SE Hinton owns The Outsiders.
A rather long chapter. I just didn't feel like splitting it up. Now I'm making it longer by trying to explain it.
Female Lead
Eight-
Honey pauses on the concrete steps that lead to Buck Merrill's roadhouse. She bends to adjust her tights while Sylvia Bell checks her lipstick in the window by the light of the Miller sign. Sylvia looks past her reflection, and mumbles:
"Jesus Christmas."
"What?" Honey asks. "Is it packed? I told you they'd all be here."
"Yeah, but look at this. They're all sitting around in chairs like it's a school board meeting."
"Are they drinking?"
"Is the Pope Catholic? Yeah, looks like it. Bunch of guys I don't recognize and Shepard's Band of Merrymen. And Dally."
"The merriest of them all."
Honey looks through the window over Sylvia's shoulder. It's a war council, as the boys like to call it. A bunch of boys who have never been to war. In a year or three, half of these guys will be up to their necks in tape grass in Vietnam, and then all this gangland shit will seem like a walk in the park.
Honey was right about Dally's evasiveness only serving to make Sylvia suspicious. When Honey called, she barely got a word out before Sylvia started crying, cussing, and carrying on about how Dally must have taken a page from Two-Bit's book- he had to be out screwing around.
"Not unless he's screwing around with Buck or Tim or the River Kings," Honey told her. "They're all up to something, but I only got half the story out of him. They're at Buck's, though. He ran his dumb mouth that much."
Sylvia seemed doubtful, but then she hardly needed an excuse to get dolled up and provoke a confrontation. She told Honey to get over to her place after work and get cleaned up. She'd borrow Honey some clothes. She knew a guy who would give them a ride because he was usually headed up to the rodeo arena outside of Brumly around that time. Honey didn't ask how or why Sylvia knew the guy.
"Well, now we know," Honey says, taking a step back from the window. "Let's go have a drink."
"They'll have a fit if we go in there and disrupt their little Model UN meeting," Sylvia says. There is satisfaction in her voice.
"Then Buck should've turned off the sign and locked the door. It's a bar. We're both legal. More legal than half the fools in there. I'm going to have a drink."
Honey opens the door and steps inside. Twenty pairs of eyes look up and lock with hers. No one says a word until Dally:
"No," he says to Sylvia and then both of them. "We're busy here. Get out."
"You buy a share in the bar now, Dally?" Honey asks him. "It's Buck's joint. And you're underage. I'd say I have more right than you to be here. Buck?"
"Are you girls going to drink or just to jerk a knot in my tail?" Buck asks from behind the bar.
"Probably a little of both," Sylvia says.
Dally grumbles, "Yeah, and you're probably leaning more towards one than the other."
Honey rolls her eyes at Dally and finds Tim.
"Shepard, I understand this is your doing somehow. You going to toss two nice girls out in the dark on a night like this?"
Tim smirks. He sucks the last drag from his cigarette and drops the butt into the empty bottle in front of him.
"No, but I'd toss you two out in a heartbeat."
Honey looks around the room. The Shepard gang and the River Kings. She recognizes some of these guys from a pool hall downtown by the University Hospital. She'd gone in to use the phone and had a couple of drinks with a guy who'd been falling all over himself to give her a ride somewhere, anywhere until he found out who her big brother was. She doesn't see that guy in Buck's bar room now. Either he's jumped ship to another gang or he's doing time, she guesses.
Honey sighs. She asks Sylvia, "Are you happy?"
"She's never happy," Dally says.
"Then you two are just about damned near perfect for each other," Honey snaps. "Shepard, can you keep him quiet?"
"Honestly, no," Tim says.
Sylvia replies to Honey, "I'm satisfied. Let's just say that. You want to ditch?"
"And miss out on this meeting of the minds?"
"Who are these broads?" She hears one of the River Kings ask another. When the second one just shrugs, the first one repeats himself, asking Tim.
Tim replies, "The one on the left is Dally's problem, and the one on the right is Darrel Curtis' sister. So, she's just a problem all around."
