Tattoo the Wicked Cross

by Salas, Floyd;

  Buckshot offered Aaron some skin, and Dominic leaned down and slapped his palm to welcome him into the game, and Jenson joined in from the porch with a singsong bass: “Now you cats act / like a bunch of paddies, / got no mamas, nor daddies, / yeah!”

  “Yeah! yourself, Big Jenson, / go hide your head / ’cause your mama’s getting laid / on top your bed,” Dominic countered, and they all laughed as Jenson covered his face.

  Two boys on opposite sides of the porch fired a volley of their own partly memorized, partly ad-libbed caps at each other, and Aaron ducked his head and covered his ears and pretended he didn’t want to get caught in it, but he hoped somebody would throw a cap at him so he could get back in the game.

  A small crowd began to gather as Jenson spun the record into a revolving wheel above his head, caught it without touching its grooves, put a longer playing disk on the turntable, turned the volume of the speaker down to background level, and took up Dominic’s taunt.

  They exchanged caps two or three times until they ran out of verses, and Buckshot, with his twisted copper curls, chose Aaron; but before Aaron could answer, the slurred drawl of a colored kid from the South put Buckshot down, and a pockmarked white kid put him down, and another boy put him down, and the lawn became a no man’s land of dirty caps. The crowd shouted at good caps, laughed at funny ones, and jeered and moaned at poor ones.

  A nudge of Buckshot’s knee at a cap made Aaron laugh. He’d laugh at a poor cap, although he might moan, too. He’d laugh and shout at a good cap, and he’d laugh in expectation before a cap was finished. For the dozens was dirty kicks, nothing counted, nothing was sacred, nobody had to be afraid or get mad, everything was for fun, for freezies: king’s X and kick right back.

  The free-for-all was at its peak—guys were interrupting each other, guys were speaking at the same time, trying to finish a cap which another guy had started, stopping, laughing at their own attempts—when the Buzzer and Rattler appeared on the outskirts of the crowd with two guys from the kitchen.

  The weasel-faced blond guy was slouched over in a pachuco pose, pretending he was tough. Aaron despised him, suspecting him of joining in the classroom taunts. He had learned his name was Bobby Shuck and that the big Mexican guy with him was called Boomby and was duke of the kitchen. Dark pimple specks spread over Boomby’s brown cheeks as if he were smiling, but his mouth was set and mean; and although Aaron was sure he was involved in the classroom hassle, too, he feared him.

  The Buzzer rested his knuckles on the humps of his butt, and Rattler’s mouth was a sharp crescent beneath the tattooed cross.

  Words dribbled slowly to a stop. There was a long pause in which all heads turned toward them, in which Jenson picked up the phonograph arm, held it between his fingers, and which he finally ended by setting the arm down on another record.

  The music began with the low, harmonious and consoling orchestrations of Glenn Miller, but Rattler broke into it with his throaty voice, pointed a knobby finger at Barneyway, and used a stock verse known by everyone:

  “I saw your mutha down on Seventh and Pine / selling her pussy for a bottle of wine.”

  Saxophones throbbed to the pulses of Aaron’s heart, and no one spoke, for Rattler was playing dirty—not by what he said but how he said it. Aaron then leaned forward to see around Buckshot’s plump body and to prompt Barneyway to come back with a happy cap, save the game, and put Rattler down by treating the attack as a joke.

  He was certain the large eye in profile could see him. But Barneyway only rubbed his hands on his dungarees, and Aaron slid to the very edge of the step, trying to force an answer, for his own prestige was at stake, too. Any cap would do for answer. But Barneyway had to answer!

  “Hee-hee! This boy can’t talk. Hee-hee!”

  Rattler posed in an exaggerated slouch, dungarees pulled down below his hips, baggy seated, shirt unbuttoned.

  “Maybe he ain’t got no mama?” the Buzzer said. “Now a man that’ll run when his mama is called, / will suck on a dick if its balls are bald.”

  A blush ballooned Barneyway’s face, seemed to set it afloat, rising and lifting his body with it into an erect position. He stuttered, stopped, mouth open, struggled to answer, stuttered again, and closed his mouth, and Aaron declared: “The Buzzer and Rattler think they’re bad. / Good in a gang but alone they’re had.”

  The figures of his enemies shimmered in the hot sun before him. Tiny wrinkles wormed over his tight chin. He heard the needle scratch as Jenson picked up the phonograph arm, getting ready for action, and in the quiet, he could feel the support of the crowd. It was a battle for himself alone now.

