Chapter 5
I WOKE UP LATE IN the afternoon.
For a second I didn't know where I was.
You know how it is, when you wake up in a
strange place and wonder where in the world
you are, until memory comes rushing over you
like a wave.
I half convinced myself that I had dreamed
everything that had happened the night before.
I'm really home in bed, I thought.
It's late and both Darry and Sodapop are up.
Darry's cooking breakfast, and in a minute
he and Soda will come in and drag me out of
bed and wrestle me down and tickle me until
I think I'll die if they don't stop.
It's me and Soda's turn to do the dishes after
we eat, and then we'll all go outside and
play football.
Johnny and Two-Bit and I will get Darry on
our side, since Johnny and I are so small
and Darry's the best player.
It'll go like the usual weekend morning.
I tried telling myself that while I lay on
the cold rock floor, wrapped up in Dally's
jacket and listening to the wind rushing through
the trees' dry leaves outside.
Finally I quit pretending and pushed myself
up.
I was stiff and sore from sleeping on that
hard floor, but I had never slept so soundly.
I was still groggy.
I pushed off Johnny's jeans jacket, which
had somehow got thrown across me, and blinked,
scratching my head.
It was awful quiet, with just the sound of
rushing wind in the trees.
Suddenly I realized that Johnny wasn't there.
"Johnny?"
I called loudly, and that old wooden church
echoed me, onny onny...
I looked around wildly, almost panic-stricken,
but then caught sight of some crooked lettering
written in the dust of the floor.
Went to get supplies.
Be back soon.
J.C.
I sighed, and went to the pump to get a drink.
The water from it was like liquid ice and
it tasted funny, but it was water.
I splashed some on my face and that woke me
up pretty quick.
I wiped my face off on Johnny's jacket and
sat down on the back steps.
The hill the church was on dropped off suddenly
about twenty feet from the back door, and
you could see for miles and miles.
It was like sitting on the top of the world.
When you haven't got anything to do, you remember
things in spite of yourself.
I could remember every detail of the whole
night, but it had the unreal quality of a
dream.
It seemed much longer than twenty-four hours
since Johnny and I had met Dally at the corner
of Pickett and Sutton.
Maybe it was.
Maybe Johnny had been gone a whole week and
I had just slept.
Maybe he had already been worked over by the
fuzz and was waiting to get the electric chair
since he wouldn't tell where I was.
Maybe Dally had been killed in a car wreck
or something and no one would ever know where
I was, and I'd just die up here, alone, and
turn into a skeleton.
My over-active imagination was running away
with me again.
Sweat ran down my face and back, and I was
trembling.
My head swam, and I leaned back and closed
my eyes.
I guess it was partly delayed shock.
Finally my stomach calmed down and I relaxed
a little, hoping that Johnny would remember
cigarettes.
I was scared, sitting there by myself.
I heard someone coming up through the dead
leaves toward the back of the church, and
I ducked inside the door.
Then I heard a whistle, long and low, ending
in a sudden high note.
I knew that whistle well enough.
It was used by us and the Shepard gang for
"Who's there?"
I returned it carefully, then darted out the
door so fast that I fell off the steps and
sprawled flat under Johnny's nose.
I propped myself on my elbows and grinned
up at him.
"Hey, Johnny.
Fancy meetin' you here."
He looked down at me over a big package.
"I swear, Ponyboy, you're gettin' to act more
like Two-Bit every day."
I tried unsuccessfully to cock an eyebrow.
"Who's acting?"
I rolled over and sprang up, happy that someone
was there.
"What'd you get?"
"Come on inside.
Dally told us to stay inside."
We went in.
Johnny dusted off a table with his jacket
and started taking things out of the sack
and lining them up neatly.
"A week's supply of baloney, two loaves of
bread, a box of matches..."
Johnny went on.
I got tired of watching him do it all, so
I started digging into the sack myself.
"Wheee!"
