Little Boy Blue (19 page)

Alex grinned. “I don’t think
these cats are bluffing.”

“Forget it.”

“Yeah, ain’t nuthin’ gonna
happen.”

At ten-thirty the main lights went out, those
over the cells, but jails are always lighted twenty-four hours a day, the many
sets of bars slicing and reslicing the light in squares, rectangles, and parallels.
Slowly the youths quieted, and the conversations of those still up became
softer, soothing murmurs rather than discordant roars. Everyone had troubles,
but most wore them more lightly than an adult would. Most would be released in
a day or two; some would be charged but allowed to go home during court
proceedings. Others would go to Juvenile Hall, and a few from there to a
California Youth Authority institution, AKA reform school.

Mousey and Alex talked through the bars late
into the night. He’d been in Juvenile Hall five times already, for
burglary and car theft (“just joyriding, ese”), and had already
served six months in a county juvenile camp, the last stop before reform
school. “I’m a cinch for Whittier this time, burglary and car
theft, and smashed the car into a fireplug when they chased me. I’m okay.
Except it’s gonna kill my mom. I’ve got five brothers. The oldest
one is a dope fiend. The next one is straightened up. He’s in the Eighty-
second Airborne… but he was a fuckup. The rest are okay except the one in
Whittier. I’m the baby, and it hurts my mother worse when—”

“Then why do you fuck up?”

“I dunno. I just… wanna, I
guess.”

They told each other stories until Alex dozed
off while listening. He hadn’t thought about the altercation with the
blacks for two hours.

Mousey saw his friend asleep, shrugged, and
pulled the blanket up to his chin.

The blacks had been waiting for both of them
to close their eyes. Now the blacks threw the paper cup of piss and spit at him
through the bars. The vile mess landed on his chest and splattered on his face,
bringing him out of sleep, aware both of the sticky wetness and the laughter.
It took just a few seconds for realization to come, rudely slapping grogginess
away. He came off the bunk with tears of fury in his eyes. He spat at them
through the bars, but it was powdery saliva. Emotions had his mouth dry.

“You dirty, fuckinin’…cocksuckin!”
He wanted to scream “niggers,” but it a word he couldn’t call
a black, not even these.

“Shaddup, white
punk!”

His fury was so great that he couldn’t
find adequate words; the most vulgar curses were insufficient. Though he
couldn’t call them “niggers,” if he’d had a pistol he
would have opened up point-blank and without concern for the consequences. He
looked around the barren cell, his eyes glazed with madness, but there was no
weapon. Then he felt the fullness in his bowels. He knew what he’d
do—if he could. He lowered his pants and sat on the toilet, straining.
He’d pick it out with his bare hands and let it fly through the bars.

“Hey, what’re you doin’?”
one black asked. “What’s that crazy motherfucker
doin’?”

“Okay, motherfucker!” Alex said.

“Hey, deputy!” the other black
called. “We got a crazy motherfucker in here!”

“Jailer!”
screamed the other.
“Jailer.
Get in here!”

The rattling keys, the clank of one going
into a big lock, heralded the jailer’s entry. “What’s wrong?
Who called?”

Alex was straining, his face contorted. He
needed just another minute.

“Right over here, deputy.”

The jailer came, his flashlight’s beam
swaying and bouncing along the cells. “What’s wrong?”

“This crazy sonofabitch is trying to
throw shit on us.”

The flashlight illuminated the dark face, the
pointing finger swiveled over to Alex on the toilet.
“Oh,
you!
The nuthouse kid.
Get off that toilet.
What’re you doin!?”

A little bit was loose, but not enough, and
it was hard when he wanted it splattery soft.

The deputy saw Alex’s reaching hand.
“Better not or I’ll kick your ass up to your throat…
You’ll spit out shit instead of throwing it.”

“Get him outa here. He’s been
callin’ us niggers, too.”

“You snitchin’
cocksuckers,” somebody yelled. “Tell ’em what you did.”

“What’d you do?” the deputy
asked. “What’d they do?” he asked Alex.

Alex was so young that the “code”
wasn’t yet imprinted indelibly on his values, much less down to his
essence as the ultimate commandment and value; his reflexive desire was to tell
what they had done, about the cup of piss. What stopped him was the previous yelling
voice calling them snitches. He said nothing.

