The older boy saw Alex first. He stood up from the split watermelon, trowel in hand. “Whaddya want?” he demanded.
“Nuthin’,” Alex said, taken off balance and ashamed because his response wasn’t equally challenging.
“What’re you doin’, watchin’ us?”
“I’m not watching you. I didn’t even know you were here.”
“You could see us from half a mile if you came down the road. Where did you come from?”
Alex waved at the thick wall of foliage.
“Through that! Why didn’t you just walk?”
Before Alex could answer or even decide if he was going to (he resented the tone of the interrogation and had answered only because the other boy had momentum), the rosy-cheeked boy touched the other’s arm and talked too softly for Alex to hear. The older boy grimaced and nodded, indicating that he understood what was happening. Then Alex noticed that the older boy had extremely bad acne; it had scarred him so, his face had lost most of its flexibility. He turned to Alex. “You haven’t even got a grounds parole. You’re on Ward Fourteen. You killed somebody and now you’re running off. That’s right, huh?” The boy had piercing green eyes, old for his years.
“No, it’s wrong. I didn’t kill anybody and I’m not running away. But what’s it to you? Are you a cop?”
“Hell no, I ain’t no fuckin’ cop.”
“Well,” said Rosy Cheeks. “I know you’re on Fourteen and I know you had to do something serious or you’d be with us. And you can’t get a grounds parole on Fourteen … at least no juvenile can.”
Alex’s feet suddenly felt hot in his tennis shoes. He wondered if they would snitch on him, doubting that the older one would, for in youth Alex equated physical toughness with strength of character. But he was uncertain of the pretty boy. Years from now he would learn the impossibility of determining who would snitch from mannerisms. Actually, there was nothing he could do now—except run away—and he might have to chance it. These boys weren’t clean either; half a dozen watermelons were smashed open and thick with flies.
“We don’t care what you’re doing,” Acne said. “Are you escaping?”
Alex shook his head. “Just messing around.”
“Did you really shoot somebody?” Rosy Cheeks asked.
Alex nodded, the thread of awe in the boy’s voice making him view that never-forgotten but time-dimmed memory in a new way. In some places with some persons it was an accomplishment to have shot a man.
“None of these fuckers are ripe,” Acne said, chopping the trowel into the mottled green shell of yet another melon.
His manner signed acceptance, so Alex came down the row. “I’m Alex,” he said.
“I’m Raymond Taylor,” Acne said. “But everybody calls me ‘Scabs.’ I don’t know why.” He grinned. “This is Pat.”
Alex shook hands with Pat. Alex wanted to ask him if he was a boy or a girl but thought it would be impolite. Now he was part of the group, and it was taken for granted that they would spend the afternoons together, at play, smashing watermelons on the grounds of Camarillo State Hospital.
Leaving the smashed watermelons to the flies and the birds, they went toward the cluster of yellow frame farm buildings surrounded by trees that provided shade and a windbreak, an oasis of coolness amid the glare and weighted heat. Scabs assured Alex that nobody would pay them any attention, that he’d been here many times and the free personnel and patient workers were used to boys wandering around.
Scabs’s prediction was accurate. Nobody gave the three boys more than a glance. The area was more like a model farm than a real one. The frame walls had fresh yellow paint, and the windows gleamed. The gravel-paved roadways and square were raked clean and smooth, so the handful of leaves fallen on them from overhanging trees were like pimples on flawless skin. Weeds were nonexistent; the flowerbeds were tended; the lawns were manicured. The many trees gave shade and coolness.
The exploring trio, like all boys, instinctively sought out the animals. First the cows, the boys marveling at them as they came into the milking barn on their own, turning into their stalls, chewing placidly and waiting for the patients to arrive and hook their swollen udders to the machines. Alex wanted to squeeze one, to follow what someone had once told him about rolling the fingertips from top to bottom. Cows were harmless, everyone said, and he wasn’t really afraid, but he was from the city and a cow was, after all, awfully big. He slipped past a fly-slapping tail and along the road flank. “Easy, Bossy,” he said, patting the cow, then leaned forward to grasp the pinkish-white nipple, pulling and squeezing, surprised by the force of the squirting stream. The cow sounded and shifted its bulk, its flank banging into Alex’s head and pushing him back because of his ungainly posture. It also frightened him—a flash fright that made him leap out to the aisle and brought laughter from Scabs and a grin from Pat.
