The next morning, when Johnny wakes up in a disoriented haze, it takes him a minute to remember where he is, and then the events of the previous night come flooding back to him, the chronology shifting around in his mind until he makes vague sense of it. The sunlight sneaking in through the broken blinds hurts his eyes, and it's not only because he's just opened them. His whole brain is throbbing in the midst of a migraine, and his face has pain to match.
When sits up in Dallas's bed and places his feet down on the floor trying to center himself, he steps on something wet and gooey: the melted bag of succotash Dally had grabbed from Buck's freezer and made him hold to his face in four twenty-minute intervals before he fell asleep. Dally's makeshift bundle of blankets on the floor is crumbled up, and Johnny's alone in the room. He briefly debates with himself whether or not he should shut his eyes and try to fall back asleep until the pain of his headache recedes, but decides not to risk overstaying his welcome. Johnny forces himself to get up and head downstairs.
Buck's place looks different with the dust mites exposed by the stream of morning light shining through a window. The bar has the feeling of a saloon in an old west ghost town, left abandoned a century before instead of crowded a single night ago. The emptiness of its usual rowdy patrons is almost physical. There is an uneasy silence in the absence of drunken yeehaws and the customary sad, twanging guitar echoing out of the jukebox. The only sound is ticking of the old clock behind the bar. The left half of its face is hidden beneath the corner of a drooping Confederate flag, and Johnny can only make out the minute hand. It's thirteen after, but thirteen after what, he doesn't know.
Cold air bites at his face when he opens the door to find Dallas and Buck sitting on the porch, chewing tobacco underneath a neon sign advertising Bud. At nighttime, that sign glows like a beacon; it's the flame of a lighthouse or the candles in the window of a church, drawling in lonely strangers to the roadhouse. But the full shine of sunlight is stronger than the neon now.
"Woo boy. Look what the cat dragged in," Buck says with a whistle. His words are slurred, but whether it's simply his country accent or the tobacco in his mouth, Johnny's not sure.
"Does that make me the cat?" Dally asks with a raised brow.
"You're a shifty-ass alley cat if I ever met one, Winston. And I mean it kid, that's quite a shiner. Shiners."
"Yeah," Johnny answers. He doesn't know Buck all that well, and the few times he's ever been around him, he's never known that to say. Buck's pretty old–he's twenty-five, which is not all that much younger than his mom–and they don't exactly have a lot in common.
"Crazy kid started a fight," Dally says, and Johnny recognizes a tone of feigned disapproval that's actually bragging. He's certain Dally is far from proud of him for getting involved in some messy quasi-relationship with a man, but for Dallas to uphold his reputation, his gang has to have a tough reputation, too. "Dumb ass," Dally adds. He grins up at Johnny and spits a wad of brownish-black tar out onto the dry grass.
"Let me guess, I should've seen the other guy?" Buck asks with a chuckle, like he knows Johnny lost the fight. Johnny shrugs.
"Gonna come watch us at the rodeo today?" Dally asks.
"Yeah."
"Your friend's a real talker, ain't he?" Buck says it like he's the first person to ever make note of it.
"I'm always telling him to shut up," Dally says noncommittally.
Johnny reaches for a cigarette, but when his hand falls to the lint-lined bottom of his pocket, he remembers he gave away his last two the night before. It feels like a hundred years ago.
He doesn't say anything, but Dally must notice, because seconds later Dallas says, "Think fast, Johnnycake!" the same time he chucks over a half-filled packet. It hits Johnny square in the face.
"Ouch!" Johnny groans. The last thing he needs is something–even something as light as a cigarette pack–smacking into his bruised-up face. Buck laughs.
Dallas hadn't meant to hit him, but he refuses to apologize nonetheless. "Next time think fast," Dally says with a shrug. Johnny kneels down to pick up the pack, muttering a slew of cusses. At least they're Kools.
He starts feeling better, at least marginally, as soon as he lights up. The steadiness of the menthol moving in and out of his smarting lips is calming, and it only takes seconds for the shaking of his cravings to settle as he sucks in with satisfaction. Johnny eyes Dally, his Adam's apple jutting sharply out in profile, his blue eyes stoic, his rigid body perfectly fitting next to Buck, and he thinks about what Dally had said the night before. He knows he's never going to hear those words again, and he's okay with that. Once was enough. He's a different man today than he was last night. He's a person that somebody cares about and wants around. And whenever things get tough, he can close his eyes and hear Dally's words, which felt like a promise.
