de facto 〖 ponyboy curtis 〗

thirteen.

Jo-Lynn

Jo was clueless about where they could be going. Ponyboy took her all the way to the South Side, which was more empty land than the rest of Tulsa but it housed the middle class and a few poor white people who can just barely afford to not live in the East side. She had hardly been down there and was surprised at how quiet and scenic it looked. They hitched a ride on a freight train, something Jo had never even thought about doing, and he said about an hour East was their destination.

Ponyboy told her they were going to a spot that was important to him. Nothing was really there anymore, but he told her he could find entertainment there anyway. She had always wanted to get away. She's been out of Tulsa but the experiences weren't much better seeing as her family was from the Georgia countryside. She was hoping nothing bad happened here.

She was bored on the train and Ponyboy was reading his book so she asked him to read it to her and she rested her head on his shoulder, listening to him intently. It amazed her how he could focus for so long on the book without stopping, and his voice was so calming to listen to. Jo momentarily forgot all about her issues and immersed herself in this experience with Ponyboy.

They got over halfway through the book and when they began he was only on page fifty-three. He told her they were jumping off soon and she looked around. It was basically barren land. Somewhat grassy, and some wire fences but mostly nothing. She had no idea what they were doing there.

As they jumped out of the train, holding their backpacks close to them, Ponyboy seemed to read her mind. They began to walk again not for as long as last time and he finally told her why they were where they were. "I know this kinda seems like a place someone brings you to before they kill you," he chuckled, making her giggle as well, "but around here is where my friend and I had to stay for a little bit."

She was surprised. "Why would you have to stay all the way out here? What was even here?"

"An abandoned church." He looked out at where it used to stand small and dilapidated, panels falling, caving in, sticking out. He could smell the aroma of that building still. Jo-Lynn simply saw nothing. "My friend and I got jumped by some socs a while back and he killed one. We had to lay low for a bit."

She wondered how bad it must've been that his friend had to kill somebody, or if maybe he was trying to prove something. "Wow. What was it like? Are there any people or other buildings around here or anything?"

"A general store just a couple miles away, somebody's farmland a few miles that way." He shrugged, they'd mostly kept themselves busy at that point doing what they could so he wasn't sure of much else.

"Your friend from the front steps of the school?" Jo wondered, beginning to take a couple steps in a random direction and examining the green grass beneath them.

"No, they ain't really my friends. It was my best friend. Johnny."

Jo looked at him quietly for a moment as they kept taking small steps and hoped her next question wasn't going to cross a line. "Well, what happened to him?"

She could feel his energy shift, and easily recognized that he was very important to Ponyboy. She dropped her backpack and invited him to sit with her on the rough green grass. He sat and relaxed as she held his hand and leaned against him. "He died. Not too long after."

The girl was, again, taken aback by his words. She couldn't believe this guy would've been through such things. He really seemed to her like the kind of kid whose life was all good. She tended to think that about every white kid even though she logically knew it wasn't true. "I-I'm sorry." she stuttered.