That Was Then, This is Now

by S.E. Hinton

“Hey, that was pretty good. Can you just pop them off like that?” I only shrugged and said, “Sometimes,” because then I’d take credit whether or not it was really due me. I was like that. I’d also lie if I really thought I could get away with it, especially to girls. Like telling them I loved them and junk, when I didn’t. I had a rep as a lady-killer—a hustler. I kept up the old Lord Byron tradition in one way. Sometimes I’d get to feeling bad thinking about how rotten I treated some of these chicks, but most of the time it didn’t even bother me.

I was thinking about what M&M had said about beating up people because they were different. There was a lot of truth to that. The rich kids in town used to drive around over in our part of the city and look for people to beat up. Then a year or so ago a couple of kids got killed in that mess and the fad slowly died out. But there were still gang fights around here and social-club rumbles, and things like Shepard’s jumping M&M happened every day. I didn’t mind it much, unless I was the one getting mugged. I liked fights. “Come on,” Mark called, “maybe there’s somebody to hustle in Charlie’s.” I grinned and ran to catch up with him. Mark was my best buddy and I loved him like a brother.

I was the hustler and Mark was the thief. We were a great pair. One thing about it, though. Mark couldn’t see anything wrong with stealing stuff. I could. It didn’t much matter to me whether or not Mark was a thief, but I still felt that stealing was wrong—at least it’s against the law. I think Mark was only dimly aware of that fact. Stealing was a game to him, something to do for fun and profit, and he was careful not to get caught because that was one of the rules.

We had gone over to the city park where the hippies hang out, just to beat up somebody. I wouldn’t do it again though. I hadn’t realized those guys refuse to fight back, and what happened to the one we got hold of, it made me sick. Mark felt the same way. So after that we left them alone.

When we got out of the bus Randy held up two fingers and said, “Peace,” and Mark held up M&M’s peace medal, which he was wearing around his neck as a joke, and made a wisecrack. Then we looked at each other and cracked up laughing. But we weren’t being hateful; it was just funny.

I never have been able to accept authority. I don’t know why. I figure it was because of this cop—these two cops—who beat me up once when I was thirteen years old. I had gone to the movies with these other guys—I forget where Mark was—and we drank a fifth of cherry vodka in Coke and got drunk. That stuff tasted terrible, but I was a dumb kid and I drank it just to show I was as super-tuff as the rest of them. When the movie was over and I was staggering around alone on the streets in the dark, these two cops picked me up, drove me out to a hill on the other side of town, slapped me around, and left me there. I never forgot it. It didn’t stop me from drinking, but it sure ruined any respect I ever had for cops. Yeah, sure there are good cops somewhere. I just never met any. Ever since then I’ve made it a point to mouth off to cops. That’s probably why I never met any good ones.

Whoever she was, I wanted to see her again. I had already noted that she wasn’t wearing a boy’s ring around her neck, or any other sign that she was somebody’s personal property—I’m in the habit of looking for things like that. I have gotten into some tight spots with boyfriends I didn’t even know existed.

I really do like listening to stuff that’s happened to other people. I guess that’s why I like to read.

As we got into the elevator Mark said, “I’m inclined to agree with his old man. That is one stupid guy.” “You mean it?” I said. I had been thinking about Mike’s story, and I could see his point about not hating the people who beat him up. “Yeah, I mean it. Man, if anybody ever hurt me like that I’d hate them for the rest of my life.” I didn’t think much about that statement then. But later I would—I still do. I think about it and think about it until I think I’m going crazy.

“Terry Jones, Williamson, and Curtis.” “Then I’m glad I’m not going with you. I can’t stand that Curtis kid.” “Come on, Bryon,” Mark said easily. “He’s a real nice guy. What’d he ever do to you?” “He thinks he’s so good-looking. That whole family’s conceited.”

If you have two friends in your lifetime, you’re lucky. If you have one good friend, you’re more than lucky.

I understood what he was doing. I have stared at a book pretending I couldn’t hear what was going on around me, too. If people think you can’t hear them, they talk as if you couldn’t. You can hear some pretty neat stuff that way.

You know what the crummiest feeling you can have is? To hate the person you love best in the world.

“Do you ever get the feeling that the whole thing is changin? Like somethin’ is coming to an end because somethin’ else is beginning?”

Like now I couldn’t care less about Angela, and I can remember when she seemed like the most important thing on earth.”

“Like we got into those gang fights—it was so important, it was the whole world if we won or lost—and the buddies we had then. We were like brothers, not just you and me, but all of us together. We woulda died for each other then. And now everybody’s kinda slipped away, and then we woulda died for each other. Really, man, remember? It was great, we were like a bunch of people makin’ up one big person, like we totaled up to somethin’ when we were together.” “Now we total up to something by ourselves just as easy,”

“Yeah, but still, don’t you kinda miss that one-for-all, all-for-one routine? It’s kinda sad, really, when you get to where you don’t need a gang—I mean, like you did before.” “It’s kind of a good thing too,” I said, “when you know your own personality so you don’t need the one the gang makes for you.”

“The difference is,” I said evenly, “that was then, and this is now.”

That talk I had had with Mark really got to me. I felt like I was standing apart from all the rest of the kids and just watching. It was like I could see through them—see what they were thinking and why they did things—and it was really weird.

It’s funny how you don’t think about people until after they’re dead. Or gone.

All of a sudden it seemed like I was a hundred years old, or thirty at least. I wondered if, when I got to be twenty, I would think how stupid I was at sixteen. When I remembered us, it didn’t seem possible that we had looked as silly as these teenyboppers, but I guess we had. At least then we weren’t worried about looking silly. We were sure of ourselves, so sure we were the coolest things to hit town. Now I wasn’t so sure. That was strange too: in the past I thought in terms of “we,” now I was thinking in terms of “me.”

Mark had absolutely no concept of what was right and what was wrong; he didn’t obey any laws, because he couldn’t see that there were any. Laws, right and wrong, they didn’t matter to Mark, because they were just words.

She was going to be bitter all her life, and all that beauty was wasted.

“I didn’t have to see you. I wanted to, though. I had to make sure.” “Make sure of what?” “Make sure I hated you.”

“We were like brothers,” I said, desperate. “You were my best friend—” He laughed then, and his eyes were the golden, hard, flat eyes of a jungle animal. “Like a friend once said to me, ‘That was then, and this is now.’”

I haven’t tried to see Mark since then. I heard in a roundabout way that he was sent to the state prison. I’ve just been sort of waiting around for school to start, not much caring whether it does or not. I don’t seem to care about anything any more. It’s like I am worn out with caring about people. I don’t even care about Mark. The guy who was my best friend doesn’t exist any longer, and I don’t want to think about the person who has taken his place.

I am too mixed up to really care. And to think, I used to be sure of things. Me, once I had all the answers. I wish I was a kid again, when I had all the answers.