Chap.7

While the boys walk to Tasty Freeze to get Cokes, the blue Mustang "that had been trailing us for eight blocks" pulls in behind them. Randy Adderson gets out, and Ponyboy recognizes him. Two-Bit warns Randy, "You know the rules. No jazz before the rumble," but Randy says he just wants to talk to Ponyboy. Ponyboy gets in the car with him, and Randy asks him how he had the guts to save the kids from the burning church. Then he confesses that he's not going to show up to the planned rumble that night.

Ponyboy looks at Randy and realizes that "he was seventeen or so, but he was already old," like Dally. Randy tells Ponyboy that Bob's mother has had a nervous breakdown after her son's death, and explains how Bob was so spoiled that all he wanted was for someone to tell him "No," or to get in trouble with his parents, but it never happened. Then he asks about Johnny. He says he's sick of all the fighting, and instead of going to the rumble, he's going to leave town. Ponyboy gets out of the car, saying, "You would have saved those kids if you had been there. You'd have saved them the same as we did." He goes back to Two-Bit, and decides that "Things were rough all over, but it was better that way. That way you could tell the other guy was human too."