I sat down on a dusty chair and stared.
"A paperback copy of Gone with the Wind!
How'd you know I always wanted one?"
Johnny reddened.
"I remembered you sayin' something about it
once.
And me and you went to see that movie, 'member?
I thought you could maybe read it out loud
and help kill time or something."
"Gee, thanks."
I put the book down reluctantly.
I wanted to start it right then.
"Peroxide?
A deck of cards..."
Suddenly I realized something.
"Johnny, you ain't thinking of..."
Johnny sat down and pulled out his knife.
"We're gonna cut our hair, and you're gonna
bleach yours."
He looked at the ground carefully.
"They'll have our descriptions in the paper.
We can't fit 'em."
"Oh, no!"
My hand flew to my hair.
"No, Johnny, not my hair!"
It was my pride.
It was long and silky, just like Soda's, only
a little redder.
Our hair was tuff--- we didn't have to use
much grease on it.
Our hair labeled us greasers, too--- it was
our trademark.
The one thing we were proud of.
Maybe we couldn't have Corvairs or madras
shirts, but we could have hair.
"We'd have to anyway if we got caught.
You know the first thing the judge does is
make you get a haircut"
"I don't see why," I said sourly.
"Dally could just as easily mug somebody with
short hair."
"I don't know either--- it's just a way of
trying to break us.
They can't really do anything to guys like
Curly Shepard or Tim; they've had about everything
done to them.
And they can't take anything away from them
because they don't have anything in the first
place.
So they cut their hair."
I looked at Johnny imploringly.
Johnny sighed.
"I'm gonna cut mine too, and wash the grease
out, but I can't bleach it.
I'm too dark-skinned to look okay blond.
Oh, come on, Ponyboy," he pleaded.
"It'll grow back."
"Okay," I said, wide-eyed.
"Get it over with."
Johnny flipped out the razor-edge of his switch,
took hold of my hair, and started sawing on
it.
I shuddered.
"Not too short," I begged.
"Johnny, please..."
Finally it was over with.
My hair looked funny, scattered over the floor
in tufts.
"It's lighter than I thought it was," I said,
examining it.
"Can I see what I look like now?"
"No," Johnny said slowly, staring at me.
"We gotta bleach it first."
After I'd sat in the sun for fifteen minutes
to dry the bleach, Johnny let me look in the
old cracked mirror we'd found in a closet.
I did a double take.
My hair was even lighter than Sodapop's.
I'd never combed it to the side like that.
It just didn't look like me.
It made me look younger, and scareder, too.
Boy howdy, I thought, this really makes me
look tuff.
I look like a blasted pansy.
I was miserable.
Johnny handed me the knife.
He looked scared, too.
"Cut the front and thin out the rest.
I'll comb it back after I wash it."
"Johnny," I said tiredly, "you can't wash
your hair in that freezing water in this weather.
You'll get a cold."
He only shrugged.
"Go ahead and cut it."
I did the best I could.
He went ahead and washed it anyway, using
the bar of soap he'd bought.
I was glad I had had to run away with him
instead of with Two-Bit or Steve or Dally.
That would be one thing they'd never think
of soap.
I gave him Dally's jacket to wrap up in, and
he sat shivering in the sunlight on the back
steps, leaning against the door, combing his
hair back.
It was the first time I could see that he
had eyebrows.
He didn't look like Johnny.
His forehead was whiter where his bangs had
been; it would have been funny if we hadn't
been so scared.
He was still shivering with cold.
"I guess," he said weakly, "I guess we're
disguised."
I leaned back next to him sullenly.
"I guess so."
"Oh, shoot," Johnny said with fake cheerfulness,
"it's just hair."
"Shoot nothing," I snapped.
"It took me a long time to get that hair just
the way I wanted it.
And besides, this just ain't us.
It's like being in a Halloween costume we
can't get out of."
"Well, we got to get used to it," Johnny said
with finality.
"We're in big trouble and it's our looks or
us."
