Tattoo the Wicked Cross

by Salas, Floyd;

  “It’s the truth, Dominic,” Aaron said and, trying to prove it to himself as well as to Dominic, he scanned the tree-lined main road below them for the black car which would take Dominic to the Oakland Detention Home before setting him free. He then searched the highway and the trickle of cars and trucks along it, but felt as if he were counting the cars at his own funeral, couldn’t continue, and tried to prove he cared with words.

  “Man, I wantcha to know … that … I am glad that my buddy is getting out … out! away from here!” He stood at attention to keep his face stern and free of self-pity, which was a battle he had been fighting and losing all day.

  “I wantcha to know that … it ain’t just because I gotta stand alone against the Buzzer. It’s mostly because my friend’s going away and I can’t go with him. That’s it, mostly, I guess?”

  “I wish you were my brother, man,” Dominic said, obviously moved. “I was waiting for some shuck talk: some good guy stuff and this and that. But you came out straight, man, like always. Now, I’ll tell you something, man, and I mean this. You know how bad I wantta go home? Well, I’m sorry I’m leaving you here and that’s no lie. I swear on my Mother’s Honor, and not just because you’re going to have to tangle with those two dogs, but because you got the guts to tangle with ’em alone, as little as you are, too. I’ve only known you two weeks and it seems like two years. Heard about you long before I met you. Had to meet you and see you in a cross to really believe it. You got everything, dad: guts, smarts, honor. You make being little seem big. On my Mother’s Honor!”

  “We’ll be buddies when I get out,” Aaron said, fully meaning it in his flattered enthusiam, believing it himself. “And Skip’s gonna get that blade and I’m gonna stick it into that black baboon’s belly. I’m going to send him straight to hell.”

  “Now you’re with it. And send him some of that salvation steel for me, too, buddy-o.”

  “Salvation steel? Good name! I hope it’s pretty. I hope it shines like a star.”

  “Ain’t gonna be no factory-made blade. Gonna be homemade and ugly, but good, good.”

  Aaron’s enthusiasm was a little deflated, for he had imagined a jeweled scabbard, a velvet hilt, and a blade whose surface was a grained network of dull brilliance. He had never seen a home made blade before and “ugly” would be a disappointment.

  “A blade’s a blade, dad. Remember that. Pretty ain’t nothin’. Sharp is,” Dominic said and added:

  “See? What’d I tell yuh? Here comes Skip.”

  They watched him leave the metal shop, pass the chapel, and approach them with a slow-stepping walk, which was maddening to Aaron because it could conceal good news or be the dispirited result of bad news, and because Skip kept the pace and the secret throughout the slow trip to them.

  “I almost got caught,” he began, honking through the crushed bones of his nose, aggravating Aaron’s impatience by explaining first. “I was grinding it down when the man came in and I had to drop it in a trash can and split. When I came back later, it was gone. Somebody must’ve swiped it. I was almost through, too, just making the point a little smoother. I’m sorry, man.”

  The dented bridge of his nose was all Aaron could see of his face, for he lowered it in such a guilty manner and seemed so genuinely sorry that Aaron, who was still enthused by Dominic’s compliments, threw his hands up.

  “Guess I got no blade, Dominic, ugly or not.”

  “Ugly?” Skip said.

  “When can you get another one?” Dominic asked, words streaming through his lips, making no attempt to explain.

  “I got to play it cool,” Skip said, quick with his answer. “Two files missing one right after the other might be noticed, make the man suspicious. But.… Next week. Yeah, one week at most. And if I can’t get a file, I can make a pitchfork out of a dinner fork in five minutes. In that case, by Tuesday afternoon, at the latest, he’ll have something to fight with.”

  “That oughtta hold you, Aaron.”

  “Ought to,” Aaron said, allowing himself to feel optimistic.

  “Run with Skip, man,” Dominic advised. “He’s as bad as you. And stay away from the dorm and out of the Buzzer’s way. Whatever you do, don’t let the dude loud-talk you into fighting until you got the blade. Remember that. Don’t fight until you got the blade, unless he tries to manhandle you. Then, little buddy, go! But otherwise, words won’t hurt when you’re working on a battle plan. Got me?”

