I woke up the next morning with the now-familiar dread of my looming day in court. I managed to drag myself out of bed and into the shower, picking another court-worthy outfit from among Anna's outgrown clothes she had put into the bag for me.
I still didn't understand why we even had to go through all of this when the person who killed that guy Bob was already dead, and thinking about it just made me angry. I realized that a kid my age shouldn't even know what the inside of a courtroom looks like, unless they were a real hood like Dally or Tim and got themselves into trouble with the cops. Yet, here I was, going to court for the second time in two weeks. This was another one of those things that everyone who didn't have to actually go through it seemed to completely idealize. Even Ben, who knew how incredibly stressful the whole ordeal was for me and my family, asked all kinds of questions about what went on and had wanted to know every last detail about our custody hearing. People acted like it was some sort of adventure when, in fact, it felt more like a nightmare.
Speaking of which, Pony had had one of his nightmares the previous night. He doesn't just have the "wake with a start and realize you're breathing heavy because something scared you" kind of nightmares that everyone gets sometimes. He has the "out of nowhere, start screaming bloody murder and scare the hell out of everyone in the house while they try for five minutes to wake you up" kind. Soda started sleeping with him a while back, right after Mom and Dad died, hoping that would help, but he still had them sometimes.
I don't know if thinking about court had him all upset or what, but it had taken all three of us talking to him and Darry and Soda holding on to him and rocking him for what seemed like forever before he finally was really awake and calmed down. He'd say he never could remember what happened in the dreams, but I wondered if whatever it was was just so horrible that he didn't want to tell us. He always looked terrified. In any case, it must have taken us all a long time to get back to sleep after that, because everyone looked exhausted at breakfast. Exhausted and worried. I don't know about anyone else, but after Pony's rough night, I was pretty concerned about how he would hold up in court. I was so worried for him that I almost forgot that I would have to testify too.
Darry gave us the same instructions that he did the last time.
"Just tell them the truth. Remember, you didn't do anything wrong." That was the other thing that was making me angry about the whole court business. We hadn't done anything wrong. Unless you wanted to play that whole assigning-blame-to-everyone game and pin the kid's death on Darry, because he had hit Pony, none of us were directly involved in killing that kid. Johnny had stabbed him. And Johnny was gone. And now the stupid state of Oklahoma was making poor Ponyboy, who the kid had been trying to drown, and was about to crack emotionally anyway, stand up in front of people and say damaging things about his dead best friend. I was angry, and Darry could tell, as I was cursing the whole system for the umpteenth time on the way into the courthouse.
"Scout, calm down. Being angry about this isn't going to help anything."
"I know." I honestly didn't want to be as angry as I was. It was a little scary, actually, kind of like I had felt when I broke down on poor Two-Bit. I sure hoped that wasn't going to happen again, in court, of all places.
This time things were a little bit more like the courtroom scenes I had seen on television, but still not quite the same. There was a judge, and people had to swear to tell the truth. There were a lot more people in the room, and lawyers. When I asked Darry about why we didn't have to have a lawyer, I was relieved when he told me that Pony wasn't accused of anything, he was just here to testify. I guess I should have figured it out, that the case was against the Socs who started the trouble in the first place, but I somehow missed that.
We all sat together, in the front, Pony and me in between Darry and Soda, like they were barriers around us, keeping us safe. Pony had barely said a word all morning and I know that worried all of us, wondering what was going on inside his head. I noticed that kid Randy, who had come to see Ponyboy, and Cherry, the pretty girl from the rodeo. Both of them were sitting with who I assumed were their parents, and they all looked pretty nervous and uncomfortable. I wondered if my parents were still alive, whether I'd still be in this situation. Pony and Dad had argued sometimes, but my parents had never hit us. In fact, my Mom had been disgusted with Johnny and Steve's parents for hitting them. The way logic seemed to run in the courts, though, and if you really wanted to push the blame game to the limits, I suppose you could have blamed my parents for this mess. It was because they died, that Darry had to take care of us and get stressed and hit Ponyboy. Or you could blame the guy who drove drunk and hit them. Or the bartender that served him that last drink…
My head hurt. I found it funny that the minute I thought that, I looked up to see the doctor that Ponyboy had in the hospital talking to the judge, who wasn't the same as the one we had the last time. I wonder if he's here in case my or Ponyboy's head explodes, from all the thinking, I thought, and almost laughed. That's good, I thought, I've gone from sheer anger to complete insanity. Now is not the time to lose your mind, I reminded myself, and tried to focus on what was being said.
