"Johnny! Wake up!" Someone's pushing at him, and he opens his eyes groggily and rolls onto his back. The cold wisp of the wind stinging his face snaps him right out of his dreams for the second time that night. He doesn't mind. It was another nightmare.
"Pony?" he asks as he hops up, almost knocking the kid over because he can't see too well in the dark, and Pony was hovering over him.
"We're running away!" Pony cries as he steadies himself. He sounds kind of hysterical, but in seconds he's taking off, and Johnny's by his side.
It takes all his strength to keep up with the kid, even though he can tell Pony's not going as fast as he can for Johnny's sake. He's still a little foggy with sleep and one of his legs has gone numb and it's strange to step on. Eventually, Pony's frantic rush evens out to a steady jog. His breathing doesn't calm down, though. He's weeping. Johnny pulls his hands over his head for a second, trying to stretch out a cramp, trying to give himself a moment to figure out what to say.
These aren't the usual quiet tears that escape when Pony's watching a sad movie or he reaches the end of a good book. His breaths are short and choppy, interrupted by sobs. Johnny hasn't seen him cry like this since a month or so after his folks passed and he was still in the midst of grief. "Easy, Pony," Johnny says, his voice soft but confident as he reaches out a hand to steady him, taking long, slow breaths himself in hopes Pony will copy him. "Calm down, buddy." Whatever has happened, it's serious.
"Gotta cigarette?" Pony asks, too hyped-up to remember they smoked his last one.
Johnny searches every pocket, and he comes back with one bent reserve. He breaks it off at the bend, and lights up with a match before handing it to Pony.
"Johnny," Pony quivers, "I'm scared."
Johnny takes a good look at Pony, trying to figure out how to fix this. What does Dally do when Johnny gets scared? "Well, don't be," Johnny commands with an austere authority he doesn't feel. It's always that voice that makes him feel secure when he's on the other end. "You're scaring me. What happened?"
"Darry...he hit me..."
It was another one of their arguments. This time because Pony came home so late. It escalated. In a way, the whole thing was Johnny's fault. He should have made sure Pony got home at a reasonable hour. Just because he doesn't got anybody staying up at all hours worrying about him, doesn't mean Pony doesn't. He knows better than that.
"...we used to get along okay, before mom and dad died. Now he just can't stand me."
Johnny wants to tell Pony that Darry didn't mean it, but now is not the time. Pony's frightened and furious, and he would think Johnny was dismissing how upset he is if Johnny said something in Darry's defense. The only thing he can do is commiserate, let Pony know that he understands. "I think I like it better when the old man's hitting me. At least then I know he knows who I am..."
It's true, he guesses. Most days, he'd rather get hit than ignored. He doesn't want to shift the conversation so it's all about him, though, so he shuts up pretty quickly. By that point, Pony's wiping off his tears. Cooling himself down and reconsidering his hasty decision to run away.
Pony suggests they head to the park so he can calm down some more, and Johnny agrees without hesitation. It should be vacant at this time of night: it's a younger kids' park, the eight-and-under crowd who leave before sundown to get home in time for dinner. By the time you reach age nine, you're too tough for playgrounds, and all the hoods in their neighborhood have better places to get drunk and make out.
When he was little, he loved the swings for the same reason he likes a fast ride now: the wind blowing back his hair, the rush of a potential fall (or crash), the effort it takes to go higher and faster than the kid beside him, all in good, wild fun. He used to walk to the park to play on them, but that stopped in first grade. All the other kids came with parents or teenage baby-sitters who sat on the benches and smoked and watched over them as they chatted amongst themselves. But nobody ever noticed or bothered Johnny except once.
There was this boy who thought he was king of the park because he was the oldest kid there, but he was nice about it: running around in circles to set off the merry-go-round, pushing kids on the swings, timing boys on the monkey bars, splashing girls in the pool, checking up on toddlers' tantrums, that sort of thing. The kid was pushing Johnny real high on the swings, so high that when the swing reached the pinnacle, it jerked sharply and Johnny fell. It was a little scary, but mostly exciting. Even if he did land on his wrist wrong, it wasn't a big deal.
