As he kept looking for Red, Alex was still excited about his triumph in the game. He pushed through the restroom door and was met with a cloud of thick tobacco smoke. This was the one place on the ward where smoking was allowed. Inside was a crowded foyer of puffing men, most of them with hand-rolled cigarettes made of awful-tasting, sweet-smelling state tobacco packaged at San Quentin and nicknamed “Duffy,” after the famous warden of the prison.
Alex walked by unconcernedly, barely glancing at the cadaverous, swollen, fierce-eyed, vacant-eyed faces. Then he went through a second door into a much larger but less crowded room with huge semicircular washbowls on the right and urinals and toilets on the left. Butts and streamers of toilet paper littered the floor. Red wasn’t here.
“Hey, kid,” a toothless black man with scaly gray skin and hair like wild watch springs said. His teeth were huge and yellow, and some were missing. But he didn’t faze the boy, for Alex knew that, frightening as he appeared, he was harmless. Alex reached into his jeans and picked out a cigarette without extracting the pack. Exposing it would have invited a crowd of beggars. Factory-made cigarettes were at a premium, and the mentally ill were the world’s most unabashed beggars. Alex had started smoking three weeks earlier and had been inhaling for the past week; he was proud of himself.
Red had to be in either the clothing room or the dormitory, though the last was out of bounds during the day. Red, however, had an attendant who accepted ten-dollar bills slipped into his pocket with a wink. He also brought Red bottles of whiskey and cough syrup laced with codeine, which Red hid in a locker under his bunk. Once late at night Alex had found him and First Choice Floyd in the small dormitory restroom, huddled over a spoon with matches flaming under it. Red had told him quickly, “Get the fuck outa here,” and he left, red-faced. The next morning Floyd told him to forget what he’d seen.
Barzo was in the clothing room—actually two rooms: one a place to get dressed next to the showers, and the other for storage of civilian clothes. He’d shaved and changed into a zoot suit of hound’s-tooth check, with a yellow shirt and maroon tie, the era’s epitome of sharpness. His processed red hair was slicked down stiff, and he smelled of cologne. Somehow First Choice Floyd had found Red first; the dark-skinned black man was propped on one elbow on a bench next to the wall.
Red looked around at the sound of the door opening. “How do I look, boy?”
“C’mon, niggah,” Floyd said, slurring the last word. “You know you look pretty. But hurry your ass up an’ don’ keep that broad waitin’.”
Red turned back to the full-length mirror, making a final check of how his clothes hung. He looked at Alex in the mirror. “Heard you won a bundle. Took you a while gettin’ heah. How much you steal?”
Alex’s face crimsoned and he stuttered a denial, realizing, as Red burst out laughing, that the accusation was a joke. “Well, young’un, you shoulda took a little end. That’s what I’da done. How much you got?”
“A hundred and twenty dollars.”
“The boy is a poker-playin’ genius. Sheeit! I might ’dopt you, sho’ nuff.”
Alex was digging out the roll of bills.
“Take twenty in green and the change,” Red said. “Coins fuck up the hang of my rag.”
When that was done, Alex sat down while Red finished his ablutions. “Boy,” Red said when he was ready to go, “ain’ no doubt you headin’ dead for San Quentin, ’cause you got the devil in you. Ain’ no stoppin’ it, so it’s good you fuckin’ with me ’n Floyd ’n gettin’ schooled. You gotta decide if you wanna be a pimp, a player, or a gangster.”
“What’s the difference?”
“One’s slick and the other’s tough.”
“I think I’d like to be a little bit of both.”
The two black men burst out laughing. Alex couldn’t help another blush, but his embarrassment was mixed with pleasure.
10
The ward doctor was an infrequently seen god. When he did appear, it was seldom to talk directly to patients. He disappeared with the senior attendants behind the office door, looked at charts, sometimes wrote on them, listened to what the attendants had to say, and drank coffee. Occasionally he toured the corridor of lockup rooms, peered through the window slots, and looked at each occupant strapped to a bed. Then he swept out, followed by a retinue of white suits until he went through the door.
