# That was then, this is now
# SE Hinton
# Fontana Lion edition, 1975 (originallly published 1971)
#
#This book was typed onto the computer by
#Elaine Vail in the Dept. Electronics and Computer Science
#IT HAS NOT BEEN THOROUGHLY CHECKED
#AGAINST THE ORIGINAL
#Fontana have NOT given permission for this work
#
#Markup is COCOA - A for author, T for title, C for chapter
#
#Sebastian Rahtz      January 6 1987
#Computer Science
#University
#Southampton S09 5NH
#0703 559122 ext 2435
#e-mail spqr@uk.ac.soton.cm
###################################################
<A S. E. Hinton>
<T That was then, this is now>
<C 1>
Mark and me went down to the bar/pool hall about two or three blocks
away from where we lived with the sole intention of making some money.
We'd done that before.  I was a really good pool player, especially for
being just sixteen years old, and, what's more, I look like a baby-faced
kid who wouldn't know one ball from another.  This, and the way Mark set
me up, helped me hustle a lot of pool games.  The bad deal is it's against
the law to be in this pool hall if you're under age, because of the adjoining
bar.  The good deal is, the bartender and owner was a good friend of mine,
being the older brother of this chick I used to like.  When this chick
and me broke up, I still stayed friends with her brother, which is
unusual in cases like that.  Charlie, the bartender, was just twenty-two,
but he had a tough reputation and kept order real good.  We lived in
kind of a rough part of town and some pretty wild things went on in Charlie's
Bar.

I looked around for a plainclothes cop when we went in - I can always tell
a cop - but didn't fine one, so I went up to the bar and hopped on a barstool.

'Give me a beer,' I said, and Charlie, who was cleaning glasses just like
every bartender you ever see, gave me a dirty liik instead.  'O.K.,' I
said brightly, 'a Coke.'

'Your credit ain't so hot, Bryon,' Charlie said.  'You got cash?'

'A dime-for cryin' out loud!  Can't you let me charge a dime Coke?'

'Coke's are fifteen cents, and you already got three dollar's worth of
Cokes chared here, and if you don't pay up this month I'll have to beat it
out of you.'  He said this real friendly-like, but he meant it.  We were
friends, but Charlie was a businessman too.

'I'll pay up,' I assured him.  Don't worry.'

Charlie gave me a lopsided grin.  'I ain't worried kid.  You're the one who
should be worried.'

I was, to tell the truth.  Charlie was a big, tough guy so a three-dollar
beating up was something to worry about.

'Hey, Mark,' Charlie called, 'there ain't nobody here to hustle.'

Mark, who had been scouting out the two guys playing pool, came up and sat
down next to me.  'Yeah, that's the truth.'

'It's just as well,' Charlie said.  'You guys are going to get in real bad 
trouble one of these days.  Some guy's going to get hacked off when he finds
out what you're doin', and you're gonna get a pool stick rammed down your
throats.'

'No we ain't,' Mark said.  'Give me a Coke, Charlie.'

'We don't have any credit,' I said glumly.

Mark stared at Charlie disbelievingly.  'You got to be kiddin'.  Man, when
did we ever not pay out bill?'

'Last month.'

'You said you'd add it on to this month's.  That's what you said.  So I
don't see why you can't add twenty cents to that.'

'Thirty cents,' corrected Charlie.  'And, like I just to Bryon, if I don't
get that money pretty soon,  I'm going to take it out of a couple of hides.'

'I'll get you the money tomorrow if you give us the Cokes right now.'

'O.K.'  Charlie gave in to Mark.  Almost everybody does.  It was a gift he
had, a gift for getting away with things.  He could talk anyone into anything.
'But if I don't get the money by tomorrow, I'll come looking for you.'

I got chilled.  I had heard Charlie say that to another guy once.  I
also saw the guy after Charlie found him.  But if Mark said he'd have
three dollars by tomorrow, he'd have it.

'Speaking of looking for you,' Charlie continued, 'the true flower child
was in here asking for you.'

'M & M?' Mark asked.  'What did he want?'

'How would I know? Man, that is a weird kid.  Nice guy, but weird.'

'Yeah,' Mark said.  'I guess it would be hard to be a hippie in a hood's
part of town.'

'Speak for yourself, man,' Charlie said.  'This part of town don't make
nobody a hood.'

'You're right,' Mark said.  'But I really sounded profound there for a
minute, huh?'
huh?'

Charlie just gave him a funny look and got us the Cokes.  It was later in
the evening now, and some more customers came in, so Charlie quit talking
to us.  It got pretty busy.

'Where are you gonna get three dollars?' I asked Mark.

He finished off his Coke.  'I don't know.'

That bugged the heck out of me.  Mark was always pulling stunts like that.
I ought to know; Mark had lived at my house ever since I was ten and he
was nine and his parents shot each other in a drunken argument and my
old lady felt sorry for him and took him home to live with us.  My
mother wanted a hundred kids and could have only one, so until she got
hold of Mark she had to be content feeding everystray cat that came
along.  There was no telling how many kids she might have picked up
along the line if she could have afforded more than two-me and Mark.

I had been friends with Mark long before he came to live with us.  He
had lived down the street and it seemed to me that we had always been
together.  We had never had a fight.  We had never even had an argument.
In looks, we were complete opposites:  I'm a big guy, dark hair and
eyes-the kind who looks like a Saint Bernard puppy, which I don't mind
as most chicks cannot resist a Saint Bernard puppy.  Mark was small and
compact, with strange golden eyes and hair to match and a grin like a
friendly lion.  He was much stronger than he looked-he could tie me in
arm wrestling.  He was my best friend and we were like brothers.

'Let's go look for M&M,' Mark said abruptly and we left.  It was dark
outside and seemed a little chilly.  This was probably because school had
just started, and it always seems like fall when school starts, even if
it's hot.  Charlie's Bar was on a real crummy street with a lot of other
bars whose bartenders kicked us out when we strolled in, a movie house, a drugstore, and a secondhand clothes store that always had a sign in the window
saying 'We Buy Almost Anything' - and from the looks of their clothes,
they did.  When my old lady went into the hospital we got so low on money
that I bought some clothes there.  It's pretty lousy, buying used clothes.

We found M&M in the drugstore reading Newsweek, which shows what a weird
kid he wassince there were plenty of skin mags and things to read.  A
little kid like him shouldn't be reading that junk, I know, but he
should at least want to.

'Hey, Charlie said you was lookin' for us,' Mark greeted him.

M&M looked up at him.  'Yeah.  How you guys doin'?'

M&M was the most serious guy I knew.  He always had this wide-eyed, intent,
trusting look on his face, but sometimes he smiled, and when he did it was
really great.  He was an awful nice kid even if he was a little strange.
He had big grey eyes-the kind you see on war-orphan posters-and charcoal-
coloured hair down past his ears and down to his eyebrows.  He probably
would have grown a beard except thirteen was too young for it.  He always
wore an old Army jacket that was too big for him and went barefoot even
after it started getting cold.  Then his father got fed up with it and
M&M got a pair of moccasins.  He had a metal peace symbol hanging around 
his neck on a piece of rawhide string, and he got his nickname from his
addiction to M&M's, the kind of chocolate candy that melts in your hand.
For years I'd never seen M&M without a bag of that candy.  I don't know
how he ate those things all day long, day after day.  If I did that, my
face would break out like nothing you've ever seen.

'You want an M&M?' He held out a bag toward us.  I shook my head, but
Mark took one, just to be polite, since he didn't like sweet stuff.  'You
wanted to see us for something?' Mark reminded him.

'Yeah, I did, but I forgot what for.'  He was like that.  Real absent-minded.
'My sister's home,' he added as an afterthought.

'No kiddin'?' asked Mark tactfully, thumbing through a Playboy.  'Which one?'

M&M had a million brothers and sisters, most of them younger.  They all
looked alike and it was really funny to see him out somewhere with four or
five little carbon copies-with dark hair and big serious eyes-hanging all
over him.  If I had to be a baby-sitter day and night, I'd lose my temper and 
kill one of those brats, but then, M&M never lost his temper.

'My older sister, Cathy.  You know.'

'Yeah.  I remember,' I said only I didn't remember too well.  'Where's she
been?'

'She went to a private school last year and this summer.  She's been staying
with my aunt.  She had to come home, though, because she ran out of money.
She paid for it all with her own bread.'

'Must be smart,' I said.  I couldn't remember what she looked like; I had 
never paid any attention to her.  'She as smart as you?'

'No,' M&M said, still reading.  He wasn't bragging, he was telling the truth.
He was a very honest kid.

'Let's go over to the bowling alley,' Mark suggested.  The drugstore wasn't
exactly jumping with action.  It was a school night and nobody was hanging
around.  'You come too, M&M.'

It was a long walk to the lowling alley, and I wished for the hundredth
time I had a car.  I had to walk everywhere I went.  As if he'd read my
mind, which he was in the habit of doing, Mark said, 'I could hot-wire us
a car.'

'That's a bad thing to do,' M&M said.  'Taking something that doesn't belong to
you.'

'It ain't stealin',' Mark said.  'It's borrowin'.'

'Yeah, well, you're on probation now for "borrowing", so I don't think it's
such a great idea,' I said.

Mark could hot-wire anything, and ever since he was twelve years old he
had hot-wired cars and driven them.  He had never had an accident, but he
finally got caught at it, so now once a week he had to go downtown on his
school lunch hour to see his probation officer and tell him how he was
never going to steal cars any more.  I had beenworried at first, afraid
they were going to take Mark and put him in a boys' home since he wasn't
really my brother and didn't have a family.  I worried about Mark being
locked up.  I didn't need to.  Mark always came through everything untouched,
unworried, unaffected.

'O.K.' Mark shrugged.  'Don't get shook, Bryon.'

'Bryon,' M&M said suddenly, 'were you named after the lord?'

'What?' I said, stunned.  For a minute I thought he meant God.

'Lord Bryon, were you named after him?'

The poor kid had Byronand Bryon mixed up.  I decided to string him along.
'Yeah, I was.'

'Was there a Lord Bryon?' Mike said.  'Hey, that's cool.'  He paused.  'I
guess it's cool.  What'd this guy do, anyway?'

'Can't tell you in front of the kid.' I answered.

M&M shook his head.  'He wrote poetry.  He wrote long old poems.  You ought
to write poetry, just to keep up the tradition of the Bryons.'

'You ought to keep your mouth shut,' I replied, 'before I keep up the
tradition of punching wise guys in the mouth.'

M&M looked up at me, and I realized from his hurt, puzzled look that he
hadn't been trying to be smart.  So I punched him on the shoulder and
said, 'O.K., I'll write poetry.  How's this?' - and I recited a dirty
limerick I'd heard somewhere.  It made him laugh and turn red at the
same time.  Mark thought I had made it up, and said, 'Hey, that was
pretty good.  Can you just pop them off like that?'

I only shrugged and said, 'Sometimes,' because then I'd take credit
whether or not if was really due me.  I was like that. I'd also lie if I
really thought I could get away with it, especially to girls.  Like telling
them I loved them and junk, when I didn't.  I had a rep as a lady-killer-
a hustler.  I kept up the old Lord Byron tradition in one way.  Sometimes
I'd get to feeling bad thinking about how rotten I treated some of these
chick, but most of the time it didn't even bother me.

'M&M, old buddy,' Mark was saying, putting his arm across M&M's shoulders, 'I
was wondering if you might be able to loan your best friend some money.'

'You ain't my best friend,' M&M said with that disarming honesty, 'but
how much do you want?'

'I got fifty cents,' M&M reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a
couple of quarters.  'Here.'

'Forget it,' I said.  Me and Mark looked at each other and shook out heads.  
M&M was unbelievable.

'It's O.K. I'll get fifty cents again next week, for babysitting.'

'Is that all you get paid for watching all those kids?  Fifty cents?'  I
couldn't get over it.  Fifty cents a week?

'I think it's enough.  I don't mind taking care of the kids.  Who's going
to do it if I don't?  Both my parents work, so they can't do it.  Anyway,
I like my family.  When I get married I'm going to have at least nine or
ten kids.'

'There goes the population explosion,' Mark said.

'Well, now that your sister's home she can do a lot of the baby-sitting.' I
said, trying to be helpful.  M&M could tell we thought he was crazy.

'Cathy's got a job after school; she can't help.  I don't know what I have
to do to convince you that I don't mind it.'

'O.K., O.K., I'm convinced.'  I was also tired of the subject and I had
got to worrying about how we were going to get three dollars before
tomorrow.  Charlie didn't get his rough rep or his bar by being nice to
people, especially ones who couldn't pay their bills.

By the time we got to the bowling alley it was ten o'clock.  There weren't 
many people there.  Mark and I watched a few games while M&M stared into a
package of M&M's.  I finally got bugged about it and asked him what in the
Sam Hill was he doing.

'Take a look.'  He handed me the package, which was open at the top.  'Put
it right up to your eye.'

I did, and all I saw was a bunch of candy.

'It's beautiful, ain't it?' asked M&M.  'I mean, look at all the different
colours.'

'Yeah,' I agreed, thinking, if I didn't know this kid better I'd say he was
high.

'Let me look,' said Mark, so I handed him the package.  'Hey, this is   
groovy.  Look at all the colours.'  He gave the candy back to M&M, looked
at me, and shrugged.

M&M got up.  'I gotta go home now.  I'll see you guys later.'

'We just got here,' Mark objected.

'Yeah, well, I just came along for the walk, and now I gotta go home.'

I watched him leave.  'The kid's weird,' I said.  That's all there is to it.'

Mark lit up a cigarette, our last one, so we had to pass it back and forth.
'I know, but I still get a kick out of him.  Come on, let's go catch up with
him.  There ain't nothin' to do around here.'

Outside I spotted M&M at the corner.  There were three guys trailing him.
When you see something like that around here you know right away somebody is
about to get jumped.  In this case, it was M&M.

'Come on,' Mark said, and we cut through an alley so as to come up behind
those guys.

Three against three.  The odds would have been even except that M&M was
one of those nonviolent types who practised what he preached, and me and Mark
weren't carrying weapons.  We slowed down to a walk when we cmae to the
end of the alley.  I could hear the voices of the three guys who were
following M&M, and I recognised one of them.

'Hey, flower child, turn around.'  They were taunting him, but M&M just kept
right on moving.

'It's Shepard,' Mark whispered to me.  We were waiting at the end of the
alley for them to come by.  They didn't.  They must have had M&M up against
the wall.  We could hear them.

'Hey, hippie, don't you answer when you're spoken to?  That ain't nice.'

'Curly, why don't you leave me alone?'  M&M sounded very patient.  I moved
over to the other side of the alley just in time to see Curly pull out a
switchblade and reach over and cut through the rawhide stride on M&M's
peace medal.  It fell to the ground.  M&M reached down to pick it up, and Curly
brought his knee up sharply and hit M&M in the face.

Me and Mark looked at each other, and Mark flashed me a grin.  We both liked
fights.  We ran out and jumped on them, and the one we didn't get took off,
which was a wise thing for him to do.  Since we had surprised them, it wasn't
too hard to get them pinned.  I had Curly Shepard in a stranglehold with one
arm twisted behind his back, while Mark had the other guy pinned on the
ground.

'How'd you like a broken arm, Shepard?'  I said through gritted teeth, careful
not to loosen my grip.  His switchblade had fallen on the sidewalk, but I
didn't know what all he might be carrying.  He liked to play rough.

'O.K., you proved your point.  Let us go, Douglas.'  Curly said a few more
things that I'm not going to repeat.  He must have figured out who it was
twisting his arm when he was Mark.  Me and Mark were always together.
Curly had a special grudge against me anyway.  I used to go with his sister;
she says she broke up with me, which was the truth, but I was spreading it
around that I broke up with her and was giving all kinds of cool reasons.
Curly was a little dumb - he belonged to a gang led by his brother Tim and
known as the Shepard gang.  Really original.  Tim was all right-at least he
had a few brains-but I considered Curly a dumb hood.  'Look, we didn't hurt
him.'

That was a lie, because M&M was sitting there against the wall and already
his cheek was swelling up and turning purple.  He was trying to tie the ends
of the rawhide string together and his hands were shaking.

'Let them go,' said M&M.  'I'm O.K.'

I gave Curly's arm an extra twist for good measure and then gave him a shove
that almost sent him sprawling.  Mark let the other guy up, but when he was
almost to his feet, Mark gave him a good swift kick.  They left, cussing
us out, partly in English and partly in sign language.

Mark was helping M&M up.  'Come on, kid' he said easily.  'Let's get you
home.'

The whole side of M&M's face was bruised, but he gave us one of his rare,
wistful grins.  'Thanks, you guys.'

Mark suddenly laughed.  'Hey, look what I got.'  He waved three one-dollar
bills at me.

'Where did you get that?' I asked, although I knew good and well where he got
it.  Mark was very quick, nobody had to teach him how to hot-wire a car-or
to pick a pocket.

'It was a donation,' Mark said seriously, 'for the Cause.'

This was an old joke, but M&M fell for it.  'What cause?'

"Cause we owe it to Charlie,' Mark said, and M&M almost laughed, but instead
winced with pain.  I was really feeling good.  I could quit worrying about 
Charlie's beating us up.

Mark suddenly poked me.  'You still in the mood for a little action?'

'Sure,' I said.  Mark motioned towards the next intersection.  There was a
black guy standing here, waiting for the light to change.  'We could jump
him,' Mark said, but suddenly M&M spoke up.

'You make me sick!  You just rescued me from some guys who were going to
beat me up because I'm different from them, and now you're going to beat up 
someone becuase he's different from you.  You think I'm weird-well, you're
the weird ones.'

Both Mark and I had stopped walking and were staring at M&M.  He was really
shook up.  He was crying.  I couldn't have been more stunned if he had
begun to dissolve.  You don't see guys crying around here, not unless they
have a lot better reason than M&M had.  He suddenly took off, running, not
looking back.  I started to take a few steps after him, but Mark caught me
by the arm.  'Leave him alone,' Mark said.  'He's just all uptight from getting
jumped.'

'Yeah,' I said.  That made sense.  That had happened to me before, and I
could remember how scared it could get you.  Besides, M&M was only a kid
just turned thirteen.

Mark picked something up off the ground.  It was M&M's peace medal.  It
must have dropped off when M&M started running.  He hadn't tied the ends
of the string together very well.

'Remind me to tell him I have this,' Mark said, stuffing the medal and the
string in his pocket.  'Let's stop by and give this three bucks to Charlie
before I buy some cigarettes with it.'

'O.K.,' I said.  I didn't feel quite as good as I had before.  I was thinking
about what M&M had said about beating up people because they were different.
There was a lot of truth to that.  The rich kids in town used to drive around
over in our part of the city and look for people to beat up.  Then a year
or so ago a couple of keds got killed in that mess and the fad slowly died
out.  But there were still gang fights around here and socail-club rumbles, and things like Shepard's jumping M&M happened every day.  I didn't mind it much,
unless I was the one getting mudded.  I liked fights.

'Come on,' Mark called, 'maybe there's somebody to hustle in Charlie's.'  I
grinned and ran to catch up with him.  Mark was my best buddy and I loved
him like a brother.
<C 2>
The next afternoon after school Mark and me went downtown to the hospital to
see my mother.  She had just had a big operation, one that cost a lot of
money .  We had sold our car, and old Chevy - our TV, a little black-and-white
job - and anything else we could find to sell, but we were still short of
money.  I had been trying for weeks to find a job.  Mark scrounged around
and came up with some money - I didn't ask him where he got it, and he didn't
tell me, so I figured he stole it somewhere.  Mark was really bad about
stealing things.  He stole things and gave them away.  It didn't bother me.
He was too smart to get caught.  He had been stealing things since he
was six years old.  I wasn't above taking a pack of cigarettes from a 
drugstore, but that was about it.  I was the hustler and Mark was the thief.
We were a great pair.  One thing about it, though.  Mark couldn't see
anything wrong with stealing stuff.  I could.  It didn't much matter to me
whether or not Mark was a thief, but I still felt that stealing was wrong -
at leastit's against the law.  I think Mark was only dimly aware of that
fact.  Stealing was a game to him, something to do for fun and profit,
and he was careful not to get caught because that was one of the rules.

So that was how we lived, stealing stuff and selling stuff, trying to save
money and eat at the same time.  I never thought about it then, but I
can see now that it was a pretty rough time for us.

Anyway, Mark and I hitched a ride almost all the way to the hospital.
The guy who gave us a ride was a hippie with long hair and a beard and a
Volkswagen bus.  Those buses are very big with hippies.  I don't know why.
The guy said his name was Randy and that he went to college in town, majoring
in English.  I figure he was a pretty brave guy.  Mark and I lloked like
tough guys - the kind who go around jumping hippies, which we had done
once before.  We had gone over to the city park where the hippies hang out,
just to beat up somebody.  I wouldn't do it again though.  I hadn't
realized those guys refuse to fight back, and what happened to the one we got
hold of, it made me sick.  Mark felt the same way.  So after that we left
them alone.

