rumble, he stuck

up for the gang and kept his mouth struck good

after around cops.

But But after the night of the beating, Johnny was

jump here than ever.

I didn't think you never 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 to if he ever got jumped again.

They 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 ID nearly for gotten the

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 socials aren't like that, she said.

You have to believe me, Ponyboy.

Not all of us are like that.

Sure, I said that.

That's like saying all you greasers air like Dallas Winston.

I bet he's jumped a few people.

Well, I did.

I digested that.

It was true Dolly 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.

Jerry no longer looked sick.

Onley sad.

I'll bet you think the socials have it made the

rich kids the Westside socials.

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 at me straight in the eye.

Things air rough all over.

I believe you, I said.

We better get back out there with the pop corner

to Biddle.

Think I ran off with his money?

So we went back and watched the movie through again.

Marcia and two bit were hitting it off.

Fine. Both had the same scatterbrain sense of humor.

The cherry and Johnny and I just out there looking

at the movie, not talking.

Quit worrying about everything and thought about how nice it

would be to sit with a girl without having to

listen to her swear or to beat her off with

a club.

A new Johnny liked it, too.

He didn't talk to girls much once, while Dolly was

in reform school, Sylvia had started hanging on to Johnny

and sweet talking him.

And Steve got a 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

speaking well abroad like Sylvia would get him into, Ah,

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

picked up a couple of girls downtown.

One day I thought it was funny because girls are

one subject even dairy thinks I used my head about.

And it really had been funny because tube, it was

half crocked when he gave me the lecture and he

told me some stories that made me wanna vote, crawl

under the floor or something.

But he had been talking about girls like Sylvia and

the girls he and Dolly, and the rest picked up

at a drive.

A drive ins in downtown.

You never said anything about so she 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 socials would have to

sweat about.

Good grades, good cars, good girls, Madre shirts and mustangs

and core bears.

Man, I thought I had worries like that.

I'd consider myself lucky.

I know better now.

The Outsiders (the rest of Chapter 2)

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