American Outlaw

by James, Jesse

  We pinched cars and cut them up. We sold them to various scumbags for next to nothing, or ripped them apart and tried to deal the parts. On weekends, I was chained to the swap meet for my dad. But on weeknights, I’d drive into L.A. and hang out at Golden Apple Comics, with my cousin Dave and his girlfriend. She had a Silver Surfer tattoo on her forearm, which was pretty hard-core for the eighties. Golden Apple was down on Melrose, and they stayed open pretty late. We’d geek out on comics for hours at a time.

  After a couple of months of hanging out there, the owner of the store started looking at me all funny.

  “Hey, kid. Come over here.”

  I looked at him suspiciously. “I haven’t stolen anything, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “No, it’s not that,” he said. “Listen, I need a big kid like you to work security for me. We got an event coming up tomorrow night, and my regular guy’s busy. You ever work security before?”

  I shook my head. “What do I have to do?”

  “You just make sure no one gets in without paying. And once they’re in, you gotta see to it that no one stuffs anything in their pants. Not rocket science.”

  “What do you pay?”

  “Fifty bucks a night, plus you get to listen to everything, front row. How’s that for a deal, kid?”

  I agreed for the pure hell of it. I thought it was very funny: me of all people making sure no one pilfered anything. But then I decided to take the job seriously. Golden Apple had a lot of great readings in those days. Charles Bukowski came around two different times when I was working. The second time he was there, he brought me several signed first editions of his books. I really had no idea who he was until years later. I just liked him because he was the crusty, angry type of fucker I’d gotten used to at the swaps.

  The days passed, and soon I missed having a girlfriend. Before long I got it into my head that I’d like to try making Patty into Rhonda’s replacement. Beyond the fact of knowing it would piss off that John kid no end, she was just really adorable. I called her up a couple of weeks after the party to see what the deal was.

  “So, I was just thinking about you,” I said.

  “I was thinking about you, too,” she confessed.

  “That’s great,” I said. “Well . . . are we gonna get together sometime?”

  “Sure,” Patty said. “You can take me out to the movies this Friday, if you want.”

  “No way!” I said, unable to believe my luck. “I mean, yes. Yes, I want.”

  “Great, smooth talker,” she said, laughing. “Come over around seven. You can meet my dad and my stepmom then.”

  So I got all excited. That Friday, I showered up and dressed to the preppy nines: Chess King shirt, flared jeans, the whole thing.

  Patty lived on the other side of Riverside, in an upper-class neighborhood with big, quiet houses and sports cars in the driveways. Her front yard was well manicured. No misfit washing machines rusting in the front yard; clearly, this was not my ’hood.

  I rang the doorbell and a familiar face answered. A gold crucifix glinted in my face, and to my utter dismay, I realized I was looking at Ms. Torres, my probation officer.

  I watched her face turn from puzzled, to disgusted, to plain frightened, as she remembered me. Finally, she muttered, “Please, come in.”

  “Jesse!” Patty sang, coming down the stairs as I entered. “I see you’ve met my stepmom.”

  “Patty,” Ms. Torres said drily. She folded her arms and looked at Patty pointedly. “You and I need to have a little talk in the kitchen.”

  That was the sum total of my first—and last—date with Patty.

  Still, life went on. I got up early every Saturday morning to work the swaps. Gradually, I learned how to read customers, sell them on whatever crap my dad had found at auction: a bundle of rags, ten boxes of Tupperware, didn’t matter. If we acquired it, I could sell it. Nights, I’d play tough guy at Golden Apple. A hesitant Southern California winter shuffled in for a visit. Six weeks later, it was gone.

  Home was home. I didn’t much want to be there. Despite the renovations, the house still smelled like the fire. It may have had a new roof and new carpets, but the walls had a faint stench of black smoke that you couldn’t ever get rid of. Bad memories came flooding back every time I walked down the hall.

  My dad and I spoke to each other only when we had to—by this time, I was old enough to understand that I no longer respected him. Yet there was literally no other place I could go.