Rnady was telling us about this really cool house where a bunch of his
friends lived, an old house they all rented and everybody who wanted to
could live there and groove in peace and good will.  I didn't much believe
him - there had to be a few sponges in a setup like that - and living with
a bunch of people would get on my nerves, especially if they were hairy
and dirty.  But I was polite and said, 'Sounds cool,' even though it
didn't particularly appeal to me.  Mark was interested, though, and asked
Randy all kinds of questions about where this place was and who all lived
there and if he knew about any other place like that.  Mark was interested
in lots of things - he knew all about the Old West and was nutty about
Warner Brothers' cartoons - so it didn't bug me when he got all excited 
about hippie living.

When we got out of the bus Randy held up two fingers and said, 'Peace,' and
Mark held up M&M's peace medal, which he was wearing around his neck as
a joke, and made a wisecrack.  Then we looked at each other and cracked up
laughing.  But we weren't being hateful; it was just funny.

Mom was glad to see us, but she hadn't been lacking company.  We had the
kind of neighbourhood where everyone knew everybody else's business, and all
the ladies came up to see her, at least two a day.  They also brought me
and Mark junk like pies and potato salad.  I got the pies and Mark took
whatever else there was, since he couldn't stand sweet stuff.  Cokes and
an occasional M&M, just to be polite to M&M, was as much sweet stuff as
he'd take.  As a result, I was putting on weight - I wasn't in much danger
of getting fat since it seemed like I was growing an inch taller a week -
and Mark was staying as slight and slender as ever.  You'd never guess
Mark was as strong as he was by looking at him, but I knew from our
wrestling matches that he was as tough as a piece of leather.

As usual, the last thing on Mom's mind was herself.  We had no more than
got there and got hugged when she started telling us about this poor
kid across the hall who never had anybody visiting him.

'How do you know that?' I asked.  There's so many people comin' and goin' 
around here.  How do you know about some kid across the hall?'

'The nurse told me.  Poor kid, he's not any older than you and Mark-'

It figured-I mean her finding out about it.  If there was a lame dog within 
three miles, she'd find it.  It didn't bug me much though.  Thanks to her, I
had a brother.

'Bryon, promise me you'll go over and see him.'

I frowned.  'Look, I don't know the guy.  I'm not going to just walk in and
say, 'Hi there.  Wnat a visitor?  My mother tells me you don't have any.'

'Bryon,' Mom said, 'just go talk to him.  He won't talk much to the nurses.
He's been hurt pretty badly, poor thing.'

'I'll go see him,' Mark said.  'Bryon'll come with me.'  I gave him a dirty
look but he continued.  'Who knows, maybe one of us'll end up in the
hospital sometime with nobody to come and see us.'

That was just the kind of junk my mother eats up, and Mark knew it.  When we 
left I stopped him in the hall.  'What's the idea of telling her you were
going to go see that kid?'

Mark shrugged.  'I am going to.  Why not?'

This was typical of Mark as it wasn't typical of anyone else.  'Well, I'm
not going.  I'm going down to the snack bar here and get a hamburger.
Ain't you hungary?'

Mark shook his head.  'Naw.  I'll meet you down there later.'

I tookthe elevator to the basement, where the snack bar was.  I sat on
a stool at the counter-after sitting at the bar at Charlie's I had got used
to it-reading the menu over and over, thinking about all the food I'd get
if I could.  I loved to eat.  I could put away more food than anyone I
knew.  I was five-ten at sexteen and still growing, but I went through
my lanky period at fourteen and I had a good build, of which I was proud.
I should have gone out for football, I guess, but it didn't much appeal to me.
Iliked neighbourhood football games, but all that practice for the real
thing seemed like a bore to me.  Besides, I knew I couldn't put up with a
coach telling me how to play.  I never have been able to accept authority.
I don't know why.  I figure it was because of this cop-these two cops-who
beat me up once when I was thirteen years old.  I had gone to the movies
with these other guys-I forget where Mark was-and we drank a fifth of cherry 
vodka in Coke and got drunk.  That stuff tasted terrible, but I was a
dumb kid and I drank it just to show I was as super-tuff as the rest
of them.  When the movie was over and I was staggering around alone on
the streets in the dark, these two cops picked me up, drove me out to
a hill on the other side of town, slapped me around, and left me there.
I never forgot it.  It didn't stop me from drinking, but it sure ruined
any respect I ever had for cops.  Yeah, sure there are good cops
somewhere.  I just never met any.  Ever since then I've made it a point
to mouth off to cops.  That's probably why I never met any good ones.

So I was sitting there, reading the menu, when I heard a voice say, 'Can I 
take your order?' and I looked up at this really cute chick.  She gave me
a big smile and said, 'Hi, Bryon!  What are you doing here?'  I was
racking my brain trying to think where I knew her from; she did seem kind
of familiar, so to stall for time I said, 'I'm here to see my old lady.
She's just getting over an operation.  I didn't know you worked here.' 

'I just started this week.  But you knew I just got back, didn't you?'

'Oh, yeah,' I said, about to go crazy trying to remember who she was.  She
had this groovy long dark hair with a sheen to it like charcoal-long hair
with bangs just drives my crazy.  There aren't too many chicks who
can wear their hair like that and still look good.  And she had these big,
beautiful grey eyes, dark grey with black eyelashes and the eyelashes were
really long, but they weren't fake.  I am a long-practised studier of
girls and I can tell about things like that.

'Gosh, you've grown,' she said.  'You must be a foot taller than when I
saw you last.'

'Yeah, well, it's been a long time,' I said.  If I had grown a foot it
must have been.  'How you been doing?'

'Oh, pretty good.  I was lucky to get this job.  Listen, give me your order.
I'm not supposed to stand around talking to the customers.'

'Sure.  I'll have a hamburger and a Pepsi.'

She took my order and left, and I was about to lose my mind.  She couldn't
have been someone I had dated-I date a lot of girls, but I was sure I
could remember them if I saw them again.  Anyway, she seemed friendly,
and, after you break up with someone, she's not usually friendly.  She
seemed so familiar I could have sworn I'd seen her recently.  Whoever
she was, I wanted to see her again.  I had already noted that she
wasn't wearing a boy's ring around her neck, or any other sign that
she was somebody's personal property-I'm in the habit of looking for
things like that.  I have gotten into some tight spots with boyfriends
I didn't even know existed.

'Here's your hamburger.'

I looked up at her ans she gave me this really great smile, a smile that
lit up her face.  I knew I'd seen that smile recently, and then it struck
me who it was, and I was so surprised that I said it out loud: 'Cathy!'

'Yeah,' she said, almost as surprised as I was, 'who'd you think it was?'

'The last time I saw you you had short hair and braces,' I said, forgetting
that a lady-killer should never remind a girl of her gawky age when she
was skinny and ugly, or fat and ugly, or short-haired with a mouth full
of metal.

'Yeah, that's the truth.  Bryon, you mean you didn't recognize me?'

'No, I didn't.'  I couldn't see why that should shock her so much.  Even
back in the days of braces and short hair we weren't exactly best friends.
I had never paid any attention to her.  'I just recognized you because
you look so much like M&M when you smile.'

'I am going to take that as a compliment,' she said, giving me my check.
'M&M is a beautiful child and he has a beautiful smile to match his mind.'

'He's a good kid,' I agreed.  She turned to go, and I said.  Wait!' without
thinking, so when she turned, I stuttered a little.  'I mean-I haven't seen
you in a while-I'd like to talk to you sometime-' I really wasn't living
up to my self-image.  I never stutter.

'All right,' she said, 'we'll talk sometime.'

I wanted to ask when, but didn't.  You should never be too eager with chicks.
It gives them ideas.

I waited around for Mark, but he didn't show up so Itook the elevator
back to Mom's floor.  I went and looked in the room across from Mom's where
that kid was supposed to be.  I saw him all right, but no sign of Mark.
That kid had been hurt bad.  He had bandages around his head and across
on eye, both arms in slings, and stitches in his lower lip.

'Hey, are you Bryon?'  He looked at me out of his good eye.  'Mark said
to wait for him here; he'll be right back.  He went across the street,
to the drugstore to buy me some comics.'

I could tell from the way he talked that he came from a neighbourhood like
mine.  This was likely-it was a charity hospital.  'Come on in,' he said.
'Pull up a chair.'

I did.  I didn't know what to say to him.

'You're Mark's brother?  You don't look much alike.'

For a minute I really felt good about Mark's telling this guy we were
brothers.  Of course, we didn't look alike-Mark with his gold hair and
strange gold eyes and slight, tenst body, and me, big husky with dark
brown hair and eyes-so I said.  'No I guess we don't .'

'I got a brother-older-we don't look much alike either.'

I looked arould for a No Smoking sign.  'Can I smoke in here?'

'Sure, as long as you don't get caught.  Would you mind giving me a few puffs?'

'O.K.,' I said.  I lit up a cigarette and put it between his lips.  When
I took it back he said.  'Thanks, I haven't had a cigarette in a week. My
name's Mike Chambers.'

'Mine's Bryon Douglas.  Man, you look awful.  What happened?' I asked.
I was beginning to be glad I had come in after all.  It must have been
rough, being kept in a hospital that gave you toe creeps, with nobody to 
talk to.

'I got beat up,' he said with a wry smile.

I couldn't believe it.  I thought he'd been in a car wreck or something.
'What does the other guy look like?' I said finally.

'It's a long story,' Mike said.  'You got time for a long story?'

'Sure,' I said. I really do like listening to stuff that's happened to
other people.  I guess that's why I like to read.

'Well, if it seems like I'm never going to shut up, just tell me.  You
and Mark are the first people I've talked to in a long time.  There ain't
much to say to these nurses.'  I could see that.  What can you say to
nurses?

'Well,' Mike began.  'I always had this soft spot for chicks.  I was
always making like Sir Galahad, opening doors for them and complimenting
even the homely ones, and I beat out a lot of guys better looking than
me and they never could figure out why.  But it wasn't just a line with
me.  I guess I'm a sucker-I've been taken a few times, like "loaning"
money to chicks who came on with a sob story-but I'll always believe the
best about a girl until I'm proved wrong, which is my own hang up.

'That explains the way I acted that night the gang and me was hanging
around the drugstore and this black chick came in to buy some cigarettes.
Me, I just see a nice-looking chick with really beautiful eyes, all
black and inky-soft.  I guess I'm a little funny that way, because Negroes 
just don't get me all upset.  I mean, I can see a black guy and a white
chick together, and it sure don't bother me, while most white guys can't
stand to see that.  Like the gang-the minute she walks in, they get all
tensed up because black anyone, chick or otherwise, just don't happen to
come around much where I live.  I guess she worked downtown and got off
late and just stopped in on her way to the bus stop.  I think she told
me that later.  I don't remember too good now.

'So she gets her cigarettes and starts for the door, when a couple
of guys block her way.  Now the gang I hang with is a pretty good bunch
of guys-a lot of heart and only a couple of wise apples in the group-but
see, nothin' much had been happenin' and they were bored so they start
picking on the chick, called her Black Beauty and some other choice
things.  They were really getting rude, and I was feeling sorry for the
girl.  She kept her eyes down and just said.  "Let me by, please," real
soft-like.  They guys started pushing her around, not enough to hurt her
but enough to scare her plenty.  She just gripped her purse with both
hands and tensed all over like she was trying to keep from running,
which was pretty smart.  Running is just an invitation to be chased,
and if she got caught it wouldn't be in a lighted drugstore.  The
old guy who runs the drugstore had disappeared.  He was scared silly
of the gang.  I don't know why.  We never done anything to him.

'When one of the guys grabbed hold of her and really got crude, I got
fed up.  I went over and said, "Let her go," like I meant it.  They all
looked at me for a while, like they were trying to make up their minds
whether or not to jump me.  We don't usually go around beating each other
up, but it has happened.  They finally decided not to.  My big brother,
he's got a pretty good rep as a tough guy in our neighbourhood.  He's
in jail now, that's why he don't come to see me.  It was his rep and
not mine that stopped them, because I ain't never been known as a tough guy.

'So they turned her loose and went back to reading comics, and I followed 
the girl outside.  She waslooking up and down the street kind of
desperate-like, and I knew she'd missed her bus.  I said, "Hey, uh, girl,
if you've missed your bus I can give you a ride home."

'She just kept her eyes down.  Finally she said something-but,
brother, I'm not going to repeat it.  I saw then and there she thought
I had evil intentions.  I don't blame her.  Hell, if I'd had to take
what she just did, I'd be sore and suspicious too.

'I said, "Look, I don't want a pick-up or anything..."  She gave me a
funny look so I added quick, "Not that you're not real cute or
anything-I mean, you'll have to stay here another hour to catch the
next bus and I'll be leaving and I don't know what those other guys
might do."

'She saw the logic in that, because it was getting dark.  Not too many
cops come around that area; it's kind of a deserted street.  You know
how cops are; there's a million over on the Ribbon, making sure the
nice kids don't kill each other or run each other down, while we can
cut each other's throats and they don't dive a damn.

'Finally she said she'd let me drive her home.  I had my old Ford
parked in the drugstore parking lot.  It was really my brother's car
but he said I could drive it any time he got busted, which is often.
He's a pretty good guy, but if you've got a rep for fighting
somebody's always trying to take you on.  The last time that happened,
my brother busted a bottle over the guy's head and got charged with
assult with a dangerous weapon.  He never used weapons before, but he
had finally got fed up with the whole routine.  It wasn't his first
offence, so they sat on him kind of hard.

'Anyway, we get into my Ford, and I can see the poor kid still
scared-she sits hugging the door on her side like she's going to jump
out any second.  I got a couple of good looks at her; she was real
slender, looked like she'd sort of sway in the wind, and her hair was
down to her shoulders and it must have been straightened.  She had on
a yellow dress and yellow shoes and she had her straw purse sitting on
her lap.  She held on to it with one hand and the door handle with the
other.  She really was cute.

'I started talking to her about just everything.  Would her old lady
chew her out because sh was late?  My old lady did.  Man, they never
liked anything you did, did they?  But still, sometimes you couldn't
get along without them.  Did she go to school?  I did but, boy, it was
really a hell of a place to spend all day.  I wanted to drop out but
the old lady said she'd kill me if I did.

'I kept talking because that's whatI do with animals when they're
hurt and scared, and pretty soon they get over being scared.  I've got
a hang up with animals, too.

'I could tell she was beginning to calm down a little, at least she
let go of the door handle.  I even got her to smile once.  I forget
what I'd been saying.  And then I said, "I'm sorry about what happened
to you back there," and suddenly she started to cry.

'Man, that got me so shook.  Nothing gets me shook like chicks
crying.'  Mike stopped here, and I gave him another drag on my
cigarette.

'That's funny,' I said.  'Chicks crying bore me.  Go on, Mike finish
your story.'

'Well, I didn't know what to say to her.  I finally said, "Hey, don't
cry," which never does any good.  She kept on sobbing and now and then
I'd catch a word or two.  I got the idea that she was fed up with
getting walked all over by white people.  I could see that.  I get fed
up with getting walked over by the fuzz, teachers, my old man, and the
upper-class kids at school.  So I could see that.  Bryon, doyou know
that my old man keeps my mother from coming to see me?  Said I was a
dumb kid for ever gettin' into this hospital.  So anyway, this chick,
she tells me about her problems, and she uses some pretty bad language
but nothing I ain't heard before from white chicks.  I finally pulled
the car over to the curb and reached into my pocket.  She sat up
straight and got all uptight.

'"What we stoppin' for?" she says, and I said, "I thought I had a
handkerchief, but I guess I don't."  I pulled back out on the street.
She looked at me for a minute-I kept staring straight ahead but I
could tell she was watching me-and she said, "Thank you."

'I drove her home.  She lived way out on the north side where most of
the blacks live; you know where.  It is a pretty lousy neighbourhood,
about as bad as mine.  As I pulled up in front of her house.  I could
see a bunch of kids hanging around on her porch and in her yard.

'"Well, here you are," I said, a little nervous.  For somebody who'd
been practising in her mind how to get the door open, she was pretty
slow about getting out.  That's how it seemed to me, anyway.  I think
she was tired out from crying so much.

'Then there was all these black kids around my car.  Some big guy
opened the girl's door and pulled her out and said, "What's the
matter, Connie?  What happened?"  You could tell she'd been crying.

'Then they opened my door and dragged me out.  It seemed like there
was a hundred black faces staring at me.  I guess it was really just
about a dozen, but it seemed like a hundred.  I just stood there,
backed up against the car.  Talk about scared-man, was I scared.  To
top it off, the chick had started crying again so she couldn't talk.'

Mike paused here for a minute.  He was staring off in the distance,
and when he started talking again, it was slowly, like he was living
the whole thing over again.

'The big guy came around to my side of the car.  "You hurt her, white
boy?"

'"No," I said, and it didn't sound very loud so I cleared my throat
and said, "No, I didn't," so loud that it sounded like I was shouting.
It was real quiet; you could hear somebody's TV from down the street
and a dog barking a block away and Connie's soft sobbing.  I could
even hear my heart pounding in my ears.  Then the big guy said, really
quiet-like, "What if we don't believe you?" And I got so scared I was
about to cry and said, "Ask her, huh, just ask her!" The guy called
across the car, "Connie, what you want me to do with this white cat?"

'And real soft-her voice was so soft, just like her eyes-she said,
"Kill the white bastard."

'And sure enough, they almost did.'

There was a long silence.  I think Mike had forgotten I was listening
to him.  Then he took a long breath.  'That's how I got here.  I must
be a dumb kid like the old man says though, because I still don't hate
Negroes, least of all Connie, I mean, I can almost see why she did it.
Almost.'

I shook my head.  'That's a rotten thing to happen to anybody.'

'It sure is.'  Mark's voice came from behind me.  He had been standing
inthe doorway.  I don't know how long.  'Come on, Bryon,' he said.
'Here's your comics.'  He tossed a couple of monster comics on the
bed.

As we got into the elevator Mark said, 'I'm inclined to agree with his
old man.  That is one stupid guy.'

'You mean it?' I said.  I had been thinking about Mike's story, and I
could see his point about not hating the people who beat him up.

'Yeah, I mean it.  Man, if anybody ever hurt me like that I'd hate
them for the rest of my life.'

I didn't think much about that statement then.  But later I would-I
still do.  I think about it and think about it until I think I'm going
crazy.


<C 3>
I had been hunting all over town for a job.  I really needed one, but
they're not easy to come by if you're sixteen years old with no
experience, no contacts.  I finally hit upon a great idea: I would ask
Charlie for a job.  After all, we were friends.  He thought I was a
smart kid, and having been one himself, he appreciated them.  Besides,
I figured I would really dig working in a bar.

Charlie's answer was short and to the point: No.

I was sitting at the bar, smoking a cigarette and trying to fight down
my anger and disappointment.  I had been hitchhiking all over town for
a week trying to get a job.  'Well, why not?' I asked, as soon as I
thought I could talk without blowing my stack.

'For one thing, you know how often the plainclothes cops stop in.  Do
you think they'd let a minor work here?  You're lucky you can just
come in and sit down.  Besides, Bryon, it gets rough in here later at
night-Yeah, yeah, you're a rough kid, they all think that, but you'd
better just take my word for it that you'd be better off someplace
else.'

'Like where?  There ain't no jobs in this town.  I been all over.
Don't think this crummy joint ain't last on my list.' I was mad.

Charlie didn't get upset though, he just grinned.  'Bryon, you're an
honest kid in most ways, but you lie like a dog.  Take Mark-I wouldn't
trust him around anything that wasn't nailed down, but I'd believe
anything he said.  I'd trust you with my wife, if I had one.  I trust
your actions, but I double-check most of your statements.  You just
think about it, and I think you'll come up with the reason why you
haven't got a job before now.  You just think about it.'

I was too mad to think about it right then, but I promised myself I
would later, I listened to everything Charlie said, because he was
really smart.  He had been a high school dropout, but he could
subtract and add in his head quicker than a machine, and he had also
read almost everything I had, which was quite a bit of reading.
Besides, he'd had it even rougher than me when he was a kid, and now
he had his own business and was respected by the cops and the rough
guys equally.

'O.K.,' I said.  'If you trust me so much why don't you let me borrow
your car Saturday night?'  This was a shot in the dark.  I really
never expected Charlie to let me borrow his car.  But I had been
thinking about Cathy quite a bit.  I had even called her a couple of
times-from a pay phone since wecouldn't pay phone bills any more-and
there was a dance coming up on Saturday night that I wanted to go to.
But I didn't have a car.

'O.K., Bryon, you can borrow my car Saturday.  Just bring it back with
as much gas in the tank as there was when you took it.'

I almost fell off the barstool.  'You mean it?  Really?'

Charlie gave a short laugh.  'Yeah, I mean it.  But you get into a
wreck, and I'll swear you stole it.  And I don't care if you let Mike
drive it either.  Any kid who's been hot-wiring cars and driving them
for as long as he has without an accident, I'll trust with my car.'

I didn't know how to say thanks.  I've always had trouble thanking
people.  I don't know why.  But Charlie just gave me one of those
twisted grins of his, like he knew what my problem was and couldn't
care less.

'I'll come by and get it Saturday,' I said finally.  Charlie said
O.K., and I could tell he meant, 'Get outa here before I change my
mind,' so I got.  I wanted to get to a phone and call Cathy.  For all
I knew she already had a date.

She didn't, thank God.  But she did ask me where I was going to get a
car.

'A friend's loaning me his,' I said.  'We may be double-dating with
Mark.  You remember Mark, don't you?'

