Dog Eat Dog
Edward Bunker
A MysteriousPress.com
Open Road Integrated Media ebook
To Bill Styron, Blair Clark, and Paul Allen
friends and advisors
Prologue
1981
“Hup, two, three, four! Hup, two, three, four. Column right … march!” The monitor called the cadence and bellowed the command. The thirty boys of Roosevelt cottage marched in step through the summer twilight. Each affected a demeanor of extreme toughness. Even those who were really afraid managed to hold up the meanest mask they could. Faces were stone, eyes were icy, mouths that seldom smiled would sneer easily. In the underclass fashion of the moment, they pulled their pants absurdly high, virtually to their chests, and cinched their belts tight. Although they kept in step, each had a stylized swagger. They marched like a military academy, but were inmates of a California reform school. Aged from fourteen to sixteen, they were among the toughest of their age. Nobody got to reform school for truancy or writing on walls. It took several arrests for car theft or burglary. If it was a first offense, it was armed robbery or a drive-by shooting.
Situated thirty miles east of downtown Los Angeles, the state school was located on the earliest tract maps of the area, when L.A. had a population of 60,000 and farmland was cheap. Once, the reform school had resembled a small college. Sweeping lawns and sycamores framed buildings that resembled manor houses with brick walls and sloping slate roofs. A few of the old buildings still remained, empty relics from the age when society believed the young could be salvaged—back before the days when kids packed MAC—back when Bogart and Cagney were tough-guy role models. They only killed “dirty rats,” invariably with a snub-nose, up close, not “spray and pray.”
The marching boys halted while The Man unlocked the gate to the recreation yard. As they marched inside, he counted them. The yard was formed by a chain-link fence topped with rolled barbed wire. The Man nodded to the monitor. “Dismissed” yelled the monitor.
The neat ranks disintegrated and formed clusters by race. Chicanos were half the total, fifteen, followed by nine blacks, five whites, and a pair of half-brothers, one of whom was Vietnamese while his half-brother was a quarter Native American, a quarter black and half Vietnamese. The half brothers glared at the whole world with baleful challenge.
The Chicanos and two of their white homeboys from East L.A. headed for the handball court, a free-standing wall that allowed a game on each side. The blacks picked sides for half-court basketball.
The three remaining whites came together and began to pace the length of the yard next to the fence topped with barbed wire. One of them wore new black oxfords, identical to U.S. Navy issue. The shoes were issued to be broken in a week before parole. It was Saturday and Troy Cameron was being released on Monday morning.
“How many you got left?” Big Charley Carson asked. At fifteen, he was six foot two and weighed under 150 pounds. He would gain eighty before he turned twenty-one. By then he would be powerful enough to be nicknamed “Diesel.”
“One day and a getup,” Troy said. “Forty hours. Short as a mosquito’s dick.”
The third member of the trio grinned, simultaneously raising a hand to his mouth to hide his discolored teeth. He was Gerald McCain, already nicknamed “Mad Dog” for insane behavior, the most notorious being the use of an aluminum baseball bat on a sleeping bully who had pushed McCain around. In the Hobbesian world of reform school, a maniac is given wide berth. Tough and mean is one thing; crazy is something strange, different and frightening.
The trio kept walking as the shadows lengthened. The background to their conversation was the crash of weights descending on the platform, the basketball dribbled on asphalt and rattling the metal backboard and hoop, aided by exclamations of delight or curses of frustration. A few more steps and it was the special sound of a little black handball whacking into the wall. The tally was always called in la lengua de Aztlan, a street patois basically Spanish liberally laced with English. Handball was the game of the barrio, for it took but a wall and a ball. “Point! Cinco servin’ three. Dos juegos a nada.”
The game over, the two losers left the court with each accusing the other of causing the loss. The Chicano who was keeping tally had the next game. He looked around for a partner and spotted Troy. “Hey, Troy … homeboy! Venga. Let’s whip these farmers.”
Troy looked at the competition, Chepe Reyes and Al Salas. Chepe was beckoning in a challenge.
