Disclaimer: I do not own The Outsiders and I make no profit from this story…
Mark
It's my sixteenth birthday and my friend Mark is "getting" me a car. He's always "getting," or rather, stealing cars. He's really good at it too. Today is different though because while he's the one picking the car he's teaching me how to hotwire so technically I'm the one stealing it. Darry will have my head if we're caught.
This morning Mark sort of just declared, "Since you, like I, can't afford to get a car the legal way, for your birthday I'm going to show you how to get one the illegal way."
I'm only paying attention because who knows when this'll come in handy, not because I plan on stealing any cars after this. I usually don't break the law, there's too much risk of getting caught, and if either of my two brothers or I end up in legal trouble, Darry, my oldest brother, will lose custody of Sodapop, my other brother, and I. So I watch as Mark shows me what to do then repeat his actions, and like Two-Bit's drinking lesson this gets filed way in the back of my head in the category of "just in case."
XXXXXXX
I have to use that lesson a few weeks later when I need to bring the car that Mark and his buddy Bryon were using to the hospital. It is a car that Mark had borrowed legitimately for once, but Bryon took the keys with him when he rode in the ambulance with Mark.
I feel bad because Mark got hit in the head with a beer bottle by a guy who for some unknown reason was after me. So I feel that I ought to do something to help him and hotwire the car to bring it to the hospital for them. I did pay attention just in case.
XXXXXXX
Mark has changed ever since he saw his friend Charlie killed. He's changed and I can't quite figure out why. He doesn't hang out with Bryon anymore and those two were practically brothers. He doesn't really hang out with any of us anymore. I'm worried about him.
XXXXXXX
I had reason to be worried. Mark's been dealing drugs; that's why he's been so distant. And now he's in jail and Bryon was the one who called the cops on him. I never could have done something like that, betrayed a buddy that way. At the same time, I see why Bryon did it; he'd just gotten home from visiting their friend M&M whose in the hospital after a bad trip on drugs that Mark probably dealt. The doctors don't know if he'll ever fully regain his mind. Drugs mess up the whole world. Why can't we go back to the day where our biggest issue was the socs?
XXXXXXX
I heard that Bryon went to visit Mark in jail today. Apparently Mark is cold and bitter and hates him now. It's weird to think that less than a year ago Mark was sort of happy and still best friends with Bryon. It's strange that it was just a year ago that Mark was my buddy and that he was teaching me to hotwire cars. But things change and that was then this is now.