Disclaimer: We do not own The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, nor do we own "Bent" by matchbox twenty.
If I fall along the way,
Pick me up and dust me off
Sunday, September 18, 1966
Ellie sat on the floor in front of her bedroom window and watched as the pitch of night fizzled into dawn. Purples and blues filled the sky and the street lights shut off all at once and finally the paperboy came walking up the street with the morning edition. She waited until he had thrown the paper into the yard, and she bolted outside.
The grass was frozen over with crisp frost, but Ellie hardly felt it under her bare feet as she rushed toward the paper. She ripped the tie off and unfolded it. The headline on the front page glared back at her. Teen murdered in park.
Ellie threw up.
XXX
The phone was ringing. Someone shuffled out of their bed and picked it up. Two-Bit shut his eyes again and was almost asleep when he heard the muffled gasp. There was a knock at his door.
"Two-Bit? Keith? Honey?"
Shit, he was in trouble or someone else was in trouble. His mother never pulled the trifecta out unless it was serious. He pulled himself out of bed and tossed the door open. His mother stood there looking worried.
"Did you see Ponyboy Curtis last night? Or Johnny Cade?" she asked.
He scrunched up his face, rubbing his throbbing forehead. He was working on one hell of a hangover.
"Yeah, walked home from the movie with 'em," he said. "Why?"
He didn't quite understand her concern.
"That was Darry on the phone. The police came to them last night questioning them about a murder. They think the boys were involved," she said.
Two-Bit stood there for a long minute, letting that bizarre information sink in. It wasn't exactly sinking, though. Everything was wrong with that scenario. And then he remembered the scene in the park when he was walking home.
"Oh shit," he said.
XXX
Steve woke up with a start. A bad dream, one he thankfully could not remember, fizzled away. He groaned when he noticed the morning light and tried to blot it out with his pillow, but it was too late. Sleep was gone, so he got up anyway.
In the kitchen, his dad was pouring a cup of coffee, the newspaper tucked under his arm.
"Mornin', Stephen," he said.
"Yeah," Steve agreed. He poured himself a cup and sat down at the table, too.
Mack Randle spread the paper out on the table and flipped immediately back to the sports section.
"That girl a few houses over was up early this morning," he said. "She's sick or something."
Steve looked at his dad quizzically.
"Ellie?"
"Yeah. I went out to get this, and she was standing on the lawn in her bare feet with their paper, throwin' up her breakfast," Mack said.
Steve looked at his dad, trying to decide whether or not he was hungover or just tired.
"What's in the paper?" Steve asked, pulling it toward him.
He flipped back to the front page and read the same headline Ellie had read, and then the phone rang.
XXX
Dally paced back and forth, wearing a track in the already worn out carpet. His mind was far from Tulsa, instead thinking back to what he had learned on the streets in New York. The number one was getting your story straight. Dally was sure he had a fool proof story, but the fuzz were going to have to beat it out of him.
"Texas," he said to himself. "Sure won't think to find them boys in Windrixville."
He lay down on the bed and waited in between fits of sleep.
XXX
He heard the sirens pull up outside. He pulled himself up and peeled back the curtain. Two of his favorites, Warner and Jamison wedged themselves out of the car and looked around the front of Buck's. They had their hands on their weapons.
"Couple of pussies," Dally muttered to himself. He lay back down, folded his hands behind his head and waited. They could take their merry time finding him, even if that did mean involving Buck and losing a place to crash for the next couple of weeks until Buck cooled off.
He heard the heavy footfalls of the two overweight cops coming alongside his room. A rap on the door.
"Winston." It was Buck. Dally lay there, feigning sleep. "Winston, open up."
When he didn't, the door swung back on its own. Buck sounded pissed to high heaven that Dally didn't take his advice and split before the cops came looking.
"Dal, get the hell up," Buck said, grabbing Dally's jacket off the chair and tossing it onto the bed. "Couple of badges wanna talk to you."
Dally made a big production of sitting up, stretching, yawning, looking around. Neither Buck nor the cops were buying it. Dally grinned.
"What brings you gentlemen here?" he asked, standing up.
Immediately the two officers had him on his knees, his arms twisted up behind his back.
"That sure is some way to say 'good morning.'" He struggled a little just to make their jobs more difficult.
"I know just as well as you do that you were involved in that boy's death the park this morning," Warner said, pulling the cuffs tighter than necessary.
"Now, that would be impressive considering I've been here all night long," Dally retorted. "Buck here can tell you that for a fact."
Buck held up his hands. "I know when you got here and I know you didn't leave. I can't say you weren't involved some other way, though."
"You prick," Dally hissed. He knew Buck didn't have much in the way of guts or balls, but he didn't expect to be sold out by him.
Buck shrugged. "I ain't in the business of babysitting you or your friends, and I ain't in the business of lying to cops."
"You're just in the business of selling liquor to underage kids?" Jamison asked.
