The other thing about hearing his name was that I couldn’t match the sound of that name with the Turk himself. Everett Earl Turkness sounded too nice to be the name of the man who kicked Lawrence Collison’s face in at the train station.
The deputy told the people he was going to give them enough evidence to bring Turkness to trial. He pointed at me and said I was a witness to the murder of Lawrence Collison. All the people turned their heads at the same time to look at me. I didn’t want to see them looking at me so I kept my eyes on the deputy. I knew some of the people were looking at my port-wine stain, but I didn’t care. I only wanted them to believe the story I was going to tell them.
When he was finished talking to the people he nodded his head, and a lady at a desk stood up. She told me to hold up my right hand. She asked me if I swore to tell the truth so help me God. I didn’t need God to help me, but I said yes and the deputy told me to sit down.
When the deputy told me to say my full name to the people, I finally looked at them. If they were interested that I was going to tell them Lawrence’s story, they didn’t show it. A couple of people had that sleepy morning look people get who didn’t get enough sleep the night before. One lady yawned real wide but didn’t cover her mouth like you’re supposed to. A man sat with his face in his hands with his eyes closed. Another lady was looking at herself in her compact mirror and another man was reading his folded-up newspaper.
Mr. Fullmer asked me where I lived and how old I was and where I went to school and what grade. I told him, but I really wanted to tell about Lawrence and his sister Melinda and their father who worked for the SP and about negros who came to California to hide from Jim Crow, but when I started, Mr. Fullmer stopped me. He came over to where I was sitting and told me to just talk about that night. He gave me a smile that was realer than his elevator smile. He asked me if I wanted a glass of water and I said, “Yes, sir.”
The lady who made me swear brought me a drink in a paper cup. I took a sip and put it down on the little witness wall in front of me. It tasted bad. I should’ve remembered how bad the water tasted because I used the drinking fountain the time we came to see Rudy. San Gabriel water’s good because it has a sweet taste—even from an outside faucet—but this water tasted like medicine.
“When you’re ready, go ahead and tell your story, Manuel,” Mr. Fullmer said. I wanted to tell the people it was Lawrence Collison’s story, but I didn’t.
I started telling them about how I’m an altar boy and sometimes I serve at Thursday night rosary and benediction. The man reading the newspaper kept reading, and the lady yawned again and blinked her eyes like to keep them open. But when I got to the train station and told about hearing noises inside, their heads all snapped up and all their eyes turned to me.
Some people started writing things in their notepads. When I stopped I could hear the scratching sounds of pencils on paper. I knew that sound. I hear it when we have to take Capone’s arithmetic tests. She doesn’t let us use the sliding times-tables on our pencil cases, so everybody has to times out everything on paper.
I guess my mind kind of drifted because I heard Mr. Fullmer say, “Go on, Manuel.” He said my name in English like “Man-you-el.” I have a cousin in Azusa who calls me “Menyo.” I hate how he says my name. I almost picked up the paper cup but I remembered the taste.
Anyway, I told the story of Lawrence and the Turk to the end where I run to Betty’s house, and Ted calls my dad. By now all the people were interested, and some were leaning forward like they couldn’t hear me too good so I talked louder near the end. When I was finished, the deputy got up from his chair and went to the stand where he had his papers. He elevator-smiled at me and thanked me. He said now the people in the rows could ask me questions if they wanted to. Then he went back to his table and sat down. I looked at the rows of people, and all of them looked back at me.
One lady who was looking down at her composition book raised her hand like we do in school. She didn’t look up until the deputy called her by a number. She was wearing a yellow dress the color of Grandma’s roses and a pillbox hat to match. And a string of big white pearls that looked like they cost a lot.
“You said you heard Officer Turkness’ voice and you saw him leave the train station,” she said. “How did you know his voice or know who he was?”