Alex blushed, embarrassed, angry at himself, vowing to erase their laughter by doing something recklessly wild and brave.
Cows are less interesting than dogs and horses, especially the latter. The State Hospital had a flock of sheep and a pair of black-and-white sheepdogs. The boys watched them in action, their mouths seemingly stuck half-open in amazement, since the dogs were incredibly swift and often seemed to anticipate which way a ewe, who seemed to be leader, was going to break as they were being moved from one pasture to another. When the shepherd, an elderly Mexican who was a patient, closed the gate behind the last piece of wool on the hoof, the boys tried to call the dogs, who were trotting at the old man’s heels. With lolling tongues and brambles in their fur, the dogs looked at the supplicants but didn’t even falter in their prancing stride. Alex suddenly wished he had a dog that loved him as these two did the old man.
Beyond a line of trees was a back pasture holding three horses. All were fat and all were grazing, their necks arched down to the short grass. The boys were on a dirt road going beside the pasture.
“Let’s take a dip,” Pat said.
“Where’s a place to do that?” Alex asked.
“An irrigation cistern. I guess you call it a cistern,” Scabs said. “But it’s really cold and feels good as a motherfucker on a hot day … even if you can’t really swim.”
Alex nodded, but he was looking toward the pasture. “That’s fine … but we should go horseback riding first.”
“Oh, no!” Pat said. “You know better, Scabs. Tell him how mad they’ll get.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Alex said. “We’re not going to get spotted out here.”
“If we do—”
“We’re not hurtin’ ’em. And horses are for riding, or doing something.”
“How you gonna steer him?” Scabs asked.
“I’m going to put a belt around his neck and hope he’s well trained. If that doesn’t work, I’ll just hold on.”
“We’ll keep a lookout, just in case. I know a lot ’bout cars, but about horses I don’t know shit from Shinola.”
* * *
Putting a hand on a fence post, Alex climbed the wire and dropped down. Twenty yards away the horse looked up, but his long tail kept slapping rhythmically at flies. The knot in Alex’s stomach began to unravel a little as he came up beside the horse and patted its flank without getting kicked or snarled at—or whatever it is horses do to threaten. He saw that he couldn’t swing onto the horse’s back from the ground, even with a firm grip on the long mane. He put the belt around the horse’s neck and led him to the fence. The horse came easily. Scabs held him while Alex got up awkwardly on a fence post and half-fell across the animal’s back. The horse held firm, conditioned to suffer fools and the ungainly. Alex swung a leg over and found himself astride. He got the belt around the big neck so it vaguely resembled a short bridle. “C’mon, giddup,” he said, spurring the horse’s sides—and the horse followed instructions.
Alex was conscious of Scabs and Pat standing on the road outside the fence, and he knew that they were impressed by this scene; they might even be envious.
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Using just the belt, the “reins” were short, so he leaned forward along the horse’s neck, accustoming himself to the roll and sway of horseback. Then suddenly he wanted the horse to run. He wanted to be the racing, free figure on horseback that he’d seen so often in movies. “Hah!” he exclaimed, shaking the reins and kicking his heels into the horse’s sides. The horse lunged into a trot—a gait it was unaccustomed to. It was better but still insufficiently exhilarating, so he urged the horse to greater speed, feeling the hard bounces whenever the hooves thumped into the earth, sending up puffs of dust. At the end of the pasture he pulled the belt to the right, wanting to ride up to his friends. The horse turned obediently, slowing down. Now Alex was facing the road.
Scabs and Pat were gone. And where they’d stood was a green pickup truck with the State of California seal on its open door. Its driver was bent over, coming through the fence—it was the farm foreman. When he came erect he brandished a clenched fist at Alex, yelling angrily.