Dally laughed, and Jamison shot him a nasty look that shut him up but quick.
Buck's eyes widened at the accusation. "I don't know what you mean, sir."
Jamison shook his head and nodded for Warner to take Dally out. "I'll worry about you later, Merril. When we don't have a boy dead and two others missing."
"You oughta know," Dally called over his shoulder, "that Buck Merril's never checked an ID in his life. I'd be willing to testify."
Buck narrowed his eyes at Dally and looked over at Jamison. "You know those two boys showed up here in the middle of the night, right?"
Dally groaned in spite of himself. "Fuck me."
XXX
Dally was sitting in the interrogation room, handcuffed to the most uncomfortable chair he had ever been sat in. He twisted his wrist a little to jiggle the handcuff and get some blood flowing back into his hand. He kept thinking about Buck telling those cops every goddamn detail he knew. He wasn't even aware that Buck knew Pony and Johnny's names because when he came to his room the night before, he only said a couple of kids wanted to talk to him. That bastard had one hell of a memory and knew when it would fuck Dally over the most.
Jamison and Warner walked into the room after letting Dally sweat it out for a little while. Not that Dally was sweating. He actually felt pretty comfortable, except for the handcuff.
"What do you think about uncuffing me now?" Dally asked. "I ain't goin' nowhere."
Warner leaned up against the table while Jamison took a seat. Warner scoffed at the request. Jamison looked at him like he was considering it, and then shook his head. "Nah. I don't think so."
"You know, I can't feel my fucking hand, right?" Dally asked, pulling at the handcuff again.
"Then stop messing with it."
Dally let his hand drop and scratched his head with the other. "You know I got plenty of witnesses to say I wasn't anywhere near the park last night, even though I sure as hell wouldn't mind killing me a Soc."
Jamison grinned at him. "You're pretty lucky you've got plenty of kids to back your story up because your mouth is doing one hell of a job implicating you."
Dally shrugged in defiance. "I ain't scared of what you bastards assume I could do. I've probably done what you think I can do. And a hell of a lot worse."
"Cut the shit, kid. I ain't interested in you trying to impress me 'cause there ain't nothing about killing kids that's impressive. Besides, we already know who did it. And I happen to know for a fact that you're friends with these boys." Jamison looked at his pad of paper. "John Cade and Ponyboy Curtis?"
He knew lying about knowing them wasn't going to get anybody anywhere, even though it may buy the boys a little time. But the sooner Dally got them on the wrong track, the sooner he would be sprung outta there. He had some planning he needed to do, plus the unfortunate visit to Darry's, and he sure as hell couldn't think for a goddamn second when he was handcuffed in a police station.
"Yeah, I know 'em. Probably a lot better than you do since neither one of 'em's got records," Dally said, looking as smug as he could.
"Ponyboy is a good kid, it would seem," Jamison agreed with a nod. "Cade isn't as bad as they come, but he's had his problems with truancy, among other minor things."
"'Isn't as bad as they come ...'" Dally muttered. "Christ, if you spent half as much time trying to keep the Socs in line as you spend trying to pin shit on us - on kids like Johnny Cade who ain't never even looked at nobody the wrong way - you'd have stopped this before anything even happened."
Jamison stared at him, taking that in. "I know some of the kids on your side of town have issues with kids like the one who was killed in the park last night, but that's no excuse."
"You say that 'cause it was one of your kids - one from your side of town - that got what was coming to him," Dally corrected.
Warner finally spoke up. "Bob Sheldon was an upstanding young man with a bright future that was cut short because one of you little shits had nothing better to do."
"Bullshit, he did," Dally said. "I bet he was just like every other asshole with money in his pocket. Just looking to pick a fight with some kids that didn't do nothing."
"But they did do somethin', didn't they?" Warner asked.
Dally shrugged. "Can't blame them if it was self-defense, can you? He got what was comin' to him. If it was the other way around, you'd be callin' your boy a hero, wouldn't you?"
"He would be in my eyes if he got a piece of filth like you off my streets," Warner snapped, leaning a little closer to Dally.
"Dave," Jamison said quietly, like he was trying to quell the situation before anything came of it. It was too late though.
Dally railed against the cuff, standing up to lunge at Warner. Lucky for him, he was still handcuffed to the chair. He still grabbed a hold of Warner's uniform, trying to pull him closer so he could get in a good swing. Warner had the upper hand though; he wasn't cuffed to a fucking chair. Dally tried not to look like he was seeing stars after Warner hit him. Boy, could that cop pack one hell of a punch.
Jamison stepped in between them, pushing Dally back into his seat and pushing Warner towards the door. "Out," he instructed. Warner reluctantly obeyed, eyeing Dally the whole time.
Dally just grinned at him. When the door shut, he finally winced. "Shit," he muttered. He could already tell he was going to have a shiner in just a matter of minutes.
When my smile gets old and faded,
Just wait around I'll smile again