Disclaimer: I don't own the Outsiders or the song "Catholic Boy".

A/N: Thanks for all the love. Happy Labor Day! Let's all relish in the fact that there is no school. Hopefully you're doing something more exciting than me, filling out college essays.

I was born in a pool, they made my mother stand. And I spat on that surgeon and his trembling hand. When I felt the light I was worse than bored. I stole the doctor's scalpel and I slit the cord. I was a Catholic boy. I was redeemed through pain. Not through joy.

I climb up the stairs of the apartment building. There's blood on every other step. On the third floor, I find a tampon - used. Going up a couple more steps, my shoes stick on something sticky. As I go up another floor I see what it was I was stepping all over as I find a semen coated condom.

I got about two guesses as to who it belongs to.

There are not one, but two babies crying on the top floor. As I walk down the hall, I'm almost taken out by a glass vase being thrown towards my head. I peek into the room to find a half-naked woman having a fit, calling me her husband.

I veer right, going towards room 104.

I don't knock. I just go inside.

It reeks of sex. Not the good kind either. The sticky, wet kind. The smell that has a fruity overtone and a scent of regret and humiliation. It's a familiar smell. One that I'm used to.

There are dirty clothes everywhere, most of them being undergarments. They're all lace. It's all she's ever worn. The TV's on Bewitched and there's a sound of running water coming from the room with the light on.

I get comfortable, sitting on her stained sheets, facing the door so I'm the first thing she sees when she comes through.

"Fuck." She stops, crosses her arms, and puts on her smirk. "Hello."

"Hello."

She struts through her room and when I say strut, I mean runway strut. Her back is arched back, her breasts forward so that they're the main focus, and she's pointing her toes upward like she's on heels.

"Five o'clock shadow," she says, licking her lips. "Nice."

"You went down a cup," I say, seeing her perky nipples through the fabric of her dress. "Gave up the Twinkies?"

She studies me, not parting my eyes. She walks around in a small circle like Tiffany did the other day. She did it better. Sylvia's stumbling over her own feet and she's barely standing upright. I start to wonder what she's on because it's obviously something and something strong.

She kneels in front of me so she's at eyes level. She sneers and cups my face, rubbing down to my chin. "I can't believe it's you. You don't look the same. Not a bit."

I move her hand away from me. "Nice dump you got here." I get up and examine her living space. The paint is green and the corners are covered with mold.

She follows me as I walk through the space. She stays to my back so I won't see her but I do. Her feet are like elephants that are charging through the jungle. "What do I owe this visit anyway, Dallas?"

I stop and stand in front of a picture of the Virgin Mary. There are two crosses on either side. They're old and dusty. They're from her catholic school girl years. That's how I met her - through Tim. They went to school together back in the day.

Her cheeks were real red the first time I saw her. Her hair was slick and blonde and in a tight ponytail. She had a bow in her hair that matched her stockings that came up just to her knee. She was a piece of work. She had no record, no agenda, no sneaky smirk, just a smile that caught me a little off guard.

"I asked you a question," she repeats herself, putting a hand on her hip. "Why are you here?"

I turn around to her. "I got some things I need to ask ya."

She snickers, turning away and getting her box of Marlboro cigarettes. She pulls one out with her long nails and holds it tight as she lights it. She doesn't use Marlboro. Her brand was always Winston.

"Go ahead," she says, letting the smoke ride off her dark red lips. "I got time."

I remember the first time I kissed her. It tasted like cherries. I surprised her with it. She almost fell over. It was her first kiss and she was innocent and young and didn't know what to do. So she just stood there, my lips on hers.

When we parted she looked at me. She couldn't stop giggling. She begged me for a cigarette and to teach her how. I remember my exact words to her, "I'll teach you all kinds of things."

I sit down on her bed, making it scream. She props her bare foot up against the wall and leans there, staring down at me with her big brown loathsome eyes.

I take the box of fags off her night stand and light one up for myself. "How was the loony bin?"

"Fine," she says. "You didn't come all this way to talk to me about that now did you, Dallas?"

Her eyes were the first thing I noticed about her. The way they looked like a cat on a full moon, eager to live and get into anything and everything. They showed off her age, her innocence. Poor thing had no idea what was waiting for her out in the real world. Protected by her parents and nuns all her life. She never lived before she met me.