'Who could forget him?' she said, and something gave me a funny
feeling, something about the way she said it.  It gave me a funny
feeling.  'Is this a dressy dance or a dance or what?' she said.

'Casual,' I said.  'Pants would be O.K.  It's just at the school gym.
Maybe we could go get a Coke afterward'-but I was thinking maybe we'll
stop be the park afterward, which is just the way I think.

Mark was surprised when I told him who I had a date with.

'Cathy!  M&M's sister?  How old is she?'

'Fifteen or sixteen, I guess.  You want to double-date?  Charlie's loaning
me his car.'  I said this casually, like Charlie loaned me his car every
day of the week, but Mark wasn't fooled.  He never was, by me, 'No kiddin'?
How'd you manage that?'

I just shrugged.  The truth was, I still didn't know how I had managed that.

'Well,' Mark said, 'I can't double with you.  I already told some guys I'd
go stag with them.  I thought you would, too.  Shoot, you haven't taken out
a girl since you broke up with Angela Shepard.'

'Yeah, well, if you'd gone with Angela for a while you'd be sour on girls,
too.  Man, I hate that chick.'

'Too bad she can look so good and be so rotten,' Mark said sympathetically.
He never once said, 'I told you so.'  He had tried to tell me a long time
ago that Angela was no good, but I hadn't paid anyattention.  It
always seemed like Mark knew the score before I did-but it didn't do
me any good.  I wouldn't listen to him.  I had to find our things for
myself.

'Who all you going with?' I asked.  We were in the kitchen doing
dishes.  Mark didn't particularly care for washing dishes, but I just
couldn't stand a bunch of dirty dieshes piled up in the sink.

'Terry Jones, Williamson, and Curtis.'

'Then I'm glad I'm not going with you.  I can't stand that Curtis
kid.'

'Come on, Bryon,' Mark said easily.  'He's a real nice guy.  What'd he
ever do to you?'

'He thinks he's so good-looking.  That whole family's conceited.'

Mark was trying to hide a grin.  He was laughing at me.  'You know
good and well he's not conceited.  He can't help it if he's
good-looking; to tell the truth, I don't think he knows he is.  You're
jealous, Bryon, because Angela dumped you to make a play for Curtis,
and he was smart enough to leave her alone.'

'You can think what you want,' I said, but I was almost laughing
myself.  Mark knew me pretty well.  Sometimes that could be
irritating, but most of the time it was funny.

I thought Saturday would never come, but it finally did.  I hadn't
looked forward to a date in a long time.  With Angela, after a while
our dates either ended in a make-out session or a fight.  Both got
boring.

I was kind of bothered about what to wear.  It was a casual dance, so
about anything would be all right, but I was bugged anyway.

I was in the bathroom shaving when Mark popped in.  He had been down
to Charlie's to pick up the car for me.

'Hey, hey, hey!'  He leaned in the doorway, grinning at me.  'Take it
all off.'

'You're just jealous 'cause you only have to shave once every two
weeks.'

Mark refused to be bugged.  'You think I want to scrape my face every
day?  Thanks, but no thanks.'

I glanced at him just to check out what he was wearing.  Mark never
paid any attention to how he dressed-I wouldn't be surprised if some
day he completely forgot he was supposed to have something on and
walked out into the street maked-be somehow he was always dressed
right for the occasion.  He had on a gold sweat shirt and
wheat-coloured jeans and tennis shoes.

'What are you wearin'?' Mark asked.  His voice sounded funny.

I shrugged.  'I don't know yet.'

Mark turned to leave.  'I gotta go now.  I'm supposed to meet Terry
over at his house.  I left the keys in Charlie's car.'  As he was
leaving he called over his shoulder, 'I found this shirt out in the
street, and it's lying on the bed if you want to see it.'  I heard the
door slam and the sound of his light running steps on the porch.

I finished washing off my face and went into our room.  Mark and I
shared a bedroom which was pretty small-we have a small house-and it
seemed even smaller with our twin beds.  One was against each wall and
that left only a path about three-feet wide to the closet.  I wanted
to get a look at this shirt Mark had 'found out in the street.'

It was real funny-that shirt happened to be just my size and dark
blue, which happens to be a good colour for me.  For a minute I
wondered whether he had bought it or stolen it-they were the same
thing to Mark-but I decided to forget about it.  After all, it's the
thought that counts.  Mark's clothes were almost all things I had
outgrown.  I grinned as I buttoned up the shirt.  If Mark really cared
about clothes he would steal some, but he didn't.  But he knew me well
enough to know what I would be thinking about.

If you have two friends in your liftime, you're lucky.  If you have
one good friend, you're more than lucky.

Charlie's car wasn't anything you'd stop and stare at, but if was
decent-looking.  I felt funny when I stopped in front of Cathy's
house.  I had always thought of it as M&M's house, and now I thought
of it as Cathy's house.  I had never paid any attention to M&M's
parents and I was about to go crazy trying to remember if I had ever
said anything rude or had got smart with them, but I couldn't
remember.  If I had, I hoped they wouldn't remember.

Cathy's father opened the door.  He said, 'Hi, Bryon' friendly
enough-I guess as friendly as any father ever greets the kid who's
taking out his daughter-so I figured I was safe.  M&M was lying on his
stomach on the floor reading a book with a little sister sitting on
his back pulling his hair.  I stepped over him.  When M&M was reading
you could blow up the house around him and he'd never notice, I'm that
way myself.

Cathy's mother came from the kitchen wiping her hands on her apron,
and in the kitchen some more little kids were fighting over who was
going to rinse and who was going to dry.

'Cathy will be reay in a minute,' Mrs Carlson said.  'Please sit down,
Bryon.  We haven't seen you in a while.'

'I've been out looking for a job,' I said, sitting down on a rubber
duck.  'Mark and I run into M&M every now and then.'

'How can you tell him and Cathy apart?' Mr Carlson said dryly.  'I
can't any more.'

'Now, jim . . .' Mrs Carlson began nervously.  'We agreed not to say
any more about M&M's hair.'

Even his own family called him M&M.  I tried to remember for a second
what his real name was, but I couldn't think of it.  In the silence
Cathy screeched, 'You give me that brush, you brat!' I stifled a
laugh.

'How have you been doing in school, Bryon?' Mrs Carlson asked.  She
was pretending she hadn't heard Cathy.

This was the usual routine questioning you go through when you have to
talk to your date's parents, but I didn't mind.  At Angela's house her
mother and her stepfather were always fighting and screaming and
throwing things, and sometimes her brothers Tim and Curly would get in
on it, and I's sort of duck flying objects until Angela came out of
her room, cussing and throwing things along with the rest of them.  So
you can see why sitting in the Carlson's front room answering
questions wasn't really bothering me.

'I'm doing pretty well in school,' I answered.  'Mostly A's and B's.'
I decided I wouldn't say anything about flunking chemistry.  The
teacher and I had a personality conflict-and when I want to cause a
teacher trouble, you'd better believe I can do it.

'M&M is flunking math and gym,' Mr Carlson said in the same tone he
had used when talking about M&M's hair.  'How anyone can flunk gym is
beyond me.'

I could tell that M&M was listening to the conversation but was
staring at his book, pretending he wasn't.  I understood what he was
doing, I have stared at a book pretending I couldn't hear what was
going on around me, too.  If people think you can't hear them, they
talk as if you couldn't.  You can hear some pretty neat stuff that
way.

'It's not as if M&M was an invalid,' Mr Carlson was saying when Cathy
came out of her room.

'I'm ready,' she said.  She had on a yellow outfit that looked real
cute on her.

I got up.  'O.K., let's go.'  On the way out she gave M&M a friendly
kick.

When we were in the car she said, 'I wish Daddy would leave M&M alone.
He's so sensitive, it hurts him for Dad to tease him about his hair or
bawl him out for his grades.  It seems to me that they should be glad
about his other grades-his English teacher says M&M has the most
brilliant mind she's come across in five years of teaching-and be glad
he's never gotten into any kind of trouble, instead of picking at him
because of his hair.'  She sighed.  'I guess since M&M and I are the
oldest, we're the closest.  I guess you know about that though.  I
forgot you have a brother too.'

'Yeah, I know about that,' I said.  Of course, I never heard Mom gripe
about anything Mark did-he could get away with things I wouldn't dare
try.  I never resented Mark for this.  I took it as a matter of fact
that Mark was different form other people and was therefore treated
differently.

Cathy sighed, 'Well, I'm not going to worry about it now.  I want to
have a good time tonight.'  She gave me a quick, shy smile.  She was
sitting close enough for me to put my arm around her, which I did.  I
was intending to have a good time too.

We could hear the music even before we got there.  The band was
supposed to be a good one-it was loud enough, which with a dance is at
least half the way to being good.  I was really proud of having such a
cute date, and I was hoping Angela would be there.  I wanted to show
her up.  I'd gone with Angela for months, longer than I'd ever gone
with anyone.  I wanted to show her that I had no intentions of going
back to her.  She had been telling everybody that I would.  This was
after she had made her big play for this Curtis kid and he had acted
like he didn't know she was alive.  Then she decided she wanted me
back.  You can imagine how that grabbed me.

The dancewas going pretty good when we got there.  I liked to arrive
a little late, when things were swinging.  I saw a bunch of people I
knew.  Cathy knew a lot of people, too, but not very well.  She hadn't
dated before she left for school, and I don't think anyone remembered
her.  She had been a shy, plain kid.  Everybody was staring at us,
wondering who she was.  I was really feeling great.  I liked being the
centre of attention.  Cathy winked at me.  She dug it, too.

I really liked her.  I liked her a lot.

'Hey, Bryon!'  It was Mark.  I could tell even before I spotted him
across the room, waving at us.

'Come on,' I said.  'Let's go see Mark.'

We weaved in and out of the crowd, sometimes stopping to talk.  I
wasn't too happy when I saw that Mark and Curtis were standing
together.  Having had one girl ditch me to try for him, I wasn't
thrilled with the possibility that if might happen again.

'Hi, Cathy,' Mark greeted her.  He had been drinking, but I doubt that
anyone but me could tell.  'I haven't seen you in a long time.'

'I haven't been here to see,' Cathy answered sinsibly.

'I don't think you know Ponyboy Curtis-this is Cathy Carlson.'

'Hi,' Curtis said.  He didn't look too happy.  I think he had heard I
wasn't crazy about him.  He was a little guy, about the same size as
Mark only with a better build.  I think he thought I was going to pick
a fight with him.  I didn't want to.  I guess he couldn't help what
Angela Shepard did, and besides, I'd heard he was a pretty good
fighter even though he didn't have the rep of a tough guy.

I watched Cathy.  She didn't seem interested in him.  The first time
Angela saw him her eyes lit up like a tiger's.  So I relaxed.
'Where'd you get the booze?'  I asked Mark, when Cathy couldn't hear.

He grinned.  'Out in the car-Terry's car.  He's got six six-packs, and
only the four of us to drink them.  Go out and help yourself.  Terry
won't mind, he's already passed out in the front seat.'

Terry had always been a drinker.  I decided I'd go out later and have
a couple of cans.  Maybe I'd get a couple for Cathy.  I hoped she
wasn't a very heavy drinker-Angela had got pretty expensive with her
constant boozing.

Cathy and I watched Mark and Curtis as they started towards a group of
girls.  'Mark is a good kid,' I said.

'I'd forgotten how beautiful he is,' Cathy said.  'I know girls who
would give their eye teeth for hair that colour.'

I stopped breathing for a second.  Cathy was looking at Mark, and I
suddenely felt like I'd swallowed a spoonful of red pepper.  I felt
cold andhot and sick and mad all at once.  I only felt if for a
second, only for a second and then it was gone-but sometimes now I
wonder how it would be to feel like that all your life.  You know what
the crummiest feeling you can have is?  To hate the person you love
best in the world.

'Hi, Bryon.'  The voice was familiar and I turned around.  It was
Angela.  I just looked at her.  She was smiling with that sassy smirk,
and I wondered why on earth I'd ever given a damn about her.  She was
beautiful, little and dark, and even when suddenly all the girls had
long straight hair, hers hung to the middle of her waist in ringlets
and curls.  It was blue-black and shiny.  Maybe all that heavy mass
wouldn't look good on just anyone, but Angela had the kind of face
that would probably be strikingly beautiful even if she shaved her
head.  But since I knew her so well, I could ignore the way she
looked.  'Hi, Angel,' I said carelessly.  'You here with Curtis?'

I meant to rub it in; I think he was the first guy she ever went after
and didn't get.  Her face contorted for a second, and she called me a
few names and flounced off.  She wasn't famous for an even temper.

'Who was that?' Cathy asked.  I wondered if she was jealous.  I hoped
so anyway.  'This chick I used to go with,' I answered.  Cathy glanced
indifferently after Angela.  'Certainly uses nice language,' she
remarked.  'A real lady.'

It hit me that Cathy wasn't jealous of Angela at all-not for her
beauty or for having gone with me.  She was the first girl I'd dated
who wasn't scared some other chick would show her up.  I didn't know
what to make of it.

In the end, I decided it showed that Cathy had more sense that most
girls.  I wasn't worried about her liking Mark any more.  I can tell
when a girl is interested in a guy-like the minute I saw Angela
looking at Curtis, I knew-and I could tell Cathy liked Mark just as a
friend, as the brother of the guy she was interested in.  Cathy liked
me.  I could tell that already.

She was a good dancer.  We danced almost every dance.  We were having
so much fun i forgot all about going out to Terry's car for some beer.
They had a cop there at the dance-they always did-but he was ignoring
the kids who were staggering around obvously drunk.  He was there just
to prevent people from killing each other.

Apparently he wasn't even doing that much because, suddenly above the
music, we heard a scream from the back parking lot.  Immediately
everyone started running out there to see what was happening.  I
didn't.  I hate people who stand around at an accident and pry and
push and peer.  I won't even stop to watch a fight if I don't know
either guy who's fighting.

'Let's don't go,' I said.

Cathy nodded.  'O.K.'

Just then Curtis pushed his way through the crowd.  He had been one of
the fighters, because his face was bruised and his lip was cut.
'Bryon!' he yelled when he saw me.  'Bryon, come quick! Mark's hurt!'

I went cold.  Mark was hurt.  I shoved my way through the crowd-I'm a
pretty good size and when I shove I get through.  There was a circle
of people on the parking lot.  I shoved through them too.  Mark was
lying on the ground, unconscious.  One side of his face was covered
with blood.  I knelt beside him.

'Mark?' I said, but he didn't move.  He was out cold.  I took the end
of my shirttail and wiped some of the blood off his face.  He was
bleeding from a bad gash on the side of his head, but that was the
only injury I could see.

Curtis knelt down on the other side of Mark.  'Is he all right?'

I shook my head.  'Did anyone call an ambulance?'

He nodded.  'I think the cop radioed for one.'

I remembered the cop.  I looked around for him; he had some kid in
handcuffs a few feet away and was informing him of his rights.

'Is that the guy who did this?' I asked, and the kid in handcuffs
looked over at me.  He had heard me.

'Yeah,' Curtis said.

I looked straight at that kid and said, 'Buddy boy, you are dead.  You
had just better make up you mind to that.  When I get through with
you, you are going to be dead.'  I meant it.  I was mad.  The kid just
looked away, like he was indifferent.  But he was afraid, I could tell.

'He meant to get me,' Curtis said.  'If that makes any difference.'

'If he'd gotten you, he'd be doing be a favour,' I said.  I didn't
really mean it, but I was upset.  Curtis gave me a wry grin, like he
understood.  For the first time I felt I could like the guy.  'What
happened?'

Curtis shook his head.  'I don't know.  Mark and me were out here
sitting on the car, not doing a thing, when this guy shows up and
starts on me.  I don't know why, I ain't never seen the guy befire.
Finally he takes a swing at me, so I have to swing back, and pretty
soon we're going at it.  Then this character picks up a beer bottle
Mark had thrown over there in the grass and comes at me with it.
About that time Mark steps in between us and says.  'Hey, come on,
man, fight fair.'  The kid just looks at him and, for no reason,
cracks him across the side of the head with it.  Then the cop shows
up.  Right in the nick of time,' he added sarcastically.

When I took another look at the kid in handcuffs, angela was talking
to him.  I got the picture.  She had got this guy to pick a fight with
Curtis-she was mad at him for ignoring her.  I changed me mind.  It
would be her I'd get even with, not that poor dope she had used.

'Do you know Angela Shepard?' I asked Curtis.  He shook his head.
'No, I know her brothers pretty well, but I've never been around her
much.'

He was telling the truth.  Curtis really didn't know that Angela had
been after him. He probably thought I had it in for him for no reason
at all.

'What does Angela have to do with this?' he asked.

'I'll tell you later.'

Mark moved a little and groaned.

'Mark,' I said softly, 'listen!  Don't move, just lie still.  We're
going to get you to hospital.'

He opened his eyes.  The pupils were so large that I could see only a
faint ring of gold around them.  I picked up one of his hands.  It was
ice-cold.  He was staring straight ahead and didn't seem to hear of
see me.  I was worried.  'What's wrong with him?'

'Shock,' Curtis said.  He took off his jacket and put it over Mark.  I
didn't have one, or I would have too.  Mark was still bleeding.  I
couldn't stop it.  It seemed that the ambulance would never get there.

When it finally did, I rode in the back with Mark.

At last he seemed to recognize me.  'Bryon?' he said, then sort of
laughed and groaned at the same time.  'Man, am I hurtin'.'

'Keep quiet,' I said.  I was almost crying, something I hadn't done in
years.  I was pretty worried.

'Listen, Bryon,' Mark went on in a weak voice, 'when we get there, at
the hospital, stay with me, O.K.?'

'I'm not taking this trip for the ride,' I said.

He closed his eyes.  'O.K., just stay with me.'

At the hospital they put ten stitches in his head.  The X-ray didn't
show a fracture of anything, so they said we could go home.  I didn't
know how in th world we were going to get home-I'd left Charlie's car
at the dance, and come to think of it, I'd left Cathy there too.  I
was a little worried about that, but mostly I was worried about
getting Mark home.

He was sitting up, but he was till groggy and the painkiller he'd been
given made him sleepy and high.  He was probably still feeling all
that beer he'd drunk at the dance too.  He was in bad shape.

I thought about calling a taxi, but as it was I didn't know how I was
going to pay for the ambulance.  I was rescued unexpectedly by Cathy
and Curtis.  Any other time I would have been hacked off by the two of
them showing up together, but right then I was glad to see them.

'I brought your car,' Curtis said, 'I figured you wouldn't have a way
to get home.  Is Mark going home?'

'Yeah, they said for him to stay in bed for a couple of days and to
come back in a couple of weeks or so to get the stitches out.  Help me
get him in the car.'

'Hey, hey, hey, Ponyboy!' Mark greeted him.  'What are you doin'
here?'  Curtis and I pulled him to his feet and we each slung an arm
across our shoulders.

'Come on, buddy boy,' I said. 'Time to go home.'

Mark tried to walk, but almost fell, and we half-dragged, half-carried
him out to the car.  We got him stretched out in the back seat and
climbed in.

'Hey,' I said suddenly, 'how'd you start the car without any keys?'

Cathy turned to him too.  'Yeah, how did you/'

He was getting red.  'I hot-wired it,' he said finally.  'Mark showed
me how to weeks ago.'

I almost laughed.  That was just like Mark.  'Don't make that a
habit,' I said.

Curtis shook his head.  'I never done it before.'  I finally
understood that Mark was right about the Curtis kid-he wasn't stuck
up, he was shy.

I dropped him off near his house.  I hated to just take Cathy home,
but there wasn't much else I could do, Mark was singing to himself in
the back seat.  He had a good voice, but he had picked a lulu of a
song.  Cathy pretended not to hear it.

I walked her to the door.  'I'm really sorry about the way things
turned out,' I said.

She grinned.  'So am I-but thank goodness Mark isn't hurt any worse
than he is.  I had a good time, I really did-especially driving to the
hospital with Ponyboy.'

I looked at her quickly.  She was teasing me to make me mad.

'Not really,' she continued.  'He's not my type-too quiet.'

'That's one thing I'm not,' I said.  I wanted to kiss her, but I never
know, some girls will kiss on a first date, some won't.  I decided to
play it safe and not kiss her.  Besides, the porch light was on and
there were four or five little faces peering out from behind the
front-room curtains.

'I'll call you,' I said finally.

By the time I got Mark home the shots had worn off.  Sweat was running
down his face and I think tears were too.  But he gave me his typical
grin.  'I ain't feelin' so good.  Bryon' was the most he'd say.  I
helped him into the house and got him to bed.

'You going to be able to sleep?' I asked when I turned out the lights.

'I don't think so.  Man, have I got a headache.  You tired, Bryon?'

'Nope,' I said.  I was sitting on the bed, leaning back against the
wall, smoking a cigarette.  The light of the moon was coming inthe
window and I could see Mark clearly.  He had one arm folded under his
head and was staring up at the moon.

'Well, if you ain't goin' to sleep, and I ain't, why don't we talk for
a while?'
'That's fine be me,' I said.

