Ten year old Dallas Winston was anything but quiet when he stumbled into the Curtis's house at three in the morning, half blind because his right eye was swollen shut.  On his way to the bathroom at the back of the house, he almost tripped over Soda’s shoes, which were tossed randomly in front of the door like they were kicked off in a hurry, which, knowing Sodapop Curtis, was exactly what had happened.  Then he bumped into the coffee table, which rattled everything that was piled up on the surface, and then ran into the hallway’s wall and the bathroom’s door frame.
Dally didn’t bother closing the bathroom door, so the light illuminated the hallway enough to wake up one of the three brothers, and maybe their parents, too.  Unless the racket he had made had already woken them.  In truth, he secretly hoped that one of the Curtis’s would come venturing out to see what had made the noises, but he would never admit that he desired some attention.
Why the door was unlocked, Dally didn’t know.  Chrissakes, he thought to himself as he scrambled onto the counter, I could’a been a murderer or somethin’,   With three kids, you’d think that the Curtis’s would have been a little more careful.  That dog didn’t seem to be doing such a great job with home security, and Darry’s and his dad’s boasts about beating anyone who tried to rob them sounded like all bark and no bite.
Once Dallas had succeeded in getting on the counter, he examined his face where his dad had slugged him the most.  His dad didn’t normally beat him.  Dally was usually ignored if he went home, but sometimes, if his dad was drunk. . .
Dally felt like his face was a slab of clay for his dad to shape and carve.  He didn’t look like himself.  Both cheeks were different colors than the pale tan they were intended to be.  One was red with blood, which had dried to his skin and itched like hell for the past hour, and the other was several shades of black, blue, and purple from bruises that traveled from his forehead to his chin.  The pale pink of his lips split to show more blood.  His one open ice-blue eye shone transparent and empty, like he was trying to distance himself from the pain and aching all over his body, which he was.  His mop of messy hair stuck out in odd angles, the white-blonde color darkened from dirt.
Dally groaned from the pain and the sudden sickness he felt after seeing his mangled reflection.  His body had been in worse condition before, from beatings from his dad when he was really hammered and from those Socs that especially liked jumping someone smaller than their own size.  Dallas thought they were cowards, as well as every greaser on the east side of Tulsa did.  Instead of giving Dallas, who was eight at the time and in the prime of his greaser-hood, a scar, cut, and bruise on every place on his body not covered with cloth or leather, they could have at least tried to jump someone older and more experienced, like Buck Merrill.
Dallas remembered that first time he got jumped.  He was small for and eight-year-old boy and just beginning to be considered one of the greasers.  If only he had enough brains and knowledge for the streets that he had now, he would have carried a blade and probably prevented the whole mess. 
Dally had passed the car trailing him for the last block or two as a mere coincidence, and only kept walking and snapping his gum, his hands buried in the too-big brown leather jacket he’d taken from the couch, where his dad probably tossed it.  He knew he’d be in for taking it later, but he wasn’t going home for a while, seeing as he’d be staying at the Curtis's, and it was cold.
He finally was aware of the car when the doors slammed and footsteps slapped against the pavement behind him.  Rough hands grabbed his upper arms and dragged him back, into the alleyway he had just passed.  Dally tried to shout, but before he could a rag was shoved into his open mouth.
Just because he wasn’t wise about the streets didn’t mean he couldn’t fight, and he put up a fight that those Socs certainly wouldn’t forget.  Even though each of the three Socs that had ganged up on him left with at least one broken bone and blood coming out of their mouths and noses, Dallas had been beaten worse.
One had carried a switchblade that had been flipped out in the first few minutes of the fight.  He could still remember the flash of the silver blade as a beam of sunlight hit it, and the whooshing sound the object had made as it slashed through the air and his skin.  By the end of the fight, Dally was doubled over, blood unceasingly spilling out of a gash on his neck -- a scar that he would carry for the rest of his life.  Dallas saw it as a reminder of that day, and how even though he couldn’t walk without a limp for the month following, he had still won.  Two black eyes and bruises trailing along almost every inch of his body, and cuts and scraps that could be found anywhere from his elbows to his knees were what had made the Curtis’ parents drive him to the hospital when he stumbled into their house, half dead to the world.
“Dallas?”  The sudden appearance of Mrs. Curtis jerked him from his memory, and he stared at her with a wide eye.  He hadn’t heard her approach, and he was already skittish from the brawl and beating over the TV at his house earlier. 
She was Sodapop’s female twin, with the same actor’s good looks and cheerful personality.  The blonde hair that tumbled down her shoulders was slightly messed from her pillow.  She had the same age-concealing skin that each of her kids had inherited.  She looked like she was in her mid-twenties instead of thirty-three.  Her previously bright and reckless eyes were now dark with anger.  Dally knew that this woman knew the score around this neighborhood, and he knew that she knew what had happened.
Mrs. Curtis swore under her breath as she made her way into the small room.  “You keep going back to your place and then you keep coming here looking worse than you had the last time.”  She wasn't accusing Dally of trying to go home, but only wallowing in disbelief that anyone would even dare lay a threatening hand on their kid, no matter how drunk or how dumb.  Dally knew she didn't intend to sound as if he had done anything wrong, but his mind still fixed itself on that thought.  Why does he go back?  He thought that maybe he was trying to fix his life, to make sure he wouldn't end up mean and careless, like the Shepard kid  who lived downtown was turning.  Dally couldn't live like that.  It would kill him.  But no matter how many times he told himself this, he knew it was already too late.  He was going to be exactly like Tim Shepard.
Dally looked at Mrs. Curtis with one saddened eye as she dabbed at his blood-dried cheek with a wad of wet toilet paper. Maybe he’d take advantage of the offers that she had been giving him to live with her and her family.  He liked the Curtis’s, even though Soda was too rowdy for his liking and Pony always had his nose in a book or his eyes on a movie, but Darry was alright.  Their parents were great.  Both of them were caring, which was exactly what he wanted most of the time, although he refused to admit it.  Dally needed the attention that he had been neglected of for the past ten years.  He needed someone to care for him other than himself, which he had been doing for far too long.  Dallas Winston wanted love.
Mrs. Curtis tossed the reddened wad of paper in the small trash bin by the sink and helped Dally off the counter.  Dally looked out of the door and saw a small figure scurry into the darkness of the shadows.
“Sodapop,” Mrs. Curtis sighed.  “Go back to bed.”
“Can’t sleep,” said a high, childish voice from the shadows.  Sodapop Curtis emerged from the darkness and bounded happily into the bathroom, the large smile that seemed to be fused to his mouth most of the time faded when he saw Dally’s face.  “Golly, what happened to you?” he gasped, his bright brown eyes sweeping over the bruises.
Before Dally answered, Soda was lifted into his mother’s arms.  “Bed,” she said, her voice firm, but a hint of laughter lingering in her voice.  Soda groaned as she carried him to his bedroom.
Dally stepped out of the bathroom and into the hallway, watching Mrs. Curtis's figure disappear into the darkness of the shadows in the hallway, then becoming illuminated again by the small light that was  plugged into Soda’s bedroom wall.  Soda explained the small light to him one day that it kept the monsters away.  Apparently Soda was scared for Darry, his thirteen-year-old brother, since he didn't believe in these monsters and he refused to have one of the lights.  But he and Pony would always be safe, Soda had said.  The lights in their rooms would keep them safe.  For a while, Dallas had trusted Soda about the monsters that would come at night, but then he discovered that the real monsters were the people you walk among every day -- like his dad.
Dally was about to go and meet that monster in a few minutes.