We were in our room in the pajamas they gave us to wear. We had just showered so our hair was wet, no grease. It would get cut on Monday, when the barber got in. Right now my hair still hung in my eyes. I flipped it out. Both of us were holding the handbooks that we were supposed to read. In the next three to five days that we'd be on this orientation unit we were supposed to "commit it to memory," I sighed. I hated this.
Pony was reading it, I'd seen him read enough things. He read fast and he remembered everything he read. God, I wished I was like that. I flipped the book open and started to read it, sounding out the words to myself, skipping over the words I didn't know. I was getting so mad I wanted to throw the book across the room, but I knew that kind of thing would make me lose points. There were staff people in the hall, I could see them. I closed my eyes and saw that soc lying still in the moonlight. I shuddered.
"Johnny?" Ponyboy said, marking his place in the book. I just looked at him, feeling like I wanted to cry. I couldn't read this book. I couldn't stop thinking about that soc, about what I done. How could I live with this?
"Pony, I can't read this book, I can't concentrate on it," That was part of it. I couldn't concentrate. I was so worried, worried about Ponyboy and what would happen to him cause of all this trouble I got him into, worried about Soda and Darry worrying about him, worried about going to jail for the rest of my life, or getting the electric chair. That didn't make trying to read any easier.
"Look, I'll tell you what it says," he said, and he came over to my bed, and I thought those staff people would come in and yell at us, but they didn't. He went over the whole stupid book with me.
"Thanks," I said in a shaky voice, and it was getting late. The staff guy from the break room peaked his head in.
"Lights out, guys," he said, and he flipped the lights off and Pony climbed into his bed, and I thought I'd never be able to get any sleep, not here, not with everything hanging over my head.
In the morning, the light coming in under the shades, some staff person yelling that it was time to get up. I was completely out of it, I had no idea where I was for a second, then it all came rushing back.
"Time to get up!" I groaned, peeked through my eyelids. It was only ten of seven. I couldn't get up this early. Half the time I missed school was cause I slept too late. Sometimes I was too messed up to go, both eyes black and a raging headache from getting my head slammed into the wall. Sometimes I just couldn't drag myself to school. Ponyboy, on the other hand, he never missed school and wouldn't disobey Darry when he said it was time to get up. So it was easier for him. I could hear him getting up, getting dressed. I put the pillow over my face.
"Johnny Cade! Get up!" the staff guy said, someone I had never met. But he knew who I was, of course. So I got up, feeling so tired, feeling so restless and edgy already. I put on the uniform thing and made the bed. Pony always made his bed at home, I knew this, and I'd make the beds if I slept over his house, but never at my house. No one cared there. So it was all done and I sat on the made bed, waiting for whatever we'd have to do now.
It was breakfast, so we went to the dining room and ate it and then we had to clean up the table and do the dishes. Then nothing. We just went to that same break room and watched T.V. This was what you did on the orientation unit. Nothing. Read the handbook. Make phone calls. They took Pony first to make phone calls. I didn't have nobody to call. I'd just call Darry and Soda and hope that Dally was there, cause it was Dally who I wanted to talk to.
Then it was my turn, and I followed the staff guy down the hall to the office with the phone. So I dialed the numbers for their phone. We didn't have a phone, my parents couldn't afford one. We'd never had a phone. We had a T.V. that didn't work.
"Hello, Darry?" I said, cause I knew it was Darry who answered. I wondered if he was mad at me. But I, if I hadn't done it they might have killed Ponyboy.
"Yeah, Johnny?"
"Yeah,"
"How are you? Are you alright?"
He sounded so concerned, not just about Pony but about me, too. I almost started crying.
"Yeah, I'm okay," I said, although it was a lie. I was miserable. I couldn't stop thinking about that kid I killed, how I took away his life. He would never do nothing again, he'd never fall in love, get married, have kids, anything, he'd never do nothing because of me. It was too much to bear, it was too much to take. I felt so guilty I couldn't, I just didn't know what to do.