I take a long drag off my smoke before I set it in her ash tray. Her eyes follow along with every move I make. I stand up so I'm towering over her. I make sure she's stuck up against the wall with no way of getting away.

I scowl down at her frail body. "Stay away from my stuff if you know what's good for you. If I ever hear, see, or catch you in my shit again, I'll end you. I'll break your scrawny little neck in two, you ignorant bitch."

She looks up at me, unphased. She smirks and puts her cigarette back up to her lips. "You think I'm scared of you?"

I knock her stick out of her hand. It slides across her wood floor and hits the wall. I put my hands on her shoulders. Her bones stick out, jabbing my hands. I pin her against the wall and hold her there.

"I killed a guy," I growl. "Be careful who you're talking to."

Her smile doesn't fade her lips. Inside, I know her ice heart is beating through her bony chest. "The girl can think for herself, Dallas. Last time I checked, she didn't belong to you anymore."

"I ain't gonna say it again." I get closer to her face. Our noses almost touch. "I'll kill you, bury you're body in the woods. Bugs will tear off your flesh. No one will ever find you. Ever. No one will even look. Got me?"

I give her one last push before I walk away from her and go over to the cigarette smoking on the ground. I pick it up and smoke on it.

"She came to me, you know," she says to me. "Like a little kitten. She was so lost, so scared. She came to me for comfort. I can't help that. I just gave her something she wanted. She just didn't know it."

The first time we had sex, I promised to blow her away. She wanted me to be easy. It was her first time and she was practically shacking the entire time. I held her still with the strength of my arm. She cried out, begging me be gentle on her little body. I kept going, kept pressing on, and changing her forever.

I turn around and look at her. Her sneaky smirk is still there, waiting for me to do something.

"She cried to me," she goes on to say. "Told me all about how hurt she was. She told me we were alike now and asked if I'd help her. So I did. I gave her the one thing to turn her life around. Poor little Danni. So lost. So scared. Nowhere to go."

There was a full moon that night. I remember it because it was so light in the room and she didn't want me to see her in the nude. After it was over she cried and cried and cried. They weren't tears of sadness, but joy. She thanked me. She told me she loved me and asked me if I loved her. I said what every girl wants to hear. Then we did it, over and over again.

She goes to her bed and picks up her filer. She scratches away the top of her long nails, waiting for me to take my move in this game. She had her cards out on the table and I could either challenge them, or fold.

"We could have great angry sex right now," she whines. "Just me and you, releasing all this anger into each other. Just like the good ole days, right Dallas?"

Her skirts went up, her blouses went down. She tossed all her bows out and her white training bras. She found the joy of hairspray and lace and heels. She told me stories of catholic school. She told me about how she got paddled by her teacher for having too short of a skirt. She told me how much that turned her on - to be spanked that way by a man.

She touches herself. She starts at her ankle and slowly lets her arm slide up her leg and up to the tip of her thigh. She doesn't look at me while she's doing. She does it again like she's rubbing in lotion.

She was sixteen when she dropped out. Her parents were pissed. Her dad came hunting for me. She told me about how he punished her the next day. She told me about how she touched herself that night and thought of me. I never want to leave you, she said. She wasn't going to let any girl have me except for her.

I roll my eyes at her, declining her offer after some thought. "I'm outta here. Remember what I told you."

I put my hand in my pocket to get out the keys to Rick's Falcon. I run my hand through the lint and coins and then do the same thing to my other one.

I stare at her, eyes blazing. "Where are they?"

She lies down on the bed, her skirt hiked up. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"My keys, bitch," I spit. "Where are they?"

She begins to laugh. She keeps going for a good two minutes without stopping. It's a witch's cackle. One of evil and pleasure.

I went to jail the next summer. Broad cried all day when I was taken off. She promised to never leave me. Never to part from me or do me wrong. I'd never felt this way about a girl before her. There was always something about her that kept me going back and kept me from wavering to others. She was something to call mine and I liked her.

She runs her hand back down her smooth legs. She watches me this time as if she's sending off an invitation.

"Where. Are. They?"

And she laughs.

