The air was cold, and Johnny Cade was freezing. He pulled his jacket closed even tighter as the wind whipped around him. Sleeping in the lot was becoming harder and harder for him, especially with the rapidly approaching winter weather. The young boy rubbed his hands together for more warmth. What would he do when it began to snow? It was not as if he could stay at home with his parents always yelling and hitting.
Johnny's mind wandered to the warm, soft couch in the Curtis family's living room. Darry had said that if Johnny needed a place to stay, their door was always open. For a second the greaser considered it, but then something made him think twice. It was the thought of the Curtis', all curled up in their beds. Ponyboy would be asleep underneath Soda's arm, and Darrel would be waking up to get ready for work in a few hours. The mental image Johnny had was calm and peaceful; he did not want to disturb it.
A lit cigarette was pressed between the teenager's lips as he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Even though Johnny's good friend Ponyboy always asked him if he wanted to come back to his house with him, it never ended up happening. Ponyboy would never push or protest when Johnny somewhat openly rejected his belonging in the Curtis household. He never tried to urge Johnny that he was entitled to a meal and a place to rest his head. These were both, more or less, signs that Ponyboy was only asking out of politeness and not out of pure, genuine concern. Even Soda or Darry never really came right out and told the younger greaser that they wanted him to come back home with them for the day; instead they simply restated the fact that Johnny could stop in if he needed to. In his mind, Johnny thought that he did not need to, and that food and warmth and family were all a luxury. He would rather live without them than force his way into someone else's life.
Sometimes Two-Bit would drive by the lot when Johnny was there. He would peer down, over Kathy in the passenger's seat, at Johnny and ask if he was cold, or hungry, or hurt. There were times when Johnny was, and times where Johnny was not, and times where Johnny was all three. Very rarely, however, did Johnny ever tell Two-Bit the truth. He could only remember two instances when he had. The first time, when Johnny had not eaten in days, and was nearly half frozen to death, Two-Bit had told him to hop into the back seat. However, when the boy did, Two-Bit's girlfriend had spent a good portion of the whole ride back to the house glaring at the poor kid from the side mirror. The second time, Johnny had suffered a particularly harsh beating from his father. This time, even when Two-Bit would ask his friend questions or talk to him about things to try to make him feel better, Kathy had ignored Johnny altogether. It was as if she had refused to believe that he was there. After realizing just how much his friend's girl disliked him, Johnny had stopped asking Two-Bit for anything when she was around.
The kid's next resource was Dallas Winston. Even though he was a regulation JD, and bad news to anyone else, Dally had always been good to Johnny. He had always treated him like an actual person. Even when others were around, Dally had done his best to make Johnny part of the conversation. In addition, it made Dallas pretty angry when he saw the boy out in the lot all alone at night. On multiple occasions, Johnny had been forced to come with Dallas to wherever the hood had happened to be going, and then back to wherever his friend had planned on sleeping that night. Once again, Johnny ran into a problem with that. It seemed to everyone else that the smaller boy was just a tagalong to the main attraction, someone who Dally had felt sorry for and dragged in somewhere from the street. Maybe that was how Ponyboy Curtis felt when Steve would always try to get him to stay behind when he and Sodapop went somewhere. It made Johnny feel awful, just like when Kathy had blown him off. Eventually it became so agonizing that Johnny would always hide when Dally's car drove past the lot, which was not even vey often anymore since he was being arrested so much lately.
Aside from anyone else, there was one other person in Johnny's life that he had ever turned to for help. Steve Randle had never really been particularly kind to Johnny, but he had never really been very mean to him either. Sure, there were times when Steve would try to get rid of Johnny or hint that Johnny was beginning to annoy him, but that was typical and pretty expected from anyone. There were also times when Steve would invite the kid along for something or walk with him in the hallways to his next class just to watch his back for him, but Johnny figured Steve was just trying to be a good guy. Besides, the young greaser had only ever spent a night at Steve's house once. When he had, Steve had been gone the next morning. He had left before his friend had woken up and simply left a note saying that whenever he was feeling better he could leave and go anywhere else he wanted to. Even though some might take it as a message to get out, Johnny always tried to assume the best about people, and figured it probably sounded better spoken, not written. He had waited until Steve had come back during his lunch break. When he was spotted, though, the words that came out of Steve's mouth were, "What, you're still here?" Now, the guy had not meant to sound mean, but Steve did not exactly have the gentlest way of speaking to begin with, and he had only been kind of surprised to see that Johnny was still there. After the awkward silence had cleared up, Johnny had pretended he had forgotten his jacket there and quickly left before anything else could be said.
Johnny sighed. It seemed like it was pretty safe to say that he was not wanted anywhere. Even when he thought he was being accepted, or brought in, or welcomed, he was only being fooled. For a minute he felt like screaming as loud as he could, and for a minute he sat there, only screaming in his head. He wondered just how stupid he must be if he was always letting the same thing happen to him. Then, when he was just on the verge of tears, he stopped. Johnny realized that it would accomplish nothing, only make him feel worse.
Instead, Johnny just left himself drop. He fell from his sitting position into a pile in the frozen grass. Suddenly he felt like stopping. Nothing was important anymore; he did not care whether he froze or starved or was beaten to death. Johnny Cade had been defeated. He had truly given up.
Footsteps were coming his way. Johnny's eyes widened and he began to shift, but stopped. It was not worth the struggle. Johnny looked up cautiously at the figure that was passing by, hoping it was someone who was just going to keep walking. Unfortunately, Johnny's hopes did not very often come true. With his head held high and his shoulders relaxed in his fancy, thick jacket, the Soc approached Johnny wearily.
In the beginning Johnny wondered if he was drunk, but then he saw that he was not. The boy was simply being careful. He loomed over Johnny, staring down at him with a sort of shy curiosity. If Johnny had had the courage to stand up, he would have noticed that this boy was only about as big as he was.
"Hey," the Soc whispered. Johnny barely heard him; the kid was speaking so quietly. The greaser lied there on the ground, eyes huge with fright and head swarmed with emotions. Finally, Johnny managed a sound, a sort of grunt which wound up sounding kind of like a "Hm?"
"It'll be alright," the Soc told him. Johnny was confused. He was even more confused when the Soc said, "Take care of yourself."
He had sounded as if he really meant it. Then, just like that, the boy kept walking. As Johnny lied there, waiting for the Soc to come running back to kick him or something, he pondered the words in his head. Take care of yourself. Ten minutes passed before Johnny forced himself to sit up. First he grinned grimly to himself, then he stood.
"Yeah, I will," he said aloud to himself. Then, stuffing his hands in his pockets, he began walking down the street in the opposite direction.