The Insiders

One || Ponyboy

A/N: the words/phrases with the "*" after it, is a slang from the 50/60s and will be defined at the end of the chapter. Also, not every terminology is what you expect, so please read the definitions, so there aren't a billion comments of the same thing.

also, those are the actors :)
- C. Thomas Howell as Ponyboy Curtis
- Rob Lowe as Sodapop Curtis
- Patrick Swayze as Darrel (Darry) Curtis
- Ralph Macchio as Johnny Cade
- Matt Dillon as Dallas (Dally) Winston
- Emilio Estevez as Two-Bit (Keith) Matthews
- Tom Cruise as Steve Randle

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       When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman* and a ride home. I was wishing I looked like Paul Newman — he looks tough and I don't — but I guess my own looks aren't so bad. I have light-brown, almost red, hair and greenish-gray eyes. I wish they were more gray, because I hate most guys with green eyes, but I have to be content with what I have. My hair is longer than a lot of boys wear theirs, squared off in the back and long at the front and sides, but I am a greaser* and most of my neighbourhood rarely bothers to get a haircut. Besides, I look better with long hair.

I had a long walk home and no company, but I usually lone it* anyway, for no reason except that I like to watch movies undisturbed, so I can get into them and live them with the actors. When I see a movie with someone it's kind of uncomfortable, like having someone read your book over your shoulder. I'm different that way. I mean, my second-oldest brother, Soda, who is sixteen-going-on-seventeen, never cracks a book at all, and my oldest brother, Darrel, who we call Darry, works too long and hard to be interested in a story or drawing a picture, so I'm not like them. And nobody in our gang digs* movies and books the way I do. For a while there, I thought I was the only one who did. So I loned it.

Soda tries to understand, at least, which is more than Darry does. But then, Soda is different from anybody; he understands everything, almost. Like, he's never hollering at me all the time, the way Darry is, or treating me as if I was six instead of fourteen. I love soda more than I've ever loved anyone, even Mom and Dad. He's always happy-go-lucky* and grinning, while Darry's hard and firm and rarely grins at all. But then, Darry's gone through a lot in his twenty years, grown up too fast. Sodapop'll never grow up at all. I don't know which way's the best. I'll find out one of these days.

Anyway, I went on walking home, thinking about the movie and then suddenly wishing I had some company. Greasers can't walk alone too much or they'll get jumped, or someone will come by and scream "Greaser!" at them, which doesn't make you feel too hot, if you know what I mean. We get jumped by the Socs*. I'm not sure how you spell it, but it's the abbreviation for the Socials, the jet set, the West-side rich kids. It's like the term "greaser," which is used to class all us boys on the East Side.

We're poorer than the Socs and the middle class. I reckon* we're wilder, too. Not like the Socs, who jump greasers and wreck houses and throw beer blasts for kicks, and get editorials in the paper for being a public disgrace one day and an asset to society the next. Greasers are almost like hoods; we steal things and drive old souped-up cars and hold up gas stations and a gang fight once in a while. I don't mean to do things like that. Darry would kill me if I got into trouble with the police. Since Mom and Dad were killed in an auto wreck, the three of us get to stay together as long as we behave. So Soda and I stay out of trouble as much as we can, and we're careful not to get caught when we can't. I only mean that most greasers do things like that, just like we wear our hair long and dress in blue jeans and T-shirts, or leave their shirttails out and wear leather jackets and tennis shoes or boots. I'm not saying that either Socs or greasers are better; that's just the way things are.