Chapter 10: New Joan
Johnny and I got on the couch to sleep. Soda and Ponyboy went into the room they shared. Two-Bit and Steve fought over who got the other couch. Finally they decided to sleep on the floor since they couldn't decide. Well Darry made them sleep on the floor because if Dally went to get drunk, we all knew Dally would want the couch. Darry went into his room when we saw everything was okay. Everyone else in the room fell asleep but I didn't fall asleep real fast. I got up from the coach and went outside again. I love bein' outside a lot. I saw Dally come up to the house, smokin'. He opened the fence and walked over to me. "How ya doin' kid?" he asked me. Then he handed me my book bag and some other clothes. Dally sat down on the chair and I sat on the steps. The porch light was on. Then we were silent for a while. I don't want to take a chance on sayin' something to Dally and he would end up hittin' me. His punches hurt worse than my parents. I felt my body shack from the cold.
"I'm goin' in Dally," I said as I got up. "It's gettin' cold out here." As I made my way to the door, Dally grabbed me and pulled me toward him. Then he placed me in his lap and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. I did feel a little warmer.
"Stay out here with me Joan," he said.
"Please Dally, let me go," I said. I was still mad at him.
"Listen," he said as he whispered into my ear. "I'm sorry I hit you that night. You know that wasn't me there."
"I know but it felt like you," I said.
"What do you mean?"
"The way you punched me; it hurt like hell. I have a bruise where you hit me now. I looked in a mirror when I went to my real home to get some sleep."
"I normally don't hit girls, Joan."
"I know." I turned around and wrapped my arms around his neck. Then I kissed him on the lips. I could never stay mad at Dally for to long. I love him way to much. I started to pull away but he put his hand behind my head and pulled me back into the kiss. I pulled away again and tried to catch my breath. "I'll forgive you this time. I love you Dallas Winston."
"I love you too, Johanna Cade," he said a he leaned over to my left side of my neck and kissed it. He pulled away and smiled at me. "I left my mark," he said. I smiled, took off his brown jacket then kissed his left side. Then I pulled away.
"I left my mark too," I said. "You better not cheat on me Dallas Winston."
"Who would want to cheat on you?" he asked. Then we heard something. I got off Dally and he went to check it out. Was someone stalkin' me? I hope not. I can't let anyone know about me and Dally. Well Johnny knows but he doesn't know about what happened in the girl's locker room. If people know he's datin' a weakin' like me, it could ruin his rep as the toughest greaser in Tulsa. He came back and looked at me. "No one was there Joan," he said.
"Dally, we should go in," I said. "This could ruin your rep." He stood in front of me and pulled me up into a hug.
"I don't care," he said. "As long as I'm with you, Joan."
"Dally," I said.
"I mean it too; I'll tell the world," he said.
"Not yet Dally, please," I said. "You can tell the gang but not people at school, Please Dally."
"Alright," he said. Then we walked into the house. We sat on the other couch together. I rested my head against his chest and he wrapped his arms around me. Then we fell asleep; well I did. I don't know about Dally. Then I heard him whisper somethin' in my ear. "Tomorrow before school, I'll cut your hair just like you bro's; alright?" I simply nod my head. Then I felt im lift up my left hand and place a ring on my ring finger. "This ring is for you Joan. It's my favorite ring but I'm givin it to you for now. At least until I can get you a nicer ring. Wear it and I'll always be with you. It fits you perfectly so you may be the only one who can take it off." I sleepy told 'im thank you and he didn't need to get me another ring.
I woke up and saw Steve and Two-bit starrin' at me and Dally. Two-Bit and Steve laughed and woke up Johnny. He starred with wide eyes at me. I am goin' to kill Two-Bit and Steve for wakin up my bro. I looked at Dally and saw he was awake. You could see he wanted to do that same thing to them too. Then Darry, Soda and Ponyboy entered the room. Soda started laughin' too. Damn they were loud today. "You two were-?" Darry asked. "On MY couch?"
"No Darry," I said as I rested my head on Dally's chest again. "We didn't do it."
"You better not have," Darry said. "You're both a bad influence and Johnny and Ponyboy. If I ever catch you two making out on my couch, I'll kick you both out. It's almost time for school. Go change Joan." I got off Dally, not really fast though; I was still tired. I eventually got up, grabbed my clothes, and made it to the bathroom. I removed my old clothes and out on new ones. Great, Dally had to grab the shirt I don't like. I looked in the mirror and looked at myself. I was skinny, had uneven short black hair, a cut on my neck, and black eyes. I was wearing my torn jeans, a long sleeved, black shirt that said angel in light blue and white colors. The shirt shows my shoulder, my bra straps and neck. Why I didn't like this shirt, I don't know. I just don't like it. I walked out and everyone starred.
"Quit lookin'," I said. "Johnny, do you have your switchblade?"
"Yea," he said as he pulled it out of his back pocket and handed it to me.
"Dally, cut my hair and make it look like Johnny's," I ordered.