  “I got yuh. I’ll play it cool until I got my blade. I’ll even run, if I have to, and I’ll make him run when I get it.”

  “Good! You’ll make it with Skip’s help. I know you will,” Dominic said, optimistically; and the black car coming through the gate, creeping up the road, changing shades as it passed through the bars of shadow cast by the tall eucalyptus trees, did not destroy Aaron’s anxious optimism.

  His optimism lasted through the arrival of the car, the appearance of the probation officer, his reappearance from the office with Dominic’s folder, the final handshake, the aching moment when Dominic climbed into the car, the cough and hum of the motor, the growl of the exhaust pipes, the car’s cruise past the gym, the chapel, the trade shops, the open fields, the baseball field, the boys playing on it, and back through the bars of shadow to the main gate.

  It lasted through the sad, tiptoeing, palm-brimming, eye-shielding minute or two of the car’s passage from the gate to the gap in the green hills, and it lasted through the sun-setting, moon-rising unhappy hours between Dominic’s departure, dinner and lockup time, and it even lasted into the lonely hour Aaron spent in the darkened courtyard, where Dominic’s tattooed fists and Judith’s beauty mark kept his courage up; and although he wasn’t optimistic when he walked into the dormitory, he had prepared himself for whatever and whoever he had to face, and he was scared, but he was not afraid.

  A sudden hush rushed like a suffocating wave away from him with the slam of the screen door, spread thinly over the final whispers of two boys by the washroom, who were the last to notice him, then backwashed over them.

  He forced himself through the dense silence to his bed, where he considered entering the washroom, but guessed that he wouldn’t undress the entire night, and sat down with his back to the wall, so he could see in all directions.

  He saw the Buzzer, already stripped down to his white shorts, whisper to Rattler. He saw Rattler, the pink skirt of his nightgown belling above big dark feet, go to his locker, take out a pair of black dress gloves, and dangle them from his hand like two prize fish. But he could see no trace of the friend he needed so badly in the folded mattress and exposed iron springs next to him.

  A murmur rippled across the engulfing tide of silence.

  The back of Rattler’s pink skirt lifted with a bow. And the Buzzer bowed as he took the gloves, with a very dainty clasp of thumb and forefinger, bowed again for thanks, then bowed twice to the dormitory, once toward Aaron and once toward Barneyway.

  Crisp laughter followed each bow, and only Barneyway, who lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling, and Aaron, who took a comic book off the top of his locker and tried to read, did not laugh. But the pages rustled so loudly in his trembling hands, Aaron dropped the book on the bed, hoping no one had noticed, and tried to read without touching it, only to start at the sound of the Buzzer’s song and realize by the quick, trailing laughter that everybody had been watching him.

  A hopeless wish then hurt in his chest. But no wish could conjure a Dominic from the folded mattress, nor from its iron buttoned navels, nor from the checkerboard of wire links and springs below it, although the Buzzer kept singing his rolling monosyllabic tune:

  “Gonna get me some

  punk-honey.

  Bee-wrap a flao-wa,

  me.

  Get me some

  punk-honey.”

  His feet brushed in a splay-toed but rhythmic shuffle down the dormitory. His arms and hands twisted in sinuous exaggerations of glove fitting. His muscles tensed as if they flooded with black bl
ood. His jutting rump switched easily from side to side, each buttock popping out in turn with the shifting weight of the slow beat. His head swayed in half-time, and all the muscular angles of his body swayed in loose-limbed pattern to the rhythm of his song.

  “Have you heard the news?” Rattler sang out.

  “Everybody’s rocking tonight.”

  And was followed by a chorus of laughter.

  Some boys stopped when Aaron looked at them, and closed their mouths, embarrassed. Others showed their teeth in louder laughter. Some merely smiled. But not one had the courage to give him a sympathetic glance. He counted them without counting, remembered those who didn’t laugh, felt contempt for those who turned away, and forgot all of them when the Buzzer popped his gloved fist into his gloved palm, like a pistol shot, by Barneyway’s bed.

  “Sting some,

  sting, sting, sting some

  tonight.”

