Life Goes On

Chapter 1: South Side

By: Cherry922

S.E. Hinton's Description of Dallas Winston in the Outsiders

"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 hair was almost white it was so blonde, and he didn't like haircuts, or hair oil

either, so it fell over his forehead in wisps and kicked out In the back in tufts

and curled behind his ears and along the nape of his neck. His eyes were

blue, blazing ice, cold with a hatred of the world."

The night was cold, below freezing, but that was just fine with me, I liked the cold. It made me feel more awake and alert. It was just me and Tim Shepard walking around the richer part of town, looking for some kicks. We were both wearing black leather jackets, blue jeans and boots, I didn't have grease in my hair, but Tim did. We were kinda tuff looking, though, and the town people sure did make a big deal about us being there, fancy ladies that walked by us in their silk skirts and expensive looking purses gave us scared, and sometimes hateful glares, dad's wearing suites pulled their children close to them, and cops seemed to be following us around. Since we were so tuff looking though, I guess they did have a reason to be freaked a little bit, but town kids, socs, were just as scary as us, they just dressed nicer. Rich people are always going by appearances.

We couldn't find nothin' to do though, we couldn't find any bars we could sneak into or in chicks to pay attention to us, so we just plopped down on a bench on kind of an empty street and smoked a cigarette and talked. Me and Tim had a lot in common, we talked a wile about some of the fights we'd had before with other gangs, well not gangs, but groups of friends used to fight against other groups of friends a lot, we talked about those times. He told me this one story, were him and the rest of his gang fought some people with a girl on their side, and how it wasn't much fair 'cause even greasers and hoods can't hit chicks. I told him this other story about how Darry had taken 9 people at once during a fight and won, even though 1 of them was fightin' with a bike chain, then we were quiet a wile. The only sounds were us taking drags on a cigarette. Then when the quietness was making me real nervous he said, "You fighting against Kenneth tomorrow?"

I kinda laughed a little, "You heard he wants to kill me right?"

He smiled, "You screw with his girl?"

"Naw, that's just the excuse he's making for the fight, you know he's had it out for me." I answered, "We're gonna fight by the railroad tracks the night after tomorrow, wanna come? Darry, Two-bit, Johnny, and Soda are commin', so you don't gotta."

He gave me this stern gaze, "Naw, I'm gonna go visit Curly then."

I nodded; he never would pass up seeing his brother, not even for a fight.

"It's late," I said, "I'm gonna go to the Curtis' place, it's to cold to sleep out here."

"Alright, see ya." He said, and walked away. I watched him for a little wile then I headed off too, I was suppose to meet Ponyboy for a late night movie on our side of town, and It was a long walk.

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"Damn that's a big house," Ponyboy mumbled in awe, "You think a princess lives there, or the president or somebody?"

I couldn't help but grin, "Yea Pony, a princess came to stay in this part of town."

"Aw, this town ain't that bad Dally," He said kicking the dirt.

"It ain't good enough for no important person that's for sure."

"We're important, ain't we?" Pony mumbled.

That guy had the weirdest thoughts.

"Nobody but the rest of the gang would care if we left, or got shot or something, Pony, the world would go on. Heck, some people will even be happy we're ain't around anymore to bother them."

"Yea, well, I would sure like to live in that house anyways, why do you think they decided to live here instead of in the south part of town?"

I shrugged. It was a real nice house. It was really big and painted white. The grass was so green it looked like it had been dyed. A huge fountain spurted out the water.

"Come on, let's get out of here." I nudged him on.

"Wait, Dallas, there ain't a princess in there, but there is a girl." I followed his gaze. Sure enough, a girl about my age escorted by a man in a business suite, probably her dad. They were walking down the stone path. She was beautiful though. She had curly bouncy brunette hair and was wearing this skirt that came to a respectable length and a matching top, something about her seemed familiar though and it was kinda freaky.

"Come on Pony, let's go." I said grabbing hold of the guys sleeve and pulling hard, I guess I kinda pulled to hard though cause he kind of tripped after me.

"How old do you think she is?" He asked quietly. Normally you couldn't get him to talk much; I guess girls were one subject he liked.

"To old for you," I said pulling out a box of cigarettes and lighting one with a match.

"Where's your necklace?" Pony asked, "You and Sylvia going out again or something?"

"Naw man, I lost it." I said waving away his questions with my hand and taking a long draw of the cigarette and blowing out it's blue smoke, "You know I'll never go out with her again," Really, I made a pact to myself not to go out with any girl again, just a little dates now and then. I didn't want to date some trashy girl like I'd been doing, and breaking up with Sylvia made me realize that. No girl would think of me as anything more than a hood, except for one, but she was long gone by now.

"Come on man, lets go, the movies starting in less than an hour," Pony said then grinned, "Race ya,"

I just shot him a mean look, and that smile faded, somehow I wondered how I could be so mean to a kid who just wanted to have some fun, but I pushed that thought out of my mind, I wasn't going to be seen racing a 14 year old kid around the block, plus, he could probably beat my ass, and that defiantly wouldn't look good on my rep.

We walked quiet a lot of the way.

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