But then the kid's heavy-set mom ran over and insisted on getting all fussy over him. That's when she discovered a few bruises that were older than his most recent fall. When she asked where his parents were and Johnny shrugged, she made him sit with her at the bench, where she used this stern, scary voice to ask him personal questions he didn't answer. He thought he was in trouble. Later, when her boy and his little sister were finished playing, the mom refused to leave him until he allowed her to walk him home. She told him that her family came to the park every Tuesday and Thursday, and that if he ever needed help, he could find them there.
When Johnny got inside, his old man, who'd seen her, kept asking who she was and what Johnny told her. He was livid with Johnny (he hadn't understood why back then) and belted him something good. Johnny couldn't go to school for a couple days, because his dad accidentally took it a little too far, and they needed to make sure nobody else asked questions. At the time, he hated that nosy lady.
He never played at the park after that.
#
Even if it is so freezing he can't feel his fingers properly, it's nice to be there with Pony now, at nighttime when nobody else is around to stare at them for being hoods. He likes looking down at their feet, walking side by side at the same pace: Pony's white hightops next to his black. They're walking so close Johnny can smell faint traces of Darry's aftershave on Pony's neck, even though he ain't old enough to need it. He bets Darry is fully aware of the fact Pony's sneaking it, too. Johnny gets a little kick out of the thought and smirks to himself. It's those little things that assure Johnny this is all gonna blow over. Pony doesn't know what he's smiling about, but he smiles back at Johnny, still teary-eyed.
Pony's finally calmed down, and the worst of the night is over. Johnny'll go back home with him, explain how it was all his fault Pony was staying out late, accept whatever punishment Darry sees fit to give him. From now on, he'll make sure he's around the Curtis house more often so he can soften the blows and misunderstandings that seem to constantly spark up between the two of them. Soda can't be expected to live his life standing between them. He's got a job and a girl. Johnny ain't got nothing or no one but his buddies.
It's kinda sick to twist this night, which is terrible for Pony, into how it could be nice for Johnny. But the truth is, it is nice to feel needed. He does feel honored that Pony came to him, when he could have run to Two-Bit or Dally or Steve, or even just stayed at home and sought the comfort of Soda. It's nice to know he has a place. He feels guilty for running to the Curtises for help all the time, but if he can give back like this, it means he's not a useless leech. He can act as a glue that helps hold them together when they're having trouble. All Johnny wants is to do his part.
They're circling the fountain; he likes listening to the sound of Pony's breathing, now relaxed and steady, against the noise of the trickling water. A small shoot of water spurts up from the center of the fountain and splashes down in a faint white mist. It's so cold that the outer edge of the fountain is darker, a glistening film of black ice wrapping around the stone. Johnny looks out into the distance, and his stomach lurches.
There's a blue Mustang circling the park, and even though he's failing math again, something in his gut tells him the probability that it's a car full of strangers, a different blue Mustang, is pretty damn low.
Go away, he prays, backing up so the backs of his knees hit the to rim of the fountain. He doesn't even know if he believes in God, but he's praying right now, in his head. Fast and incomprehensible, repeating the same phrase over and over. He doesn't know the official ones that the Catholics got, the Hail Mary or Our Father. He hopes it's something God will listen to. Go away. Go away. Go away. Please go away. But God must not hear him, or not care, or maybe He's deliberately punishing him for kicks like He did with that Job guy, because the Mustang pulls over.
"Oh, glory," Pony mutters. "This is all I need to top off a perfect night!"
Johnny shifts his body so it's angled in front of Pony, blocking him. But he does it casually, acting as if it were a random move so Pony doesn't protest.
"Think we should make a run for it?" Pony asks. But the Socs are already exiting their car. There's no chance of escape, and if they get them from behind while they're running, it will be worse because they won't be able to see where the blows are coming from. He can count them now. There's five of them. Five.
"It's too late now. Here they come," he says.