When she asked me that and I thought about it, I felt like I was hit by an electric shock. Mr. Fullmer never asked me that question before. Maybe he didn’t think of it, or it wasn’t important to him. My heart started pounding so hard, I thought it was going to jump out of my chest and land on the floor. The room was quiet, and I was sure those rows of people could hear my heart.
I looked at Mr. Fullmer and his face told me he made a mistake not asking me that question before. He started to get up, then sat back down and wrote something on a paper on his table. He looked up at me and elevator-smiled.
“Just answer the question the best you know how, Manny,” he said. He called me Manny. I don’t know if he just made a mistake, or he wanted me to feel better, or he wanted the people in the rows to think something about me. I picked up the cup and sipped the medicine water. I didn’t care how bad it tasted because my mouth was so dry that when I tried to talk my voice sounded like Dorothy’s. I swallowed and watched my hand put the cup down real careful on the top of the witness wall. It kind of wobbled, and I thought it was going to tip over, but it didn’t.
I said I knew it was Officer Turkness because he stopped my aunt Betty’s car once and made us sit on the curb.
An old man with slicked-down white hair asked me how I could be so sure by only seeing him one time. I looked at Mr. Fullmer, but he was looking down and writing again. I looked at the cup of water. It was almost empty. I took a deep breath and looked at each of the people in the rows.
I almost laughed inside because I thought of something funny. I thought all the way back to the start of summer and playing Alamo with Danny. Then I thought about throwing fruit at the hobos. I remembered how scared we all were for the days and weeks after and how we were just waiting for the police to take us to jail. I remembered the trainman telling me and Danny we broke the law by hopping the train to Colton. And now here I was in the Hall of Justice. And for some reason I thought of that Pinocchio cartoon movie where Geppetto goes looking for Pinocchio and ends up at the bottom of the ocean inside Monstro’s stomach.
The old man’s voice woke me up. He said, “Answer my question, son.” I looked at him. He looked old like my Grandma except his skin was chalky white, and Grandma’s was brown from gardening in the sun. He had on old, thick glasses and he was wearing a suit that looked too big for him. “Yes, sir.”
I took a drink and finished the water and put the cup back on the wall. I watched it wiggle, and I didn’t care if it fell off. I remembered what the courtroom guard whispered to Rudy.
Time.
“I killed a hobo.”
I saw the deputy’s head jerk up when he heard that, like he’d fell asleep and someone shook him awake. I thought he was going to pick up a phone and call the cops to come get me.
24
The deputy didn’t get up from his desk and there was no elevator smile.
“What are you talking about?” he barked. I wanted to cry. I wanted to pee myself so I could get out of there. I wanted somebody to belt-whip me and get it over with. I wanted the cops to come and put handcuffs on me and take me straight to prison. I wanted Rudy to be on the brown bus to tell me what to do when I got there.
I heard myself say, “Me and my gang, we killed a hobo. Marco’s mom called the cops and the Turk came. He knows me and everybody in my family. He knows everybody in Sangra and we all know him. We call him ‘the Turk.’ He beat up my uncle and killed Lawrence and he’s a mean son-of-a-bitch.” I didn’t care if I cussed to white people. I was going to prison anyway so it didn’t matter any more. Some of the people looked at Mr. Fullmer with big eyes, but he was looking at me. He stood up, walked to his st
and and ruffled through his papers like he was looking for something.
“What are you talking about, killing a hobo?” I didn’t care any more what they did to me. I felt like I was free of something.
“Last summer me and my friends threw oranges and lemons at hobos riding boxcars on the tracks next to Marco’s house. I guess we hit one of them because we found his body on the rightaway. We told Marco’s mom, and she called the police. The Turk was the one they sent.”
A man sitting on the end of the front row asked Mr. Fullmer what he knew about this. Mr. Fullmer said he would look into it.
Another man said, “Tell us about the Turk, Manuel.” This man said my name in Spanish. I looked at him. He was sitting in the middle of the second row and he looked like a schoolteacher. He had on a dark blue sport coat and gray wool vest with a blue tie peeking out at the top. He was younger than the old man and had a stronger voice. All the other people turned to look at him. “Tell us what you know about him.”
