Little Boy Blue (16 page)

One week after Scabs’s departure, Alex
was walking beside one of the roads near the administration building. He heard
a car motor but didn’t turn until the brakes squealed and the horn
bleated.

Scabs was
behind the wheel of a 1936 Ford coupe, the absolute
heppest car of the era. He was grinning, beckoning Alex over to the passenger
door. A great surge of joy went through Alex; he’d been lonesome since
Scabs had gone. Without reflecting on what he was doing, yet looking around to
make sure that nobody saw him (nobody was in sight except two patients weeding
a flowerbed), he slid into the open door and slid down so that just his eyes
were visible.

“Atta boy,” Scabs said, poking
him in the ribs. “You still have all the guts in the world.”
Scabs was
still grinning, but the joy of meeting turned to momentary
consternation when he released the clutch unevenly and the car spasmed forward
until the motor died. “Goddamn Fords,” Scabs cursed. He got under
way again, more careful now, and turned on to a little-used dirt road that
eventually left the hospital property for a two-lane highway toward the
ocean and coast route four miles away.

Now Alex sat erect, almost stiff, leaning
slightly forward in tense anticipation of each new sight; he knew he was
embarking on a course of adventure. Minutes before he’d had misgivings in
some compartment of his mind, and for another moment he’d thought of
having Scabs take him back before the institution count found him missing, but
he slammed the lid on the idea without really viewing it. Like most people,
Alex could highlight justification for what he wanted and minimize the contrary
realities. So now he overflowed with joy at the imminent possibilities for
adventure without envisioning the probable repercussions. Why doubt?
he
thought; it was already too late. He was committed to the
unknown.

The few miles until the seacoast highway were
fields of emerald alfalfa in undulant waves made by the breeze; there were also
unbelievably neat and uniform orange groves. A white frame house sat at
the edge of a lemon orchard, picture postcard-pretty, and several boys around
Alex’s age were tossing a football. A pang of envy’s cousin went
through him, as it always did when he saw boys leading normal lives, but this
time it went away quickly. They were playing football but he was riding around
in a car, could go anywhere, because he was utterly free—or so he felt.
Everything was so beautiful. He looked over at Scabs, whose damaged face
was rigidly expressionless as he concentrated on the road; he wasn’t that
at ease behind the wheel, and the road curled and had lots of traffic.

“Where’d you get this?”
Alex asked.

“I stole it, dummy. Whaddya think,
Eleanor Roosevelt come down and give it to me?” The chiding rebuke was
intended as humor, for there was whimsy in Scabs’s voice and eyes. Nevertheless,
Alex blushed for a moment. Scabs glanced over, reached out his arm, and tugged
the younger boy’s earlobe. “Take it easy. This is the day you learn
how to drive.”

“Aw, man, really! No jive?”

“N’no jive. Anyway, you’ll
learn to shift gears, and after that it’s just practice mostly.”

Alex nodded, grinning yet suddenly
apprehensive too. Would he make a fool of himself, run into something? Would he
get stupid and clumsy at a critical moment? His hands sweated. Yet he had to
learn. It was a rite of passage.

“You gonna teach me how to hotwire it,
too?”

“Sure. That’s easy. You
just—forget it till we get there.”

“Where?”

“I know a huge parking lot they
don’t use since the war started. It’s got grass coming up through
the cracks, but it’s still a good place for this. Say, you got any
money?”

Alex felt the handful of change in his pants
pocket.
“A little over a dollar.”

“I’m hungry. You gonna buy me a
hamburger?”

“Sure,
Scabs. Glad to.”

Abundant refreshment stands served the
hundred miles of beach.

“Get that one,” Alex said.
“They’ve got twelve centers.”

Scabs started to pull right but then
straightened and kept going past the stand.

“What happened?” Alex asked.

“There’s a highway patrol car in
the lot. I’ll bet he’d want to see my driver’s license if he
spotted me.”

“Yeah, that’s right. I
didn’t think. I didn’t even look. I will now, though.”

Scabs grunted, obviously liking the role of
mentor. His marred face brought him a dozen jeers for every sign of respect,
and Alex instinctively knew how to make his friend feel good.

Scabs parked on the highway shoulder, one
hundred yards from the next
hot-dog
stand. Sweating
beachgoers seeking cool refreshment gave the stand a lot of business, so
the boys had to wait to be served. The sun was hot on Alex’s cheeks, but
the sweat brought by the sun was cooled by a soft sea breeze. He had been away
from the free world enough months for its sights, especially normal people, to
appear strange, ever so slightly out of focus. The abnormal had become the norm
for him. And he felt a new
sensation,
too, as he
looked at women’s bodies in tight, one-piece bathing suits. He’d
never before given any attention to female legs and asses; now they fascinated
him—some more than others—and he got hard and felt a wonderful
sensation spreading from his crotch through his lower stomach. To a much lesser
extent he’d felt this when masturbating in hiding, envious of Scabs
having an orgasm while he couldn’t.

Now, however, he was sure he could have one,
except this wasn’t exactly the time or place to masturbate.