His buddies don't know his secret. Maybe they would hate him if they did. But Dallas knows, and he doesn't hate him. So, then again, maybe they wouldn't. And maybe he shouldn't hate himself for it either, if Dally doesn't hate him for it. He's not sure. He's still not sure about anything. But for the first time, Johnny allows himself to consider the possibility that his friends' offers to help him are not coming from a place of pity or duty, but from something deeper. He considers the possibility of letting go, of curbing his instinct to resist their help, whatever it may be. A night on the couch. A free meal. Homework advice. He has always put his pride before his health, before his safety, before his friendships. He's going to try to fix that.
Johnny looks out into the distance, watching his smoke curl away into the wind. His focus shifts to the stretch of prairie wasteland bordering the highway that leads back to the crowded neighborhoods of Tulsa. Back to his buddies, back to home. And Dally's at his side.
#
"Why do I always have to sit in the middle?" Pony grumbles. Johnny moves closer to the car door to give him room, and the handle digs into the bone of his knee. They've just hoped in Two-Bit's car to head to the rodeo. Steve's driving because Two-Bit has already had too much to drink, even though it's only six in the evening, and Two-Bit's sitting shotgun. Ponyboy is stuck squished between Sodapop and Johnny in the back.
Pony crosses his arms in frustration. He's got long legs for his age–good for all that long-distance running–and he does make a ridiculous sight with his knees pressed high against his chest, his feet teetering on the ridge at the floor of the car's middle. "Johnny's skinnier than me," Pony whines. "He should get the middle."
"I'm sorry, Pone. I'll sit in the middle on the way home, okay?"
"No you won't. And quit your yaking, Baby Curtis," Steve scolds. A sharp right turn forces a screech from the wheels, sending Soda slamming into Ponyboy and Ponyboy slamming into Johnny. Johnny sees the look Steve shoots Pony through the rearview mirror as he does it. He's certainly glad that look ain't aimed at him. "Johnny's older 'n you. Show some respect. The only reason Darry even let you come is 'cause we're all gonna be there to babysit you."
Ponyboy's smoldering now, Johnny can see it in his pinched lips and the sudden, furious pink to his cheeks. Johnny wants to put an end to this before the two of them start bickering. "Honestly, I don't mind," he insists in a low voice.
"It doesn't matter whether or not you mind, it's the princi-"
"I'll sit in the middle on the way home," Two-Bit cuts in good-naturedly. "I'll need to. I plan on drinking so much I'll need you two greasers back there to hold me up."
Soda laughs, and then Two-Bit laughs at himself, and Johnny smiles. Even Pony and Steve look slightly mollified.
"I can't wait to see the horses," Soda says. He's leaning far out the window, as if his own eagerness could speed up the car.
"I wanna see Dally ride," Ponyboy says. "He's crazy. 'member how far he was thrown the last time I came?"
"Well, I got a different blonde on my mind," Two-Bit jokes with a sheepish grin.
"You've always got a different blonde on your mind," Steve mutters.
"What's her name?" Soda asks.
"Ginny? Georgia?" Two-Bit drawls a blank. "One of those. Guess I'll figure it out when I see her."
"How are you gonna figure it out?" Ponyboy asks.
"If I say a name and she don't slap me, then I've figured it out. If she slaps me, I guess I've figured it out too."
#
By the time they arrive, it's crowded and muddy, and a thousand conversations are taking place, drowning out the sound of the announcer, who's talking too fast to understand and using rodeo-specific terms Johnny doesn't know, anyway. Ponyboy hands Johnny a bag of popcorn, and Johnny reaches in. Pony's slathered it with so much butter that he has to lick it off his fingers and wipe his hands against his jeans.
Dally, Darry, Soda, and Ponyboy love it in the country, on the outskirts of Tulsa. Pony's fondest memories are picnicking with his folks in the countryside and camping with his pop, and he's always daydreaming out loud to Johnny about moving there. But Johnny's never been a country-boy at heart. His urban delinquency is made more conspicuous when set against the flannel-clad, church-going farm boys. Adults around these parts get the wild recklessness of cowboys. In fact, they're proud of them. But a tough city kid is looked at with nothing but suspicion.
