Prologue: Welcome to Tulsa
Disclaimer: I do not own The Outsiders, I am merely an obsessed 12-year-old.
A/N: This is my first fanfic, so I would greatly appreciate some reviews / advice / constructive criticism…
Dally POV:
I walked, no, strutted down the streets of Tulsa, Oklahoma, looking for a place to stay the night or maybe get a drink or something. I was aware but did not care about the fact that I looked like I owned the place, when the truth was that I had just gotten there this morning. I'd hopped a freight last night from New York City, the only place I'd ever lived, because I was on the run from the cops. That, and I was getting tired of New York. My entire gang there, the one I led, for the record, was all in jail for a couple of years for robbing a bunch of police cars.
I'd managed to escape by the skin of my teeth. Again.
That's why I had come to Tulsa in the first place. Not because I actually wanted to, simply because it happened to be the first train leaving the nearest train station in New York. Oh well, I thought, since when did Dallas Winston think twice about what he was doing? I do whatever I want, however I want, whenever I want, because who's going to stop me? I snapped out of my thoughts as I saw some perfectly clean, shining Blue Mustang, full of a bunch of teenage boys wearing madras shirts and perfectly ironed trousers and vests with semi-Beatle haircuts.
"Hey greaser!" one of them yelled, looking down at me as though it was a huge insult or something. I raised my eyebrows and the corners of my mouth twisted up into a smirk. Clearly they didn't know who I was or they sure as, well, sure as a lot of things, as a long list of curse words rolled through my head, wouldn't be messing with me. "Need a haircut?" another yelled, getting out of their car. There were three of them, all dressed up like they were going to a funeral or something. I smirked, they'd sure be headed toward a funeral if they persisted, all right, their own, that is. Snapping back into reality for the second time in the last two minutes, I realized that the guy thought that he was going to try and cut my hair. Emphasis on thought though, nobody in their right mind would want to mess with the Dallas Winston… Speaking of hair…
I leave it long, frankly, because I don't have the time or money to get it cut, but I guess all the other hoods in Tulsa did that too. Pulling out a 10-inch, silver-handled, stolen switchblade from my back pocket, I decided to intimidate them. Why the hell not? I figured. New town, might as well get a rep starting right now…
"Do you know who I am?" I asked one of these rich kids, holding the blade at his throat as I punched another in the jaw.
"No, and I don't care, you filthy greaser!" he yelled back at me, struggling to get away from my death grip as I slugged him a couple of times.
"For the record, the name's Dallas Winston, leader of the Heaters, if you've heard of them…" I sneered in the guy's face. He seemed to be a little intimidated; of course he'd heard of the Heaters. They were on every wanted list in every New York newspaper for the last three years.
It looked like all of the blood had drained from the guy's face. He turned practically white, and went completely limp in my grip. I realized that the other two guys had run away. I laughed, loosening my grip on the guy for a split second as I imagined what the gang back home in New York — No, that annoying voice in the back of my head murmured, Tulsa is your home now, you can never call New York home again, but I knew that was the closest thing to a home I had, anyway.
As the guy wriggled out of my grip, I mentally cursed myself, but then began to laugh as the guy started to run away from me. Wow, looks like I got me a rep already, I thought, smirking. The upturned corner of my mouth came down a little bit, though, when all three guys yelled,
"Just wanted to see what you were made of, greaser, we'll go pick on another one later. We weren't really looking for a fight." I was almost relieved at this statement; surely nobody could have fought that badly.
I continued my strut down the street, feeling at home already in this new place. Now, all I needed to do was to find a place to lay over, a drink, and a gang. Rethinking that last statement, I realized that there probably weren't any gangs around here; this place looked out of it. There seemed to be some kind of rivalry, though, between the 'greasers,' probably the poor kids and the hoods, and the rich kids; they undoubtedly had some kind of a nickname too.
Oh well, I thought as I approached a park and saw a group of guys playing football, Might as well get to know this place — and the people that live in it — a little better.
A/N: Stay Gold, Everyone!