Little Boy Blue

by Edward Bunker

  When he signed for his property envelope, which the transportation officers took possession of, he asked if he could get cigarettes from a machine in the corner. One of them took twenty cents from the envelope and got a pack of Luckies for him.

  Then came handcuffs. From now on whenever he was transported there would be restraints. He was a known rabbit.

  Night’s dark coolness was still on the city when they took him out to the parking lot. While they unlocked the station wagon, the back seat of which was screened off, Alex sucked in the fresh predawn air and stared with longing at the dismal old buildings. The coolness felt especially good after the stale odors of the jail. A hundred youths had passed through during his four days, seven of them in his cell. Despite the momentary twinge of fear when he heard about Preston, his mood was jovial. Without being conscious of it, he’d learned to derive pleasure from what was available, and at the moment it was his first ride up the California coast, or at least partly up the coast before turning inland. He didn’t probe or try to dissect his unlikely good mood. If asked, he would have replied that it came from getting out of the dirty jail.

  “Did they feed you back there?” one of the men asked.

  “Naw,” Alex lied. At four A.M. the jailers passed out compartment trays with nothing on them but mush. It was so rubbery that they slid the trays through the bars sideways, for the mush stuck to the tray. Then a jailer came with two slices of bread for each boy. Very few stayed in Georgia Street more than a night, so swill for food hardly mattered.

  “We’ll feed you later,” the man said. “We want to get out of the city before the morning rush.”

  “How come we’re going up the coast route? It’s not the shortest, is it?”

  “We have to pick up two more in Santa Barbara.”

  A few minutes later the car passed the lighted Examiner building. Trucks with the morning edition were pulling out. The familiar streets put a pang of longing in Alex. Then he saw Hank’s car at the curb, and his ache turned to damp eyes; he cursed the tears silently and fought them down.

  As they drove west toward the coast highway, Alex stared at everything, imprinting on his memory all that he could of freedom. Everything had an unusual clarity. Even the red and green of traffic lights had unusual intensity.

  It grew light while they were following the curves of the coast highway. The blackness of the sea turned into an oily dark green under the solid gray blanket of clouds.

  They pulled off into a truck stop café. Several big rigs and half a dozen cars were parked in the lot, and through the misted glass Alex could see it was crowded.

  “You ready to eat, son?” one of the men asked.

  “Are you going to take these off?” He extended his handcuffed wrists.

  “Oh, no, no, no,” the man said with a pleasant grin. “We don’t have any weapons with us, and you’re too young … no doubt you can outrun us.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Alex said. “Let’s go.” A protective anger surged through him, so that he swaggered, and inside the café he met the looks of customers and waitresses with burning eyes and lips trembling near the snarl of an animal. Most of them met his eyes only for a second, then looked away nervously—at least those who noticed him in the first place did so. It was only a handful; the vast majority were too involved in their own affairs to pay any attention.

  The men with him, however, did notice. They exchanged glances and made mental notes to document the boy’s streak of hostility and viciousness.

  In Santa Barbara the driver waited at the car with Alex while the other man went inside. Fifteen minutes later he came down the walk with two youths handcuffed together, one white, one black. Alex began grinning and chuckling. The black was Chester Nelson, he of the light, freckled skin whom Alex had met his first morning in Juvenile Hall. Chester, however, was no longer a skinny kid. His chest, shoulders, and arms filled out his shirt, and he obviously needed to shave twice a week. He leaned forward to get in first, saw Alex, and froze momentarily; then he shook his head and grinned, showing another change: he’d lost his two front teeth.

  “Hey, baby,” he said. “It’s the same old faces in the same old places. I know you well, ’member when we met makin’ the bed in Juvie, but your name I forgot.”

  “Hammond—”

  “Yeah, Alex Hammond,” Chester interrupted. Now he was inside, next to Alex. He awkwardly extended his left hand to shake; his right was cuffed to the other youth.

  “How’d you get busted up here?” Alex asked. “You’re outa Watts, aren’t you?”

  “Not Watts, sucker. Them’s country niggers. I’m from the west side.”

