Little Boy Blue (24 page)

Alex noted these things while making the bed.
The white boy with the English-style officer’s bars on his collar waited
in the doorway.

“Tomorrow’s Saturday,” the
officer said. “We have a room inspection before lunch. You gotta get
the dust even from the corners of the bedframe under the mattress, for
example.”

Alex wanted to reply sarcastically but held
back. He didn’t resent the information but how it was given. The tone
wasn’t friendly advice; it was an order with an implicit threat.
Moreover, Alex had previously noted this boy and disliked him. His last name
was Constantine (everyone used last names almost exclusively, as in the army),
and he conveyed (at least to Alex) a snobbish, superior attitude, as if he
thought himself better than the others. Where nearly all the boys, including
Alex, combed their hair in ducktails, Constantine parted his and had a small
pompadour. Where the style was to pull pants far down and roll them up at the
bottom (this was the “hep” look), Constantine wore his
conventionally. The man often used him as an example. He was the
housefather’s pet, and yet he had to be able to fight or he
wouldn’t have been an officer.

Thinking about Constantine occupied Alex
while he “squared” the corners of the bed in the neatest manner.

“Do the
rest later,” Constantine said, meaning the rest of the cleaning of the
room. Somehow this simple instruction likewise grated on Alex. Saying nothing,
he knew that he and Constantine would eventually collide. Alex doubted that he
could whip Constantine in a fair fight; he would have to obtain, and maintain,
some kind of an advantage…

Whittier’s youngest boys, those in
Wrigley and Hoover cottages, attended school all day. Their classrooms were in
the cottages. They were kept away from the corrupting influence of the older
boys, who attended school for half a day in the education building, then worked
the other half. Some were assigned to vocational shoe shop, print shop, paint
shop, sheet metal, and so forth; they learned to put heels on institutional
brogans and slop whitewash on institutional dayrooms. Others took care of
the hundreds of chickens and the herd of milk cows, or irrigated the alfalfa.
A handful were
on the Extra Squad, a crew that labored
wherever needed. Sometimes they raked leaves or swept a road—but a broken
pipe beneath the road had them digging through asphalt, dirt, and clay. Alex
found himself doing the work of a grown man. For the first week his back and
legs ached in the morning, but his body adjusted and toughened. Although
he vilified the assignment and listened to boys ridiculing it (a shovel
was one of the “idiot sticks” of the world), deep inside he derived
pleasure from the work. It validated him as a man, and he got a gut pleasure
from the bite of the shovel into the earth and the bunching of his shoulder
muscles as he hoisted it. He didn’t drive himself to special effort, but
he did enough to avoid yells from the man, usually a relief counselor from one
of the cottages who had nothing to do while the boys were at school. The
housemother, the wife of the housefather, who had the afternoon and evening
shift, kept a few boys for “housecats.” They cleaned and polished
the cottage. But the day counselor had other duties, supervising a work crew or
helping to watch Jefferson Cottage, the disciplinary company. Jefferson really
worked hard.

Alex had been on the Extra Squad for two
weeks (he attended afternoon school) when the regular man called in sick. The
day counselor from Lincoln filled in. He was younger than most, barely thirty,
and he was nicknamed “Topo” (Gopher) because of his protuberant
front teeth. Nobody called him Topo to his face, but disguised voices often
called to his back: “Topo es puto,” or “Topo sucks
dicks.” He reacted with rage. His real name was Mr. Lavalino, and the
boys thought he was tough. They respected toughness but not cruelty. Mr.
Lavalino was also cruel occasionally; he used the boys under his control to
vent a variety of frustrations. Alex knew him only by sight when he took the
Extra Squad one bleak, rain- threatened morning. The dozen boys were digging up
a leaky pipe near the front of the institution. They’d reached the pipe
the day before, but the actual leak wasn’t precisely where they’d
excavated. They were enlarging the ditch by following the pipe. The earth was
soft, but the work was sloppy. It had rained during the night and turned things
to mud.

The boys had divided themselves into shifts
because everyone couldn’t work simultaneously. Some loosened the earth
with mattocks; others shoveled out what had been loosened. Alex was
half-leaning on his shovel, watching the other shift do their stint, when the
dirt clod hit him behind the ear and shattered. It didn’t hurt, but it
stunned him momentarily, the surprise of it. When he turned, confused with
shock, his face commencing to draw up in anger, he expected to see another boy.
Whether it was a joke or an insult, he was ready to issue a challenge.