“Stupid-ass kid!” came through the hot air as Alex pulled up and half fell off the horse. He hit the ground running and heard the voice saying, “If that mare has a miscarriage…”
He hit the fence, glancing back. The man was running across the pasture, but his feet were sinking into the earth and he wasn’t moving very fast. The ground Alex was on, beyond the fence, was packed hard, and his feet were flying. The man gave up before he reached the fence. Alex ducked into a cornfield, then cut across at an angle that brought him beside the devastated melon patch en route to the creek bed, though this time he went to the bridge and down into it instead of fighting the brush.
Minutes later, as he followed his opposite-direction footsteps in the smooth dirt, the fear was gone. Now he felt a pang of remorse; he hoped the horse would be all right. No harm had been intended; he hadn’t known the mare was pregnant. Yet he also begged fate to let it be, that nothing would come of it, that he wouldn’t be found out.
* * *
That night Pat snitched on him. The horse was all right, but the foreman had found the litter of gutted watermelons and the tracks of the same trio he’d chased from the pasture. He’d gone to the juvenile ward, picking Scabs out. The attendants then told him that if Scabs was one, Pat had to be the other. Scabs denied everything until Pat burst into tears and confessed, telling who was with them.
Alex had no idea—no forewarning. He was playing chess with First Choice Floyd when he saw the evening supervisor and the farm foreman come onto the ward; they went into the office with the ward’s charge attendant. At precisely that moment, Alex ceased to be able to see how the pieces moved or their relationships. His mind flooded with dread. Floyd took his queen and chortled happily.
The charge attendant came out, spotted Alex in the dayroom of the insane, and beckoned him over with head and hand gestures. Alex pointed a finger at himself in silent question. The man nodded. Alex swallowed back his fear and got up. “They want me,” he said to Floyd. “I think I’ve gotten into a mess.”
“What’d you do?”
“Not much, but they think it’s serious.”
“Hold your mud like we taught you.”
Alex nodded and walked toward the closed door of varnished wood.
Moments later, as the door closed behind him, Alex knew what his trouble was. Two of the three waiting men wore white, but the other was in khakis and brogans. It was about riding the horse. Alex was unable to tell if this was the man from the truck, but he thought it likely because of how the man’s eyes narrowed, studying him.
Next to the farm employee, perched on a reversed straight-backed chair, his chin resting on crossed forearms, was the nightwatch supervisor. After four P.M. he was in charge of the institution—so long as things remained fairly routine. A major problem put him on the telephone. Now he was irked. He’d been called from the mess hall/auditorium where the women’s wards were seeing a movie. His duties included seeing the movie, and if this interruption was frivolous …
“Sit down, lad,” the nightwatch supervisor said.
Alex looked around. “No seats,” he said.
“Well, guess you’ll stand up. This won’t take long anyway.”
Alex suddenly decided that he would deny guilt no matter how much evidence or how many witnesses were against him. His brain locked into place.
The room was silent, with each adult waiting for the other to speak. It was the farm foreman, coloring as he did, who spoke first: “You’re lucky you’re in an institution. If you were my kid I’d blister your ass for you. That’s what you need. But that’s a no no because you’re a patient. I think you just need to learn better than to violate society’s rules … and respect things. Do you know how many good watermelons you destroyed? Ruining food when people in China are starving?…”
“Exactly what happened, Jeff?” asked the nightwatch supervisor.
“This kid and a couple of others from the juvenile ward—they admit they did it, and one of them said this one was with them—tore up a watermelon patch, vandalized it, and then started riding mares ready to foal. Wonder they didn’t cause a miscarriage.”
The nightwatch supervisor looked at Alex, cocking an eyebrow, no hostility evident. “How come you did some shit like that?”
“I didn’t do nuthin’,” Alex said emphatically. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The foreman flushed in livid spots. “We oughta put him in a side-room in straps,” he said to the other two men. “That’d teach the punk.”
The supervisor popped the gum he was chewing and let his eyes float momentarily toward the ceiling, as if mildly bored or bemused at the vengeful words but unwilling to argue the point.
