Part Two
Buddies and Bad Actors
The black skin fold which creased the base of the big colored guy’s skull seemed wrist thick in the afternoon glare to Aaron, who followed him across the hospital lawn.
The low wooden building to the left of the walk loomed too large, too, for eyes accustomed to the close, boxed walls of the isolation cell; and the range of high hills across the vague green of the valley, along which a diesel truck groaned lonely and unseen, seemed only five or ten miles away, although Aaron knew it was a good fifty.
His blue shirt, stiff and still creased with fold lines, fit like armor too big for him to fill. The breast pocket took up the entire left side of his chest, and the shoulders stuck out beyond his arms and made him feel small and defenseless when he compared them to the colored guy’s bulging arms and back.
Even the cheeks of the guy’s lumpy butt seemed powerful, for they packed the back pockets of his dungarees and appeared to shuffle along as far behind him as the protrusion of the bedroll he carried so easily under one arm. Each separate buttock muscle popped into tension and relaxed, and both swelled out below his sway back as if they were flexed when he halted at the road to wait for Aaron, who approached with Buckshot’s tan face in his mind and the fat kid’s warning in his ears.
“You don’ have to be sad, ma-han. That dead time past. Ev-ry day count now. You get used to the insti-toot quick. An’, besides, I your cadet captain, an’ I here to be you friend. Call me the Buzzer,” the guy said and patted Aaron’s back.
“Take a look aroun’. You cun almost see all the may-in buildings from here. That building on you right the gym. The roof point on the other side the chapel wing. This here to you left the dining roo-oom. The office just on the other side of it, by the flag pole. The li-brar-ryy one long room between ’um. They all three in the same building. You see now on the way to the dor-mi-tory. It in the last compoun’ on the other side o’ the hill. Passed it on the way from the may-in gate. Last compound. See?”
Following the black finger, Aaron could see the black dormitory roofs of three of the compounds beyond the large lawn on the slope of the hill. Uncultivated grounds stretched from the foot of the hill before him, around a baseball diamond, to a high barbed-wire fence by the highway, where cars passed small and noiseless and free in the distance. A light breeze brought a refreshing country smell of turned earth and alfalfa and he grew curious and did look around him, but chiefly with the hope of seeing Barneyway.
“What’s that building to the left, the big one on the hill behind the dining room?” he asked, for he could see the upper portion of a flat-roofed white building above.
“That the schoo-ool.”
Aaron turned in the other direction, scanned the grounds and saw no one, but noticed the wide peak of another white wooden building about half a mile beyond the steeple of the chapel, toward the sea, with a weather vane cock upon it, and he pointed at it and asked, “What’s that building over the hill with just the tip showing?”
“Oh, that the dairy, ma-han. That where you going to work,” the Buzzer replied with enthusiasm, gold-capped teeth glinting between the thick puffs of his lips.
Aaron dropped his hand with a slap against his trouser leg and turned and then shielded his eyes with the brim of his hand as if the sun still hurt them. His trembling stomach bunched into a knot, and the next and most important question about Barneyway was smothered inside him, unasked, by Buckshot’s warning.
“You like it there, ma-han,” the Buzzer said and started walking along the paved road toward the office. “A good place to work. Plen’y of milk to drink. You get strong fast. Get tough. Nobody mess with you then. An’ better, no man aroun’ all thuh time.”
Aaron scanned the wide double doors of the dining hall as he passed them, with the vague hope of detecting something familiar about them which would reassure him. All he could see through the library’s bay window was the disheartening sight of empty tables and chairs and bookshelves standing like strangers against the walls. He cast a searching glance through the screen door of the office when he passed it, hoping to see some kind of authority, of protection, even Mr. Toothman, but saw only the outline of the counter. The first sight of the compounds made him stop and shudder, and he then sank further into fear with every step that took him down the hill toward the square pens. For he couldn’t see a single person in any of the asphalt courtyards, which were barricaded on three sides by long dormitories and on the road side, facing him, by link-iron wire fences, topped by barbed wire.