“Okay, Bogart,” the deputy said.
“I’ve got a place for you.”

Ten minutes
later Alex was escorted by the jailer and another deputy to the “
hole
,” a carbon of the hole he’d been in at the
first substation, narrow and dark with a hole in the floor for body
waste— a hole exuding a stench that nearly made Alex retch. It was
absolute darkness, without even a peephole or a crack beneath the door. He was
drained of tears of rage, of indignation, of pain—sapped of emotions and
utterly exhausted. He slept deep on the dirty concrete.

Late the next afternoon, the door opened and
two white-clad hospital attendants accompanied the jailer inside. They had
leather restraints and put them on Alex. He couldn’t remember seeing them
at Camarillo, and as they crossed the parking lot to the car, he asked what
ward they worked on. “We’re not from Camarillo. We’re from
Pacific Colony. It’s got security, and we can handle escapees.”

“And troublemakers, too,” the
other said. “We heard about your starting trouble with those colored kids
back there.”

Pacific Colony was near Pomona, the city
farthest east in Los Angeles County, fifty miles from City Hall. The drive was
start-and- stop in the rush-hour traffic, giving time for Alex to think while
looking out at the passing city. What was happening to him? Where was he going?

One husky attendant rode in the back seat
with Alex, covertly glancing at him from time to time. The boy understood the
logic but thought it was exaggerated and silly because he was in leather
restraints and the inside door handles had been removed. Moreover, if security
at Pacific was even faintly like Camarillo (and he had no reason to think
otherwise), anyone could escape whenever they wanted.

While still in the heavy city traffic, the
attendants watched him closely, as if he would suddenly become a demon of some
kind, but Alex ignored them and sat staring out at freedom. When the car
reached the open highway the attendants seemed to forget their passenger, or at
least talked as if they were alone. It was gossip from small minds: whose wife
or girlfriend they wanted to lay, which ones could be laid—and this
somehow became comments on how bad the food was at the employees’
cafeteria. One of them was planning to go home for lunch; he lived just
five minutes away. “Eat a little and eat a little,” he said,
laughing snidely. The other, younger
attendant,
was
newly married. His wife “can’t boil water.” “Yeah, I
saw her at the employees’ dance. With her legs, who cares if she can
cook.
I’ll trade you my ace cook for her.” He
slapped the now blushing younger man on the shoulder, leaning from the back
seat to do so.

Alex listened to them, and something in how
they talked seemed simplistic, even stupid, to him. He was still unfamiliar
with words such as “banal” or “inane,” which fit more
precisely with what he thought. He didn’t, however, think about their
destination; it was their conversation that caught him. When their voices
became a background hum, he conjured recollections of when things had been
happier—his few interludes of freedom. So it was almost a surprise when
the car braked and turned into the grounds of Pacific Colony. Spread over a
hundred acres, the one-story buildings were gleaming white with red tile
roofs—much like Camarillo except that they were separated, each ward at a
distance from the next, each with its own paved, fenced yard. Most yards were
now empty, and those that were occupied were too far away to see more than
figures. Alex was nervously curious, until they turned a corner near the rear
of the grounds and the narrow road was ten feet from a fenced yard. What he saw
brought fear and revulsion, fear of the unusual, revulsion at semi-human
monstrosities. He didn’t know that Pacific Colony was almost entirely a
state hospital for the feeble-minded. In that category was what was hidden in
maternity wards, not displayed in cradles beyond glass. These were hidden
shames rather than children. And these represented the tiny minority that
survived infancy, though few would mature. The vacant, round faces of extreme
mongoloids looked beautiful compared to skulls without eyes, or with eyes next
to deformed ears, or bloated heads and pinheads too small for a brain. These
were far more horrifying to Alex than the wildly insane at Camarillo had been.

Still traveling slowly, the car turned
another corner, heading for a sprawling ward building at the farthest reach of
the institution. This one’s yard fence had a ten-foot extension of wire
mesh, too thin for a grip. Nobody was going to climb out of this yard, not even
standing on someone else’s shoulders. All the wards had barred windows,
but these were also covered with the mesh, nearly doubling their effectiveness.