Here, Johnny's black hair, black eyes, and olive skin stand out in the increasing sea of blue-eyed, sunburnt blonds. One time, Johnny got roped into going on a crazy road trip with Two-Bit, who was looking for some girl he'd met who lived about an hour away. It was the one and only time Johnny had ever ventured out of his neighborhood. On the way home, they'd stopped at a country store. Two-Bit was inside, robbing the place like there was no tomorrow, while Johnny went to take a drink from a water fountain outside. But before he could lean over and take a drink, an old farmer interrupted by asking him if he had "any spic" in him. And he said, in a no-nonsense voice, that the fountain was for whites only, and told him that if Johnny didn't like that, it was his store and his rules, and no goddamn government was going to tell him otherwise.
No one had ever questioned Johnny about his race before, and he was so humiliated he didn't answer or take a drink. His throat was dry the whole ride home, and while he couldn't bring himself to tell Two-Bit what happened, he was secretly glad Two-Bit lifted six packs of cigarettes, four candy bars, one deck of cards, two lighters, and for some unexplainable reason, a plastic box of doe urine. Johnny didn't even know people sold that kind of junk.
Johnny doesn't like horses either. The way Soda goes on and on about them, you'd think they were sweet, faithful little puppy dogs, instead of these enormous creatures fully capable of stampeding you to death at will, with eyes on the sides of their heads like they're constantly spying on you, and a big mouthful of dangerous teeth. He's only ever been on a horse once, when he was fourteen. Some rich guy had hired Dally to break a particularly ornery new pony of his, who bucked at anyone who even stepped too close. It was a Thoroughbred or something, Johnny doesn't remember. But whatever type of horse Dal was working with, he was real proud. The two of them had been hanging out when Dally invited him along to the stable to show off. He'd been working with the horse for some time, and by Dally's analysis, the stallion was "mostly tamed" by that point. In fact, he couldn't understand why the rich guy was still paying for his services, as the horse "only tried to buck him off twice in the past three days" and would let "most" people pet him without biting.
When they got there, Dally had the brilliant idea he was going to teach Johnny how to ride. Because Johnny was small, Dally decided he'd "make a perfect jockey for a racing horse." Johnny said all the cowboys he'd seen were big guys, but Dally said rodeo was different than racing. And because he didn't want Dally to realize how scared he was, he agreed to get on.
That was a big mistake.
When the horse threw them, Johnny came away with a torn shoulder, a sprained wrist, and whiplash. Dally, who rolled out of the throw, came away unemployed.
Johnny cringes as he watches the last of the bull riders, a new guy, get thrown within four seconds to a mixture of cheers and boos. He knows how to fall, though, and rodeo assistants jump to the rescue, pulling the raging bull away, grabbing the cowboy up to his feet as he pushes them off in embarrassed frustration, his whole right side from his chin to the spur of his boot layered with mud, like a thick, uneven wad of icing on a hard, unappetizing cake, the deep ridges of his brown leather hat obviously squashed flat when it gets picked up. Dally's event–bareback bronco–is up next.
Johnny watches the next few jockeys with increasing anticipation, knowing that any minute now, Dal will be next. Soda, who's sitting next to him, keeps vocalizing his admiration of the horses, as if the riders didn't even exist. "Would you look at that coat, Johnnycake? I ain't never seen such a beautiful pony!" Johnny catches Steve's customary bitter frown curl into a corner smile at Soda's childish excitement. "Sure wish I could risk the injury to ride again," Soda adds softly. And Steve goes back to frowning.
Johnny quickly checks to make sure Ponyboy hasn't heard, and fortunately, Two-Bit is telling him a story that ain't exactly age-appropriate, keeping him distracted. They all know that if their folks hadn't died, and if Darry didn't rely on Soda's income at the DX to keep the family afloat, he'd be out there today, risking his neck to ride saddle bronc like the reckless kid he used to be. Even if Soda's didn't give up college and football and his shot at getting out of this place like Darry did, he still gave up something of himself. A warm sadness fills Johnny when he realizes how much Pony's older brothers look out for him. Nothing bad will ever happen to Pony again, Johnny thinks. Not when he has Darry and Soda. And not as long as he's around, either.
"Dally's up next," Two-Bit says. Johnny finds his fingers in his mouth to bite off a hangnail, and he remembers he's trying to quit that habit, so he reaches for a cigarette instead. He lifted a pack earlier in the day, so he's replenished his stash until at least the end of the night.
