It was late at night when the Greasers - Darrel (Darry) Curtis, Sodapop Curtis, PonyBoy Curtis, Dallas (Dally) Winston, Johnny Cade, Two-bits (Keith) Mathew, and Steve Randle - were walking on Soc Territory. They didn't care all that much about crossing the invisible boundary between their neighborhoods.

As they strolled along, the sound of yelling drifted toward them from somewhere near a large building. Curiosity getting the better of them, they decided to investigate the source of the commotion. The voices grew louder as they approached, clearly a guy and a girl arguing intensely about something.

Darry took the lead, as he often did - the unofficial father figure of their ragtag gang. They rounded the corner of the building and stopped short, hiding partially in the shadows as they observed the scene before them. There stood a Soc they recognized as Bob Sheldon, facing a girl none of them knew except Ponyboy, who had seen her in some of his classes. She was Bob's girlfriend.

The Greasers watched silently as Bob and the girl exchanged angry words. Without warning, Bob raised his hand and delivered a hard slap across her face. The sound echoed in the quiet night air. The boys tensed, none of them able to stomach seeing a girl get hit, even by a Soc like Bob. They waited, holding their breath, to see how she would react to the violence.