  “How’d you get here?”

  “In a hot car. How else.”

  “That’s what they got you for, car theft?”

  “That and some burglaries.”

  “That’ll hold you.”

  “Damn sure will. You goin’ to Preston, too?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  The man on the passenger side squirmed around. “Okay, listen up,” he said. “We got an all-day ride. We can do it easy or hard. You can smoke, but crack a window and use the ashtrays. Talk all you want, but don’t start yelling out the windows. Look at the pretty girls, but keep your mouths shut. In about ten minutes we’re gonna stop at a gas station. You better take a leak then. It’ll be your last chance. If you’re all right, don’t give us any trouble, we’ll get you cheeseburgers and Cokes for lunch. If you do give us trouble, you’ll get to Preston about five this evening—hungry. Any questions?”

  “Yeah, man,” Chester said.

  “What?”

  “We get french fries too?”

  Everyone grinned.

  * * *

  It was five past five when they pulled up to the gatehouse. While the driver showed the papers to the guard, the boys leaned forward and looked up the road to the administration building, the only one they could see. Constructed of brick, it was old for California. It sat on a hilltop (Preston was built on low, rolling hills) and had a fifty-foot bell tower.

  “That’s the Castle,” Chester Nelson said.

  The gate slid open electrically and they drove to the ad building, where a man waited at the top of the stairs. In a hallway of dark wood and waxed floors, the escorts removed the handcuffs, exchanged the inevitable paperwork, and turned the trio over, wishing them good luck.

  Still wearing their street clothes, which were wrinkled and dirty from the jail, the newcomers followed the man out a back door to a paved square with a small office. Several youths wearing sharply creased black uniforms were lounging outside the door. They stopped talking and stared at the newcomers, their faces cold, their eyes hard. Alex stared back but not at any particular one, so as to avoid a personal challenge.

  “Hey, Kennedy,” the man said, “run these fish down to the mess hall. Bring ’em back here after they eat so we can dress ’em in.”

  A burly youth with acne-pitted cheeks came away from the wall. Without a word, he started toward an open gate, signaling the new arrivals to follow. They went along the side of a road, passing other two-story brick buildings that reminded Alex of Whittier, except these were older. The road went over a low hill; at the bottom a company of about fifty boys was forming in marching ranks outside the mess hall. They wore blue khakis, not the black of their escort. They marched up as the newcomers came down. Alex noted that the marching was much looser and more lackadaisical than allowed in Whittier.

  “Say, man,” Kennedy said to Alex, “those are pretty nice kicks you’re wearin’.” He was looking at Alex’s shoes. “You oughta let me have ’em.”

  “Oh yeah.” The mental hackles rose instantly in Alex. Kennedy was three or four years older and twenty pounds heavier, plus being much more muscular, but Alex now had had experience in institutional jungles and refused to be taken advantage of. “Why should I give ’em to you?”

  “You’re gonna lose ’em anyway. They’ll take ’em away when you get dressed in.”

 
; It seemed reasonable. In Whittier the shoes went like everything else. He didn’t mind giving them away under the circumstances.

  “I’ll give you half a pack, too,” the detail boy said.

  “I’ll need something to put on my feet.”

  “I’ll go get you something while you’re in eating.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  Talking was forbidden in the dining room. The boys communicated by signals or learned to whisper from the sides of their mouths without moving their lips. The rule failed in quieting the mess hall because the inmates ate from stainless-steel trays using stainless-steel spoons. Four hundred of them scraping together made a nerve-grating cacophony.

  When they had gone through the serving line, the fish sat down with their trays in an empty area near the door. Kennedy leaned over Alex and promised to return in ten minutes. Alex nodded and tried to force down the meat loaf, which he usually liked. Being on display, which was what he felt like, made his stomach too nervous for food. Sweat began making his shirt damp under the arms.

