Little Boy Blue (15 page)

Alex blushed, embarrassed, angry at himself,
vowing to erase their laughter by doing something recklessly wild and brave.

Cows are less interesting than dogs and
horses, especially the latter. The State Hospital had a flock of sheep and a
pair of black- and-white sheepdogs. The boys watched them in action, their
mouths seemingly stuck half-open in amazement, since the dogs were incredibly
swift and often seemed to anticipate which way a ewe, who seemed to be leader,
was going to break as they were being moved from one pasture to another. When
the shepherd, an elderly Mexican who was a patient, closed the gate behind the
last piece of wool on the hoof, the boys tried to call the dogs,
who
were trotting at the old man’s heels. With lolling
tongues and brambles in their fur, the dogs looked at the supplicants but
didn’t even falter in their prancing stride. Alex suddenly wished he had
a dog that loved him as these two did the old man.

Beyond a line of trees was a back pasture
holding three horses. All were fat and all were grazing, their necks arched
down to the short grass. The boys were on a dirt road going beside the pasture.

“Let’s take a dip,” Pat
said.

“Where’s a place to do
that?” Alex asked.

“An irrigation
cistern.
I guess you call it a
cistern,” Scabs said. “But it’s really cold and feels good as
a motherfucker on a hot day… even if you can’t really swim.”

Alex nodded, but he was looking toward the
pasture. “That’s fine… but we should go
horseback
riding first.”

“Oh, no!”
Pat said. “You know better, Scabs. Tell him how
mad they’ll get.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Alex
said. “We’re not going to get spotted out here.”

“If we do—”

“We’re not hurtin’
’em. And horses are/or riding, or doing something.”

“How you gonna steer him?” Scabs
asked.

“I’m going to put a belt around
his neck and hope he’s well trained. If that doesn’t work,
I’ll just hold on.”

“We’ll keep a lookout, just in
case. I know a lot ‘bout cars, but about horses I don’t know shit
from Shinola.”

Putting a hand on a fence post, Alex climbed
the wire and dropped down. Twenty yards away the horse looked up, but his long
tail kept slapping rhythmically at flies. The knot in Alex’s stomach
began to unravel a little as he came up beside the horse and patted its flank
without getting kicked or snarled at—or whatever it is horses do to
threaten. He saw that he couldn’t swing onto the
horse’s
back from the ground, even with a firm grip on the long mane. He put the belt
around the horse’s neck and led him to the fence. The horse came easily.
Scabs held him while Alex got up awkwardly on a fence post and half-fell across
the animal’s back. The horse held firm, conditioned to suffer fools and
the ungainly. Alex swung a leg over and found himself astride. He got the belt
around the big neck so it vaguely resembled a short bridle. “C’mon,
giddup,” he said, spurring the horse’s sides—and the horse
followed instructions.

Alex was conscious of Scabs and Pat standing
on the road outside the fence, and he knew that they were impressed by this
scene; they might even be envious.

Using just the belt, the “reins”
were short, so he leaned forward along the horse’s neck, accustoming
himself to the roll and sway of horseback. Then suddenly he wanted the horse to
run. He wanted to be the racing, free figure on horseback that he’d seen
so often in movies. “Hah!” he exclaimed, shaking the reins and
kicking his heels into the horse’s sides. The horse lunged into a
trot—a gait it was unaccustomed to. It was better but still
insufficiently exhilarating, so he urged the horse to greater speed, feeling
the hard bounces whenever the hooves thumped into the earth, sending up puffs
of dust. At the end of the pasture he pulled the belt to the right, wanting to
ride up to his friends. The horse turned obediently, slowing down. Now Alex was
facing the road.

Scabs and Pat were gone. And where
they’d stood was a green pickup truck with the State of California seal
on its open door. Its driver was bent over, coming through the fence—it
was the farm
foreman
. When he came erect he brandished
a clenched fist at Alex, yelling angrily.