  A confused babble broke from Rattler and the Buzzer, both speaking at the same time. Rattler stopped and the Buzzer repeated his verse: “Some little boys think they keen. / A bust in the mouth decide who mean.”

  Rattler added: “Some little boys need to be schooled. / If they keep actin’ up, they gonna get cooled.”

  Arms loose and ready, they challenged Aaron and all eyes watched him. The whole scene flashed before him. He saw himself battling, throwing punches from a gang-fight crouch, maybe losing, maybe getting lots of help, maybe getting to see the Buzzer and Rattler and their two buddies smothered under an angry storm of boys. But he also saw the gray misery of the isolation cell, Big Stoop, and his own puffed face in the mirror. He saw himself as a loser, falling off the perch which he had climbed that morning and which was above most of his problems, and he said, coolly, trying to keep the battle on a speaking level:

  “Everybody got a right to rhyme if he wants to. We were having fun until you guys got into it.”

  Worms wrinkled over his chin again as he tried to keep his face from showing fear. He didn’t think he sounded chicken, although he was trying to keep out of a fight. But the Buzzer thought he was scared and called:

  “Stand up, if you ain’t a punk like you friend,” and Aaron jumped to his feet, shouting:

  “Don’t call me no punk, Buzzer.”

  He shouted it again when the Buzzer started toward him, side-stepping and hopping with quick, broken movements through and over the squatting boys, unable to make progress because no one would make room, but advancing with the slow, unreal, and unescapable force of a phantom in a nightmare.

  The muscles in Aaron’s legs collapsed and he caught his breath, but in the catching found the courage to fall into a fighting crouch, and heard before the Buzzer had covered six feet—though he almost couldn’t believe it—Jenson’s deep voice, warning, ironic:

  “Now you ain’t going to try and punch on that boy? Are you, Buzzer? I thought the dozens were supposed to be fun? You ain’t actin’ like you’re enjoying yourself.”

  The Buzzer slowed but kept moving, and Dominic said, “Lay off him, Buzzer. You started playing rough and he just gave you some rough talk back.”

  The Buzzer stopped, pink gums exposed by the angry working of his jaw, and Aaron felt the strength come back into his legs.

  “Leave the little guy alone,” someone said, and the Buzzer turned to see who it was, and Buckshot sang out: “Now let’s have some dozens with plenty of rhyme, / ’cause we gotta do something to kill this time.”

  And all the boys started throwing caps at the Buzzer. He sneered as he tried to answer the first one, but another was thrown at him before he could get to the rhyme; he tried to repeat it but forgot the rhyme when a third cap was thrown at him; he tried a new cap but stuttered with a new challenge; he didn’t get to begin again before another cap hit him and another and another and another, and he finally gave up under a bombardment of taunts and jeers and laughter, and Jenson put on another jumping record, and Aaron spit at Barneyway’s feet.

  Part Five

  Every Mutha’s Son

  I

  Static crackled from the office loud-speaker and all conversation in every dorm, in every courtyard stopped. Jenson’s eyes were bright blue and anxious. The shadow of the wire fence links made lopsided squares on his tense face. Dominic sat q
uiet and unconcerned on the compound bench. Aaron, between them, couldn’t help an intake of breath as the loudspeaker squawked the lucky inmate’s name, but he wasn’t expecting a visit, for Sunday was a busy day in his father’s restaurant, and he didn’t freeze with hope as Jenson did. Nor could he sit with Dominic’s stoic detachment, for he longed for the relief a visit could give him from his hatred of the Buzzer, which soured his stomach like heavy, undigested curds.

  The warm afternoon air relaxed into waves of noise again, until the next announcement would stop all sound in the compounds and charge the atmosphere with expectation. But the placid blue of the sky was splotched with hatred for Aaron and even Jenson’s excited talking failed to clear it.

  “Now what would you guys be doing if it weren’t for me?” Jenson said, not asking, telling, and boasting because he was happy, but reminding Aaron of his own attempts to sleep the idle morning away; to evade, in sleep, the Buzzer’s constant threatening stare and the unhappy sight of Barneyway’s morose solitude; to rid himself, in sleep, of that word that perfectly described Barneyway’s failure in the dozens and the discomfort his own hatred of the Buzzer caused him.

  “Both of you guys would be laying inside, bumkicked, if it weren’t for me. Go on, admit it! Admit it!” Jenson said and thumped a short, chopping right hook into Aaron’s ribs.

