May Rumble

[zevie]

Joker’s Wild

Hahaha, it’s a sad, sad day when you can’t even write “c*cked an eyebrow” without an asterisk.

I really enjoyed this ficlet! It was powerful in the way of a slow burn. As fiercely sad as it is to see the injustice from the boys’ point of view, the helplessness – and hopelessness – seen through Sikone’s eyes was a pretty big downer. He’s beaten by his own side…that sucks.

I love your originals. They’re so fully developed. I like that their voices are just as tough and hard as the boys they deal with – they inhabit the same world, after all. I like that they’re not complete outsiders to the greaser culture. Ponyboy says something about adults not knowing what goes on with kids, hahaha, which, as soon as you’re past the “kid” age, you realise is a bunch of baloney. Maybe they’re not wise to the details, but they get the gist.

I love Sikone; I think everyone can relate a bit to him, in feeling at least. At the end of the day, you just realise you can’t help everyone who deserves it and you just want to retreat a bit. I like that he’s defeated a bit with Two-Bit’s situation. He was a bit of a pushover by the end though. I don’t think Two-Bit’s story would hold up in court…he just plain shouldn’t have been driving, lol. He’d probably get off easy, though.

O’Lafferty is a nicely crafted jerk. Even in this short fic he’s rounded enough to be a believable a** though. I think I recognise these guys, haha. (I actually thought she mentioned O’Lafferty in the book, heh. They really seem to fit in.)

The snippet about Dallas was great, and I liked seeing Two-Bit’s kryptonite in this. I love seeing these moments in the boys’ pasts where their defences aren’t fully developed, and you can just see how it leads to their future characters…I hope that made sense, lol.

Yeep, I’ve gone char-crazy again. Sorry. These are just my impressions from your fic, if that's useful at all, heh.

There were a couple of small spelling mistakes in this that I’ll point out cause I noticed them: “all the way up to sergeant”; “snake trying to hypnotise it”; “disentangle the junior pugilists.”

[Tensleep]

Joker's Wild

I thought this was an interesting piece. Not many like to tackle Two-Bit with the cops. Normally we only get to see how they interact with Dallas and that's kind of sad. So kudos on the new POV! I enjoyed reading something new!

One of the things I really liked was how much older Two-Bit seemed to be. Confidence does wonders, apparently. It fits his character and sets up the image he must have had growing up. I love how O'Lafferty managed to sucker punch him with his dad. That one must sting. Like Zevie said, Sikone was beat before he got the chance to say his piece and that I'm willing to wager is part of the unique partnership he and O'Lafferty have. Still, man, being cut down like that...still has to suck.

I really enjoyed this and hope to read more from you as new challenges appear! Thanks for participating!

See ya in the funny papers!!!

Tens

[Nittanylizard]

Say You Love Me, by latch22:

I really enjoyed the anonimity of this one - we have no idea who she is. The other aspect that stood out to me was that she sounds like she's at least reasonably intelligent. That just made it all the more intriguing and realistic, that she understands how Dallas is, and knows that he's there for one thing only, but there is that lingering hope that he'll someday understand that what she really wants from him is some form of emotional attachment.

On a more technical note, I thought it was good that you didn't have too many dialogue tags. It made the conversations move along at the speed they were intended without distractions.

Very nicely done, I liked it!

Liz

[Nittanylizard]

Misstep, by zevie:

I did the same thing as Tens, thinking it was a guy at first and his wife wanted to change the sheets (awesome little detail there), but you got into the character very quickly, so it worked fine.

I loved the story, how she's ultimately just a friendly mom in an affluent neighborhood. The part about the iced tea brought back to me how my dad used to take a big glass of iced tea outside on hot summer days for the big guy who ran the street cleaner.

The last part of the story, with Soda and Pony coming, was great. I enjoyed the dialogue, and even if I hadn't known the characters I think I would have been able to picture Soda as a happy kind of person.