As they exited the car, someone inside who
was expecting them opened the door. Alex struggled with his fear, vividly
recollecting the creatures. The attendant escorting him saw his fear, or at
least that he was keyed up, and firmly gripped the leather so he couldn’t
bolt for freedom.

Two more men in white were inside a small,
bare room. An inner door had a tiny window with a man peering out at them. He
unlocked that door when the outer door was locked.

The delivering attendants had papers and a
receipt for the ward attendants to sign. When they were gone he was ordered to
strip naked. Then they instructed him to go through the ritual of the skin
search for the first (but not the last) time in his life. His thin
eleven-year-old arms were raised overhead; then he wriggled his fingers and ran
them through his hair. He raised his penis, then his testicles,
then
turned his back to them and raised one foot at a time.
Finally, he bent forward and pulled the cheeks of his butt apart. In years to
come, he would do it without thought, and when in a playful mood, he would
anticipate each ensuing order and carry it out ahead of the words. He could
maintain dignity thereby and hoped for his arrogance to show, though this first
time he was awkward and apprehensive. This was increased by the obvious
hostility of the attendants. He knew this world was a nightmare compared to
Camarillo.

They searched his clothes, squeezing every
inch. But instead of returning them, they gave him a zip-front denim jumpsuit,
freshly washed but never pressed. Instead of shoes they gave him canvas
slippers.

Through an inner door was the ward office; it
had glass walls overlooking the long dayroom—a dayroom as different from
Camarillo’s as was everything else. Instead of the soft chairs there were
benches in a line around the walls. Alex got a glance while a side door was
being opened. Instead of the movement of Camarillo’s dayroom, everyone
was seated. He noticed that the deep- red floor had a bright gloss, as if the
hundred slipper-shod patients left no mark or never moved.

An attendant walked him down a hallway to a
shower area and clothing room. He showered, was given a clean bedsheet to use
as a towel, and was then issued ill-fitting denim pants and a chambray shirt.
It had two missing buttons. When he pointed this out to the patient in charge
of the clothing room, a young man going prematurely bald, he was told, “This
ain’t
no
fuckin’ department store.”
The tone used was even harsher than the words. Alex was so nonplussed that he
barely heard the added
statement, that
he could check
out needle and thread and sew buttons on in the morning. What he heard vaguely
he quickly forgot. Through his mind ran a chant: Oh God,
it’s
awful here… awful… awful… awful.

When Alex first came in, the charge
attendant, a middle-aged man with close-cropped steel-gray hair, had been off
the ward at lunch, but now he was in the office. He ordered the escorting attendant
to close the dayroom door, which made Alex even more anxiously conscious of the
eyes beyond the glass. Indeed, he was so intensely aware of being scrutinized
that he had to concentrate on the words so they didn’t dissolve into a
nonsensical drone.

“I’m Mr. Whitehorn,” the
man said. “I’m the big boss around here. We heard a little about
you—how you shot a man and all
that,
then raised
hell in Camarillo and finally escaped. Well, this ain’t Camarillo.
You’re a few years younger than most of ‘em around here… and
you look a lot less tough. If you cause any trouble here, you’ll think
you ran into a shitstorm. Most of ’em here are judged feeble-minded,
though this is a ‘highgrade’ ward. It’s also the high-
security ward. We’ve got some mean people here… some dangerous
people. But we handle ‘em. We can handle you too! Now you’re just
here for observation. The
staff at Camarillo said you were a
borderline psychotic—know
what it means?”

Alex shook his head. He’d heard the
term “neurotic,” but not what Mr. Whitehorn said.

“It means nuts. They also said you were
a psychopathic delinquent… and even I don’t know exactly what
that means except that there’s no hope for you. Anyway, the court wanted
another report, so that’s what you’re doing here. So we’ll
not only keep you in line if you cause trouble, we’ll send a report
that’ll bury you…”

While the charge attendant stared
challengingly at the boy, there came a loud crash from beyond the glass. A
bench had toppled over backwards as a fight was in progress. A Chicano and a
black were rolling on the floor and punching. Both were nearly grown men in
body, though the black was heavier and more muscular. Attendants were pulling
them apart even before Mr. Whitehorn could tear through the door out of the
office. Alex watched through the glass, unable to hear the words, though they
were unnecessary to understand what was happening. Mr. Whitehorn spoke to
each of them, and each nodded vehemently. Benches were pushed aside as the
combatants took off their shirts and kicked off their slippers. The charge
attendant said something, and the hundred patients rushed from their seats to
form a human ring. Half a dozen attendants were in the forefront.