  Except, of course, jail. And that’s where I was headed next.

  4

  Looking back, I’m tempted to blame it all on Bobby. Of course, I won’t. Still, the appeal is there.

  “We’re gonna hit Rybeck’s Saturday night,” he confided to me. It was late afternoon, just before our senior year was going to begin. We were lounging on his roof. You could see the whole shitty neighborhood from where we were. Kings of all we surveyed. “And we need you.”

  I frowned. Rybeck’s Cameras was the biggest photo store in Riverside. “Who’s we?”

  “Me and Dave,” Bobby whispered, naming one of his old friends. He looked over both shoulders, hamming it up. “We’re going to go in after hours and clean up, man.”

  “That sounds perfect,” I said. “For you.”

  “Noooooo,” Bobby said, slowly wagging a finger. “For all of us.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t do it, Bobby. This year’s going to be big for me. I’m going to have scouts at the games this year. I gotta stay focused. It’s my ticket out.”

  “James,” Bobby said, “I’m very disappointed. How could you, of all people, leave me alone, when I got the heist of a lifetime all primed and ready?”

  “I’m not leaving you alone,” I pointed out. “You have Dave.”

  “Dave’s no fun,” Bobby protested. His shoulders slumped, and he looked like a giant, sad dog. “He’s all business. He’ll just want to get in and get out. Thanks a bunch.”

  “I’m sorry, man,” I said, laughing. “Maybe some other time.”

  Football just felt too critical. It overshadowed even my desire to screw around. Over the summer, I’d attended an offense/defense camp at UC Riverside. Among my coaches were Ed “Too-Tall” Jones and Lester Hayes, both former stars in the NFL. Under their guidance, I’d won most valuable defensive player of the whole camp. I was going to be captain this year. I felt ready to take on the world.

  High school football was a pretty big deal in Riverside in those days. People came to the games looking for entertainment and adrenaline. We held our games at Riverside Community College, instead of at the high school, because we’d draw such a huge crowd. Local rivalries were crucial and intense. Sometimes, looking out at the thousands of screaming fans in the stands, I’d realize with satisfaction that I wasn’t the only fucker out for blood.

  Our biggest rival was Notre Dame. My senior year, their quarterback was a heavily recruited kid named Tony Nordbeck. He was an excellent athlete and a talented passer, but a big crybaby, too. That combination always exasperated me.

  I took Nordbeck down hard in the first quarter. “Good hit, James!” Bobby cried.

  “Thanks,” I grunted, lining up again.

  “Listen, I gotta talk to you,” he whispered. “It’s about Rybeck’s! Dude, we got an unholy load!”

  “Not now, Bobby.” I waved him off.

  “Sure, you’re right! Let’s play football!”

  I flew off the line, smashed through a double team block, and took Nordbeck out at the knees before he could get rid of the leather. Ten-yard loss. Third and twenty. No chance, Notre Dame.

  We punished them that game. Thrashed them into the ground, embarrassed them, made them hate the sight of a football and everything it stood for. They had thousands of their own fans at the game, and the lewd chants and rowdy discontent between the opposite sides of the stadium increased palpably as the time ticked down on the clock. By late in the third quarter, the game had long since been decided,
but we were still gutting hard, going for murderous hits on every play. You could feel the drunken hate of the crowd hovering in the fall air. It was special. It was why we played.

  Our cornerback, Albert Cornejo, looked up at me and grinned. “Almost too easy, huh?”

  “Way too easy,” I yelled, loud enough for the other team to hear.

  “You guys think you’re funny, huh?” spat one of their linemen. His uniform was messy, ripped, dirt-smeared and grass-stained.

  “We are pretty funny,” Cornejo agreed. He pointed up to the scoreboard, which read 45–14. “But that shit . . . is hilarious.”

  A play or so later, I faked a charge at Nordbeck, then immediately cut back to cover the short pass. The ball came spinning in the air only a few feet out of my reach. I jumped as high as I could, and managed to bat it lightly with my fingertips. The football played in the air for a moment, then descended straight into my hands. I pulled the ball to my chest and took off running down the field, uncontested.