'Y'know, when I first came around tonight, after that kid cracked me,
I was scared stiff.  I thought I was dyin', I was so scared.  I really
felt weird.  But after I got to thinkin' you were there with me, I
calmed down.  Bryon, you're the only family I got, you know that?  I
mean, your mom's been great to me and everything, but I feel like
you're my brother.  A real one.'

Mark had never had a real family.  I remember once when we were very
young I had remarked that he didn't look much like his father.  And he
had said, 'He ain't my father.  My real father was a cowboy, here for
the rodeo.  The old lady said he had gold hair and gold eyes just like
mine and that he won all kinds of prizes at the rodeo.'

At the time I just thought, Gee, that's great, his real father is a
cowboy.  When I got older I realized what that meant, that Mark was
illegitimate.  It had never seemed to bother him.  But then, nothing
did.  Maybe it had, and I just never knew it.

'I must still be high.'  Mark's voice broke the stillness.  'I don't
know why I'm blabbering on like this.'

'I always think of you as my brother,' I said.  I saw Mark's face in
the moonlight.  He was smiling.
<C 4>
Mark wasn't feeling any better the next day.  When I asked him if his
head still hurt he said, 'Yeah.'  That wasn't typical of Mark, who
never admitted to being in real pain.  I called the doctor from a pay
phone, and all he said was that Mark would be in pain for a couple of
days and that I should keep him quiet and give him aspirin.  He was a
big help.

I took back Charlie's car and told him what had happened.  He didn't
seem too interested, but he was having his own troubles.  He'd got his
draft notice.

I got home as soon as I could.  I hated to leave Mark there all by
himself.  I didn't know which was bothering him most-the painin his
head or having to stay in bed.  He probably would have tried to get up
in spite of the doctor's orders, but he couldn't even sit up without
getting dizzy.  We didn't have the TV any more and Mark couldn't read
too well.  He couldn't even seem to get interested in poker.

'Why don't you read me a book,' he suggested, after I had racked my
brains trying to think of something to do.

'Read you a book?'

'Yeah.  Don't you remember when we were little?  You used to read me
books all the time.'

Mark was too lazy or too uninterested to read himself; he had never
bothered to learn how to read very well in the first place.  This
probably accounted for his poor grades at school, because he was every
bit as smart as I was.

I had read cowboy books to him when we were little-we were both going
to be cowboys-books like Lone Cowboy by Will James.  We'd climb the
tree in the back yard and I'd read aloud, and then we'd play cowboys.
'Do you remember? . . .' Mark said.

Somehow we spent the whole afternoon talking about when we were little
kids.  We had played a kid's version of gang fighting called 'Civil
War,' and then later we had got in on the real thing.  We fought with
chains and we fought barefisted and we fought Socs and we fought other
grease gangs.  It was a normal childhood.  I used to be able to get
all uptight about a fight, look forward to it.  Nowadays it was
getting a little boring.

Mark had a great memory-better than mine, which is pretty good-and he
brought up little goofy things we ahd done when we were young that I'd
forgotten about.  Like the time we climbed over the back fence at a
drive-in movie and got cought.  The drive-in manager put us in the
back of a pickup truck to take us to the police station, but we jumped
out while he was doing thirty miles an hour.  Somehow neither of us
was killed.  We always wondered what that guy thought when he got to
the police station and there was nobody in his truck.

We'd get up on the roof of a two-storey shopping centre and shhot
water pistols at the people passing below, then have a good time
running from the cop Mark had so thoughtfully drenched.  We always had
a car in those days, thanks to Mark's hot-wiring abilities.  We'd take
something that looked fast and go to the expressway and drag.  It was
sheer luck that when Mark was finally caught doing this, he was alone.
I could have been booked too.

And mixed up between these episodes were poker games, sometimes
drunken ones lasting all night, and pool games-I was a pool hustler at
a very early age.  And dates and parties and beer blasts on the dry
riverbed.  We were always with a bunch of guys.  Sometimes it was the
same bunch for a year or two, then people would drift away-usually if
anyone got a steady girl it cut down on a lot of goofing around with
the guys-and different people would drift in.  But Mark was always the
hub of this circle of people, and I was always with Mark.

'We've had some good times, huh, Bryon?' Mark broke the silence.  I
guess we both had been reminiscing. 

'Yeah,' I said.  I was sitting in my favourite position on the bed,
leaning against the wall with my knees up, resting an elbow on my knee
and dangling a cigarette.

'Do you ever get the feeling that the whole thing is changin'? Like
somethin' is coming to an end because somethin' else is beginning?'

'Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.  Like now I couldn't care less
about Angela, and I can remember when she seemed like the most
important thing on earth.'

'That's it!' Mark said excitedly, forgetting about his head and
starting tosit up.  He remembered suddenly, because he yelped and lay
back down with a rueful grin.  'Like we got into those gang fights-it
was so important, it was the whole world if we won or lost-and the
buddies we had then.  We were like brother, not just you and me, but
all of us together.  We woulda died for each other then.  And now
everybody's kinda slipped away, and then we woulda died for each
other.  Really, man, remember?  It was great, we were like a bunch of
people makin' up one big person, like we totalled up to somethin' when
we were together.'

'Now we total up to something by ourselves just as easy,' I said.  I
understood exactly what he was talking about.  Mark had the habit of
thinking the way I did; the difference was that he said it and I
usually didn't.

'Yeah, but still, don't you kinda miss that one-for-all, all-for-one
routine?  It's kinda sad, really, when you get to where you don't need
a gang-I mean, like you did before.'

'It's kind of a good thing too,' I said, 'when you know your own
personality so you don't need the one the gang makes for you.'

'Yeah,' Mark sighed, 'but there's a difference.  I wonder what the
difference is?'

'The difference is,' I said evenly, 'that was then, and this is now.'

Mark flashed me that lion-like grin.  'Bryon, you are brilliant.'

We didn't say much the rest of the afternoon.  We were thinking.

Mark missed one day of school.  He still wasn't feeling real great by
Monday, but I decided I could go anyway.  He wasn't sick enough for me
to stay home with him.

The fight had made Mark something of a hero, and the whole story was
going around school in various versions, all different.  Some of them
were pretty funny.  Everyone was mad at Angela, sympathized with
Curtis, who had been in a lot of trouble before and was a kind of
folk-hero, and made a big deal out of Mark's stepping in to keep the
fight fair.  When people asked me what happened.  I told them, but I
could see that they were going to believe what they wanted to believe
and hearing the truth wasn't going to change their minds.  People are
generally like that.

I was in a funny mood Monday.  That talk I had had with Mark really
got to me.  I felt like I was standing apart from all the rest of the
kids and just watching.  It was like I could see through them-see what
they were thinking and why they did things-and it was really weird.

I went to a big high school.  It graduated about seven hundred kids,
and the senior class was the smallest class, so you can see how big it
really was.  Its district include a real crummy part of town-ours-and
a pretty ritzy part of town.  This can make for problems.  It used to
anyway, with the Socs beating up the greasers, but in these days, with
all the love, peace, and groove stuff, the fights had slacked off.
Besides, it was hard now to tell a Soc from a greaser.  Now the
greasers wore their hair down on their foreheads instead of combed
back-this went for Mark and me too-and the Socs were trying to look
poor.  They wore old jeans and shirts with the shirttails out, just
like the greasers always had because they couldn't afford anything
else.  I'll tell you one thing though: what with fringed leather vests
and Levi's with classy-store labels in them, those kids were spending
as much money to look poor as they used to look rich.  It was crazy.

There was another crazy thing I noticed for the first time that
Monday.  I'm a smart kid, so I was put in classes with other smart
kids.  Most of these guys were what we used to call Socs.  They were
always friendly toward me, and I'd gone to quite a few parties at
their houses and dated some of their chicks.  All this time I had
thought, well, they like me.  I'm big, friendly, wiseguy Bryon, so
they like me.  Now I saw it clearly.  They didn't like me.  The truth
is they were probably scared of me.  But I was a 'poor white,' and
they were 'liberals,' so I got invited to parties so everyone could
see what hip, hip people they were.  I had always wondered why at
those parties people were always trying to get me to talk about
politics and junk I'd never heard of.  I don't keep up on those
things.  When I read, I like stuff like Hemingway-newspapers bore me.
I lead with my left, and that's about as much as I know about Left,
Right and so on.  I have a vague notion that the Left is Hippie and
the Right is Hick, but I really don't know much else.

Now I knew.  That Monday I could see through people and I knew what
was going on.  I figured if I'd been a black I'd have been twice as
popular, but integration in our school wasn't really swinging yet, and
there weren't very many Negroes there.  These guys would probably have
offered me theri sisters' hands in marriage if I's been black.  I knew
some Negroes, some really cool fighters out in Brumley.  I'd have to
remember to take a couple along to the next party with me.  Then they
could talk about the Black Revolution adn the Panthers-which they knew
as much about as I did Right and Left.

I walked around the whole day laughing to myself.  It was just that
day-the next day I wondered what had hit me to make me act like that;
and when I saw these Socs guys, they were just guys, friends of mine,
and of course they asked me to their homes because we were friends-we
were in the same English class and we got along.  They were sincerely
trying to change the world for the better, that was why they talked
politics.  They wore those clothes because that was their bag.  That's
what I thought the next day.

But not Monday.  That Monday I knew.

Mark got better and ent back to school.  He went to school for lack of
something to di, because he sure didn't dig it the way I did.  We
didn't usually see each other much at school; we were never in the
same classes.  We walked to school together and usually got a ride
home together with someone, but lots of time we didn't see each other
until we got home.

So when Mark didn't show up for a while one afternoon the folowing
week, I wasn't worried.  He could have been any number of places.  I
didn't happen to guess the right one.  He was at the police station.

I didn't know about it until Terry Jones came by.  Terry was short,
round, and a real nut.

'Bryon!' he yelled as he came running through the front door.  'Hey,
Bryon, did you hear what happened to Mark?'

I was making a peanut-butter-and-honey sandwich.  I didn't get shook
because something is always happening to Mark.

'What?  And calm down, for Pete's sake.  I ain't deaf.'

'O.K.,' Terry said carelessly.  He sat down in a chair and looked
around.  'Having dinner?'

'Cut it, man.  What happened to Mark?'

'Not much.  Hejust got caught driving the principal's car.'

I gagged.  'What?' I said when I could talk.  'He got caught doing
what?'

'The principal had to leave school early today for some reason.  He
gets to his parking place, and no car.  And then guess who shows up
with it?  Your friend and mine, Mark.'

'You gotta be kiddin',' I begged.  'Man, Terry, tell me you're
kiddin'.  Mark's on probation now for car stealing.'

'That's the reason he was driving it,' Terry said.  'Can I have a
sandwich?'

'Here,' I shoved the peanut butter, honey, and bread at him.  'Fix it
yourself.  Only first, if you don't want your head busted, tell me
what's going on.'

'I happened to be standing around when the aforementioned incident
occurred.'  It figured.  Terry was usually standing around.  'And I
hear Mark explain to the principal while the cops are bein' called
that he has to go down to see his probation officer once a week and
tell him how he ain't gonna steal no more cars.  The deal is, he don't
have no way to get downtown-thereain't no buses at that time, he
don't have a car, and there ain't enough time to walk since he's on
his lunch hour.  So he borrows the principal's car, drives down to see
the probation officer, and drives back.  He's been doing this since
school started, and if the principal didn't have to leave early today,
he'd be doin' it yet.'

'I don't believe it,' I said slowly.  'He's gonna be in jail for the
rest of his life.'

'I doubt it,' Terry said, staring in on his second sandwich.  'The
principal was laughing be the time Mark got through talking to him.'

I breathed a sigh of relief.  Mark would come through.  Even this.  As
if to prove this to me, Mark came strolling in.  'Guess where I been?
Got anything else to eat?'

'Let me see,' I said.  'Ah, yes, I see it in a vision-you were at the
police station explaining how you had to borrow the principal's car
because you had to see your probation officer.'

'Terry told you, huh?  Well, it's all straightened out now.  The
probation officer drives down to pick me up from now on.  It was just
one of those failures to communicate.'

Mark sat down across the table from me, eating an apple.  He was
trying to look ashamed of himself, but it just wasn't coming off.  I
was trying to look disgusted with him, but that wasn't working either.

'I'm sorry,' he said finally.

'No you ain't,' I said.  We were quiet for a while.  Terry got up and
left-he must have thought me and Mark were going to have a fight.

'Listen, man,' Mark began, but I cut him off.

'Shut up, O.K.?  As long as they ain't doin' nothin' to you, it's O.K.
I guess you can get away with anything.'

Mark leaned back in his chair.  The sun came through the small kitchen
window and glinted on his eyes, turning them a bright yellow.  'I
guess so,' Mark said.  He smiled, like an innocent lion.

<C 5>
The first time Mom knew anything about Mark being hurt was when we
visited her in the hospital and she saw the stitches in his head.
They were real noticeable against his gold hair.  She just said,
'How did that happen?' And Mark answered, 'Fight', and the subject was
dropped.  That was a good thing about Mom-she'd cry over a dog with a
piece of glass in his paw but remained unhysterical when we came home
clobbered.  About fights, she'd say, 'Don't fight at school, you'll
get expelled.'  About drinking, 'I'd rather you didn't,' so around her
we didn't.  She didn't know about some of the rest of the stuff we
did-the pool games, the poker, the gang fights, the dry river-bed
parties-but in that respect she wasn't any differentfrom any other
mother.  Parents never know what all their kids do.  Not in the old
days, not now, not tomorrow.  It's a law.

We stopped in to see that kid Mike, the one who'd been beaten up so
bad.  He looked worse than he had before; he said his old man had been
in and chewed him out.  The doctor had promised him that his father
wouldn't be allowed to come to see him any more, but he was still
shook.

He looked like a nervous wreck as well as a physical one.  'I wish I
was dead-or somebody else,' he said.  You just don't say things like
that.  I didn't stay long; things like that depress me.  Mark stayed
on to see if he could cheer up Mike.  I wanted to go to the snack bar
and see Cathy anyway.

She looked as cute as ever.  She said, 'Hi, Bryon,' not too eager but
friendly enough.  I had called her a few times in the last couple of
weeks and walked to her house to see her, but we hadn't been out.  I
didn't have a car and Charlie was still so mad about getting his draft
notice that I didn't have the nerve to ask him for his car again.  As
a matter of fact, he was in such a rotten mood that I stayed away from
his place altogether.  We were friends, and I didn't think he'd ever
take his temper out on me, but with big guys, it's safer to be
careful.

'I'm on my break now,' Cathy said, looking at the clock.  This was an
invitation for me to buy her a soda, so I said obligingly, 'Want a
Coke?'

'I knew you'd say that,' Cathy said.  She came around to my side of
the counter and sat down next to me.  I never could get over her
honesty.  Girls are usually careful not to let you know what they're
thinking.  Cathy hadn't dated before, maybe that was why she was so
open.  She didn't tell me that about not dating, of course.  I found
out from M&M.  I found out a lot of things from M&M.  I have never
known anyone so unsuspicious as that little kid.  He'd trust Jack the
Ripper.  He was a believer.

I kept comparing Cathy to Angela, I guess because out of all the girls
I've dated-I started at thirteen-they were the two I liked best.  I
don't know if 'like' is the right word for how I felt about Angela.  I
had been wrapped up in her, I had to see her every day, I had to talk
to her ten times a day on the phone; but now, looking back on it, I
don't remember ever liking her.  Cathy was smart, but Angela knew
more.  That was strange.  They both had guts-I can't stand chicken
girls-but in different ways.  Cathy wasn't afraid to say what she
thought; Angela wasn't afraid to do what she wanted.  Angela wasn't
afraid of any boy on earth;  Cathy wasn't afraid of any other girl.
They were both gutsy in different ways.

My main problem with Cathy was that she liked me-and I wanted her to
be crazy about me.  I'm like that.  I have a very bad ego hang up.

'Guess who called me?' Cathy said.  'Ponyboy Curtis.  He wanted to go
out Friday night.'

'No kiddin',' I said, while thinking.  I'll murder that guy.  'What'd
you tell him?'

'I said I was busy.  Am I?'

I was stunned again but didn't show it.  'You are.  I'll pick you up
at seven.'  I hadno idea what I was going to pick her up in, or where
we'd go after I did pick her up, but I figured I could work that out
later.

'We're goin' hustlin',' I told Mark as we walked home, trying to hitch
a ride.  This time no friendly hippie showed up to give us a lift.

'O.K.'

'Tonight-for money.'

'You'll need some money to get started with,' Mark said, lighting a
cigarette.

'I'll get it.'

We ran into M&M at the drugstore, and as usual he was chomping on that
crazy candy.  At least he wasn't staring intothe bag like it
contained the eighth wonder of the world.

'I need some money,' I said, deciding not to beat around the bush.
'You got any?'

He looked at me with those serious, war-orphan eyes.  'I got five
dollars,' he said.  'I raked some lawns to get it.'

I used to think he and Cathy looked an awful lot alike, but not any
more.  Sure, they both had those big charcoal eyes and matching hair,
but Cathy laughed more, her expression usually twinkled with humour.
M&M rarely smiled, and he always looked puzzled, serious, and
trusting.

'That's a good deal.  Can you loan it to me?  Just for tonight.  I'll
pay you back tomorrow.'

He pulled out his billfold and took all the money out of it.  'Be sure
not to forget to give it back tomorrow.  I need it.  O.K.?'

'Kid, have I ever given you a dirty deal?' I said, winking at Mark.

'No,' M&M said, and went back to his magazine.  I never could figure
that kid out.  I liked him though, partly because he was Cathy's
brother, partly because he was a good kid, and partly because he had
lived to a nice old age in our neighbourhood-for a sucker.

Mark had given him back his peace symbol.  It hung around his neck on
the rawhide string, and M&M kept twisting it absent-mindedly.  I
wondered if his father still gave him a bad time because of his hair.

We decided to hit Charlie's place first.  Charlie grinned and waved at
us when we came in, so I figured he was over his bad mood about being
draftd.

'Guess what?' he said, just like a kid.  It was the first time I'd
ever seen him act like a kid.  'They're not goin' to take me.'

'How come?' Mark asked, plopping down at the bar.  'Bad knee from
playing football?'

Charlie shook his head.  'Naw, because of my police record.'

'You got a record?' I said.  'I didn't know that.  What' dya do?'

'When I was twelve years old I cut a guy's throat.  You in here to
play pool?'

I still don't know if Charlie was telling the truth or just kidding
us, sort of telling us that it was none of our business what his
police record was for.  Either was possible.

'Yeah, we're here to play pool.  Any possibilities?'

Charlie nodded toward the poolroom.  'There's a couple of guys in
there.  I watched them a little; you can take them.'

'Good enough,' I said sliding off the stool.

'Hey, wait a minute,' Charlie said.  We turned.  'Would it do any good
to tell you to be careful?'

'Nope,' said Mark bluntly.

Charlie kind of laughed and sighed at the same time.  'I didn't think
so.'

We played pool until twelve o'clock that night.  The two guys we
played against were tough characters, out-of-towners from Texas.  At
first we played partners, me and Mark losing by a couple of balls.
Then Mark started his routine about wanting to go home-'Come on,
Bryon, you lost all the money you can spare'-while I played the eager
kid-'I know I can win the next game.'  Then we played singles.  I
played the better of the two, a weather-beaten guy in his twenties who
looked like and ex-con; for all I know he was.  I don't know where
else he could have picked up his lingo, because he used the worst
language I've ever heard, and I've heard plenty.

I was careful not to win at first, and then, when I did start winning.
I only made it by a few balls so it'd look like an accident.  But once
I started winning I didn't quit.  By midnight I had twenty-five
dollars and fifty cents.

'You're a darn good pool player,' Dirty Dave said-he'd told us that
was his name-or words to that effect.  His friend, who had been
standing around drinking beer for the last three hours, mumbled
something about being 'too good for his own good,' but Dirty Dave shut
him up.

'Closing time,' Charlie said.  He didn't have any other customers but
us by that time; he had been watching the game for the last hour and a
half.

'We're leavin',' Mark was sitting on the table of a booth and drinking
a beer.  I don't know where he got it, and from the surprised look
Charlie gave him, Charlie didn't know where he got it either.

'See ya 'round kids,' the Texans said as thy sauntered out.  I was
busy counting my money and Mark was stretching his legs.

'So the hustler strikes again,' Charlie said.  'How much did ya get?'

'Enough.  Can I borrow your car again some time?'

'I guess so, just as long as you buy gas.  Come on, beat it.  I got
some work to do.  Next time you sneak a beer, Golden Boy, you're going
to get stomped on.'

'I didn't sneak nothing.  I simply walked over and drew a beer.  I
can't help it if you didn't see it.  I left a quarter on the cash
register.'

'You are good at bein' invisible, man, because anybody gets within ten
feet of that cash register, I know it.'

'You're gettin' blind in your old age,' Mark said, apparently not
caring if he got stomped on or not.  I gave him a warning look, and he
obediently shut up.  I wasn't taking any chances-we left as soon as we
could.

We didn't get far.  Two dark shapes stepped out of the alley next to
Charlie's and a voice drawled, 'Step right into the ally, kiddies.'

I froze, because the voic was Dirty Dave's.  I thought about making a
run for it, but the voice said, 'I gotta gun,' so I decided not to, I
still didn't move.  Mark suddenly said, 'We don't want to see the
alley, we seen if before,' and he sounded like he was trying not to
laugh.

