Thus Spake Ponyboy

" As I walked out into the bright sunlight from the darkened movie theater, I had two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home." So began S.E. Hinton's THE OUTSIDER'S. I wonder if the original copy I had still exists somewhere, all torn and muddied, leaf eared and note strewn. Just how many readings did I give that great book before finally thinking I'd had enough? Sometime early in the ninth grade was when we two parted. I had grown up by then. Ha. On to other things. Basketball team. Steady girl. Real love this time. No time to be running wild, haunting the home town streets late at night. Time to meet the future. Become a civic minded asset. Sure.
THE OUSIDER'S, with it's cast of hoodlums, was once my opus. It's illuminuos story line of urban teenscape kept my imagination fired. I was pure 'greaser', man. Or, we were, that is. Me and Kurt. Two jd's embodying the characters of Ponyboy, Johnny Cake, Dally, Darry and Sodapop at once and together. We had no real or imagined enemies, like the Greasers had in the Socs, though we often practiced breaking long-necks into jagged street weapons, you know, in case we got jumped. Everything seemed to happen late at night. Our rivals were uneven sidewalks and the slipping of time.
Poorly lit and rutted Warner Street and west side alleys we canvassed with expert footing, meeting his older brother, with his scary buddies, at the backdoor of a college building. An easily pried door gave entranced to the pitch black gymnasium, which, when lit, we'd all attended countless times with our parents and siblings, and countless families, gleefully cheering on the Wildcats in gymnastics, basketball, or even the rare boxing meet, we being one of only three colleges to have a team back then. But by the time one of the older guys hit the lights on, a rush of adrenaline and realization kicked in and let us know that the glee was gone. We weren't laughing anymore. Kurt and I were playing with the big boys.
Soon, a screeching noise brought a folded trampoline across the thickly lacquered floor. A wheel had cinched, so now a deep gash was left in a sweeping arc, ending underneath one of the raised baskets. Deep trouble, juvy time for certain. No time to care. Two more trampolines are brought over and set up. Must get it set up pronto, while someone scouts for balls and another the switch that lowered those damn hoops.
At just past midnight five fierce delinquents in drunken reverie, were lobbing alley-oops to one another, catching a ball high after a backward flip, dunking the rock home. No need for intoxicants then. Pubescent hormonal jolts of energy, the likes of which no performance enhancing drugs of today could hope to match, gave us wings to soar for hours. If only we'd never get caught.
The excitement of the perfect pass and the following slam dunk was immediately replaced by a fear that you might have just got your last shot off. It was your turn to give the alley oop. Or maybe shag the errant miss. Perhaps to take a turn at the play by play. All was emotionally charged intensity. Exciting and fleeting. We sailed through the air knowing full well our sins as we bounced about and tried our best to stifle wild laughter. The danger grew. More noises heard. And pretty soon, the inevitable shout out, "RUN"!
Once out the doors it was five different swaths cut through the campus. From five directions we'd meet back up, panting, heart thumping, down into the basement bedroom of Kurt's oldest brother. He, away from college, gave over this room to us in these times. To gather our breaths and share some good laughs. That book we loved brought home all those thrills, and also the quickly disappearing nature of our youthful escapades. Like Johnny says to Pony: "Nothing gold can stay." From floor to ceiling on the wall opposite me, a life-sized poster of another teenage hero, Alice Cooper. A black and white image of his nightly gallows swing. Stay gold...