Chapter 1

Johnny Cade was spending what was one of his last days before school started back at the Curtis house as usual. It was a real scorcher outside, so hot none of the greasers even bothered to put hair grease on for fear it would melt off.
"Hey get me another cold one will ya pon?" Two-bit's drunken voice rang out from the living room. He was sitting on the worn out old sofa watching his favorite show, Mickey Mouse, with Ponyboy and Johnny while everybody else was off at work.
"Get it yourself you got legs," Replied Ponyboy with an unusual cockiness in his voice.
"Don't mean I gotta use 'em." "Yeah and it also means you don't have to lay around all day everyday drinking all the beer in the fridge without paying for a drop of it," he said half joking half serious.
"Hey watch the tone shorty."
"Gosh cut it out you guys, I'll get it sheesh," Johnny said getting up from the recliner that was usually occupied by Darry, using an agrivated voice that was rare to hear out the normally quiet teen. He was all ready in a bad mood from his parents fighting that morning. It had always been bad but that day it reached an all time high. The day would start off with his dad waking up from the previous night's hangover. Then he would walk into the kitchen and scream at Johnny's mother in a scratchy voice. It could be over anything, bills, why the dishes weren't done, and on very rare occasions, "the boy". Well one thing would lead to another and soon swear words and pots and pans would be flying. This morning though, Jonny's father woke up a bit more sober than usual with a wild gleam in his eyes. Kind of like what you see if you look into the eyes of a caged animal. Before even muttering a single word, he just walked up and smacked his wife across the face. From there it just got worse and Johnny was lucky to make it out. Ponyboy and Two-bit looked at each other. This was not how their friend acted.

"You ok Johnny-cake?" Two-bit asked. "Yeah I'm fine," he said sighing, "my parents fighting just shook me up I guess."

"What else is new," he replied.

"You sure that's all it is? It never bothered you before." Ponyboy asked concerned.

"Well it normally doesn't. What bothers me is when they ignore me. Id rather take a beating any day than that." He said looking off. "Anyway it was just different today. If you had just seen my old man, I don't know maybe I'm losing it. I'll see you guys later.'

"Where do you think you're going? I thought you were gonna stay for supper. Darry and Sodapop aren't even home yet." Two-bit said.

"I'm just going for a walk I'll be back before then." With that he headed out the door. He needed to be by himself sometimes to get his thoughts straight, not that there was anything too complicated for him to think about. All the teachers said he was stupid, that wasn't the case though. He didn't like to speak much, he liked to observe people, get a feel of them. Pony could always write what he needed to say, unfortunately he didn't possess that power.
Something then happened to Johnny that had never happened before, he had the urge to walk to his house, he actually wanted to go there. It was like an invisible force tugging at him. When he found himself, standing in front of his house something else happened, there was total silence. His dad only left to get more booze and his mom almost never left. He walked through the front door of his house and back to the kitchen where he found a puddle of blood. In the red pool he saw two figures, the first was his mother with a bullet wound to the chest. The next was his father who lay with a wound to the head and a pistol clutched tightly in his hand.

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