When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home. I was wishing I looked like Paul Newman — he looks tough and I don’t — but I guess my own looks aren’t so bad. I have light-brown, almost-red hair and greenish-gray eyes. I wish they were more gray, because I hate most guys that have green eyes, but I have to be content with what I have.

I had a long walk home and no company, but I usually lone it anyway, for no reason except that I like to watch movies undisturbed so I can get into them and live them with the actors. When I see a movie with someone it’s kind of uncomfortable, like having someone read your book over your shoulder. I’m different that way.

I mean, my second-oldest brother, Soda, who is sixteen-going-on-seventeen, never cracks a book at all, and my oldest brother, Darrel, who we call Darry, works too long and hard to be interested in a story or drawing a picture, so I’m not like them. And nobody in our gang digs movies and books the way I do.

Soda tries to understand, at least, which is more than Darry does. But then, Soda is different from anybody; he understands everything, almost. I love Soda more than I’ve ever loved anyone, even Mom and Dad. He’s always happy-go-lucky and grinning, while Darry’s hard and firm and rarely grins at all. But then, Darry’s gone through a lot in his twenty years, grown up too fast. Sodapop’ll never grow up at all.

Greasers can’t walk alone too much or they’ll get jumped, or someone will come by and scream “Greaser!” at them. We get jumped by the Socs — the Socials, the jet set, the West-side rich kids. It’s like the term “greaser,” which is used to class all us boys on the East Side.

We’re poorer than the Socs and the middle class. I reckon we’re wilder, too. Since Mom and Dad were killed in an auto wreck, the three of us get to stay together only as long as we behave. So Soda and I stay out of trouble as much as we can.

I decided I didn’t like it so much, though, when I spotted that red Corvair trailing me. I was almost two blocks from home then, so I started walking a little faster. I had never been jumped, but I had seen Johnny after four Socs got hold of him, and it wasn’t pretty.

I got pretty scared — I’m kind of small for fourteen even though I have a good build, and those guys were bigger than me. I glanced around for a pop bottle or a stick or something, but there was nothing. So I stood there like a bump on a log while they surrounded me.

“Hey, grease,” one said in an over-friendly voice. “We’re gonna do you a favor, greaser. We’re gonna cut all that long greasy hair off.”