  What had been called “cottages” in Whittier were “companies” in Preston. The companies now began filing out, one table at a time, passing close to where the fish sat. Alex watched them go by, his first thought being how much older they seemed than the boys of Whittier. Then he began seeing familiar faces here and there, boys he’d seen leave Whittier during the first few months, and a couple of faces he recognized from even earlier, from Juvenile Hall. A few gave him a nod, though he couldn’t recall their names. They had been acquaintances, not friends.

  Chester Nelson was getting the same greetings, perhaps even more, from blacks.

  Then Alex saw Watkins, his Okie escape partner who’d gotten pulled from the fence. Moments later he got another wave; he saluted back with a clenched fist, even though he couldn’t put a name with the familiar face. It was the youth whom he’d met in the bullpen next to the juvenile court.

  When Kennedy came back with an old pair of low-cut brogans, the mess hall was empty except for the three fish—and the mess hall workers wiping off the tables and mopping the floor.

  The brogans were too big, but Kennedy assured Alex that a new pair would be issued, so Alex took off his pretty, almost new shoes and handed them over. It was better than giving them to the institution.

  Back on the detail grounds, the man, who was a supervisor, took them around the outside of “the Castle” to a door with a “Receiving and Release” sign on it. The man had a key.

  Inside were long shelves of blue khakis, supposedly arranged by size. These were used clothes, though laundered and halfway pressed.

  “Pick yourself some and don’t make no mess,” the man said. “When you get done there find some shoes over there.” He pointed to a screened-off area that apparently served as a shoe repair shop. It had bins marked by size, and in each bin were state-issue brogans, high-top and low-cut, all old but with new heels and half-soles.

  “What about my own shoes?” Chester Nelson asked. “Can I send ’em home?”

  “You can keep ’em. You’re entitled to one pair of personal shoes and—”

  Alex missed the last clause of the dialogue, because as the truth of the first hit him, the pounding red blood in his brain erased everything else. Kennedy had snookered him, conned him out of his shoes. Preston was tougher than Whittier, its inmates older and more violent; they were also sophisticated—not that Kennedy’s “story” was especially slick. It had been simple, and it was told simply and with matter-of-fact sincerity. It fit the circumstances. That superficial analysis, that momentary reasoning, sapped Alex completely—left him nearly gasping. It was night when they came out of Receiving and Release. They had sheets, blankets, a towel, and a pillow case, with toothbrush, comb, safety razor, and blades. Also half a yellow pencil, already sharpened, and paper and an envelope. It was the standard “fish kit.” The man told them to write home and tell their families they were okay. He said that the institution disliked parents worrying, calling the superintendent or Sacramento, so their letters were censored and nothing upsetting was allowed to go out.

  Alex barely listened; it wasn’t relevant to him—he was thinking of Kennedy and the shoes. He was younger than nearly everyone in Preston, and although he was as tall as many, he wasn’t as developed. His brain pulsed with indignant rage. It almost blinded his thoughts. Even without the emotions screaming in his mind, he knew that he couldn’t let Kennedy get away with it. Whittier had taught him what would happen to anyone who showed weakness. In a world with violence at its pinnacle, to let something like this go would mark him. Others wanting to establish their toughness would prey on him, and inevitably someone would try to fuck him. So when the first, literally blind rage dissipated, he was left with an implacable determination.

  They assigned him to “B” Company, the one company housed in the old Castle. A few of these fifty youths he’d seen in Whittier or Juvenile Hall, and one or two he knew. He exchanged nods, but they were at assigned tables in the dayroom so there was no chance to talk that night.

  His bunk was next to a window. Bright lights outside reminded him of his first night in Juvenile Hall. It seemed so long ago, yet it was from the same moment of panic. By raising up on an elbow, he could see over the window ledge down across part of the grounds. The fence with barbed wire on top was nearby—and beyond it he saw a dozen deer grazing blissfully, a couple of fawns moving between them. For some reason beyond his capacity to analyze, a terrible ache and longing surged through him. Tears swelled in his eyes, and he jammed his face in the pillow, struggling against sobs.

  * * *

  As in Whittier, the companies came to the detail grounds for work call. Alex had been told to wait until all the crews were gone, but he saw Kennedy lounging with the other black-clad detail boys next to the office, and when the ranks of companies dissolved to report to work supervisors, he went over to Kennedy, who saw him coming and took a step forward.