Johnny doesn't know why his voice sounds so steady. His heart is beating so rapidly he thinks there must be something medically wrong with him, like he's gonna keel over any second. A wild alarm is going off in his body, telling him he's gonna die if he doesn't run or stand his ground.
He can't get beat up like that again. He can't. He can't let it happen to Pony. He reaches for his back pocket, his fingertips grazing the shape of the switchblade that's pushing out against the fabric. But he doesn't pull it out. Not yet. Not until he's fully analyzed the threat–it might just be some insults thrown their way, a few sloppy slaps to the face to prove a point. He hopes. Either way, it's better that they don't know from the start that he's armed.
Randy's with them. But of course he is. That's his car. Maybe there is a little bit of allegiance left inside him. Maybe they can talk their way out of a beating.
"Hey, whatta ya know?" Bob's words are slurred, his steps slightly stumbling. "Here's the little greasers that picked up our girls. Hey, greasers." A boy behind him snickers, searching for approval from his leader.
"You're outa your territory," Johnny warns, with as much bravado as he can muster. Magically, his voice comes out strong. "You'd better watch it."
Randy jerks his worried face towards Bob, then back towards Johnny, like he's caught in between them. He opens his mouth, maybe to suggest they go home, that they're not worth hitting. Maybe. Johnny remembers Randy's voice from months before, weak and uncertain. Don't you think we're taking this a little too far? Let's leave him alone... Maybe this time he'll have the strength to stick with his convictions. To stand up against Bob.
Nobody seems to notice Randy's dilemma. Not Pony, who's too busy glaring at Bob, infuriated by the insult. Not the other Socs, who are too eager for their upcoming round of jump-the-kid-greaser (their favorite drinking game) to pay much attention to anything else.
Johnny guesses he'll never know what Randy was going to say, because he shuts his mouth and doesn't say it, schooling the wrinkled concern in his brows to an actor's smooth indifference. Anyway, it was a long shot. Pony and Johnny had picked up their girls, and not defending your girl's honor is a capital crime at Rogers. Marks you out as less than a man. A sissy. A faggot. That's not a slur Randy can afford to be called.
"Fucking greasers trying to tell us where we can go, huh? Stupid shits. Well, guess what, pals? We've got cars. The whole world is our territory." It's Randy, and he sounds wasted. Johnny wishes someone else had said that. Anybody else. A deep well of hatred, stemming from betrayal, is growing inside Johnny. He shouldn't feel betrayed. He should have expected this, but it burns nonetheless. Johnny narrows his eyes. If only looks could kill.
"You know what a greaser is?" Bob asks. "White trash with long hair."
Johnny feels like he's been punched in the gut. He watches the warring reflections of silver moonlight and golden lamplight shine off of Bob's rings.
"You know what a Soc is?" Pony shoots back. "White trash with Mustangs and madras."
Bob's smiling a vicious little smile that flashes a hint of teeth. That's it. Pony's retort is all the justification Bob needs. Johnny and Pony are gonna die tonight.
"You could use a bath, greaser. And a good working over. And we've got all night to do it. Give the kid a bath, David."
The Soc who laughed, who must be David, reaches out for Pony. Johnny steps between them and Pony ducks to get away, but Johnny is shoved to the side by another Soc and David catches Pony. It only takes him seconds to twist back Pony's arm and dunk him face-first into the fountain. Bob joins in, and the force of two fully grown men pushes Pony down into the ice cold water. Johnny struggles against the Soc holding him back, watching Pony's feet kick and his arms flail as the kid desperately tries to reach up for air. It only takes minutes for somebody to drown. He learned that once in science class for some reason.
Johnny twists and socks the Soc who's holding him down in the face, but he's a huge guy and it doesn't do much damage. Another guy knocks him in the back of the head. And then the first Soc goes for the simplest, most direct way to get him down: a kick right in the crotch, full force. Johnny crumbles into himself, falling to his knees. They don't keep beating on him, though. They'd rather watch the more entertaining torture of the night, the drowning of Pony. Johnny tries to stand back up because he knows they're not paying too close attention, but Randy presses a knee against his back and forces him down. He pulls Johnny's face up off the grass by his bangs, leans in close to his ear, and bites out, "Stay put." Like it's an order.