“Stupid-ass kid!” came through
the hot air as Alex pulled up and half fell off the horse. He hit the ground
running and heard the voice saying, “If that mare has a
miscarriage…”

He hit the fence, glancing back. The man was
running across the pasture, but his feet were sinking into the earth and he
wasn’t moving very fast. The ground Alex was on, beyond the fence, was
packed hard, and his feet were flying. The man gave up before he reached the
fence. Alex ducked into a cornfield, then cut across at an angle that brought
him beside the devastated melon patch en route to the creek bed, though this
time he went to the bridge and down into it instead of fighting the brush.

Minutes
later, as he followed his opposite-direction footsteps in the smooth dirt, the
fear was gone. Now he felt a pang of remorse; he hoped the horse would be all
right. No harm had been intended; he hadn’t known the mare was pregnant.
Yet he also begged fate to let it be, that nothing would come of it, that he wouldn’t
be found out.

That night Pat snitched on him. The horse was
all right, but the
foreman
had found the litter of
gutted watermelons and the tracks of the same trio he’d chased from the
pasture. He’d gone to the juvenile ward, picking Scabs out. The
attendants then told him that if Scabs was one, Pat had to be the other. Scabs
denied everything until Pat burst into tears and confessed, telling who
was with them.

Alex had no idea—no forewarning. He was
playing chess with First Choice Floyd when he saw the evening supervisor and
the farm
foreman
come onto the ward; they went into
the office with the ward’s charge attendant. At precisely that moment,
Alex ceased to be able to see how the pieces moved or their relationships. His
mind flooded with dread. Floyd took his queen and chortled happily.

The charge attendant came out, spotted Alex
in the dayroom of the insane, and beckoned him over with head and hand
gestures. Alex pointed a finger at himself in silent question. The man nodded.
Alex swallowed back his fear and got up. “They want me,” he said to
Floyd. “I think I’ve gotten into a mess.”

“What’d you do?”

“Not much, but they think it’s
serious.”

“Hold your mud like we taught
you.”

Alex nodded and walked toward the closed door
of varnished wood.

Moments later, as the door closed behind him,
Alex knew what his trouble was. Two of the three waiting men wore white, but
the other was in khakis and brogans. It was about riding the horse. Alex was
unable to tell if this was the man from the truck, but he thought it likely
because of how the man’s eyes narrowed, studying him.

Next to the farm employee, perched on a
reversed straight- backed chair, his chin resting on crossed
forearms,
was the night- watch supervisor. After four p.m. he was in charge of the
institution—so long as things remained fairly
routine
.
A major problem put him on the telephone. Now he was irked. He’d been
called from the mess hall/auditorium where the women’s wards were seeing
a movie. His duties included seeing the movie, and if this interruption was
frivolous…

“Sit down, lad,” the nightwatch
supervisor said.

Alex looked around. “No seats,”
he said.

“Well, guess you’ll stand up.
This won’t take long anyway.”

Alex suddenly decided that he would deny
guilt no matter how much evidence or how many witnesses were against him. His
brain locked into place.

The room was silent, with each adult waiting
for the other to speak. It was the farm
foreman
,
coloring as he did, who spoke first: “You’re lucky you’re in
an institution. If you were my kid I’d blister your ass for you.
That’s what you need. But that’s a no no because you’re a
patient. I think you just need to learn better than to violate society’s
rules… and respect things. Do you know how many good watermelons you
destroyed? Ruining food when people in China are starving
?…
”

“Exactly what happened, Jeff?”
asked the nightwatch supervisor.

“This kid and a couple of others from
the juvenile ward—they admit they did it, and one of them said this one
was with them— tore up a watermelon patch, vandalized it, and then
started riding mares ready to foal. Wonder they didn’t cause a
miscarriage.”

The nightwatch supervisor looked at Alex,
cocking an eyebrow, no hostility evident. “How come you did some shit
like that?”