'We're gonna give you a lesson on why not to hustle pool.  Just step
into the alley.  Now.'

I glanced at Mark over my shoulder.  He shrugged, like he was saying
'What else can we do?'  So we walked past the Texans into the alley.
I was beginning to shake.  I was having visions of my thumbs being
chopped off or my arms being broken-things like that happen to
hustlers.  When we reached the dead end of the alley, we turned and
faced the Texans-the one guy was holding a gun on us while Dirty Dave
was putting on some brass knuckles.  I could just picture what my face
was going to look like when he got through with me.  I suddenly
remembered Mark, who hadn't done anything but get me started.  'Let
Mark go,' I said, and my voice was steady.  I was surprised-I thought
it would be shaking as bad as I was.  'He didn't do nothin'.'

Mark said quietly.  'I'm not goin' anywhere,' and Dave said, 'You'd
better believe it.  You were settin' him up, and when I get through
with hustler here, I'm goin' to give you a lesson too.'

'Brass knuckles, guns, or whatever,' Mark said in a voice I couldn't
even recognize as Mark's, 'you'll know you been in a fight if you
tangle with me.'

'I'm really scared, kid,' he said.  My eyes were used to the dim light
by now; I could see past the Texans into the street.  I was praying
for a police car, something I never thought I'd ever do.  Dave took a
step toward me.  I backed up against the alley wall.  I was afraid
that if I moved to grab up something to fight with, the other guy
would shoot me.

Just at that moment somebody stepped into the other end of the alley
and a voice said, 'Drop the gun and freeze-I got a sawed-oof shotgun
here and I'd hate to scatter dirt all over this nice clean alley.'

It was Charlie.  I never thought I'd be so glad to see anyone.

'Bryon, Mark, come out of there.'

We couldn't resist smirking a little as we walked past the Texans.
Even in the dark I could see the anger contorting their faces.  It
should have warned me, but it didn't.

'Thanks, Charlie,' Mark said as we reached him.  'You're a real pal.'

'I hope you two learned something from this,' Charlie began, but
before we knew what was happening one of the Texans made a dive for
the gun and fired at us.  Charlie slammed both of us to the ground,
but in an instant Mark freed himself, grabbed up the shotgun Charlie
had dropped, and firedback at the Texans, who were scrambling over
the alley wall.  It all happened so quickly that I was trying to
figure out what I was doing on the ground with my ears ringing from
the blast before I realized what had taken place.

Mark was swearing and in the dim light he didn't even look like Mark.
He looked perfectly capable of murder; his only regret was that he had
missed.  I didn't have any similar regrets; if he had missed, well, so
had they.  You can't feel too bad when you could have been dead but
aren't.

'You can get off me now, Charlie,' I said.  Charlie didn't move.  I
rolled out from under him.  'Hey, man, come on,' I said.  Then, in the
white, sickly light from the stret lights I saw that there was a neat,
perfect hole above Charlie's left eye.  He was dead.

I wouldn't talk about what had happened to anyone but Cathy and Mark.
The next few weeks it seemed as if I was moving in slow motion while
other people were speeded up.  Mom came home from the hospital and I
fluncked chemistry and Angela gotmarried to some creep friend of her
brother's.  I called Cathy every day.  Mark was the one who explained
everything to the police.  The police were very impressed with
Charlie's having saved our lives and all that.  They were local cops
who had known and liked him anyway.  They told us we could have his
car.  I took it because I figured he would have given it to us if he
had had the time.

I guess I was acting pretty strange during those weeks because one day
Mark said, 'Lookit, man, Charlie knew what kind of people came into
his bar-why do you think he kept a shotgun handy?  He knew those
cowboys had a gun, he knew what kind of a chance he was taking.'

'He told us to be careful,' I daid.  I couldn't get it out of my mind,
Charlie's warning us about hustling.  'He didn't have to try to get us
off the hook.  Mark-can't you see?  This ain't some story, some TV
show, bang! you're dead, big deal.  This is the real thing.  Charlie
is dead!  He was all set for life, he wasn't gonna get drafted, he had
his business, he was all set, and then we blew it for him.'

'We didn't blow nothing, Bryon.  Things happen, that's all there is to
it.'

'Not things like that,' I said.

Mark didn't understand and Cathy did.  I started spending more and
more time with Cathy.  Since I had the car, we went for a lot of
drives and got a lot of Cokes together.  We were always talking to
each other about the way we felt-I tried telling her how I felt about
Charlie, about how shook the whole thing had me.  She told me about
herself, abouthow she wanted to go to college more than anything,
about how she worried about M&M, and about life in a big family,
something I wasn't familiar with.  She was so smart, yet she didn't
know a lot of things.  She was one of the few really innocent chicks I
had ever run into.  But I could talk to her about anything, talk to
her better than I could anyone, even Mark.

After a few weeks we'd drive by the park and make out for a little
while.  It was different for me though, because I had quit thinking
only about myself, quit pushing for all I could get.

Mark was acting strange these days, too.  He would stare at me for
long periods of time when he thought I wasn't watching, like he was
trying to find the old Bryon in this stranger, like he was trying to
figure out who I was.  One night he even almost lost his temper with
me when I told him I was going goofing around with Cathy instead of
him.  It was as if he felt something slipping and was trying to hand
on.  I couldn't help him' I was trying to hang on myself.

He even acted like he was jealous of Cathy.  In all the years I'd
known him, in all the years I'd gone with different girls, he had
never acted like that.

I was changing and he wasn't.
<C 6>
The Texans were finally caught and tried.  I had to go to the trial to
testify.  Mark did too.  He watched me closely at first-I guess he
couldn't forget that by the time the police had showed up at Charlie's
I had been hysterical.  He didn't have to worry.  I went through the
whole trial calm, collected, numb, and empty.  I felt like a tape
recorder playing back something it had impersonally recorded.  The
Texans were sentenced to life after a trial that didn't last as long
as I thought it would, I guess because there wasn't any defence.  I
didn't feel glad, vengeful, or anything.  I really hadn't much cared
whether or not they even caught those guys.  Charlie was dead, nothing
was going to change that.

I tried to figure out what made me so shook up about it.  I knew
people died, although I still can't see me doin' it.  My father had
died, so I knew that people close to you died the same as strangers
did.  I guess I just couldn't see standing there-alive, talking,
thinking, breathing, being-one second, and dead the next.  It really
bothered me.  Death by voilence isn't the same as dying any other way,
accident or disease or old age.  It just ain't the same.

That winter Mark and me were kind of celebrities because of our
involvement in the trial.  We were invited to Soc parties and we were
stared at in the halls and even the teachers treated us differently.
I just put up with it.  Mark kind of enjoyed it.  He felt bad about
Charlie being dead though, enough to shut up people who tried to get
him to talk about it.

Mark and me used to go down to the bar and just sit on the curb across
the street and stare at the boarded-up windows. Just sit and stare and
not say anything.  It's funny how you don't think about people until
after they're dead.  Or gone.

Mom had to stay in bed for a month, so we were really getting hard up
for money.  I got to thinking about what Charlie had said when I asked
him for a job.  I decided I needed a haircut, clean clothes, and a
really big change in attitude.  I've told you that I don't like
authority.  This gives people the impression that I'm a smart-aleck
kid.  Who's going to hire a mouthy kid who acts like he already knows
it all?

'Even if you do know it all,' Mark said one evening while we were
sitting on the porch, 'you don't have to let them know it.'

'Very good idea.'  I grinned at him.  We were getting along better
lately-he had given up trying to keep us together the same as we used
to be.  I know now this must have been a struggle.  Branching off from
Mark couldn't affectr me so much-I was all wrapped up in Cathy.  He
was on his own.  I don't know how he spent his time when I was with
Cathy, and I didn't bother to find out.

'When you go so far as to get a haircut and iron a shirt, I know
you're serious.  We're really hard up, ain't we, Bryon?'

'Yep.  Or hasn't the shortage of food bugged you at all?'

'I don't eat like some people.  I'm goin' to start bringin' in some
money.  You wait and see, buddy, I ain't gonna sponge forever.'

This was the first time in all the years that he had lived with us
that Mark ever said anything about being dependent on us.

I looked at him quickly, and I wanted to say:  'What do you mean,
sponge?  We love you and we want you here, and Mark, you're my brother
and you've got a right to whatever I've got.'

I didn't.  I said, 'Don't be a ding-a-ling.'  NowI wish I had told
him how much he meant to us, to me and Mom, how he made us seem more
like a family.  But I never have been able to say things like that, to
tell people I loved them, unless it was some nitwit chick I couldn't
care less about.  So I just gave him a punch on the shoulder.  He
grinned at me, but absently, like he was thinking of something else.

That night Cathy and I went for a drive.  I wanted to tell her about
my new approach to getting a job, but before I could she said
suddenly, 'I think M&M is smoking marijuana.'  She shounded worried.

I was puzzled.  'So what?'

She gave me an incredulous look.  'So what?  Have you smoked it?'

'Yeah,' I said.  'You haven't?'

'It ain't much.  I'd rather have beer any day.  I think a lot of these
kids just dig it because it's in, it's against the law, and it's
supposed to be cool.  Me, I think it's O.K., but it sure ain't worth
five years in state prison.'

'You won't smoke it any more?'  It was a request, not an order, so I
answered, 'I said I wasn't nuts about it.'

Cathy still seemed concerned.  'Did you like it?  Did it make you want
to try stronger stuff?'

'Like acid?  Nope, I can't say that it did.  But maybe if affects some
people like that.  At least that's what I read in the magazines.'

Cathy sat back with a sigh.  'But it's different with you, Bryon.
You're smart enough to enjoy yourself without artificial stimulants.'

I didn't say anything to this, as I never turn down compliments.  She
continued, 'But M&M, he's so trusting.  If he's running around with
people who give him grass, he'll take it.  If someone handed him LSD
and said, "This is groovy," he'd say O.K. and take it.  I worry
because, well, because before M&M always seemed so happy at home; he
never seemed to need anything else.  But lately he's gotten so much
grief for his hair and some of his ideas.  I wish Daddy would leave
him alone.  M&M isn't happy at home now, so he goes other places, I
don't know where.  I don't ever know his friends any more.'

'You love him a lot, don't you?' I said, vaguely jealous, feeling a
mild form of whatever it was that Mark felt about Cathy.

'Sure, don't you?' Cathy said, amazed at the possibility that someone
might not love simple, brilliant, trusting M&M.

'Yah,' I said, because at that moment I loved anything that Cathy
loved, because I loved her.  I did.  I thought it was corny-love is
always corny to anyone not experiencing it himself, and even now to me
it was corny.  But i couldn't help it.  I thought about all the times
I had said 'I love you'to girls I didn't love-to some I didn't even
like-and it had been so easy.  And now I couldn't even look at her for
fear she could tell somehow.  It was really weird.

'I think you'd be a good influence on him,' Cathy was saying, and I
realized I hadn't heard a thing she'd been saying.  'I know what,' she
continued.  'Let's pick up him and Mark and go get a Coke over on the
Ribbon.'

'O.K.,' I said.  That last thing I wanted just then was to be alone
with her; I could easily say something really dumb.

We picked up Mark pretty quick-he was walking home from Terry Jones's
house.  We had to hunt and hunt for M&M, but we finally found him in
the bowling alley.

The Ribbon was a two-mile stretch of hot dog and hamburger stands,
drive-ins, and supermarkets over on the West Side, close to where the
Socs lived.  At night the parking lots were filled with kids sitting
on their cars and waving, watching, and yelling at other kids driving
by.  You could drive up and down the street looking at people, or park
your car and look at people.  The cops sometimes came along and told
everyone to get back into their cars, but the cops were mostly guys
who had been patrolling the Ribbon for a long time.  The kids had worn
them down by being pleasantly smart-aleck and smilingly
unco-operative, so unless the kids were openly smoking grass or
fighting, the cops were content to sit on the cars with them and yell
rude things to chicks driving by.

It was a great place to go to pick up chicks.  If you followed a
carload of them around for a while, they might pull over and exchange
phone numbers with you.  Everyone in town went there to see who was
going with who and who had what car.  If you found someone you wanted
to drive around with, you parked your car and left it while you goofed
around with maybe a dozen different people in one night.  Just the
driving up and down was a blast.  There had been all kinds of
editorials in the paper about it because a lot of pushers took
advantage of the filled parking lots, and quite a bit of grass and
money exchanged hands there, but mostly it was harmless.  Fights down
on the Ribbon had really died off in the last year.  It had gotten
pretty safe, except for drag racing, which caused a wreck or two a
week.

'Boy, I hope I see someone I know,' Cathy said.  'Here I sit,
surrounded by beautiful boys.'

She gave me a teasing grin.  Mark raised his eyebrows.  'Well, if you
feel that way about it . . .'  He put his arm across her shoulders.
We were sitting pretty close together because all four of us were in
the front seat.  Cathy was next to me, Mark on her other side, and M&M
was hanging out the window, gravely watching people, waving if he was
waved to, yelling back if he was yelled at, always slightly surprised
at the crudity of the calls, as if he hadn't heard the same things a
hundred thousnad times before.

I put one arm across Cathy's shoulders too.  She beamed.  'It's so
nice to feel wanted.'

A couple of blondes in an orange Camaro came by on M&M's side of the
car and made him an indecent proposition.  I thought that kid was
going to fall out the window, he was so shocked.  The rest of us
laughed.

The ribbon was a two-lane street with an extra lane at the traffic
lights for left turns.  When we stopped at the light we were in the
middle lane, with cars on both sides of us.  The blond chicks in the
orange Camaro were on our right, and they were still talking to M&M.
I didn't catch much of the conversation, but Mark did and he was
talking to them too, trying to see around M&M, who took up a lot of
thewindow.  On our left was a green outasite Corvette with a couple
of guys in it, waiting for a left-turn signal.  They looked like real
snobs.  You can tell just by looking that some guys are snobs.
Especially ones with Corvettes.  The one on the passenger side glanced
over at us and-I still don't understand why-popped off with a really
obscene remark.  I sat stunned for a minute-the thought of Cathy's
hearing such a thing just froze me.  Then, so quick I didn't even
realize what was happening, Mark reachedpast M&M, opened the door,
pushed M&M out of the way, ran around to my side of the car, and
punched the foul-mouthed guy in the nose, literally smashing his nose
in,  It was their turn to be stunned.  Before they could move, Mark
was back in the car.  He jumped into the back seat and yelled, 'Take
off!'  The light had turned green so I stepped hard on the
accelerator.  The Corvette was supposed to turn left, and all the cars
behind it were honking, so they turned left.  I thought maybe they'd
come after us-they were older guys, maybe eighteen years old-but they
didn't.  We drove up and down the Ribbon without seeing them again.

'You're a fast worker,' Cathy said.  I wondered if she was mad at me
because I hadn't been the one to punch that guy.  She was my girl
friend, I should have done it.  I was halfway hacked off at Mark for
showing me up.

'Well,' Mark said in a mock serious voice, hanging over the front
seat, 'I get these impulses.'

'Impulses to jump out of cars and hit people?'  Cathy said dryly, and
I realized she didn't think Mark was a hero for what he'd done.  As a
matter of fact, she didn't think too much of it.

'They hit us first,' Mark said, sitting back in the seat.  'A hit
don't have to be physical.  I couldn't hit them the way they hit us
without hitting you, too.'

I had always known that, in spite of his lousy grades, Mark was every
bit as smart as I was.  But it was still surprising whenever he proved
it to me.  Cathy was quiet.  Then she turned around and looked at Mark
for a long time.'I never know what to make of you, Mark.'

'Why make anything of anybody?  Why not just take people or leave
them?'  Mark was in a funny mood.  I could tell; I had seen him in
that mood before.  He was never that way with me, but I'd seen him
suddenly turn on people, like a teased lion who's had enough.  I
remembered the night Charlie was killed-Mark grabbing up the shotgun
and firing away.  I don't think I could have done that,
even if I had known Charlie was dead at the time.

'I don't like being analysed, baby,' Mark said.  'So don't.'

I couldn't tell him to lay off, because he had a point.  Cathy did
like to turn everyone inside out and look at him.  It didn't bother
me, but I could see where it might bug some people.

'I'm sorry,' Cathy said, even though she wasn't.  I had to say
something, so I said, 'Let's get a hamburger.'

We turned into a big drive-in called Jay's, which was always crowded.
It was a set up with a stall for each car and a little deal that had a
menu and a button on it.  You pushed the button and a voice came out
of the deal and said, 'Order, please,' and you told the speaker what
you wanted-in this case it was three hamburgers, one steak sandwich, a
cherry-pineapple Seven-up, and three Cokes-and about ten minutes later
a chick appeared with the food.  It was slightly spooky.

The place was crawling with kids.  It was mainly a Soc hangout.  There
used to be a drive-in over on our side of town where the 'hoods' went,
but the Dingo was bombed and had burned down so we had started coming
over here.  Kids were driving through the parking area at the kids who
were sitting in their cars.  It was the same thing that was going on
in the street, only on a smaller scale.  They had a cop stationed at
the drive-in to prevent trouble.  He was on a first-name basis with a
lot of the kids there; he was a friendly, good-natured cop who didn't
mind getting splattered by a water pistol now and then.  I didn't much
care for him though, due to my feelings about cops in general.  I
began telling Cathy aboutthe time the cops had beaten me up when I
was thirteen.

'You shouldn't have been running around drunk in the middle of the
night,' she said.

'I never thought of it that way,' I said.

'Who would?' came Mark's voice from the back seat.  I realized right
then that whatever chance Mark and Cathy had ever had of becoming
friends was gone.  I had already sensed in Cathy the same hostility
towards Mark that he had for her.  That put me in a really great
position.

'Hey, there's Terry Jones.  I'm going over to see him,' Mark said
suddenly.  He gave the cop a quick glance-you weren't supposed to get
out of your car at the drive-in.  They came up with this rule about a
year ago because all this switching from car to car was causing
fights, and what was worse, cars were left empty in the stalls for
hours at a time while the owners were running the Ribbon in someone
else's car.  This doesn't make money for the drive-ins.

'Mark doesn't like me much, does he?' Cathy said.  M&M looked at her,
astonished.  For the firsttime I was sick of her honesty.

'You don't like him either,' I said.

Not used to having her honesty turned back of her, Cathy was silent
for a minute.  'I guess we're fighting over you.  Isn't that funny?'

'A real riot,' I said dryly.  I looked across the street, watching
some little twelve and thirteen-year-old teeny-boppers make fools of
themselves-smoking, trying to act cool, pushing each other, screaming
and swearing so loud I could hear them.  I had a sudden recollection
of Mark and me at twelve, smoking our heads off, clowning around,
hoping someone-usually some little long-haired chick-would notice us
and see how cool we were.  All of a sudden it seemed like I was a
hundred years old, or thirty at least.  I wondered if, when I got to
be twenty, I would think how stupid I was at sixteen.  When I
remembered us, it didn't seem possible that we had looked as silly as
these teenyboppers, but I guess we had.  At least then we weren't
worried about looking silly.  We were sure of ourselves, so sure we
were the coolest things to hit town.  Now I wasn't so sure.

That was strange too: in the past I thought in terms of 'we', now I
was thinking in terms of 'me'.

'There sure isn't anything to do in this town,' Cathy said, breaking
in on my thoughts of the good old days.

'We could go to a movie,' I said, even though I didn't have the money
to go to the movies.  Or money to go bowling, or money to go out to
dinner, or money to ride go-carts, or to go to the amusement park.

'No, I don't want to go to the movies. There's nothing to do in this
town except drive up and down.'

'That takes gas,' M&M said, 'and gas takes money,' even though neither
Cathy nor me had mentioned money.

'Well, let's go drive up and down some more,' I said, flipping a
switch on the magic dealie that signals a carhop to appear and pick up
our tray.

I was thinking about what Cathy said.  There was nothing to do except
drive up and down the Ribbon, even though we lived in a fairly large
city.  It wasn't New York, but for our part of the country it was a
good size.  All the adults in town screamed about the kids driving up
and down, but what did they expect us to do?  Sit and twiddle our
thumbs like they probably did when they were young?  No thanks.

We drove up and down the Ribbon again-it was getting hard to find a
place to turn around.  Usually the shopping centre at the end was good
for a quick turn-around, but somehow the cops figured out that that
was against some law that had been gathering dust for years, so they
sat in the shopping-centre lots giving out tickets.  If a kid got a
ticket he immediately went around collecting money from friends and
strangers.  Usually he got at least a nickle or a dime from each
person.  I have never known anybody who took advantage of this custom
by collecting money when he didn't really have a ticket.  This would
have been like squealing on someone you saw cheating, or refusing to
lend or give or sell your senoir theme to some promising junior.

A block beyond the shopping centre, under the bypass, the Ribbon ended
as suddenly as it began at a movie theatre two miles back.  Abrupt and
unexplainable.  There was another shopping centre beyond the bypass
but for some reason it was not considered part of the Ribbon, so it
wasn't full of cops.  We turned around there to head back, which is
against the unwritten rules of the Ribbon, but I didn't feel like
messing around, sitting in the left-turn lane for half an hour waiting
to turn.

