Tattoo the Wicked Cross

by Salas, Floyd;

  He pressed really hard, really trying to forget and not hate, and found, when he lifted his palms, that the sweat made moist islands of dampness. He pressed his palms down again and again, and filled in the spaces between the dark blots, and began to forget.

  The pattern grew until he had made a thick line from the cot to the wall and had forgotten. But the end of the line below him was fading away, and his hands were dry, so he gave it a hurried stamp with his foot, and stood next to it, and saw a sign of the cross, with a twisted horizontal beam.

  The heel print formed the high end of the beam, but because the toe print wasn’t large enough to really weigh its end down, it tilted the beam off balance, and made him dislike the sign. He then tried to ignore the sign by pacing the narrow path between the cot and the wall again, by counting and recounting the twelve step distance from the door to the back wall, from the back wall to the door.

  But each time he reached the spot where the cross had been, he’d see its dark outline, although he knew it had already evaporated, and he’d try to step over it and lose his step count.

  Then he’d start over again and see the outline again and try to step over it again and lose his step count again.

  Then he’d start new from the other direction and see the outline once more and try to step over it and skip a number and lose his count again.

  Then, trying to make sure he didn’t lose count, he stepped on it, and then started stamping on it and cursing too, until his heels hurt and he heard himself shouting.

  Then he dropped on his knees and made the sign of the cross and tried to pray.

  “Hail, Mary, full of grace …” The doll’s face of a blue-hooded Madonna suddenly appeared before him, as he smelled wisps of candle smoke, the sooty odor of burnt kitchen matches, and saw the bent slot of a brass coin box. “… Blessed art thou amongst women.…” The Madonna vanished and he saw his mother at prayer, saw her in a simple white nightgown, her hands clasped tightly between the slopes of her sagging breasts, her rapidly praying lips fluttering, almost kissing the large-mooned fingernails, standing because kneeling might cause a heart flutter and a faint.

  She vanished, too, with the first sag in his back, and he shifted his weight from one pained knee to the other and tried to say the rosary. He tried to visualize the words of the Lord’s Prayer in block letters in his mind, because his lips made only mechanical motions, but he couldn’t see the letters although he forced himself to pray until the sag in his back became an ache.

  He quit trying to pray but stayed on his knees, his face resting against the coarse wool of the blanket, his arms on the cot, too, his narrow buttocks leaning on his small heels, hardly aware of the chill in his bare feet, no sight in his open eyes, wishing that prayer would transform him now as it had before her death, when it wasn’t a discipline that he used to control himself, to make himself behave, to keep himself out of trouble, when it filled his mind with pictures of a soft-eyed Jesus, a blissful Mary, and a grandfatherly, white-bearded God, when it was a joy that numbed his body so that he didn’t even feel his arms and legs.

  His first Holy Communion was still a vivid memory of untroubled grace, of a paper-dry wafer host melting upon the spoon tip of his tongue, leaving a taste of white bread and a breath of Christ. But it was a grace banished forever by the death of that ninety-pound sack of wrinkled flesh and bone in the bright hospital room his twelfth summer. It was a grace banished by the uneaten box of stale chocolates on the enamel bedstand, by the dark, wilted edges of roses, by the wheeze of those last breaths, by those unbearable moments of hesitation in which her heart seemed to stop before the pitifully brief wind of exhale fluttered from her chest. It was a grace banished forever by the reassuring smile she kept turning upon him, a smile that seemed all teeth, that seemed to ripple the transparent skin back in a revelation of bone socket and skull. It was a grace banished once and for all by that crucified Christ on the stained-glass window of the hospital chapel, by that Christ who flooded the altar with an orange and sulphurous glow, by that Man-God on the window who denied the rush of hoarse prayers and hoarse pleas, who refused the promise of a lifetime of penance for the continued thump of that soft muscle in her breast, a grace banished forever by Him! that Christ! that God!

