…………………………….Pre Game
I felt like a runner in the starting blocks, breathing in the crisp air, waiting for the starting gun.
"You ready, Dean?" Clyde said as we walked to the courthouse. I took a deep breath, looked at the blue sky, and decided I was ready.
"It's time, Clyde. It's time,"
They'd let Johnny out of the hospital. I was no longer on narcotic pain medication but over the counter pain killers. The trial was back on track and I was trying my damnedest not to be terrified.
Inside, the marble and wood gleaming, people dressed in suits and uniforms, Clyde with a reassuring hand on my uninjured shoulder, I walked to my place.
"Hi, Johnny. You ready?"
"Yeah," He smiled slightly, and looked nice in the suit I bought for him. I'd decided to dispense with all the bells and whistles and just have Johnny testify…and let the jury decide.
I'd done all I could do. It was up to him now. And them.
"Listen. Take a deep breath. Focus on me. Just tell it like you did at the church," He nodded, solemn, his face all eyes. I was overcome with such a powerful mix of emotions that I almost couldn't breathe.
"Johnny?"
"Yeah?"
"It'll be okay. It's almost over,"
…………………………….Johnny's Testimony
He sat on the stand, having raised his right hand and swore to tell the truth. But I've discovered that he always does.
"Johnny, what happened the night you killed Robert Sheldon?" A gentle softball lob. I knew the prosecution might tear him apart, but right now it was his story. He took a deep breath as I'd instructed him, looked down for a moment, and then looked up.
"We were at the drive in movies, sittin' in those seats that are for when you don't got a car…"
I listened to his quiet voice go on and on as Ponyboy had when he came to, wet and gasping for breath on the cement near the fountain. Johnny had been dressed in the black tee shirt, jeans, and jean jacket, his long hair slick and gleaming with grease, clutching a bloody switchblade. Now he wore a dark blue suit, his short hair clean and neatly combed.
He went on and on, describing that event I knew now as though I'd lived it myself. The jury was riveted, finally hearing him speak, and maybe they saw he wasn't a low life hood but a troubled kid who never got a break. A kid for whom survival was a different thing than it was for them.
"So they shove me to the ground and hold Ponyboy down in the fountain and he's screaming for me to help him. I thought they were killing him and when they were done with him they'd come kill me. So I reached for the switchblade in my back pocket and went over to them, and they said stuff to me but I couldn't understand it, and that kid with the rings, he was laughing and drunk like my old man and I stabbed him right in the stomach,"
Now Johnny was shaking and swallowing hard and I see his eyes fill with tears. He put his head down.
"He looked so surprised and scared. I'll never forget that look. And I brought the knife up and blood poured from his mouth, like a gush, and he fell right there. And the other guys ran, they ran when I stabbed him, they all ran…"
Tears coursed down his cheeks and he wiped at them with the sleeve of his jacket.
