Tattoo the Wicked Cross

by Salas, Floyd;

  “Very good,” said another guy and another guy and another guy.

  And Aaron snapped his seat against the backrest and jumped up and shouted:

  “Fight is a verb!”

  Then he twisted around at his desk and faced the blue and white blur of uniforms, and all the laughing faces, and kept shouting:

  “Fight is a verb! Fight is a verb! Fight is a verb! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!”

  IV

  The smooth envelope, yellow-tinged by electric light on the thick nap of the blanket, lifted Aaron somewhat out of the belligerent depression caused by the classroom scene and intensified by nightfall. But the finger he hooked in a corner pocket of the sealed flap was barbed by his sense of failure, and he made a ragged tear the entire length of the letter before examining the return address to see who had written to him.

  He noticed that one end of the letter had already been neatly sliced open and rubber-stamped by a censor. His clumsy, useless tear then seemed like an unlucky omen of how his attempts to solve the problem might turn out, and he was convinced he was some kind of a jinx when he saw that the fuzzy edges of the rip had separated the first name Judith from the last name Prize and had mutilated the return address.

  The blue-black censor’s mark became an unlucky sign, too, which meant that some man had stamped with ink upon his private thoughts even before he thought them and had already ruined them, and the letter was almost certain to carry bad news. The censor’s mark then stood out like a token of some strange and unknown and perfect thing, and yet, at the same time, was a brand of his bad luck and his guilt and his punishment. And he was afraid to open the letter and, then, ashamed of his fear.

  He jerked the folded pages out, snapped them open, and sat at the foot of his bed, close to the bulb which hung from the center beam of the dormitory ceiling, eager to lose himself in the letter, and hoping that every word was going to be a sign of affection. But as insurance against bad news, he looked around him to remind himself of where he was before he began to read.

  Mail call had made the dormitory quiet. Most of the boys sat alone on their beds. Those without mail kept to themselves, obviously respecting the privacy of the lucky guys with the sheets of paper in their hands, which was completely unlike the congregation of loud groups the previous night. Dominic, too, lay on his bed, blocking the light with his letter, reading from the shadowed side.

  Hi, Aaron.

  Just a note. I’m writing in the kitchen. Mom is in bed and I just finished some homework. I had planned to write to you at school tomorrow because Mom has been complaining about your letters, but this is better.

  She found out about the candy I left for you at the detention home—Remember?—from one of my good friends. Some friend! It upset her so much she used it as an excuse for one of her periodical Lost Weekends. That way it’s my fault, not hers. You know. What burns me up is that she wouldn’t let me go visit you on regular visiting days and then she complains when I do it my own way. Maybe if she got married, she wouldn’t have to work, and we could get along? I don’t know?

  But don’t worry, I’ll manage some way to get permission to go visit you up there. She tried to use the excuse that the institute was too far away from the Bay Area when I first mentioned it to her. Then she said the coast highway was bad, and that I couldn’t make it up there and back on the bus before dark, and everything else she could think of.

  She just doesn’t understand. But when I can convince her that you’re not just a pachuco who spends all his time walking around in black drapes, with a silver cross hanging from his neck, she’ll let me. I know, because she was real surprised when I told her you had never stolen anything, and I’ll be able to write longer letters then, too.

  So be good, and think about all the people who care for you, and all the kids, and remember that I’ll get there as soon as I can. So expect me and say hello to Barneyway for me and please write to me.

  Your good friend,

  JUDITH

  P.S. I get home before Mom does and I’ll be sure and get the letter.

  He laid the sheets down on the blanket, smoothed them flat with only the slightest crackling and leaned so close to reread the last, “good” page that his head almost touched the foot railing. His chest swelled with the phrase: “… think about all the people who care for you.…”

  He pictured the cheek lines that winged out from her pert nose as if she had spoken it and then pictured the pucker of her full lips with the “… you …”

  He then reread the entire letter from the beginning, skimming over the unhappy facts, searching for hints of praise and affection, and attached himself, like a leech that could survive on the ink it sucked from the paper, to the statement: “But when I can convince her that you’re not just a pachuco.…”

  He was astounded by how much her letters could mean to him. And he regretted now that he had treated her more like a friend than a girl, and he tried to pretend that there had been a real romance between them.