  Halfway to the end zone, I realized that no one on either squad had bothered to follow me. The entire Notre Dame football team, to a man, had executed a rotten sneak attack on Albert Cornejo. They were hell-bent on bludgeoning him to death with his own helmet.

  Immediately, our squad retaliated with the deranged force of teenaged fury. Our littlest man, Paulie Thompson, jumped atop Notre Dame’s giant center, clawing at his face, trying to force his mouth guard down his throat.

  Both benches emptied. I dropped the football and fled back to the scene of the crime, screaming gleefully. Even our band rushed on the field, swinging their tubas and drum kits like barbarians.

  “Save CORNEJO!”

  Bobby was buried under a pile of Notre Dame assistant coaches who flailed about, determined to smother him and send the funeral bill to his mother.

  “SAVE CORNEJO!”

  The stands emptied and packs of psychotic parents jumped into the melee, swinging. Cops swarmed the field, and the rabid mob instantly seized their billy clubs.

  The fighting and general mayhem raged on for what seemed like forty-five minutes. Finally, backup cops arrived and the crowd was subdued. The game was called: a double forfeit. I felt it was a pretty punk rock night of football.

  “My jaw feels broken,” Bobby groaned, when we were back in the locker room.

  “I’m kind of torn up myself,” I admitted, surveying the damage the mob had exacted upon me.

  “I don’t even really like Cornejo,” Bobby confessed. “I was just there for the punching.”

  Gingerly, I pulled my sweaty uniform off me. “So . . . what was it you wanted to talk to me about before?”

  “Oh yeah, the store!” Bobby said, instantly cheered. “The haul. Man, we got so much shit, we don’t even know what to do with it.”

  “That easy, huh?”

  “Goddamn, man, it was child’s play.” Bobby spat on the floor. “You’d think they’d have realized that people know how to disable a burglar alarm these days. I mean, they truly gave us no credit at all.”

  “That’s . . . very rude of them,” I said, gently.

  “Eh,” said Bobby, shaking it off. “Anyway, I can’t keep all of it at my place. I literally don’t have the closet space. What do you say you hold some pieces for me, until I can sell them off? I’ll give you half the dough I make in exchange.”

  I considered. “Yeah, sure. Whatever I can fit in my room, how’s that?”

  “Perfect.” Bobby looked relieved. “Look, I owe you one, okay?”

  “Save Cornejo,” I answered. We looked at each other, then busted out laughing.

  ——

  As the season wore on, I began to realize that it could actually be really cool to bring up the kids who were struggling. When we ran our sprints at the end of practice, I’d generally be among the first guys to finish, but I’d push myself to continue running until the last guys were through.

  “Come on!” I’d encourage them, doing my best to channel Gil Lake, my crazy first coach. “Let’s get it, guys. Let’s go!”

  We didn’t have any bullies on the team. I made sure of it. And we didn’t follow a big-dick hierarchy, where the grunts carried all the equipment while the seniors sat back all rested and laughing. We were a tight unit. We watched one another’s backs. I came from a fairly crazy one, so maybe I’m not the best judge, but it almost felt like a family to me.

  “Dude, Jesse,” moaned Mike, my backup on offense, “aren’t you ever gonna let me get in, man? I haven’t played a dang play the whole season.”

  “Mike, I’m sorry, man,” I said. “I swear, I’m gonna take a quarter off one of these days. That sound good?”

  “Sure,” he said. His big freckled face looked glum, resigned to benchwarming. “Coach wouldn’t let you come out of the game even if you begged him to.”

  “Hey,” I said seriously. “We’ll get you in a game before the season’s over. I promise.”

  Mike looked at me. “Yeah, okay,” he said, finally.

  It seemed like my life was finally leveling out. Scouts had been coming to my games all season. Bit by bit, I’d begun to receive recruitment letters from a handful of Division One schools. In my dresser at home, all stacked up on top of one another, I had envelopes from Pitt, Hawaii, Iowa, and Colorado. At night, I’d take them out and read them over and over again. A hazy vision of the future was beginning to build in my mind, and it felt promising.