Mr. Whitehorn stood in the center, a referee.
He used both hands to motion the combatants to come together, and then stepped
back to the side. For perhaps ten seconds the battlers circled each other,
hands raised in a facsimile of boxing. When they finally lunged together the
facsimile ended. They weren’t allowed to wrestle or hold. They stood toe
to toe and punched as hard and fast as they could. Though the black was bigger
and stronger, it seemed that his hands were a fraction of a second slower, or
perhaps his rhythm of battle was wrong, for the Mexican’s fists landed an
instant sooner, hence with more force because they sucked power from the
black’s. Yet the black was forcing the Chicano back, step by step. When
he came to the human ring, an attendant put hands on his back, signaling the
end of retreat. The hands didn’t shove, for the intention was not to
give advantage, but nonetheless they upset his balance. He tried to duck and
circle to his left, but he ran into a looping right hand. It hit him above the
eye and blood sprayed out instantly. He stiffened for a moment but kept
circling. Now he was in the center again, but he was already defeated. He still
punched but defensively now, thinking of the other’s fists, ducking
from feints, tiring himself. The black’s fists found solid flesh more
often. He stalked, He stalked, his whole body exuding confidence. He lashed out
with a left jab that hit the Chicano’s mouth, splitting lips against
teeth. The Chicano’s head snapped back, and his hands dropped. The black
punched a powerful right. It landed on the chin, and the Chicano dropped to the
seat of his pants. An attendant pulled the black away. Mr. Whitehorn helped the
Chicano to get up, said something to him, shrugged, and stepped back, waving
for them to continue.

Now the Chicano was standing on pride alone.
The black faked a left, crouched, and sunk his right to the solar plexus,
sending the Chicano’s hands up in a jerk. The ensuing gasp could be heard
throughout the large room. The Chicano started to double over. A clubbing right
hand sent him on down, his legs twisted awkwardly beneath him. He was fighting
for breath, spraying flecks of blood from his torn lips.

The black’s right eye was swollen and
discolored, and his dark flesh had red lines where skin had been raked off.
He’d been hurt, and his fury was not sated. The attendant was holding him
lightly. The black jerked free, stepped around Mr. Whitehorn, and kicked the
Chicano in the side of the head. Even barefooted, it elicited a yelp of pain.

“Bastard!”
Mr. Whitehorn said, letting go a backhand that
knocked snot from the black’s nose. He flinched, but instead of giving up
he lowered his head to ram through to the Chicano. Before the black could
launch himself, Mr. Whitehorn had a headlock on him. Other attendants piled in.
Instead of just restraining him, they began punching and kicking. Their fists
landed mainly on his kidneys, though some were in his face until Mr. Whitehorn,
grazed by a punch, commanded: “Easy… easy…” The kicks
were at his knees and ankles—until he went down. Then they were
everywhere except his head, and they missed that only because his arms covered
it. They reviled him while kicking.

Fear had begun in Alex at the beginning, a
nervousness of identification mingled with excitement. But the excitement
disappeared when the attendants rushed in. Even in Camarillo an attendant
sometimes lost his temper and hit a violently objectionable patient. But what
Alex watched now was four attendants methodically stomping a human being
senseless. Alex was trembling as he stared through the glass. It was arbitrary
and unjust, but fear outweighed his indignation.

The Chicano was brought into the office. He
had to be driven to the infirmary for sutures, and Mr. Whitehorn was going with
him. From the man’s expression it was obvious that he’d forgotten
Alex. “Mr. Hunter,” he said to a short, older man with muscular
wrists, “
get
this new punk a seat… and put
that nigger on the cement block for eight hours. See how much he wants to keep
swinging when it’s time to stop.” Whitehorn was rubbing his right
hand. “Fuckin’ niggers have heads like granite.”