Sylvia hanging onto Johnny…

Dally was in the slammer again. I wasn't sure what he had done this time, but he got busted and hauled off. I was at my house after school, I don't know why I ever went there. Nothing good ever happened there. My mother wasn't home and I had no idea where she was. I was watching T.V. but nothing was on. Then my old man came home. He looked at me and kind of nodded and I just stared at him. I always had to wonder what kind of mood he was in or if he was drunk. He'd usually hit me if he was, and sometimes when he wasn't. He'd ignore me or hit me, that was it.

But this time he wasn't really doing either. He got himself a beer from the fridge and I watched him drink it out of the corner of my eyes. He flipped the T.V. dial, not because he didn't want to watch the stupid show I was watching but just because things had to be his way. I didn't care.

"Johnny," he said, and already he was slurring his words. This wasn't his first drink of the day. Sometimes he woke up and started drinking. I could feel my heart start to beat kind of fast, and it almost hurt. I had that feeling like I wanted to run.

"Yeah?" I said, feeling my muscles tense up. How many times had he just suddenly whacked me? I couldn't count them. Ever since I was little, my whole life he's been hitting me. Just last week he'd beaten me with his leather belt and I couldn't really remember what I had done, but of course I deserved it.

"Uh, how's school?" he said, the words running into each other, weak at the edges. He was really drunk. I watched him slam that beer down and go and get another one. Then he came back and sat down again and I was still thinking about how school was. I'd gone today and it was lousy. I didn't have any of my homework done and the teachers looked at me like I was hopeless. I wished for just one minute I could be Ponyboy cause he was so smart and always had everything done and knew all the answers. I never knew any of the answers.

"Okay," I said, because I couldn't tell my old man how things really were.

He watched T.V. but didn't seem to be really seeing it. All I could smell was beer. I had to get out of here. He seemed fine now but it wouldn't last. But I was afraid to move, afraid if I got up and said I was leaving he'd find some reason to yell at me and grab the collar of my jacket and tell me how worthless I was, how I messed everything up and the lessons he needed to teach me. I'd learned those lessons, alright.

My mother showed up, and I saw the way they looked at each other, like they really hated each other.

"You're drunk," she said to him, and I saw how angry he looked all of a sudden, and I took off then. It was better to leave before anything started.

"Johnny!" my mother called to me while I was on the porch. I didn't want to stop and listen to whatever she was going to say but I did. I couldn't help it.

"Where are you going?" she said, narrowing her eyes at me.

"Out," I said.

"With those no good hoodlum friends of yours?" she said, and I winced. Didn't she know I was just like them, pretty much? I didn't do the shit they did, really, like stealing and all that, but I was just as no good as they were.

I didn't answer her, there was never any way to answer her. I heard my dad yell at her from inside the house and when she turned her head I left.

Smoking at the lot, the wind whipping by, carrying the smoke off fast. I wished Dally wasn't in the slammer again. Down the street I saw someone coming toward me and as they got closer I saw it was Dally's girlfriend Sylvia. She tugged at her skirt and wobbled on her high heels.

"Hey, Johnny," she said, pulling a cigarette out of her little purse and lighting it up.