There was no one inside the courtyard of the first compound, and no one in the second nor in the third nor in the fourth, and no one in the fields between the compounds, and Buckshot’s brown face became more persistent and, finally, as warped and as tall and as sharp-tipped as the fences.
It seemed to discolor the plain white of the dormitory walls and dull the black of the dormitory roofs. The iron hinges of the heavy gate in the last compound creaked with its warning, which the soft thud of Aaron’s rubber heels on the asphalt courtyard repeated with slow, counting measures. And when he entered the dormitory and saw only two rows of metal beds against bare white walls, gray lockers at rigid attention between the beds, a yellowed urinal in the doorless toilet at the far end, and not one person, Buckshot’s voice was as distinct to him as if it had just spoken.
The Buzzer had to call him away from the door to help make his own bed, and slightly ashamed but still scared, he approached with his weight balanced well enough on his toes to start running on the first impulse.
But the Buzzer nonchalantly snapped the sheet open, and as Aaron caught it and they drew it taut between them, tight along the mattress, Buckshot’s face began to fade. With the second sheet, Aaron couldn’t see it at all, and the two gray blankets muted the last of the isolation cell murmurs. For it occurred to Aaron that he was fixing a place for himself in the institute and that he was bound to contact Barneyway in a day or two, and when he had folded and tucked the last blanket corner under the mattress, he felt relaxed enough to hope he might see Barneyway before the day was over. He then slipped the pillow case over the pillow himself, smoothed the wrinkles out of it, and sat on his own bed without waiting for permission when the Buzzer sat down.
The Buzzer offered him a cigarette, and he shook his head but carefully watched the Buzzer light one.
The struck match hissed across the rough dungaree of the buttock and thigh, smoked and burst into full flame as the swipe of the Buzzer’s hand reached the level of the cigarette in his lips. He held the match below the paper tip as if it were standing on end, and only the point of the flame reached the cigarette. He then took a deep drag, let his cheeks puff out with the smoke, held it for a moment, then blew the flame out with the exhale, without moving the match or the cigarette.
“Don’ smoke, huh?” he asked, the words smoking with the remnants of the deep drag coming out of his mouth.
“No,” Aaron said, almost hypnotized by the ritual, having to remind himself to stay on guard.
“Now you jus’ take it easy aroun’ here at first,” the Buzzer explained, sliding the cigarette into the side of his mouth, and tilting his head so that the spiral of smoke missed his squinting eye.
“I the cadet captain of the com-pa-ny an’ the duke of this com-pound, an’ I goin’ to take care o’ you. If any-bo-dy mess with you, they messin’ with me. Hear?”
He withdrew the cigarette and straightened his head.
“Hear?”
“Uh-huh,” Aaron replied, leaning back, propping his hands on the bed behind him, the toes of his brogans just touching the floor, watching the Buzzer scheme, feeling grateful, for the first time, for Buckshot’s warning.
“Say? You hungry or somethin’? I got a candy bar.”
The Buzzer stood and started toward the screen door.
“No,” Aaron replied, but the Buzzer kept walking and Aaron called after him: “I’m not hungry.”
A metal hinge sque
aked in reply, for the Buzzer stuck his hand into his locker anyway, rummaged around, and returned with a bright red- and white-wrapped Baby Ruth, which he held out to Aaron.
“Go ahead, lit-tel buddy. That what a friend for, to be good to his friends. Share with ’um. Go ahead.”
“No,” Aaron said curtly, unwilling to let the Buzzer do him any favors, favors which would obligate him. For although he didn’t want to get the Buzzer mad at him and he didn’t know if the favor was a trick, he wasn’t taking any chances.
“No, I’m not hungry. I don’t want a candy bar,” he added, and he didn’t waver at the sullen shutting of the thick lips nor in the tense pause which followed.
“That okay,” the Buzzer finally said, grinning. “If you ain’ hungry don’ eat. Ev-vur-rything okay. Fine. Now, I tell you what we goin’ to do.”
He sat next to Aaron.
“I goin’ to fix it with the man so that you get to work with me. You an’ me we be work buddies. Pautnas! How that soun’?”
