The Outsiders by SE Hinton

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 the world after all, and Mom would talk to him and make him grin in spite of himself. “You’ve got quite a mom,” Dally used to say. “She knows the score.” She could talk to Dallas and kept him from getting into a lot of trouble. My mother was golden and beautiful . . .
    “Ponyboy”—Johnny was shaking me—“Hey, Pony, wake up.”
    I sat up,