  Barneyway stared vacantly into the rafters and ignored the Buzzer, and Aaron, who was sweating for him, recognized his courage, for he didn’t fight but he didn’t show fear. But it was courage without hope, submission to the most terrible insult he could suffer without a struggle; it was accepting defeat while he still had a chance to win, even if a remote, improbable chance. And Aaron wanted to scream at him that peace was not worth this price, that he should get mad, act scared at least, show some proof that he still cared what happened to him.

  But the Buzzer clapped his gloved hands over his snapping groin, spit out the word sting and, jut-jawed, marble-eyed, his neck streaked with tightened cords, arteries, and veins, then hopped a step with each snap, each sting until he reached Aaron’s bed, where he shut his small eyes, sucked wind through his pursed lips as if to signify bliss, and sang:

  “Bee-wrap some,

  bee-wrap a flao-wa, me,

  get me some

  punk-honey.”

  A single cheek-twitch betrayed Aaron’s tension, and it was his only movement until the lights blinked and the clash of the gate stopped the Buzzer’s song, until the Buzzer swaggered to his bed, where he popped his gloved fist into his gloved palm, and got under the covers. Aaron then slipped under his own blankets to a chorus of guffaws, with all his clothes on but his dungaree shirt, wishing he had the blade, and no longer concerned with who might get hurt with it.

  The man was an undefined form of counting brown, quickly gone and quickly forgotten, as every boy in the dormitory except Barneyway, who peeked at Aaron with sorrowful eyes, from covers pulled up to his nose, propped himself up on a pillow and waited for the lights to go out.

  A low-toned hum began with first darkness, rumbled, receded, then rose to a higher fluctuating pitch, with the snapping back of blankets, then broke into climactic song with the bodiless apparition of white shorts which appeared and hung motionless against the darkened wall, then suddenly ceased as the shorts bobbed steadily toward Aaron, with a patter of bare feet.

  Aaron cried for the blade under his breath, swallowed hard down a constricted throat, doubled his legs under the blankets, not sure yet whether the Buzzer was headed for himself or Barneyway, but got prepared to kick in either case, relaxed when the shorts reached and passed his bed without slowing, and was caught off guard when they turned and leaped at him: a leather slap stung his face, the covers were jerked down, and the Buzzer grabbed his T-shirt.

  “Take off your pants, pu-unk!”

  Aaron caught a hip with a kicking heel, knocked the Buzzer away, dived out of his bed, bumped his knee against the concrete, scrambled to his feet, ran, limping, the knee buzzing with pain, into the center of the dormitory, ducked a punch the chasing Buzzer threw at him, and found himself with his fists up, his back to the washroom, no longer scared because he was already fighting, had already made the Buzzer miss a Sunday punch, had two hands for the Buzzer’s two hands, had his shoes on and the Buzzer was barefooted, and had twice as much speed.

  “Fuck you, Buzzer. I don’t have to take your dirty shit. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you,” he cursed, and he cursed out of anger and to encourage himself, too, and he kept cursing as the black spectral figure, with its white slitted eyes, its grimacing white teeth, its menacing white shorts, threw wild punches at him and drove him toward the washroom.

  But he safely hopped back a step with each punch, hands up, crouched, ready but not excited, cursing steadily to keep his anger and his courage up, ducked some more punches, cursed again, and, finally, made the Buzzer pause, made the Buzzer realize that he had a noisy battle to fight when the smallest noise could bring the man.

  “Shut up! Shut you mouth, you little paddy pu-unk,” the Buzzer said and started stalking Aaron with short, flat-footed steps.

  “Make me shut up, you fucking black queer. You black queer!” Aaron shouted, anticipating every move the Buzzer made, for the white shorts were a signal flag of body action, and the eyes chinked and the gritted teeth widened with each punch, and although he regretted his T-shirt, he counted the indistinct blur of his own face as an advantage; and with his heart beat clenched in his tight fists, he felt the thrill of total disregard for what might happen to him, for he was making it happen, meeting it before the double row of faces, the half-moon of Barneyway’s face, and the floating cone of Rattler’s nightgown, several yards behind the Buzzer, and he felt glorious and cursed again:

  “Fuck you, Buzzer.”

  “I’m gonna kill you, you little pu-unk,” the Buzzer said in a guttural whisper, moving cautiously toward Aaron, both hands high, ready to throw the one bomb that would put Aaron down.