'Drive by the hot-dog stand,' M&M said, so I pulled in to drive
through the parking lot, which was filled with kids sitting on their
cars.  We got tied up in a long line of cars driving through the
hot-dog-stand lot.  M&M suddenly got out of the car.

'Where are you going?' Cathy asked.

'I got some friends around her,' M&M said.  He should have.  At least
three quarters of the guys out there had hair to their shoulders.

'Well, when can we pick you up?'

'Not ever.  I'm going home,' M&M said and walked off toward a group of
kids sitting on a station wagon.

There were cars honking behind me so I had to drive on, even though
Cathy was yelling.  'Stop, we can't just let him walk off like this.'

'I'll drive back through,' I said, trying to hush her up, because I
don't like hysterical chicks.  She calmed down right away.

'That little mess.  Wait till I get a hold of him.'

She didn't though.  When we came back through he was gone, and nobody
seemed to know where.  I parked the car and Cathy and me ran around
asking different kids.  We drove up and down the Ribbon until one
o'clock in the morning looking for him.  I found Mark sitting on
Terry's car-Terry had gone somewhere with a couple of girls.  We
picked him up and drove home in silence.

Cathy was crying without making any noise, and, for the first time in
my life, I wasn't annoyed with a girl for crying.

Instead, I felt really bad.  It was the first time I'd ever felt bad
for anyone except Mark.
<C 7>
I went with Cathy to break the news about M&M to her parents and to
explain why we were so late.  Her father was sitting up waiting for
us, and when I saw his face I was glad that I had a real good excuse,
even though I was quite a bit bigger than him.  Her mother got up and
came into the front room in her housecoat.  She got real upset when we
told her what had happened, but her father said, 'He'll be home
tomorrow-that kid's been going through this stage for months now.'

'It's not just a stage!' Cathy cried.  'You can't say, "This is just a
stage," when it's important to people what they're feeling.  Maybe he
will outgrow it some day,but right now it's important.  If he never
comes home it'll be your fault-always picking on him about silly,
goofy things like his hair and flunking gym!' She sat down and began
to cry again.  Her father just looked at her and said, 'Honey, I know
it's because you're worried that you're talking like this.  M&M'll be
home tomorrow.  He's a sensible kid.'

'Then why didn't you ever tell him so?' Cathy sobbed irrationally.  'I
don't think he's coming home tomorrow.  He doesn't do things on the
spur on the moment; he thinks things out.  He's not going to come
home!'

By now two or three younger kids had wandered in, dressed in their
underwear or not dressed at all.  They got enough out of the
conversation to gather that M&M was gone and they began crying too.
It was a big mess and I felt really uncomfortable.  Mark was waiting
out in the car, and, as it was two in the morning and I had to go to
school in a few hours, I wanted to leave; only I just didn't want to
leave Cathy.  I wished I could take her home with me.  Her father
said, 'Bryon, thank you for your help.  I think you'd better be going
home, your mother is probably worried.'

I could have told him that Mom never worried about Mark and me-she
loved us but let us run our own lives-but I only said, 'Yes, sir.'  I
suddenly noticed that where he wasn't bald his hair was
charcoal-coloured too and that his eyes, though smaller with age, were
the same as Cathy's and M&M's.  I wondered if it was strange, seeing
your eyes in someone else's face.  I was tired and thinking funny.

'Everyone uptight?' asked Mark when I got back into the car.

'Yep,' I said.  'I don't blame them.'

'They don't have nothin' to worry about,' Mark said.  'Half the kids
on the Ribbon are living in someone else's car or house or garage.
Shoot, I remember last summer, you and me sometimes didn't come home
for weeks-we were bumming around the lake or somebody's house.
Remember when Williamson rented that apartment for a couple of months
with two other guys?  I bet half the kids in town stoppedthere
overnight.'

'Yeah, but M&M is just a kid.'

'So are we.  Nothing bad happens to you when you're a kid.  Or haven't
you realized that?'

'Youth is free from worry,' I said sarcastically.  'You've been
listenin' to too many adults.'

'I don't worry.  I'm never scared of nothing, and I never will be,'
Mark said, 'as long as I'm a kid.'

'You can get away with anything,' I said, because that phrase came
through my head whenever I really thought about Mark.

'Yeah, I can.'  He was quiet.  'You used to beable to.'

I looked at him, and suddenly it was like seeing someone across a deep
pit, someone you couldn't ever reach.  It was like the car had widened
into the Gulf of Mexico and I was seeing Mark through a telescope.

'What's happening?' I said, half out loud, but Mark was asleep.

M&M didn't come home the next day like his father thought he would.
Cathy and I ran up and down the Ribbon every night for a week but it
wasn't fun any more because we were looking out for M&M.  We never did
find him.  We must have stopped sixty million little long-haired kids,
thinking they were M&M, but none of them was.  I began watching for
him everywhere.

I got a job in a supermarket and I did a pretty good job of changing
my attitude, outwardly at least.  I couldn't help thinking smart-aleck
things, but I could help saying them.  Sacking groceries wasn't the
most fun job in the world, but I was bringing in money.  Mark was
bringing in money, too, more than he ever had before.  I couldn't
imagine him stealing all of it, so I figured he must have gone in
serious for poker.  I never asked him where he got it, and Mom didn't
either.  Of course, she would never think Mark was getting it
dishonestly.  Besides, none of us was in any position to turn away
extra money.

One night a couple of weeks after M&M disappeared, Mark and me went
goofing around by ourselves again.  It was almost as if we had never
felt a gulf between us, never been separated by something we couldn't
see.  We drove up and down the Ribbon, trying to pick up chicks and
get into drag races, even though our car wasn't all that fast.  I was
kind of half-hearted about picking up chicks, too, as I was more
serious about Cathy than I let on, even to Cathy herself.

'Hey,' Mark said suddenly.  'Lookit who's over there in the parking
lot.'

It was Angela and a bunch of other chicks-her type, by the way they
dressed and the way they were acting.  You can always tell when a girl
wants to be picked up.

'Let's pull in,' Mark said.  He was smiling.

'Sure,' I said, feeling, with the old sense of thrill, that something
was up, something was going to happen.  We pulled into the parking
lot, and immediately we were surrounded by girls.

'Outa the way,' I said superiorly.  'I want to see Angela.'

'Bryon!' she yelled, and jumped for me the minute I got out of the
car.  'Bryon, I'm so glad to see you!'

She was pretty drunk.  I let her hug me though, catching Mark's wink.
'Where ya been keeping yourself, Angela?' I said.  'How's married
life?'

She let go with a string of swear words which told me pretty well what
she thought of married life, her in-laws, and her husband.

'I never cared about him anyway.  I thought I was having-I mean, I
thought I was, but I wasn't-and that's the only reason I married him,
the louse.'  She was half-crying now, between obscenities.  'You're
the only boy I ever cared about, Bryon.'

'Sure,' I said.  I still hated the sight of her.  She was as beautiful
as ever, so striking that she could have been a movie star, but I
remembered all the trouble she hadcaused, compared her to Cathy, and
hated her.  I let her hug me and bawl into my shirt front because Mark
was winking at me.

'Angel, let's go for a ride,' Mark said.  'You and Bryon can talk over
old times and maybe I can get some more booze for you.'

'Sure,' Angela said, always eager for free booze.  I couldn't believe
she was that glad to see me.

We drove around for a while, Angela telling us all of her problems-her
husband didn't have a job, her brothers were both in jail, her old man
was drunk all the time, and her father-in-law was always slapping her
bottom.  I had always taken her family for granted-they weren't so
different from most of the families in our neighbourhood.  But now
that I had seen Cathy's home-not rich, not much more than poor, but
where everybody cared about each other and tried to act like decent
people-the picture Angela was painting was making me sick.  I could
hardly stand for her to be hanging on my arm.

At Mark's request I pulled into a parking lot across the street from a
liquor store.  Mark got out and disappeared.  He was looking for
somebody to buy the booze.  You can't legally buy booze until you're
twenty-one in this state, so we always have to get some old guy to buy
if for us, usually somebody's big brother.  If you can't come up with
one of them, there was bound to be some rummy hanging around who was
willing to buy it if you give him a little extra to buy something for
himself.  I sat in the car and talked to Angela, who had completely
given up to tears-it was the first time since I had known her that I
had seen her cry.  She was a tough little chick.  Her eye makeup was
running all over my shirt front, but that didn't bother me as much as
the way it was running down her face in dark streaks.  She almost
looked like she was behind bars.

Mark hopped back into the car with some rum, and we got a carton of
pop at a one-stop store and took off for the lake.  It was too cold to
go swimming, but the lake is always a good place to go.  There are a
mess of them-lakes, that is-around here.

'I get so sick,' Angela was saying.  'I feel like I can't take it any
more, life is so lousy.  I'm lousy, everything is lousy.  I can't
stand it at home, I can't stand it at school, I can't stand it
anywhere.  I always thought, hell, I can get what I want.  Get what I
want and everybody can go to hell.  But it doesn't work that way,
Bryon.  I'm going to hell right along with them.  I'm already there.'

Tomorrow she would be tough again, hard-as-rock Angela Shepard.
Tonight she was tired.  Anddrunk.

She passed out on my shoulder.  We were stopped on a little dirt road,
one of the millions that run along the lake and through the woods
surrounding it.  Mark sighed, 'I thought she was never gonna shut up.
I sure hate to sii gutsy chicks break.  Destroys my faith in human
nature.'

'You're never gonna break, huh?'

'Nope,' Mark said.  He pulled a pair of scissors out of his pocket.
'Picked these up at the one-stop.'  He reached over and began cutting
off Angela's beautiful long blue-black hair.  Close to her head.

'You ain't gonna cut it all off?' I said, stunned.

'Yeah, I am.  Setting up Curtis like she did, gettin' me cracked like
that.  She coulda had me killed.'

'That's right,' I said, and suddenly all the hatred I had had for
Angela, for her brother Curly, for everything she stood for, came
back.  I sat and watched Mark cut off all her hair.  He tied it all up
neatly when he had finished the job.  It was couple of feet long.
Even with her hair gone and her makeup streaked all over her face.
Angela was a beauty.  She would always be.  A lot of good it did her.

We drove home about three that morning.  Mark and me finished what was
left of the rum.  We dumped Angela and her hair in her front yard.
She never even woke up.  I didn't think she'd remember getting into
the car with us, but her girl friends would probably tell her that.
She'd know who had cut off her hair.

She wouldn't do anything about it though, because one thing I knew
about ol' Angela, she was proud.  She'd say she had her hair cut at
the beauty shop.  She'd say.  'I was sick of all that hot mess.'
She'd never let on .

I started crying on the way home from Angela's and Mark had to drive.
Sometimes rum affects me like that.

I was still crying when we got home.  We sat on the porch and I cried
while Mark patted me on the back and said, 'Hey, take it easy, man,
everything's going to be all right.'

I finally quit and sat sniffing and wiping my eyes on my shirt sleeve.
It was a quiet night.  'I was thinking . . .'

'Yeah?' Mark said,in the same easy, concerned voice.  'What were you
thinkin', Bryon?'

'About that kid Mike, the one in the hospital.  We talked to him a
couple of times, remember?'

'Yeah, I remember.  He got beat up tryin' to do a black chick a
favour.'

'How come things always happen like that?  Seems like you let your
defences down for one second and, man, you get it.  Pow!  Care about
somebody, give a damn for another person, and you get blasted.  How
come it's like that?'

'You got me, Bryon.  I never thought about it.  I guess 'cause nothin'
bad had ever happened to me.'

I looked at him.  Nothing bad had ever happened to him?  His parents
had killed each other in a drunken fight when he was nine years old
and he was it all.  He had been arrested for auto theft.  He had seen
Charlie shot and killed.  He had nearly been killed himself by some
punk kid he had never seen before.

Nothing bad had ever happened to him?  Then I knew what he meant.
Thos things hadn't left a mark on him, because he was Mark rhe
lion-Mark, different from other people.  Beautiful Mark, who didn't
give a damn about anyone.  Except me.

I suddenly knew why everyone like Mark, why everyone wanted to be his
friend.  Who hasn't dreamed of having a pet lion to stand between you
and the world?  Golden, dangerous Mark.

'You are my best friend, Mark,' I said, still a little drunk.  'Just
like a brother to me.'

'I know, buddy,' he said, patting me again.  'Take it easy; don't
start bawling again.'
'I sure wish I knew where M&M was,' I said, and tears were running
down my face again in spite of myself.  'I like that dumb little kid.
I wish I knew what happened to him.'

'He's O.K.  Take my word for it.'

'You know where he is!' I said.  'He's been gone all these weeks and
you know where he is!'

'Yeah, I do.  If he wanted to come home, he'd come home.  Don't
worry.'

'You gotta take me to where he is, Mark,' I said, knowing I sounded
like a drunken nitwit-but I couldn't help it, seeing how I was so
drunk.

'Sure, Bryon, don't cry.  I'll take you there tomorrow.  But don't
count on him comin' home.'

'Cathy is awful worried about him.  You know, Mark, I think I'm gonna
marry Cathy.'

'Come on, man,' Mark said, trying to pull me to my feet.  'Yeah, marry
Cathy adn be sure and name all kids after me.  Let's go in the house.
Try an' be quiet, O.K.?  You don't want the old lady to see you like
this.  I shoulda known better than to let you drink all that rum.'

'Didn't you drink any?'

'Naw, I was drinkin' plain Coke.'

'I drank all that rum by myself?' I couldn't believe it.  I'm not much
of a boozer.

"Cept for what Angela drank.' Mark was helping me up the steps.  I was
weaving back and forth.  If he hadn't been hanging on to me, I would
have dropped flat on my face.

'Poor Angel-we shoulda left her alone, Mark.  That was a mean thing to
do, cut off her hair like that.'

'Please, Bryon, for Pete's sake, don't cry any more.'  He half-dragged
me into our room and pushed me on to the bed.  I passed out.  I could
hear Mark moving around the room, feel him taking my shoes off and
pulling the blanket up over me, but it was all as if he was real far
away, or I was way down inside myself.

'What'd I ever do to deserve you, Mark?  Pull a thorn outa your paw?'

'Bryon, buddy, you are as wiped out as I've ever seen you.  I think
you'd better shut up and go to sleep.'

'When did we start runnin' around together, Mark?  Remember?'

'We've always been friends.  I can't remember when we weren't.'

'How come your old man shot your mother?  She shot him back, but it
was too late because she was aying anyway.'  I really was drunk,
because I had never mentioned that to Mark in all the years I had
known him.

'It was me.  I was under to porch-I could hear them real plain.  And
the old man was sayin', "I don't care, I ain't never seen a kid with
eyes that colour.  Nobody on my side of the family has eyes that
colour-not on yours either."  And the old lady says, "That's right.
Why should he look like anybody in your family?  He ain't yours."  And
then they start yelling and I hear this sound like a couple of
firecrackers.  And I think, well, I can go live with Bryon and his old
lady.'

'Did you really think that?' I opened my eyes, and the room was
turning around slowly.  It was making me sick.  Something was making
me sick.

'Yeah, I did.  I didn't like livin' at home; I got sick of them
yelling and fighting all the time.  I got whipped a lot, too.  I
remember thinking, this'll save me the trouble of shooting them
myself.  I don't like anybody hurtin' me.'

'I'm glad you came to live with us.'

'Me too.  Now you really better shut up, man.'

'Why you tryin' to shut me up?' I said, making an effort to sit up.
It made me ever sickerer, so I lay back down.  'You got a cigarette?'

'Right in the old secret place.'  Mark pulled back his mattress and
got a pack of cigarettes.  He always kept an extra pack there.  When
we were little and didn't want Mom to know we smoked, we kept our
cigarettes hidden.  It wasn't till much later that we found out she
had known about it all along.

I couldn't light my cigarette for some reason.  Mark lit it for me and
stuck it in my mouth.  He sat back on his bed watching me, his elbows
on the window sill.  I could see the end of his cigarette glowing.

'Charlie, he tried to help somebody out and look what happened to
him,' I said.  This was connected with what he'd said about Mike
somehow, but Mark followed my train of thought, just like he always
had.

'Charlie wasn't about to let a couple of his friends get beat up by
some hicks.  What happened then, well that was just the way things
turn out sometimes.'

'Yeah, but listen, Mark, if somebody had said to him, "Is savin' a
couple of dumb kids from gettin' beat up worth your life?" he woulda
said, "Hell, no!"  Charlie woulda said that, Mark.'

'Sure he woulda said that.  But you don't know what's comin'.  Nobody
does.  He sure knew he was taking a chance.  Bryon, he musta known
those guys had guns.  He knew they were rough guys.  He took a chance,
and he got a rotten break.  That's it.'

'It doesn't make any sense.  Likegettin' busted with that bottle.  A
little harder and you woulda been dead.'

'But I ain't.  This is the way it is, Bryon.  Angela Shepard is a
tough little chick who set out to get a shy guy who didn't know she
was alive, so she sweet-talks some dummy into fighting for her, and I
happen to be friends with Curtis, happen to be sittin' on the car with
him when the dummy picks the fight with him, and I happen to be a
little high.  So I step in between Curtis and the punk.  Now, if
Angela wasn't tough, if shewas a nice girl from the West Side-maybe
she woulda left well enough alone and given up on Curtis.  If Curtis
was a playboy like you, he woulda picked her up when she wanted to be
picked up.  If that kid wasn't so dumb, he would have never taken on
Curtis, who is no slouch of a fighter, man, I can tell you.  If I had
had a date that night, I woulda been somewhere else.  But Bryon, that
ain't the way things went.  You can't walk through your whole life
saying "If".  You can't keep trying to figure out why things happen,
man.  That's what old people do.  That's when you can't get away with
things any more.  You gotta just take things as they come, and quit
trying to reason them out.  Man, I been gettin' worried about you.
You start wonderin' why, and you get old.  Lately, I felt like you
were leavin' me, man.  You used to have all the answers.'

'I can't help it, Mark.  I can't help thinking about things.  Like
Mike and Charlie and M&M and you-it's all mixed up and I can't help
it.'

'You can help thinking about it.'  He leaned over his bed, reached
across the short space that separated us, and yanked my cigarette out
of my fingers.

'You're going to go to sleep and burn us alive,' he said.

I remember I was going to say, 'No I ain't,' but I was asleep before I
could get the words out.
<C 8>
I was real hung over the next morning.  Besides that, I had to get up
early and go to work.  Mark woke me up.  He was a human alarm clock
and never needed more than five hours' sleep a night.  Me, if I don't
get at least nine hours, I feeldead.  I felt dead that Saturday
morning.  I wished I was, anyway.  I was feeling so bad that I
actually stuck a loaf of bread in a grocery bag and dropped three cans
of soup on top of it.  Bread always goes on top.  In a supermarket
this is like the Ten Commandments all rolled into one.  It was a
wonder I didn't lose my job that Saturday.

I carried groceries for this one young housewife type, and when I put
the bags in her car she handed me her phone number.  I was feeling so
bad I groaned,'Lady, you gotta be kidding.'

Like I said, it was a wonder I didn't lose my job.  It was two in the
afternoon before the sound of the cash register quit blasting my ears,
and it was quitting time before I finally felt I could eat something.
This shows you how sick I was.

I had a date with Cathy that night, but she had to work late.  I would
pick her up at the hospital snack shop at ten.  This was fine with me,
as I wanted a chance to go look for M&M.  Mark knew where he was.

When I got off work, I foundMark sitting on my car.

'I figured you'd want to hunt for M&M,' he said.  'How's your head?'

'Better.  Man, don'tt ever let me guzzle like that again.'

Mark shrugged.  'You wanted to.  You had to get good and drunk because
I was cutting Angel's hair off and you couldn't take it.'

I flipped a remark that I had said many times before, but not to him.
Even from my side of the car I felt him tighten, getting ready to
spring.  The gulf was between us again.  For some reason, I was hacked
off because he didn't need to sleep nine hours, because he wasn't hung
over.

'You sound like Cathy,' I said.

'Heaven forbid.'

'What have you got against her, anyway?'

'What's she got against me?'

'You're a bad influence.'  I don't know why I said that, because Cathy
sure as hell never said anything like it.

Mark was quiet for a minute, then he said something really rotten.  I
had it coming for what I'd said to him, but he didn't have to drag
Cathy into it.  I gripped the steering wheel.  'You want to get outa
this car and have it out?'

'You don't want to swing on me, do you?'  It was partly a staement and
partly a request.  I was quiet.

'I'm sorry,' Mark said, and I kept driving.  This was as close as we
ever came to having a fight.

I followed the directions Mark gave me.  We went into this old part of
town which used to be a really classy place maybe thirty or forty
years ago, with these huge old house that were probably a big deal
when they were built.  They just looked gloomy now; most of them were
divided into flats.

On Mark's say-so I pulled into a driveway in front of one of them.
There was a sign hanging from the porch ceiling that said 'Love' in
red-and-green letters.

'He's here?' I asked, because I wasn't sure what was going on.

'Last time I was here he was.'  Mark got out of the car.  You can tell
when somebody is familiar with a place.  Mark had been here many times
before.  'Come on.'

I got out of the car, wondering what in the world Mark could have been
doing here.  Mark didn't knock, he just opened the front door and
walked in.  I followed him.  The whole inside of the house was freaked
out with posters.  A girl with long, streaked, blonde hair, wearing
blue jeans and a paint-splattered shirt, was lying on a beat-up couch.
She had the deadest, most colourless face I had ever seen.