Liz

[Nittanylizard]

Joker's Wild, by artemisrex:

Great portrayal of Two-Bit a few years younger. I could picture this gangly sort of kid with an inside-joke smile slunched there in the chair, kind of excited to see what was going to happen to him.

I like the push and pull relationship you had going between Sikone and O'Lafferty, and that almost constant tension. Something about Sikone's thoughts after he sent O'Lafferty away was really sad, like if he had been able to voice some of his thoughts about Two-Bit before his partner opened his mouth he wouldn't have lost the kid's trust. Really nice job there.

Oh, and going back a bit, I thought the conversation Sikone had with Two-Bit about stealing the car was hysterical. I could only imagine that the guy would have come across a lot of troublemakers over the years, so it didn't even rattle him.

Liz

[Nittanylizard]

I just finished this this afternoon, but I'll post now since I'm sitting here:

What Comes Around

“So what’s next, Edith?”

“Custody hearing.” Edith fell into step beside The Judge, impressing him once again with her ability to not only maintain order in the office, but to physically keep up with him. She refused to admit to her age, but must have been at least in her early sixties. “Judge Wallace called and cancelled your lunch meeting.”

“Reschedule for…”

“Thursday,” she said. “It’s the only day you have free this week. I’ve already taken care of it.”

“Thank you, Edith.” The Judge opened the file folder that Edith handed him and paged through it as the two of them maintained a quick pace up the hallway. Curtis. Darrel Curtis. Twenty years old. Two brothers. He committed the facts to memory as he scanned the file.

The young man and his attorney were waiting outside of The Judge’s chambers. “Step inside,” he offered, leading the way into the darkened room. “Let’s have a little daylight now, shall we?” The burgundy drapes were convenient sometimes, but lent a somber feel to the ancient room.

Brief pleasantries were exchanged, and The Judge leaned back into his creaking leather chair to finish checking over the paperwork. The room fell silent while he read. Others might rush through to avoid tense lags, he thought, but I’ll not let a single detail slip through.

They were from the other side of town. He glanced up at the young man. At the very least, he didn’t have his hair plastered flat with handfuls of grease like most of the rest of his neighborhood. He chuckled. The things they came up with. He saw them every day from his bench, and every day he wondered all over again if any of them realized how ridiculous they looked. Thank the stars his own boys were above such nonsense.

Parents, dead. Too bad, he thought. Without them, he had to insert the leverage himself. He wasn’t conceited, but The Judge had seen a thing or two of what happened to kids who had lost their parental guidance – especially when they were the product of blue-collar breeding.

He sighed. The younger ones were, what…thirteen and sixteen. All boys. Three boys, living alone, with nobody left to put the fear of God into them for their misdeeds. Damned shame.

Darrel Curtis gazed across the mahogany desk with what looked like stoic indifference. He’s not dumb, The Judge decided. He knows he’s on shaky ground here, but he’s not letting on. Good for him. Maybe he has a chance in hell of keeping control of two young teenaged boys. But then again…

Naturally, The Judge wanted to keep them together. Last thing he needed was to tack any needless financial drains on his record – Simpson had had a field day before the last election, calculating how much state resources had been expended under The Judge’s heavy handed sentencing. It was all about the numbers anymore, and if you didn’t understand that, then you didn’t belong on the bench. No, there was no need to send them off to a boys’ home. Love of God, the youngest one would be there for nearly five years. All that, when they had a perfectly able and apparently willing brother to take on the burden.

That, of course, took him back to the parental guidance issue.

Employed, fifty-two hours per week. That wasn’t good. Where they lived, they were as likely to get themselves into prison as The Judge’s children were to get themselves into college, parents or not. This boy could have all the respect in the world from his brothers, but if he wasn’t around to demand it…

The other last thing The Judge needed was to have more crime in the streets that brought more boys into his courtroom, especially ones he himself had left out there. But even if the oldest had every intention of keeping his brothers out of trouble, where would he gain the leverage?

