Disclaimer: I do not own The Outsider, or any of the characters mentioned in the story.
I often wondered why Dallas Winston was in our gang. I mean, come to think about it, he was best friends with Tim Shepard, a tough gang leader, so why wasn't he in the Shepard gang? Why did he decide he wanted to be friends with us, and wanted to be in our gang? We ain't even an organized gang either. It wasn't like he'd get to run things, or be second lieutenant or something else, because we weren't organized, just a group of friends who stuck together.
Maybe it was because he thought we needed him. Why? Well, I don't know, this is Dallas Winston we are talking about! Or maybe when we first met, he just felt like he belonged, and was wanted, and was loved, by someone.
I remember the first time I met Dally, I was only a little kid, and to tell you the truth, I was scared stiff. I have to admit, Dally always scared me. He was the same icy-eyed, towheaded, hard-as-nails hood, and (was what I thought was) unbreakable. Which I later found out, wasn't true, and even someone as tough Dally had their breaking point.
Or maybe it was just our rules. If you even call them rules, more like requirements that everyone followed. In our gang, you didn't have to be the toughest hood around; you were always treated with respect. All you had to do was care for each other, but we took that rule to the extremes, we were closer than friends, we were brothers.
Finally I came to a realization about why Dally wasn't in the Shepard gang. Tim and Dally were too much alike. They would both want power over the gang, and it would end up a gang split. Some would go with their old leader Tim, and some would want something different and would follow Dally. Instead of Tim and Dally being best friends, they would be rival gang leaders. They would have fought until the death of the other one.
Yes, it would have changed a lot of past events. Johnny might still be alive, and we would have never had that little run in with those Soc's. But, we would have never met Dally. We would have never been friends with him, or even knew him as well as we did. Instead we would have feared him; he would have been one tough gang leader, if he hadn't been friends with us.
I am sorry to say, that I will never know why Dallas Winston was in our gang. I only know, he picked us for a reason, and that reason is still unknown.
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