Alex never talked to the doctor or knew his name—or cared. He was happier here in the state hospital than in any of the foster homes or boys’ schools or anywhere else. His initial fear of being among the insane quickly went away. The joy of this place was that he lived a virtually unstructured existence. He was too young for work, and there was no school. Within the vast confines of the institution he was free to roam until sunset, and during the evening the ward itself had the poker game or something else to pass the time. He had no hunger to escape from his surroundings into books. What went on around him was more stimulating, especially the huge yard surrounded by the buildings. The institution was both circus and menagerie, a multitude of the insane thrown into the sunlight across two walled acres. Alice found beyond the looking glass no weirder conversations than Alex found here. One old man cruised relentless as a shark, searching for cigarette or cigar butts. They didn’t even need to be discarded—if someone set one down, he grabbed it. During a softball game the charge attendant of the juvenile ward, a cigar addict, set his stogie on the bench while he went to bat. He took a third strike—bat on his shoulder, mouth agape, and eyes wide—as he watched the shark scoop up his cigar and stroll off, puffing. Alex began giving the shark whole cigarettes, which only prompted gestures for a match. The shark was known to be able to talk, but nobody had ever heard him say a word. Alex wondered how they knew he was crazy.
Another character, nicknamed “the Flusher,” stood in one place, muttering curses to himself, working himself to a frenzy; whereupon he put his index finger knuckle between his teeth, contorted his face, and meanwhile raised his right hand and jerked down, as if ringing a train whistle or pulling the chain on an old-fashioned toilet. Alex made friends with the chain-puller through bribes of cigarettes and discovered what he was really doing. The Flusher was in charge of all executions throughout the world, and when he cursed he was passing judgment. When he pumped his raised arm, another trap on another gibbet somewhere sprung on some poor wretch.
One afternoon Alex was waiting in the yard for an attendant to open a gate so he could go back to the ward when he noticed an immense black man with gray hair, standing pressed against a nearby wall. The man was looking around wildly, and he focused on Alex’s glance as swiftly as radar. The flicking eyes kept coming back to the boy, and the huge body began to tremble. Now Alex’s attention was laced with anxiety because of the unpredictable fear he saw. The boy watched the man, who suddenly began moaning, “Abe bad, boss … easy, boss … no, boss … no…” And while he spoke the huge hands began rending his own garments. He tore new denim as if it were paper, his protestations of guilt and fear growing more and more feverish until foamy spittle flew from his mouth. Alex was somewhat afraid, yet he wondered what could have implanted such fear in so powerful a man. The boy started to step forward to soothe the man, but the yipping cry and the ripping cloth stopped him short. By then shredded rags hung on the giant ebony body. Seeing that Alex might approach, the giant fell to the ground and began groveling in utter terror. Across his whale-sized back were hard lines, the silky scars of black skin. Alex turned away, ignoring the crazy man because he couldn’t think of anything more appropriate. It was easier to force himself to forget the man, and Alex was glad when the attendant finally came with the key.
Later, First Choice told the boy that Abe had gotten those scars on a Louisiana chain gang, in the thirties. Abe had been a professional thief, booster, and con man, one who crossroaded around the country; he had been caught shoplifting three Hickey-Freeman suits and got a one-year sentence on each. An educated man, he’d lacked the syruped burr of northern
blacks and the hat-in-hand demeanor of southern blacks. These things had marked him to redneck guards, and his worst mistake had been to meet the focused repression with head-on rebellion. “Fool-ass niggah didn’ know how to jeff to live. They fucked him over bad—stuck sweat boxes to him, clubbed him, whipped him. They didn’t kill his body, but they got his mind. When he finished that trey they sent him back here. You gotta be a man an’ say ‘no’ an’ fight sometimes, even if they kills you … but suicide ain’ nuthin’, an’ he committed it sure as he used a gun.”