Randy's not hitting him. He's only holding him down, keeping him from fighting back. And Johnny realizes Randy's trying to protect him from the brunt of a major beating.
He struggles against him anyway. He can see Pony reach up for a second, gasp for air, only for his face to be immediately smothered beneath the water once again. Pony's struggling and flailing is growing weaker and weaker. He's going to die. They're really going to kill him.
And Johnny goes wild. He thrashes against Randy's hold with everything inside himself. Randy must not be feeling up for a fight, because it doesn't take as much effort as he expected it to when he pulls himself free. He pushes past the other two Socs with the fastest speed he's ever managed, grabbing his switchblade and flicking it open as he sprints towards the fountain.
#
It's easy to stab somebody.
The knife glides into the Bob's body, just under his ribcage, with little resistance; Johnny only has to hold Bob's arm, lean forward, and push in, and six inches of steel slice straight through, a jerked stop at the hilt. Johnny has to pull twice, and twice as hard, to get it out. He's shaking as the blade comes back coated dark, but Bob's let go of Pony, and the other boy–David–drops Pony to see what the commotion is all about. Pony's free. That's all that matters.
Bob's staring at him, his mouth sort of half-opens and he makes a choking sound, and then he collapses to his knees as jets of blood spurt from the wound into the still water of the fountain, thinning out across the pool and lapping over Pony's face. He presses his hands to his chest, the blood pouring from between his fingers down onto the cold gray slab of stone at the base of the fountain. Then Bob falls onto his face.
David stares, wide-eyed, from Johnny to Bob in horror, and somewhere, it seems far in the distance now, although he's not sure if it really is, or if his hearing's suddenly gone sour, a masculine voice that has cracked off-pitch is hysterically screaming, He stabbed him! He stabbed him!
Johnny looks down at the blade in his hand, wet red to the hilt, and he realizes, Yes, I did. I stabbed that boy.
But none of that matters now, because Ponyboy is left face-down in the fountain, and he's not getting up. Johnny drops the knife, kneels down, and pulls Pony out of the water, violently shaking him back and forth. But he still doesn't respond.
He leans his ear against Pony's chest, praying for a heartbeat, he's never wanted anything more in his life, and it's there. It's there. But Pony's still not opening his eyes. Johnny leans in close to Pony's face, and he can't hear the sound of him breathing.
"Pony!" Johnny screeches as he shakes him. "Pony!" He slaps him across the face. "Pony, wake up! Please. Pony. Please. Please. Pony."
Johnny leans in and puts his mouth on Pony's mouth, frantically trying to remember what that volunteer ambulance man had taught them once at an assembly. He knows he has to breathe out and push in Pony's chest or something, so he starts trying both at the same time, but he doesn't have the elbow room to push. He pulls back for a second and tries just doing the pushes. Seconds later, Ponyboy coughs, and a large swallow of water escapes back out of his mouth and dribbles down his chin. Half-conscious, Ponyboy sits up for a moment, looks around, and then slumps back down into Johnny's arms. But Johnny can hear the steadiness of his breath, so even if he is knocked out cold, he's alive and his lungs are working and that means his big brain's gonna be okay too. He's gonna live to see his brothers and go to college and marry somebody smart like him and have cute little kids and be that important person Johnny brags about and says, "You know that English professor over at University of Tulsa? The one who just published that prize-winning book of poetry? Yeah, that's my friend."
He clings to him, reassuring himself that Pony is alive. And then Johnny looks up.
All the other boys have run, but Randy is kneeling there, cradling Bob like Johnny's cradling Pony. Bob's blood has soaked Randy's trousers, drenched straight through his sweater to his white shirt, and coated his hands, hands that are shaking so uncontrollably that they're a red blur. Johnny opens his mouth, but no words escape.