I started eating a candy bar.
"I'm still tired," I said.
To my surprise, the ground blurred and I felt
tears running down my cheeks.
I brushed them off hurriedly.
Johnny looked as miserable as I felt.
"I'm sorry I cut your hair off, Ponyboy."
"Oh, it ain't that;" I said between bites
of chocolate.
"I mean, not all of it.
I'm just a little spooky.
I really don't know what's the matter.
I'm just mixed up."
"I know," Johnny said through chattering teeth
as we went inside.
"Things have been happening so fast..."
I put my arm across his shoulders to warm
him up.
"Two-Bit shoulda been in that little one-horse
store.
Man, we're in the middle of nowhere; the nearest
house is two miles away.
Things were layin' out wide open, just waitin'
for somebody slick like Two-Bit to come and
pick 'em up.
He coulda walked out with half the store."
He leaned back beside me, and I could feel
him trembling.
"Good ol' Two-Bit," he said in a quavering
voice.
He must have been as homesick as I was.
"Remember how he was wisecrackin' last night?"
I said.
"Last night... just last night we were walkin'
Cherry and Marcia over to Two-Bit's.
Just last night we were layin' in the lot,
lookin' up at the stars and dreaming..."
"Stop it!"
Johnny gasped from between clenched teeth.
"Shut up about last night!
I killed a kid last night.
He couldn't of been over seventeen or eighteen,
and I killed him.
How'd you like to live with that?"
He was crying.
I held him like Soda had held him the day
we found him lying in the lot.
"I didn't mean to," he finally blurted out,
"but they were drownin' you, and I was so
scared..."
He was quiet for a minute.
"There sure is a lot of blood in people."
He got up suddenly and began pacing back and
forth, slapping his pockets.
"Whatta we gonna do?"
I was crying by then.
It was getting dark and I was cold and lonesome.
I closed my eyes and leaned my head back,
but the tears came anyway.
"This is my fault," Johnny said in a miserable
voice.
He had stopped crying when I started.
"For bringin' a little thirteen-year-old kid
along.
You ought to go home.
You
can't get into any trouble.
You didn't kill him."
"No!"
I screamed at him.
"I'm fourteen!
I've been fourteen for a month!
And I'm in it as much as you are.
I'll stop crying in a minute...
I can't help it."
He slumped down beside me.
"I didn't mean it like that, Ponyboy.
Don't cry, Pony, we'll be okay.
Don't cry..."
I leaned against him and bawled until I went
to sleep.
I woke up late that night.
Johnny was resting against the wall and I
was asleep on his shoulder.
"Johnny?"
I yawned.
"You awake?"
I was warm and sleepy.
"Yeah," he said quietly.
"We ain't gonna cry no more, are we?"
"Nope.
We're all cried out now.
We're gettin' used to the idea.
We're gonna be okay now."
"That's what I thought," I said drowsily.
Then for the first time since Dally and I
had sat down behind those girls at the Nightly
Double, I relaxed.
We could take whatever was coming now.
THE NEXT FOUR or five days were the longest
days I've ever spent in my life.
We killed time by reading Gone with the Wind
and playing poker.
Johnny sure did like that book, although he
didn't know anything about the Civil War and
even less about plantations, and I had to
explain a lot of it to him.
It amazed me how Johnny could get more meaning
out of some of the stuff in there than I could---
I was supposed to be the deep one.
Johnny had failed a year in school and never
made good grades--- he couldn't grasp anything
that was shoved at him too fast, and I guess
his teachers thought he was just plain dumb.
But he wasn't.
He was just a little slow to get things, and
he liked to explore things once he did get
them.
He was especially stuck on the Southern gentlemen---
impressed with their manners and charm.
"I bet they were cool ol' guys," he said,
his eyes glowing, after I had read the part
about them riding into sure death because
they were gallant.
"They remind me of Dally."
"Dally?"
I said, startled.
