It wasn't a big deal for Johnny to ditch school. He did it all the time. It was for a few reasons, one of which was that he wasn't that great at school. The other reason was his parents. His parents didn't care if he went, or they just weren't able to make sure he went. They were both drunks.
So I wasn't that concerned when I didn't see him there. I figured I'd see him after school, probably with a black eye or something from his old man, but I'd see him. I had other stuff to worry about, truthfully. I had a lot of assignments that were due around the same time. I was put up a grade and in all the smart classes. It was a lot of work and a lot of pressure, especially since I was a low life greaser in classes with all the socs. In my head I knew I was smarter than a lot of them, I knew they were only in these classes because they were socs, and that all that soc money would pay for the good schools, the good colleges no matter what lousy grades they got.
There is this little part of me that expects things to be fair. I don't know why that little part of me won't die, despite all the evidence that says things are not one bit fair. Being smart isn't enough to get you into a good school. Money is enough even if you sit in your classes and don't do a thing, even if you don't have the brains to be in the top classes, even if you're rich and dumb, the important part of that is being rich. Dumb doesn't matter if the bank account is big enough.
So that was why every assignment counted, that was why every grade was a building block for college, and if I could get a scholarship and get into college then I could escape the life of lousy neighborhoods and minimum wage jobs, jobs like my brothers had, roofing houses and pumping gas, jobs that barely covered the monthly expenses. If I got into college I could escape the violence of neighborhoods like ours, the abuse of drunks like Johnny's parents, the misery and hopelessness that caused them to drink in the first place. It was like this sucking vortex of misery and poverty and dead end jobs and dead end lives. I had to escape.
I walked home, keeping half an eye out for socs. They've been roaming the neighborhood lately, jumping us for kicks. I didn't see any socs. I saw some greasers just kicking a football around, saw some other kids smoking at the corner of one street and another, saw some kid making out with a girl wearing too much make-up.
No one was home at my house, Darry and Soda were working. I decided to get my homework out of the way first, then I could go and play pool or something, maybe pinball, I could find Johnny and hang out at the lot. I could do that without guilt if all my homework was done. So I got started on it.
It was getting kinda late. This was one of the days when Darry and Soda both worked late, and it was completely dark out, but all my homework was done. It was the best feeling, getting that shit done, nothing hanging over my head. That was when my thoughts turned to Johnny again. It was fine not to see him in school, but all day? That was unusual.
I thought I'd go look for him, so I headed to the vacant lot. I saw a fire and a few kids hanging out, hunched up shoulders in big jackets, cigarettes dangling from their lips. No Johnny. I checked out the pool hall and he wasn't there, the diners, the pizza places, nothing. I did not want to go to his house, but I would. Last ditch effort, I'd go there.
Johnny's house was awful, everything about it was awful. He hated it there, and it was no wonder. It smelled like garbage and stale beer and vomit, the porch was sagging under the weight of so much crap, broken appliances and piles of wood. I stepped over things and around things and made my way to his front door. What if he was here and had been beaten so badly he could barely move? It wasn't out of the realm of possibility. What if, what if?
I knocked at the flimsy screen door, hearing the knock kind of echo around in there. I just wanted Johnny to come to the door so I could stop wondering and worrying about him, and then I could yell at him for making me worry and we could go play pinball or something. No one seemed to be coming so I knocked again.
"Yeah?" Johnny's mother had come to the door, and she was so tiny, her hair black like Johnny's and her eyes big and dark like his were, but different. There was a different look in them. Johnny always looked anxious and kind of scared, but his mother had this hardened look, this beyond caring look. I didn't like her, I didn't like either of his parents.
I'd heard her yell at him plenty of times and I knew he hated it.
"Is Johnny here?" I said.
"No," she said.
"No?" I was surprised, since he wasn't anywhere else.
"Where is he?" I said.
"I don't know," she said, and with that she shut the door in my face, and I was left on the porch, wondering what to do next.