No boys were looking at him. But Mr. Lavalino
was. The man was standing beside a fifty-gallon drum with a fire in it. He
wasn’t warming his hands. He was glaring at Alex.

“Get your ass in gear,” he said.
“Quit lollygagging and leaning on that shovel with your finger up your ass.”

Every word was like an unexpected slap. He
didn’t even want to explain how the work was divided; he was trying to
fight the redness growing in his eyes and brain; it made any long, explanatory
sentence impossible. “Did you… throw that?” he choked out;
even those few words were difficult.

“Yeah, yeah,” Mr. Lavalino said,
nodding his head for emphasis, voice rising, “I threw it. You don’t
like it or something… punk?”

Alex couldn’t reply, not in words.
“Punk” was the ultimate insult. He was beginning to pant, his
breathing loud and strained, the excessive oxygen further dizzying his brain.
All peripheral sights disappeared. In the reddening world he could only see the
grotesque face of Mr. Lavalino grinning with malicious challenge.

The fury that erases thought took over. With
a gasping scream he raised the shovel like a baseball bat and ran at the
man—he meant to erase the grin with gore. He would bash in that
face…

But Mr. Lavalino no longer grinned. In
seconds he blanched, seeing the truth. He flinched back one step and then
turned and ran, yelling out, “Help!
Help!”

The original distance between them was
fifteen feet, but it was across the ditch and the mound of soft, damp earth.
Alex stumbled, nearly falling, but found his balance and veered around the
ditch.

Within moments the violent drama turned to
comedy. Mr. Lavalino ran around the ditch, keeping it between himself and the
enraged youth. The boy chased him around it once, sinking into the soft dirt,
unable to get close enough to swing the shovel.

The other boys on the crew had stood
dumfounded. Boys fought boys, not the Man, especially not a man such as Topo,
who was notorious for kicking around anyone who showed the slightest rebelliousness.
And this newcomer brandishing the shovel while sobbing in
rage was obviously crazy.
Nobody but a crazy kid would do this.

After the second time around the ditch, both
of them panting, Alex stopped. So did Mr. Lavalino, keeping the ditch between
them like a
moat.
Using a shred of reason, Alex
feinted
continuation of the chase, and then he started to
charge directly over the ditch. He could leap it and cut off his prey. But
first he had to go over the pile of soft dirt dug from the ditch. It was too
soft. He sank in, stumbled, and fell to his knees, the shovel out of control.

At that instant, a fat black boy, compelled
by a loathing of violence he would never admit (scarcely even to himself), took
three quick steps and tackled Alex from behind. It was a high tackle, the black
boy’s shoulder slamming into Alex’s back. The shovel jumped from
Alex’s hands, and he went face-down into the dirt, the weight of the
heavy boy pinning him.

“Motherfucker!”
Alex yelled reflexively, keeping his mouth from the
earth and trying to struggle.

Other boys saw the
madman
disarmed and came forward to subdue him. The front office, and maybe the parole
board, would look favorably on this humanitarian behavior. Young they were;
naive they were not. “Settle down, settle down,” one of them said,
meanwhile putting a headlock on Alex.

Alex twisted his head away from the soft dirt
so he could breathe. Struggle was useless, but he muttered curses, for now into
his mind jumped the certainty of punishment. To threaten their power was the
worst behavior imaginable. They went half crazy over being attacked. And the
worst part was that the punishment would come without his having had the
satisfaction of smacking Topo with the shovel.

“Lemme up,” he said.

“Take it easy, pal,” the fat
black said. “You’ll just get in bad trouble.”

Mr. Lavalino came around the trench as the
fat black and two others helped Alex rise, meanwhile still holding him
securely. Two hands pinned each arm, and resistance was useless. Alex watched
the man approach, anticipating blows and planning to duck his head as much as
possible, the memory of the terrible beating in Pacific Colony flashing into
clear focus. Maybe he could tuck his chin next to his shoulder and take the
punishment on the forehead. That was better than taking fists in the mouth and
nose. It might even hurt the motherfucker. Hands often broke on foreheads.

Mr. Lavalino was pale with fright, not florid
with rage. His hands were raised with open palms.
“Easy,
Hammond, easy.”
Every other time he’d asserted his
authority—these were tough punks who only understood and respected
force—it ended there. It never got to the administration building about a
kick or a cuff. This one would go to the disciplinary company for the attempted
assault, no matter what the provocation, but throwing the dirt clod could cause
repercussions—at least a reprimand in the personnel file; it would
be seen during promotion hearings.

