Authors: Edward Bunker
Little Boy Blue (10 page)
Half the company was being showered while the
other half filled the dayroom with bodies and bedlam. This was the recreation
hour before bedtime and lights-out. The supervisor was at the shower room, and
the dayroom door was locked. A few boys lay on the floor writing letters (there
were no tables), sharpening their pencils by rubbing them sideways on the
cement. One group in a corner was playing Monopoly, complete with kibitzers,
and beside them was a poker game in which ten markers had the value of one
contraband cigarette. The biggest crowd was near the window where a radio
sat on the ledge. Half a dozen youths, nearly all Chicano or black, stood as if
at a street corner
hot-dog
stand. They were all in
their mid-teens and ready to graduate from delinquency to crime. Their shirt
collars were turned up, and so were their sleeves. Their shoes all had double
soles and horseshoe taps on the heels; it was both style and a weapon. Finally,
their pants were pulled precariously low on their hips and rolled up at
the bottom, making their legs look ridiculously short and their torsos
freakishly long. Some silently mimed the singers on the radio, dusky black
voices doing rhythm and blues, backed by syrupy saxophones. Lulu was there,
completely at ease, one hand braced inside the front of his waistband, his
olive features haughty. Alex thought Lulu looked cool, that they all did, and
now he, Alex, could start combing his hair in a ducktail and maybe get some
double-soled shoes. He was stretched out on a bench, alone and friendless and
feeling it. He wanted to go over to the crowd, but the boys there were older, and
he was afraid of rebuff. It didn’t cross his mind that he was white and
they were brown and black; he was still too young to think about race.
A shadow passed over him, and when he looked
up it was Chester’s face.
“What you doin’?”
Chester asked.
“Nothing.”
“Wanna play some checkers?”
“No, thank you anyway.”
“Hey, how come you be saying’
’no thank you’? Can’ you say jes’ ‘no’ like
everybody else? You say ‘yes, sir,’ and ‘excuse me’
like some kind of sissy. Or some rich white boy. You ain’ no rich white boy,
are you?”
“No, I ain’ no
rich white boy.”
“Don’t be makin’ fun of me,
motherfucker!”
The quick threatening anger was unexpected.
Alex hadn’t intended to make fun of Chester, certainly not maliciously,
and the angry command was like an open-handed slap, stinging and igniting anger
in response.
“Don’t call me a
motherfucker,” he said. “I don’t call you names.”
“Fuck you, Paddy… scared-ass
motherfucker.”
“I told you—”
“So what’re you gonna do about
it? If you get mad, then you can scratch your ass and get glad.”
The freckled black boy was already standing,
leaning a little forward in readiness. At the first heated words Alex swung his
feet down to the floor, but he was still seated and at a disadvantage. Chester
could hit him the instant he moved. He was heavier than Chester, whose body was
like a skeleton draped in clothes, but Chester was older, his reflexes more
developed. Alex had no fear; he had known a fight was unavoidable the instant
Chester cursed him. That had been a challenge. Maybe a fight would burn away
his vague bad feelings of helplessness, futility, anxiety. It would not alter
reality, but it would alter how he felt.
“What’re you gonna do,
mo-ther-fuck-er?” The words were deliberately slow and exaggerated,
a style that copied many challenges Chester had seen in his neighborhood, one
that radiated contempt far beyond his twelve years.
“Let me up.”
“Sheeit!”
As Chester sneered, Alex ducked his head and
dove forward, feeling a fist graze his cheek a moment before his forehead
rammed into Chester’s chest. He clutched blindly at Chester’s
clothes. A fist hit him in the kidney and Chester’s foot kicked up but
landed no higher than his knee.
The two boys went down in a tangle, and Alex
got an arm around Chester’s neck in a headlock. Alex was more or less on
top and had control. Chester couldn’t break the hold.
At the first blow every head in the room had
turned to see, and then everyone rushed to watch the fight, standing jammed up
so close that the fight was at their feet.
“Lemme up an’ fight, motherfucker,”
Chester demanded shrilly. “Fuck this wrestling bullshit.”