  A sob croaked in his throat. There was a wet spot on the blanket from his open mouth. He rubbed at the tears which filled his eyes, cursed himself, jumped to his feet, smashed his fist against the door, moaned, and cradled the burning knuckles of his right hand in the damp of his left palm, but glad, glad of the pain, wishing only that he had hurt somebody else, too.

  He sucked the blood from his torn knuckles and liked the nail taste. Then he cocked his left hand to slam it, too, against the door. But a long, quavering breath escaped from him, and he dropped his clenched hands to his sides, rubbed his sweating palms against the thick nap of the nightgown, made an about-face, and the soles of his feet squeaked with friction.

  He gazed absent-mindedly about the cell until he noticed a gray brush stroke on the hardwood floor, where a careless painter had run off the baseboard. He fixed his eyes hypnotically upon it for some time. The stroke would blur occasionally, come into focus, and blur again.

  He shook his head to clear it and, looking for more defects, let his sight follow the baseboard to the back corner of the cell, let it turn there and follow the board along the back wall into the film of dust and darkness under the radiator, let it glide up to the top of the radiator’s accordion ridges, when he noticed odd traces of shadow on the wall above that suggested letters.

  He squinted his eyes and tried to decipher them without moving from his position, but he was unable to, and he began to take slow steps toward them, trying to discover at what distance he could.

  By the third lagging step, he felt his pulse quicken, for he could distinguish a cross with three rays above it; and another step brought the numbers 1 and, possibly, a 5 of a date into view; and with another step, he guessed that a circled indentation was in reality a twisted heart, with a pachuco cross planted into the cleft between the lobes and the year 1945 scratched below the tip. But the faint hollows within the clumsy heart remained obscure until he reached the wall and ran his finger slowly over the thick coat of gray paint.

  He felt his sense of triumph grow into admiration as he traced the name RICKY DE LA CRUZ across both lobes of the heart, made out a plus mark, and spelled out the EVA that was wedged into the heart’s point. For the guy must have spent days of stolen spoon-handle labor carving that five-inch heart into the bare institute wall, and he had to be full of guts and love to do it, because he knew he was going to have to suffer for it. Yet he had so much guts he carved it in the most conspicuous spot in the cell, where it could be seen by anyone and everyone who looked through the glass slot, and so that it would be seen by anyone and everyone.

  Aaron wished he had a spoon, too, to prove he had the guts to love, to prove that neither the man nor the cell nor dead time could kill either his guts or his love, to prove what the thick, useless paint and the year that had passed had proved for Ricky De La Cruz, to prove that he, like Ricky De La Cruz, was greater than the cell!

  The loud blast of a whistle reverberated in the cell, blurred the faint outlines of the heart, and echoed for seconds after it had stopped; and, curious, Aaron hopped on the cot and looked out the screened window.

  The portion of sky framed by the window was cloudless, and the green scrub and wild grass on the hill glimmered in a full sun. The shadow of the building divided the clump of red-branched manzanita exactly in half, and he guessed that it was noon and lunch time.

  He heard the shout of distant voices, the tramp of marching feet, and he tried to picture Barneyway marching in a moving column under a wide sky, but he could imagine nothing more than the small figure he had seen shuffling down a detention home hall in a crooked line.

  The marching stopped. Silence, and then the dim metallic click of silverware, of tin cups and pitchers, the slap of trays, of p
ans, and the hum of voices.

  He leaned the side of his head against the bars until the upper tip of his ear touched the outside screen and tried to distinguish the individual sounds. But the pleasure he felt when he was able to pick out footsteps changed to fright when he heard the jangle of keys and realized that both sounds were coming from the stairs behind him. He hopped off the cot, ran to the door, caught a glimpse of an approaching guard, dropped on the cot, and waited, as innocently still as possible, for the door to open.

  A pink-faced man peeked through the glass slot and smiled with crooked teeth. His khaki shoulder then replaced his face as a key tinkled, metal scratched on metal, and he swung the door open wide enough for a pudgy, light-skinned colored boy to hand Aaron a metal food tray, and then quickly closed it.

