Outsiders Epilogue (trimmed)
See more relevant to this at: wordenhome.neocities.org/rd/sp/outepi.html

        I just wish people would get their act together and stop fighting. They're fighting so much! I'm not even taking sides and they're pulling me apart! This whole Greaser vs. Soc thing has driven me mad. And that's why I'm leaving it behind...
        This is the last entry in my personal journal from those times. Those times after those kids took my best friend, those times when we jumped Greasers for joy, those times when I was hiding in cars crying, being torn apart by it all. Those times when two sides sick of fighting thought that one big fight would change everything for them. It never did.
        I saw myself as lucky at the time. I had said about fighting, “I'm sick of it because it doesn't do any good.” I believed that (and still do), so I hid. (the wrong thing to do) After Bob, my best friend, was killed, I ran away and hid anywhere I could to escape the division. I didn't have to worry about getting into fights or being insulted. I could just live on my own in peace. I didn't care anymore! I didn't care about people, their fighting, what cars they had or clothes they wore, when people were killed in fights... i just didn't care. I never noticed. Of course, it eventually ended and I had to go back to living with people. But hiding on my own I forgot what people are. I just saw cold-blooded murder machines. Even if they had stopped fighting in the decade I was gone, I still hated them just as much as I had before. So I still regret hiding like that.
        It doesn't matter much anymore, though, because one day while I was gone they just stopped fighting. It's a pretty boring ending, actually. They just grew up, and one-by-one everyone found a job or a girl somewhere and they left. That's all. Almost nobody even remembers a Greaser/Social division anymore. It may as well never have happened. I'm trying to bring attention to it again, because if we forget that piece of history it's bound to be repeated, but I am glad that it's not a problem anymore. I can go around in peace without half the city being scared of me and thinking I'm some evil thing out to get them.
        About Bob: the guy who killed him... I cannot speak his name ever again, even though I know exactly what happened on that day. That kid killed Bob in self-defense before Bob killed him. He and his friend, Ponyboy, (who I'll talk about soon) later jumped into a burning church and saved some kids inside, and the kid who shall not be named ultimately died from that act. I did still feel bad about him dying, even if he did kill my friend. He was a good guy. That's all I really know about him. I never got to know him; I just know he was a good guy, partly because I got to know his friend.
        He and Pony made Bob mad by stealing our girlfriends. Bob took Cherry, I took Marcia. I don't really know where they've gone, but I've heard a bit about them from Pony, and he tells me that they've both married someone and they're living happily in a big city somewhere. I've never seen them since the day they were “stolen” from us, but it's still nice to know they're doing well.
        Ponyboy, Bob's killer's friend - I'm so close to forgetting his name forever. I don't know why because I still talk to him quite a bit. He got a bad concussion from one of those big rumbles that was supposed to change everything, and he's never recovered from it. He's quite clumsy and he has a hard time thinking straight. He was doing very badly in his writing class after that and had to write a good final paper to pass. You probably remember this from the book. The book hints at the end that you've just read his semester theme. That theme is now a popular book titled “The Outsiders”. People say it helps them connect to someone who is going through the same hard things they are, and that's why it's become so popular.
        I don't think I write like Pony does, even if he disagrees. He told me once that I could write well if I tried. Well, I tried, and it still doesn't compare to anything of his. I'm really happy it's that way, though. He's had too much happen to him and he really just needs the life he finally got, where he gets to relax and dispense whatever emotions are left from his childhood into books. He's doing well now off his books, and he gets to stay together with his family. His book make some of us Socials get our act together, too, and we pacified some more Socials along the way. In a way, he single-handedly cured everyone's troubles and made our lives happier.
        Pony's family has remained intact through to the end of the conflict. Soda has been doing pretty well. He actually got a really good job as an auto mechanic. With the money from that, the success from Pony's book, and Pony and Soda being able to take care of themselves, Darry went off and finished college. I don't remember what profession he went into, but I know he's loving it. And about their friends, Two-Bit and Steve... Steve is working with Soda, and Two-Bit never found a job, of course. He's just leeching off whatever care Pony and Soda can manage for him.
        I think I've wrapped up the stories of all the main characters in Pony's book, and I've wrapped up the Greaser/Soc conflict as a whole. That's everything I have to say. Hopefully this epilogue helps prevent some of this from being forgotten. Speaking of being forgotten, I wonder if I've been forgotten? I don't play a prominent role in Pony's life, so I'm mentioned only briefly in the book and my name doesn't come up even once in discussion guides for it. I don't think I'd mind being forgotten. I didn't do much, I was just a coward.
        So that's pretty much the end of the story for all the Greasers I ever met. They're all great people, and I'm glad they all got to go off and live great lives. Their stories all wrapped up pretty well, almost like a miracle. It's amazing, and I'm still thinking about how events so drastic could possibly lead to so peaceful a resolution. I'm doing quite well myself, by the way. Soon I might even have a book to publish thanks to Pony's inspiration. I learned a lot from these events and the thought process that followed. And I will never, ever believe in the saying "All's Well that Ends Well" again, because everything that happened in one horrible week was terrible, and all that division in one city was terrible, even if it did end well. For those who survived, at least.