"Shoot, he ain't got any more manners than
I do.
And you saw how he treated those girls the
other night.
Soda's more like them Southern boys."
"Yeah... in the manners bit, and the charm,
too, I guess," Johnny said slowly, "but one
night I saw Dally gettin' picked up by the
fuzz, and he kept real cool and calm the whole
time.
They was gettin' him for breakin' out the
windows in the school building, and it was
Two-Bit who did that.
And Dally knew it.
But he just took the sentence without battin'
an eye or even denyin' it.
That's gallant."
That was the first time I realized the extent
of Johnny's hero-worship for Dally Winston.
Of all of us, Dally was the one I liked least.
He didn't have Soda's understanding or dash,
or Two-Bit's humor, or even Darry's superman
qualities.
But I realized that these three appealed to
me because they were like the heroes in the
novels I read.
Dally was real.
I liked my books and clouds and sunsets.
Dally was so real he scared me.
Johnny and I never went to the front of the
church.
You could see the front from the road, and
sometimes farm kids rode their horses by on
their way to the store.
So we stayed in the very back, usually sitting
on the steps and looking across the valley.
We could see for miles; see the ribbon of
highway and the small dots that were houses
and cars.
We couldn't watch the sunset, since the back
faced east, but I loved to look at the colors
of the fields and the soft shadings of the
horizon.
One morning I woke up earlier than usual.
Johnny and I slept huddled together for warmth---
Dally had been right when he said it would
get cold where we were going.
Being careful not to wake Johnny up, I went
to sit on the steps and smoke a cigarette.
The dawn was coming then.
All the lower valley was covered with mist,
and sometimes little pieces of it broke off
and floated away in small clouds.
The sky was lighter in the east,
and the horizon was a thin golden line.
The clouds changed from gray to pink, and
the mist was touched with gold.
There was a silent moment when everything
held its breath, and then the sun rose.
It was beautiful.
"Golly"--- Johnny's voice beside me made me
jump--- "that sure was pretty."
"Yeah."
I sighed, wishing I had some paint to do a
picture with while the sight was still fresh
in my mind.
"The mist was what was pretty," Johnny said.
"All gold and silver."
"Uhmmmm," I said, trying to blow a smoke ring.
"Too bad it couldn't stay like that all the
time."
"Nothing gold can stay."
I was remembering a poem I'd read once.
"What?"
"Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay."
Johnny was staring at me.
"Where'd you learn that?
That was what I meant"
"Robert Frost wrote it.
He meant more to it than I'm gettin' though."
I was trying to find the meaning the poet
had in mind, but it eluded me.
"I always remembered it
because I never quite got what he meant by
it"
"You know," Johnny said slowly, "I never noticed
colors and clouds and stuff
until you kept reminding me about them.
It seems like they were never there before."
He thought for a minute.
"Your family sure is funny."
"And what happens to be so funny about it?"
I asked stiffly.
Johnny looked at me quickly.
"I didn't mean nothing.
I meant, well, Soda kinda looks like your
mother did, but he acts just exactly like
your father.
And Darry is the spittin' image of your father,
but he ain't wild and laughing all the time
like he was.
He
acts like your mother.
And you don't act like either one."
"I know," I said.
"Well," I said, thinking this over, "you ain't
like any of the gang.
I mean, I couldn't tell Two-Bit or Steve or
even Darry about the sunrise and clouds and
stuff.
I couldn't even remember that poem around
them.
I mean, they just don't dig.
Just you and Sodapop.
And maybe Cherry Valance."
Johnny shrugged.
"Yeah," he said with a sigh.
"I guess we're different."
"Shoot," I said, blowing a perfect smoke ring,
"maybe they are."
By the fifth day I was so tired of baloney
I nearly got sick every time I looked at
it.
We had eaten all our candy bars in the first
two days.
I was dying for a Pepsi.
I'm what
you might call a Pepsi addict.
