Authors: Edward Bunker
Little Boy Blue (42 page)
“Didn’t some college wanna help
him get out and give him a scholarship?”
“I heard that, but it coulda been
bullshit.”
While standing at the front door waiting for
Itchy to pay his bill, Alex realized that the Chicano was more intelligent than
he once would have credited him for. Alex had just assumed ignorance.
Before stepping down the sidewalk, Itchy
paused in the doorway to scan both ways. Even without narcotics on him, he was
in danger. California law had a vagrancy-addict statute; a couple of fresh needle
marks might mean six months in the county jail. “I’m on bail on a
mark’s beef right now,” Itchy explained.
“Adult court?”
“Sure. Kids don’t make bail, do
they?”
The question was rhetorical, so Alex ignored
it and asked another of his own. “How old are you?”
“Nineteen… last month. What about
you?”
“Seventeen.”
“You got another year of being a child
in the eyes of the law.”
“Unless I do something far
out—some heinous crime—where they rule me unfit and transfer it to
Superior Court.”
At the first corner they turned and began
trudging several blocks through the rundown neighborhood. They recalled mutual
acquaintances, half-forgotten incidents. Sometimes they reminisced about
someone, or asked what had become of this youth or that one. Before they
reached their destination, Alex knew how to reach four reform- school buddies,
who were now young men. One was a prizefighter ready for his first main event.
“He’d be a contender,” Itchy explained, “if he’d
look out for himself and quick fuckin’ around with that needle.
It’s gonna wash him up.” Another friend was “in” with
Mickey Cohen, the reigning Los Angeles gangster—but really just a bookmaker
with high media visibility. The friend took bets in a Ventura Boulevard
cocktail lounge. Others were in San Quentin—while far more were in county
jails waiting to go there. One was awaiting trial for a robbery-murder.
He’d stayed out two weeks.
Alex’s friends were no longer juvenile
delinquents, having passed the magical eighteenth birthday to reach legal
manhood. The sudden metamorphosis seemed strange to Alex; he’d forgotten
how much younger he was than his peers, at least younger in years.
Itchy led the way up a hillside street where
the small frame houses were perched and pillared up steep flights of steps.
They lacked front yards because they clung to the hillsides.
“I don’t live here,” Itchy
said. “My mom and kid sister stay here.” He opened the gate and
they went up the stairs. “I’ve got a choice pad in Hollywood, but
this is where I was raised.” The bungalow was small and inexpensive, but
it was obviously a home that someone cared for.
Mrs. Medina, also small-boned and thin, had
seen them through the window and had the door open when they reached the porch.
She embraced her son and smiled warmly when Alex was introduced.
“Some calls came for you, Henry,”
she said. “I took the messages down for you. I’ll get them.”
“Later, Mom.
We’re goin’ in the bathroom now.”
The happy smile dropped, but she said nothing
in protest. The fight had been lost long ago.
In the bathroom, Itchy had the practiced
dexterity of a surgeon. The “outfit” was wrapped in a filthy
bandanna and stuffed up under the sink. Beige powder and water went in the
spoon,
four matches under the spoon brought a boil and
dissolved the dope except for scum on top. A tiny ball of cotton was a
strainer, as he drew it up through the eyedropper. Moments later, a belt
wrapped around his bicep to distend the vein in the pit of his elbow, he tapped
the needle in, knowing it was right when blood streaked the eyedropper. Alex
noticed a three-inch line of bluish-black scar tissue along the vein. From
institution lore, Alex knew the amount Itchy had used was tremendous, enough to
kill two men, yet it had almost no visible effect on the Chicano. His voice got
huskier, but that was about all.
“Last chance,” Itchy said,
readying to put things away.
“Nope.
Man, I know I’d like it—so I don’t
want to try it anymore.”
Itchy grunted, scratched his nose, and
repackaged the paraphernalia. He made little, semihumming noises of
pleasure, as if enjoying what he was feeling within. Something had changed,
something sensed rather than defined. It was as if there was a wall between him
and intense feelings of any kind.
Alex looked around the neat bathroom. It was
immaculate and had bright guest towels and a scale. It was very middle class.
“I don’t see why you’re a fuckup,” Alex said. “I
mean, man, you seem to be cool at home. Everybody else comes from a broken
home, or their old man is a lush, or something is fucked up somehow… you
know what I mean. They have all those theories.
I fit ‘em
but you don’t.”