One of the River Kings hisses a laugh, dismissing the Darry Curtis Threat.
"I hope she's given her heart and soul over to Jesus," he says. "Because I'd sure like to make that ass of hers mine."
A chorus of jeers.
Tim tells Honey, "See what you've done?"
"What I've done?"
"You've gotten everyone off track. Now we're going to be here all night."
The River King at the back of the room tries again:
"You going to stay with me all night, little girl?"
"Sweet, brown baby Jesus," Tim mumbles. Dally frowns at him. Tim shrugs and says, "What?"
He lets the front two legs of his chair fall and stands up to his full slouch. He towers over Honey and Sylvia.
"Honey girl," he says. "Pick another fight on another day, will you? Come on back tomorrow, and I'll buy you a drink. Right now- I suggest you get on home."
Honey and Tim stand looking at one another. Honey holds Tim's gaze until he can't anymore. He pulls another cigarette out of his pocket and lights it. He has deep, brown eyes- so dark that Honey can barely see the line between iris and pupil. Up close, she can see tiny indentations on his earlobes. Long ago, someone pierced his ears and he let them close up. She'd heard one of the Indian boys at school claim that boys from his tribe were born with their ears
pierced a long time ago, but she doesn't know if she believes that and she doesn't think Tim is from the same place as that boy.
"What?" Tim says. "Why are you still standing here?"
"Your ears."
"Yeah, they stick out. It ain't nice to stare. Door's that way."
He nods towards the door.
"Honey, come on," Sylvia says.
"How're we getting home? Or anywhere? We ditched our ride."
"I'll give you a ride," the talkative River King offers. "All the way home."
"Christ, talk a cold shower," Honey tells him. "Or go crawl back into the river where you came from."
Emboldened by Honey, Sylvia says, "I'm only taking a ride home from Dally."
She puts her hand on her hip and gives him a smug look.
"Then you're going to be waiting a long, damn time," Dally tells her.
"Great," Honey says. "Then we'll have time to have that drink."
She steps around Tim and up to the bar. Buck winces. Honey thought it was because of her, but it's Tim moving behind her that spooked him. Tim takes hold of Honey's arm. His grip isn't tight, and he doesn't try to jerk her away, but the grip alone tells her he could do anything. He leans down closer to her ear and says in a low voice:
"Honey-baby, Shelby, whatever your name is…if you quit busting my balls here, I will consider it a favor. One that I will be obligated to repay by getting you both a ride home from someone who isn't a serial rapist. How's that sound?"
"Looks to me like you're going to have to order out for that."
Tim grins at her.
"I'm offended. You think I fit that bill? Or my little brother?"
"Sylvia says it's got to be Dally who gives us a ride. It's got to be Dally."
"Christ, when did we all start taking orders from Sylvia? Alright. Whatever you say, sweetheart. Just get on home." He lets go of her arm and turns back to the crowd. "Dally!"
"What?"
"Give these lovely ladies a ride, will you?"
"You got to be fucking kidding me."
"Do I look like I'm kidding? And I'm going to call Curtis here to make sure you didn't just dump them off on Admiral somewhere."
"You're just looking for a reason to call Curtis," Dally says, but he's on his feet.
Honey frowns. It's not so much at the idea that Tim would call to check up on her as that Dally is giving in so easily. Still, she says nothing. If any of them, previous experience says that Dally is the least likely to be able to keep his mouth shut about what their plans are. If she just keeps quiet on the way home, he'll start spilling the beans without any provocation just because he can't help himself.
Dally stalks past Honey. He puts his hand in the middle of Sylvia's back and pokes her towards the door. Tim makes an open-armed gesture imploring Honey to follow.
Just to see what kind of reaction it gets in front of his gang and the River Kings, Honey reaches up and takes Tim's chin between her thumb and forefinger. She runs her thumb across the edge of his bottom lip and winks. Tim doesn't jerk away. In his eyes, she can see that he's flustered and irritated, but the reaction wouldn't register with anyone further away.
"Gentlemen," she says to the room and follows Dally and Sylvia out the door.