“I’m wearing these shoes.” He indicated the black dressouts, which would be scuffed badly on a concrete handball court.
“Go ahead,” said Big Charley. “Use mine.” He took off his low-cut athletic shoes.
Troy changed shoes, took off his shirt, and wrapped a bandanna around his palm. A handball glove was better, but in lieu of that, a bandanna would serve. He was ready. He bounced the ball off the wall a few times to loosen up. At fifteen a long warm-up was unnecessary. “Let’s go. Throw for serve.” He tossed the ball to his partner.
The game began, Troy playing front. They played hard, diving on the concrete for low balls. At one point, halfway through the game, Troy’s partner ran forward to get a ball. Troy anticipated the opponent’s shot—high and to the rear—and Troy was running before it was hit.
Looking back for the ball, he failed to see the three black youths with their backs turned until the last fraction of a second. He managed to half raise his hands before the crash sent two stumbling and knocked the other down.
“Oh, man … sorry about that,” Troy said, extending a hand. He knew the black youth: Robert Lee Lincoln, called R. Lee. At fifteen he had the body of a twenty-two-year-old bodybuilder, an IQ of eighty-five and the emotional control of a two-year-old, plus he hated rich white people. Troy knew some of this; he had avoided R. Lee during the two months since the black arrived.
He wasn’t surprised when R. Lee’s response to apology was to put both hands on Troy’s chest and shove. “Muthafucker … watch it. I don’ be likin’ you muthafuckers no way.” The words dripped contempt and challenge. R. Lee’s chin jutted, so he was peering down his nose with glittering eyes of racial hate. Inside Troy was the thought, This fuckin’ nigger! The word was one that Troy used only in specific situations. It was applicable only to blacks who acted like niggers—loud, crude, stupid—just like redneck fit certain ignorant whites. But mixed with the first thought were two others. In a fistfight he would take an ass-kicking. He was tempted to sneak a punch right now without warning, while R. Lee was still posing. If the Sunday punch landed clean, he might be able to swarm and win before R. Lee got going. But if Troy did that, he would lose his parole. He could see The Man coming toward them. “Knock it off there,” The Man said.
R. Lee turned away with the parting words: “We’ll finish this shit later.”
Troy turned back toward his waiting friends. A hollow sensation was spreading in waves from his gullet to the rest of his body. Fear was sucking his will away. He could never whip R. Lee in a fight; the nigger was too big, too strong, too fast, and could really fight. That was the smallest fear; Troy had planned ahead for such matters. He would unscrew a firehose nozzle and strike without warning. It would never be a fistfight. He would win a Pyrrhic victory, for his parole would go down the drain as soon as he struck.
“Damn,” he muttered.
“That nigger’s crazy,” Big Charley said. “He’s one of them hate whitey motherfuckers.”
“Yeah.” He managed a snorting half-laugh. “Right now I hate niggers.”
What the fuck should he do? Maybe they wouldn’t take his parole if it was just a fistfight, but that would mean getting an ass-kicking. Maybe he could get in a couple of punches. “I half-ass wish I didn’t have this parole,”
he said.
“Oh yeah,” Mad Dog said. “I forgot about your parole. That’s a bitch.”
Troy could go to The Man and seek protection for the last two days. They could lock him up for two days. He would lose nothing—except his good name in his world. He reviled himself for even letting it go through his mind. Anything like that was totally out of the question. If he did something like that, he would be marked in the underworld, where he intended to live, for his whole life. It would be a stigma he could never erase. It would forever invite aggression.
“Lemme take care of it,” Mad Dog offered. “I’ll steal him.”
Troy shook his head. “No. I’ll handle my own shit.”
The blast of the police whistle, the signal to line up at the door into the building, cut the twilight.
As the youths filed inside, The Man stood in the doorway and counted them. Indoors, some hurried down the hall toward the TV room; they wanted the best seats. Those who had been playing handball or basketball or lifting weights made a left turn into the washroom. There were three communal washbasins, each with three faucets.