The Socs had to talk first. I guess the advice they had gotten was the same as ours, because, from what I could tell, everyone told the truth. I almost felt bad for that kid Randy, because he had to stand up there and admit in front of his parents that he'd been an idiot and gone out drunk looking to pick on a few little kids just because they had talked to his girlfriend. Then I remembered everything that had happened because of it and I didn't feel so bad for him anymore.
I did actually feel bad for Cherry Valance, though. She even cried a little when she was talking. I guess it's no fun to have a boyfriend who died because he was trying to kill somebody else just because they were talking to you. I bet she feels guilty, I thought, and immediately realized the complete futility of feeling guilty about something somebody else had done.
I just didn't even want to think anymore by the time the judge started asking us stuff, and I couldn't see what his questions had to do with anything, anyway. He asked us about Dally, and if he was our friend, and I found myself wondering if he had known him. God knows; he had certainly been to court a few times. I guess he was trying to figure out if Pony hung out with troublemakers; obviously, Dallas was not the best role model, but to compare him and Pony was just plain ridiculous. Pony couldn't ever be as tough as Dallas, even if he tried, which he didn't.
For some reason, he didn't ask Pony a single thing about the night Bob got killed. He asked him about school, and about us, but nothing about the stabbing. And when I had to talk, I didn't have to explain anything that I had seen, he just asked me if the story that the Socs had told was what I had seen too.
"Yes, sir," I answered.
And that was it. All that worrying and all I had to say was two words. The Socs who had been in the park that night had to pay a fine or something, but we were excused from the court. Ponyboy looked like the weight of a million worlds had been lifted off his shoulders. Darry looked over at all of us and said, simply,
"That's it. No more court for us." I was certainly hoping that would be the case.
As we walked out into the lobby we found an unlikely pair sitting on the bench talking and waiting for us: Two-Bit and Alison.
They stood up when they saw us, gathering from our expressions that things had gone well, and Two-Bit joked,
"Hey y'all, I want you to meet my new girlfriend, Alison." Alison blushed.
"How did this happen?" Darry asked, taking Alison's hand and looking puzzled.
"Great minds think alike," Two-Bit said. "We both came down to see how it went."
"Shouldn't you be in school?" I asked.
"You're not in school," he countered, slapping me on the shoulder. I punched him in the gut, and he barely flinched.
"You're not so tough anymore without your cast, huh?" He grinned down at me. I made a face at him.
"So, how did you two find each other, anyway?" Two-Bit and Ali had never actually met before.
"Well, Darry," Two-Bit started, "you described her so perfectly that the minute she walked in the door I said to myself, 'That must be Darry's beautiful new lady friend, Alison.'"
"Seriously, Two-Bit, c'mon. How'd you meet?"
Two-Bit looked sheepish.
Finally Alison spoke up. "We were both waiting on the bench. He tried to pick me up."
"I was just being friendly, you know, making conversation," Two-Bit ducked as Darry reached out to hit him in the head.
"What'd he say to you? He didn't get fresh with you, did he?" Darry actually looked kind of concerned, which I thought was funny. I don't know what he was thinking Two-Bit would have done with a stranger in the middle of the courthouse lobby, but, then again, you couldn't put anything past him, really…
"No," Ali said, looking shy with all the attention focused on her all of a sudden. "He just asked me if I came here often, and if I was sitting here waiting for a fine young man such as himself to sweep me off my feet."