“I’d make them kill me if they did that,” Alex said, the words intense but strange in his childish voice.
“They’ll damn sure do that. They don’t care if you white—sheeit, you a white nigger, boy. You can pass sometimes, but if they knew ’bout you they’d sho’ nuff treat you like a nigger.” First Choice rumpled the youth’s head. “You got a lot of fool in you, white boy.”
* * *
A few days later, in another part of the yard, Alex walked close to a potbellied little Syrian, a demented creature with hooked nose and beady eyes beneath a hairless pate. His nickname was “Abraham,” which never failed to bring vociferous protest; the words were nearly unintelligible because his passion exaggerated his accent. But his claim to fame was that he spent every day masturbating. He stood near a corner where two buildings came together; he’d worn the lawn down to bare earth in a four-foot-zone. But his penis remained healthy, though it was a miracle when he got an erection. Indeed, it was on such an occasion that Alex first saw Abraham. A small crowd had gathered, and they were egging him on. His tongue flapped out of his mouth, and sweat broke on his forehead from the effort. Someone watching said it was the first time Abraham had gotten it up in six months. Alex laughed and shook his head, blushing because he too was beginning to masturbate, in great privacy and unsuccessfully.
Now, as Abraham was flailing away, Alex stood closer to him than ever before. The man called out, “Boy, eh now!” He faced Alex, clenched his fists beside his pelvis, and rolled himself suggestively, jerking his head toward a stairwell doorway.
Prior warnings—half in jest and half serious—from both Red and First Choice had made Alex sensitive to homosexual overtures. And this gesture from the Syrian was definitely obscene. The boy’s rage flared, and his eyes swept the ground for a rock. He snatched one up—it was the size of an egg—and hurled it with all his strength at the man’s head. The distance was short, but the Syrian barely managed to duck away. The potbellied degenerate was also a coward, and he stood there, cowering behind his hands. Alex grabbed another rock and threw it at the man’s still-exposed genitals, hitting him on the thigh. The man yelped and trotted off. Alex kept throwing, and the man kept circling away, ducking most throws, yipping when struck. On seeing the Syrian’s fear, Alex’s indignation turned into something crueler: enjoyment at causing torment, a sense of power. When he tired of it he quit, but he was back the next day, and the day after that. The moment Abraham saw the boy coming he began to moan and put out his hands. A couple of times he was goaded into charging, but Alex was too nimble, and the pursuit never lasted more than a few steps.
The patients in the yard paid no attention; they were filled with their own problems and delusions. No adults were on hand to pass judgments born of love that nurture seedling consciences. Alex knew what he was doing was wrong, but his feeling of wrongness was lacking. Red Barzo saw the stoning from across the yard, and that evening, when they were in the mess hall, the black con man-junkie admonished him: “Best freeze on that shit, boy. White folks runnin’ this camp will get in your young ass if they catch you teasin’ the nutty motherfucker. Ain’ no money in it, anyway. You can’ go wrong in life, un’erstan’, if before you do somepin’, un’erstan’, you say, ‘any money made here?’ That ain’ no bullshit. That’s the best way to look at the fast life, can you dig it?” The frequently interjected question wasn’t really a question but a rhetorical pause. Yet the advice was intended seriously, and the sincere tone impressed the content on Alex. He would always remember and quote it, even if he didn’t always follow it.
This time, however, he did follow it, and he stopped harassing the man, both because Red’s approval was important and because he found other things to do. Mainly he found a way to get out of the yard by squeezing through wrought-iron bars into a tunnel walkway, and then through other bars into a courtyard with an open gate. Outside the gate was a road that went around the sprawling institution’s buildings.
Among the six thousand patients, nearly a thousand had “grounds paroles,” meaning they were allowed to roam the vast grounds, much of it alfalfa fields, orange groves, and walnut orchards, and some of it rocky desert like most of southern California. Many male juveniles (not females) had grounds paroles, so one more boy walking around didn’t attract attention, though Alex did stay away from the administration buildings, where he might run into a staff member who knew him.
