The Outsiders Imagines

Johnny • Senior Photo Haircut

Johnny Cade meandered about the house, keeping closely to the pictureless, peeling walls so not to make a sound while he faced the stairs. One anxious creak at a time, he held his breath until he made it back up to the landing. In his hands he held the scissors that had been the cause for sneaking into the kitchen in the early hours of the morning, the intent of a little self executed haircut before school still fresh in his hazy waking mind.

Mrs Cade could be observed passed out on the couch, an empty bottle of gin and old oracle cards that had once been purchased for the sake of desperately seeking an answer lay sprawled out across the dull carpeted floor. Johnny had scornfully kicked one that read el amantes (the lovers) under the rug when he'd crept past. With a sour edge he scoffed at the words. There was no love in this house.

Built within the bleak emptiness of the box by which the Cade's called their home, the family had privileges of a small kitchen, a living space, an overgrown garden, an attic, two bedrooms and an aging bathroom; whereby the youngest and only child of the family stood infront of the sink, placed the scissors down and stared at the mirror.

Once by tongue in cheek, he had been told that he closely resembled a Victorian sick child, one that would slowly perish amidst the harsh winter weather. Deep, sullen brown eyes that looked back at him disagreed, for he was not so pale to twin with the likes of Dickens' creations of illiterate street boys.

He was no Pip or Oliver Twist but he did enjoy most of what Ponyboy recounted about that book Great Expectations. Of course, he never quite had the time to read it himself but he grasped that the running theme was true. Most people always did look down upon the boys like him, who wore their hair too long and lived in tedious destitution.

Still, at least he had a box with walls and a kitchen and a bed and veins of a semi functioning electricity system to keep it bright. Even if he was hardly sleeping under its roof and even if it was often filled with crippiling silence or harsh slurring of blasphemy, at least he had a box.

The previous night, he had worn an old black t-shirt to sleep, and now he pulled it over his overgrown head of hair, letting it flop to the floor in a creased lump at his feet.

Victorian sick child. Oh yes, he saw it sometimes when he looked long enough at the way his lightly freckled cheeks hollowed in or how his deep set dark circles complimented the collarbones that peeked through his skin. Gorgeous, tanned skin inherited from his mother, too golden and honey coloured to be compared against the ghost of literatures past.

Dark, weary eyes scanned his reflection lazily, his tired lips loose and parted while he placed judgement upon himself, deciding how much hair he ought to snip off. Godforsaken plump lips pursed themselves together in thought, gone chapped with rejection.

El amantes.

The corners of his mouth curled into a small smile while his long fingers combed through his hair and he sighed.

The Lovers ... the lovers.

Maybe one day, he thought. But for now, he was to focus on the mundane task at hand.

'Hairs gettin' a lil long...'

Even as a younger boy, he had trimmed his own bangs. He wore his hair somewhat messier than his friends, scruffy and longer in the front, letting it kick out in inky wisps at the back. It was so long and dark that it covered most of his forehead and danced just above his eyelashes and that was just the way he always had it.

The veins of the house squeaked in an unmotivated fashion when he twisted the taps, waiting on the warm water to trickle out and merge with the cold until it was just right and he could run it through his hair, dampening the ebony locks.

snip, snip.

He watched small clumps of hair fall to the bathroom sink, noticing that the crack that ran along the bottom of the white porcelain was extending more and more outwards every time he looked at it. One day, he'd move out. To a better box than the one that caged his family. By this point in his life, the day that he could fill a case with clothes of his own and rush far from the sign at the front of the building that read Cade Residence was fast approaching.

A senior in highschool was a place by which he never foresaw himself being at. Yet, here he stood at eighteen years old, he'd be sitting for his senior photo today so the haircut was important. He ruffled his shaggy hair after it was trimmed and cleaned up the messy sprinkles of hair that clumped in the sink.

Two years ago he recalled how fashionable it was to coat hair thickly in dax wax, a statement that he and his friends had proudly adnorned. It was tuff. A lot of people still wore theirs that way, but these days Johnny Cade opted out. A lot of people didn't recognise him without the grease and he supposed that he wasn't all that memorable anyway.

He also never realized how soft and feathery his black hair was when it was not covered in gel. The front was getting to be very long, so he snipped it at, blinking some hair out of his eyes. Once more, he brushed it through with his fingers and gave it a shake, squinting in the mirror to be sure it looked decent.

The only denim jeans he owned were now hanging off his hips and he sat on the end of the bathtub to roll a weed. Perhaps it was not the smartest thing to do an hour before he had to be in home-room but he often showed up to class high. So far it had cost him little other than a few whispers of discontent.

He smoked it until he had to get dressed, playing absentmindedly with the frail cross necklace that no one else knew he wore. It was alright, he and Pony liked sitting in Church sometimes. The other boys scarcely cared for any of it. He couldn't wholeheartedly say he believed in a God, but he wore it just in case.

Keeping to the walls again, he wormed his way to the dingy bedroom where he had slept for the past eighteen years. It did not resemble common conceptions about how the room of a young man that liked drag races and rodeos might look.

No, not a poster or playboy magazine in sight. Just the bed, cupboard and a miserable shelf with an old radio sitting a'top of it. It was no wonder that it should be so empty for he was hardly ever there. He thought that he ought to get a little plant to give the space some life. He opened up the old oak cupboard, sifting through a wardrobe made up completely of hand me downs and thrifted finds. Securing such hand-me downs from his older friends had consistently been a struggle, since Johnny Cade was always the smallest in the bunch next to Ponyboy.

Today, he settled on a grey sweatshirt.

Since it had previously belonged to Darry, it hung loose around his slender body. But Johnny, who had always learnt to adapt was not one to be fussy, and made do by rolling up the sleeves, doing the same to his jeans so that it matched. Before he left the house, he checked the mirror once to ensure he looked alright. On the walk to school he remembered that the yearbook quotes were due in soon.

He hoped that the day that the senior photos came back, his photo would look nice and he wouldn't look down at a sick Victorian child above the words Johnathan Andrew Cade.