"No," Randy sobs. "Bob." His voice sounds unnaturally sharp. He doesn't see Johnny. All Randy sees is Bob lying there in his arms. But then again, Randy doesn't see Bob either, not really. Bob is gone. Bob is dead. Johnny's kneeling close enough to them to see what is obvious, even if it weren't for the blood. What Randy is holding doesn't look like it has a person inside it anymore. It's just a body.
For a second, he thinks he must be caught in a nightmare. Because it doesn't make sense. Someone can't be there one second, and suddenly be gone. That's not how it works. Not when it's always been the opposite. No matter how much Johnny's wanted various people in his life to leave him alone for good, they come back for him again and again, forcing their will onto him any way they can, no matter how bad it hurts him. But not anymore. This is permanent. A body is permanent in a way he can't begin to wrap his mind around.
He knows that people die for good. Heck, the whole gang knows in a way they wished they never did, now that the Curtises have passed. But Johnny didn't see them die. He didn't do it to them. This is different. It must be that there's this body, which is a fraud, and the real Bob, who's still driving around the block coming looking for him.
This can't be real. This can't be happening. But it is. Johnny's lived with denial long enough to recognize it, and it's quickly being replaced by panic.
"No," Randy repeats. He looks up at Johnny, too terrified and grief-stricken to cry, just looks at him. And Johnny can't read anything in his expression but the blank stare of shock. Not hate. Not fear. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
That's what he's done. That's what murder is. He's made someone into no one.
"Johnny," Randy pleads. His whole body trembles as he gently pushes his best friend off of him for the last time. In a way, Randy'd always been trying to do that. Push off Bob's influence so he could be his own man, but it never worked out. Bob is–was–the boy he'd gone to summer camp with four years in a row. The boy who liked to be alpha dog with everybody, but was a good guy once you got to know him.
He's sorry, he's sorry, he is. But he can't say, I'm sorry I killed your best friend. Anything he could say would be insultingly inadequate. Anything he could say would be a second stab. I still think about you. I still care about you. I killed your best friend.
How many times did Randy tell him to get rid of that blade? And what did Johnny tell him? Something thoughtless, something so stupidly, cruelly, heartlessly thoughtless. 'Some people deserve to die.' He needs to be sick.
"Johnny." His name is an accusation. Randy pulls himself up to his feet, trembling. He turns around and stumbles off into the night. In the distance, Johnny can see that the blue Mustang is gone. Randy's friends have taken his car, have left him there to meet his fate in the empty park.
Johnny hears the ring of his name resound like a church bell before a funeral. Deep inside himself, he knows he is to blame, he knows he willfully committed this crime. Homicide. Somehow, the technical term makes the truth more solid. It wasn't a slip of the knife. He didn't unintentionally use too much force, or accidentally hit the wrong spot. He went for the kill.
He had to be sure Bob wouldn't drown Pony. He had to be sure that, even if Bob let Pony survive the dunking, he would never, ever do to Pony what he did to Johnny all those months before. Pony, innocent Pony, wouldn't be capable of recovering from that. And Johnny wasn't going to let that happen to himself again, either.
It wasn't accident. It was deliberate. It was murder.
Only, he hadn't understood what murder really meant until he committed it. He somehow hadn't made the connection between killing and dead. Johnny picks his blade up off the cement.
#
Pony's fully regained consciousness by the time Randy is out of sight. Johnny watches first as Pony struggles, teeth chattering, shivering down to his bones as he coughs out the last of the ice-cold water that had nearly swallowed his lungs. And then he watches as Pony's eyes catch the body on the pavement, as he struggles to understand how that'd come to be.
"I killed him. I killed that boy," Johnny explains, staring straight ahead where Bob's lying. He's holding out the knife in front of him, and from his angle, leaning against the fountain, one hand on his knee, it's cutting off the view of half of Bob's face.
Johnny gives Pony his privacy, but he can't help but hear the sound of the kid retching up his dinner. He's exposed Ponyboy to this, a kid who's so empathetic he gets visibly teary-eyed when people die in movies. And he thinks: I did this. I did something so terrible that I made Pony sick.
