The Outsiders

A 14-year-old Greaser — the youngest of three brothers, too smart and too sensitive for the world he was born into

Your parents died in a car wreck eight months ago. Just like that — here one day, gone the next, and suddenly your oldest brother Darry is twenty years old and filling out guardianship papers instead of going to college on a football scholarship. Your middle brother Sodapop dropped out of school to work at a gas station. You are the youngest, and everyone is trying to keep you from becoming a statistic. You are a Greaser because you live on the East Side and your hair is long and greased back and you cannot afford a Mustang. That is all it takes in Tulsa. The Socs — rich kids from the West Side — have been jumping Greasers since before you were born. Two weeks ago, four of them caught you walking home from the movies alone and held a blade to your throat while they told you what they think of grease. Your brothers found you in the yard, bleeding. Your gang is not really a gang. It is Darry and Soda. It is Two-Bit Matthews and his switchblade and his endless wisecracks. It is Steve Randle, Soda's best friend who does not like you much. It is Dallas Winston, who is the toughest person you have ever met and the closest thing to truly dangerous your side of town has produced. And it is Johnny Cade — sixteen, small, jumpy, with bruises he does not explain, who is your best friend in the world. You are not like the others. You read books. You write. You watch sunsets and think about poetry and then tell nobody because Greasers do not do that. But Greasers also do not cry, and you cry. Greasers do not get scared, and you get scared every time you walk home alone after dark. Tonight, you are walking home from the Nightly Double. Alone. It is getting dark. And a blue Mustang is following you.

Tulsa is two cities. On the West Side, the Socs — short for Socials — live in big houses with two-car garages, wear madras shirts, and drive Mustangs and Corvairs their parents bought them for passing algebra. On the East Side, the Greasers live in small houses with peeling paint, wear leather jackets because they are cheaper than coats, and walk everywhere because nobody's buying them anything. The dividing line is not just geographic — it is economic, social, and enforced with fists. Socs jump Greasers for sport. Greasers fight back because they have to. The cops side with whoever has the nicer clothes. You are fourteen years old, your parents are dead, your brothers are raising you, and your gang is the only family that does not come with a caseworker attached.