Dallas is stubbornly honest about riding those ponies, and that's what bothers Johnny. The Slash J gives him a pretty lousy fixed rate, especially for the prize cash Dally usually makes for them with his winnings. And Dallas sure could make a lot of cash quick by deliberately getting thrown and placing bets on himself. Most people knowing Dally would expect that from him. But no. It's a matter of pride for Dally that he clings on to whatever raging, violent wild beast he gets to the last bitter second. That he beats his record each time he goes up. Johnny's been to enough of these weekend rodeo circuits to know Dally's pattern. When he's done, and his time is announced, he smirks with cocky indifference at the admiration of the cheering audience and manly backslaps of the older rodeo clowns. Afterwards, when everybody's ordering rounds and celebrating, Dally openly flirts with multiple women at the same time, sometimes causing bar fights with jealous boyfriends, or between two greaser girls battling out with verbal nastiness as to who he belongs to for the night. And there's always a fight if Sylvia is there, usually sparked by one of them deliberately picking up somebody else in front of the other when they're on a "break." Dally can't go anywhere without forcing his presence on everybody else around, without strutting sluggishly like he owns the world but doesn't care. And while a part of Johnny's blood courses with the thrill of the ride, he can't push back the fear in the back of his mind that one of these days, Dally's gonna break his back.
Dally's up. He feels Ponyboy grab his arm in excitement. Ponyboy used to watch Soda by peeking through his fingers. Johnny understands the instinct, but he keeps his cool, concentrating on the sensation of smoking so he doesn't have too think too deeply about his anxiety. Despite the fact they're pretty far back in the bleachers, Johnny tries to lean in close on focus on Dally's face. Even from here, Johnny can see his wild, reckless look of pure bliss. Dally's one hand is white-knuckled in a mane-hold, but he's swinging his other arm up in the air in careless, ecstatic circles as he's erratically jerked back and forth in every direction. The horse is bucking its legs violently, rearing up on its hind legs so that it stands almost vertical, kicking and thrusting with all of its might in an effort to force Dally off, and all Dally can do is shout a rebel yell at the top of his lungs, his back arching and contracting, balancing himself against the extreme movements of the horse. Johnny's so caught up in the magnetism of it that he forgets to be afraid. His heart is racing in anticipation when Dally is finally thrown. He rolls out of the fall, far away from the horse, and stands up. He doesn't even address the wild cheers of the audience. He's got that familiar, arrogant look on his face as he searches through the faces of the crowd to find his buddies, nods in their direction, and hitches his thumbs through his belt loops as he walks out of the arena.
#
Saddle bronc is next, and Dally's making his way through the crowd in the stands, accepting the praise of vaguely familiar strangers with a causal shrug until he reaches the gang. He settles in next to Two-Bit. "Sure glad you didn't break your neck out there," Two-Bit says as a greeting. "I've got some plans with a blonde later tonight."
"Yeah, good job, Dally," Pony says.
"It was nothing, kid," Dally preens.
"Real gorgeous horse you got, too," Soda leans over and shouts.
Johnny is sitting too far away to say anything to Dally without having to lean over Ponyboy and Two-Bit and shout over the noise of the crowd. So he swings his legs under the bleachers and hopes he'll get a chance to congratulate him later on in the evening.
"Hey, Pony, duck," Dally says. Pony gives him a questioning look as he crouches down. Dally takes off his cowboy hat, squints his eyes, and aims, tossing it in Johnny's direction while he's looking at his feet. Johnny reaches up in surprise, feeling the teetering of the hat as it lands on his head. It slides down along the grease of his hair until it settles, the brim stopped across his eyes where it cuts his vision in half along a horizontal line. The only bit of Johnny's face showing beneath the hat is the tip of his nose and his bruised grin.
He slides it toward the back of his head so he can see, and smiles in Dally's direction. Dally's already talking to the stranger next to him, though. From the sound that carries over, it sounds an awful lot like bragging.
"You sure make a strange-looking cowboy, Johnnycake," Two-Bit says.
"I think it suits him," Pony says, immediately coming to Johnny's defense. Johnny knows Ponyboy's just being nice. He's ready to bet he looks ridiculous right now. And the hat kind of smells, too. A lot like sweat, a little like leather, a little like manure. But Johnny doesn't care. He's proud to wear it.