Alex was still being held by two boys, and
Mr. Lavalino was still
frowning
his indecision, when
the institution patrol car pulled up. The supervising counselor, who
cruised
the reformatory checking on things, had seen the
boys standing around instead of working. He didn’t get out of the
automobile, merely rolled down the window as Lavalino came over.

“Anything wrong?” the supervisor asked.

“ Naw
, not really. Just some bullshit friction I can handle
okay.”

The supervisor looked at Alex; he had been
told about him in a staff meeting just last week, as were many newcomers over
the course of time. “That’s Hammond, isn’t it? He’s
supposed to be wild… borderline psychopath with real problems about
authority. So keep your eye on him.”

“Oh, I can handle him,” Lavalino
said, smiling in a way that added to the claim.

“I know you can.”

“What’s on the menu? It’s
almost lunch.”

“Boys’ mess
hall or staff’s?”

“Both. I eat where it’s
best.”

“Chili mac for the
gunsels.
Salisbury
steak for us.”

“Both lousy.
But the chili’s free.”

The supervisor chuckled, said good-bye, and
drove off. Lavalino clenched his teeth and turned to deal with Alex. The
man’s shoulders were round in unconscious body language
supplication, and his hands were extended palms up, showing he was hiding
nothing. “Easy does it, young’un. You don’t have to be
upset.”

The tone more than the words jolted Alex,
surprising him, for he’d expected a raging adult who would curse and
threaten at the very least, and very possibly might lose control. The
conciliatory tone stopped Alex cold, yet he sensed that this wasn’t the
man’s real nature. The man who’d thrown the dirt clod was the true
Lavalino, not this phony with a soothing voice.

The adrenaline was gone from Alex, so instead
of continued rage there was thought, and even a moment’s reflection said
that pacifying the situation was the right thing to do. He had won; the
man with power was now calming him.
How different from three
minutes ago—the dirt clod and the arrogant challenge.

“Let him go,” Lavalino said,
having made sure the shovel was at a safe distance. “Are you cooled
off?”

“Yes, I’m okay.” Actually,
he was trembling from nervous exhaustion.

“C’mon,” Lavalino said,
then glanced at the dozen boys standing around, all of them watching intently.
“Take a break,” he said to them.

Warily, Alex followed the man’s
beckoning gesture and fell in beside him.

“I’m not going to report this. If
I did, you’d be in the disciplinary company for at least thirty
days… and that’s no picnic. And it’d probably mean an extra
few months before parole, too. But it’s partly my fault. I didn’t
mean to hit you in the head with that chunk of dirt. Bounce it off a leg or
something… just get your attention so you’d work.”

“I was working… hard as anybody.
The mattocks were loosening it up for the shovels to dig.”

“Okay, okay, let’s not argue
about it. Anyway, you’re not getting a disciplinary report… but
keep it quiet, ‘
cause
my Italian ass would be in
a sling, too, for not reporting something this serious.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not a
fink.”

“And lemme give you some advice,
kid… rein in that temper. It’s gonna bring you lots of misery if
you don’t.” Lavalino punctuated the advice with a big
brotherly squeeze of Alex’s shoulder. The man’s solicitude, real or
faked, short-circuited the undercurrent of anger still in Alex. The lonely boy
within washed over the tough kid. Momentarily his eyes were wet, and he turned
his face away, stifling the telltale sniffle. Lavalino was still talking, but
Alex didn’t hear. He was asking inwardly: Why do I always have to fight?
Why is it so ugly? God, I’d just like to be like everyone else.

From the institution power plant came the
blast of the noon whistle, signaling it was time to return to the detail
grounds for lunch. The whistle also exploded flocks of sparrows from roofs and
trees. After lunch Alex went to school. He and Lavalino turned back to where
the youths were gathering the tools and lining up. The incident of violence was
over.

But not forgotten. The boys on the crew were
from various cottages, and by evening all had told the story of “some
crazy motherfucker in Scouts, a white guy named Hammond, tried to knock
Topo in the head with a shovel… had the dirty bastard running with his
tail between his legs.” Boys fought each other without thought, but what
Alex had done was the ultimate “craziness.” During the next couple
of days he was pointed out on the detail grounds, and the storytellers
embellished what they’d seen so that some boys thought Alex was a
“maniac,” which wasn’t a pejorative, and some boys thought
him a “ding,” which was definitely pejorative.