“I didn’t do nuthin’,”
Alex said emphatically. “I don’t know what you’re talking
about.”

The
foreman
flushed
in livid spots. “We oughta put him in a sideroom in straps,” he
said to the other two men. “That’d teach the punk.”

The supervisor popped the gum he was chewing
and let his eyes float momentarily toward the ceiling, as if mildly bored or
bemused at the vengeful words but unwilling to argue the point.

“What’s the use of denyin’
it?” the supervisor asked Alex. “
Nothin’s
gonna happen to you except take your grounds parole for a month. That’s
no way to treat a privilege.”

“I don’t have a grounds parole
card,” Alex said. “I wasn’t out there.”

The supervisor was suddenly alive, rising up
and looking at the ward attendant, who hadn’t spoken since summoning
Alex. “That’s right,” the ward attendant said. “He
doesn’t have a grounds parole card. He goes out to the main recreation
yard, but that’s all. He’s no relation to Harry Houdini.”

The supervisor looked at the
foreman
, now questioning him without words, waiting for an
explanation. Now the coloring was of discomfiture and confusion. “I
dunno. I just know there was three of ‘em… and that other kid said
it was this one.” He punctuated the sentence with a lame shrug.

“Maybe he did do it,” the
supervisor said. “Little Orphan Annie could get out of here in ten
minutes. But all we’ve got is the word of a schizophrenic
youngster… So”—he turned to Alex—“you get the
benefit of the doubt this time. But if it was you out there fuckin’
things up, better think about it. Some people around here would see that as a
sign that something’s wrong with your
brain,
and
the way to fix it is with a dozen electric-shock treatments. I guarantee that
would stop you for a while.”

Alex had seen the treatments, given to dozens
twice a week in an assembly-line process: the oiled temples, the small
electrodes, the seconds of convulsions, and the hours of deep sleep with foam
running from the corners of mouths; and after awakening the slow return of
memory, men never knowing where they were or what was happening. They were indeed
unlikely to do anything wrong or have a wrong thought—or much of any
thoughts. The patients on shock treatments, with rare exceptions, were
diffident, wearing perpetual semi-smiles. They all said they couldn’t
remember feeling anything, but all of them were frightened of the black
box—and so was Alex. In the mental hospital all misbehavior was
considered a symptom of mental illness. It was treated instead of
punished—and Alex was terrified of such treatment.

Afterward, when he stood alone in the dayroom,
Alex was incredulous—so much so that his relief was edged with fear.
It had been too easy to get out of the trouble; the supervisor had been too
friendly. It was unnatural.

That night in the dormitory’s
darkness—amid snores, coughs, and muttered words from psychotic
dreams—Alex was too keyed up to sleep. He was elated at having found a
friend of Scabs’s stature, an older boy who had respect and status in the
juvenile hierarchy. Alex was mildly angry at Pat and knew the boy’s
snitching would make Scabs drop him, but it would be a couple more years before
Alex looked on all snitches with unmitigated hate. Now he would have someone to
pal around with. It was a good thought. Then once again he recalled the scene
in the room with the men. In the past he’d been punished for things he
hadn’t done (and things he had, too), and now he’d gotten out of
something he was really guilty of—after he’d been caught. It seemed
to prove that right didn’t always overcome wrong, nor the other way
either. Sometimes it was even hard to know the difference. He hadn’t felt
wrong in riding the horse… but he did feel a little wrong in smashing the
watermelons, destroying things for no good reason… They hadn’t
been as upset about the melons as the horse…

Alex fell
asleep wondering how he’d contact Scabs in the morning.

For the next few
weeks
things happened as Alex had anticipated. Scabs, his cruel nature finding moral
indignation to justify tormenting his former friend, slapped and kicked the
sobbing Pat. Scabs spat on him and chased him away, first ordering him to lower
his head and drop his eyes whenever he or Alex approached. A few
days
later three older boys on the juvenile ward slapped Pat
around, then buggered him, tearing his rectum. “You got tits like a girl,
voice like a girl, you cry like a girl, and you’re a snitch—so
you’re gonna be a girl.”