“Man, I thought you were a maniac in
Preston, the way you fucked up and went to the hole all the time. I still think
you’re crazy, but you’re not stupid,
ese
”
He paused, saw that Alex was waiting for an answer, and continued: “I
went to Catholic grammar school. So did my older brother… who’s
graduating from U.S.C. law school this semester. But in this neighborhood, that
ain’t the way to be in. My brother didn’t care about the fools on
the corner, but I did. I wanted to be a bigshot to them, have some identity in
the barrio, an’ all that shit. Bein’ the smartest in the class is
to be a punk to them.”
“Yeah, I sure found that out in
Whittier.”
“Right, ese! So I started fucking up to
be accepted.
The same with fixing.
It was the most hep
thing in the barrio… risky, but you know, eh? Besides, it takes away
those nervous shakes of mine, the ones that got me this nickname.”
Knowing how important acceptance was, Alex
nodded.
“And sellin’ dope is as much
status as I can get here. It’s power, too… over junkies anyway.
They really kiss your ass if you’ve got the dope bag.”
“What about your family?”
Itchy shrugged and made a discomfited face,
obviously not wanting to delve into it. He fell silent, thinking, and without
warning a “nod” came over him, a somnolence that
drooped
his chin to his chest. Alex had seen it before with Red Barzo and First Choice
Floyd. A few seconds elapsed until Itchy jerked and came awake.
“What about Wedo?” Alex asked.
“You say I can find him?”
“Oh, he’ll be around sometime
today. I’m the priest he’s gotta see for his sacrament.”
Itchy grinned, winked, and then closed his eyes, luxuriating in his wit and the
euphoric ecstasy suffusing him.
At dusk Alex and Itchy were in the pool hall
of The Traveler’s. The throbbing guitars and high-pitched singers of
ranchero music came loud from the jukebox. Wedo Murphy pushed into the noisy,
smoky room. Alex was leaning unobtrusively next to a wall while Itchy had two
Chicanos in conversation. Alex had been watching the front door and saw Wedo
instantly, watching him move through the crowd. His cheeks were gaunt and his
eyes sunken. He was even skinnier than usual. His clothes were in style, as
always, but they seemed unusually rumpled for the usually fastidious Wedo, who
managed to keep knife-edge creases in pants and shirts even amidst the pervasive
dirt and sloppiness of poverty. Now, however, his priorities had changed; the
monkey had to be fed before anything else could be thought of.
Wedo’s eyes flicked over Alex but
without recognition. Wedo’s gaze was unrelentingly on one person: Itchy.
Alex walked around the spectators of a snooker game and came up on Wedo from
the rear, getting his attention by grabbing his sleeve. Wedo turned, his eyes
narrowed for a couple of heartbeats, and then they widened with recognition.
“Alex!” he said; it was almost a question.
“Holy
fuckin’ mackerel!
You fuckin’ finally
raised
.”
“Yeah, man,” Alex said, grinning
so wide his facial muscles ached, meanwhile cuffing Wedo’s shoulder while
shaking hands. “I’m out again.”
“Man, did you escape
again—”
“No, they got weak and let me
out—finally. I’m on parole… after almost four fuckin’
years, less those few months on escape. When I went in, I was so young I
couldn’t get a hard-on, much less be able to come.”
Wedo still listened, but the exuberance of
the surprise quickly disappeared. Wedo’s eyes were over Alex’s
shoulder, fastened on Itchy. Alex saw this and understood. “He
ain’t goin’
nowhere
… but you’d
better see him to put your mind at ease.”
“Yeah, man, gotta make sure he’s
holdin’ the bag… Say, you know Itchy?”
“He got out of Preston last year. I
knew him there.”
“Yeah, right, I knew he was
there—but I just didn’t think to ask him how you were doin’.”
He affectionately patted Alex’s back. “I don’t think about
too many things lately… one-track mind.”
“Okay, go see him… take care of
biz. I’ll be out on the sidewalk. Tell Itchy I said ‘thanks.’”
On the sidewalk, posing with one foot propped
on the wall, Alex stood watching the jam of vehicle traffic; the
bumper-to-bumper autos inching along in the orange glare of sunset looked like
a horde of insects—shiny-backed beetles. Alex felt young and energetic,
yearning for adventure and excitement.
Wedo came out and walked by him without
speaking, merely gesturing with a hand held low. It was best to get off Temple
Street quickly, especially with fresh needle marks on his arms and five
capsules of heroin in
a cigarette
cellophane in his
hand, held loosely so the caps wouldn’t melt. The narcotics officers,
unable to catch big dealers, kept up their arrest reports by hauling in addicts
for vagrancy and picayune possessions. Besides, Wedo was in a hurry. Nobody is
more singleminded than a junky going to fix.
In the darkness around the corner was
Wedo’s car, a ten-year- old coupe with a bashed-in right side. The
headlight was out, the fender pulled away from the tire, and the right side
door held shut by baling wire.