  I was feeling so good, I guess I let my guard down. And that’s when they got me.

  I was reading a comic book in my bedroom one evening, dreaming about college cheerleaders and spacious, comfy dorms, when Nina came knocking at my door. Two uniformed Long Beach police officers stood behind her. “These men need to talk to you, Jesse,” she said, with a smug tone in her voice.

  “We just need a moment of your time, son,” one of them said. Both of them walked into my room. Their eyes scanned every surface.

  “Hey,” I objected. “You don’t have permission to come into my room. Where’s your warrant?”

  “We do have permission,” he said, pointing to Nina. “You’re still a minor. Aren’t you, son?”

  “Your dad said you were probably up to no good,” said Nina. “He said he figured these gentlemen had plenty of reasons to see you.”

  The policeman smiled pleasantly. “Mind if we take a look around?” He didn’t wait for an answer.

  My room was tiny. It took them less than two minutes to discover the pile of Canon cameras and lenses that Bobby had unloaded on me.

  “Funny,” the first cop said, looking at the expensive equipment. “That’s precisely what he said we’d find here.”

  “Who, my dad?” I fumed.

  “No,” the cop said. He checked a notebook. “I’m referring to . . . Robert Murphy.”

  “Bobby?”

  “You’re acquainted with Mr. Murphy, son, are you not?”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, he’s my friend. So what?”

  The cop patted his notebook in a businesslike manner. “We found stolen goods at Mr. Murphy’s house this afternoon, goods that appeared to match those taken from the burglary at Rybeck’s Cameras on September sixteenth of this year.”

  It was a small town. It figured that even these idiots had been able to put two and two together. “Yeah, and?”

  “Mr. Murphy has stated on record that he received these stolen goods from you.” He smiled again, then shoved the knife in deeper. “He informed us that if we came to your house, we’d find the real stash. According to him, he was simply holding the cameras until you had time to sell them.”

  With his own ass on the line, Bobby had sold me down the river. For a minute, I didn’t say anything. I shook my head, sadly.

  “Yeah,” I said dully, after a minute. “You got me. I did the break-in.”

  The cops looked at each other and shared a victorious grin. “We’re going to need you to come with us, son.”

  “He’s in trouble?” Nina asked.

  “Oh
yes, ma’am,” the cop said, smiling. “This young man is in quite a lot of trouble.”

  ——

  I had an extensive record and a probation officer. I’d already used up all my chances. Now they were ready to do me in.

  “Do you realize the severity of your crime, Jesse?” Ms. Torres asked. I suppose she felt kind of vindicated—I’d been proven to be a real-life criminal, after all.

  “Yep,” I said curtly.

  “You can’t just go around burglarizing places. Do you understand that?”

  “Are you done yet?”

  “You have absolutely no remorse, do you?” she snapped at me. “Well, listen to me, you better change that attitude before you see the judge. You are going to serve time for this, Jesse. Do you realize that?”

  What she said scared me. But I was so furious, her words barely cut through. My father, Bobby, the cops: none of them gave a damn about me. Just like it had been for my entire life, the people closest to me had fucked me over the hardest. So the state wanted to send me to jail, huh? Well, then great. Maybe that was the best place for me.

  At my hearing, several of my coaches showed up and spoke on my behalf. They said I was a good leader and a credit to our town. They pled with the judge to give me another chance, or, barring that, to reduce my sentence.

  He frowned. “How much of the football season do you have left, gentlemen?”

  “Two more weeks.”

  The judge looked me over sternly. “Given the gravity of your crime, Mr. James, and your past criminal record, I’m inclined not to hear any pleas on your behalf. But these men seem to believe in you.”

  I looked up at the judge, who held my future in his hands.

  “I will reluctantly agree to suspend your sentence, Mr. James, until you have completed the final football game of this season. Immediately after, you will enter the California Youth Authority, where you will serve ninety days of rehabilitative therapy.” He banged his gavel. “That is all.”