Though not really hurting Chester, Alex had
an advantage. They stayed immobile for half a minute. The crowd was quiet; the
action was too frozen to arouse them, though at the outset a couple of older
black youths had encouraged Chester to “kick that Paddy’s
ass.”
“Lemme up,” Chester demanded
again.
Alex squeezed harder.
“Let him up, motherfucker,” said
a fourteen-year-old black with red, processed hair, emphasizing the order with
a kick to Alex’s hip. Alex looked up. The boy’s face was high above
him, and he was frightened. Fighting Chester was one thing; fighting a
fourteen- year-old was another.
“Hey, ese, they’re having a fair
fight. Leave ‘em alone.” Lulu Cisneros had spoken.
“It’s none of your business, que no?”
The older black’s head came up in
haughty disdain. “My business ain’ none of your business
either.”
“I might make it my business.”
Seeing that Lulu was serious, the black youth
shrugged and backed up from his position. “That’s a Paddy. How come
you’re gettin’ involved?”
“No, I ain’t involved… ‘
less
somebody gets me involved. I just say to let them fight
it out.”
“They ain’t doin’ much
fightin’.”
The silence in the room brought the man from
the shower room down the hall. The boys scattered when the key hit the door.
But Alex and Chester didn’t have time. When the man saw them, Alex was
pulling his arm from around Chester’s neck. When he reached them, they
were on their feet.
The man’s half-smile was more
frightening than an angry scowl would have been. “Having a little fight,
eh?” he said.
“No, sir,” Chester said—and
as Alex heard “sir,” he giggled without thinking.
The man looked at Alex.
“Something
funny, Hammond?”
Frightened, Alex shook his head.
“Jus’ horseplayin’, Mr.
Fitzgerald,” Chester said. “That’s all.” Chester put
his arm around Alex’s shoulder.
“We friends, Mr.
Fitzgerald.
See
… ?”
“That’s bullshit!” Mr.
Fitzgerald said. “I know what I saw… and that’s why we had
the gloves out this afternoon… to get it out of your systems. All you
little bastards wanna do is fight.”
“We’re not mad at each other, are
we, Alex?”
Alex shook his head; he was only mad at the
man, and he kept his eyes averted because of the rage building up within him.
“You know the rule on fights,
Nelson… isolation until the chief supervisor talks to you and
decides
what to do. Gotta make sure you can’t start
again when my back’s turned.”
“Mr. Fitzgerald,” Chester wailed.
No matter how tough the ghetto and how precociously tough the child raised on
its mean streets, Chester was still barely twelve years old. “Don’t
put me in isolation.”
“I don’t make the rules. I just
follow them.”
Alex didn’t know what isolation was,
but he wanted to cry, the ache of sadness and rage eating him. However he just
blinked and remained silent. Tears would accomplish nothing, and he would look
bad.
“Let’s go to the desk while I
call an escort,” Fitzgerald said, motioning the boys to precede him.
Alex watched
the eyes of the others in the company as he marched by. Every face was
impassive except Lulu’s; the Chicano winked at him.
A solid door from the corridor led to an
alcove where there were two barred gates—one to the right and one to the
left. Each opened into an isolation room.
The light was out when Alex stepped in and
the gate was locked behind him, but powerful floodlights on the grounds came
through two layers of wire mesh and one set of bars strongly enough to illuminate
the cell’s vacantness. A bare striped mattress was on the floor, with a
washbowl and toilet—the former above the latter— making a single
facility on the wall.
“You’ll get a blanket
later,” the escorting supervisor said.
“Is Chester Nelson coming in
here?”
“I’m getting him now. He’ll
be right across the way.”
When the man left, Alex went to the sink for
a drink of water, discovering that it lacked buttons or handles. The toilet was
the same. They had to be operated from outside the cell.
The window was open, and a chilly breeze was
coming in. Alex poked his fingers through the wire mesh but couldn’t
touch the window, much less close it. The frame had a padlock.
The corridor door was open, light spilling
inside, and Alex heard Chester’s voice without deciphering the words.
“You’ll probably get out
tomorrow,” the man said.
“Say, Mister,” Alex said.
“Can I get this window closed? It’s cold in here.”
“I haven’t got the key.”
“Well, don’t forget the
blanket.”