While they ate the hamburgers, their mouths
too full for much conversation, Alex also watched the other customers. Two
little girls, perhaps sisters, tried to bite delicately through the surface of
a candy apple. Alex felt much older than they. Silliness was in their eyes,
gawkiness in their movements. It amused him to feel wise and mature, and he
could see them glancing at him, too, in a way that was entirely new but that he
recognized instinctively. All were too young, getting ready for when they
wouldn’t be.

Scabs gave no heed to his surroundings. His
hamburger was collapsing, so he was bent forward at the waist to avoid the drippings,
trying to stuff the end of it, but not the paper, into his mouth. He’d
gotten most of it when a bold seagull banked in swiftly, making its foul noise,
and zoomed by just four feet away.

“Aw, shit!” Scabs said
,
throwing what remained into the air behind the gull. That
one didn’t get it, but another had a fat neck within a second after it
landed on the sand. Almost immediately a young man, suntanned to the marrow and
wearing a lifeguard patch, was on them. “Don’t feed the birds,
boys,” he said.

It was time for them to go. When they were in
the car, Scabs said he wished the lifeguard hadn’t noticed them.
“The beach is a good place to steal,” he said. “People leave
their wallets in their
cars,
or in their clothes on
the sand when they hit the water.”

The teeming beach, where it was hard to know
who was watching what, made Alex hope that Scabs wouldn’t want to steal
from clothes. The cars were bad, too, but Alex could crank up enough nerve for
that. Scabs, however, kept on talking while starting the motor, watching the
highway in the mirror and pulling into the river of cars.

“Don’t people lock their
cars?” Alex asked.

“Sure, but you can get in with a coat
hanger quicker than with a key. You straighten it out, put it through the
windwing, and pop the lock on the door.”

“Is that right?”

“I’ll show you when we
stop.”

Scabs seemed to know everything, and Alex was
insatiable to learn about anything. Alex was already more intelligent and
better educated, since Scabs didn’t read books except for an occasional
Captain Marvel Comic. But Scabs was an encyclopedia of delinquency;
actually, he knew more than many adult criminals, and had been in Juvenile Hall
a dozen times. They would have sent him to the Youth Authority and reform
school, except that they thought his problems were psychological—a
reaction against his blemished flesh. Scabs didn’t see it that way, and
after getting accustomed to the pitted face Alex forgot it, though he could see
it bothered Scabs whenever women were around. How much depended on the attractiveness
of the girl.

“Say, Scabs,” Alex asked.

“Huh?”

“I think I can come when I jack off
now.”

Scabs jerked and turned his head.
“So.”

“I dunno,” Alex said, shrugging.
“I don’t know when I’m gonna get a chance to fuck—and I
don’t know what to do.” He waited, hoping his talkative friend
would offer information about that. Scabs, for once, had nothing to say.
“Do I just stick it in?”

“Yeah, but not just…”

“What’s that mean?”

“There’s more to it than just
that.”

“Well, tell me, Scabs. Would ya?”

“No! I won’t! Quit buggin’
me.”

Taken aback, Alex knew the shrill response
came from more than the question; he had touched a nerve. Scabs had claimed
that he’d been with girls and gone all the way, but in everything else he
was vociferous in giving details and embellishments, while now he snapped and
stifled conversation. To Alex it was a revelation—not just that Scabs
lied, for lying was as common as truth everywhere. Alex’s revelation was
that people unwittingly exposed themselves by word, gesture, and attitude, that
deep chambers were unintentionally opened if the right button was pushed.
It wasn’t lying, not exactly; it was that their view of themselves, or of
things, was sometimes more pleasurable than truthful.

Alex would have to think about it more at a
later time.

It was afternoon when they reached the empty
asphalt acres of Santa Anita Racetrack, now closed in its off-season. The
stands were nearly a mile from the street entrance where they turned in.

“You can’t hit
nothin’ here,”
Scabs
said. They cruised slowly across the endless white lines.

“Won’t somebody say
something?”

“Nope.
People use it all the time for this. It’s where
my uncle taught my mother. And if the police come, we can see ‘em when
they turn in, go around the other side, and jump out into miles of orange
groves and countryside. So it’s really cool.”

For no particular reason Scabs came close to
the entrance gates before stopping, turning off the engine and getting ready to
start the lesson. A statue of a horse was there, slightly pigeon-stained. The
plaque said sea-biscuit, and an ache went through Alex; he remembered being a
very little boy in the car with his father and some neighbors, listening to a
portable radio (nobody had car radios then) tuned to the Santa Anita Handicap.
Clem had nearly run into a car at a light as he pounded his hands on the wheel
and urged Seabiscuit to victory. Then he’d headlocked his son and kissed
him on the forehead. The flash memory made Alex hurt now, almost
to
wet eyes, and then to mute anger at life itself. It
wasn’t right; he’d had nobody but a father. Others had mothers or
aunts and uncles or brothers—or somebody…

“Damn, Alex. C’mon, quit
daydreaming,” Scabs said. He had come around the car and had the door
open. “Slide on over.”