A month later, I go to her apartment. I grabbed some flowers from that stand across the block. They were red. She had told me before how it was her favorite color. I paid ten cents for them. I get up to her floor and go inside. All I saw was her legs spread out, and Tim Shepard inside of her. I heard the moaning all the way down the block.

I know what she's doing now and why she's calling attention to her lower half. I scowl and grind my teeth together. "You sorry piece of shit!"

She giggles. "Go ahead and get them. No one's stopping you."

She apologized over and over again. She came by my place every day with those crocodile tears. She said he took advantage of her and that she didn't know what she was doing. I love you, she said. I got her back a few times after that. Then, one night at a party, we started it all over again.

"I told you," she says, laying her body out on the bed and spreading her legs open. "Get them yourself."

I look at her lower half, the little hairs sticking out around her underwear. I shake my head and turn away. "Listen here, bitch, you have five seconds to give me my keys back or-"

"Or what?" she coos, seductively twisting her hair around her finger. "What is the big bad greaser boy going to do to poor little ole me? Hit me? I thought you didn't hit girls, Dally?"

I scowl at her. "You're no girl."

She raises her eyebrows, amused. "Oh, really? So what was I back when you were fucking me? That'd make you, what? A fag? No, not Dallas Winston."

"You're a sick witch," I spew at her. "What's your agenda anyway, Sylvia?"

She rolls around on the bed and lets out a loud sigh. "I don't have one. You're the one still standing in front of me. Don't think I don't know where you're looking Dallas. Go on, get your keys."

"Bite me."

"Gladly."

She starts to cackle as I stand with no comeback. She moves her hips around in circles, drawing attention to her open dress and her exposed crotch. I can make out the outline of my keys inside her panties as she moves back and forth.

"I'm waiting, Dallas," she eggs on. "Touch me. Reach inside of me and take your goddamn keys you dirty SOB."

I yank her arm, flipping her upward and jerking her head. Once she's in sitting position I lower myself down to her position. Her smile doesn't fade as my eyes lock on hers. "I wouldn't touch you if you had a grand shoved up there."

She pouts, making a 'poor me' face with her mouth. "Awe, come on now, Dallas. Why don't you love me? Why doesn't anyone love me? No one loves me, do they?"

"Jesus loves you," I smirk. "Everyone else thinks you're a cunt."

"Funny." She flips her hair behind her shoulders and sits up straight. "I don't want you either. You think I'd fuck you? News flash - I'm not a silly little girl with a crush anymore. I've grown up and I don't need you anymore. That's for sure."

She was mine. My possession. I gave Tim his after a while. It made her happy that I was fighting for her. She said we could start all over again. Forgive and forget.

I never forgot.

"Forget it," I say, waving her off. "I can hot wire the fucking thing."

I can hear her snickering as I turn away. "Good bye, Dallas! Run off now! Move on, go find a gal. It seems like Danielle has."

I stop, grabbing the side of the door with my hand and clinching it. I stand there for a minute, hearing her as she laughs and moves around on the bed, touching herself. I hear her get up and walk to stand behind me.

Her laughing stops and she's serious again. "Peter's his name. Real cute kid. He's younger than her but looks about twenty. He's some kind of boy genius. Good looker. Lives on Oak Street. You might want to check on one of your pets too. I hear he's been following in your very own footsteps."

I walk on, standing in the hallway.

She calls out to me, "You didn't hear that from me though!"

The kid was sitting on the stoop of his porch. He had his face in his hands. He had been that way for a while.

I picked him up and took him to the Seven-Eleven down the street.

He sips on the large Slush Puppy I bought him. He hasn't said much, only a few thank yous. "Soda took Darry to a doctor's appointment and Danni's at work," he says. "I didn't have much to do."

I notice how tall he's gotten and the pounds he's put on. The kid has always looked old for his age but now, it's about ten years more. He's even growing a few facial hairs around those baby lips of his.

"Darry's asked about you a few times," he tells me. "Really wants to see ya."

I'm sure he does.

"I hear Emily is still talking to Ronnie. Where did he end up anyway?"

I take a few fries and stuff them in my mouth before I answer. "Dunno. Little broad is more like a stalker than a kid in love. Would drive me crazy." He slurps on his drink. "How's Johnny?"

