Authors: Edward Bunker
Little Boy Blue (9 page)
As Alex followed the older boy toward the
administration building, which was also the Receiving
company
and the hospital, he asked, “Who’s Dr. Noble?”
“A lady doctor.
She’s the one you see when they think you might
be nuts.”
Alex flushed, insulted. The monitor was
fourteen, much too big for Alex to challenge, and so he swallowed his retort
resentfully. Indeed, Alex himself often wondered if he was crazy; he obviously
did things that were very different from other boys.
The monitor left him waiting on a hallway
bench on the second floor. From an open door he could hear radio music,
boogie-woogie and swing. He was just beginning to listen to music, realizing
that it made him feel good most of the time. Now it filled his mind to pass the
time.
A girl not much older than Alex came by,
walking with a nurse. The girl shuffled along in floppy canvas slippers, and
her gown was stretched far in front from advanced pregnancy. Alex was stunned
that so young a girl could have a baby. She was nearly a baby herself.
A head of gray hair packed into a bun poked
out of an office door. “Alex Hammond,” the woman said.
Yes, ma’am.
“Come on in.”
As Alex stepped into the office, his first
impression was of books. A floor-to-ceiling bookcase lined one wall, and a
typewriter stand was stacked high with them. Others were piled on the floor
beside it. Then he looked to the desk with the large window behind it. The
drapes were half open, exposing the bars and, beyond them, the roofs of the
houses across the street.
The petite woman in the pale blue
suit—its severe lines broken by a fluffy lace shirtwaist jutting from the
bosom—wore her forty- plus years gracefully. Her blue eyes were both
intent and warm, and her mouth seemed near a smile even in repose.
“I’m Dr. Noble,” she said,
extending a hand.
Alex blushed as he took it. Very few times
had he shaken hands with an
adult.
“Sit down,” she said, waiting
until he’d done so before going behind her desk. “I hope you
don’t mind answering some questions. It’s routine when a boy
is accused of doing something violent.”
“Okay.”
“Do you know the date?”
“September twenty-third, 1943.”
“Who’s the President of the
United States?”
“Franklin Delano
Roosevelt.”
Dr. Noble marked something on a form, dropped
the yellow pencil, and looked up. “All right, I’m going to tell you
a saying. You tell me what it means. Okay?”
“Sure.”
“What does it mean when I say, ‘A
rolling stone gathers no
moss ?
“I guess it means that if you want to
go… get things like a family… a home… you’ve got to
settle down. Wanderers don’t have things.”
“Good, Alex.
Now what
does it mean when I say, ‘People who live in glass houses shouldn’t
throw stones’?”
“It means you shouldn’t criticize
people unless you’re so perfect that nobody can criticize you. I think it
kind of means you should be kind to people if you want them to be kind to
you.”
“That’s good, too. Next week we
might have you take some tests. Probation is filing a petition with the
juvenile court, and they want some reports. You’ll go to court when the
petition and the reports are ready.”
“Is the man okay? I didn’t mean
to—”
“He’ll be all right, but you
could have killed him. How do you feel about that?”
Alex looked inside himself, at his feelings,
a rare thing for an eleven-year-old, and tossed a shoulder. “I’m
sorry I hurt him, I was scared… I think I tripped. I didn’t mean to
shoot him, but it’s unreal, too. I didn’t know him… never
even saw his face…”
“Do you ever feel really sorry just
because you’ve done something, even something you’ve gotten
away with?”
“Sometimes.
In one foster home the
lady
had a parakeet, and I used to duck it under water because I liked to see it
flap its feathers to get the water off. One day it drowned. They didn’t
know I did it, but I cried for a long time. I prayed for the bird to come back,
but it wouldn’t. Another time I hit a boy who had that sickness where he
won’t stop bleeding if he gets cut—hemo something— and he
bled inside under the skin, and they took him to the hospital. He didn’t
tell on me, but I felt so bad that I went to the superintendent. I wanted
him to punish me. That is crazy, isn’t it
?“
“No, Alex, that’s more human than
you think.”
“I’m sorry about shooting the man
because of my dad.”
“How’s
that?”
“He came to look for me and… got
killed.” Tears welled up in the boy’s eyes. The ache had never left
but somehow had been held below consciousness. He’d had no time to think,
and his mind had resolutely looked away from so painful a sight. Now he
sniffled but tried to stifle it.
“I didn’t know… you poor
boy.” The professional distance was shattered. She wondered how the
police report had missed such a thing. “If you don’t want to talk
we can do it some other time.”