“Don’t worry.”
“I need one too,” Chester added,
as his cell door was closed and locked.
“I said don’t worry,” the
man said irritably. “This ain’t a hotel.”
The man slammed and locked the door; the
click of the lock sounded emphatic.
“Jive-ass motherfucker,” Chester
said,
the salty words incongruous in his piping
child’s voice. “Ah best get me some blankets or ain’ nobody
sleepin’ in this buildin’ tonight. What you bet?” His bravado
sounded thin.
The slamming door had been like a slap, and
Alex also seethed. The blankets were the focus of a wider indignation. It was
slowly being etched into his young mind that those with authority didn’t
care about right and wrong, good and evil—only about subservience.
From somewhere in the
city’s night beyond the wall came the sound of a siren rising and
falling, a lament for human misery.
From somewhere else came a terse screech of brakes followed by the bleat of an
automobile horn, reflecting the driver’s anguish. The sounds were sharp
in the stillness, carried on the crystalline night air. Alex hooked his fingers
on the wire mesh and stared out at the grounds of Juvenile Hall. The glare of
the floodlights—not merely bright but other-worldly—bleached out
colors so that the trees and bushes were in stark silhouette, casting impenetrable
black shadows, a surreal landscape. Inwardly Alex felt quiet, cleansed, as if
the fight had sweated out angers and drained away bad things that he’d
felt vaguely without realizing them. His father’s death already seemed to
have happened long ago, the heavy pain slowly melting. Clem had been the most
important person in his life, and yet Alex had been conditioned to live without
a father. Seldom had he seen Clem more than a couple of hours a week, and even
then a barrier had existed between them, so they talked little. It wasn’t
as if something fundamental to his daily existence had been taken. His anguish
was less for a lost reality than for a lost hope. Clem had been his one chance
to get away from this, and now Alex had no idea what his future would be. Right
now things were unraveling too quickly to do more than deal with the moment,
but whenever he had a premonition of his tomorrows, it was bleak. He
wasn’t going home, no matter what; home had no place, even in a dream. An
eleven-year-old could see that much.
He lay down on the bare mattress, sighing,
his hands tucked between his legs, and emotional exhaustion put him to sleep
very quickly.
Not for long, however.
The electricity of fright flew through him as
he jerked up suddenly. A rhythmic, crashing sound had awakened him—so
loud and so close that he thought it was inside the cell itself. Then he heard
Chester’s screaming voice and realized the freckled black youth was
making
an uproar
. Alex went to the gate and saw
Chester crouching down in the shadows, with both hands on the bars, rattling
them against the steel doorframe.
Chester paused when Alex appeared.
“Motherfucker never brought
no
blankets. Ah tol’
him nobody’s gonna sleep. I’ll wake this whole motherfucker up.
C’mon and help.”
Alex fell to, making it a duet of din. From
the second floor, where the girls’ hospital ward was located, came
answering voices screaming in foul language, but whether in opprobrium or
support couldn’t be understood.
The light in the alcove went on, and then the
door opened. At the light Chester had stopped, but Alex kept on until the door
started moving. He still had both hands on the bars when a fat man stepped in.
His physique made his trousers sag below his belly, and the heavy keyring
hanging on his belt increased this tendency, so that the pants staying up
seemed to defy gravity. Remaining in the doorway was the man who had slammed
and locked the door.
“What’s wrong here?” the
fat man asked. He had a flashlight and waved the beam to look over the two
boys. “Somebody got a problem?”
“We need some blankets,” Alex
said. “It’s cold in here.”
“You haven’t got any
blankets?”
“No!” Chester yelped. “We
ain’t got shit.”
“I told them I’d bring a blanket
apiece,” the second man said.
“That was two hours ago,” Chester
said.
“This isn’t a hotel, and
I’m not a maid. I’ve got other things to do… like
count.”
“You’re just countin’
now,” Chester said. “Bringin’ a couple blankets
wouldn’t take a hot minute.”
The fat man had been nibbling at a
fingernail. “You didn’t have to wake up the whole institution.
You’d have gotten a blanket in due time.” As if to emphasize his
words, from upstairs came another burst of screaming and obscenity.