“What’s the use of denyin’ it?” the supervisor asked Alex. “Nothin’s gonna happen to you except take your grounds parole for a month. That’s no way to treat a privilege.”
“I don’t have a grounds parole card,” Alex said. “I wasn’t out there.”
The supervisor was suddenly alive, rising up and looking at the ward attendant, who hadn’t spoken since summoning Alex. “That’s right,” the ward attendant said. “He doesn’t have a grounds parole card. He goes out to the main recreation yard, but that’s all. He’s no relation to Harry Houdini.”
The supervisor looked at the foreman, now questioning him without words, waiting for an explanation. Now the coloring was of discomfiture and confusion. “I dunno. I just know there was three of ’em … and that other kid said it was this one.” He punctuated the sentence with a lame shrug.
“Maybe he did do it,” the supervisor said. “Little Orphan Annie could get out of here in ten minutes. But all we’ve got is the word of a schizophrenic youngster.… So”—he turned to Alex—“you get the benefit of the doubt this time. But if it was you out there fuckin’ things up, better think about it. Some people around here would see that as a sign that something’s wrong with your brain, and the way to fix it is with a dozen electric-shock treatments. I guarantee that would stop you for a while.”
Alex had seen the treatments, given to dozens twice a week in an assembly-line process: the oiled temples, the small electrodes, the seconds of convulsions, and the hours of deep sleep with foam running from the corners of mouths; and after awakening the slow return of memory, men never knowing where they were or what was happening. They were indeed unlikely to do anything wrong or have a wrong thought—or much of any thoughts. The patients on shock treatments, with rare exceptions, were diffident, wearing perpetual semi-smiles. They all said they couldn’t remember feeling anything, but all of them were frightened of the black box—and so was Alex. In the mental hospital all misbehavior was considered a symptom of mental illness. It was treated instead of punished—and Alex was terrified of such treatment.
Afterward, when he stood alone in the dayroom, Alex was incredulous—so much so that his relief was edged with fear. It had been too easy to get out of the trouble; the supervisor had been too friendly. It was unnatural.
T
hat night in the dormitory’s darkness—amid snores, coughs, and muttered words from psychotic dreams—Alex was too keyed up to sleep. He was elated at having found a friend of Scabs’s stature, an older boy who had respect and status in the juvenile hierarchy. Alex was mildly angry at Pat and knew the boy’s snitching would make Scabs drop him, but it would be a couple more years before Alex looked on all snitches with unmitigated hate. Now he would have someone to pal around with. It was a good thought. Then once again he recalled the scene in the room with the men. In the past he’d been punished for things he hadn’t done (and things he had, too), and now he’d gotten out of something he was really guilty of—after he’d been caught. It seemed to prove that right didn’t always overcome wrong, nor the other way either. Sometimes it was even hard to know the difference. He hadn’t felt wrong in riding the horse … but he did feel a little wrong in smashing the watermelons, destroying things for no good reason.… They hadn’t been as upset about the melons as the horse.…
Alex fell asleep wondering how he’d contact Scabs in the morning.
* * *
For the next few weeks things happened as Alex had anticipated. Scabs, his cruel nature finding moral indignation to justify tormenting his former friend, slapped and kicked the sobbing Pat. Scabs spat on him and chased him away, first ordering him to lower his head and drop his eyes whenever he or Alex approached. A few days later three older boys on the juvenile ward slapped Pat around, then buggered him, tearing his rectum. “You got tits like a girl, voice like a girl, you cry like a girl, and you’re a snitch—so you’re gonna be a girl.”
That night Pat sliced himself up with a razor blade, up and down both arms, his neck, and his cheeks. It took a hundred forty-two stitches to sew him up. He was transferred to a “closed” ward and put on shock treatments twice a week for ten weeks. Alex never saw him again, though a decade later he would learn of a Californian with Pat’s identical name and description, unique as it was with the breasts, who was electrocuted in Texas for an especially gory rape-murder.
Little Boy Blue Page 12
