Std disclaimer: I don't own anything about The Outsiders (book or movie, characters, TV scripts, or anything else)
Std disclaimer: I don't own anything about The Outsiders (book or movie, characters, TV scripts, or anything else)
June 20th, 1967
Dear Darry & Soda,
If you thought my hair looked funny when I came back from Windrixville, you should see it now. The busses got in too late last night, so first thing after breakfast this morning they lined us all up and cut it all off. Buzz city. Man, I look goofy. My ears stick out. I don't know why Marines are called "jarheads". They should be called "jugheads" because that's what everyone looks like. Bunch of Dumbos in camouflage. But it feels sort of tuff.
Up before dawn, before even a hint of daylight. They made us exercise for an hour before breakfast. The food here isn't so bad. Or maybe I'm just so hungry from all the fresh air and exercise that anything tastes okay. Sure could go for some chocolate cake, though.
Today was mostly about rules and orientation. Listening to the drill instructors shout out their plans for us and what to expect. We actually have something like classes for part of the day, except it's stuff about outdoor survival, learning drill formations and the different work details. There's a written rule about everything here, from the way you tuck in your shirt to the way you make your rack. That's a bed to y'all. And they've got weird words for everything, too.
The other guys here are okay so far, but none of us really had any chance to make trouble or talk much, so who really knows. Guess time will tell.
Right before dinner, we had to go through this thing they call the Roster. It's sort of like an obstacle course, like that TV show "Iron Man": tires, ropes, walls, barbed wire…you get the picture. You gotta go through three times in a row. Once for speed, once for accuracy, and once for stealth. That, along with about a million other things, is how we'll get to move up in the ranks. We're all just "Privates" now. Guess they think we gotta have something to strive for.
Anyway, I can do the running okay, but I sure wish I had Darry's muscles for the climbing and crawling parts. But I'm not the worst guy, which is good, because you sure don't want to stand out here. One guy puked after his second trip through the Roster and nobody's letting him hear the end of it. The drill instructor made him go through a fourth time.
There are five other guys in my barracks (cabin): Greg, Charlie, Kurt, Wade, and Paul. Wade's real skinny and pale. I couldn't figure for the life of me what he did wrong to get here, but one of the guys said some parents pay money to send their kids here to toughen them up. I don't think it's gonna work with Wade. The other guys razz him a lot.
Well, this is getting really long, and they just called for lights out. Write back soon, y'all.
Pony
I stuffed the letter in one of the envelopes Darry had given me, and I put it in a locked box on the wall near the door. I guess they had to start locking up the outgoing mail because some recruits in the last session were making alterations to other guys' letters. Breaking up with girlfriends, telling people off. Just pranks, but the camp started getting a lot of heat for sorts of things coming home in those letters.
I could have written all night long and not run out of stuff to say about the RCJMC. Some of the guys call it "Rat City" since "Raton" is "mouse" in Spanish. Guess they figured it was close enough.
Anyway, I figure it won't make a difference to tell them how messed up the place is, because there isn't anything they can do about it. If I don't finish the full nine weeks, the judge said he'd consider other arrangements. And if those other arrangements would be worse that what I've got now, I'm not sure I want to know.
It started right off the bus. There were eight colored flags up, and as each of us climbed out of the bus, we were randomly directed to stand by one of the flags. Mine was red. A big guy with a lantern jaw and mirrored glasses shouted at us the second the bus was clear. "Line up!"
He didn't like the way we lined up or how quick we did it. After yelling at us about that, he shouted, "I am Sergeant David McAvoy Kent, but you will call me Drill Sergeant! When you address me, you will call me 'Sir' or 'Drill Sergeant'. If you call me anything else, you will be very, very sorry." Then he raised the clipboard he was holding and called, "When I stand in front of you, you are to introduce yourself as follows: 'Private First name, Middle name, Last name.' Do not give me any nicknames. IS that understood?"
When nobody answered, his faced tightened up. "I said IS that understood?"
We didn't all say the same thing. Some of us said 'yes', some of us said 'yeah' and some of us remembered to say 'sir'. So he made us say it again, ordering us to use 'yes, sir'. And I thought Darry was bad, the way he'd tell me not to give him lip when I wasn't giving him any in the first place.
I was first in line, and when DS Kent stood in front of me, I said it just the way he'd asked us to. "Private Ponyboy Michael Curtis, sir."
He lit into me almost before I got the words out. "Private, do you have wax build up in your ears? Did I not just finish telling you how to speak your name?"
I didn't know whether to answer the first question or the second one or both. I stayed quiet. Darry's got nothing on him, I thought. I wondered why I ever feared Darry at all, when this guy was so much worse. But maybe it was because I knew already that there wasn't any pleasing DS Kent. I'd only thought there was no pleasing Darry. But there really was no pleasing DS Kent.
"Private, I asked you a question!" he yelled, his face not an inch from mine. He didn't lay a hand on me, but I sure felt I'd been slugged just the same.
"Sir, no, sir!" I called back. Shouting just seemed the natural response. And I'd heard enough military stuff on TV shows that I could mimic it back all right. "That's not a nickname, sir."
"Well, then, Private, tell me just what kind of hippie-fied, mush-brained parents would name their child 'Ponyboy'?"
I didn't answer. I couldn't. If I did, I'd be agreeing with him, and I sure as hell didn't agree with him. Sure, I got a lot of grief over my name. He wasn't the first, and he wouldn't be the last. But I wasn't going to bad mouth my parents. I'd hoped it was just a rhetorical question, but that was stupid. He needed an answer, and he was going to get it no matter what. If he didn't, he'd look like a jerk in front of all of us guys.
"I asked you a question, Private!"
"Sir, I can't ask them, sir. My parents are dead, sir." I'd been looking just over his shoulder, but now I looked at myself in the mirror of his glasses. I bet if I could see his eyes they'd look like Deputy Simpson's. Soulless. Evil.
"Well, Punyboy, I guess that's why you ended up here!"
I didn't know what he meant by that, and I wasn't about to ask. But I felt a burning anger rise in the bottom of my stomach at the sneering, satisfied tone of his voice. He'd dug in deep, and he knew it. And it was my mistake to flinch when he called me that stupid, twisted name, because now I'd never get rid of it.
The only good news was, it wasn't just me. He found a way to bastardize every name given to him. Gregory Steven Cicarello. Greg Sissyellow. Paul Adam Puzo. Paul the Putz. Charles "Charlie" Edward Devon. After reaming him for adding his nickname, Chunky Devon. Kurt Edgar Slozack. Kurt Slowact. Wade Steven Milsap. Wade Milksop. And me. Punyboy Curtis.
He made us run a circle around the whole outside perimeter of camp in the dark. Twice. I'm not sure just how big the grounds are, but I've run cross country races for track that took less time. Afterward, he shouted at us to "FALL IN!" I guess most of us had watched enough TV to know what it meant. All of us except Wade. Kent had a field day with that one. The trouble with being a group is that if one person messes up, everyone suffers. DS Kent drilled us for another half hour, marching us all around the center of camp. At least he took the time to explain the drills first this time, instead of expecting everyone to just know.
It took another twenty minutes to get us accustomed to our barracks. He assigned us each a rack, ordered us to stow our gear in the footlocker at the end and then pull some "rack time." Nobody asked what it meant.
It took me a long time to get to sleep that night. And when I woke up sometime later with a scream caught in my throat, knowing I'd had that nightmare again, there was no Soda in the next bed to calm me down.
A/N: I noticed a continuity error involving the names of Pony's barracks-mates. I fixed it.