“I couldn’t think seriously on it without knowing what you’ve got in mind. Right?”
The duo looked at each other; then JoJo touched Watkins’ sleeve and made a head gesture. They would talk it over alone.
* * *
No sooner had the pair turned away when the supervisor’s state car came down the road, braking when it got to Scouts’ recreation area. Alex got up and hand-brushed the seat of his pants. It was time for the extra duty. He was ten feet from the car before the man got out. The supervisor waved to Mr. Hoffman and gestured that he was taking Alex.
Fifteen minutes later, Alex was on an eighteen-foot ladder with rags, Bon Ami, and water. A couple of free cooks and helpers were still in the kitchen, but the vast mess hall was empty and silent, an atmosphere conducive to reflection while working. Maybe the trouble with the Chicanos (it wasn’t all of them, just Chango’s friends and those who put La Raza over everything) would go away if he played it soft and watched himself. They might cool off, go on to other conflicts and enemies. What the fuck, it was just a chickenshit fight and Chango was in the wrong.
Escape! It was harder than it looked. True, the front lacked even a fence (but the sides and rear, which had fields and orange groves outside, had fences and rolled concertina wire), but it was a heavily trafficked boulevard in a business neighborhood, and every citizen knew the reform-school clothes. Blacks and Mexicans really stood out; the town of Whittier was lily-white. No escapee would last long walking down the sidewalk in broad daylight. At night they were locked in the cottages. When they marched around after dark, to the auditorium or gymnasium, there was a chance to bolt for it. This was done sometimes, but Alex knew he didn’t run fast enough. The boys in Greenleaf Cottage, who wore all-white uniforms and were close to parole, were sent after those who ran. Several of them sometimes walked along with a cottage just in case. A capture of a runaway and the “close to parole” became “immediate release.” And a cottage that had no runaways for thirty days got a picnic or movie. Then, too, the men of Whittier State School knew the terrain. Unable to walk the streets, the runaways had to follow riverbeds and railroad tracks. The men knew these routes and sat watching them when boys were missing.
After getting away, what then? Alex had nowhere to go, nobody to help him. Without such things he would surely be caught sooner or later. It was far past the era when a young boy could live on his own. Still, the vision of a few weeks or months of freedom, just wandering the streets where every new dawn was the possibility of an adventure, was dizzying to imagine.
He made no decision that night, and by morning he had forgotten, at least on the conscious level, the offer of a hunted freedom. Other things intervened; nothing of serious consequence, but enough to snatch his attention. On the detail grounds he saw Indio point him out to another Chicano. Alex’s stomach knotted and turned queasy, part fear and part anger. That afternoon he kept watch between classes and on the crowded detail grounds, keyed up to start fighting if anyone made an aggressive move. Nobody, not Chango, Indio, or their friends, came within twenty feet of Alex.
After recall and count he could relax. Or mostly so. In the cottage was Constantine. Thus the day and early evening were dominated by acting tough—or actually being tough, for he was ready for trouble. But in the privacy of his room at night, the pain of it all, of being other than what he wanted to be, geysered up and put tears in his eyes. What kind of a life was this? In institutions, fighting all the time, being ruled by men who used authority for whim and caprice? It was shitty. That’s what. Plain shitty.
The pain and wet eyes soon hardened into deep, defiant anger.
15
The next Friday afternoon, during class recess, Alex went to the latrine at the end of the corridor. As he stood at one of the half-dozen urinals, he instinctively glanced over as someone came to the next one. He didn’t know the name, but the face was one of Chango’s clique. The boy’s facial muscles were twitching, giving it away that it was a trap.
Alex spun, frightened. Chango was sneaking up behind him. Indio was coming through the door.
“Okay, you Paddy punk motherfucker. You got it coming.”
Alex retreated along the wall toward a corner. He had no chance to win. He had to get past them out the door. In another three steps he’d be cornered. They were waiting for that. He sensed it somehow.
Suddenly, he lowered his head, partially raised his hands, and lunged forward.