Aaron turned his face away from the sour odor of stale tobacco, and sat up and rested his hands in his lap. But the Buzzer leaned so close their shoulders touched, and Aaron then stood and stretched his arms, pretending they were stiff.
“Sounds okay,” he said, stepping into the center aisle of the dormitory, kicking his legs as if they, too, were stiff, managing to move away while making it seem a natural desire to loosen up. He wanted to go outside where the Buzzer couldn’t try anything, but he didn’t want to appear scared.
The ash of the cigarette was a half an inch long. The Buzzer was eying him as if he couldn’t figure him out. Finally, the Buzzer took a drag, noticed the ash, flicked it to the floor, asked, “How old are you?” blinked at Aaron’s clipped answer, and took another drag; and Aaron was grateful, for a second time, for the warning which had caused him so much misery.
“Done time before?” the Buzzer asked, tapping the cigarette several times with his little finger, although it had no dead ash.
Aaron swung one leg back and forth, pretending to be preoccupied with loosening it, but trying to gain time to think. For it was a crucial question, and he thought of lying, but he was afraid to risk losing the advantage he had gained.
“No,” he said. “But I was head monitor of the DT the two months I was there,” and he was convinced that he had scored well with his truthful answer, although he had only been head monitor of the home group, the boys under sixteen, by the quick drag the Buzzer took and the long moment that passed before he exhaled it.
The exhaled smoke then faded into blue shadow before the Buzzer asked another question, and he asked it with his sway-back as stiffly curved as a bow and from a mouth that was set in a thick puff:
“What was your beef?”
“Stomping … man,” Aaron said, speaking slowly for greater strength. “Stomping … I got busted with my gang for stomping a bunch of paddies.”
Circles of bright white flashed in the Buzzer’s eyes, and joy surged through Aaron, and he shuffled forward and snapped his arms and shrugged his shoulders in the loose, disjointed exercise of a boxer warming up. But glancing back, he saw the sly spreading of the thick lips and the caps of gold teeth again, and realized that he had overplayed it. He stopped exercising as the Buzzer stood, took a drag, dropped the butt, crushed it with a twist of his brogan, and shuffled toward him.
“Le’ me show yuh aroun’ the dorm, ma-han,” the Buzzer said. “I’ll show yuh where the washroom is.”
“I can see it from here,” Aaron said, glancing back at the urinal, mentally kicking himself for ruining his one small victory.
“I’ll show yuh where thuh soap is.”
“I don’t need to wash.”
“Come own. Ain’ nothin’ goinna happen. Jus’ show yuh aroun’, ma-han. So you don’ have to fight that line at dinnatime an’ in the maunin’,” the Buzzer said, trying to guide Aaron toward the washroom by pressing against the small of his back.
It was a light touch but Aaron’s skin twitched, and he moved quickly away, trying to gain distance and time to think, Buckshot’s warning in his mind again, but determined to protect himself, heartening, too, at the sound of the iron gate banging against the fence.
Voices. Footsteps crossed the courtyard and more could be heard on the pavement of the road.
The Buzzer stopped and listened, and Aaron hurried to the washroom, where he waited in the doorway, feeling much better and safer.
“Yuh see the soap in that locka’ in the corna’,” the Buzzer said, shuffling to the screen door, and slamming it, without another word, behind him.
Aaron sighed with relief and used the urinal, but quickly so he wouldn’t be noticed by the guys entering the dorm. For although Buckshot seemed more like a buddy than a bragger now, the Buzzer had unnerved him, and he stalled in the toilet, trying to compose himself.
He washed his hands carefully with warm water and soap, and rewashed them, and rewashed them, but his nerve decreased the longer he stalled. Approaching sounds put him on edge. The toilet became a trap from which there was no escape. It then took the chill of the rinse water to convince him that he should go into the dorm, where he had a chance to run, at least, and where he had already managed to scrape through one encounter, but keep to himself until he found Barneyway.
He went directly to his locker, without allowing himself to look at anyone, and took out his towel and dried each finger slowly and separately in order to occupy himself and avoid the stares. But a tall blond kid, with a hooked nose, entered, who made all the stories seem possible and made him wonder if he could hold out long enough to contact Barneyway.