Honey crawls behind the passenger seat into the back of Buck's Thunderbird. Sylvia pushes the seat back in place and flops down in it. Dally curses at the radio when it comes on- blaring Hank Locklin.
"I like that song," Honey says.
"No one asked you," Dally replies. "Just like no one's asked you to say or do anything all damned night. I don't know what kind of spell you got Shepard under, Curtis, but it ain't working on me."
"Well, how about this spell then?" Sylvia gives him the finger.
"Just shut up," Dally tells her.
Honey leans back and folds her arms across her chest. No man in her house would ever tell a woman to shut up. Dally wouldn't dare if he was in her house either, but here he thinks he's in control. Honey stays quiet and waits. It takes all of a quarter mile.
Dally looks at her in the rearview mirror and snaps, "What?"
Honey smirks and says, "Nothing. Whatever it is, apparently you're unimportant enough to the scheme to be relegated to errand boy by Shepard."
In front of her Honey can see Sylvia's head bob. Honey knows she's biting her lip to keep from laughing out loud. Dally squirms in his seat, debating whether or not to take his eyes off the road long enough to turn and face Honey in the back. In the end, he decides against it, mutters Jesus under his breath, and begins to rant:
"Do you know who those fuckers are in there, Honey Curtis? Do you?"
"Yes."
"They're the closest thing to a real gang this cow town's got. They've got ways of making money, they've got a hierarchy, they've got a base…"
"Like a fort?"
"Christ, shut up. I swear, I'm going to pull over at the next payphone, put a blade in your ribs, and tell you to call Shepard and say you're safely at home. Then I'm going to leave you on the street in a cloud of dust."
"What about her?"
"Yeah, what about me?" Sylvia asks.
"You don't want to know."
"I just asked, didn't I?"
"So, what about the River Kings then?" Honey asks him. "So, they're a real gang."
"Yeah, them and the Tiber Street dipshits. They're going to war, and Shepard's got to pick a side."
"And we have to pick a side," Honey says.
"Yeah, and being's as the River Kings aren't a bunch of whacked out junkies, we're leaning towards them."
"What does Darry say?"
Dally makes a tight turn onto Utica and a front tire bumps the curb. He rights the car and speeds up. Honey looks out the rear window, almost expecting to see flashing lights. The street is dark behind them, emptier than she'd expect for this time of the evening.
Dally's voice is lower, almost timid, when he replies: "Darry hasn't said shit."
"Because he doesn't know, right? Because you haven't told him."
"Tim wanted to get it all squared away…"
"Fucking Tim wanted to make the decision all by himself, and then Darry would have to go along with it. Dally, you heard the way those guys talked to us in there. What is wrong with you? Do you really want to sign on with guys who are going to be macking on us like that?"
"I seem to remember telling you to steer clear, Honey-baby."
He makes another sharp turn and then a u-turn. The car lurches to a stop in front of the Curtis house. The living room is lit up. Darry is sitting in his chair. Two-Bit moving back and forth between the living room and dining room. Ponyboy and Johnny are smoking on the porch. They both looked up when Dally turned onto the street. Now they're waiting, looking uncertain. Neither one of them likes Sylvia. They're probably afraid that she's coming into the house.
"Go on in, Honey," Dally tells her. "Get in there, keep your trap shut, and wait for Shepard to call. As soon as we finish up at Buck's I promise- I pinky promise- I will come back and let Darry know what's up."
Dally opens his door and folds his seat forward so that Honey can get out. Even in her lowest heels, she can stand eye-to-eye with him. They glare at one another. Honey can see in his eyes that he's trying to guess whether or not she's going to go along with anything he's said. He tells her:
"I ain't trying to get in your pants like Shepard. I ain't going to be as polite. Just go, will you?"
Honey rolls her eyes. She peers around him to address Sylvia.
"You alright?" She asks.
"Close enough," Sylvia says.
Honey nods. She looks Dally in the eye again and shakes her head in disgust. He makes a walking motion with his fingers, and she's just as disgusted with herself for doing exactly what he told her to do.