No, The Judge had experience with boys. He knew how they worked, especially when given free reign. It was up to him now, it was his responsibility to make sure these boys made it to adulthood in one piece, and it had to happen now, today, in this room. He would give this young man the control he needed to put the pressure on, to keep his brothers in line. Not a day would go by that they wouldn’t all three remember that they could lose each other at any time.

“Mr. Curtis,” The Judge said, leaning forward to shake the young man’s hand and noting that his eyes shadowed a hint of startled grief at being referred to by his father’s title, “I’ll tell you what I will do. I will allow you to take custody of your brothers, on one condition.” He could almost feel the relief that washed through the boy. “You keep them out of trouble. That means that if either one of them, or you, for that matter, steps out of line even a hair, your brothers will find themselves placed immediately in a boys’ home.” A cold day in Hell that would be, but young Darrel Curtis didn’t need to know that. In fact, he had to believe it, if his brothers were going to. He had to be the parent now. He had to frighten them enough to keep them in line, and he could only do that if he himself were frightened. “Do you understand? I’ll have social services set up a schedule to look in on you, make sure everything is going alright.”

Although he never granted more than a polite smile and a thank you, the young man left the room with visibly less worry on his shoulders, and The Judge congratulated himself on once again finding the path of least resistance for all. He smiled, certain that he would never hear from those boys again. A little pressure and some due respect for authority could only be a good thing.

Edith bustled into the room with a stack of files. “Three cases for this afternoon, but your meeting with the lawyers in the Donovan case was cancelled.”

The Judge took the folders from his secretary. “Thank you, Edith. And I’ll tell you what – since we’re all done for the morning, why don’t you go ahead and take an early lunch? I’d like to head over to the dealer and take a look at that car Bobby wants.”

Edith gave an appreciative smile. “Well now, I think I might just do that. I’ll see you this afternoon, Judge Sheldon.”

[zevie]

Liz: Hmm, I dunno if we are supposed to respond to reviews, but I usually do on ff.net, if just to thank the reviewer for their time.

So…thanks for the comments! I still am kinda weirdly proud of the guy thing, but I should probably put something in the opening to declare her gender, haha.

What Comes Around:

Niiiiice. I love reading stories from a hard a**’s perspective. For a part of this, I was kind of wondering why you didn’t give The Judge a name – the part where he’s debating what to do. He seems like a nice guy. And then he becomes this old-school, hard-nosed, scare-tactic using being and The Judge has a nicely ominous feel to it that fit real well with how we would see him. (Not that I think he’s a bad guy, necessarily.)

And then, of course, I actually got to the part where you gave him a name.

Holy S***!

That was a very cool effect. Very. At first I was like: “What? Why name him now?” And then, click, click, BOOM. (I swear, I actually heard this.)

I had to read back over this story, and man, were there some cool fore-shadowing things. I love the irony – “He smiled, certain that he would never hear from those boys again.” Hahaha. In the sad way, I mean. (Laughing seems to be my default emotional response, sorry.)

So, I wish I could actually say something intelligent or helpful, but I’d rather just bask in to gloriousness of that click, click, boom, right now.

Nice job.

[Tensleep]

What comes around

Liz, I'm chuckling. I knew it was him! Well, I had a hunch....And then bam! It is him. I agree with Zevie - real nice irony. And going to look at the car... man, I wouldn't have picked up on that one without having read the other stuff. Nice connection. I like this! Lots of familiar characterization!

I liked how he seems to be working both sides - being responsible and going along with what Simpson had done. That says a lot for him and how he has a double face and life of sorts...I also like the idea of a quiet meeting with the judge rather than a big court affair where Darry had to fight hand over fist to keep his baby brothers. This has that realism and it fit in well.

Plus how he knew that he had to scare Darry to scare Soda and Pony by osmosis. It fits with what we know of the family dynamic and Darry being 'Superman'. Man, I liked it!

Glad you contributed and I hope to see more! Too long since I got updates!