The unnamed Chicano snatched at his arm, but Alex jerked it loose and spun like a football player. Chango kicked at him, trying for the testicles but hitting his thigh. Alex shoved him, taking the force from a blow Chango was also throwing.
Indio was blocking the door, but instead of tackling Alex with a shoulder, bringing him down for the others, Indio sidestepped and grabbed a sleeve with one hand, swinging with the other.
The sleeve ripped, and the swing glanced off the top of Alex’s head.
Alex hit the latrine door with both hands and exploded into the corridor. Behind him the trio screamed challenges. “Come back, you scared punk!” and, “We’ll get your ass, you sissy!”
Ten steps later, Alex stopped. The entire episode had taken a few seconds, yet he was breathing hard from excitement and exertion. He was neither afraid nor hurt, but emotional pain made him want to cry. He suppressed that feeling with anger, meanwhile fumbling with his torn sleeve, trying to make it less visible but unable to concentrate on this simple act because his thoughts were tumbling and incoherent.
He was still breathing faster than normal, still collecting himself, when the bell rang and he went back to his seat. That afternoon he did no work; he didn’t even read. He looked at pages and thought about what to do.…
* * *
“So what’s your idea?” Alex asked. He was between Joe Altabella and Watkins while they paced back and forth down the right-field line of the softball diamond. It was after the evening meal.
“It’s like this,” Watkins said. “You’re a housecat. During the day you’ve got a chance to get the chain off the locker-room window downstairs. Right?”
Alex nodded.
“On Wednesday night you stay down to separate the laundry. We sneak downstairs and go out the window—”
“Here’s the best part,” JoJo interjected.
“—out the window and over to the landscape building, not over the fence. There’s a furnace underground with a little room. I loosened some boards and stashed water and candy bars and two packs of smokes. We hide there until the next night and walk off. They just look for a few hours.”
“Anybody else know about it?”
Watkins shook his head.
“Sure? You know someone’ll snitch if they know.”
“I’m tellin’ ya … ain’t nobody knows nuthin’ ’bout nuthin’.”
“You wanna go, man?” JoJo asked.
“Lemme think about it.”
“How long?” Watkins pressed.
“I’ll tell you … at breakfast. Is that cool?”
“Cool enough.”
The conversation with JoJo and Watkins had been impulsive. During supper, Alex had poked at his food with the spoon (the only utensil allowed) and brooded, his thoughts mixing anguish and anger. When the cottage marched afterward to the recreation field, he’d seen the two boys, and escape seemed the answer. The streets were far away from his troubles—the troubles for which he had no answer.
But during the talk he’d imagined what some would think: that he’d escaped because he feared Chango and friends. That would be a taint in this world, and he would be back, eventually. Return was inevitable, sooner or later. And it was fear—in a way. Not physical fear not exactly. He might get ganged up on and beat up, but he would survive and had no real dread thereof. His fear was of living constantly with tension and incipient violence. That’s what he wanted to run from, just so he could lie down somewhere in the grass and relax, without Constantine, and Chango, and other youths wanting to be “bad” more t
han they wanted anything. Thus he’d approached the duet. Yet while they talked he visualized Constantine gloating, maybe even saying: “He ran ’cause some beans were after him. He’s probably a punk.” Imagining that made Alex’s face burn; he would fight all of them. Fuck ’em. If only that would end the necessity of being perpetually on guard, an animal with risen hackles.
When the whistle blew for the boys to line up to march to the cottage, Alex was still undecided. It was dusk, the reddish twilight blanketing a hush on the world. An early evening breeze stirred the trees, making the leaves rustle and sometimes fall. As Alex marched, he looked at the sun-reddened cumulus clouds in the sky. A formation of birds were black clots too high to determine what kind they were. A longing coursed through the boy, a bittersweet pain that had elements of loneliness but was really beyond articulation. He had nowhere to go even if he got away; nowhere and nobody, so in the end he would be caught. Nonetheless, he suddenly decided to go. An escape would also be a search for something. Whatever that was, he would never find it locked up. Out there every dawn would offer a new challenge and adventure. Anything might happen. Fuck ’em if they thought he’d run from fear.