  But the greeting for Barneyway punctured the daydream, deflated the expansive feeling that the letter had produced, and left him locked in the real world of the institute, with real problems, a naked bulb above him and undeniable concrete below him.

  “Trying to memorize that page, man? Got camera eyes or somethin’?”

  Aaron fumbled with the pages. Dominic moved to the foot of his bed opposite Aaron, but his frown made the joke sound bitter.

  “I was … just looking at it.”

  “Don’t apologize, man. It must be a good letter. And the chick must like you a lot or she wouldn’t write so quick. You only been in the institute a week.”

  “We’re not going steady or nothin’,” Aaron said, honestly, but he was flattered, for getting mail from a girl gave a guy prestige. He picked up the pages, held them self-consciously, folded them once, and shoved them into his back pocket to get them out of sight.

  “Who wrote to you?” he asked, trying to change the subject.

  “Just my mother, man.”

  “I wish I could say ‘Just my mother.’ If I had a mother, I probably wouldn’t even be here, wouldn’t have to take a lot of crap off a bunch of rats just because I can answer the teacher’s questions, and wouldn’t even know the goddamned Buzzer. They don’t mess with you that way.”

  “I’m bigger, man.” Dominic flexed his muscle. The rose bloomed. “And you’re doing okay. All new guys get messed with. You let ’em know today, they’d have to try you to beat you, and that’s a lot. Just wait until you get a rep and you’ll be fine. The Buzzer won’t mess with you then. You’ll see. Besides, you wouldn’t want a letter from my mother even if she was your mother.”

  Aaron picked his envelope off the blanket to avoid having to answer Dominic’s uncomfortable comment, and he busied himself by folding and refolding it until the ‘Judith Prize’ was a torn heading on a postage stamp size packet squeezed between his fingers.

  “You know what’s in that letter, man?” Dominic said, crushing the letter in his tattooed fist and throwing it with such force to the floor that it bounced as high as his bed frame and, then, rolled with a flutter under his bed.

  “Misery, man. Woman misery. Complaints. My mother’s got everything wrong with her that she can have wrong with her: liver, kidneys, heart, womb, low blood pressure, no blood pressure. If you don’t believe it, ask her. But you won’t have to because she’ll tell you all about it, anyway. She makes me do her time as well as my time. She wishes something was wrong with me so I could feel bad and we could share it together. Then we’d have something in common. She only comes to see me about every three months, twice since I been here. And that’s too often as far as I’m concerned. It’s just sickbed talk, anyway. She can stay home and keep her goddamned Jesus with her, too.”

  Fragile spears of light and shadow gave the crumpled surface of the letter a suspicious appearance to Aaron. For although he believed that Dominic was showing off a little bit, es
pecially the part about Jesus, a guy didn’t say things like that unless he felt pretty bad, and Aaron felt sorry for him.

  “You know what’s really wrong with my mother?”

  Aaron pretended to be preoccupied with folding the envelope a final time and making a thick roll of it between his fingers, but Dominic kept talking.

  “You know what’s really wrong with her? She can’t chippy like she used to. Men don’t give her the play anymore. Those that do, get a piece of ass and split on her. She’s too fat now, too old, fifty, wrinkles from all that lush and party-time during the war. She been screwing like a young whore since my father died six years ago.…”

  Aaron wanted to slap his hands over his ears, scream out a halt, jam a towel into Dominic’s mouth, do something, anything, to stop him. It was sacrilege to talk about your mother that way, and he was sure Dominic’s heart was vibrating with each syllable, while he, himself, couldn’t prevent glimpses of his own mother’s wrinkles, her tired eyes from appearing before him.

  “She used to try and get me on her side as a kid. But I’ll take my old man’s beatings before her whimpering any day. He was a man, daaad,” Dominic said, dragging the corners of his mouth down, smashing his fist into his palm. “He was what he said he was, all the time. She even lies to herself. She goes out and gets laid and, then, goes to church, goes out and gets laid and, then, goes to church. She even chippied on him when he was alive. Finally, I told on her. He kicked her ass. Kneeled her down and stripped her dress off, made me watch. Her big tits hung down onto bellyrolls of soft fat, and he beat her with his belt. The dimples on her ass jerked like jelly with each whack and she screamed and said she wouldn’t do it no more, just like the sniveling bitch. And she didn’t, either, because he kept her in the house until he died a couple of years later. My old man was a mean old dago, built just like me. He was a cold-blooded dude. But he was a man, and everything he said he was, he was. Man, dad, maaannn!”

