Johnnyboy

Chapter 2

We were walking down the street in town. I didn't know if Darry was going to get mad at us- or just Ponyboy- for being out in town this late.

Pony and I were still holding hands. They were warm, a good kind of warm, of course. It's weird saying that, now thinking about it, but it's the truth. No one was out at this time. It wasn't that late, but most people stay inside at this time. There was a small, cool breeze, but neither Ponyboy or I had a jacket. We were as close as we could be to each other.

Ponyboy stopped walking. "This is the place I got jumped by..."

I put my arm around his shoulder. "Aw, Pony. I'm sorry."

He gave a fake grin and said, "Nah, it's alright. You had it worse."

I looked down and replied, "Just because I had it worse doesn't mean I can't feel bad for you. You were younger than me, right? I get hit by my old man all the time, I could take it more than you could."

"They really hurt you, Johnnycakes," Ponyboy sighed.

"Are we really arguing over who got jumped worse?" I laughed.

"Yeah, guess so," Ponyboy slowly laughed. "Well, you wanna weed?"

He pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Pony never realized until three months ago, when I was in the hospital, that he's a little too young to be smoking. Since then, he's cut back on it, but not by much. Dally calls cigarettes "cancer sticks" because we all know they cause cancer, but I guess that doesn't stop us.

"Sure," I replied. Ponyboy handed me a cigarette and lit it for me.

We both stood by the wall for a few minutes, and then started walking. We were holding hands again. It was dark and hard to see much.

After walking for about five minutes, a blue mustang rolled up by us. Socs. Ponyboy didn't seem scared, which was surprising. He didn't have any weapons to protect us, and I didn't have my switchblade with me. We were weapon less, and we were still holding hands. Four Socs got out of the car. I recognized one of them,  who stepped and stood in front of Ponyboy, and the other three surrounded us. I took a deep breath in and then let it out.

"Ponyboy." the Soc standing in front of Pony said.

"Randy." Ponyboy replied.

It was the Socs who tried to drown Pony and almost beat me up, that night I killed the other Soc. I guess getting jumped wasn't over. Ponyboy still didn't seem scared, but I was.

"We've been following you around, couldn't hear what you said, though," the Soc, Randy said.

"Yeah, and?" Ponyboy asked.

Randy looked at our hands. I instantly knew where this conversation was going. They weren't here to jump us, they were here to ask us about why we were holding hands, being so close... They couldn't know.

"Well, we see you've been holding hands." Randy shrugged. "Not meaning to be, you know, invasive in your personal life, but man, I like knowing these things. What's going on?"

Ponyboy was still looking at Randy. "What's goin' on? Well, Johnny and me were just going for a walk. What's more to say?"

Randy was still suspicious, but Pony wasn't letting go of my hand, and I really hoped he didn't want them to know.

"Come on, we know that's not true. You don't just hold your buddy's hand, and put your arm around their shoulder." Randy said, "We won't tell your brothers. We are Socs, anyway, they won't believe us."

Ponyboy took a deep breathe in. "Guess it can't hurt to tell you."

I hit my shoulder on Pony's. What was he doing, telling a bunch of Socs? They're popular, they're going to tell everyone.