See ya in the funny papers!!!
Tens

Oh, and thanks for your comments on The Cooler Kings. I laughed at that line, too!

[printandpolish]

Well, Tens, your rumble is working, because I had no intentions of doing this. I’m trying desperately to finish the last chapter of my Numb3rs story and yet, this came out this morning.

The narrator is not *quite* a stranger, but I think she fits the rule. I don’t usually write in the present tense – good exercise. You guys will have to let me know if it works. I promise to read and review all your stories as well.

Impressions

I put down my books and slump on my stool – as far as I could slump, anyway, without giving the boys a view clear up my skirt. I don’t mind school so much, as a rule, but I hate biology. It’s all disgusting and useless. I’m going to be a secretary. It makes no difference to me what frogs and worms do in their spare time.

As my classmates file in, Janet comes up to me, practically purring. “So guess what?”

“What?”

“That boy that Dottie likes? That Randy Adderson?” She leans forward. “He’s supposed to be seeing that Marcia girl, right? But Marcia’s friend Betty told Donna that Marcia might break up with him.”

She smiles smugly. I roll my eyes. Dottie likes every boy – every Soc boy, that is. A Soc boy is from the nicer part of town – they’re on the football team and have money and some of them even have their own cars. There was a bunch in our biology class, always raising heck and acting like they were better than everyone else. I know the greasers – the poorer kids – think I’m one, too, but I sure think I don’t act like them. Least I certainly hope not.

“Do you want to go to the Nightly Double on Friday?” Janet asks. “Dottie said she wanted to see if we could bump into that Randy.”

Janet is a plain girl, kind of plump, and she doesn’t get many dates. She thinks it’s because she’s fat. I think it’s because she’s always talking about everyone else. Sometimes Donna will say, “Telephone, telegraph, tell-a-Janet” because really, you can’t tell her anything you don’t want the whole school to know.

This is exactly why I’ve never spoken to her about Ponyboy Curtis, who sits next to me and may just be the sweetest boy I know. For someone who complains everyone judges her by her appearance, Janet still does the same to everyone else.

Pony lopes into the room just then, as if I’ve summoned him, even though the bell is about to ring. Janet watches me watch him and hisses at me, “He’s a common hoodlum. I don’t know why they let him in this class.”

“He gets better grades than you do,” I say. He’s smart – he’s a year younger than the rest of us because he got put up a grade. I can’t help but be impressed with that.

“You quit makin’ eyes at him,” she warns. “He’ll get the wrong idea.”

I startle. Makin’ eyes? Am I?

“He ain’t even the best lookin’ one,” Janet finishes as she goes to her own stool. “If you wanna be all sweet on a hood, at least pick the dreamy one. His brother, down at the DX --”

I wave her away as Pony takes his seat next to me and glances my way. I take a deep breath and speak calmly, as if the sight of him doesn’t make my heart pound.

“Good morning, Ponyboy,” I say.

“’lo, Carol.” A slow flush creeps up his neck. I watch as he carefully opens his notebook and finds his pencil. “How – how are you?”

“Very well, thank you for inquiring,” I answer. I’m trying to practice using bigger words. I think it sounds more ladylike and more grown up.

For a minute I think I’ve overdone it and came off as snooty and snobbish, but then I see a small smile cross his face. “Why, that’s fine,” he responds.

Pony is a nice boy, no matter what Janet and Donna say. I know he scares all my girlfriends – even Dottie, who’s completely boy-crazy – but I still like him. He doesn’t dress very well and he doesn’t say very much and he’s got that awful funny name, but he doesn’t cause trouble in class and he minds his manners. That’s more than I can say for that Randy Adderson that Dottie likes.

And I know Janet thinks I’m silly, but between you and me, I really think Ponyboy’s kind of dreamy himself. He has terrific eyes – they’re this dark green color, nearly gray. And he has long brown hair that’s almost red, squared off in the back but shaggy in the front and sides. I wonder what it might be like to run my hands through it, if’n it didn’t have all that grease in it. Sometimes, when Mr. Labree is going on and on about the life cycles of toads (blech), I peek at him out of the corner of my eye.

