Post by printandpolish on Jun 13, 2007 6:40:19 GMT -5
Good Influences
It was an easy job, Dallas explained. In and out, probably a couple hundred bucks apiece. He didn’t need to carry a heater or actually steal the stuff, just distract the owner. Cake. Practically free money.
Johnny looked at Dally dubiously. It sounded great – almost too good to be true.
If something sounds too good to be true, dear, it likely is. Old saying, but the old sayings last because they’re true.
Who told him that? Johnny couldn’t remember.
“Dammit, Johnny, are you listenin’ to me?”
Johnny forced his attention back to Dally, who was pulling on a cigarette, looking at him irritably. “Yeah, Dal, I hear you. Down at Mr. Carson’s liquor store.”
“Yeah. You go in, wander around for a couple of minutes, then try to buy something. Anything, don’t matter, ’cause old man Carson won’t sell it to you. Argue with him, try to convince him, then get out of there. Me and Tim’ll go into the storeroom through the back door. As long as you keep him occupied, we can be out of there in less than five minutes.” Dally’s eyes gleamed in anticipation. “You know how many bottle and cases we can fit in Buck’s T-bird?”
“We’ll never drink it all,” Johnny ventured.
Dally clapped him on the back. “Hell, no, boy, you’re missin’ the point! We’re going to sell it. It’s pure profit. We sell it at the regular price, even, and people will come back to us the next time. Those Brumbly boys, they mark it up, figure people will pay it since there ain’t another option.” He grinned proudly. “We’ll be the other option. Good business.”
Simple economics. Dallas Winston was smart, something most people didn’t realize, because he scorned school. Not only was he street-smart, he’d always had a head for math, and he calculated quickly. “It won’t be an even split, since Tim and me’ll be doin’ the actual heisting,” he said. “But I figure a look-out’s gotta be worth fifteen, twenty percent. Be good money. Easy. You could do something with that.”
Dallas didn’t elaborate, but Johnny knew what he meant. Money would buy a warm coat and a hot meal when his folks threw him out. It could be money, maybe to rent a room at the Y, where they didn’t ask so many questions. Money to get away from his drunken old man and his whippings and his screeching mother.
Dally pushed himself off the park bench and poked a bony finger at Johnny. “Meet me back here, right here, tonight at nine. Tim will jimmy the lock open, we’ll wait until that barber shop next door closes, and we’ll go. Savvy?”
“Sure, Dal,” Johnny said, a little woodenly. “Savvy.”
**************************************
“Hey, Johnnycake!” Soda called from his prone position on the sofa as Johnny pushed open the front door of the Curtis house. “What’s shakin’?”
Johnny nodded in response. Ponyboy was sitting at the kitchen table, doing homework as Darry stirred pots on the stove, a dishrag slung over one shoulder. There was something about the sight that always made Johnny want to smile, but he didn’t dare. Two-Bit had once cheerily called Darry “Betty Crocker” and ended up face down in the dirt outside the back door.
He sat next to Ponyboy. “Hey.”
“Hey. You goin’ the rally tonight?”
Johnny looked at him blankly, then realized what Pony was talking about – the pep rally at school to kick off homecoming weekend. He snorted, then felt badly as Pony’s face reddened. That girl would be there, Johnny realized, that Carol, who Pony liked.
“Y’all can come with us,” Soda called.
“With you and Sandy? No, thanks.”
“I don’t wanna go at all,” Soda went on merrily. “But Sandy does, so maybe it’ll get me somewhere later.”
He leered at them. Pony started to laugh and Johnny went crimson. “Anyway,” Ponyboy said when he recovered, “Darry says I can’t go alone. Though I don’t know why,” he added pointedly.
“I ain’t fighting with you about this,” Darry said evenly, not even turning from the stove. “I already told you twice. Find a buddy or stay home.”
“Find a buddy, what am I, in first grade?” Pony muttered. “Anyway, Johnny, y’all wanna go?”
“I can’t,” Johnny said quietly. “I’m helping Dally with a job.”
Darry slammed a pot lid on the counter, making both boys jump. Soda looked over from the couch. “Have you completely lost your mind?” he demanded. “You’re helping Dallas with a job?”
