The Outsiders spanking

Then and Now

"Grab your knees."

Darry could still hear those three words ringing in his head, almost three years out of high school. He'd only heard them twice: once his sophomore year and once his senior year. He managed to escape the rest of the time without a paddling from the vice principal. He was paddled other times by his football coach, but that was different somehow. Coach barked at you to touch your toes, popped you a few times, and you moved on. No hard feelings, and more importantly, no call home.

A paddling from the principal was different. It was proceeded by a long wait on the bench outside the office, a stern lecture, and threats of marks to his otherwise clean permanent record. Then the paddle. It hurt, mind you, but not as much as a whupping from his dad. The maximum the vice principal could give was six, but Darry had only earned three the first time and four the second time. For model student-athlete Darry Curtis, the idea of getting into enough trouble to earn himself a paddling was worse than the paddling itself.

That, and the fact that the parents were called. The first time it happened, his Dad sat him down and gave him a long lecture about behaving in school. He'd never been paddled in grade school or junior high, so he thought his chances of getting off lightly this time were good. He was right. Mr. Curtis didn't spank him any more on top of that, but warned that if it happened again, he wouldn't get off so easily.

Darry wasn't as strict with his brothers about getting into trouble at school. They may get the ire of the vice principal once and awhile (okay, maybe more than that), but nothing the boys had done at school was particularly dangerous or malicious. But when Two-Bit got himself paddled twice in one month, Mr. Wright called Two-Bit's mother, who in turn called Darry. She had gushed about how behaved she knew Darry always was in school and asked if he could talk some sense into Two-Bit. So Darry sat Two-Bit down and warned him if he got paddled again this semester, Darry would do some paddling of his own.

When Mrs. Mathews called Darry to let him know that she'd gotten another call from the principal, Darry knew he had to make good on his promise. It had barely a month since they'd had the their conversation. He just kinda felt like a hypocrite for coming down on Two-Bit for this. It wasn't too long ago that they were in this position together.

1962

It was a teacher work day, but Darry had come by to use the weights in school gym and, for whatever reason, Two-Bit had decided to tag along. When Darry was done his workout, he and Two-Bit had started messing around outside of school and Two-Bit, in a moment of genius, decided to scale the gutter and climb up on the school roof. Darry had originally been intent on stopping him when he climbed after the younger boy, but once he got up there he decided to stick around. The golden boy was enjoying the allure of breaking rules for once. The two boys sat there for close to a half hour, just shooting the breeze, before their math teacher happened to walk by. She hollered for them to get down before marching them straight to the vice principal's office.

Sitting on the bench next to a fifteen year old Two-Bit, almost eighteen year old Darry was both impressed and mortified over the younger boy's lack of concern. Two-Bit was a regular in the vice principal's office. It was only his freshman year and Two-Bit had already been paddled three times. The kid's mother never did more than fuss at him and ground him for a few days, even though she worked too much to ever really enforce it. Darry's father stepped in at times, like when Two-Bit misbehaved at the Curtis house or alongside one of his boys, but the kid's mother let him get away with murder. There was just something about him that made it hard to stay mad at him. Darry was sure he wasn't getting off as lightly as Two-Bit. He figured he was at least in for a spanking, if not a whipping with his dad's belt.

"Come on in, boys," Mr. Wright said, breaking Darry out of his thoughts. Both boys followed the man into his office and took a seat in front of his desk. The vice principal looked at them sternly. "Mrs. Davidson told me she found you on the roof?"