A.N: Last of three one shots about Ponyboy and Lizzy, and the differences in their social status.
Hinton owns Ponyboy. I own everyone else.
The Other Version
Sometimes it surprised me to remember that my sweet natured boyfriend grew up in what my father would describe as 'a hood'.
Ponyboy had an easy nature- he was good looking and likeable. People warmed to him, trusted him, and these were the same attributes that had drawn me to him myself.
But then I'd have these moments when I'd realise he'd been through things I had only read about in the papers. There was a whole other side to him that I didn't see, and maybe couldn't see.
It wasn't about him being poor. I had never cared about that. I wasn't shocked or disappointed when Ponyboy took me to his home for Thanksgiving. His house was small and well worn, but the dinner was great and his brothers were absolute dolls- just like Ponyboy was.
But very occasionally, I'd lay awake next to him, going over an incident in the day, and wondering if I even knew the person sleeping next to me.
A double date in our fall semester was one of those times.
It was a chilly October night and we were doubling with my friend Mary and her boyfriend, Ted. Ted was pre med, and Mary was in my economics class. Ted and Pony got on well, and it was the second or third time the four of us had gone out together.
We had had a nice dinner at a little Italian place in Greenwich Village and we were walking back towards our dorms when a guy snuck up behind us and barked:
"Give me your money!"
I remembered feeling so scared, it made me feel physically sick. I felt the bile rise in my throat as this wiry man in a dark coat yanked Mary's purse off of her shoulder. When Ted took a step forward, the man barked:
"Don't move or I'll shoot you all."
His hand was inside his coat, shielding his weapon from us, while he demanded our money.
He was trying to drive us towards an alley and off of the street and he would have succeeded with Mary and Ted but Ponyboy kept hold of my arm and manoeuvred us in the other direction. The guy couldn't push them into the alley without letting us go and seeming to give up, he yelled at me instead.
"Give me your purse!" The guy held out his hand in my direction and I saw Ponyboy's eyes follow my movements as I handed my purse over. His expression was tight but he still hadn't said a word or made a move. I began praying that he wouldn't, relieved when the guy had my purse and I could fall back beside Pony. When he had shoved our purses down the front of his pants, he pointed at Ted and then Ponyboy.
"Wallets! Both of you!" The guy was throwing nervous looks up and down the street. Ted already had his wallet in his hand and after the guy snatched that, he turned on Pony.
"Wallet!"
Pony gave me a gentle shove towards Mary and Ted, who were now behind the mugger and out of his focus.
"No."
"What?" The guy looked at Ponyboy incredulously,
"Curtis, just give him your wallet!" Ted said in a panicked voice. "It's not worth it."
The mugger took another step forward and sneered in Pony's face.
"You heard your friend. It's not worth it. Give me the wallet."
Pony was watching the guys hands the entire time he was speaking. He shook his head slowly and kept his voice low and even.
"You ain't getting my wallet."
"Pony!" I sobbed. "Just listen to him! Please!"
This was New York City. People were killed every day in muggings gone wrong and I knew for a fact that due to it being the end of the month, Ponyboy didn't even have much cash on him. He had never struck me as stubborn or naive and I didn't know why the hell he didn't hand over his wallet so we could leave.
"You're plenty stupid, kiddo," the man spat, moving forward as if to reveal the gun under his coat.
"Maybe you just think I'm plenty stupid," Pony answered. "Let me see it."
Mary gasped beside me while the man looked a little startled.
"Yeah, you heard me, you want my wallet, you're gonna have to show me the gun."
And then everything clicked into place. None of us had actually seen the gun. We'd been so scared by the threat to shoot that we had just handed over our things without even seeing one. This guy looked dangerous, but he wasn't tall or particularly well built, and he was alone.
He knew he'd been rumbled, and I guess he could have taken the opportunity to run away- he had our purses and Ted's waller- but pride got the better of him. His gunless hand came out of his coat but then into a pocket where he flicked out a switchblade. The knife gleamed under the street lights and Ponyboy eyed it steadily.
"Wallet," the man growled again.
This time I knew by Ponyboy's lack of reaction what his answer was going to be.
"Fuck you."
I can remember hearing the sound of my own scream as the man charged at Ponyboy. It was all over so quickly- the mugger led with the knife, Pony caught his arm and twisted, and the switch went skittering across the sidewalk. In seconds, Ponyboy had elbowed him in the face and then the two had faced off.