"Sure thing," he said as we stepped outside. The gang followed and watched as Dally got my hair to be like Johnny's. I never noticed how much grease Johnny's uses on his hair until now. It felt some weird. Half way through getting my hair cut, Johnny had to come in and grease my hair and cut some of it. After he was done, we ran off to school. I didn't get a chance to look at my hair because we would have been late if I had. I got in my Algebra Two class right before the bell rang. Damn I was close. I walked to my seat and everyone starred at me. Then I heard some of them say, 'Is that Joan?', 'She looks just like that one kid. What's his name?', or 'That's not Joan; she would never cut her long black hair. She's proud of her hair'. I took my seat in the back. I was proud when I had my long hair.
After a couple seconds, Ms. King came in and looked around the room. When she looked at me, she dropped all her books and stuff. She quickly picked them up, walked over to me and starred down at me. "Is that you Johanna?" I nod my head and she looked shocked. Then she walked back into the front of the class. "Class, we have a new student," she said as the door opened. I saw Andrew walk into the room, holding his books and lookin down. "His name is Andrew Benjamin. He just transferred from a private school." Then I saw a one of the greasers in my class throw something at him. Andrew still looked down.
"Go back to the South side Soc!" they yelled. I got up, walked into the front of the room and caught the next thing they threw at Andrew, which was an apple. They looked at me and sat back down.
"The next greaser who throws something at him, will deal with me," I said as I turned and looked at Andrew. He looked at me. "Welcome to the class," I said. Then I took my seat and ate the apple. "If you have any more apples, let me have them. I need my serving of fruits for the day." The class started to laugh.
"You're a smart ass greaser," one greaser said. "That mouth of yours will get ya in trouble one of these days broad." The class stopped laughing after a while. I finished eating my apple and threw it in the trash. As I walked past the boy, I spit the seeds at them and then I took my seat again. Ms. King told Andrew to sit next to me and he did. After he sat down, she started to teach us. Then she have us a packet of worksheets to do. We could work with partners on this if we wanted too. A bunch of Soc girls came over to Andrew and asked him to work with them. He did work with all of them too. How he did it, I will never know. Five minutes better class ended, Ms. King called me up to talk to her.
"Johanna," she said. "Did you cut your hair?"
"I got jumped and a Soc ended up cutting it," I said. "I wanted it to look like my bro's so he and a friend cut it and greased it."
"It's certainly…different," she said. "I think that haircut also changed you. You never yelled at those boys before. Is that how you got the bruise?"
"No; I was thinkin' the same thing about my hair cut," I answered. The bell rang and I was out of that class. I grabbed my stuff, and walked out of the class. I turned in my packet of papers into Ms. King and went to my next class. I had finished all the work. We had two hours in all my classes except extra classes. We had 45 minutes for lunch so we could go out and eat. I was walking down the hall and I saw Andrew walk up to me.
"Hi Joan," he said.
"Hey," I said. "What's up?"
"Nothing much," he answered as he looked down to the floor again. "Listen, about last night-"
"Forget it," I said as we entered our next class: science. I wasn't mad at him. I know he tried to help me.
"I'm really sorry Joan," he said. "I was too weak to-"
"I said forget it," I said. "I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at myself. I shouldn't have let me do that to me. I thin the cut looks cool on me. I think I should get a tattoo that looked like a cut."
"Please don't," Andrew said. As I sat down in my seat Mike, one of the guys that tried to rape me, came over to me, knocked over my books and sat on the table. Andrew sat behind me.
"How you doin' Joan?" he asked as he grabbed my chin. I smacked his hand away.
"Keep your paws off me," I said.
"You think you're tougher now?" he asked. "You think you're tough because you got a hair cut."
"F.Y.I, your friends did it," I said. "Now get off my desk Soc." He just chuckled. What the hell was so funny? "Now get your fuckin' Soc ass off my table." Then I saw Ponyboy and Johnny walk into the class. Johnny sat in the seat next to me and Ponyboy sat behind 'im, next to Andrew. I got up out of the seat, put my foot on Mike and pushed him off. He fell off and got right back up.
"Why the change Joan?" he asked. "I like you before."
"When I was weak and defenseless?" I asked as I sat back down, picked up my stuff, placed it on the table and put my feet on the table. "Get the hell away from me Mike. I don't want to see your fuckin' Soc face again."
"You'll see it soon Joan," he said. "Very soon." Then he went to talk to Vic and Richard. Mr. Ryan, our science teacher came in and started class. Because Johnny and I were next to each other, Mr. Ryan couldn't tell who was who. I just laughed every time he got me and Johnny mixed up. He caught on though on who was who. After class ended, we had five minutes before lunch so Mr. Ryan let us talk to each other. I turned around and introduced Andrew to everyone.
"The one next to you is Ponyboy Curtis," I said. Then I put Johnny in a head lock and was about to mess up his hair. "And this kid here is my twin brother, Johnny Cade."
"Quit it Joan," he said as he got out of my head lock. "You'll mess up my hair."
"I'm Andrew Benjamin," he said.
"You were the one Joan walked with yesterday?" Johnny asked.
"Yea," he said as he looked down.
"And you were there when she got jumped?" Ponyboy asked. Andrew looked down and nodded his head.
"Ponyboy!" I yelled. "That wasn't his felt. Stop makin' him feel bad!"
"Sorry Joan," Ponyboy said.
"Andrew, I'm goin' out for lunch today with some friends," I said.
"It's okay; Bob wants me to sit with him anyways," he said. Then we got up, went to our lockers and split up. Ponyboy, Johnny and I meet Two-Bit and Steve in the front and we waited for Dally.