Steve, Soda, Ponyboy, Paul Holden and Darry

Steve: Why does that little pest Ponyboy always have to tag along whenever Soda and I want to have some fun together, alone together? Like just the 2 of us? I swear he follows Soda around like a puppy.

I know how he got traumatized over what happened to Mr. and Mrs. Curtis, and Dally and Johnny, but can't he at least try to find some friends of his own?

Soda: Poor Ponyboy, he's been through so much, and he's so young, only slightly more than a child.

I think he fears letting any more of his loved ones out of sight lest they leave him forever too.

Steve's a great friend, but I wish he would be nicer to Ponyboy. Not too many people have been nice to Steve though. He's had a rough life too. His father slugs him for no reason sometimes. His mother even deserted him. Now his cousin Samantha seems like a real nice girl. She's come down and visited from Wichita, Kansas sometimes. I might have been more involved in her, but I was too smitten by Sandy (my girlfriend who was later packed off to Tampa Florida after some miscreant forced himself on her) at the time. Her family made her get an abortion and wanted her to have a future. While they would all but kill the rotter who did you know what to her, they never liked me dating her either, not even in the beginning. They thought I was too young and as you know we all come from the '"wrong side of the tracks"' Not that her family has much money either, but they thought she'd be locked into a vicious cycle of poverty forever if she were wedded to me. I tried to write her a letter, but they didn't let her see it-just returned it to me un-opened. I'll never forget that.

I might look up Samantha again, as long as that's okay with Steve. Samantha did bring us home baked brownies once, and she and her widower father and what's left of the gang all made an outdoor picnic of it. I notice she likes the outdoors and has lovely dark blond hair and brown eyes. Yet, my heart still desires Sandy and wants her back. She has blond hair and eyes of blue, like my (and my brothers') mother. Samantha's deceased mother was Mr. Samuel Randle's younger sister. She (Suzanne) and Samuel were raised in a home with a lot of abuse-of substance and of people too. From what I heard thirdhand, (my folks discussed it once after we were in bed at night, Darry happened to overhear and passed it along to Ponyboy and I), Suzanne was determined to make a better life for herself. Although the Williamses are far from wealthy, at least they act decently to each other. That's the main thing Suzanne wanted. She had a rocky love-hate relationship with her brother (Mr. Randle) and always wished he would control his temper and set a better example for his son, as well as to stop screwing with the bottle, but at least Mr. Randle doesn't drown himself in it like Mr. Cade-or like the parents of the Cades and the Randles did.

Ponyboy: I don't know why Steve doesn't seem to like me. I just want to have fun and I don't like to ever be away from Soda. He's never been anything but good and kind to me. He's always been there to soothe me when I get hurt or have those bad dreams. He does zany things to make me laugh when I feel depressed about things in life. Most important, he always listens. I need to listen to him better-and to Darry too-Soda reminds me how Darry is under great stress from the trauma brought on by our family tragedy, and that it must be extremely fatiguing for Darry to have to be a surrogate parent to two teenage boys, especially when he's little more than a teenage boy himself.

Darry: I know how my younger brothers can drive me nuts, but I also realize how vulnerable they are, especially Ponyboy. Soda may do crazy things and Ponyboy seems to always have his mind in the stars, but neither of them are ever really malicious. Not like a lot of other people I've known.

I am aware how Steve Randle comes from a largely unfortunate background, and I try to show him compassion, but he's such a little brat. Often times I've tolerated him just for Soda's sake. I'm glad he's not my younger brother. When I was a kid, he'd come into my room, un-announced and uninvited, and tear pages out of my Boy's Life magazine to make airplanes out of them. More recently, he and my brothers and Two-Bit came into the home and played the radio at 3000 decibels, jumping all over the couch. Not only did they put themselves at risk for deafness (and I've warned them about this many times), and knock down my mother's favorite old lamp, they had that blanking racket going on when I was all fatigued from work and trying to take a nap! I all but threw the radio out the door, but instead I walked in, turned that cussed thing down, and stood with my arms folded, glaring at them all. That gave them the message real quick. Steve Randle also changes the channel when I'm in the middle of my favorite program too. Plus, he helps himself to food and chocolate cake out of our fridge without even asking. Not that Two Bit doesn't do some of these same annoying things as well, but at least he takes responsibility for his errors and has never called me brainless like Steve once did. I really attempt at keeping my hands to myself around anyone smaller and weaker than me, but that time I gave Steve the big slap of his life.

Steve's parents are even worse-his mom just up and left, and his dad, while he can be all right when his mood is good, is obnoxious as all get out when his mood is bad. I've heard him say to Steve, "You made me angry!" as Mr. Randle, even at about twice my age, seems never to have learned to own up to his mistakes. Steve, understandably yet much to the searing of my own nerves, often acts the same way. Maybe if he spent more time with his cousin and uncle in Wichita, Kansas that might get him to shape up a little better. They are such a contrast to how the Randles and most of our neighbors act.

Yet, at least Mr. Randle isn't nearly as bad as the Cades. At least he'd be terribly concerned if he didn't know where his son was, unlike the utterly negligent Cades, who seemed to only notice their son when using him as a whipping boy, physically and verbally. Plus, while the Randles are careless housekeepers (I mean it's like someone dumped a huge pile of filthy laundry in their home and just left it there), the Cades will fight for hours on end, at night, I might add, and their yard literally blooms of garbage.

I hate Soc too. They want everything for themselves and want to keep middle and lower classes (the latter in particular), down forever. That Paul Holden, for instance, is a big jerk. He made up a false sob story to me about needing money to fix his car (as if his family didn't already have mounds of money) when he was really just trying to sucker me. When we were in high school, I thought we would be friends, but then he drifted apart from me (unless he wanted something from me) and hung about with the Soc clique. They'd all strut about and brag all the time. Worst of all, he called my little brother Soda retard (due to Soda's difficulty in academics) and jeered at my youngest brother Ponyboy, referring to him as "autistic idiot." For that I gave Paul Holden a hard full-fledged knuckle sandwich.

I may be tough, but I desire very much not to be hard on anyone who is weak or vulnerable, like abandoned animals, or any children, youth and other people who cannot care for themselves. All the more so if they're trying very hard to please. I could slash my hand with a knife for using it to smack Ponyboy that night we had a big fight. I need to do nothing but my best for my brothers in particular, to get us all out of this place (the raunchy neighborhood in which the gang was forced to dwell in)