  “Owww, man!” Aaron complained, hugging his side. “Alright, I admit it! I admit it!” he repeated, for Jenson had helped with his surprising and noisy enthusiasm, with his: “Come on, man, get pretty, get pretty. Shoes shined! Hair curled! Get those nasty duds off and put on your bonerues!”

  Jenson had helped by pushing him, Aaron, off the bed, by shoving him to the washroom, by getting a clean uniform for him, by shining his shoes for him, and by singing in a bass voice, while keeping time with the shoe brush: “Gettin’ pretty! Gettin’ pretty!”

  And Jenson had prodded Dominic into dropping the Sunday paper and changing clothes by punctuating his song with shouts of: “Come on, ugly. Join the party. Join the party, ugly.”

  Jenson had helped by exciting all the guys, and the smell of shoe polish had pervaded the dormitory, and Aaron had to see it to believe that boys in jail could get so concerned about their appearance: see them lined two and three deep in front of the washroom mirrors, combing and recombing their hair: see them pose for each other after they had finished dressing and ask each other for comments, their faces painful barometers of the criticism and approval: see them run nervous fingers down the makeshift pleats of their dungaree pants, smooth the blue wrinkles out of their shirt sleeves, and try not to bend their arms or sit down until they had met their visitors in their unblemished best.

  Jenson had helped, but it was past, and he added now: “Be laying inside like that punk, Barneyway,” and held his fist up, ready to punch again, and Aaron’s ribs throbbed as guilt clamped like a tight cap on his skull.

  For he sat on a bench in the sunshine between two bad-acting dudes, watching the Sunday visitors, while his best buddy, Barneyway, sat by himself in the dormitory, pretending to read a comic book, unwelcome, unable to join him, put down by everybody after the dozens. But inside his skull, guilt had a black face, guilt dragged out Dominic’s word with gold teeth, drawled Buckshot’s warning, and grunted like the mother; and Aaron wanted to smash it away but got hit by Jenson, instead, caught by surprise.

  “Come on, man, get that sourpuss look off your pale face.”

  He sprang up and shot a right cross into Jenson’s arm, and Jenson cocked his big fist at Dominic, held it for the preliminary squawk of the loud-speaker, and snapped it into Dominic’s shoulder as the name crackled out; and Dominic jabbed Aaron in the thigh, while Aaron hammered Jenson just above the knee.

  “Better, better, betterrrr. Jesus, look at that broad!”

  A teen-age girl walked by with small steps, knees bound by a short, tight skirt with side splits, breasts poking to perfect points in a bright red sweater.

  “Hello, baby,” Jenson said, and her lipstick flared like shoestring bows over the corners of her smiling mouth. Penciled lines arched high over her shaved eyebrows, slanting her eyes and her coquettish glance, accentuating the tattooed beauty mark on her cheek. Her brown hair was a wild halo of fuzzy ringlets.

  “Tell me that ain’t sweet?” Jenson said, and Aaron dodged his next punch, disliking her beauty mark and shaved eyebrows, considering her and all the girls who swayed by in tight skirts and sweaters, with thick rolls of bobby-sox around their ankles, cheap. Girls were supposed to be sweet and cherry, not sharp and hard.

  He resented the guys who swaggered by in finger-tip coats, baggy-kneed drape pants, thick-soled stomping shoes, and duck-tailed Hollywood haircuts, too, for his own zoot suits hung unused in a dark closet.

  The parents, who looked so poor, so washed out and gray, depressed him most of all, for all the men seemed to have on thin gabardine pants and cotton sportshirts, with wide collars winging over cheap sportcoats, and all the women seemed to wear flimsy dresses, which billowed shapelessly upon them.

  The loud-speaker squawked more often and irritated him, also, for although he wasn’t expecting and didn’t want to expect a visit and could see most of the visitors as they arrived, he listened for the sound of his name with every announcement.

  He searched for his father’s Studebaker among the battered pre-war Fords and Chevies, which began to form an unbroken fence around the visitors’ lawn on the hill, was disappointed, and shared a bitter and envious conspiratorial smile with Dominic and Jenson, when the Buzzer’s real name, Oliver Wiley, was announced, and the Buzzer rushed out of the dormitory and across the courtyard with short, waddling steps.

  Condemned to sit on a bench, while the guy he blamed for ruining even that small pleasure enjoyed a visit, Aaron made fun of the Buzzer’s ugly walk, which was more of a waddle than a walk, and which, with the almost deformed protrusion of his buttocks and his efforts to hurry, made it appear as if he were wading through knee-high water instead of skimming over the hard surface of concrete and asphalt.