The only thing keeping Johnny from doing the same is his responsibility to Pony. If Johnny were on his own, the horror and permanency of this, the complete impossibility to understand that a soul so willful, a body so strong, can be snuffed out of existence in seconds–that a rich kid with the world at his feet can be left abandoned by his friends to rot in a shitty park–and that Johnny is the cause of it... that would drive him insane, but not now. Now, he needs to focus on helping Pony, focus on managing the situation. He won't think about it now. He'll think about it tomorrow.
He realizes, somewhat inappropriately, that those are words of Scarlett O'Hara. Johnny laughs a little, and Ponyboy's eyes grow even wider in fear. He needs to get a hold of himself.
Johnny tries to explain it, he tries to tell him, he couldn't let them drown him. But Pony's still staring like he's afraid of him.
"They give you the electric chair for murder," Pony cries.
It sounds like an awful way to die, and as much as the prospect would terrify him at any other time, Johnny's not too worried about that now. He needs to focus on controlling the situation. He needs a plan.
He considers waiting there for the cops. Death penalty's a possibility and he doesn't want to die, but there's a good chance he'd only get hard time, and he thinks could take prison. It ain't that he's got some fantasy of it being nice in there, but he could adjust. He always eventually adjusts to the latest shitstorm in his life. But Ponyboy's wrapped up in this too, an accessory or something, whatever it is, it's bad. Pony's too innocent to go to jail, and if he somehow got off, he's gonna be taken away from the protection of his older brothers and sent to a boy's home where they don't feed you and the older kids hurt the younger ones.
Pony comes first. They're going to have to be fugitives.
"We gotta get outa here. Get away somewhere. The police'll be here soon. We'll need money. And maybe a gun. And a plan." He says these things aloud. To assure himself, to assure Pony. He sounds like he knows what he's talking about, as if committing murder is nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to get worked up about. A walk in the park. Shoot. They are at the park.
But all he can think is: What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?
"Where are we going to get those things?" Ponyboy asks, vocalizing his own helplessness. Pony's voice is still teetering on the edge of panic.
And suddenly, Johnny knows.
They are going to go to the only person he's ever truly, completely relied on. The only person he would entrust with his life, and more importantly, with Ponyboy's.
The horror of the night is still closing in on him, maybe it will always close in on him, but just the thought of him–the small day to day memories–brings him strength. The smell of him, after a hard day at the rodeo, and the sweat he spreads onto Johnny when he slings his arm around his shoulder and singles him out as if Johnny were as important as all the grown-ups he rides with. The sound of his voice trying in vain to hide his anger as he disinfects another abrasion left by Johnny's old man. A hoodlum's voice, forcefully disguising itself as gentle and comforting for Johnny's sake. Or maybe the reverse. Those three seconds he let Johnny kiss him, let him show how much he means to him without making him feel ashamed. He's got a body possessed of the strength to hurt him, but never once has. He's got a temper he's let loose on everyone he knows, except never once on him.
It's going to be okay.
"Dally." Even just the name in his mouth brings strength to his limbs, resolution to his thoughts.
It's going to be okay.
Johnny nods, firm and confident. "Dally'll get us outa here."
THE END.
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Author's Notes:
Thank you so much to everyone who has kept up with this story until the end! I'm so grateful for your readership and feedback, and I hope you enjoyed the ride. I certainly did.
If the final long paragraph sounds vaguely familiar to you, this might be because I tried to make the ending parallel that of Gone With the Wind both in terms of style and theme (when all hope is lost for Scarlett until she decides to go back to Tara). Obviously, I do not own Gone With the Wind. For comparison, you can check out the text using Australia's Project Gutenberg.
In response to anon: It's not that I'm against happy endings or alternate universes! Only, from the start, I had been envisioning this story as a prequel and a Johnny character study. I do have a loose outline for the sequel. If I write it, it will definitely cover how and why Randy becomes a hippie...