“Slide in the driver’s
side,” Wedo said. “It runs pretty good, but I went on the nod and
scraped a brick wall.”
“This sure ain’t the
Batmobile,” Alex said, sliding under the steering wheel and along the
seat to the passenger side. “I can see us making a hot getaway in this
fucker… like Laurel and Hardy it’ll look… Remember that one
chase… that cop almost killed me.”
Wedo grunted; he remembered but was too
preoccupied with his imminent fix to reminisce now.
The silent ride took ten minutes of smaller
streets where they were less likely to meet narcotics detectives or a
black-and-white car interested in a dark headlight. The detectives knew
Wedo’s car. He was on bail as a vagrant-addict already. He lived in a
third-rate residential hotel near Sixth Street and Alvarado. He parked in the
alley behind the brick building, and they went up the rear stairs to the second
floor. As soon as the door was closed, Wedo not only locked it but also pulled
the dresser in front of it. “Just in case,” he said. “They’ll
bust a foot if they try to kick it open.” He nodded to the open door of a
cramped bathroom. “Get some water.”
Alex brought the water. Wedo was spreading
his paraphernalia on the dresser. “At least you’ve got a
toilet,” Alex said. Wedo didn’t answer; he was too intent on what
he was doing. He went through the same ritual as Itchy, except his blood
pressure was down and it took half a dozen probes until the blood squirted up
into the eyedropper to mix with the heroin, giving notice that the needle was
in a vein. He also “jacked it off,” first squeezing a bit of fluid
into his body, then letting the blood rush back into the eyedropper. He did it
twice more, and finally squirted the whole thing into himself. Afterward, he
wiped the blood from his arm with toilet paper and ran water through the
needle. By then the ecstasy of “the flash” was coursing through
him. “Mmmm,” he sighed. “Jesus,
it’s
fuckin’ good dope. I’d give you a taste, but I’ve just got a
getup for the morning.” The heroin, at least this amount, made Wedo more
voluble and energetic. His attention was now able to turn outward and really
acknowledge the presence of his friend. “Man, I didn’t think you
were ever gettin’ out,” he said. “I heard stories about you
fuckin’ up—had a private war goin’ with the greasers.”
“Just with a few assholes,” Alex
said, blushing because Wedo’s comment had been respectful. “What
about you? How the fuck did you get hooked? You used to knock heroin.”
Wedo explained that he’d dated a young
woman—but older than him, of course—who was a dope fiend whore. She
had left her pimp in Texas and didn’t have a connection in L.A. Wedo had
bought it for her, on her money, and began taking a fix now and then because
she always offered it. The intervals between fixes grew less and less, and
finally it was every day. She went back to Texas, and he woke up puking and
hooked. “I usually do better than this,” he said, meaning the
sleazy room. “Not the Beverly Wilshire, ese, but spots way better than
this. But I got pinched last week for marks and the puto bail bondsman and
lawyer got whatever I had… and connections don’t up shiva
without bread, que no? I’ll get it together now.”
“What’re you doin’ to get
money?”
“Lemme show you.” He went to the
closet, his back covering what he was doing with his clothes. Suddenly he spun
around. “Okay, mother-fucker! Freeze! Or I’ll blow your fuckin’
head off.” He had a nickel-plated .32 revolver in his hand.
Despite himself, the aimed pistol frightened
Alex. “Turn that thing away,” he said, raising his hand for emphasis.
“Your money or your
life, asshole!”
“Man, point that the other way.”
His fear was now tinged with anger. Wedo saw the truth and let the weapon hang
along his leg.
“Okay,” Wedo said, abashed.
“Anyway, that’s what I’ve been doing, pulling
heists—two or three a week.”
“What’ve you been hitting?”
Forgotten was the momentary fear of the aimed pistol.
“Liquor stores, mostly. They’re
open late at night, and they’re off by themselves.”
“Can you get another gun?”
“Already got a
sawed-off shotgun… just a single shot, though.
It’s in the car. I pulled my first two with
that… then I got this thirty-two for five caps of stuff. Itchy can get
you a pistol quick, man! Sheeit! He just tells those junkies he wants one.
It’ll be there. Those dope fiends will do anything… steal
Mama’s Kotex for two caps.”
Alex laughed and clapped his friend’s
back.
“Where you stayin’?”
Wedo asked. “Got a spot to crash?”
“Nowhere, man, nowhere. I even hung the
parole up.”
“Este vato, ese, you just sprung
!…
You ain’t
gave
yourself a chance.”
“Fuck
all that preachin’, man. Let’s go make some money.”