“Listen to that,” he said angrily.
“If he’d brought us some
blankets—” Alex began.
“You don’t run a goddamn thing
here, kid,” the fat man said. “And raising all this hell sure
isn’t the way to get anything.”
“It got you down here,” Chester
piped in. “Ah know we wasn’t gonna see you till morning… what
you bet?”
“You’re not going to get any
blankets—not tonight—and if you keep making noise we’ll take
the mattress.”
“Why don’t you come in and whip
us?” Chester asked.
“Believe me, I’d like to, but
little turds like you aren’t worth my job. It’s probably what you
little punks need.”
“It’s what your mother
needs,” Chester yelped,
then
stuttered in search
of other curses without finding them.
“Keep your shit up and I’ll come
in there,” said the man in the doorway. “Lemme hear those gates
again. You punks think you can get away with it because you’re
kids.”
The haughty contempt enraged Alex out of
proportion to the threat. They acted as if he was nothing and they could do
whatever they wanted. It was only a blanket apiece—that was all. He began
to tremble, and his breathing became audible.
The fat man heard the gasps and turned the
flashlight on him. “What the hell’s wrong with you?” The
question dripped challenge.
Alex cried out and leaped at the bars, trying
to claw the man’s face, missing and then spitting on him. The suddenness
of the attack, even by an eleven-year-old behind bars, startled the man so that
he flinched backward a step, the flashlight beam tilting crazily. He wiped the
spray from his cheek.
Chester laughed. “Scared-ass
motherfucker!” he sneered.
“Okay, little cocksucker,” the
man said. “Now you’ve done it.”
Alex didn’t hear. He was blind with
fury, spinning around in the cell like a dervish, seeking anything to smash or
tear. He grabbed the toilet-washbowl fixture and tried to get it loose, but
that was futile. Then he saw the mattress. That he could destroy.
It had no holes he could get his fingers
into, so he knelt and began biting the striped material, wanting to get an
opening so he could tear it apart and throw its innards around the cell. He had
just started to gnaw when the cell gate opened and the light came on.
The fat man came first, his round face livid.
Alex scrambled to his feet, the absolute blankness of moments before now
cracked so he could see enough of reality not to attack. Yet he was still too
furious to be afraid.
The open palm slapped him off his feet,
dropping him sideways so that his head whacked into the wall. He lay stunned
for a moment and then, sobbing with fury, came up and started at the man again,
who simply grabbed him by a sleeve and slapped him again, sending lights
flashing through his brain.
“Oh, you bastard!
Bastard!” cursed Alex through tears, his fury increased by helplessness.
The man grabbed the boy’s hand in such a way that the wrist could be
twisted, forcing Alex down on the concrete.
The second man was in the cell now, tugging
out the mattress. “We oughta make him do it,” he said, having to
turn the ungainly object sideways to get it out the door.
“Just get it out,” the fat man
said, his temper dissipated somewhat. “Settle down, kid,” he
said. He thought to himself,
This
one is crazy as a
loon.
Chester was at his bars, yelling:
“Brave motherfuckers! Sure are brave… you motherfuckers!”
The second man had the mattress out and
stepped back in. “Lemme go in there on that pipsqueak nigger,” he
said to the fat man.
“Not yet,” he said, releasing
Alex and going out the door. When it was locked, he announced: “You two
better stop raising hell or you’ll wind up in straitjackets. Take it for
what it’s worth.”
“Fuck you!” Chester said.
Alex said nothing; he was too frustrated by
his helplessness. Someday he’d get even with them—all of them. He
looked around the empty cage, wanting to destroy something. Again all he saw
was the toilet-washbasin fixture, and it was mounted too well for him to tear
it off the wall.
The alcove light went out and the corridor
door closed.
“Hey, man,” Chester called,
but Alex was too overwrought to answer. He knew his voice would be choked, so
he remained silent. “Hey, white boy! You think they’re fakin’
’bout straitjackets?” The worry Chester felt was obvious. Alex was
sitting against the wall in the darkness, fighting to compose himself, the
quaking sobs slowly diminishing. But the fury in his brain ate deep into the
core. Even when he calmed down, there was an abscess in his soul.