  Aaron took the tray but was more interested in the boy, who had vanished, for he had no appetite and he wanted to ask the boy, especially since there was no hostility in the pale-brown eyes, if he knew Barneyway. But he let the tray settle on his thighs, scanned it, and began to pick at his food as he did when he ate at home alone.

  The brown gravy had a good flavor but the mashed potatoes were lumpy, and two spoonfuls were enough for his stomach tightened. He forced himself to take a bite of the crusted fish patty, and it flaked apart in his mouth. It was strong but tasty and he mechanically ate half of it, although he had to tense his stomach muscles with every swallow. He skipped the tablespoon of peas in its shallow crater but drank all of the milk because it was easy. Then, remembering the hungry hours between meals at the DT, he spread the applesauce on one slice of bread, folded it, folded the rest of the fish patty into the other slice, placed both of them under the foot of the mattress, and tried to relax his stomach by stretching out on the cot.

  His breath got so short he had to raise himself up on one elbow and take long, lungful swallows of air. He then dropped back on the cot, his head in the pillow, and tried to lay absolutely motionless, tried to prevent even the slightest quiver of an eyelash. He tried to stop all thought, too, and with deliberate blinks of his eyes he succeeded in blotting out all painful pictures which came into his mind.

  He succeeded so well and for so long a while in preventing any single memory or daydream from developing into anything remotely unhappy, there was no longer any need to try and control his motions and thoughts; and his mind idled, his unseeing eyes filled with the neutral gray of the ceiling, a color he didn’t notice again until he heard the sound of keys and footsteps on the stairs.

  He threw his legs off the cot and raised himself to a sitting position as the door opened, then snatched the tray from the floor, and stood and switched his weight nervously from foot to foot as the man took the tray and asked if he wanted to go to the toilet.

  When the man’s toothy smile sagged with his jowls Aaron feared he might be forced to eat the rest of the food or be punished.

  “You don’t seem to have eaten much … Patty’s gone, though, and the applesauce … bread.…”

  The man’s smile reappeared and without the teeth it was thin-lipped and weak, but he laid the tray next to the stair banister, motioned to Aaron to follow him, and started down the dim hall.

  Aaron hurried after him as if he had been set free, springing with each step, reaching with each leg, and slapping each foot against the cool floor, for he was out of the cell, on the other side of the locked door, away from the solitude and the enforced thinking. But the walk was too short and he did not get to see a single other prisoner, although he still had the walk back, and he counted on the noise of his first trip to bring faces to the window slots for the second.

  The white tile of the toilet floor was a cold thrill to the soles of his bare feet, too, and just standing next to the enameled trough was a pleasure, let alone the relief his shrinking bladder gave him, and the fun he had aiming the stream of colorless urine which spurted out of him. The strong soapy odor of a yellow bar of disinfectant by the center drain even smelled good, and he sprayed the bar and started to wash the wall of the trough, when he noticed that the man was standing next to him.

  Then, discreetly lowering the stream to a point directly below him so he wouldn’t get bawled out for playing around, he tried to sneak a glance at the man without stopping. But he stopped the trickle with a pinch and dropped the nightgown. For the balding head was cocked to one side! The thin lips were tucked into the pink cheeks in an inquisitive smile! And the eyes were glazed!

  The eyes blinked, switched toward Aaron’s concealed crotch, blinked again, switched back to the trough, blinked again, switched toward Aaron’s face and blinked again, blinked the glaze away, then vanished as the man turned abruptly away and led Aaron quickly back to the cell, smiled as he closed the door, peeked through the slot, and disappeared.

  But his dreamy gaze lingered in front of Aaron with the transparent reality of the window glass. For Aaron could both see through it and it completely stopped him. He knew the man was a queer, but he couldn’t figure out what kind. The man had taken advantage of him but hadn’t touched him. The man had tricked him but was nice to him, and Aaron now feared his kind and unpredictable gaze as much or more than Mr. Toothman’s cruel stare.

  The man had watched him piss!

  The man was a queer!

