TIM SHEPARD AND company were already waiting when we arrived at the vacant lot, along with a gang from Brumly, one of the suburbs. Tim was a lean, catlike eighteen-year-old who looked like the model JD you see in movies and magazines. He had the right curly black hair, smoldering dark eyes, and a long scar from temple to chin where a tramp had belted him with a broken pop bottle. He had a tough, hard look to him, and his nose had been broken twice. Like Dally’s, his smile was grim and bitter. He was one of those who enjoy being a hood. The rest of his bunch were the same way. The boys from Brumly, too. Young hoods— who would grow up to be old hoods. I’d never thought about it before, but they’d just get worse as they got older, not better. I looked at Darry.
He wasn’t going to be any hood when he got old. He was going to get somewhere. Living the way we do would only make him more determined to get somewhere. That’s why he’s better than the rest of us, I thought. He’s going somewhere. And I was going to be like him. I wasn’t going to live in a lousy neighborhood all my life.

Tim had the tense, hungry look of an alley cat— that’s what he’s always reminded me of, an alley cat— and he was constantly restless. His boys ranged from fifteen to nineteen, hard-looking characters who were used to the strict discipline Tim gave out. That was the difference between his gang and ours— they had a leader and were organized; we were just buddies who stuck together— each man was his own leader. Maybe that was why we could whip them.

Tim and the leader of the Brumly outfit moved forward to shake hands with each of us— proving that our gangs were on the same side in this fight, although most of the guys in those two outfits weren’t exactly what Id like to call my friends. When Tim got to me he studied me, maybe remembering how his kid brother and I had played chicken. “You and the quiet black-headed kid were the ones who killed that Soc?”

“Yeah,” I said, pretending to be proud of it; then I thought of Cherry and Randy and got a sick feeling in my stomach.

“Good goin’, kid. Curly always said you were a good kid. Curly’s in the reformatory for the next six months.” Tim grinned ruefully, probably thinking of his roughneck, hard-headed brother. “He got caught breakin’ into a liquor store, the little…” He went on to call Curly every unprintable name under the sun— in Tim’s way of thinking, terms of affection.

I surveyed the scene with pride. I was the youngest one there. Even Curly, if he had been there, had turned fifteen, so he was older than me. I could tell Darry realized this too, and although he was proud, I also knew he was worried. Shoot, I thought, I’ll fight so good this time he won’t ever worry about me again. I’ll show him that someone besides Sodapop can use his head.