I drink them like a fiend, and going for five
days without
one was about to kill me.
Johnny promised to get some if we ran out
of supplies and had
to get some more, but that didn't help me
right then.
I was smoking a lot more there than I
usually did--- I guess because it was something
to do--- although Johnny warned me that
I would get sick smoking so much.
We were careful with our cigarettes--- if
that old
church ever caught fire there'd be no stopping
it.
On the fifth day I had read up to Sherman's
siege of Atlanta in Gone with the Wind, owed
Johnny a hundred and fifty bucks from poker
games, smoked two packs of
Camels, and as Johnny had predicted, got sick.
I hadn't eaten anything all day; and
smoking on an empty stomach doesn't make you
feel real great.
I curled up in a corner to
sleep off the smoke.
I was just about asleep when I heard, as if
from a great distance, a
low long whistle that went off in a sudden
high note.
I was too sleepy to pay any
attention, although Johnny didn't have any
reason to be whistling like that.
He was sitting
on the back steps trying to read Gone with
the Wind.
I had almost decided that I had
dreamed the outside world and there was nothing
real but baloney sandwiches and the
Civil War and the old church and the mist
in the valley.
It seemed to me that I had always
lived in the church, or maybe lived during
the Civil War and had somehow got
transplanted.
That shows you what a wild imagination I have.
A toe nudged me in the ribs.
"Glory," said a rough but familiar voice,
"he looks
different with his hair like that."
I rolled over and sat up, rubbing the sleep
out of my eyes and yawning.
Suddenly I blinked.
"Hey, Dally!"
"Hey, Ponyboy!"
He grinned down at me.
"Or should I say Sleeping Beauty?"
I never thought I'd live to see the day when
I would be so glad to see Dally
Winston, but right then he meant one thing:
contact with the outside world.
And it
suddenly became real and vital.
"How's Sodapop?
Are the fuzz after us?
Is Darry all right?
Do the boys know
where we are?
What..."
"Hold on, kid," Dally broke in.
"I can't answer everything at once.
You two want
to go get something to eat first?
I skipped breakfast and I'm about starved."
"You're starved?"
Johnny was so indignant he nearly squeaked.
I remembered the
baloney.
"Is it safe to go out?"
I asked eagerly.
"Yep."
Dally searched his shirt pocket for a cigarette,
and finding none, said,
"Gotta cancer stick, Johnnycake?"
Johnny tossed him a whole package.
"The fuzz won't be lookin' for you around
here," Dally said, lighting up.
"They
think you've lit out for Texas.
I've got Buck's T-bird parked down the road
a little way.
Goshamighty, boys, ain't you been eatin' anything?"
Johnny looked startled.
"Yeah.
Whatever gave you the idea we ain't?"
Dally shook his head.
"You're both pale and you've lost weight.
After this, get out
in the sun more.
You look like you've been through the mill."
I started to say "Look who's talking" but
decided it would be safer not to.
Dally
needed a shave--- a stubble of colorless beard
covered his jaw--- and he looked like he
was the one who'd been sleeping in his clothes
for a week instead of us; I knew he hadn't
seen a barber in months.
But it was safer not to get mouthy with Dally
Winston.
"Hey, Ponyboy"--- he fumbled with a piece
of paper in his back pocket--- "I gotta
letter for you."
"A letter?
Who from?"
"The President, of course, stupid.
It's from Soda."
"Sodapop?"
I said, bewildered.
"But how did he know...?"
"He came over to Buck's a couple of days ago
for something and found that sweat
shirt.
I told him I didn't know where you were, but
he didn't believe me.
He gave me this
letter and half his pay check to give you.
Kid, you ought to see Darry.
He's takin' this
mighty hard..."
I wasn't listening.
I leaned back against the side of the church
and read:
Ponyboy,
Well I guess you got into some trouble, huh?
Darry and me
nearly went nuts when you ran out like that.
Darry is awful
sorry he hit you.
