Dally is ten years old. He arrives home later than usual. He pushed open the front door and immediately regrets it. His father is sitting in the car opposite the front door. There is a single light on casting an eerie glow on the room. Dally shuts the door and leans against it. He watches his father stand up slowly. Dally notes the table covered in empty beer glasses. Dally knows that this is not going to be a good night. Dally starts to walk slowly past his father to the doorway leading to the stairs. All he wants is to have a peaceful night for once in his life. He is just about to go through the doorway when his father's right arm appears in front of him blocking his path.
"And where, Dallas Winston, do you think you're going after coming home this time of night," his father's voice is slurring, be it from rage, the liquor, or both, Dally isn't sure.
"I'm sorry," Dally retorts, gritting his teeth and trying not to show his fear.
With his left hand, Dally's father grabs a baseball bat that he had been keeping next to him. "I'm going show the meaning of sorry." He lashes out once, twice, a third time. Dally turns away. With the third strike, he felt something crack; a rib, he thinks. Dally bolts to the door; his father might be violent and strong, but he has never been able to beat Dally cross-country style.
Dally makes it out the front door which slams behind him. The adrenaline in Dally's blood stream made time slow. He could hear his father screaming after him, something about a no good, worthless son. Dally keeps running until the street lights from in front of his house have faded into the distance. He doesn't know how long he kept running, just knew that he had to get away from that house in any way possible.
He spends the night in an abandoned repair shop on the outskirts of town. In New York, it isn't that hard to find run down places to crash in.
When the morning light begins to shine through the broken windows, Dally rises and begins his journey. He doesn't exactly know where he's going, just that he's leaving and never coming back.
Along the way, Dally notices a gas station. He has seen it only once before. It's around noon, and he's beginning to get hungry. No one would suspect a ten year old to steal things; no one could blame a poor kid for taking a little food. Yes, he could definitely play the whole ten-year-old orphan look.
Dally enters the store, calm and collected like nothing was wrong. When the cashier asks if Dally needed any help, Dally simply shook his head no and ventured to the back of the store. He only needed some food and drinks. Dally wandered around for a couple of minutes. Every now and then when he knew the cashier isn't looking, Dally sneaks something into the old backpack that he found in the old repair shop he'd spent the night in. It had several holes in it, but none big enough for things to fall out of.
Dally acquires food, some drinks, and, as a last minute thought, some gum. He makes sure the cashier isn't watching before he bolts to the door. The cashier seems baffled, then starts running after him yelling.
When Dally turns the corner several minutes later, he spots the lights flashing from a police car. He can tell he's been spotted because the car soon begins to speed up towards him. Dally turns around only to spot another vehicle approaching him steadily.
That was the first night Dally had spent in jail and it lived up to every horrible account he'd been told. It opened his eyes to so much. If he thought he was afraid when his father got after him, he didn't know the definition of fear. While in prison, now that was fear. You try to sleep soundly next to convicts. Then Dally realized that he, too, was a convict. And the thought thrilled him for some reason. Perhaps it was the adrenaline that made him enjoy it so much. Maybe it was because, for once, he didn't have to answer to someone else. When he broke the law, there was no higher power to stop him. He'd answered to that drunken father for much too long. Now he was free of that, and couldn't stand answering to anyone else every again. For once in his life, he felt strangely alive. He knew that he shouldn't get off like by breaking the law for he knew it was wrong. But that didn't matter anymore. He was free.
Dally wake up to the sound of an officer knocking on his jail cell. "Dallas Winston, your time is up. And do me a favor. Us police do not like killing kids, even if they are no good kids like you."
Dally shook his head and looked down at his 17-year-old body as he rose from his cot. That was the most vivid flashback he'd ever had. He shook his head as if to shake out the thoughts of the past. He followed the officer out of the jail house like he had done so many times before. But one stood out in his mind; one memory of this walk that occurred seven long years ago.