  “What the fuck you waiting for, queer? Black queer!” Aaron taunted, for he had fought enough big men to know that if one lost control of his temper it made his own weaker punches but better skill that much more valuable, and taunting also gave him the advantage of the aggressor while backing up.

  “You’re the punk. You fucking punk. You fucking queer.”

  “I’ll kill you for that. I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!” the Buzzer screamed and pawed the concrete with his bare feet like a wild animal preparing to charge; and his yell sobered Aaron, made him tense, quiet; and his quick silence sobered the Buzzer as they both got ready for the final clash, the one that would settle everything; but in the unexpected stillness, heavy footsteps could be heard running down the road, then voices, the jangle of keys, the compound gate swinging, squeaking back, and banging against the fence.

  “The man, Buzzer,” Rattler warned and ran to his bed, to the frantic rustling and snapping of sheets and blankets, as everyone slid under their covers, leaving Aaron and the Buzzer facing each other for an anxious moment, a moment in which Aaron hoped the Buzzer would risk the hole for a chance to throw a knockout punch, for he considered both the hole and the punch together a small price to pay for getting the battle exposed, but the Buzzer hissed:

  “I’ll getcha, pu-unk,” and hurried away.

  And although Aaron stalled, pretending to act bad, but really hoping and trying to get caught, he was under the covers and feigning sleep, with his closed lids veiling the flashlight beam, when the man entered.

  He listened in mock slumber to the rubber soles as they walked by him into the washroom, halted, waited, recrossed the dorm, waited at the door again, and were softened by the closed door as they recrossed the courtyard. He then heard voices, the squeak and clash of the gate, the jangle of keys, footsteps again, and silence.

  III

  A coke bottle cap hissed. The gallon jug of Kool-aid gurgled. The moist frosting of the chocolate cake melted on the blade of a slicing knife. Food-packed paper plates and refilled paper cups balanced on the uneven surface of the picnic blanket, and the dim cluster of silverware and the crooked stack of white napkins diminished; but Aaron’s fork was imbedded in the rocky hill of potato salad on his plate and the golden skin of a chicken wing was barely shredded from his nibbling bites.

  For the delightful sight of his family seated around the red blanket, in the oak grove, enjoying with Barneyway and his mothe
r, Juanita, the pleasure of a picnic and each other’s company was marred for him because they took his own happiness for granted and because he realized that the happiness he did feel would last for only a brief hour or two, and they would then go home, and he would go back to the dormitory.

  “Is there anything wrong, honey?” Nora asked, and tried to pull him close to the starched white bodice of her summer frock.

  But he leaned away from her, irritated by a long, tickling strand of her dark hair, until his body was a muscle strain on one side, from his tilted head, through the wing of his back, his tightened thigh and calf, to his toes, bent against the sole of his brogan.

  “Sure there’s something wrong,” Stanley said, speaking through closed teeth, pocketing the food in his cheek, stretching his full lips until he swallowed the food, then explaining: “He’s in jail. That’s what’s wrong. And it’ll stay wrong as long as he stays here.”

  He pointed accusing fork tines, sheathed with potato salad, at Aaron, who bristled with resentment, for although he didn’t expect Stanley to sense his ache, being in jail should have been enough to get sympathy from a brother, even a fighter, who always had to hurt a little bit and who couldn’t shake hands without squeezing so hard it became a duel.

  “Sure, and he’ll stay here until he learns to behave and act like a real man,” Edwin D’Aragon said, and the crossed legs of the camp stool creaked under his heavy shifting weight, as he bent his bald head back, tilted a paper cup of Kool-aid bottom up, smacked his lips when he lowered it, and handed it to Nora to refill.

  “It’ll always be what’s wrong, until you learn to behave, buddy,” he added, clenching and reclenching his hand to hurry Nora, while Aaron took a tasteless bite of the brown flaked wing, unable to remember one word of advice from his father which didn’t make him feel at fault.

  “It’s unfortunate that he has to suffer in this way. But, perhaps, it might help him to behave,” John said, coatless, holding a drumstick in one hand, gesturing with the other, the gray plaid vest lending his bearing and his words a formal authority.