Hard City

by Clark Howard

  Sliding down off a window ledge where he had been sitting looking through the grille at Roosevelt Road, Richie started for the door. As he passed a table where four kids were playing Chinese Checkers, one of them named Jerry stuck a foot out and tripped him. Richie stumbled but did not fall. Stopping, he glared at the boy, who was about his own age and size. Jerry had just come in the previous day and had been looking for someone to pick a fight with since he got there.

  “Kinda clumsy, ain’t you?” he asked Richie with a grin.

  How many times, Richie wondered, had he faced a Jerry with a different face and name on schoolyards all over the goddamned city? How many times had he been forced to stand and take abuse to satisfy some cocky, loud-bragging, attention-seeking bully who somehow sensed that he could not fight? How many insults had he endured, how many times had he been ridiculed and humiliated, laughed at? How many pushes had he taken, how many punches, kicks, knuckles to the back of the head? Eyes fixed coldly on Jerry, he wondered: How many times had he been tripped?

  “Not mad at me, are you?” Jerry asked in mock chagrin, pretending to feel bad. Then he stood up, his expression turning mean. “ ’Cause if you are, you know what you can do about it.”

  “I sure as hell do,” Richie said softly to himself. He feinted with his left, caught Jerry off-guard, and drove his right fist into the kid’s mouth. Jerry went sprawling back over the table, sending Chinese Checkers marbles in all directions. Struggling to regain his balance, Jerry did not even get his fists up before Richie hit him two more times, sending him stumbling backwards. Jerry’s nose started to bleed and a look of fear replaced the tough expression he had shown a moment earlier. Richie moved in on him as he had moved in on Willie Wakefield a week earlier, only this kid was no flashy, polished, trained boxer like Wakefield was; he was just another schoolyard bully. Jerry managed to get his fists up defensively, and when he did Richie ripped two body blows to his ribcage and brought them back down. As soon as Jerry’s face was unprotected, Richie threw three consecutive brutal right hands to the bleeding nose and Jerry went down, groggy, smeared with blood.

  Standing over him, Richie yelled, “Watch where you put your fuckin’ feet from now on!”

  At that moment, strong adult hands grabbed Richie from behind and took him forcefully out of the dayroom. Five minutes later, he was sitting alone on the floor of a room known in juvenile hall as the Blackstone room: small, dark, with no furniture, it was a twenty-four-hour punishment lockup—with no meals. When the door was closed leaving him in the dark alone, Richie laughed out loud.

  It reminded him of Mrs. Raley’s.

  The next day, he was let out and allowed to see his visitor. It was Grace Menefee.

  “What did you do yesterday?” she asked without preliminary. “They were all set to let me see you, then they said I’d have to come back today because you were in isolation.”

  “I beat up some wiseguy who tripped me,” Richie said with a hint of pride, showing her his bruised knuckles. Then he folded his hands on the table that separated them. “What did they do with my mother?” he asked bluntly. Grace Menefee’s eyes got watery.

  “The county coroner has her, Richie. They have to wait thirty days in case someone wants to claim her. I don’t suppose you found your father?”

  Richie shook his head.

  “Is there anyone else?” Grace Menefee asked.

  “My grandmother. But I don’t even know if she’s still alive.”

  “Where does she live?”

  “Some little town in Tennessee,” he said, shaking his head again.

  Grace Menefee had Richie tell her all he knew about his grandmother, writing down everything he said in a spiral notebook. “Maybe we can trace her in time,” the caseworker said. “If not, the county will see that your mother is buried.” Turning to a clean page in the notebook, she gave him one of her determined looks and said, “What we have to worry about right now is you, Richie. I have petitioned the juvenile court to allow our department to put you back in a foster home instead of sending you to the state training school—”

  “The what?”

  “The reformatory. They call it the Illinois State Training School for Boys. Anyhow, I think there’s a good chance that the court will look favorably on our request if we can give them a reasonable explanation of where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing for the past ten months.” She poised her pencil to write. “Who have you been living with?”

  “Nobody. I been living by myself.”

  Grace Menefee’s expression became skeptical. “Where have you been living?”

  Richie shrugged. “Different places,” he lied.

  “Richie,” she said, drumming her fingers impatiently, “the juvenile court judge is not a fool. He will know, just as well as I know, that you could not have survived in this city for nearly a year without adult help. You are going to have to be honest and truthful with us if you expect us to help you.”

  “I don’t,” Richie told her.

  “You don’t what?”

  “I don’t expect you to help me.” There was no rancor or hostility in his voice. He was simply stating fact. “I’m not asking for no help.”

  “If you’re putting on your John Garfield act, Richie, this is not the time to do it. Today is Monday. Your hearing is Thursday.”

  “I’m not putting on no act,” he claimed. “Sure, there were some people who helped me while I was on the street, but I’m not gonna say who they were. I’m not gonna get them in trouble after they was good to me.”

  “Look, young man,” Grace Menefee said firmly, “the law is very clear regarding juvenile runaways. Anyone who knew or had reason to suspect that you were a runaway, was obligated to report you. If you had been gone a few weeks, the court probably wouldn’t even concern itself with your whereabouts. But you violated the county’s jurisdiction over you for too long for the court to simply overlook it. You’re going to have to wise up, Richie”—she pointed a finger at him for emphasis—“or you’re going to be locked up.”

