Beginning Anew: The Wrong Side of The Tracks

Chapter 1: Just A Casual Friday

JC Panther's Point of View

It was just a casual Friday morning, ditching school with my gang. Wasn't anything new to me. I was just cruisin' along in the Mustang that I was too young to drive legally, smoking a cigarette that I was too young to be smokin' and taking a swig of the beer that I legally couldn't be drinking. But, hell! The fuzz couldn't mold me into a member of the social elite. Hell, no! I was young, handsome, cool, calm and collected and I was invincible. Or so I thought.

I usually went to school (secretly, I liked it) but I figured I would drop out when I turned seventeen or whatever. I had only just turned sixteen that morning (which was why we were partying, by the way) but I had already been the leader of an infamous gang of greasers (the Street Panthers) for the past two years.

I wasn't really friends with any of the guys in my gang. We were buddies, but having a buddy doesn't make that person your friend. No, a friend is a person you could talk to about all that mushy-gushy crap inside of you called feelings, and I definitely couldn't discuss how I was feeling that morning with anyone in the gang. I was feeling like crap, though.

I knew I could tell Chewy Braxton how I was feeling because he was the closest thing to a friend I had, but he never took anything seriously. If I told him that getting drunk and trying to drive was making me feel shitty, he'd just tell me to suck it up and be a man. That was Chewy for you. That was the world for me, everyone just told me to suck it up and be a man.

But that morning I was sucking it up, because I was feeling shitty deep down insdie, but on the outside, I was energetic and happy at that moment. I wouldn't have to listen to Mr. Morse, my History teacher, droning on and on about Ancient Mesopotamia. The only bad thing about ditching was that I had Auto Mechanics that day, and that was something I just didn't want to miss.

This was worth it though. I don't think I had ever felt more free in my entire life then I did that moment, and that was saying nothing really. I always felt trapped, everywhere. I just didn't feel comfortable; not in school, not at home. Hell, I didn't really have a home. I mean, home is supposed to be the place where people love you. But no one gives a yankee's dime about me, I figger, but I don't let that get me down. Like I said, I'm practically invincible. Practically...

But being invincible isn't as good as being invisible, which is what I had always wished I was, invisible. That way I could always be around people, get to know them, without them getting to know me. I mean, how can you know a person you can't see? Sure, blind people know people they can't see, but those people aren't invisible, or invincible.

And maybe if I was invisible, I wouldn't have had to have gotten the look from a person standing there on the sidewalk, but not just any person. I knew that person, because that person was my hero, my cousin, my blood brother. Dallas Winston....

Disclaimer: I do not own the Outsiders, nor do I own Dallas and Steve, who will show up in this story. I do however own all of the member of the Street Panthers, all of the members of the Black Hawks, and any other characters not recognizable.

I know this chapter sucks, but I need ideas as to what should happen next with Dallas and JC and the gang and all. Please R&R with ideas!