  Dominic reached down and under the bed as he finished, grabbed the wadded letter and threw it, floating, into the center of the aisle by the washroom door, then stood defiantly, daring anyone to complain about it. But no one noticed and he sat down heavily upon his bed, slumped forward, and seemed drained of energy.

  Aaron could have thanked him for stopping, but he, himself, was comforted by the memory of a slightly plump mother in a print-flowered dress, a good mother in a warm kitchen, and for the first time, he felt superior enough to Dominic to want to help him.

  “I hate women, man,” Dominic said, after a few minutes. “They’re all weak bitches. I hate ’em just like I hate gutless punks and niggers. I hate niggers because they’re gutless unless they’re in a mob. I ain’t seen one yet that would stand up against a gang by hisself. They won’t even fight single-o if they figure they might get whipped. The Buzzer knows I hate ’um. He stays away from me. Big Stoop asked me if I wanted to be a cadet captain right after I first got here. But I turned it down. I don’t want nothin’ to do with niggers, even bossing those black, stinking punks. And I’ll take Big Stoop, hisself, any day, over nearly all the guys here at the institute, even the supposed-to-be-bad guys. He’s as bad as he acts.”

  “Big Stoop? Who’s Big Stoop?” Aaron asked, and the constant stress that Dominic, with his explosive speech, kept him under was heightened by the image of a giant Chinese walking out of a comic strip into real life.

  “Who’s Big Stoop?” Dominic mocked, his mouth curving as thin and viciously as a scimitar blade. “He ain’t in Terry and the Pirates, dad. He’s that big, giant, deputy-cop sonofabitch that checked you in. Mr. Toothman, man.”

  “Wow! Big Stoop! That’s a good nickname for him.”

  “Damn good. But don’t sell him short. He’s a big man and he’s a good man. Broke a guy’s arm about three months ago when he caught the guy with a chicken sandwich from the kitchen. A Mexican dude and game, game. He even took a bite when he got caught and tried to swallow it. But Big Stoop grabbed him and bent his arm behind him until it snapped trying to make him spit the bite out. Then he smeared the ‘lump’ in the guy’s face. Spread mayonnaise all over that brown skin, made the game Mex whimper. Big Stoop is a cop and a bad one, and he runs his institute like he knows how. I respect the dude for what he is, me.”

  “I won’t sell him short,” Aaron said and felt the guy’s fear when he got caught, the horrible pain of the broken arm, and the humiliation of having the sandwich smeared over his own face.

  “I hate gutless punks,” Dominic said.

  A slight stiffening of Aaron’s shoulders and a spreading of his elbows betrayed his inner tension, his fear that Dominic might include him, and his fear that in some future conflict with the Buzzer, he might not prove manly enough, hard and tough and game enough, but fear he was distracted from by the clash of the compound gate. And he listened, curious as to why the man would be coming in before count.

  Wide-spaced footsteps and lighter, quicker ones sounded on the asphalt, and he could tell that some boy was rushing to keep up with the man. The door opened, a deep voice said something, and Barneyway stepped into the dormitory. And Aaron didn’t know whether to be happy or sad.

  His first impulse was to call out. But Barneyway stood with his back to the door as if he were ready to turn and run: a small thin figure, almost comic; and Aaron found himself faced with the problem and all its complications, when he didn’t feel prepared for it, when he was afraid he couldn’t be hard and tough and game enough to fight it. But when Barneyway walked down the aisle with such timid steps it looked as if he had blistered feet, Aaron was moved, and he stood and cried:

  “Barneyway! Me! Barneyway!” with such enthusiasm that a wary smile split Barneyway’s compressed lips.

  “Man, I’m glad you’re better,” Aaron said, leaving Dominic behind him, discounting everything, once he had spoken, except his best friend. “But how come you came in so late at night?”