You know he didn't mean it.
And then you
and Johnny turned up missing and what with
that dead kid
in the park and Dally getting hauled into
the station, well it
scared us something awful.
The police came by to question
us and we told them as much as we could.
I can't believe
little old Johnny could kill somebody.
I know Dally knows
where you are, but you know him.
He keeps his trap shut
and won't tell me nothing.
Darry hasn't got the slightest
notion where you're at and it is nearly killing
him.
I wish
you'd come back and turn yourselfves in but
I guess you
can't since Johnny might get hurt.
You sure are famous.
You got a paragraph in the newspaper even.
Take care and
say hi to Johnny for us.
Sodapop Curtis
He could improve his spelling, I thought after
reading it through three or four
times.
"How come you got hauled in?"
I asked Dally.
"Shoot, kid"--- he grinned wolfishly--- "them
boys at the station know me by
now.
I get hauled in for everything that happens
in our turf.
While I was there I kinda let
it slip that y'all were headin' for Texas.
So that's where they're lookin'."
He took a drag on his cigarette and cussed
it goodnaturedly for not being a Kool.
Johnny listened in admiration.
"You sure can cuss good, Dally."
"Sure can," Dally agreed wholeheartedly, proud
of his vocabulary.
"But don't you
kids get to pickin' up my bad habits."
He gave me a hard rub on the head.
"Kid, I swear it don't look like you with
your
hair all cut off.
It used to look tuff.
You and Soda had the coolest lookin' hair
in town."
"I know," I said sourly.
"I look lousy, but don't rub it in."
"Do y'all want somethin' to eat or not?"
Johnny and I leaped up.
"You'd better believe it"
"Gee," Johnny said wistfully, "it sure will
be good to get into a car again."
"Well," Dally drawled, "I'll give you a ride
for your money."
Dally always did like to drive fast, as if
he didn't care whether he got where he
was going or not, and we came down the red
dirt road off Jay Mountain doing eighty-five.
I like fast driving and Johnny was crazy about
drag races, but we both got a little
green around the gills when Dally took a corner
on two wheels with the brakes
screaming.
Maybe it was because we hadn't been in a car
for so long.
We stopped at a Dairy Queen and the first
thing I got was a Pepsi.
Johnny and I
gorged on barbecue sandwiches and banana splits.
"Glory," Dallas said, amazed, watching us
gulp the stuff down.
"You don't need to
make like every mouthful's your last.
I got plenty of money.
Take it easy, I don't want
you gettin' sick on me.
And I thought I was hungry!"
Johnny merely ate faster.
I didn't slow down until I got a headache.
"I didn't tell y'all something," Dally said,
finishing his third hamburger.
"The Socs
and us are having all-out warfare all over
the city.
That kid you killed had plenty of
friends and all over town it's Soc against
grease.
We can't walk alone at all.
I started
carryin' a heater..."
"Dally!"
I said, frightened.
"You kill people with heaters!"
"Ya kill 'em with switchblades, too, don't
ya, kid?"
Dally said in a hard voice.
Johnny gulped.
"Don't worry," Dally went on, "it ain't loaded.
I ain't aimin' to get picked
up for murder.
But it sure does help a bluff.
Tim Shepard's gang and our outfit are havin'
it out with the Socs tomorrow night at the
vacant lot.
We got hold of the president of one
of their social clubs and had a war council.
Yeah"--- Dally sighed, and I knew he was
remembering New York--- "just like the good
old days.
If they win, things go on as usual.
If we do, they stay outa our territory but
good.
Two-Bit got jumped a few days ago.
Darry
and me came along in time, but he wasn't havin'
too much trouble.
Two-Bit's a good
fighter.
Hey, I didn't tell you we got us a spy."
"A spy?"
Johnny looked up from his banana split.
"Who?"
'That good-lookin' broad I tried to pick up
that night you killed the Soc.
The
redhead, Cherry what's-her-name."