I looked at the deputy, but he didn’t do or say anything. He just stood at his stand and stared back at me. I forgot the cup was empty and tried to take a drink. I looked for the lady who brought it to me, but she wasn’t at her desk. I never even saw her leave. I put the empty cup down.
“The Turk’s a San Gabriel policeman. Everybody’s scared of him because he’s mean. He stopped my aunt because she was driving on a white street and he made us—her—sit on the dirty street curb while he searched her car.”
“No, tell us more about what you saw at the train station,” the man said.
I was ashamed I made a mistake. I think the man saw that because he said, “That’s all right. That information’s important too. But right now tell us about the train station.”
I closed my eyes. I told them it was nighttime and I was cold, but I didn’t want to zip up my jacket and make noise. I said I was standing by the station door and when I looked in, I heard the Turk calling Lawrence dirty names and “nigger” and I watched him kick and kick Lawrence who was laying on the floor crying and begging the Turk to stop.
The courtroom was real quiet for a long time. My eyes were closed so I didn’t know what the people were doing, but I didn’t care. They made me tell this story and now I couldn’t get it out of my head.
“If it was nighttime, how could you see it was the Turk in the train station?”
I opened my eyes and looked at the people because it was a new voice asking me—a lady’s voice and soft. She asked me again, “How could you tell it was the Turk?”
She was wearing a gray dress and a gray hat, not rich clothes like the lady in yellow. One of her hands was on the little wooden wall in front of her. It was wearing a gray glove. “How could you tell?” I didn’t know what to answer. Some people wanted to know how I knew the Turk and some wanted me to just stick to what happened in the station. I took a chance and said what I said before: “I knew his voice from when we killed the hobo. Also the time he stopped me and my aunt Betty. Oh, and then there was the time he stopped me and Danny on our way home from Silverman’s.”
“Tell us about the time he stopped you and Danny. Who is Danny?” Her voice sounded younger than Mom’s.
“Danny’s my best friend,” I said. “He was with me when we killed the hobo. And last summer the Turk stopped us on our way home from Silverman’s. I guess he thought we shoplifted our sodas.”
“Who is Silverman?”
“That’s the name of the store near my house.” She said to go on so I did. I told her how the Turk asked us where we got the money to buy sodas and I answered him that Danny had got it from his uncle. I told her how he beat up my uncle Rudy and sent him back to Folsom. I knew the Turk too good.
“Go on about that night then,” she told me.
I tried to think about anything I didn’t say before. Then I remembered something new. When the Turk walked out he was carrying something like pliers but bigger. After all the times telling the same story, I couldn’t believe I forgot the pliers.
“How were they like pliers?” the teacher-looking man asked me. I thought about his question. They had two handles and jaws like a pair of pliers but they were bigger than pliers. About as long as a baseball bat. They were like my grandpa’s tree-branch cutters.
“Bolt cutters?” It was another man, but when I looked up I couldn’t tell who asked me.
“I don’t know what those are.” I looked at Mr. Fullmer and saw him write something down. I waited for the next question, but nobody said anything. Nobody talked for a long time and I could hear pencil-scratching. Then I heard the deputy click his pen and I saw him look at the people in the rows.
He said, “If there are no more questions then…” He didn’t finish his sentence. I looked at the people. Some of them were looking at Mr. Fullmer. Some were looking at me. And some were looking down and writing in their composition books.
“I think you can go then, Manuel,” the deputy said. I grabbed the empty paper cup and when I stood up he said, “I need to remind you that whatever was said in this room is secret. Do not tell anyone anything about what went on here under penalty of law. Do you understand? I will talk to your father if I need you back here.”
“Yes, sir.” When I walked past the rows of people to leave, the lady with the gray glove put her hand on my arm and whispered, “Thank you, young man.” There was nowhere to throw the paper cup so I put it in my jacket pocket and walked out of the courtroom.