Ponyboy's green eyes glittered like ice under the streetlights. He didnt look scared or angry- but there was something in him I didnt recognise from the romantic boy who kissed my forehead and held my hand. This wasn't the gentle giant that carried spiders to safety when I threw my shoes at them. This person was steady and determined. ready to hit another person in the face for the sake of a few dollars. His muscular arms bulged under his sweater as he went up on the balls of his feet, waiting to make his move.
The mugger swung first and I screamed again as he caught Ponyboy in the chest. They began trading several punches after that, both sides hitting the other in the face before Ponyboy dove for him, rugby tackling him to the concrete and pinning him face down. In one move, he had twisted this guys arms behind his back.
Ted hurried over to help restrain our attacker while Mary and I ran across the road and up the street to call for the police.
Some time later, when the police officers who had arrived finally finished questioning Ponyboy, he sat down heavily on the edge of the sidewalk. Stretching his long legs in front of him, he let out a heavy sigh.
I lowered myself onto the kerb beside him, tucking my dress as carefully as I could underneath me. His lip was bloody and there was the beginnings of a bruise under his eye. Tentatively, I reached up and touched his cheek.
"Your poor face," I whispered. I was still shaking. I had never been that close to such a dangerous situation and never been so frightened for somebody I cared about.
"I've had worse," he said wryly, his fingers closing around mine. "Jesus, Lizzy, you're frozen."
He automatically peeled off his sweater and pulled it over my head. I knew I must have looked ridiculous in my shoes, dress and jacket with his over sized sweater shrouding me but in that moment I didn't care. The sweater was warm and soft and it smelled like he did.
He wrapped an arm around me and pulled me towards him.
"We'll be out of here soon."
I shuddered against his chest as I heard his heart beating through his t shirt and he was startled as I let out a sob.
"Hey, Liz- Lizzy, come on, it's okay."
But now I had opened the floodgates I couldn't stop. I cried heavily into his shirt front.
"I thought- I thought he was going to kill you…"
He snorted.
"I seen tougher kids in the playground. First rule of a gun robbery is you show the gun. I knew as soon as I wasn't playing ball and he didnt get it out, that he didnt have one."
I looked at him in astonishment.
"He still had a knife, Ponyboy. You could have been killed. Over what? A few dollars?"
"Lizzy." He sighed and smoothed my hair back. "It wasn't about the money. I couldn't give in to some stupid punk like that. It's not how I was raised."
"Well, this isn't how I was raised!" I found myself shouting at him, something I had never done before. "Brawling in the street, fighting guys with knives- you could have been killed!"
He didnt let go of me but his voice sounded kind of hurt.
"Yeah, well, I wasn't."
We didn't speak again until the police said we could go. The attending officer shook Ponyboy's hand and congratulated on him on capturing the mugger.
"You're a real hero, Son," he said.
We held hands on the way home, and I was glad he was there, glad he was safe, but still mad at him that he had risked his safety like that.
That night when we were snuggled up in his single bed, he wound his fingers into my long red hair.
"I'm sorry you were scared today," he whispered in the dark.
"I'm sorry I yelled at you...It's just, my dad would never have done what you did."
"And my dad would have done exactly what I did," he replied.
And that was the crux of it really. It didn't matter that we both liked western movies, rock and roll, and watching football in a dive bar on a Tuesday night. It didn't matter that we both laughed at the three stooges, that we didnt like chinese food, and that we both loved animals.
Being raised so differently meant there was a side to each other that'd we never understand. No matter how hard we tried.
"Do you- I mean, have you- carried a knife before?"
The question had been bugging me all night. He had been too calm when that knife had come out and he had known just what to do to disarm the mugger.
Pony boy had told me all about his friend, Johnny. How Johnny had knifed somebody in self defence, but I had never imagined Ponyboy to carry a knife. In my mind, he had just been a loyal friend to a wayward kid, but now, after today, I wasn't so sure anymore.
"Yeah, I used to. Don't anymore. Although I kinda wish i had earlier tonight."
It wasn't the answer I had wanted. I couldn't think of a thing to say in response.
"That officer called me a hero, ya know…" He was trying to be funny now, trying to squash the heavy atmosphere in the room.
"And you called him a doofus. Twice," I pointed out.
"He was one," Ponyboy agreed. "Great judge of character though."
I giggled and he pulled me towards him, pressing his lips against my forehead and making me feel like I was in the safest place in the world.
This was the Ponyboy I loved. The soft, kind funny guy who everybody liked.
I wasn't sure I liked the other version very much.
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