That night Pat sliced himself up with a razor
blade, up and down
both arms
, his neck, and his
cheeks. It took a hundred forty-two stitches to sew him up. He was transferred
to a “closed” ward and put on shock treatments twice a week for ten
weeks. Alex never saw him again, though a decade later he would learn of a
Californian with Pat’s identical name and description, unique as it
was with the breasts,
who
was electrocuted in Texas
for an especially gory rape-murder.

Alex and Scabs became friends and constant
companions. It was taken for granted that the older boy was the leader, and
Alex went along with him unquestioningly. Just once did Alex assert himself,
and he did so without thinking, the red haze of anger glowing in his skull.
Scabs had referred to Red Barzo and First Choice Floyd as “those buck
niggers.” It was his tone more than the words that caused Alex to snap in
reflex, his voice sharp. “Don’t call ‘em that. They’re
my friends… and they’re both sharp cats. Call ’em colored or
Negro.”

The words were an order, and Scabs’s
teeth clicked shut, his eyes hooding and cheeks reddening, for an order by a
peer was insult and challenge. He was older, tougher, and Alex
shouldn’t—While his ire was developing, he saw something in
Alex’s face—the distended nostrils and the eyes, especially the
eyes—and decided Alex’s statement wasn’t intended as an
insult and was, in fact, actually right. He shrugged and said he didn’t
mean anything derogatory by the word, but he’d check himself from now on.

Late that night in the darkness, waiting for
sleep, which was invariably when he reviewed the events of the day and thought
of tomorrow’s, Alex suddenly flinched, seeing Scabs’s face in
memory, not having really seen it at the time. It had nearly been trouble, and
Scabs could surely kick his ass. Even worse, their friendship would cease, and
replacing the good feeling would be the hollow pain of loneliness spreading
from his stomach through every corner of his being. He was glad it fizzled
before it lighted.

Scabs had long since explored every cranny of
the grounds, and he spent a few days showing Alex everything there was to see.
Legitimate activities for young boys were nonexistent, and those for older
patients (weaving, art, and so forth) were excruciatingly boring. So they
turned to delinquency. Scabs came up with the idea of breaking into the various
hillside shacks, and Alex agreed without thinking of right and wrong, or even
about the chances of being caught, or the consequences.

They spent a whole day—a swift,
exciting day—prowling the barren hills, watching each shack until the
owner left, then breaking in. For three such “burglaries” they got
twelve packs of Camels and half a bottle of contraband wine, enough to make
Alex feel really good and not enough to get him drunk.

Next Scabs led him off the property to break
into a cabin in a canyon. They could take nothing with them, so they vandalized
it, splattering eggs against the walls. Actually, Alex went along with the
vandalism half-heartedly, feeling bad about it.

They also prowled the hospital’s
parking lot, rifling the glove compartments of unlocked cars, which was most of
them, despite a sign telling people to lock their vehicles.

Scabs knew how to drive a car, and Alex
wanted to learn. They were planning to take a car from the lot (eventually
someone would leave keys in the ignition), joyride around, and have Alex learn
how to shift gears.

At this point Scabs was suddenly told to pack
his belongings. He was being discharged to his parents. They were leaving the
state in a few weeks and would take him with them.

The next morning Alex met Scabs’s
mother and stepfather as he helped carry his friend’s belongings to the
car. They brusquely acknowledged the introduction,
then
turned away.
Scabs, too, was
brusque, anxious to get
into the car and be gone from the nuthouse.

Several times
that morning Alex’s eyes got wet as loneliness flashed up through him.
The next day the sharp hurt of losing someone had gone away. Now the ache was
dull; he just moped around and watched the sun change the colors of the
world…