  For one vigorous moment Aaron wished he were his brother Stanley so he could break the queer man’s crooked teeth, and for one vigorous moment he was Stanley, facing himself in the courtroom, feinting at himself, sticking out a slow-motion jab, thick upper lip curling over two big winking teeth, thick hair waving back from a broad, boxer’s brow, then straightening out of that crouch with the limber, muscular movements of a professional fighter with a string of kayos to his credit, but a fighter who had lost his most important fight by weakening himself with a whore; and Aaron straightened out of his crouch, and rubbed his palms on his thighs, wrinkled and bunched the nightgown, lifted its skirt, and realized how helpless he was.

  He wasn’t a former All Army Lightweight Boxing Champion at all, nor an arrogant naval officer, in a grave black and white uniform, like his brother John, who scared away the girls as much as he did the guys with the stern orders and the snapping replies that seemed to make the taut skin of his cheeks vibrate and his eyes glint.

  He was a small kid locked in an isolation cell, doing dead time on his very first day in a reform school. He was a small kid who not only could not slug the man like Stanley nor cow him into submission like John; he could not even tell on the man.

  Who would believe him? Not other men. Not anybody in his family. Not his fat bald-headed father for sure, who was so huge and powerful he couldn’t imagine being molested. His dull-brown eyes couldn’t be convinced of anything that might cause them discomfort. Even his tie knot looped out like a crooked, impatient finger demanding a simple explanation when he was told something too important to be simple. Yet his blunt face could not explain either when, while putting on a coat to go out, a packet of rubbers dropped onto the floor.

  Aaron slapped his hands against his thighs and spun around in a meaningless circle to whirl the thoughts out of his mind. The wind from the turn rose with a swirl up his naked body, ballooned the nightgown, and he came to a stop facing the screened window. He concentrated on it to clear his dizziness and get his balance, then climbed on the cot, rested a foot on the cold metal of the radiator, and leaned his forehead against the bars.

  The clump of manzanita was completely in the shadow of the building and it was cooler now. Some time had gone by anyway, and he guessed that it might be two o’clock. He stayed stretched from the cot to the window for many minutes, trying to forget the queer man, trying to occupy his mind by making phantom figures out of the shapes of the bushes, the mounds of earth, the bare irregular patches in the knee-high grass. But it didn’t work because he was too conscious of what he was trying to do, that he was stretched from the cot to the window, trying but unable to escape the man or his isolation or the time before him.

  The bars bef
ore him blocked all escape, and the screen before him even checked what he saw. Two ways. It actually checked the hill, too. It checked the sky. Three ways. Or more? For it checked … yes.… It even checked his memory.

  The small squares of the screen loomed as big and black as those in the courtroom windows, which had checked his sister Nora’s bare arm when she tried to console him after his sentence. But he tried to keep from weakening, for all his memories of her were checked: the view of the corner from his bedroom window, the dark shaft of the Lutheran church steeple, the street light, his thoughts of her while waiting for her, his belief in her, and her lies!

  Small screen squares had checked her pale complexion as she had combed her hair by sunlight before going out, as they had checked the vow she made that she never dated sailors, never went to the USO, never did anything their mother wouldn’t have liked, and checked his wish to believe when the comb’s teeth had pulled at her long black hair, tilted her head, turned the perfect oval of her face into profile in the mirror, stressed the straight bridge of her nose, but could not conceal the dark eye which glowed in a long-lashed corner watching him, and had checked his wish to believe when the comb had twirled free, and she had turned full face to the mirror but did not look in her own eyes.

  Small screen squares had checked his wish to believe when, late at night, an electric train finally screeched to a stop at the corner, and he held his breath, still needing to believe, still wanting to believe, only to see her silhouette round the sharp edge of the church steeple, with a staccato tap of high heels, accompanied by the checked cutout of a long-stepping, trouser-flapping, round-capped sailor!

  Small screen squares checked his past, would check his future for an unknown time, and checked him now, stretched from the cot to the window in an uncomfortable position. His hands were checked. His nightgown was checked. His heart was probably checked. His—he heard footsteps again, and he jumped down and sat on the cot, afraid to peek out the door because of the loud, close sound of the noise.