Troy watched R. Lee in line ahead of him. R. Lee turned left. Good. It would give Troy a chance to turn right into the dormitory. The firehose was just inside the door. The brass nozzle would bust a head like an eggshell if he swung it that hard. He had decided it was all he could do. He hated R. Lee more for his ignorance, for forcing this, for taking away imminent freedom.
R. Lee was no fool. He knew Troy was behind him. As R. Lee turned into the washroom, he watched the doorway behind him via the mirror. He stripped off his T-shirt and stepped up to the sink. Because he was watching the door, he missed Mad Dog in the stall toilet to the right.
Mad Dog flushed the toilet with his foot and turned. Down beside his leg was a toothbrush handle. It had been melted and, while soft, two pieces of razor blade had been fitted in. When it hardened the blades stuck out less than a quarter of an inch—small but very sharp. He came behind the youths at the washbasins. It took just two seconds to reach R. Lee.
Mad Dog put the blade on the brown back and sliced all the way from shoulder to waist. The flesh lay open like lips for a moment; then the blood welled up and poured forth.
R. Lee screamed and whirled, simultaneously reaching back at the wound and looking for the attacker. Mad Dog was wide-eyed, a hyena looking for an opening to dart in and slash again.
Another black had seen the blow from across the room. He yelled, “Watch it!” and came pushing through.
Mad Dog cocked his arm back, a scorpion flashing its tail. The second black stopped out of range. “You fucked up, honky!”
“Fuck you, nigger!”
The Man saw the chaos and hit the panic alarm he carried.
In the dormitory door, Troy heard the yells and saw boys rushing toward the washroom. As he stepped into the hallway, R. Lee burst through the crowd in the opposite doorway and ran for the outer door. His whole back was covered with blood flowing profusely onto the back of his pants and the floor. He began kicking on the front door. “Lemme out! Lemme out! Lemme go to the hospital.”
Troy saw a couple of blacks looking at him. He had the firehose nozzle wrapped in newspaper. If they made a move, he would bash a head.
The Man pushed through to the outer door. He unlocked it and R. Lee ran out.
Coming the other way were the freemen, carrying night-sticks, their keys jangling on their hips.
The cottage was put on lockdown, with extra personnel watching.
R. Lee needed two hundred and eleven stitches.
Mad Dog went to the hole.
On Monday morning. Troy was released on parole. He owed his release to Mad Dog. It was a debt he carried into the future.
1
Two nights alone in a room with a pair of one-ounce jars of pharmaceutical cocaine made Mad Dog McCain live up to his nickname. The cocaine was better than what was peddled on the street. It came from a doctor’s bag he’d stolen from a car in a medical building parking lot. He’d originally planned to sell it after using a little bit, but when he approached the few people he knew in Portland, they either wanted credit or ridiculed cocaine as “powdered paranoia” or “twenty minutes to madness.” They all wanted heroin, a drug that made them calm instead of insane.
A little bit made him feel great, so he used a little more, and the fangs of the serpent were in him. First he chopped the flakes with a razor blade, formed lines, and tooted them up the nose, and that was good. But he knew how to get a bigger bang. The doctor’s bag had a package of disposable syringes with attached needles. All the pure cocaine took was a few drops of water and it dissolved. Drop in a matchhead-size piece of cotton to draw it through, and then tap the needle into the hard ridge of vein at the inner aspect of the elbow. It was hard to miss. Now his arm was black and blue and had scabs from earlier injections. His tank top was filthy and showed where he’d used the bottom to wipe away the blood from his arm. That didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, except the flash. When the needle penetrated the vein, red blood jumped into the syringe. He squeezed a little; then let the blood back up into the syringe.
When the glow started to course through him, he squeezed off a little more. What a flash! If he … could … just … maintain … the flash … Oh God! Ohhh … So good … so fucking good as it went through his body and his brain.
Stop. Let it back up into the syringe again. Squeeze off more.
Repeat, until the syringe was empty.
He closed his eyes, moaning softly as he savored the ecstasy. He was king of everything now.