'Hello, Cat.' she said to Mark.  She know him; she didn't call
everybody 'Cat'.

'Peace, baby,' Mark said.  I tried not to laugh.  I dig hippies O.K.-I
mean, they've got some great ideas, but sometimes it was funny.

'Freaked out?' Mark said politely, as if he were saying 'How are you
these days?'

"Way out, man.'  She was staring at the ceiling so intently that I
glanced up there, just to make sure the answer to the universe wasn't
written across it.  If it was, I couldn't see it.  Maybe she could.

Mark stepped over a stringless guitar and went upstairs.  I stumbled
oafter him, looking around.  Somebody was in the kitchen singing.
Each of the steps was painted a different colour.  It was a good
effect, but they were awful dirty.

Mark stepped into a bedroom.  There were about six or seven kids in
it.  On kid was lying on a bed watching his fingernails.  The others
were sitting cross-legged in a circle, talking about some book.  I
hadn't read it so I didn't get the conversation, but these kids were
not dumb.  They were all in blue jeans and old shirts and fringed
vests.  A couple of them were smoking grass.

'Hi, Cat,' a guy with a beard and a flowered shirt said.

'I'm looking for M&M,' Mark said.  'You seen him?'

'Baby Freak?  He ain't been around today.  The kid's flying, man.
He's going to crash.'

'You didn't let him take anything, did you?' I said.  This may have
been against house rules, as nobody had said anything to me yet, but
this place was getting on my nerves.

'There isn't any "letting" here, this fat chick says.  'We're free.'

I looked her over with the practised eye of a playboy and popped off
with something really good.  Then I raised two fingers and said
'Peace'.  This seemed to earn their forgiveness, because they all went
back to their literary discussion.

Now the kid on the bed was painting his fingernails with green
water-colour.

On the way out we passed the blond chick.  She was reading a book and
smoking grass.

'You seen Baby Freak?' Mark asked.

She shook her head.  'Sorry,  See you around, Cat.'  Even sitting up
she looked dead.

When we got back into the car I said, 'You dating her?'

'Sometimes.  Like the lady said, they're free.'

I thought about that a long time.  I am the first to admit I've got
hang ups.  I don't think I'd ever consider myself really free.

But I'm not sure I'd consider them free either.

'Just because it ain't your bag, don't knock it,' Mark said, after we
had driven in silence for a while.

'I didn't say anything.'

'Grass, rum, both are a high.'

'Yeah, well, listen, man, rum's going to maybe get me a weekend in the
drunk tank.  Grass could get me five years in the pen.'

'That law ain't necessarily right.'

'It's the way things are.'  I was puzzled.  I had never known Mark to
smoke pot.  I wondered why he was defending it.

'I don't smoke it, so quit worrying,' Mark said, reading my mind as
usual.  'I just don't like to see you judging people.'

'What the hell is bugging you?  I didn't say anything.'  Mark was
quiet.  Then he said, 'You remember when the Socs used to come through
here looking for somebody to beat up?'

'Yeah.'

'You remember when me and you beat up that hippie kid in the park?'

'Yeah,' I said.

'I'm a tough punk, Bryon, but I ain't dumb.'

We drove the rest of theway home in silence.

I picked Cathy up at the hospital.  I didn't tell her about going to
the hippie house to look for M&M.  I didn't see any sense in getting
her all upset.  After all, I hadn't found him.

We drove up and down the Ribbon, then stopped by the park on the way
home.  This was becoming standard procedure.  I was getting more and
more serious about Cathy, and this was really strange for me.  I had
always had a love'-em-and-leave,-em attitude.  Even with Angela, I
guess it was more a pride thing than a love thing.  I still hadn't
told Cathy I loved her though.  It was like my never thanking Charlie
for letting me use his car.  It was something I just couldn't do when
it meant anything.

'Hey, Cathy,' I said, while we were on the way home.  'If I got a
ring, would you wear it?'

'Yeah,' she said.  That's how we started going steady.

After I dropped Cathy off at her house, I headed for Terry Jones's
place.  I was supposed to pick up Mark there, but when I got to the
house, nobody was home.  Terry's parents were out of town for the
weekend, which normally meant it was party-and-poker time at the
Jones'.  I figured everybody had gone out scouting for booze and
broads, so I sat down on the front steps to wait.

It was a cool night, but not too cool.  It was getting to be spring.
It had been a real weird winter.  Last fall Mark and me had thought
just alike, as one person; now we couldn't even talk.  Charlie had
been alive and griping about our Coke bill.  I had been a hustler,
both with pool and chicks.  M&M had been reading Newsweek and getting
his kicks baby-sitting.  Now everything was different.

While I was sitting there, smoking and thinking, a car pulled up.  I
thought it was some guys coming to party and so forth, so I didn't pay
any attention.  The four guys were standing right in front of me
before I came to and realized that two of them were Tim and Curly
Shepard.

'I thought you guys were in the cooler.'  I said pleasantly, just like
I didn't know they were here for the sole purpose of stomping out my
guts.

'We're out now,' Tim said.  He scared me.  He was what I would call a
rough guy.  Curly was mostly mouth, but Tim backed up anything he
said.  He really was a hood.  I know most people call any kid from
over here on the East Side a hood, but Tim really was.

'I guess so,' I said, still smoking, not blowing my cool.  If I kept
them talking long enough, maybe Mark and Terry and God knows who else
would show up.

'Seen Angela lately?'  Timsaid.  Curly was keeping his mouth shut-even
he was awed by his big brother.  There was something about Tim
Shepard-his scarred face, his fighter's slouch, the flickering of his
black eyes-that really let you know he meant business.

'Yeah, as a matter of fact, I saw her over on the Ribbon last night,
and she went for a drive with me.'  I decided I didn't need to drag
Mark into this-it was plain they weren't worried about him.

'No kidding?  Did you know Angela got her hair cut this morning?  At
least that's what people say.  She told me something different.'

I was sweating.  I could feel it running down my back and wetting my
palms, and my cigarette was shaking, so I ground it out on the porch.
But I sounded calm as I said, 'What's she telling you?'

'She sayd you got her drunk and cut her hair off.  That the truth?'

'Yeah, that's the truth, and I'm sorry it happened.'  I decided to tel
it straight for once, without all this hedging and playing the game.
'It was a rotten thing to do and I'm sorry.'

'You ain't half as sorry as you're going to be,' Tim said, and the two
guys I didn't know rushed me, pinned my arms, and held me while Tim
and Curly took turns punching me.

I passed out finally, but not as soon as I had hoped I would.

When I came to, Mark was wiping my face off with a wet rag.

'Bryon, you O.K.?  Don't move, man.'

I bit back a groan because I could tell there were other guys in the
room.  Normally I wouldn't have to knock myself out playing the tough
guy for just Mark, but I did have a rep to keep.

'What happened?  Who did this to you?'

'Shepards,' I said finally, but it hurt to draw the breath to say it.
Something was stabbing me in the sides.  My whole face was throbbing
and I couldn't open my eyes. They were swollen shut.  There was a
funny taste in my mouth-I guessed it was blood.

'You want to go to the hospital?'  Mark asked.  He sounded so worried
that I felt sorry for him.

'No,' I said.  I didn't want to go anywhere.  I felt that if I moved
I'd fall apart.  'Can I stay here?'  I figured I was in Terry's house
somewhere.  I could tell I was lying on a bed.

'Sure, man, you stay here.'  I recognised Terry's voice.  'Brother,
you look like you been through a meat grinder.'

'That's what it feels like too,' I said, even though this witticism
cost me more stabbing pains in my sides.  A reputation is one hell of
a thing to have; you got to kill yourself to keep it.

'I'll call the old lady,' Mark said.  'Then we'll go look up the
Shepards.'

'Mark!' I said.  'I want to talk to you, personal-like.'

'Sure, buddy.  Clear out, you guys.'  And becuase he was Mark, they
obeyed him.

'Listen, it hurts like hell to talk, so I'm only goin' to say it once,
an' I don't want to argue.'

'Sure.'  Mark's voice sounded puzzled.  I wished I could see him; I
knew he wasn't going to dig what I had to day.  I could tell he was
sitting on the edge of the bed, and I reached for where his hand
should have been and cought it.  'I don't want anybody to fight the
Shepards.'

'What?'

'I don't want to keep this up, this gettin-even jazz.  It's stupid and
I'm sick of it and it keeps going in circles.  I have had it-so if
you're planning any get-even mugging, forget it.'  I was trying to
keep my voice from trembling with pain, but not only did talking hurt
my sides, it was killing my face.

'I got you, Bryon,' Mark said after a silence.  'You just take it
easy.'  He left to call Mom, and I heard him yelling at the rest of
the guys to keep the record player down.  He stayed all night on the
other side of the bed, guarding me.
<C 9>
Mark drove me to the hospital the next day and I got fifteen stitches
in my face and had my ribs taped.  As luck would have it I got the
same doctor that had sewed up Mark a few months before when he had
been busted with a bottle.  He remembered Mark all right; most people
did.  He gave us a disgusted look and said, 'Don't you punks ever do
anything besides fight?'

Mark growled something real cute, but I couldn't get mad.  I felt
sick, ashamed of myself, even though I hadn't done anything.  All I
could think about was Mike's getting beat up for driving a black girl
home.  I kept remembering him saying he didn't hate the guys who did
it.  Well, I didn't hate the Shepards either.  I tried to explain this
to Mark as we drove home.  I was so wrapped up in what I was trying to
get across to him that I was startled when Mark suddenly burst out,
'Whataya tryin' to do to me, Bryon?'

'What?' I said, confused.  Mark had turned white and his voice was
shaking is if he was about to cry.  I couldn't believe that; I had
never seen Mark cry except from physical pain.

'How do you think I feel, man?  You won't let me get the Shepards for
you, and here you go givin' me this song and dance about how you don't
feel bad about gettin' beat up.  You think I don't know they beat you
up for something I did?  And here you are, practically sayin' you had
it comin', when it was me who cut Angela's hair, it was me who planned
it, and me who did it-and it's you who gets beat up for it.  Like
that damn fool, Mike, he feels like he had it coming, feels guilty for
something somebody else did.  Man, that is sick!  How do you think I
felt, finding you lying there in the yard?  I knew it was the
Shepards.  If they had killed you it woulda been my fault.  That is
eating me up, Bryon, and you won't even let me get even for you.'

He was crying.  I just went sick inside.  'Mark, it ain't your fault.
It's just that I'm sick of fighting.  I'm sick of this circle of
beating up people and getting beat up.  It's stupid.'  I reached over
and gave him an easy punch on the shoulder.  'I ain't dead, man;
there's nothing to worry about.'

Mark tok a deep breath, and, even though his voice was normal, he was
gripping the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles were white.  'I
don't know what's the matter with me.  I never worry about "what if?"
I never did until me and Terry came home and found you lyin' there
smashed up.  Then I think, "What if?" and look what happens to me.'
He shrugged.  'You don't want to get even with the Shepards, that's
your business.'

We just couldn't get through to each other.He didn't understand why
I didn't dig fights any more.  I didn't understand how he could accept
everything that came along without question, without wanting to
change it.

Mom mearly had a fit when she saw me.  She was well by then, back at
her job.  I almost gave her a relapse.  I had never been so messed up.
A black eye she could take, stitches in my lip she could take, smashed
ribs she could take, but not all at the same time.  I was feeling so
lousy that I didn't mind her fussing at me.  I pretended that it was
her who made me go to bed, but I was glad to be there.

'You want me to call Cathy?' Mark asked after I had been put to bed.

'Yeah-you mind?'  He could get to a pay phone and I couldn't.

'Sure, I mind.  Beating up the Shepards would be easier.  But for you,
Buddy.  I'll do it.'  He gave me his famous Mark grin.  'I know she'll
be glad to hear from me.'

I tried to grin back at him, but it was difficult.  It's pretty lousy
to have the two people you care about most hate each other.

I must have dozed off after Mark left.  I felt pretty bad-the
painkiller shots had worn off and I was running a fever.  I don't know
how long I was asleep, but when I came to, Cathy was sitting next to
the bed.

'Hi, Bryon,' she said, and her voice and her face were so serious that
for a dazed second I couldn't figure out if it was Cathy or M&M.  I
really felt dizzy and drunk and confused.

'How do you feel?' she asked, when I couldn't say anything; I just lay
there and looked at her stupid-like.

'Oh, all right,' I said, which made a lot sense.  'I'm glad you're
here.'

'Are you?' she said, and she was crying.  There, I had both her and
Mark crying within twenty-four hours.  I must be really something.

'Cathy, I am really glad you are here,' I said.  'I love you.'

'O.K.' she sobbed.  'O.K.'  Then she reached over and held my hand.  I
took a quivering breath and looked at the ceiling.  That hadn't been
so hard after all.  If I could do that, maybe there were a few other
things I could take care of.

'Well,' Cathy said finally, gulping back her tears, 'your mother says
you'll be all right in a couple of days.'  She sort of half-laughed.
'You just look so awful, Bryon.'

'You look great,' I said.  She didn't really, I guess, because you
never do see a girl who looks good while she's crying except in the
movies, but to me she looked good.

'I'll be fine in a day or two; then we can go find M&M.  I got a lead
on him,' I said.  My mind was clearing up.

'Really?' Like I hoped, this took her mind off me for a little while,
and like I hoped, not much.

'Yeah.  Mark says he's seen him at this hippie commune-house.'

Cathy looked shocked.  'One of those free-love places?'

'I don't think that's the right word for it.'  I couldn't help
grinning.  'Anyway, he's been staying there.  I went over to look for
him yesterday, I think'-I was still a little confused as to what day
it was, or what time.  'He wasn't there then, but maybe we can find
him.  Don't worry, the place wasn't that bad.  He could have been in
worse places.'

'All right.'  She smiled at me like I knew everything on earth, like
whatever I said went, and it really made me feel good.  'We'll go look
for him when you get better.'

She reached over and gave me a quick, light kiss.  Because of the
stitches in my lip, this hurt.  But not much.

I took a couple of days' sick leave from work-I didn't want to go to
work looking like some prize fighter.  But as soon as I was able I
took the car and went for a drive by myself.  I had been thinking
about a lot of things.  Cathy, Mark, M&M, and Charlie.  I drove around
for two hours before I finally made up my mind.

I drove out to the cemetery, the cheap cemetery where people who don't
have money get buried.  I hadn't gone to Charlie's funeral, but I knew
where he was buried.

I finally found his grave.  This was not easy since there wasn't much
of a marker.  There weren't any big headstones in the whole place.  I
went and stood in front of his barren grave.  No flowers, no nothing.
Just the place where what was left of Charlie lay.  I said out loud,
'Thank for letting me use your car, Chalire.  Thanks for saving my
life.'

This wasn't hard to do.  I wished I'd done it when he could have heard
me.  I don't know, maybe it was a dumb thing to do, but I sure felt
better.

I picked up Cathy two nights later and we went looking for M&M.  Mark
had gone out somewhere; he was spending more and more time away from
homw.  Mom was worried about him, I could tell.  By now she was also
bugged about where he was getting the money he kept bringing home.I
still figured he was doing some serious poker playing, but I didn't
want to tell Mom that, as she didn't have too high an opinion of
poker, or gambling in general.  Me getting mixed up in that
pool-hustling business hadn't done much to glorify gambling, either.

'I just love your mother,' Cathy said as we left the house.  She and
Mom were getting along pretty good.  This was fine with me, as I dug
her parents O.K., too.  Right now Cathy was hacked off at her old man;
she blamed him for M&M's running away.  But I liked the guy.

'Most people do,' I said.  'She knows everbody within twenty miles of
here.  The mailman brings her all the stray kittens he finds, and the
neighbourhood grocer gives her free cat food.'

We were feeling real good driving to the hippie house. We laughed and
kidded and horsed around all the way.  I figured we had a pretty good
chance of coming home with M&M this time.

There were two Volkswagen buses parked in the driveway of the old
house; I knew they belonged to the hippies becauseof the flowers and
slogans painted on them.  One read 'War Is Unhealthy for Children and
Other Living Things.' Really bright.

'This is where he is?' Cathy sighed.  'I still can hardly believe that
baby is living in a place like this.'

I guess big sisters always think of little brothers as babies, no
matter how old they are. 'Maybe it was good for him,' I said.  'Maybe
being on his own made him grow up a little.'  I only half-believed
this; I had always had a good opinion of M&M's mind, but being smart
ain't being mature, as I have often proved.  'Anyway, we can't be sure
he even wants to come home with us.'

'If he doesn't, Daddy is going to call the cops and have them bring
him home.  He diesn't want to, but he keeps saying M&M has had his
fling, and it's time he came home.  This is my only chance to get him
home without dragging the police into it.'

'I didn't know that.  Well, let's hope he comes with us.  Maybe I
could slug him and carry him home.'

Cathy laughed.  'No, let the cops do it if it comes to that.  I'd
rather have him hate the police than you.'

We walked up to the house.  There were kids on the porch, just
watching the street.  I stopped to talk with a Biblical-looking guy.

'I'm lookin' for Baby Freak.  He around?'

'Yeah, he is.'  The guy was staring directly into my eyes.  He had
friendly, trusting eyes.  'Are you a friend of his?'

'Yeah, a good friend.  This is his sister.'

Cathy gave him the big smile she won me with.  The guy smiled back.

'He's upstairs, I think.'  Suddenly the guy looked worried.  'He's
been flying for a couple of days now.'

'Oh, no kiddin',' I said, keeping my cool, and Cathy followed my
example.

'Talk to his travel agent,' the hippie said.  'He's the cat with
the red hair, inside.'

'Travel agent?  What's that?'  Cathy whispered as we went in.  I
didn't want to tell her, didn't want her to feel the sudden cold waves
of fear that I was feeling, so I said, 'i don't know.'

We found who we were looking for-a big, heavy guy with fire-coloured
hair, beard, and moustache.

'We're looking for Baby Freak,' I said.  I was beginning to see why
M&M had acquired this other nickname: most of the kids there were at
least seventeen or eighteen, with a lot of college-age kids.  It was a
real crowded place, but now I can't remember what everyone was doing.
At least some of the kids were smoking grass; you could tell by the
smell. I was hoping the place didn't get raided while we were there.
You can get busted just for being at a place where people are smoking
pot.

'Yeah?' Red said.  'Man, that kid is on a bad trip.'

Cathy made a funny, yelping little sound.

'Some of these freaks have been dropping acid.  Baby wanted to try it,
so I sat with him.  Bad trip, man, really bad.  He's calmed down a
little now, but all day today me and some of these other cats been
holding him, keeping him from jumping out the window.'

I felt like I was going to throw up.  Cathy was as white as a sheet.
'Can we see him?' she said, in a tiny expressionless voice.

'Sure.'

We followed him up the stairs.He led led us to the same room Mark
and I had gone to the last time we were there.  This time no one was
there except the blonde chick, who was curled up on the bed asleep,
and someone huddled in the corner.  To my surprise, Red walked over to
the huddle.  'Hey, man, there's people here to see you,' he said
sofly.

'Are they spiders?'  The person didn't raise his head, but the voice
was M&M's.

'No, man,' Red laughed gently.  'They're squares.'

M&M looked up, and I hardly recognized him.  His hair was to his
shoulders, he was a lot thinner, he was dirty, and the expression on
his face was one I had never seen on him before-suspicion.

'M&M, baby, it's me-Cathy.'  Cathy kneeled down in front of him.  He
was staring at her, not seeing her.

'Square spiders?' he said, and his face was contorted in fear.  'I
don't want to see any spiders.'

'It's me, Cathy,' she said again.  'Your sister.  Don't you want to go
home?'

'I went to my stomach,' M&M said in a high, unnatural voice.  He was
talking too fast.  'I went down into my stomach and all these spiders
came out.  I never knew there were spiders in my stomach.  I was there
ten years, and all that time these spiders kept chewing on me.  They
were big spiders.'

Cathy choked back a sob.  'Baby, what have you done to yourself?' she
said in a whisper.

He seemed to see her.  'Cathy? I screamed and screamed and screamed,
but nobody came to help me.'  He was shaking.  He didn't look right.
He looked sick.  'i kept trying to get back, but the spiders held me
down.  Held me down and chewed on me and the colours went in and out.
I listened to the colours and they were screaming too.  Red and yellow
screamed loudest.  The spiders were eating them too.'

'He kept trying to jump out of the window,' Red said.  'All day.  We
took turns holding him down.'

What did the guy want, a medal?  He had given him the stuff in the
first place. 

'Cathy,' I said.  'We ought to take him to the hospital.'  She looked
at me quickly.  'Hospital?'  Then she nodded.  'Let me call Daddy
first.'She looked at Red.  'Do you have a phone I can use?'  She
followed him out of the room.

'There was this other colour,' M&M said to me seriously but
half-afriad, as if he thought I'd turn into a spider any minute.  'I
don't know its name; it told me but I forgot.  It said I was being
paid back for all the carrots I ate.  I didn't know-I thought-I didn't
know about the carrots before.  I don't think it was my fault.'  He
was crying, tears were pouring down his face, but he hadn't changed
his expression.  Helooked so thin and scared, not a bit like the M&M
I knew.  'Do you think I should be paid back for something I didn't
know about?'