The words of warmth splintered the last of
his control, and his eleven-year-old body suddenly quaked with the force of his
sobbing. It was the first real purge of his pain. The cries in the darkness of
the substation hole had been adulterated with fury, but this was pure pain. Dr.
Noble leaned forward, as if she wanted to go around and gather him up in her
arms, but her years of training in detachment held her back. She ached in
silent sympathy, watching his ferocity expend itself. He was no longer just
another boy in trouble. When the sobbing diminished she gave him Kleenex
to blow his nose. Another appointment was waiting, but she stepped to the door
and cancelled it.
“I didn’t know about your father
or I wouldn’t have asked you those petty questions.”
Sniffling still, he nodded, not caring about
the questions. Dr. Noble, whose job was handling distraught persons, was at a
loss for words. She decided to talk to him as she would an adult in similar
circumstances.
“What about the funeral?” she
asked.
He hadn’t thought about the funeral.
“I don’t know if there’ll be one. He always said he wanted to
be cremated, and he’d already paid for all that… when the
divorce… ‘
cause
there wasn’t nobody
to take care of it. I heard him say it lots of times—he’d made arrangements
so nobody would be bothered.”
“There’ll be some kind of
service. I’ll find out.” She was thinking of where she’d
telephone. “If you want to go, I’ll see about that, too.” She
didn’t know how such trips were arranged, but she was sure it could be done.
“Yes, ma’am.
I want to go.”
“I imagine someone will have to go with
you, and the county will charge for their salary. Your mother should be willing
to do that much.”
Before she could finish the sentence Alex
shook his head. “They’re divorced and I don’t know where she
is…
don’t
want to.”
“Oh,” Dr. Noble said, momentarily
disconcerted. By itself the hostility wasn’t so strange, but it was
unexpected with so much sadness. “What about an aunt or—”
Again he shook his head. “There’s
nobody. It was me and my dad.” The tears welled again, and he choked them
down, swallowing. “He had a sister in Louisville. Her name is Ava
something… Swedish… They had some kind of fight… He stopped
talking to her. He was sorry, but he couldn’t bring himself to apologize.
I know he wanted to.”
“I’ll take you if that’s
the only way,” she said.
Alex looked up, studying her face. “Is
that a promise?”
“It’s a promise. But we’ll
have to find out when it is and how to go about it.”
A lull ensued. The electric wall clock said
that twenty minutes remained.
“Your father must have been stubborn
sometimes. Are you like him?”
“Sometimes, I guess… when I know
I’m right.”
“Do you hate it when someone tells you
what to do?”
“I hate it when they think I should do
what they say just because they say it. A social worker said I’ll always
be in trouble as long as I hate authority.”
“Do you really hate authority?”
He shrugged.
“Sometimes.
It depends on…” He shrugged again.
“What do you think should be done with
you now?”
Alex frowned. He was being carried along
without having any idea where he was going.
“What do you want?”
“I don’t know. I want things to
go back, but
I
—”
“What about when you grow up? What do
you want?”
“I want to be somebody. I want people
to respect me.”
“You’ll have to work to get
that.”
“They have to give me a chance…
and I wish they’d leave me alone.”
“You like to be alone?”
“Sometimes.
I like to read a lot.”
“What do you like?”
“Tarzan, Zane Grey,
and those books about collies by Albert Payson Terhune.”
“Have you ever had a dog?”
Alex shook his head.
A light knock on the door interrupted them.
Dr. Noble glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to go, Alex. This
afternoon I’ll see about taking you to the funeral. It’s probably
tomorrow.”
Clem’s
death had been forgotten for a few minutes. The reminder brought the pain and
tears again, but they were quieter. He fought them back, not wanting his red
eyes to be seen by the other boys. Dr. Noble waited until he had composed
himself, wondering how she could possibly help him.
After supper it was still daylight, and the
company went outdoors to the recreation yard until dark. Each company had its
own area, and mingling was forbidden. Receiving company had a space where two
basketball hoops were suspended over a dirt court. But this evening a monitor
carried two pairs of twelve-ounce boxing gloves, the reddish leather scuffed
from endless use, and instead of the basketball area, the company went to a
patch of scrubby lawn in the shadow of a building. There they broke ranks to
form a circle, squatting on the ground.
The supervisor was the tall man who’d
been on duty when Alex came in. A boy had carried in the man’s own chair
so he could prop it against a wall and watch the fight in comfort. He took the
gloves and stood in the circle. “Any grudges
to settle
?”
he asked.