When the boys took off their shoes outside the cottage (they went on stockinged feet indoors), Alex was gleefully excited. As soon as they filed into the locker room, each boy depositing his shoes in a numbered box, Alex touched JoJo’s arm, winked, and whispered, “I’m going with you.”
“Cool, man, cool.”
* * *
The locker-room windows had twin frames that opened outward. A short chain connected the twin windows in the middle, keeping them from opening enough for anyone to climb out. On Monday, Watkins stole a pipe wrench from the plumbing shop. On Tuesday morning, while Mrs. Hoffman was upstairs with the other housecat, Alex used the wrench on the hasp where the chain was attached, working it back and forth until, with a loud pop, it snapped free. He froze, waiting to see if the noise got anyone’s attention. When nobody came he attached the chain with a piece of wire, hoping that nobody would look for the next thirty hours.
That afternoon, Alex saw Indio in the education building hallway. The Chicano was going the other way and didn’t see Alex, who was wrestling with his rage, tempted to use this chance to attack with surprise. He could tap Indio’s shoulder, and when Indio started to turn … But the satisfaction would get him sent to Jefferson Cottage, the punishment unit, and ruin the chance for immediate freedom. Still … His indecision lasted long enough for Indio to turn into a classroom, erasing the chance for revenge. It was just as well, he decided.
Following supper, at recreation, the trio of escapees walked off by themselves the moment they were dismissed.
“It’s ready,” Alex said. “All ready for tomorrow night.” Welling up in him was happy pride. He spontaneously draped an arm around Watkins’ shoulder and hugged him.
Instantly, in reflex, Watkins jerked and threw off the hand. The gesture was so sudden and intense that Alex blushed, startled by his reaction. He’d forgotten how tangled were such matters in reform school, where freshly pubescent boys were without girls, and where there was an obsessional dread of being thought a punk—a punk being one who was buggered. Any touching of buttocks was cause for an immediate fight, and the paranoia extended sometimes to any touching whatsoever, especially where affection was conveyed. It was a weird world where trivialities caused brawls, and if a boy didn’t follow the standard, his manhood was suspect. Watkins was obviously more confused than most.
Silently they went to the pepper tree near the road. Alex sat down, his back against the trunk. JoJo sat in front of Alex, shielding him from the Man while Alex took out two cigarettes wrapped in toilet paper. He split a paper match in half and lighted one cigarette. They passed it around, keeping it hidden in a cupped palm, shaking it to stop smoke from being visible—and they watched Mr. Hoffman thirty yards away.
“Was it easy?” JoJo asked. “Bustin’ the chain?”
“Yeah … but the fucker sounded like a gunshot when it broke … if only nobody notices.” While speaking, Alex eyed Watkins, but there seemed no residual hostility from the indignation of minutes ago. Alex wouldn’t make the same mistake.
“So now what?” Alex asked, deliberately deferring to Watkins.
“Tomorrow night … half an hour after we go upstairs. You’ll be downstairs, won’t you?”
“Yeah. Counting dirty shorts and socks.”
“Hoffman’s off. The relief man will be upstairs. We get someone to call him down a hallway away from the stairs. We go down, grab our clothes and shoes, and go out the window.”
“Are we gonna dress there?” JoJo asked.
“We should put on shoes, at least,” Alex said. “Might step on something.”
“You can be dressed,” Watkins said. “We’ll see how it is then.”
“Sure sounds easy,” JoJo said.
“It is … that part anyway,” Alex said.
“I told you about the water and stuff down there, didn’t I?”
“Yeah,” Alex said. “I got some smokes, too.”
“I wish we had some money,” JoJo said. “It’s a thirty-mile walk into L.A. We could catch a bus when we get to another town.”
“Maybe we’ll hotwire a car,” Watkins said. “Tomorrow night when it’s dark … so the cops won’t see it’s a kid driving.”
“Can you hotwire a car?” Alex asked.
“Sure, man! Me and my brother done it fifteen, twenty times. He usually drove ’cause he’s older.”