I feel my cheeks get red at the thought of it. I can feel Ponyboy stealing little looks at me and I pretend to look for something in my purse.

I think he likes me.

I didn’t know Pony before school started, but I knew who he was – he was the orphan boy. About six months back, his parents were killed in a car accident. It was in all the papers. It was a horrible thing – his daddy was taking his mama somewhere when somebody ran a light and drove right into them. I heard they died right away, not even enough time for Pony and his brothers to say goodbye.

Now Ponyboy’s oldest brother, whose name is Danny or something like that, is in charge of him and his brother Sodapop (who is very handsome, like Janet says) dropped out of school to take a job. Sometimes I think it might be tuff to be able to make your own rules, not have to worry about your parents butting into your life every second, but I think I’d miss my mama.

“Today, class, we’re going to dissect a worm,” Mr. Labree announces. There’s a mix of reaction – the boys hoot, the girls moan, and Ponyboy just looks at his textbook. “Choose a partner and come get a tray.”

Ponyboy looks at me shyly. “Would you want --” he starts, when David Drake, sitting two seats over, interrupts him.

“She thinks you’re trash, grease, she ain’t gonna pair up with you,” he sneers. “Carol, come on over here.”

Ponyboy gives this little gasp and I fix David with the most withering stare I can manage. “She thinks no such thing,” I say frostily. “Of course I’ll be your partner, Ponyboy.”

He stands up and goes to the front of the room to get our worm tray as the boys behind me laugh at David. He’s not a thug. He’s a poor boy with some bad breaks, but he’s not a thug. The north side has some rough neighborhoods, and I know some of the boys in Pony’s gang have actually been in the slammer, but he’s been nothing but sweet to me.

He returns and sets the tray between us. A big, fat, dead worm sits on the wax and I look at it woefully, feeing my stomach turn over.

“I’ll do it, if you want,” he says gently. “You can take notes.”

“Okay.”

I bend to fish a pen out of my purse. As I straighten up, I hear Janet gasp. I look at her, but she’s looking past me – and so is David, and Donna, and all the other kids, and then David snickers.

I turn. Ponyboy has a knife. A real, honest-to-God switchblade. He flicks it open with a practiced motion and slices through the worm.

I’m shocked to have been so wrong. He’s a poor boy, yes, sweet – but he carries a knife? That’s what criminals do, right – carry weapons. He carries a knife to school. For what reason, I cannot imagine. For protection? I know the Soc boys aren’t nice to the greaser boys, but they wouldn’t really attack them. Then why would he need to keep it on him? Why does he even have it?

“The razor wouldn’t cut,” he starts, but his smile fades as he sees the look on my face. “Carol? Are you all right?”

I back away so quickly my elbow hits the dissection pan. Its contents fly upward and stain my yellow blouse as Ponyboy’s face turns crimson.

“They are right,” I gasp. “You are a hood.”

The End

[Nittanylizard]

printandpolish, Impressions:

It took me about halfway in to realize who she was. I think it came out great in present tense, and I think you did a great job with the story, period. I've thought of doing that POV before, just a one-shot like this, but could never quite see the whole series of events leading up to it.

I liked that she wasn't a soc, and the banter between her and her friend was great. Her thoughts about Ponyboy sounded realistic, too. Great job. You should post it on ffnet! (or send them over here to read it, ).

Liz

[printandpolish]

Some reviews ...

Tens: The Cooler King: First of all, I love the title. I was halfway through when I realized who the cops were – I just love Pripich. Mostly because I think he has a cool name.

I liked the repetition a lot. It worked very well, but it made me really sad for Dally. He never had a chance. He was going to die under a streetlight since he was ten years old.