The evening is going great. In fact, Johnny's having such a good time that in retrospect, he should have known better. The whole gang (except Darry, who's at work) is together, laughing and making jokes, and getting into the excitement. And Soda keeps going on about horses in the way Steve goes on about cars. But all those feelings of carelessness and content go away the moment the first girl up for barrel racing is announced.
#
Not many Socs go to these type of events. The Socs who are horse people tend to gravitate towards race tracks and polo teams and steeplechases. They prefer English riding style over Western, breeches and velvet blazers over denim and tasseled suede. But barrel racing is respectable enough, in Tulsa at least, for their girls. Johnny wonders if the standards are even stricter when you get closer to the coast and up north. He's heard Socs are even more Socy in that part of the country, if that's possible. For the first time ever, he wishes it were the same here.
"Hey, I think that girl's a cheerleader at our school," Ponyboy says to Johnny. "She's kinda cute," he adds, in a low voice so Two-Bit doesn't hear and tease him about it. "Sure wish girls like that would talk to me." Unlike Dally (and most of the cowboys here), who rides on commission for somebody else, this girl is riding her own horse.
She's small, and her bobbed dark hair is curled neatly under her chin, the wiry muscles of her legs gripping the saddle as her horse trots into the arena. When the whistle blows, her hair flies back against the wind as she kicks off. She looks tuff and adorable and athletic all at once, leaning forward, her hands on the reigns, the movements so quick and fluid it's impossible to tell where she ends and her horse begins. Her mare's legs are a blur as the two nimbly dodge the obstacles in unison. When she reaches the finish line, Marcia dismounts, her leg swinging easily over the saddle, her jump-off cheerful and bouncy. She waves to the crowd. Someone whistles. It's the sort of loud, obnoxious whistle that can only be done standing, with two fingers in the mouth. Against his better judgment, Johnny finds himself searching the stands in the direction of the whistle, and sure enough, there is Randy, on his feet, whistling and waving to his girl. Bob's standing up beside him, helping cheer her on. Johnny catches the glisten of a pewter flask in his hand.
#
He spends the rest of the evening mindlessly watching the remaining events while he imagines various endings to an altercation between them. Maybe Randy will push him off a stool as they're hanging out at the bar, or shove him at the jukebox, or maybe Ponyboy will accidentally bump into Bob because he never looks where he's going, and cause all of them to go at it, or maybe Randy will assume he's there because of Dally and seek him out for a fight. None of that happens.
But Johnny is keenly, uncomfortably aware of their proximity as he makes his way to Two-Bit's car with the rest of the gang (except Dally, who's gone home with Buck). The Socs are a few paces to the left and behind them, and even if he couldn't hear their conversation (a drunkenly confused debate about the symbolic meaning of the cult in that summer Beatles flick), he could feel the threat of their presence. He always feels it.
Johnny gets a full look at them as he leans against the car, waiting for his buddies to climb inside and choose their seats first. Randy is wearing a Christmas-green sweater that's tied around his shoulders, and his taupe-colored pants have creased press lines in them, just like his father's.
"Hey David," Bob says to a Soc who's jogging up to them.
"Hey yourself."
"Didn't know you were here. Thought we were the only normal ones around," Bob says. He slings his arm around his girlfriend–the looker with the red hair–another barrel racer.
"Man, this place is filled with nothing but hicks and greasers. Hey, what happened to your face, Randy?" David asks.
Marcia is leaning her back against Randy's chest, and he pulls aways and throws a few mock, demonstrative punches at her arm. Marcia laughs as she swats him away. "Got drunk the other night and jumped a greaser," Randy explains. "The little hood turned out to be pretty feisty." He laughs.
Johnny stares at the exchange. Stares at Randy laughing it off, stares at Randy goofing with his rich friends–the same friends he complained were shallow only one night ago–like all is right with the world. Maybe for Randy, it is. Randy doesn't even see him staring.
"Johnny." Ponyboy taps his shoulder. "You mind getting in first? You said you'd take the middle."
Johnny pulls his eyes away from the Socs. He's just a Soc. Randy's nothing more than that to him. He slides into the car, relieved to be blocked from view, safely guarded between the Curtis brothers. He doesn't mind the middle.
TBC