From the nightstand ashtray, he took a cigarette butt. While he straightened it out to light, he saw Troy’s letter from San Quentin on top of a pile of unopened mail. Good news. Troy had a parole date three months away. As soon as Troy raised, they would get rich together. Troy was the smartest criminal Mad Dog knew, and he’d known thousands. Troy knew how to plan things. What a great idea, heisting dope dealers and wannabe gangsters, assholes who couldn’t yell copper. It would be great to have big money. He would buy Sheila the clothes she was always looking at in women’s magazines and catalogs. He might even get her a Mustang convertible. She had it coming. She was a good broad. Halfass pretty, too, if she’d lose fifteen or twenty pounds. Then again he wasn’t exactly Tom Cruise either. The thought made him laugh in the shallow way that cocaine allows. He had gaps in his dental work, a hole where a partial plate provided in prison had once been, until a Budweiser bottle in an Okie bar in Sacramento had wiped it out. Of course the evening hadn’t ended there. When the Tulsa Club closed, he was waiting in the parking lot, a scuba diver’s knife up his sleeve. When the bottle swinger unlocked his car, Mad Dog came out of the shadows barehanded, as if it were a fistfight. When he was in close, his head on the guy’s chest, Mad Dog let the knife slide down into his hand. He sank it into the guy’s guts two or three times before the guy realized it and ran, trying to hold his entrails inside his body.
Remembering, Mad Dog grinned. That would teach a motherfucker who to fuck with—if he lived. It was the reason Mad Dog had moved to Portland, where he had met Sheila.
He looked around the room. It was on the second floor and overlooked the flight of stairs to the street. Things were a dope fiend mess. Newspapers, socks, clothes, and bedding were strewn around. He’d torn the bedding off when a cigarette had fallen from his hand and the mattress had started to smolder. He’d been watching the Trailblazers tear up the Lakers when he’d smelled smoke. Water from the goldfish bowl had failed to stop it. He’d had to tear the mattress open and dig out the smoldering cotton. The hole was now covered with a towel, but the odor still filled the room. What would Sheila say when she got home?
Who gives a fuck, he thought. Fuck her … fat bitch. Where was she? She was supposed to come back tonight with her chubby little daughter.
Mad Dog felt his armpit. Wet and slippery and smelling bad. The drug coming through his pores had a sour stench. He needed a shower. Shit, he needed a
lot of things. But right now, he needed another shot of coke.
Thirty minutes and two fixes later, he had the light out and was peeking past the corner of the windowshade at the rainy night. When he’d started this cocaine binge, a fix would lift him to the heights for half an hour or more, and then let him down slow and easy. Now the cycle was quicker. Joy barely lasted until the needle was out. Within minutes the craving began and with it the seeds of dread and paranoia and self-loathing. The only remedy was another fix.
He peered down at the street from the old frame house that was built into a hillside near a railroad bridge. Because of the slope and the retaining wall, he couldn’t see the sidewalk on his side of the street except where the stairs came up.
A car went by; then nothing but dark rain, the drops flashing momentarily in the glow of a street lamp. The craving for cocaine turned into a scream behind his eyes. He had delayed as long as possible, trying to make it last longer. It was nearly gone. Two ounces of pharmaceutical cocaine in forty hours. That was drug use of legendary scale. With heroin he would have folded into a drugged stupor long ago. Heroin had a limit, but cocaine was different: You always wanted more.
He found a vein and watched the blood rise. Instead of the usual practice of squeezing a little and stopping, and then doing a little more, he forgot and squeezed it all in.
It went through him like electricity. Instantly everything in his stomach flew from his mouth. Oh God! His heart! His heart! Had he killed himself? He spun and walked, careening off a chair, banging into a wall, then into the dresser. Oh shit! Oh God! Oh! Oh! Oh!
The flash dissipated, and with it his terror. He closed his eyes and savored the sensation. No more like that one, he swore.
Headlight beams flashed across the windowshade. Mad Dog went to the window. A car had made a U-turn and pulled up at the curb. The retaining wall blocked his view except for the bumper and headlights. Who the fuck could it be at this time of night?
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