He shrugs, letting his head fall down. "How should I know? I don't really hang with him anymore."

I raise an eyebrow. Those two were joined at the hip like Steve and Sodapop. "Since when? Who do you hang with now?"

"A while ago." He shrugs again. "Some guys I met at school this year. We're still friends. He's just got Sarah and he's stuck up her butt hole all the time now."

I munch on my burger, watching Pony's face go back to his drink. He's breaking eye-contact. "Who's your friends?"

"Some guys from school." Still no eyes.

I watch him, the way he stirs his drink with his straw as he looks into it. "How do you know 'em?"

"Track team," he says softly.

I notice the blue piece of fabric hanging out of his side pocket. There's a cross around his neck on a silver chain. "Track team? Really? What's their names?"

He looks up this time but his eyes still don't lock with mine. "Mitt and Simon."

I nod, going back to my food. "Uh-huh...You know a guy named Peter?"

"No. Why?"

"Nothin'," I say. "Hey, man, let's get outta here."

I throw a few coins on the table for a tip and walk over to my car, Pony following close behind me. "Where are we goin'?"

"Pick up Johnny."

Big Gale's cliff was just on the right side of town by the big bridge. It over looked the bay which was ten feet deep at parts and twenty at others. Big Gale was six stories high. It took ten seconds to reach the bottom.

Johnny shivers, using his arms to warm him up. "Jesus, Dal. It ain't even April yet."

I sit on the big rock and take my shoes off. "Yeah, so?"

Pony is in his boxers too, shivering. He's barely talked since we got Johnny. "W-Who's first?"

It's a tradition every year to jump off Big Gale and hit the freezing water below. We go just after winter is over just so we can say how tuff we were to be jumping into forty degree water. Steve, Soda, and Two-Bit usually were here too but I figured it wouldn't kill anyone to let the kids test it out first.

"Wow," Johnny says as he leans over the edge. "It's a long way down."

"What do you mean long way down?" I stand up and look down. "We've all done it a million times."

Pony finds his way between two rocks. All that running has been doing him some good. All his baby fat is gone around his stomach. He's even got some muscle lines starting to appear.

"You go first." I push Johnny out. "Go on you big pussy!"

He stumbles and backs away. "Why don't you, Dal? You're the one that can do all them flips."

"Hey, you know who was awesome on this rock? Darry. That guy would do back-flips off Big Gale."

Pony perks up a little remembering the times big Darrel would come down here with us to show off his muscles. "His record was five. He could do five before he hit the water."

"Show us how it's done, Johnny." I push him forward again, closer this time. "Don't be a wus, man!"

"Do you know how freakin' cold that is, Dal? It snowed just a few weeks ago!"

I roll my eyes. "I'm gonna push your ass. Get in there!"

Pony emerges from the corners as Johnny debates. He walks over to us and stands beside me. "Hey, Johnny."

Johnny looks up from the water and stares at him. "Yeah?"

"I kissed Sarah."

I give him one hard push and hurry over to the edge to watch as he falls down. He holds his nose and his feet hit it first, making a big splash. He comes up a few seconds later, staring up at us. He doesn't say a word, just floats there.

"Stupid kid," I tell Pony. "You're one stupid kid, man."

I push off the edge with my feet, getting as much power and speed as I can. I can feel myself in the air. It's almost as if you're flying. Not like a bird but a chicken that's just been pushed off the barn and is trying to save itself.

It feels free up here. That's why I like it. You feel like a jumper, that your life could end at any minute. Then you hit the water and it takes you a minute or two to realize what just happened and that you're alive. You didn't get lucky this time.

I flip in the air before landing in the sharp knifes of the water.

"Fuck!" I shoot up, freezing my balls off.

I look to Johnny who's looking up at Big Gale. I look too. Pony's nowhere in sight.

And they can't touch me now. I got every sacrament behind me. I got baptism, I got penance. I got communion, I got extreme unction. Man, I've got confirmation. I was a Catholic boy. Redeemed through pain. And not through joy. And now I'm a Catholic man. I put my tongue to the rail whenever I can.

A/N: Any ideas what Pony may be getting into that Sylvia's talking about why Dally's worried? Hint: it's not Sarah.