'No,' I said, clearing my throat.  'I don't think it was you fault.'
I put my arm around him and held him.  He was shaking real bad.

Cathy came back.  'Daddy's going to meet us at the hospital.  Can you
carry him?'

'Yeah,' I said.  I picked him up easily; he couldn't have weighed more
than ninety pounds.

'I'm so tired,' M&M said.  'I was gone so long, and I didn't have any
sleep.'  I carried him down the stairs and out of that house.  Nobody
made any move to stop me.  Nobody seemed to care.

Cathy drove us to the hospital.  Halfway there M&M started suddenly
and screamed, 'Where am I?'

'It's O.K., kid, you're going to be O.K.'

'Where am I?' he was screaming in terror.  'Why don't I know where I
am?'

I was just sick.  I didn't know how Cathy was managing to drive the
car.  I never felt so bad before.  I just held on to M&M.  There
wasn't any sense in trying to talk to him.I felt then that he was as
much my little brother as Cathy's.  That's how bad I felt.

Mr Carlson was waiting for us at the hospital.  We drove right up to
the emergency entrance, and there he was.  I got out and picked M&M up
again, but I didn't have him for long.  Mr Carlson took him and
carried him into the hospital, holding him very close, very tight.

M&M was telling him about the spiders. 
<C 10>
We spayed there at the hospital until the doctor could talk to us.  He
couldn't tell us much-physically M&M would recover, but mentally...

'Will he always be like he is now?'  Cathy said.  She had really been
brave-no crying, no hysterics.  Only by the tense, tight way she was
ripping the hem out of her shirt was she showing how bad she was
shook.

The doctor replied, 'I have no way of knowing.  He might get better,
or he may have lost his mind forever.  Either way, I don't believe
he'll ever be completely the same.  LSD is a powerful drug, people
react to if differently.  If these kids would only...'

I tuned him out.  I won't listen to sermons.  Besides, I was hacked
off at that doctor.  He shouldn't be saying things like that.  He
should be saying that M&M would be fine, that tomorrow morning he
would be the same again.  Couldn't he see how what he was saying was
tearing Mr Carlson to pieces?  Couldn't he see what it was doing to
Cathy?  What kind of a doctor was he, anyway?

'I want to drive you home,' I said to Cathy.

She shook her head.  'I don't want to go home.  I want to stay here.'

'Cathy, I want you to go home,' Mr Carlson said.  'You can't do
anything here and I want you to be with your mother when she hears
about this.  M&M will be asleep for a few hours.  I'm going home in an
hour or so.  Wait until I get there before you tell your mother.'  His
voice broke, 'What are we going to tell her?'

'Come on,' I said, putting my arm around Cathy, guiding her to the
car.

'Wait a minute,' Mr Carlson said.  'Bryon, I want to tell you how much
I appreciate all you've done.  I'm really proud of you, son.'

That was the first time any man had ever called me 'son' without
making me mad. I didn't know what to say, so I just nodded to him and
gave Cathy a squeeze.

In the car Cathy broke down and cried.  I drove to the park and
stopped.  I ehld her while she cried.  She was almost hysterical.  I
was crying too.  I couldn't stand seeing her hurt like that.  I just
couldn't stand it.  'Don't cry like this, baby,' I said.  My voice was
shaking.  'Cathy, don't.  It won't do any good.'

'Oh, my God,' she sobbed.  'What if he's lost his mind forever?  He
was such a sweet kid, the sweetest damn kid in the whole world.'

This was the first time I had ever heard her swear.  I tried to think
about this fact, to focus on something like that before I lost control
and became hysterical too.  'He's going to be all right,' I said.
'He'll be just like before.'

'No he won't.'  Cathy was trying to stop crying now.  'He won't ever
be the same.'  This set her off crying again.  My shirt front was
soaked clear through.  She just hung onto me and cried while I patted
her head.  Finally she sat up.  'I love you so much, Bryon,' she said.
'I don't know what I'd have done without you.'

'I love you, too, baby,' I said.  This was getting easier to say.
'And don't worry about what the doctor said.  He's one of those
hippie-haters.  M&M will be O.K., I know it.'

'I'd better go home now,' Cathy said.  'I have to be there when Mamma
hears.  Oh, this is just going to kill her.'

I let her out at her house, but I didn't go in.  I figured this was a
family matter, and I wasn't a member of the family yet.

I was surprised to see how late it was when I got home.  Mom was
asleep.  I went into my room and lay down without bothering to turn
off the light.  Mark wasn't home yet.  I was tired.  I felt empty and
drained.  Nothing can wear out like caring about people.  I was tired,
yet I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep. I closed my eyes, but I kept
seeing pictures:  all these people were spinning around in my
head-Mark and Charlie and Angela, Cathy and M&M and Mr Carlson, and
Tim and Curly Shepard.  Life had seemed so simple once, now it
suddenly seemed so complicated.  I could remember a time when my only
worry had been paying Charlie the three bucks I owed him.  Things used
to be simple and now they weren't.  I wanted a cigarette had.  I
halfheartedly searched my pockets, but I knew I didn't have any.  Then
I remembered Mark's spare carton and rolled off the bed and reached
under his mattress.  I felt something strange and pulled it out.  It
was a long cylinder-like thing.  I unscrewed one end and all these
pills came rolling out.

I am not dumb by any means.  I have never used drugs except for a
couple of tries with grass, but I knew what they looked like.  I
looked at this bunch of pills-there were hundreds of them, and it was
like a machine in my head went click, click, click.  And it came up
with an answer I didn't want.

Mark was selling this stuff.  This was way too many pills for anybody
to have if he was just taking them himself, and besides, I would have
noticed something different about Mark if he had been taking them.
You can't use drugs and not show it-I knew too many kids who were
users not to know that.  Mark was selling.  Mark was a pusher.  That
was where he was getting his money.  That was why he had known about
the hippie.  That was why he had known about the hippie house; that
was why they had known him; that was why he had known where to look
for M&M.

M&M.  Cathy.

M&M was in the hospital, and maybe he was messed up for life-and Mark
was selling the stuff that made him that way.  Maybe this wasn't LSD,
but it was a step in that direction, and God only knows what all Mark
had been selling.  I thought about that blonde, dead-looking chick and
about M&M screaming about spiders and about Cathy half-hysterical with
grief.  I thought about Mr Carlson and the bitter dictor, and the
whole mess was weirling around in my head, and it felt like it would
burst wide open.

When I thought about the cause of all this misery, I became very cool.
I very calmly called the cops.  M&M had lost his mind and Cathy was
hurting, and I did something about it.  Then I sat down on a chair in
the front room and waited.  It seemed only a minute later when Mark
came in.

'Hey, still up?' he said.  Then he stopped.  'What's the matter-Bryon,
you look awful!  What is it?'

I held out the cylinder.

'Oh,' Mark said, after a pause.  'You found them, huh?  Well, don't
worry, buddy, I don't take them.  I have a good enough time like I
am.'

'Just how are you, anyway?' I said.

'What?' Mark said, confused.

'M&M is in the hospital-acid trip.  They think he may have lost his
mind.'

'Man, that is awful.  That poor kid.'  Then he looked at me.  'Bryon,
don't look like that.  I said I don't take them.  Don't you believe
me?'

'I believe you,' I said dully.

'We needed the money, you know.  I tried getting a job, but with my
police record nobody'd hire me.  Then I met this guy ont he Ribbon-he
set me up.  I figure I don't have to take it to sell it, so what's the
worry?'

'M&M-' I began, but I was too tired, too numb to talk.

'Is that what's buggin' you?  Listen, I didn't sell M&M anything.  He
got it from somebody else.  Lookit, Bryon, they're going to get it
from somebody if they want it, so why can't I make some money?  I
never forced it on anybody.  I never tried to talk somebody into using
drugs so I could make a buck.'

He could have talked all night and I wouldn't have changed my mind.
This was wrong.  For the first time in years I thought about the
golden-eyed cowboy who had beenMark's father.  Was Mark a throwback?
To what?  I wondered tiredly why I had never seen it before: Mark had
absolutely no concept of what was right and what was wrong; he didn't
obey any laws, because he couldn't see that there were any.  Laws,
right and wrong, they didn't matter to Mark, because they were just
words.

'Bryon, what is it?' Mark cried suddenly.  'Listen, if it bugs you
that much I;ll quit.  I'll stop selling if you don't like it.  Shoot,
I never thought it would bother you.  I sort of thought you knew about
it.'

Don't drag me into this, I thought.  Don't try to make me out to be
blind, just because you are.  Aloud I said, 'I called the cops,' and I
felt as if I was talking in my sleep.  Mark went white.

'What?' he said softly, disbelievingly.  'What did you say?'  We could
already hear the diren.  'Bryon, you know what something like this
would do to me with my record.  Bryon, tell me you're lyin'.'  Mark
was pleading desperately.

I thought maybe he would run for it, but he didn't.  He just sat down
in a chair opposite me.  He was white and his eyes were black with a
rim of gold around them.  He looked the way he had when he had been
clobbered with that bottle.  'Bryon,' he said quietly, like he was
trying hard to understand, like he was totally confused, like he
thought maybe I would answer in a foreign language, 'why are you doing
this to me, buddy? bryon, just tell me.'

I couldn't tell him.  I didn't know.

The police arrived, and of course Mom woke up.  She didn't know what
was going on.  She could only stand helpless in the kitchen doorway
while the police questioned me, rounded up the drugs, and slapped
handcuffs on Mark.  They advised Mark of his right to remain silent,
and he did.  He just stood there, quivering, watching me while I told
the cops the things that would put him behind bars for years.

Then a cop said, 'Let's go, kid,' and it seemed to dawn on Mark what
was happening.  He looked quickly from the cops to me and cried, 'My
God, Bryon, you're not gonna let them take me to jail?'

Didn't he know I had just put him there?  The cop jerked Mark around
and shoved him out the door.  Suddenly it was deadly quiet-just the
distant siren and Mom's quiet sobbing.

I went into the bathroom and threw up.  I was sick.
<C 11>
The next morning I really thought that I had dreamed the whole thing.
I thought I had had a nightmare, one I only vaguely remembered.  It
seemed a long time before it finally got through to me what had
happened.  Then I was tired and sick, and I wondered why people didn't
die from being so mixed up.

Why had I turned on Mark?  What had I done to him?  I tried to
remember how shook I had been about Cathy and M&M, tried to justify
what I had done.  But I didn't know now.  If I had asked Mark to quit
selling pills, he would have.  I didn't have to do what I did.  Last
night it had seemed the only right thing to do.  Now Mark was in jail.
It would kill him.  It would kill him.

It would kill him.

'Bryon, are you going to work?'  It was Mom.  I was sitting on the
edge of thebed, holding my head in my hands.  It felt like it was
going to burst wide open.

'Mom,' I said wearily, 'what have I done?  You don't hate me do you?'

She came in and sat down on Mark's bed.  'Bryon, you are my only child
and my son and I couldn't hate you.  I love you.'

'You loved Mark, too,' I said, only beginning to realize how this mess
was going to affect her.  Mark, her stray lion, behind bars.

'Yes, I loved Mark and I still do.  But you are my son and you come
first.  What Mark was doing was wrong.  Maybe the juvenile authorities
can help him.'

'You know they can't.'  I was too worn out to play games-let's pretend
everthing will turn out all right, let's pretend it's all for the
better.

'We'll just have to make him understand it was wrong and that what you
did was for his own good.'

I took a good long look at her.  She was my mother and I loved her,
but there wasn't any sense in carrying on the conversation.  She was
tired and hurting, too, but she ahd hope and I didn't and we couldn't
talk.

'I gotta get ready to go to work,' I said.

'Bryon, don't hate yourself,' Mom said, but that was easier said than
done.

I went through the day mechanically, numb, and hardly knowing what I
was doing.  I had a rep as a wisecracker and a clown, so this got me a
lot of ribbing, but I hardly heard it.  I was glad to get home and lie
on my bed, smoking one cigarette after another, not thinking-scared to
think.

I heard someone at the door, but since Mom answered, I didn't pay any
attention.

'Bryon, you have company,' Mom finally called.

It was Cathy.  It occurred to me with a shock that I hadn't thought
about her all day long.

'Bryon, your mother told me what happened.  I'm so sorry.'  She looked
tired and nervous but I couldn't work up any sympathy for her.

'Are you?' I said 'Why?'

'Bryon!' she said, tears jumping to her eyes.  'You know I know how
you feel!'

'Oh,' I said.  'No.  I hadn't realized that.'

She was quiet, bewildered.  I knew I was hurting her but I couldn't
seem to stop myself.  It was as if I was outside myself, watching
while someone named Bryon Douglas hurt his girl friend.  I couldn't
stop him, and I wasn't much interested in the first place.

'How's your brother?' I said.  Suddenly it was just some brother of
hers in the hospital, not M&M, not my friend, not somebody I too cared
about.

'He seems better-but I don't know, he's still mixed up.'

That makes two of us, I thought sarcastically.

'I thought'-she was a proud person and it was hard for her to be
humble-'I thought maybe you'd come up to the hospital today or call me
or something.  Then your mother told me what happened.'

'Aren't you glad?' I said.  'You never liked Mark-you thought he was
beautiful, but you didn't like him.  Aren't you glad he's out of the
way?'

'Bryon, why are you doing this to me?' she said, and suddenly I could
hear Mark, as plain as day, saying , 'Why are you doing this to me,
buddy?'

'I'm sorry,' I said.  'I con't talk today, Cathy.  I'll call your
tomorrow.'

'O.K.,' she said, still puzzled and hurt but no longer humble.  'Call
me tomorrow.'

I wasn't going to call her tomorrow and she knew it.

I wondered impersonally why I didn't love her any more.  But it didn't
seem to matter.

Mark had a hearing, or a trial, pr whatever-I never paid any attention
to the formalities.  I had to testify.  I did.  I hadn't seen Mark
since they had come to get him.  He looked relaxed and amused, tipping
back in his chair, glancing over everyone in the courtroom with an
easy, almost friendly expression.  When I was questioned about my
relationship with Mark and answered.  'We were like brothers,' Mark
laughed out loud.  When he was questioned, he admitted selling drugs
and shrugged.  I think it was his attitude that made the judge go hard
on him, even though by then judges were beginning to crack down on
pushers.  Mark was only sixteen; he had always been able to talk his
way out of anything.  But this time he didn't try. When the judge
sentenced him to five years in the state reformatory, he didn't even
change expression.  I felt like someone had knocked the breath out of
me, and I heard Mom's little cry of protest, but Mark got to his feet
and casually strolled out with two officers.  He hadn't looked at me
once.

The next months were a blur-I went to school and went to work and went
home and studied.  I ended up with straight A's that semester,
something that surprised me more than anyone, because I couldn't
remember a thing I had studied.  I didn't date.  Once, at the
drugstore, I ran into M&M.

His hair was much shorter than it had been in years, and he was still
thin.

'I haven't seen you around in a while,' he said.

'Yeah, I been busy.  How ya been?'

'O.K.,' he said, but he looked half-scared, and his old expression of
complete trust and intent interest was gone entirely.  He looked like
a little kid-I had forgotten he was just a little kid.  'But, I don't
know-It can come back, they told me.  I could have a flashback, it
could come back.  And if I ever have any kids-something about
chromosomes-they could be messed up.  I don't think I'll ever have
any.'  He was quiet for a minute.  'I don't remember things too good
any more; all my grades are shot.'

I couldn't help feeling sorry for him.  He had been such a bright,
sweet kid.  I remember the time-it seemed year's ago-when Mark and I
had teased him about wanting a large family.  Well, that was taken
care of.

'You used to go with Cathy, didn't you?' he said.  The poor kid, he
was really confused.  He was reading a monster comic.

'Yeah, for a while.'

'She liked you better than anybody,' he said.  'I know it.  She's
dating some guy named Ponyboy Curtis now.  She likes him O.K. too.'

I couldn't feel any anger, and jealousy, and anything except a
halfhearted hope that they would hit it off together.  Any grudge I
had ever held against Curtis was gone, so was any feeling I had ever
had for Cathy.  It seemed impossible that I could once feel so
emotional about someone, and then suddenly feel nothing.

'I'll see you around,' I said.  But I hoped I wouldn't.  M&M made me
sad, and I hadn't felt anything for so long-it was slightly scary.

I spent that summer working full time and trying to get to see Mark at
the reformatory.  But every time I went they told me that Mark was
causing trouble at the reformatory so he couldn't have visitors.  I
got promoted from sack boy to clerk.  I didn't come to work hung over
and I didn't give the manager any lip.  I seemed to have become a
mixture of things I had picked up from Charlie, Mark, Cathy, M&M, Mom,
and even obscure people like Mike and the blonde hippie-chick and the
Shepards.  I had learned something from everyone, and I didn't seem to
be the same person I had been last year.  But like a mixture, I was
mixed up.

Angela came into the store once wearing short shorts and a tight
blouse.  It was funny, but she looked even better with short hair.  I
guess I'll never see a girl as good-looking as she is.  She came
through my counter, staring at me coolly, daring me to say something.
Poor little chick.  I didn't hate her any more than I loved Cathy.  I
felt sorry for her.

'How've you been, Angel?' I said, but not smart-like.  I really wanted
to know.

'Well enough.  I hear you dumped little what's-her-name on Curtis.
Well, they deserve each other.'

I just shrugged and rang up her stuff.  She was going to be bitter all
her life, and all that beauty was wasted.

'You know, I'd thought for a long time you were really low, Bryon,'
she was saying, 'but what you did to Mark really proved it.'

'Angel, you look really good with short hair,' I said, and Idon't
know whether or not it scared her, but she shut up.

One night when I was lying on the floor reading a book, Mom came in and
sat down.  'Bryon, you got even with Mark for Cathy, then you got even
with Cathy for Mark.  When are you going to stop getting even with
yourself?'

I rolled over and got up and went for a drive.  I couldn't talk to Mom,
especially when she was telling the truth.

Finally, at the end of August, I got to see Mark.  He couldn't leave
the reformatory, so I had to go in.  He had been in so much trouble
that the authorities considered my visit a last-ditch effort to
straighten him out.  If it didn't work, they were going to send him to
the state prison.  They told me they hoped I could influence him.

They didn't say how.

I thought we'd have to talk through a wire dealie, like you see in
prison movies, but instead we were left alone in a room which I
remember as strangely empty.

'Hi ya, buddy,' Mark greeted me.  'Slumming?'

I couldn't speak.  I had a real bad pain in my throat.  Mark had
changed.  He had lost a lot of weight, but somehow it had stretched
his skin over his bones and slanted his eyes.  He hadn't lost his
looks, but exchanged them.  He looked dirty somehow, and hard, things
I had never seen in him before.  His strangely sinister innocence was
gone, and in its place was a more sinister knowledge.  He seemed to be
pacing, like as impatient, dangerous, caged lion.

'How goes it?' I managed finally.  'What's the action like in here?'

'If I told you how it was in here,' hesaid, 'you'd be sick.'  There
was a silence.  Then he continued, 'I didn't have to see you.  I
wanted to, though.  I had to make sure.'

'Make sure of what?'
'Make sure I hated you.'

I suddenly remembered that time, so long ago, when Cathy had looked at
Mark and for a moment I had hated him.  I wondered what it felt like
to experience that feeling all your life-to hate the person you loved
best.

'Mark...' I began miserably.  'Mark, I didn't know what I was
doing...'

'Can it, buddy.'  He glanced around.'Groovy place, ain't it?  Seems
like home now.'

'I hear you've been causing trouble.'

'Yeah.  I don't seem to be able to get away with things any more.'

I thought I would break down and cry then, but I didn't.  'Listen,' I
said, 'you straighten up and they'll let you out early on probation or
parole or whatever it is, and you can come home.  I'll get you a job
at the store-'

'Like hell you will,' Mark said, in the same, easy, pleasant voice he
had used all along.  'I ain't never goin' back there again. When I
get outa here, you ain't never going to see me again.'

'We were like brothers,' I said, desperate.  'You were my best
friend-'

He laughed then, and his eyes were the golden, hard, flat eyes of a
jungle animal.  'Like a friend once said to me, "That was then, and
this is now."'

I broke out in a sweat and was suddenly glad of the walls and the
guards and the bars.  I think if he could have, Mark would have killed
me.

I haven't tried to see Mark since then.  I heard in a roundabout way
that he wassent to the state prison.  I've just been sort of waiting
around for school to start, not much caring whether it does or not.  I
don't seem to care about anything any more.  It's like I am worn out
with caring about people.  I don't even care about Mark.  The guy who
was my best friend doesn't exist any longer, and I don't want to think
about the person who had taken his place.  I go over everything that
happened last year, trying to figure out what I could have done
different, what I would do different ifI had the chance, but I don't
know.  Mostly I wonder 'what if?'  What if I had found out about Mark
some other time, when I wasn't half out of my mind with worry about
Cathy?  What if I hadn't met her in the first place, would I still
have grown away from Mark?  What if M&M had had a good trip instead of
a bad one?  What if someone else had turned Mark in-would there still
be hope for him?

I am too mixed up to really care.  And to think, I used to be sure of
things.  Me, once I had all the answers.  I wish I was a kid again,
when I had all the answers.