“I can drive,” Alex said.
“Good, man, good.”
The conversation became boyish fantasies of what they would do in the free world. JoJo’s family—actually, his pretty teenaged sister—would hide them. The Altabellas owned a big, old frame house in the Italian section of San Pedro. A rear cottage was rented out. Besides two garages and a pigeon coop, there was a shed with a cot and sofa. An alley behind the property would let them come and go pretty much unseen by neighbors. Their “plan” was to stay at JoJo’s for a while. When they got some money they’d buy an old pickup truck and go to northeast Oklahoma, in the hill country near the Missouri border. “Yeah, man,” Watkins promised. “My uncle’s got a cabin out in the boondocks. We can live there as long as we want, do some huntin’ and fishin’. We can even get work around the farms. And there’s lots of cabins around that nobody uses except a couple weeks a year. They all got food in ’em, so we ain’t gonna get hungry.…”
The boys’ minds embellished reality. Alex saw the plan as within possibility. It might be possible to stay away forever. After a couple of years the California Youth Authority would forget them—and when he turned twenty-one they couldn’t keep him anyway.
Elated expectation enthralled them when Mr. Hoffman split the air with his whistle. The fifty youths began moving toward the road and forming ranks. Alex’s group was farther away than most and straggled a little. They weren’t late, but they were last—and they were still talking and laughing.
“Hurry the fuck up,” Constantine yelled. “You guys are holding up the works.”
As always, Constantine grated on Alex, causing him to clench his teeth until his jaw muscles were rocks. But tonight it was easier to pass it off, because after tomorrow night nobody would be yelling at him, or giving him orders. He even smiled at Constantine while going by.
Seven evenings a week the boys were allowed to shower if they so desired, but on Wednesday and Saturday it was mandatory. They exchanged bed linen, underwear, socks, and towels, and were checked off a list. By nine P.M. it was finished. Wearing nightgowns, wet hair shining and pressed down, they lined up and marched upstairs to their rooms. It was another hour until lights-out.
Alex remained downstairs, confronted by piles of dirty laundry. He still wore his clothes, except for his shoes, because he was expected to sort out, count, and bundle the dirty laundry. Although the boys were supposed to sort their own, it was inevitable that socks and jeans got in with she
ets and towels. Despite the escape half an hour away, Alex did his work, counting out sheets (the laundry would return just that many) and stuffing things into laundry bags. He did it mainly to keep his mind off the main event. Yet he heard noises from upstairs, some of them making his heartbeat race. He heard muffled voices and footsteps, and occasionally a raised voice.
He did enough work so that the relief man would think everything was normal (in case Watkins and JoJo didn’t show up); then he got Watkins’ and JoJo’s clothes and brogans from their lockers and put them in rolls next to the window. Only eighteen minutes had gone by, but to Alex it seemed several hours. Every small sound stiffened him. Several times he thought he heard someone coming down the stairs, but it was his imagination—and when they really came he heard nothing until they appeared in the doorway. They were so close together that JoJo stumbled into Watkins when the latter stopped.
“Nobody see you?” Alex asked.
“Nobody,” JoJo answered. “We had two guys start raising hell on the end of the hall.”
“There’s your clothes,” Alex said, pointing. He then went near the doorway to hear any possible pursuit.
“Let’s get dressed,” JoJo said. “I don’t dig runnin’ around in a fuckin’ nightgown.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Watkins said.
They stripped their nightgowns over their heads and began throwing on clothes, ignoring the underwear and socks.
“Put ’em in your pocket,” Watkins said to JoJo. “You can wear ’em later.”
JoJo nodded, breathing audibly from excitement. Both boys were frantic, fumbling with metal buttons on pants.
Alex waited near the doorway, watching them and glancing out. Now they were on the floor, pulling on their heavy shoes. Footsteps sounded on the stairway outside.
“Shhh!” Alex said, gesturing with raised hands for emphasis. They froze, looking at the door.
Constantine came in, wearing nightgown and slippers. “What’s happening here?” he asked, but his face registered that he knew.
Little Boy Blue Page 23
