a litany of ruminations

southern gentleman

*disclaimer:

Dallas Winston and Johnny Cade are characters belonging to S. E. Hinton in the book The Outsiders. I do not own them, and are merely borrowing  them---for my, and hopefully, your amusement.

..

i think he's gallant

like one of those southern gentlemen in Gone With the Wind

not like a man in a fancy suit and black top hat holding doors for elderly ladies but more like

a reckless, rugged vigilante who doesn't care about anyone else's words tossed on the sawdust wind, grating and chafing

sure, he lies, cheats, gets drunk, jumps little kids, has no qualms at holding a knife at a nurse's throat, and doesn't give an ounce of respect for anyone he thinks is below him but he sticks up for his buddies, and when he does, he beats whoever's beating them within an inch of their very lives.

i'd almost pity them, thinking back. maybe.

((after all, it ain't a rumble if he isn't in it.))

if i were like him perhaps i'd get somewhere in this nowhere world, nowhere town, perpetual anxious frown

i'd stand up from my curled position on the ground, dust my knees and brush myself off, yes, hard, hating the whole wide world, glacial eyes full of hatred like whipping winds of the Arctic Circle, piercing, ready to blow anything and anyone in its way

like the dusty plains of Texas, i imagine, his namesake

Dallas Winston

the wild West.

he's the very personification of an outlaw, revolvers in hand with nothing but a horse and nothing on his back but his clothes, going where he pleases and when he pleases, only dust left behind in his wake, beating sun dying his wispy bleach blonde hair like wheat fields rustling in the wind.

"You get tough like me and you don't get hurt. You look out for yourself and nothin' can touch you."

untouchable, like a blade of diamond---unpolished and rough, but all the deadlier nonetheless.

unable to break

((or so i thought. so we all thought.))

he took the fall for a friend--- Two-Bit, who always likes to add his intelligent two bits whether you like it or not, even getting arrested for a crime he didn't commit

((without even batting an eye or denying it))

and i think

that's kind of admirable.

i remember liking going to church, hallowed stained glass windows and hardwood polished pews and hushed whispers and soft carpet and everyone (but us) in tuff, formal clothes.