SE Hinton owns The Outsiders.
Dropdown- A horse meeting a lower class of rival than he had been running against. (Daily Racing Forum)
Dropdown
Chapter One-
Friday before Labor Day they let Tim out, which he was secretly glad for because Labor Day weekend was when they held the prison rodeo, and he was sure he was a dead man if he stayed in Macalester. Not that he was entered or going to enter in any event. Tim couldn't ride bulls, had never roped and tied anything, and made it a rule to avoid horses at all costs. If he'd stayed for the rodeo, he would've been assigned to help out the prison medic because Tim possessed a certain level of knowledge about patching guys up. Inside the fences, though, was just as dangerous a place to be as out in the arena. Once you got an injured guy out of the arena and into that maze, there wasn't a clear sight line to anywhere. The guards couldn't reliably keep an eye on anyone, and Tim was sure that he was going to get shanked.
He wasn't sure who it was who was coming for him. The possibilities opened up during the rodeo- they brought guys in from MacLeod and Atoka and from a farm unit in Lincoln County, Arkansas. If you were going to hire a guy to take a guy out and then get back on the bus to wherever at the end of the day, Labor Day weekend at Mac was when and where to do it.
So the news that he was going to be released on a technicality and sooner rather than later came as a relief to him. Finding a ride back to Tulsa, however, would prove to be as nearly a long and winding road as pulling a broken body through the fences to an ambulance.
He called his mom to come pick him up, and got her common-law husband on the line instead. Any conversation with that dumb bastard was a losing proposition.
"Where's Ma?" Tim asked.
"The hell should I know?"
"Well, you married her."
"Yeah, and someday you'll understand, Casanova, the way you keep a women is by not keeping tabs on her every blessed minute. Keep 'em on a long tether."
Tim smirked. For just a second, he'd thought Jerome was going to go all feminist on him, but then he blew it.
"I'll remember that," Tim said. "File it away for future use. Where's Curly?"
"School. Or he'd better be."
Tim had forgotten about school. Curly should still be there. The truant officer had made that very clear to their mother on his hundredth visit to their house. He'd used Tim as an example of where Curly was headed if he didn't start showing more interest in his education.
Tim sighed. "Is my car there?"
"What the hell do you need it for? You ain't going anywhere."
"Turns out, I am. They're cutting me loose. I'm out at high noon."
"How far is that?" Jerome asked.
You'd know if you ever drove my mother down here to visit me, Tim thought. He told Jerome, "About ninety miles."
"Don't you have a girlfriend you could call?" Jerome asked, dismissing even the remote possibility that he might drive down and pick up Tim himself.
"No, old man," Tim said. "I guess I haven't mastered that fine art of keeping 'em on a long tether yet."
"You got any friends at all, smart ass?"
"Yeah. Just not so easy getting them on the phone."
He hung up on Jerome. He didn't mean anything by it. The conversation, if you could call it that, was just over.
Tim tapped the receiver against the glass window that separated him from the guard at the intake desk.
"Can I make another collect call?" He asked.
"What's the number?"
Tim rubbed his eyes and imagined the numbers. He recited them as he saw them in head through the glass to the guard. It took almost five rings for Buck Merrill to answer.
"Hey," Tim said. "It's Shepard."
"Goddamn, it is my birthday? What'd I do to deserve this honor? Ain't you locked up?"
"As of two hours from now, no. I'm sprung."
"Good behavior? I find that hard to believe."
"No room at the inn. Place is overcrowded as shit, and I was due out in a month anyway. Is Dally around?"
Buck snickered. "Guest of the County."
"You're shittin' me. Christ, I don't suppose you want to meander down here and pick me up. I got gate money coming."
"What the hell do you think it is I do here all day, Shepard? I'm running a bar."
"My sincerest apologies."
Buck thought for a moment, and then said, "Mathews is here. He's shooting pool with a coupla bass-ackwards hillbillies blew in from Arkansas. Ain't been here too long though. Should be nearly sober enough to drive."