  “Big Stoop ran …” Barneyway sat on his bed. “Big Stoop … Mr. Toothman, ran … ran me out of the hospital, ran some other walking cases out, too. He said we were gold-bricking … said.…”

  The large moist eyes looked beyond Aaron and the explanation stopped. The sallow complexion had a gray hue. Aaron started to ask him if he was still sick when the cleft in the chin quivered with fright, and he spun his own head around with such force that a muscle snapped and burned in his neck. He hunched his shoulder against it to ease the pain, but the pain subsided into insignificance at the sight of the Buzzer shuffling toward them, at the fearful impact he felt as he realized that he was about to see for himself!

  “How my little pautna’ Air-ron?” the Buzzer asked, reaching out; but Aaron had no intention of forgetting the wisecracks in school nor was he going to let himself be conned in any way when he might have to fight, and he evaded the hand with a slight twist of his torso.

  Shallow glints of humor showed in the Buzzer’s eyes, and he pushed by Aaron and massaged Barneyway’s hairline.

  “How my little pautna’ Bau-nii-wayyyyy?”

  Barneyway stared meekly at the half moon of concrete floor between his feet.

  “Bau-ni-wayyy my best little buddy, Air-ron. An’ I glad you his buddy.”

  He leaned his head back on the fulcrum roll of flesh at the base of his skull and looked down his flat nose at Aaron, sighting between the shotgun barrel holes of his flaring nostrils, as if he were farsighted.

  “We be threee buddies, mus-ka-teeers. Threeeee mus-kateeeeers. You … an’ me … an’ Bau-niiiii,” he said.

  And the hair on Aaron’s arms rose with a goose-pimpling chill, a chill which trickled across his skull as the Buzzer sat down, leaned back, and propped his arm on the blanket behind Barneyway. For the Buzzer did it in a deliberately dainty manner, and the dormitory was so quiet that the mattress crunched slowly and loudly beneath his weight.

  “Ain’t nothin’ shakin’, Bau-niii,” the Buzzer drawled and rocked sidewards, touching Barneyway with his chest, making him flinc
h. “I always take care o’ my little buddies. I fi-gur a little ma-han who don’ have no eee-kuaaa-li-za need some kine o’ pro-tec-shun, bein’ as there ain’t no blades nor no blooo-bar-rulled pistols aroun’ to warn big cats away. You know, by bustin’ off a few caps. You know, for my ownnn gooooood bee-have-vurrr. Help these little cats out. You know.”

  His thick grinning mouth stretched widely and slowly for the benefit of his friends, but an expression of mock seriousness dropped like a hood over his face when the lights blinked off and on, off and on, warning of bedtime, count, and lights out.

  V

  Occasional barks of laughter, comments, and hoo-rahs disturbed the darkened dormitory for some time. But eventually the joke of Barneyway’s fright wore out for the Buzzer and his boys, and the sleepy mumble of a word, the rustle of sheets, the heave and sigh of deep breathing and the drone of someone snoring down by the washroom were all Aaron could hear.

  The exposed rafters of the ceiling formed faint lunar bridges of light across a smooth expanse of darkness, and Aaron traced the thin beam above him across the dormitory into the wall of shadow over Barneyway’s bed, and the bond of their friendship seemed as thin and tenuous, seemed to disappear like the beam in the dark fear which hovered over Barneyway and which he would not illuminate.

  A chill trickled across Aaron’s skull at the thought of the nostrils which had flared above him, and he dreaded an illumination now as much as the unexplained fright. For Barneyway’s poor performance was the clinching lesson in his first day’s schooling: he didn’t know if he could take care of himself yet, let alone be hard and tough enough to help Barneyway, even with all the answers.

  He started to make the sign of the cross but got no farther than the touch of his finger to his forehead, for Barneyway had acted like pussy! And Buckshot’s tan cheeks puffed with the pride and importance of his warning! And Aaron covered his eyes with his hand to hide from both sights, then turned over on his side, pulled the covers up to his ears, pressed his head into the pillow, and tried to smother with sleep all the unhappy bits and impressionistic memories of his first full day on the grounds.