Your talent has always been in your details – Dallas’ aversion to the handcuffs, Mrs. Shepard’s reaction, the rubber ball – all of that makes sense in the context of the book. Excellent job.

Latch: Say you love me: You know what I like most about this? It explains why the heck Dallas and Sylvia were together in the first place. I’ve never understood that – I believe it, because it’s canon, so it’s the “real thing” that happened, but I don’t get it. This helps me get it. Awesome.

Oh, and “I don’t even remember your name, for Christ’s sake” reminds me that we don’t know her last name, do we? LOL

(A later note: now that I’ve read other reviews, I realize we don’t know who s/he is. I just assumed it was Sylvia!)

Zevie: Misstep: I love this. It’s completely in character for the boys and it’s such a heartbreaking portrayal of Darry. There aren’t enough fics that show how driven and anxious he must have been, all the time. Pony’s POV shows us (understandably so) only that he’s hard. But he was so desperate: "Can't," the boy gasped. "I barely got enough for rent if we wanna eat this month, an' it looks like Pony's gonna need a doctor. Can't seem to get through a night without having one of them dreams." God. I want to buy him Nyquil and feed him soup, poor guy. And how he kept saying, “it ain’t nothing unusual” like he was trying to convince himself. Poor guy.

[printandpolish]

ArtemisRex: Joker's Wild: OK, I should have known this was Two=Bit, but I kept picturing Soda and Steve. All I could think of was the time Soda got picked up for walking on his hands downtown. I really liked how Two-Bit totally shut down when they asked about his dad. I also loved that the cop was wiling to give him a little break.

And the glimpse of little Dally - no wonder he doesn't love anyone but Johnny.

Liz: What comes around: I liked this snippet -- I liked the judge's reasoning, and this happened as I always imagined it did -- I never thought there was a big court battle (I mean, who was Darry fighting? No one.) and it was both sad and realistic that you put in the bit about the funding/state money coming into play. I never believed that the Curtises died and the state immediately separated those boys. I can't believe that would have happened -- and is a great take on how it might have gone down.

I got to the end and thought, "Sheldon. Sheldon. Why do I know that ... oh my GOD!" It's always good when you can make a reader gasp in shock. Post this!

[Tensleep]

Impressions

I'd like to take a moment and say wow. I can't believe I pulled you away from Donny, Charlie and Lyddie! Go me!

But seriously, I Liked it! We all know the story, but we don't know it and that leaves lots of room for interpretation. The tone and the voice of the girl fit so well and seemed believable. It makes me feel bad for Ponyboy. He'll always be judged as long as he lives where he does and keeps the friendships he grew up with. How sad!

Oh, and the present tense worked very well! It gave the story a feeling of motion. I liked that.

Keep up with the awesome work!

See ya in the funny papers!!!

Tens

[zevie]

Impressions

I’m glad you decided to write this after all…I really like this Rumble idea.

I enjoyed this ficlet. I loved the simplicity of the narration, her thought process, and her tone. It gave a very clear idea of her personality, I think. I like that she’s not a mean Socy type, but she’s not completely open-minded either. The uptight quality that she has isn’t something I see done that often with originals (I know she’s not completely originals but still…) or if it is, they’re usually the “bad guy”. It’s so cute that at first she has a crush back on Pony!

Haha, “Danny”…I love it. I get so used to just taking it for granted that everyone knows them (because all of us readers know them so well). I thought that was a really funny detail, haha.

This was a cute little missing scene ficlet. Nice.

P.S. I’m glad you liked Misstep! Thanks for the comments.

[Tensleep]

Hey guys, it's about twenty minutes until the 19th of May, so this concludes the rumble! Be on the look out for next month's topic and thank you to everyone who posted, reviewed, replied and just came out for the proffered hot dogs. As you may have guessed, there were no hot dogs, but thanks all the same!

Here's hoping this becomes a monthly trend!

See ya in the funny papers!!!

Tens


May Rumble now closed. Thanks to all who participated. Next Rumble set June 1