For the big guy dropped on his bed in the opposite row, jerked a comic book out of his locker, banged the door shut, crushed his pillow, kicked his legs out on his bed and began to read. But he kept glancing at Aaron through hooded eyelids with such cold and astonishingly bright blue eyes and with a small mouth so pursed with disapproval on a heavy chin that Aaron caught himself twisting the towel around a single finger long after it was dry.
Aaron then put the towel away, lay down, too, and self-consciously pretended to examine the ceiling. The ceiling slant on his side of the dividing beam appeared longer than that on the blond kid’s side, and he was not sure whether this was an optical illusion caused by his peculiar view of the ceiling, the constant shifting of his gaze from the ceiling to the blond kid and back again, whether it was his worry, or whether the slant on his side was actually longer—when the Buzzer entered with a Mexican kid, who had a tattooed cross in the middle of his forehead, just above his eyebrows.
The Mexican let the screen door fall against his heel and stood in the doorway staring at Aaron, who watched him in return, without looking away from the ceiling, and who, while wondering if the guy might try anything, began to really doubt whether he would be able to play it safe.
The Mexican then sat down and Aaron relaxed a little. For his new enemy’s backbone was a knobbed ridge between bony shoulder blades, and skinny guys, even if they were tall and he wasn’t, usually weren’t a match for his boxing skill. It took weight and strength to bully him to the ground, and although he had no intention of fighting, he planned how he would slip under the long arms, get inside them, and connect with his own punches in case a fight did start, when another guy came into the dorm, who made him so apprehensive he didn’t even pretend to look at the ceiling.
This guy’s sharp, almost pretty features were drawn together in a scowl, as if he were trying to see Aaron better as he approached and disliked the little he saw, and his rolled-up sleeves banded swollen biceps, which seemed to swell bigger as he drew nearer. He then sat on the bed next to Aaron’s and immediately demanded:
“What’s your name, kid?”
Aaron answered him in a level tone, trying not to show fear or act bad, and trying, also, in his predetermined caution, not to stare at the tattooed beauty mark on the guy’s cheekbone nor at the black whisker stubble on the guy’s chin.
“D’Aragon?” the guy said, repeating the name to himself. His torso was so big-boned and long that sitting down he seemed taller than his five and a half feet.
“From Oakland?” he asked, his lips lifting, almost snarling, revealing a row of square teeth, but the scowling furrow stayed between his fine eyes.
“Yes,” Aaron answered softly, anxiously, realizing that the guy had heard of him and that if the information was not good, his chances of avoiding trouble in the dorm would shrink to nothing.
“Are you the little guy who got cornered by the beans from Santa Clara about a year ago and fought so hard losing they gave you a free pass?”
“Yeah,” Aaron replied, and encouraged by the implied compliment in the question, he sat up and hung his leg jauntily over the side of the bed, keeping to himself that he had fought with panic after his gang had scattered and couldn’t remember any of the details of the actual fight.
“You’re pretty small, man. Wouldn’t have believed you were so little. My name’s Dominic Franklin.”
The grudging tone of the self-introduction kept Aaron cautious and prevented him from asking about Barneyway, although he placed both feet on the floor and faced Dominic.
“Would’a never believed you were so small, for the rep you got out in East Oakland, even though I heard it.”
“Thanks,” Aaron said, but he couldn’t tell whether the statement was a compliment or a complaint; and trying to avoid the stern face, he stared at the tattooed hands, which gripped the knee-caps of the short legs.
Dominic doubled his right fist and jabbed out with it so Aaron could more clearly see the HATE tattooed in india ink across its fingers, a letter to a finger. He then jabbed with his left fist and LOVE was tattooed across its fingers in the same manner, and a small pachuco cross, with three rays, filled the hollow between its thumb and forefinger. Then he smiled and proudly flexed his right biceps and surprised Aaron with the professional tattoo of a rose which popped into a firm petaled bloom upon it.
Tattoo the Wicked Cross Page 4
