The year is 1960. Heroic Ponyboy Curtis and Johnny Cade rescued five school children from a burning building. Many were interested in their story, but none got a chance to talk to them personally. In Ponyboy’s opinion, “They asked too many questions too fast, and got me mixed up. If you want to know the truth, I wasn’t really feeling real good in the first place. Kind of sick, really. And I’m scared of policemen anyways.” (Hinton 100.) He was a little distraught and weary after the traumatic event and not in the mood. A few weeks later, after everything had settled down, our newspaper journalists went to the Curtis home and got the full story, from the beginning to the action to the aftermath. On Jay Mountain in Mt. Windrixville, the abandoned …show more content…
His back had been in flames, and Jerry Wood, the school teacher, tells him, “The jacket saved you from a bad burning, maybe saved your life.” (Hinton 94.) Dally is in good health and only burned his arm. Unfortunately, Johnny wasn’t as lucky. Jerry reports to him that a piece of timber hit his back. Later, Johnny is in the hospital. The doctors give the bad news that he has a broken back and third-degree burns, and, “Even if he lived he’d be crippled for the rest of his life.” (Hinton 102.) This makes the gang very sad. The gang is the group of Greasers, including Johnny, who always stick together, so Johnny being crippled will make him unable to run around with them or fight. Over the course of the next few days, Johnny is weak and in bad condition. He cannot feel anything below his lower back. A couple days later, they have the rumble, the fight between the greasers and another group, the Socs. They win in honor of Johnny but a few days later, Johnny dies. This affects Dally emotionally because Johnny was the only person he really loved. Dally robs a grocery store, bluffs having a loaded gun, and is shot and killed by a policeman, which is what he hoped would happen. This course of events affected all the greasers