  Aaron watched him until he disappeared in a crowd of visitors by the office, waited for him to reappear, worried that he had been lost, and, finally, caught sight of him among the groups on the lawn, leading a Negro couple dressed in black and a zoot-suited kid to a redwood table not far from the compound fence, where his mother’s appearance fulfilled Aaron’s most malicious hopes.

  “Amen, boy, a-men,” Mrs. Wiley said in a hoarse voice, as she stepped nervously about, flapping the full sleeves of the black coat which overlapped her fat body to her thin shins.

  “Praise thee Lord. Praise thee Lord,” she said, fanning the air with a thick Bible, her puffy mumbling lips nearly touching the tip of her broad nose.

  “Praise thee Lord,” she said; and only the memory of his own mother, in a white cotton nightgown, standing in solitude and prayer, prayers which had a private meaning, kept Aaron from making sarcastic comments to Dominic and Jenson.

  “Bless this boy, Lord. Bless this boy. Bless this boy,” she said, her big wobbling buttocks swelling like pillows beneath the coat with her shuffling steps, yet steps which had a bird’s quickness, steps which Aaron thought were weird and disliked and yet liked because the Buzzer’s mother took them.

  “Hush!” she said when Mr. Wiley reached out to restrain her, and the worn wrinkling highlights of his black sleeve vanished at her command, his bony face sagging down so that only the burrs of his hair showed.

  “Hush!” she repeated, and the Buzzer’s brother stopped preening, a smoothing finger pressed against an eyebrow, until he seemed sure she didn’t mean him, then he pressed at his stiff, pomaded hair, brushed down the lapels of his fingertip coat, and searched for lint along the yellow pinstripes of his baggy knees.

  “Hush!” she said again, although no one had spoken; and Aaron shared a wise glance with Dominic and Jenson: as bad as the Buzzer acted, his mother was the man!

  “The Buzzer looks more like her than his
skinny father, except she’s fat,” Dominic said and nudged Aaron, who joyfully punched Jenson, who nodded in agreement, then stood on the bench, stretched his long frame, stared for a moment, and smiled.

  “I think I see my old man’s Chevy,” he said and pointed to a battered gray car, with a twisted front bumper, parked the wrong way in front of the office. “How’d he get up there? Must be drunk? Probably is. Goes to bed with a bottle of whisky. Know he couldn’t make it all the way up here from Frisco without stopping for a couple of drinks or a pint.”

  He started to say more but the loud-speaker crackled his name, and he jumped off the bench, into the air, shouting, “Go! Go! Daddy-o!” and trotted across the courtyard, slammed the gate, and made it up the hill within a minute, to the envious grins of both Dominic and Aaron.

  Aaron grinned less with envy than distaste when he saw Jenson leading his parents about, searching for a place to sit down. Aaron grinned to pretend that he thought it was funny that Mrs. Jenson was drunk and had to keep one fleshless arm around Jenson’s waist to keep her flat body from toppling over with every lock-kneed step. He grinned to hide his impatience with Jenson for not stopping in one of the clear lawn spaces and sitting her down. Then he grinned to hide his shock when Mrs. Jenson’s clumsy steps made him realize she was lame, that she leaned on Jenson for support, and that they needed to find a bench for her.

  He grinned to hide his shame for thinking the worst of a buddy’s mother, and he grinned throughout the minutes it took her to reach the redwood table, where the Buzzer and his family sat. He grinned to hide his annoyance that they had picked a place where he could see her so well: the chopped edge of her straight blond hair, her heavy jaw, Jenson’s nose hooking out from her gaunt face; and that the Buzzer was staring at her.

  He grinned to pretend that he enjoyed Mr. Jenson’s good humor, the sunburned cheeks flushed with booze and laughter, the open mouth, but he then grinned because he couldn’t hear the laughter, although he leaned forward on the edge of the bench and tried to hear, and was going to blame the Buzzer and Mrs. Wiley for making too much noise, when he noticed that they were quietly watching Mr. Jenson laugh, too, and laugh silently, his limp red hair flattened over his broad fore-head like a cap brim, while he filled two paper cups from a bottle in a brown bag. Aaron grinned readily then because Mr. Jenson was getting away with such an act and because he still couldn’t hear any laughter when Mr. Jenson handed the cup to his son, although the solid belly swelled drum tight within the sport shirt and shook as if it would burst free from the wide leather belt.