The arraignment went fine, as far as arraignments go, but Daniel didn't like it. He saw his mother there, her eyes red and puffy. He was lead in in handcuffs and the orange jumpsuit like he was guilty.
The judge was old, with white hair and faded blue eyes. He looked mad to Daniel.
A skinny woman with pale curly hair and a tailored skirt sat at a table in front of the bench. She would read a name and that person would come and stand behind a little gate and the judge would ask (rudely, in Daniel's opinion) if he or she understood English.
They were teenagers, too, but dressed in regular clothes and sitting in the rows with his mother, not over to the side where he was with prison guards.
Daniel felt nervous. He didn't want his name called and he didn't want to be asked if he understood English. He didn't do anything and it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair.
"Daniel LaRusso," the woman called in her impersonal voice. The guard next to him nudged him toward the place where the others had stood.
He went there and tried not to glare at the judge.
"Do you understand English?"
"Yes, sir," Head down, eyes down, he was almost shaking with anger.
The charges were read and he was told he would go to a lock up facility to await trial because he was a minor and needed to attend school. The trial was months away. It was set for December 19.
He didn't really care about going to the lock up place. It was just another prison.
Dally read about the murder and the arrest of a 16 year old from Receda in connection with it. A 16 year old who probably bore an uncanny resemblance to Johnny.
That kid, that whiny one who threw his bike in the dumpster. When those kids jumped Johnny they must have thought he was that other kid.
"In a good mood, Dal?" Ponyboy said, noticing the wolfish grin on his face.
"Looks like Johnny's off the hook," Dally said, shaking the paper, reminding Ponyboy of Darry.
"Oh ,yeah?"
"Yeah. They arrested another kid,"
"Really?" Ponyboy was sitting up now and blinking, he tended to have a hard time waking up.
"Yeah. There's a kid who lives here, he looks so much like Johnny you wouldn't believe it. They arrested him,"
Ponyboy lit a cigarette and came over to read the article. Dally went to the fridge and got a beer.
"But this kid didn't do it." Ponyboy said, his forehead wrinkling.
"So fucking what?" Dallas said.Ali stared at her food. She was at the Encino Oaks Country Club with her parents. Fancy schmancy. A utensil for every course, cloth napkins, snooty waiters. Her parents were drinking expensive wine in expensive clothes.
Ali hadn't wanted to come. They forced her to.
"Really, Ali, all this moping around over that boy from Receda?" Her father had said. Receda. Receda was the slums where people lived in apartments. Gasp. Her parents didn't associate with people from Receda.
"He's a nice boy, dad," she said, her voice petulant and whiny. She couldn't help it.
"Oh, real nice. He murdered the Lawrence boy with a switchblade," Her father looked at her sternly. The Lawrences attended their country club, lived in Encino, the swanky hills. Her family didn't know them well but deemed them worthy of their association. And her parents had been pleased when she was dating him. He was rich, he was an all American boy.
Ali pushed her food around, leaned her cheek on her hand. She felt sorrow that Johnny was killed. He hadn't been all bad, there was a decentness to him that had attracted her in the first place. She hadn't been as drawn to him as she was to Daniel. Part of it may have been that he was poor and from New Jersey, which was as foreign to her as Quatemala, and she knew it bugged the shit out of her parents that she dared to date outside of the Aryan upper middle class box she had always lived in.
But it was more than that. She saw something in Daniel that was the same as herself. Something she couldn't describe or define but she knew, they were different. Different from everyone else.
She knew in the darkest part of her heart that Daniel didn't kill anyone. Knew it.
Ali sat up straight suddenly, caught her breath. She remembered something, remembered that kid on the beach the day she met Daniel. He looked just like him.
He looked just like him.Mr.Myagi offered to go with Lucille to visit Daniel. The lock up facility was an hour away and her station wagon had a tendency to stall.
"We take truck," he said, and helped her into his well used truck. But it ran perfectly.
She was not o.k. Myagi could see that. She was glazed, post shock. Her son was locked up and had done nothing to warrant it.
It was more common than she thought, Myagi knew. He thought back to World War II and the Manzanar Relocation Camp. That was the jail people were put in for being Japanese during World War II. No matter some of them had lived here all their lives, no matter that they were as American as Americans of Irish, Italian, French, Polish, Spanish, Chinese, African descent. And Germans. Hadn't they fought the Germans in World War II? Of course, because he had fought them, and while he did his wife and newborn son died in the Manzanar Relocation Center, complications of childbirth.
So innocent people were imprisoned. Myagi also knew that the boy, Daniel San, would not know that either. He understood that Daniel San would be consumed with anger, and confusion, and disillusionment. He understood that Daniel San was finding out that the world was more unfair than he had ever dreamed.