The first few days when he squeezed out, he hurried straight into the rugged low hills behind the hospital. Dotting the rugged terrain were little shacks—perhaps half a dozen over a square mile—built by long-term patients. Most were actually roofed pits with stoves and makeshift cots, a chair and table—and maybe a footlocker where someone kept cigarettes, coffee, and other things of small but important value. The cabins all had a tribe of cats; the scrawny felines were half-wild, but they came running when the man from their particular cabin came up the hill carrying food scraps wrapped in newspaper. The scraps were easy to get from the kitchen, and the cats mewed loud and tangled themselves in the men’s feet, providing them with a facsimile of needed affection; they frequently talked to the cats as they spread the scraps on the ground.
Alex watched one of these men feeding his cat from a distance, wanting to be invited. But the man turned away, as if the boy weren’t there, so Alex went on with his explorations, following narrow paths upward to high rocks halfway to the summit of a mountain; they provided a view of the hospital grounds and the flat land stretching west. He could even see the glimmer of the sea in the distance. It was about five miles away. To the right the hospital property stretched for three miles, mostly cultivated fields, some just rows of turned earth waiting seed, others gleaming emerald, the geometric lines framed by the dirt roads and windbreaks of tall, swaying eucalyptus. There, too, were the farm buildings, and someone told him of a large melon patch.
After a week of exploring the nearer side, of digging into holes and dislodging hordes of red ants (he put flaming twigs into their holes), of tearing thick green wrappings from unripe walnuts, he decided to circle the buildings, staying out of sight, and head toward the melon patch and dairy.
He trudged through the soft, dry earth beneath the walnut trees, then went along an irrigation ditch, staying off the hospital roads. Finally he was in a dry wash; it became a shallow, swift stream in winter but was now empty and smooth. From his earlier pinnacle view, Alex knew it came close to the melon patch and the farm buildings beyond. He trudged along, his feet sinking into the soft earth. It would have exhausted the average adult, but youth isn’t so conscious of physical exhaustion. Ahead was a concrete bridge, the main road leading into the hospital, traveled by many vehicles. Before getting too close, Alex turned off the main road. But the dry shrubbery on the banks offered no path, so he plunged in, holding his hands up to keep the thin, scratchy branches away from his face. It was a hot day, and in seconds he was sweating; the sweat attracted a swarm of gnats that clustered about his face. The earlier thrill of adventure was gone, replaced by a kind of desperation. The barrier of wild shrubbery wasn’t the few feet he’d expected; he’d gone fifteen yards and it was still solid in front of him.
He burst through after thirty yards, his hands and forearms itchy and irritated. He wondered from his itching face if he’d run into poison oak or poison ivy; he’d heard about the torture of itching, of scratching until the flesh was stripped (the horror stories told by little boys to each other), and right now
he certainly felt as if he could scratch that much.
Finally he was on a dusty road beside the field of melons. Two boys were already there; one of them, who looked older than Alex, was hunkered down, chopping a striped watermelon open with a rusted garden trowel. The ground around him was littered with half a dozen split melons, their meat pale pink rather than succulent red, unripe except to the swarms of flies they attracted.
Both boys were in profile to Alex, facing each other and not seeing the new arrival. Their voices but not their words came across the twenty yards of heat-shimmering air. The younger boy’s voice had a sibilance higher than most, making Alex think of a girl, and in profile his chest had the twin jutting configuration of budding breasts. Alex’s hostility toward these interlopers in a territory he was hunting broke into confusion. He’d seen this rosy-cheeked young boy with the other juveniles, that was certain, and that meant he wasn’t a girl even if he had a girl’s breasts, voice, and complexion. Later Alex would learn that a hormone imbalance caused these things, and in turn these had caused a nervous breakdown. The boy was getting hormone shots for one problem and psychotherapy for the other.
Little Boy Blue Page 11