  Looking down at the table, Richie thought of Red, at the bowling alley, who had given him work and treated him fairly when he was a skinny, scraggly, ragged urchin carrying around everything he owned in a pillowcase. Red was not dumb; he must have half figured that Richie was a runaway. Several times Richie suspected that Red even knew that Richie was sleeping somewhere in the bowling alley, and said or did nothing about it.

  Richie thought of Linda. She had never actually helped him in any way, but she had known that the police came to school looking for him, and she had known what he was doing and where he was sleeping. And Stan: he too had known.

  And Myron. The trainer had even admitted that he had always thought there was something “funny” about Richie’s family situation, so he too could probably be accused of helping a runaway. Even Estelle must have had her suspicions. And Mack.

  Richie could not, would not, sell out the people who had helped him get through one of the hardest times of his life. Fuck the juvenile court judge. Looking back up at Grace Menefee, he slowly shook his head.

  “No.”

  “You little ingrate,” Grace Menefee accused. “How dare you sit there and tell me no, after all I’ve done for you?” Richie looked back down at the table. “Do you want me to walk out that door and just leave you here? Just let them do whatever they want to with you? Is that what you want?”

  “I’m not trying to make you mad,” Richie started to explain.

  “Well, you are making me mad!”

  “Then I can’t help it. I’m not gonna get nobody in trouble just because they was good to me.”

  “Do you want to go it on your own, young man?” she asked curtly. Her words were clearly a threat.

  Looking back down, Richie shrugged. “That’s what I been doing,” he mumbled, half to himself.

  “Fine,” Grace Menefee snapped. “If that’s the way you want it, that’s the way you’ll get it.”

  Flipping her note
book closed, the caseworker rose and walked out of the visitors’ room without another word.

  On Thursday, Richie and half a dozen other boys were taken in a police van to juvenile court. There they were locked in a holding room furnished with wooden benches to wait for their respective cases to be called, at which time they were taken individually into the courtroom. Richie’s was the third case on the docket. When the custody officer took him in, he felt like John Garfield in Castle on the Hudson. The courtroom looked exactly as it did in the movies.

  To Richie’s surprise, Grace Menefee was there; the custody officer led him to a chair directly next to her. Apparently still upset, she did not even look at him as he sat down. Richie looked at the judge and was surprised to find that he was not an elderly, white-haired man as Richie expected him to be; he was a very businesslike younger man dressed in an ordinary business suit. He looked to Richie like a goddamned truant officer.

  “All right, Miss Menefee, state your case for the Welfare Department,” the incongruous judge said.

  Grace Menefee rose. Richie could tell by her voice that she was nervous. “Sir,” she began, and at once had to clear her throat and start over. “Sir, I have been the caseworker for this boy and his recently deceased mother for more than two years. There is a great deal more to him than appears on the written record. He has a very high intelligence for his age, is an advanced reader who has won library competitions at the Off-the-Street Club and has always, as long as I have known him, been an exceptionally hard worker, even to the point of handling two paper routes during the cold winter months. He has had a very difficult time in life because of his late mother’s long drug addiction and the fact that his father had been absent from the home for a number of years. In spite of it, he has never faltered in his school work, always receiving better than average grades; he has a library card and has made frequent use of the city library system; I have letters here from a Miss White, a public school teacher, and a Miss Cashman, a city librarian, substantiating these facts. . . .”

  As Grace Menefee dug into her briefcase for the letters, Richie stared at her in surprise. He had always considered Miss White and Miss Cashman to be separate and distinct elements in his life, and it seemed odd now to think of them as somehow connected, with Miss Menefee as the link. For several moments, he let the two women occupy his mind as he wondered what they thought and said when Miss Menefee went to see them. He wondered if Miss White, who he knew was aware of his friendship with Linda, had told her about Miss Menefee’s visit, and about what had happened to him. Linda, he supposed, was very worried about him now that he had missed meeting her two Sundays in a row.

  Grace Menefee’s voice moved back into Richie’s mind. “. . . just feel,” she was saying to the judge, “that to put him into the punishment sector of our system might repress and eventually suffocate the natural development of an above-average mind. We therefore ask the court to permit him to remain in our care and return to the foster home system, which we feel will provide more individual direction for him. Thank you.” Grace Menefee sat down and reached over to hold Richie’s hand, acknowledging his presence for the first time. Richie blushed.

  “Thank you, Miss Menefee,” the judge said. “The court appreciates your interest and commends the effort your department has put forth toward the welfare of the minor involved. For the record, the court would like to state that it does not agree with your reference to juvenile incarceration as ‘punishment.' Rather, it is the court’s belief that such confinement is rehabilitative in nature.”

  Glancing over, Richie saw Grace Menefee turn as red as he himself had a moment earlier. He felt her squeeze his hand, as if fortifying him for something.

