Little Boy Blue (21 page)

He also began playing poker, using what Red
Barzo had taught him and winning regularly. Actually, most games played here
lacked any resemblance to real poker. They were offshoots, with many wild cards
and odd rules. Alex remembered Red and simply threw in his hand until he had
something special. The others played every hand, so he took their small money
and cigarettes; he was happy to share it with Toyo, who had backed him in the
first place.

Thus the terror of the first day diminished,
though it never disappeared entirely. He never relaxed completely or felt
comfortable or stopped hating this place. Tension was constant, and he was
always glad when the door of the sleeping room locked behind him at night.

After a month, a young female clinical
psychologist came to the ward and spent two afternoons in an interview room
administering a battery of tests to him. He recognized the first as the
Wechsler- Bellevue intelligence test, and he concentrated intently, wanting no
mistake that would keep him here. The other tests were new to him. She put out
pictures of faces, asking him which he liked the best and which he disliked. He
was shown other pictures of people doing things and asked to tell a story of
what he saw. These took one afternoon; the next afternoon he had to answer five
hundred questions “yes” or “no.” It was all he saw
of professional staff. The ward doctor was observed talking to Mr. Whitehorn in
the office once or twice a week. He had five wards and never saw a patient
unless there was a special problem. Pacific Colony’s function was
custodial, the care and feeding of morons, not futile attempts at teaching
them. What could be done for cretins and halfwits?

The psychologist told Alex that he’d be
appearing before “staff” in a few weeks. This was a meeting where
the court report and recommendation would be decided. He wouldn’t be
returned to Pacific Colony; he definitely wasn’t feeble-minded. But if he
was designated a “psychopathic delinquent” he could be committed
indefinitely and sent to Mendocino, the hospital for the criminally insane.
Pacific Colony was a playpen compared to Mendocino, so the grapevine said. Alex
couldn’t imagine anything much worse than this. At least several times a
week, someone was beaten up severely by the attendants. The evening crew was
worse, as was the night charge attendant, a choleric little man in his fifties
who had, by legend, been a featherweight boxer in his youth. Whitehorn had a
sense of humor, but Mr. Hunter never smiled—except while watching
patients fight among
themselves
or while attendants
were whipping one of them. Any infraction, no matter how trivial, brought an
ass- kicking during the evening. Talking in the mess hall or during silent
periods brought a punch or a kick. Alex learned to stay expressionless
while watching three or four attendants thrash a patient, though his heart
always raced in dread and he smoldered in silent, raging indignation, juvenile
Hall’s lesser brutalities had somewhat prepared him for this, teaching
him that violence went on everywhere that men had power over each other.
He had his first layer of callousness. But fear outweighed indignation, and he
managed to mask his rage.

Routine helped the days go by. Because he was
an observation case, he was confined to the ward. Committed patients went out
on crews, cutting the lawns, digging ditches, and other labors of brawn and no
brains. He swept and mopped the kitchen hallway after breakfast, then lounged
in the dayroom for the rest of the morning. In the afternoon he went into the
yard. It was paved with asphalt, and the high fence was topped with concertina
wire.

A week before “staff,” the
trouble happened. It was night, and he’d gone naked into his room and
folded back the bedsheet and single blanket. He could hear the benches being
moved in the dayroom as the late cleanup crew went to work. Soon the lights
would go out and he would stare into darkness, feeling pangs of
longing—an inarticulate pain.

A mop slopped against the bottom of his door
as someone did the corridor. Alex went to the lidless toilet to urinate. While
standing there, he heard someone yelling from the nearby mop-room window to the
women’s ward: “Marsha!
Mash, mi vida!”
Without thinking about it, Alex turned from the toilet to the window, seeing a
figure in the distant window, faintly hearing the answering yell. For a few
more seconds Alex stared out, now at the stars thick in the night sky. He heard
a sound from the door behind and turned. A face was in the small window. A
moment later the key turned in the lock and the door started to open. The rule
required any patient in a room to stand up when an employee entered, but Alex
was already up, so he simply turned. It was Charge Attendant Hunter, nicknamed
“The Jabber,” and his eyes were hidden behind his glasses catching
the wan light. The Jabber always moved in a rolling gait on the balls of his
feet, but now he moved more swiftly, so Alex sensed something amiss. He
experienced a flash of fear before The Jabber lashed out with a backhand and
his knuckles rapped wickedly across the boy’s nose, hurting even more than
a punch would have, bringing instant blood from his nostrils and water (not
tears) from his eyes. He ducked away reflexively, too surprised and hurt to
think. The other hand flashed at his face, this one a closed fist that flashed
lights in his brain and snapped his head back.

What the
… ?
his
mind asked, totally confused as he covered his face. The
man snatched the boy’s hair with one hand and punched his face with the
other. This time Alex went down, sitting with his legs doubled under him.

“Get up, you punk!” The Jabber
snapped, kicking the boy in the ribs. Alex rolled over and braced his hands on
the floor, preparatory to rising, but a volley of slaps sat him down
again. “Caught your little ass, didn’t I?” The Jabber said,
kicking him in the side. “Yellin’ to those simple-minded sluts, eh?
See if you do it again!”

Alex shook his head and started to deny his
guilt, but before he could issue the words, a vicious slap knocked his teeth
together,
he could feel chips of them on his tongue.

“Get up, you punk!” The Jabber
said. “Stand when I’m in the room.” He stepped back, one leg
forward, head arched in a deliberate pose of haughty cruelty. Alex peeked
out and understood; the man was deriving pleasure from this. Tears of stifled
fury welled in Alex’s eyes. The man came forward and Alex’s hands
rose to cover his face; he cowered back in the corner. Mr. Hunter’s bald
head gleamed, and so did the gold crown on a tooth as he sneered. His
gold-rimmed glasses enlarged his blue eyes and made them bulge. He
feinted,
snickering as Alex flinched, deriving enjoyment
from the boy’s fear. “Make your bed,” he said, turning and
going out.