  “Hey, man,” Alex said, “I gotta have my kicks back.”

  “Whaddya mean?”

  “You gave me a bullshit story. I could have kept them.”

  “Could you? I didn’t know that.” The way Kennedy spoke, however, was edged with arrogance.

  “I want those shoes back.”

  “I ain’t got your shoes.”

  “You took ’em. I want the motherfuckers back, man.”

  “You want! Who the fuck are you?”

  “I don’t want no trouble, but—”

  “If you don’t want trouble, get outa my face before I put the foot in your ass.” Kennedy was swollen up, ready to fight, his whole being coiled for violence. He outweighed Alex by twenty-five pounds, and there was no doubt he could easily handle Alex in a fight. His arrogant confidence became contempt. “Look, punk, get outa my face before you get hurt.”

  For a moment Alex was actually dizzy as the blood pounded through his brain, his rage magnified because of his helplessness. Yet he’d known he was no match for Kennedy, and that previous awareness jerked him back to a semblance of rationality. He dropped his head and wound his way through the shifting crowd. Boys were going to specified areas according to assignment. Work supervisors waited with clipboards.

  Watkins and a slender Indian youth were at the “B” Company formation area when Alex got back. He’d seen the Indian in Whittier but didn’t know his name. He was with Watkins.

  “Where you been?” Watkins asked as they shook hands.

  I had to see a guy ’bout something.”

  “We gotta go in a minute. Do you know Miller?”

  “In Lincoln, weren’t you?” Alex said, shaking hands.

  “Right,” Miller said.

  “Here,” Watkins said, openly giving Alex a pack of Chesterfields, grinning when Alex looked around. “They don’t bother you about cigarettes here. It’s kind of fucked up, though. They don’t let you buy ’em, but you can have ’em. They have a ‘smoke line’ after meals.”

  “Where do they come from
?”

  “Mostly visits. Some guys from Sacramento and San Francisco get visits every week—and bring in two cartons apiece.”

  “The fuzz lets ’em?”

  “Yeah, man. In a lot of ways this is better’n Whittier. Shit, I do all right. I work in the butcher shop. I’ve got three cops bringin’ me cigarettes for meat … a pound of choice steak for a pack. Another one brings me a Benzedrine inhaler for two filets. That’s where they come from.” He indicated the pack of cigarettes in Alex’s pocket.

  “Hey, you!” a counselor yelled at them, starting to come over. “Where are you supposed to be?”

  The detail grounds had nearly emptied, and the boys who remained were in groups under the watchful eye of a foreman.

  “We gotta go,” Watkins said, he and Miller turning their backs to the man, faking that they hadn’t heard him as they walked away. Suddenly Watkins snapped his fingers and called back. “What happened to Altabella?”

  “Fuck, they got him two months ago. Sent him back to Whittier.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you after work.”

  When “work call” was over, a supervising counselor gathered the three newcomers and drove them to the institution hospital for a cursory physical examination. It was in the waiting room that he found what he’d been looking for: a weapon. He hadn’t wanted to ask anyone because it could conceivably have gotten back to Kennedy. What he found was the heavy brass nozzle of a firehose. He unscrewed it from the hose while Chester Nelson was in the examination room. Stuck in his waistband beneath his shirt and jacket, it pulled his pants down on one side. It was so blatant that he expected some man to ask him what he had hidden there—but none of them really looked at him, much less noticed the sag. He had misgivings because it was so heavy. He had no desire to kill Kennedy, yet if the equation was reduced to forgetting what had happened or killing, he would kill. During the remainder of the morning, which he spent leafing through tattered magazines in “B” Company dayroom, he kept looking futilely for something more appropriate. He simultaneously had to lock his mind, refuse to look at anything beyond the act he planned. Whenever any image of consequence came up, he ruthlessly pushed it out of his mind … and deliberately remembered Kennedy’s contemptuous arrogance until his fear was replaced by the pounding blood of fury in his brain.