For a moment there was silence; then a tall,
yellow-skinned black with curly rather than kinky hair stood up. He was about
fifteen years old.
“Yeah.
Ah wanna kick off in
Miles’s ass. He think he’s somepin’ an’ he ain’t
shit.”
Miles was the black monitor who fawned over
Man and was cruel to weaker boys. He’d kicked Chester for unfolding his
arms in the line. Now he came to his feet, his flat nose distended even more
than usual. He was shorter, huskier than the others.
“Remember, there’s no rounds in a
grudge fight,” the Man said. “You go until somebody’s out or
quits or I stop it.”
The two black youths glared at each other.
Both had supporters, though the monitor had more. He’d been in Juvenile
Hall longer and had power over the boys. They stripped to the waist, took off
their shoes, and were helped into the gloves. Their faces were somber, and the
jaw muscles of the light-skinned youth throbbed as he clenched his teeth.
The Man called them to the center. “No
kicking. No hitting below the belt, no wrestling, and no hitting if someone
goes down.” He motioned them to separate, and then he stepped clear.
“Time,” he said, finding his chair to watch.
Alex sat cross-legged in the front row,
fascinated. He expected the combatants to rush at each other and begin
flailing, like the boys in military school. (Those who didn’t hide behind
their gloves and quit at the first blow, that is.) But instead these boys came
out slowly and circled each other. The taller boy seemed to dance, moving his
long arms in a motion that vaguely resembled someone running— so strange
a “guard” that Miles, who had one hand cocked by his chin and the
other down low, was made nervous, jerking back his head at every motion.
Suddenly the taller boy swung a punch like a whip, with much velocity but
little power. It splatted loud on Miles’s body, and he charged to
retaliate. Then the poor charade of “boxing” disintegrated. Miles
pumped his punches up from the floor, most of them landing in the body. He was
stronger than the taller boy, who was swinging with both hands at the head.
Everything landed. For thirty seconds they beat each other up. Miles’s
nose was bleeding. Without warning, he lowered his head and shoulders and drove
in, pushing the taller boy back until they both crashed into the front rank of
the crowd. Alex tried to scramble away but couldn’t. They tripped over
him and went down grunting, still trying to pound each other but not getting
much leverage.
The spectators broke from the seated circle
and jammed in tight for a view of the fighters rolling on the ground. The boys
yelped encouragement, their bodies jerking and jumping in spasms of empathy.
Alex had untangled his legs and scooted clear
on his rump as the supervisor waded through the boys, yelling at them to sit
down, shoving them aside. His already sunburned face was even darker with a
flush of anger. “Get the hell up,” he snarled, looming over the
black youths, who had frozen their struggle at his arrival. The taller boy was
now on top, his arm headlocked around Miles’s neck. The supervisor had
hands to match his great height. He leaned over, wrapped his fingers through
the taller boy’s web belt, and hoisted him to his feet.
“You’re supposed to box,
goddammit! Not roll around in the dirt like animals.”
“That motherfucker started it. Ah was
kickin’ his ass.”
Miles had scrambled up again, blotches of
dirt sticking to his sweaty ebony skin and a film of white foam under his
armpits. Now blood trickled from his lip to join the blood from his nose. To
Alex the fight had seemed even, but Miles had all the bruises, and he was
breathing harder, exhausted.
“Ah’m gettin’ yo’
ass, you half-white nigger,” Miles said.
“Fuck you… you kiss-ass motherfucker.”
Miles suddenly spit at the taller boy, and
even before it landed, the other youth kicked out, his toe hooking up into
Miles’s crotch, bringing forth a yelp of pain. Miles froze momentarily,
then
doubled over, clutching his groin with gloved hands. At
the same moment the supervisor swung the taller boy away by the belt,
half-throwing and half-slapping him down. “Okay… you like to kick,
huh?
Like to kick, huh?”
“He spit on—”
The words ran together and ended as the man
began kicking the boy in the legs, still muttering, “Like to kick, huh?
Like to kick, huh?”
Alex watched with horror and fury. Even an
eleven-year-old could see the injustice. Miles had started the wrestling; Miles
had spit. But Miles was the man’s pet, and a monitor too.
The sixty boys watched with somber
expressions that boys did not usually wear. The taller boy rolled away from the
kicks, the man following—and in ten seconds the man stopped, his
contorted face turning blank as he realized what he’d been doing.
“Get up,” he said. “Get those gloves off.
You
too, Miles.”
Then the man looked around defiantly, embarrassed by
his loss of temper, “Anybody else
have
a grudge
to settle?”