Mr. Fullmer took me in the big elevator up to the cafeteria where Mom and Dad were waiting for me. Dad smiled at me and Mom put her arm around my shoulder. Her hand felt good when she squeezed my shoulder. She asked me how it went and I told her “fine.” She asked me if I was hungry. I wasn’t, and mostly I just wanted to get out of that building.
The traffic going home on Mission Road was bad so Dad took Valley Boulevard through Alhambra. When we got to Garfield Avenue, he pulled the car into the parking lot of The Hat. Sometimes on payday Dad brings home pastramis from The Hat. This time we sat at the picnic tables in the back. I still didn’t feel like eating, and I was tired. I picked at the little pieces of meat and pickles that fell out the sides of the sandwich and the crispy edges of the bread. I wanted to sleep and my head hurt. I don’t know when my headache started. All I wanted to do was go home and lay down on my bed and sleep.
Ever since Rudy went back to prison, Cruz moved back to our room at Grandma’s. I didn’t mind sleeping on the couch and I sure didn’t like sharing the bed with Cruz anymore. I didn’t like getting punched and being called Pee-Baby. I asked Mom if I could stay on the couch and I was happy when she said yes.
When we finally got home, Dorothy asked me where I went with Mom and Dad. I couldn’t tell her, but she kept asking even after I told her it was hush-hush. When she asked Mom, Mom told her, “Never-you-mind. Were you a good girl for Grandma?” That shut her up.
I was asleep on the couch when Cruz got home. He shook me hard to wake me up. I thought it was morning. I was surprised that I was wearing pants and they were dry. I looked around. It was starting to get nighttime and the sky was the color of blood outside the window.
“Where you been, PBM?” he said. He calls me PBM, which stands for Pee-Baby-Manny. I ignored him. “Never mind,” he said, “I know you were in court.” I got real scared. If he knew where I was, pretty soon Sangra would know. Then everybody in San Gabriel—even the cops—would know.
“Well? Are they going to give you the gas chamber or life?” At first I didn’t understand him. Then I figured out he thought I was in court about the hobo. I told him the jury was still out. I heard that on “Perry Mason” one time.
“You’re stupid,” Cruz said, then he left the room. I changed out of my court clothes and took a shower even though I knew I would have to shower again in the morning. I went back to bed and slept till morning.
Going back to school after the grand jury was weird. When I came into the schoolyard to find the gang, the whole world was staring at me. Whe
n I went by the swings, kids stopped swinging to look at me. When I walked through the schoolyard, kids stopped playing kick ball and stared at me. I felt like I was a monster because so many kids were staring.
And it wasn’t like kids were staring at my port-wine stain either. When they do that, I can see their eyes move. And besides, everybody at school is already used to my port-wine stain.
I saw Danny and Little by the high school fence so I went over. In no time Cruz and his pack came to where we were. Big made a huge smile and squatted down on the other side of the fence. I asked him what he was doing and he said he wanted to see how I looked behind bars. The other guys laughed.
“I’m not going to jail,” I said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” I looked at Cruz. “What did you tell everybody?”
His face got red and he stopped laughing. “I didn’t tell everybody anything. I’m not a rata.” He looked at his friends and then smiled a phony smile. “But you know how it is, cuz,” he said to me. “You tell a friend and he tells a friend and he tells a friend…”
The other guys laughed. I don’t know why I keep letting Cruz chop me like that because it felt like a punch in the stomach. When I was walking away somebody said, “See you later, jailbird,” and I heard laughing in back of me.
When the bell rang, we lined up. Two lines by grade. Boys and girls. The lines are by alphabet so I’m in the middle of my line, one Hernandez and two Lopezes behind Little. Danny’s the last boy in our line and Marco’s in the sixth grade boys’ line. Every single boy in my line was looking at me. And all the girls too. I looked around and I felt my face get hot. All around me, kids were still staring at me. This time I wished they were looking at my port-wine stain.
Iron River Page 14