It was a tone of voice Johnny had heard him use on Ponyboy, and even sometimes on Soda, but it had never been hurled in his direction before. He slumped in his chair, wondering if Darry was going to haul him right out of it.
“Dallas hasn’t ever worked an honest day in his life. Don’t let you mix him up in something you’ll regret.”
“Dally says --”
“Good Lord, Johnny, ain’t you smarter than to listen to everything Dallas Winston says?” Darry snapped. He sat at the table with the younger boys, taking a deep breath, trying not to scare them. “Look, Dal’s my buddy too. But he’s got a record, and he’s done hard time, and that isn’t something you want to mix yourself up in. You’re just as smart as Pony here. Y’all help each other graduate.”
“I ain’t going to go to college,” Johnny said.
Darry looked astonished. “Why, that doesn’t matter,” he said. “Don’t you want something better for yourself than robbing and cheating people? Don’t you want to be able to look yourself in the eye?”
Johnny shrugged, trying his best to look unconcerned.
“You have enough strikes against you already,” Darry said bluntly. “Don’t be looking for trouble.”
He turned to Ponyboy. “And you. Don’t you even think about doing something so stupid.”
“Jeez, Darry, wait until I do something before you yell at me,” Pony groused. Darry clapped him briefly on the shoulder before standing to return to the stove.
Johnny stood abruptly. “I gotta go,” he muttered, and was out the door before any of the Curtises could stop him.
“Why’d you have to yell at him, Darry?” Pony complained.
“Because Johnny’s a good kid,” Darry answered, all trace of anger gone. “And if’n I don’t, who will?”
*********************************
Four hours later, Dallas was whistling his way back into the park. He hadn’t noticed either the troubled look in Johnny’s eye or the hesitation in his voice, so it was a complete surprise to him when Johnny told him, eyes fixed firmly on the dying weeds at the base of the bench, that he wasn’t coming along.
In fact, Dallas was certain he hadn’t heard correctly. He looked at Johnny in astounded awe, an expression that would have been comical on most hoods, but looked dangerous, like everything else, on Dally.
“Come again?”
“I said I ain’t goin’ with you.”
“Johnny Cade,” Dallas said in wonder. “You goin’ chicken on me?”
Johnny’s head shot up. “Aww, it ain’t that. Come on, you know it ain’t.”
Dallas did know – but he couldn’t fathom what else it might be. There was a long uncomfortable silence.
Dallas nearly fell off the bench in shock when Johnny told him quietly, “Darry says it’s a bad idea.”
“What? Wait a minute – hold the – what did you say? ” Dallas was fairly spluttering. “Curtis said it was a bad idea, so now all of a sudden you’re out? You’re out?”
Johnny had never been afraid of Dally before, but he held his ground. “It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t like he said I wasn’t allowed or nothing, he don’t have that right. But he said some things that made sense, Dally, he --”
“I said some things that made sense,” Dally growled.
Johnny sighed. “They been good to me, Dal, you know they have,” he said softly. “Hell, if’n it weren’t for them, I’d freeze to death sleepin’ out in the winter. Seems like a small thank you, you know?”
“You do this job, you’ll the money to get away.”
“I reckon. But I’ll bring me along.”
Dallas had no idea what to say to that. He wasn’t even sure he completely understood what Johnny was trying to tell him. Finally, he just mumbled, “Well, fucking hell, Johnnycake” and slunk off to tell Tim they needed a new lookout man.
Johnny lit a cigarette with a sigh. He tipped back his head and looked at the stars, wondering idly if Ponyboy had gone to rally. Wondering if Darry had been right. It felt right -- even it was easy money, it wasn’t honest money. He didn’t want to end up like his old man, who wasn’t a thief, but was as dishonest man in so many other ways.
If something sounds too good to be true, dear, it likely is. Old saying, but the old sayings last because they’re true.
Johnny suddenly remembered where he’d heard that saying – Mrs. Curtis. A small smile came to his face. Sometimes, he supposed, the right answer was no.
end
. Pony's comment was funny (the 'wait for me to do something before you yell' one), and what really stood out was Darry's subtle gesture afterward, when he patted Ponyboy's shoulder.