Tim thought that maybe he'd rather stay in prison. It wasn't that he didn't like Two-Bit. Tim liked him about as much as he liked anyone. Trusted him about as much, too. It was just that Two-Bit liked to talk, and Tim would've preferred to be sleeping or listening to the radio or thinking about in what order he needed to do things to set his life right when he got back to Tulsa. With Dally locked up and Curly in school, though, Tim didn't see himself with many other options. Most of his gang had open warrants. They couldn't chance getting within a mile of anywhere there were cops holed up in sniper towers.
"Yeah," he said to Buck. "Put him on."
"What the hell happened to you?"
Two-Bit heard her voice before he saw her. He took a step back again, and looked around, in case she was inclined to throw something at him.
"Did you hear me? Christ, where have you been?"
He wasn't so sure it was any of her business where he'd been, but then he remembered it was her car he drove to get there, and he still needed it, so he had to work the situation with care.
"Just been shootin' some pool. Take it easy, baby."
And he'd screwed it up, right out of the chute. Never tell an angry woman to 'take it easy', most especially not this woman.
Her name was Hazel, and if you had reached a point with her where you were imploring her to 'take it easy', then you already had a fight on your hands. Two-Bit winced, and tried to think his way out of the hole he'd dug.
She'd come out of somewhere in the big house where she had a room and shared the kitchen and bath with Christ-knows-how-many other people. It was cheap, she said, and there were no roaches. Occasionally, a rat, but Hazel was no more afraid of a rat than she was of Two-Bit.
She stood with her arms folded across her chest, leaning against the frame of the door that led into the kitchen. Two-Bit crushed down an errant wish for a cup of coffee. No way was he getting past her until they'd had this conversation.
The name Hazel didn't fit a damned thing about her except for her eyes. For him, the name conjured up images of librarians- a job which Hazel may have actually done from time to time when she wasn't waiting tables, or watching kids at recess, or cleaning a church or doing any number of other things 180 degrees in the opposite direction from legal. She was tall enough that she didn't need to wear heels, but everything about her seemed tiny, bird-like. At first glance, she looked like a girl you could break in half without a second thought, but Two-Bit knew better.
"I was shooting a couple of games of pool…"
"You said that. You left yesterday."
"I put a tank of gas in."
"And that took you fifteen hours?"
"Haze, do you want to go for a drive?"
"Yes, in my car. Without you. I'd like to go to the store."
Two-Bit dropped his head down and grinned. Maybe the looking dumb and bashful thing would get him somewhere.
"We could go to the store on our way," he offered.
"On our way where?"
He took a deep breath. This wasn't going to be easy.
"Macalester. A buddy of mine's getting sprung at noon. He needs a ride back up here."
"Doesn't he have a family?"
"He does, but- believe you me- they're the kind of people where he'd rather see me first thing on getting out of the joint than them."
"And what kind of person does that make him?" She asked.
Fair question. "He's kind of a quiet guy."
"He didn't go to Mac for being quiet."
"Actually, he did. He could've rolled over on some guys and walked away with parole, but he didn't."
Two-Bit figured this might make Tim sound at least half-way worth knowing to Hazel, but she remained dubious.
"How long has he been in?"
Two-Bit tried to remember. He guessed: "Maybe six months."
He could see Hazel running the numbers in her head. Her dad had been inside, so had one of her brothers. She was trying to figure out, based on experience, what Tim hadn't rolled over on.
"Well, nobody got killed," she said. "Or he'd be doing more time than that. Drugs, guns, money? Girls? If it's girls, he can walk back to Tulsa."
Two-Bit shook his head. "Wasn't girls. Wasn't dope. Neither one's his thing."
"Girls are not his thing?" She asked, a little smirk on her face.
"I mean, running girls is not his thing. Girls, as a general rule, sit just fine with him. I think. Come to think of it, I've never known him to have a steady girlfriend."
"Well, I've never known you to have a steady girlfriend, either," Hazel said. She dropped her arms to her sides and turned to go into the kitchen, and Two-Bit knew he had her at least interested if not agreeable.