When the key turned, Alex let the tears flow.
It wasn’t pain that made him cry but the humiliation of being beaten when
innocent and not fighting back. He hated his own fear more than the cuffs and
kicks.

Somehow the cot had become disheveled. Alex
pulled it away from the wall to get behind, sobbing and trembling while he
tightened and tucked the covers. With each passing minute his fury increased,
totally filling his consciousness; he’d cowered when innocent,
accepting an undeserved and cruel punishment. So it was that he didn’t
notice the door being unlocked for the second time. His first awareness was the
three sets of shoes below white pants. He looked up. The Jabber and the two
other burly attendants were inside, while behind them in the doorway was the
adult patient who ran the clothing room. The Jabber was twirling his heavy
keychain with blurring speed.

“This is the asshole who’s been
yelling,” The Jabber said, ending with several grunts of emphasis.

The pale blue eyes doused Alex’s rage.
He froze behind the bunk. He was already on his feet so he didn’t have to
stand. The Jabber came to the boy, who was nearly in the corner. The
man’s hand flew out,
quick
as a striking snake,
burning the boy’s cheek, bouncing his head against the wall. Flashing
lights from the blow blinded Alex, but something else exploded, too: his own
brain. His fist struck back, his position too cramped for full leverage, but it
was stiff and straight and the man didn’t expect it. Eyeglasses
crumpled,
shards of glass cutting cheek and nose. The blow
froze Mr. Hunter. His mouth gaped open. Alex punched again, using the other
hand, adding power. It hit The Jabber in the mouth and drove him back—
but he had nowhere to go. The bunk tripped him and he fell on it. Alex lunged
forward going for the kill. He tried to get around the man’s drawn up
legs. He managed to grab a handful of white shirt- front with his left hand,
cocking his right to punch again.

The two attendants, paralyzed by surprise for
seconds, now leaped in. A heavy forearm circled his neck from behind, cutting
his wind and crushing his larynx. His punch stopped as he was jerked back, but
his clutching fingers still held The Jabber’s shirt; it ripped from neck
to waist, leaving the black necktie dangling on a disengaged collar.

Alex clawed futilely at the forearm choking
him. The Jabber was up, his face blotchy, spots of blood seeping from the glass
cuts on his nose. He was still in front of Alex, raising a fist, teeth exposed
in a snarl. Alex kicked him in the testicles, erasing the snarl, eliciting
a cry of pain and doubling him over.

Alex never saw the fist that smashed into his
eye, instantly swelling it to three times its size and closing it for a week.
All he saw was a flashing light accompanying pain. Another blow crashed the
wind from him. Someone grabbed his thrashing feet and lifted him. An attendant
still had the choke hold. The terror of choking mixed with his pains, and he
writhed maniacally but futilely. An attendant held his legs, and the patient
was standing on the bunk, kicking him in the stomach. He screamed, knowing it
was futile but unable to do anything else.

The Jabber, too, was recuperating, spitting
blood and curses as he came around and repeatedly smashed his fist into the
boy’s unprotected face. Alex wanted to scream and plead for mercy,
but only gasps came from his mouth. He could barely breathe. He was going to
die. When he fell limp and unconscious the blows continued, but he
couldn’t feel them.

He awoke in the night choking on his own
blood. It covered the sheets. It had dried and his cheek was stuck to the
mattress. He tore loose in agony and felt the right side of his face. It was
grotesquely swollen; his hand seemed to touch a huge grapefruit. His whole body
throbbed in pain, every heartbeat pulsing it. He wondered if his jaw was broken
or if teeth were gone; it hurt too much to touch and find out. He was in too
much pain to cry.

Thus he lay unmoving in the darkness,
occasionally drifting into a few minutes’ sleep. And he was utterly
terrified of them. Thus when the key turned and the door opened, framing in the
corridor light the bulk of the graveyard-shift attendant, he struggled to his feet,
moaning as he tried to stand erect.

One of the midnight-to-eight-shift attendants
played football at nearby Claremont College. Young and huge, tonight his breath
smelled of alcohol. Alex caught the odor instantly, a second before the
football player lurched forward and swung. Alex dropped to the floor, the punch
missing him. “Oh, please,” he said, trying to clutch the young
man’s leg, feeling the big muscles bunching for the kick. Alex rolled
once and began crawling under the low cot, whimpering in torment and terror.
The shoe caught him in the thigh; then he was far underneath.

“Punch an old man, huh?” the
attendant said, voice slurred, puffing from drink, exertion, and emotion. His
flashlight beam played about his feet. He began to kneel, muttering maledictions.
Alex slipped as far back as possible, his heartbeat racing. The man’s
head tilted down low, issuing the smell of bourbon. The flashlight blazed into
Alex’s eyes. He let out a scream of terror, more that of an animal than a
human being.

“Shaddup, punk!” the attendant
said.

But other footsteps sounded in the doorway.
“Fields,” the voice said. “What’s goin’ on
here?”

“Teachin’ this
sonofabitch a lesson.
He swung on
Hunter, broke his glasses.”

“You’re just supposed to be
counting. Get up and get outa here. You know that room doors aren’t
unlocked this late without calling the O.D.”

“Yeah, but—”

“But, my ass.
Get outa here.”

Fields got up grunting and went out
muttering. The other attendant hunkered down. “C’mon, Hammond,
get up in the bunk. He won’t come back in here.”

Alex stayed
partly under the bunk, ready to retreat instantly until the door was securely
locked.