For a fourteen-year-old, Scabs was a good
teacher. He started from the beginning: have the gear in neutral and the
emergency brake on, or have the clutch pressed down before starting the motor.

Alex’s tenseness and total
concentration made things harder, at least the most important thing of
releasing the clutch in conjunction with feeding the gas for a smooth
start. Again and again the car
lurched
foward and
died, or gave lots of bounce-jerks before dying or keeping on. When the latter
happened, the subsequent shifts were also bad, but not so completely.

It was when tenseness and concentration
seemed to have drained him that things smoothed out. All of a sudden he had the
knack of it, and he was exalted. The jerks in reverse were gone in half a dozen
tries. Then Scabs taught him arm signals.

“You got most of it now,” he
said. “All you need is practice.”

“I don’t know where I’ll
get that,” Alex said.

“Steal cars,” Scabs said,
then
burst into laughter. “My mother taught me how to
shift. She thought it was cute. Now she curses herself. She pulls her hair and
says, ‘A monster I made.’”

“How many cars you stole?”

“They know about over twenty. I
must’ve stolen twice that. But I don’t hurt ‘em, just drive
’em for a few hours until they run out of gas.”

“Didn’t you wreck one?”

“Oh yeah, one.
But it wasn’t my fault. That old
lady
slammed on the brakes to miss a cat, and I was getting
ready to pass her. Bet she don’t go nuts for a fuckin’ cat no
more.
”

Neither of the boys had a watch, but the
boulevard traffic had grown heavy and then thinned. The sun softened, shadows
lengthened, and a breeze began stirring things.

“Well, I gotta go home, Alex,”
Scabs announced.

Throughout the afternoon, Alex’s
thoughts had flicked to this moment. He’d hoped it wouldn’t come,
that Scabs would run away. And now he momentarily regretted getting into the
car in the first place, but he immediately ridiculed the regret. His black,
junky pals had taught him about the futility of regret. He didn’t
articulate the thing that worried him, but it was the dread of loneliness. The
night would come and he would be alone with no place to go.

Scabs glanced over at the younger boy while
following a homeward course on residential side streets. “Less
liable to meet a prowl car that sees how old we are,” he explained. When
they were near where he lived, one of the first tracts in southern California,
which was also one of the last constructed before the war ended the building
trade for the duration, his guilt at leaving Alex came out obliquely.
“You wait with the car around the corner. I’ll go in and get some
money for you.”

“Okay. Thanks,” Alex said
unenthusiastically, barely nodding and continuing to stare from the window.

“Keep the car, too. It’s got half
a tank of gas and it won’t be on the hot sheet until tomorrow. As long as
you don’t get stopped for something, you’ll be okay.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Alex said.

“Come by tomorrow morning and
we’ll go fuck around together.”

“What time?”

“Early. Seven-thirty—when they
leave for work. We can make breakfast. I cook pretty good…”

Alex replied with a noncommittal grunt this
time, and for the first time saw the flaws in Scabs. The older boy was
obviously discomfited, afraid—not physically, but of losing his
young follower.

“Wait now,” he said after parking
around the corner. “I’ll be right back.”

Scabs was
gone about fifteen minutes, and when he returned a
blanket was tucked under one arm along with a shopping bag. He slid inside.

“
Here’s
some socks and underwear and stuff in here.”

“Thanks.”

“All I could get was eight bucks. My
mom just had fifteen in her purse.”

“That’s fine. Look, man,
I’d better get going.”

“What time tomorrow?”

“Huh?
Tomorrow?”

“When’ll you get here?”

Alex snorted and shrugged. “Who knows?
I don’t even know where I am… or where I’m going now. I wish
I hadn’t—” He stifled the last words. Saying it aloud would
make it worse, like tearing a scab from a fresh sore.

“All right,” Alex said, trying to
shift without depressing the clutch. “Jesus!” But he quickly did it
right and got under way without a jump. He stayed on side streets, mainly
residential, avoiding boulevards with traffic where anyone who saw him
would know he wasn’t supposed to be driving an automobile. The only way
someone his age could get a car was to steal it, and if a cop saw him… In
the residential streets the darkness hid him; drivers were shadows, traffic an
occasional pair of yellow orbs. At first he was so concentrated on the
automobile that he dripped sweat; his hands were so slippery that he
couldn’t hold the wheel unless he wiped them off on his pants. From the
outset he was lost, but now he didn’t even know north from south, or
anywhere else. Not that it mattered. He had no destination. He was driving for
practice and pleasure, and soon he was running the speedometer up to sixty
between stop signs, braking in squeals. Now he was having fun, troubles
forgotten.

Scabs’s parents lived in Culver City,
one of several incorporated “cities” within the endless sprawl of
Los Angeles. It was about five miles from the Pacific Coast Highway. Alex
didn’t know which direction he’d gone from there after dropping
Scabs, nor whereabouts he’d emerge along the coast, but heading west
would bring him there eventually, and from there he could find his way,
although he had nowhere to go except back to Scabs in the morning.