Pony was hardly moving at all now and I thought he might be dead, then I saw him move. He struggled and came above the water, gasping for breath. I had the knife in my hand behind my back, and none of them noticed me. God, were they drunk. I could smell it. It was whiskey, like my old man drank sometimes. I hated that smell.

It was that same guy with the rings, the one that beat me up, he was holding Pony by the shirt collar and dunking him in the fountain. It's funny, you know, the way you think at times like that. Time slows down. Everything was taking so much time, but at the same time it was going so fast. It was like it already happened, like I was watching a movie or something. There was all kinds of shit going on in my head behind this kind of nothingness. The smell of that whiskey coming off of those socs in waves, making me think of my father and how he gets when he drinks whiskey, and I was thinking of that time in the vacant lot cause I could see that soc's rings as he held onto Pony's shirt. And I had to help Pony, there was no one else, but there never was. When I was at my house and my old man was hitting me with that belt or just pounding on me, there was no one there to help. When the socs beat me up that time no one was there or around to save me. So I got this switchblade cause I finally figured out that I'd have to save myself.

That water in the fountain was freezing, it had ice over it when we got to the park. Poor Ponyboy, he was frozen. I guessed they wanted to kill him since he was talking to Cherry, and before she went with them she pulled Pony aside to talk to him some more. Two-bit had been talking to the other girl and I wasn't really talking to any of them, so maybe that's why they weren't trying to kill me right now. Didn't matter anyway. Before any of them knew I was there I plunged that knife right into that soc with the rings, right in his back through a space in his ribs. He made this noise, like a smothered gasp, and he stiffened and straightened up, letting go of Pony. Blood was seeping from where I'd put the knife into him, and it was so dark in the moonlight, it looked maroon.

He looked at me with this drunk stunned surprise, and I watched the blood spread, and it came up out of his mouth, and I felt kind of sick. All the other socs ran, they ran for their car and took off, and this one I stabbed he fell to the concrete and the blood spread around him there. But I couldn't think of him now. I had to get Pony. He was soaking wet and still underwater and I pulled him out and he spit the water out of his mouth and I sat him near the edge of the fountain. He wasn't awake, but he wasn't dead. This soc, though. He was still bleeding and looking at me with this pleading look, and I looked away.

Then it started to sink in. I sat down, my back against the fountain, and I held my knife in my hands. It was all covered in blood right to the hilt, and my hands were covered with blood, too. I wiped them off on my jeans, and I watched over these two. The blood was gurgling out of the kid's mouth and still spreading beneath him. Jesus, I must have punctured a lung or some artery or something. He was gonna die and I'd be in so much trouble. I squinted my eyes shut, getting a headache. Cops, jail, the electric chair. But worse than all that, I killed him. I killed somebody. There would be no getting over that, no way to fix it.

It seemed like a real long time, me just sitting there, taking these shaky breaths, Pony passed out next to me, the soc bleeding to death. Everything would change, everything was changed just in that instant. I wouldn't go back home or to the neighborhood. I'd have to take off somewhere or go to jail, and I couldn't imagine going to jail. I'd heard enough horror stories from Dallas about jail.

Everything was changed. I'd killed somebody, and how was I supposed to live with that? What was wrong with me? I mean, they were drowning Ponyboy and I didn't know what to do, that's what I'd tell Pony later, but was that the truth? I knew what to do. I killed that kid, that boy.

I thought the soc was dead, or close to it, and Ponyboy was starting to stir. He coughed out some more water and shivered and sat up, and I was sitting there holding that knife. I was jealous of Ponyboy in that moment, cause he didn't know what I knew. He didn't know I'd killed that kid and that nothing would ever be the same.