  “The minor in this matter,” the judge continued, “has a long history of runaway problems—a history substantiated by your own department records. In the most recent incident, he was out of supervision for nearly a full year. His refusal to advise both your department and this court of his whereabouts and activities during that long period, indicates an attitude of defiance and total lack of respect for authority. Such an attitude, this court feels, is best dealt with in our juvenile custody system. Despite the positive attributes which you pointed out, it appears from the minor’s refusal to cooperate with either your department or our court that he must be classified at this time as an incorrigible. That being the court’s ruling, he is therefore remanded to state custody until age eighteen, at which time his case will be reviewed. Matter closed.”

  Grace Menefee only had time to give Richie’s hand one more brief squeeze before the custody officer took him back to the detention room.

  When she came to visit him the next day, Grace Menefee made no mention of having walked out on him on Monday, and gave no explanation of why she showed up to plead for him at his hearing on Thursday. Listening to her, Richie got the distinct impression that she was exerting tight control to keep her voice unemotional.

  “When are they taking you to the training school?” she asked.

  “Monday,” Richie told her. “The transfer bus goes down every Monday.”

  “I want you to know that I’m not just going to leave you down there until you’re eighteen, Richie,” the caseworker said determindedly.

  “It’s okay,” Richie said, with his customary shrug. “You already done all you could. I’ll be okay. Least I’ll have three meals a day and a regular place to sleep.”

  “I want you to promise me that you’ll continue to study hard in school, and please, whatever else, keep on reading.”

  “Sure.” She reminded him of his mother telling him goodbye the first time he went to a foster home.

  “You know, Richie, your love of books is so rare in a boy your age,” she emphasized. “It would be a shame if you fell out of the habit of reading and lost your appetite for it.”

  “I won’t,” he tried to reassure her. “I’ll always read. I love reading.”

  “I know. I know you do.” Her voice softened for the first time and she patted his hand on the table. There were other kids having visits in the big room, but Richie was not embarrassed; he did not care whether they saw her gesture of fondness or not. Even if they did, no one would make any cracks about it. Nobody had fucked with him since the beating he gave Jerry. Several kids had even made friends with him in the hope that he would stick up for them if anyone picked on them. When Richie realized what they were doing, he was struck by the incongruity of life. Just because he could fight now, he could have new friends. They reminded him of the followers the schoolyard bullies always seemed to have: nervous kids who knew how to praise and always laughed at the right time. In the juvenile hall, Richie did not reject his new admirers, but he did not allow himself to develop any close friendships either.

  “I ’preciate all you done for me,” Richie told Grace Menefee now, looking down at the table. “I’m sorry I was always causing you so much trouble.”

  Grace Menefee smiled. “I got pretty angry at you sometimes, didn’t I?”

  “Sure did.” He looked up and grinned at her.

  “You know, Richie,” she said, putting her hand on his and leaving it there this time, “things have been so tough on you so early in life, I have a feeling that somewhere down the line a lot of good things are going to happen to you. All the hard times you’ve been through, all the bad things you’ve endured, there’s bound to be some reward for it in your future. If life gets difficult for you in reform—I mean, training school—I want you to remember that it’s just another obstacle on your way to a better life, and that you’ll get past it, just like you’ve gotten past all the other hardships. Will you remember that for me?”

  “Sure,” he promised.

  When the visit was over, they both stood and Grace Menefee gathered up her purse and briefcase. “Goodbye, Richie,” she said.

  “So long, Miss Menefee.”

  Blinking back tears, the caseworker brushed the hair off Richie’s forehead and hurried out.

  40

&n
bsp; The trip from Cook County Juvenile Hall was made in what looked like an ordinary school bus, except that it had a wire-grille separation between the driver’s seat and the passenger section, and a uniformed detention officer rode up front. Richie sat next to a window on a seat by himself and looked out at the countryside along the way. There were a dozen other boys on the bus—white, black, brown—all between the ages of twelve, the legal minimum, and sixteen. Among them, there was little conversation.

  The Illinois State Training School was located in St. Charles, Illinois, two counties west of Chicago on the highway to Iowa. It might as well have been in Asia, it was so completely foreign to Richie, who knew only the tenements and the streets of the city. The color and terrain and natural beauty of the countryside stimulated a spark of appreciation deep inside him somewhere, but at the same time his street instincts were never far away. It might be pretty, he thought, but how the hell could anybody survive here? To survive, you needed doorways, alleys, rooftops.

  A boy across the aisle moved next to Richie. “You see them black-and-white cows back there?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” said Richie.

  “I never knew there was black-and-white cows. I thought they was all brown.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Richie nodded. His eyes flicked over the boy, sizing him up. The boy was older, perhaps fifteen, bigger than Richie, with a natural confidence. He had red hair and a pug nose. In demeanor, he reminded Richie a little of Stan Klein.

  “Hey, where you from?” the kid asked. Richie understood he did not mean from which city, but which neighborhood.

  “West Side,” said Richie. “Madison and Kedzie.” It was the neighborhood he knew best.

  “Yeah?” the red-headed boy’s eyebrows raised. “I’m South Side. Twenty-second and Sacramento. We wasn’t too far apart. Hey, my name’s Freddie Walsh. What’s yours?” Richie told him. Freddie lowered his voice to a confidential tone. “What they got you on?”