"And of course she refused all of my advances and told me she only dates handsome, strapping young roofers named Darrel, and I laid off immediately," Two-Bit finished.
"I have a feeling that's not exactly how it went, but I'm glad you met, anyway," Darry said.
"I'm just glad I figured out who she was before I got myself into any real trouble," I heard Two-Bit whisper to Soda.
"You two want to join us for lunch, seein' as we all have the afternoon off?" Wow, I thought, Darry must be even more relieved about how things went than I realized if he was willing to spring for lunch for all of us.
"Sounds good," Two-Bit said. "Where we goin'?"
Everybody looked at each other, but nobody wanted to decide.
"Jay's, then. They got the cutest waitresses," Two-Bit said, and winked. "C,mon, Scooter, you're ridin' with me," he said, grabbing my shoulder.
"Soda, you and Pony go in the truck," Darry said, tossing him the keys and putting his arm around Alison. "I'll go with Ali."
Soda and Pony headed out right behind me and Two-Bit, but I noticed Darry sit Ali back down on the bench for a minute and figured he'd probably be in an even better mood by the time he met us there.
"So, that Alison's pretty cute, huh?" Two-Bit said as we chugged down the road in his old wreck. It amazed me every time the thing started. He was still occasionally teaching me how to drive it. I was getting better, but when I had first started learning to shift I didn't exactly do his transmission any favors.
"Hands off on that one, Two-Bit. You so much as touch her and Darry'll have your butt in a sling," I said. "He really likes her."
"Good for him," Two-Bit said. "He deserves a break. And some girly action, to boot!" He laughed, and I had to, too, despite myself. Two-Bit was good about watching what he said to me and Pony when Darry was around, but not quite so good about it when he wasn't. I didn't mind though. I had actually picked up quite a bit of useful information from him when he was alone with me, especially if he had been drinking.
"So everything went good, I take it? Nobody cried, or anything?" he asked.
I guess he had heard about my sobbing scene at the last hearing. I would have punched him in the gut again if he hadn't been driving.
"Everything went fine," I answered. "I hope I never see the inside of that place again."
"Well, you keep yourself out of trouble, and you won't," he said. "Or if you're gonna get into trouble, don't get caught."
"You're just chock-full of good advice, aren't you?" I teased.
"And good lookin', too," he quipped, pulling into a spot at Jay's and turning off the ignition.
Soda and Pony pulled in right behind us and we debated on waiting for Darry and Ali before going in, but decided to just go in and get a booth.
They sat us in the back, near the jukebox, and Soda and Two-Bit fed it coins and fought over which songs to pick while Pony and I sat and played with the straws in our sodas.
"I'm sure glad that's over," he said.
"You and me both," I said. "I've had enough of being a celebrity," I said, and he nodded in agreement.
Darry and Alison came through the door, looking like a couple out of a Hollywood movie magazine, and sat down next to Pony and me. Soda and Two-Bit sat on the outside end and I found myself hoping Two-Bit wouldn't get too grabby with the waitress. He somehow managed to control himself, though. The six of us sat there, Two-Bit and Soda joking, Darry and Ali both looking happy, and Pony having shedded that aura of tension that he had been carrying around with him since the night he had run off, and I felt a strange sensation rising in me, one that I hadn't felt in so long I had almost forgotten what it felt like.
Finally, for the moment, anyway, I felt calm.
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A/N: Okay, so I know I made them go to court twice. I never understood in the book (or the movie, either) why the judge was determining custody in a courtroom with Randy and Cherry there. A criminal hearing would be totally separate than a custody hearing, I would think. I'm sure there are people out there who would know better than I (and I'm sure they won't hesitate to tell me either, hehehe...), but this is how I sorted it out in my head.
Thank you, faithful reviewers, as always!