"Johnny!" I cringed, hearing my mother call my name. She was pissed off about something, which was pretty much the only time she ever talked to me, or yelled at me. Usually she ignored me. The old man did too, but sometimes he'd hit me.
She yelled my name again and I wanted to just take off. What was the point in ever being here, anyway? But I went over to her so she could just scream at me some more. Pony had told me that when she was really yelling you could hear her clear down to their house, which was great. The whole damn neighborhood would know she was pissed off.
"Yeah?" I said, kind of shrinking away from her. She was so mad, just like my dad would get, they both got so angry. You could see the anger blazing in their eyes.
"Johnny, Jesus Christ, can't you do anything right? I told you to clean this place up, and it's still a mess! I told you to pick up the carton of cigarettes at the store and I don't see any fucking cigarettes-"
"Yeah, but I didn't have any money-"
"Don't give me that shit! I gave you the money! You can't do anything right! Sometimes I really can't stand you, you know that? You're just like your father,"
I lowered my head and just took it, like I'd take a beating. What could I do? There was no arguing with her. She was always right. They both were. I looked at her. Out of my parents it was her that I resembled, I guess. She was small and she had big dark eyes and black hair. My old man, on the other hand, his hair was kind of sandy colored and his eyes were sort of blue. Kind of blue gray, I guess. My parents weren't that old. My mother was 32, and my dad was 34. They were young when I was born, my mother was my age. I couldn't imagine having a kid now. I couldn't hardly take care of myself, never mind someone else. Plus I'd hardly ever talked to a girl, never mind sleeping with one.
She went on, calling me names, and I tried to ignore it, to go somewhere else in my head. I did that kind of a lot, and it wasn't good. It was kind of screwed up. Like if my old man was hitting me I'd kind of think of being somewhere else. So I did that now, I just stopped listening to her and thought of doing other stuff, I thought of maybe going for a fast car ride with Dally or watching a drag race or something, or hanging out with my friends. But I couldn't block it out completely.
She grabbed me, shook me, it didn't hurt or nothing. She wasn't really strong like my old man was. When he grabbed me and shook me I felt it, boy. So I sucked in my breath, wanting to leave, and I would soon. I'd just leave, no matter what she yelled at me or threatened me with. And I wouldn't come home tonight. I'd stay out all night, maybe at someone's house or maybe in the lot, I didn't care, anywhere, just so long as I didn't have to go home. I wondered why she hated me so much, why they both did. But I knew I didn't do shit right, I screwed up at school and even got held back. I screwed up, got in trouble, didn't do nothing right at home, either. Maybe they would have loved a better kid, a smart kid like Pony, maybe. Sometimes I thought it was no wonder they couldn't stand me.
I shrugged out of her grasp and left, even though she was screaming after me, but I'd had enough. It was windy out and I flipped up the collar of my jean jacket, lit up a cigarette. I didn't have any good memories of her, her or my father. Not one good one. How could that be? But they both drank so much, and they had drank for a long time, and when I was little I remember there being days and days with no food and no one was there half the time, and I'd be so hungry. And lonely. And when they were there I was getting hit, even as a real little kid. My father would grab me by the arm and swing me around to spank me. That would hurt my arm worse than anything, it would get wrenched right out of the socket.
I shook my head, wishing things were different, wishing I came from a good family like the socs did. I guessed it didn't matter much. I walked over to the Curtis's, and Ponyboy was on the porch, smoking.
"Hey, Johnny," he said, and he didn't say nothing about my mother screaming her head off at me, even though I knew he had heard her. He heard it all.