Little Boy Blue (4 page)

At the Valley Home for Boys, Alex learned
about his new environment as he waited for the time when he would leave.
It was still two weeks until the new school semester. The boys from the Home
attended public school and, Alex found out, ran both the junior high school and
high school because they more or less stuck together. The area was generally
affluent, and the progeny thereof weren’t conditioned to violence.

“I should be gone from here right after
school starts,” he told Sammy.

“Yeah, they’ve been telling me
that too.”

“My pop promised, and he doesn’t
lie when he promises.” Alex’s face was flushed. Then he saw that
his anger left Sammy hurt and surprised. “Forget it,” Alex said.
“Let’s go swimming.”

Alex spent a week exploring the grounds, some
of which, down by the nearby dry riverbed, were out of bounds. He found a soft
place of rich green grass against the bole of a tree. It was hidden, except the
side facing the river. He preferred being there, alone with his books, to being
around the rest of the boys. He went to the pool in the evening, when it was cooler
and less crowded.

Many of the boys had bicycles, some given by
parents, some by the local police department when they couldn’t find
owners; some were virtually handmade, created by cannibalizing from a basement
of broken bicycles and parts. Alex tried to put one together, but even with the
help of Sammy he couldn’t do it. Some key parts were in short supply, and
resourceful as he was, his mechanical aptitude was nil.

“We could steal one when we go to the
movies Saturday,” Sammy said. “Bring it back and change it around.
Maybe paint it.”

“Oh no,” Alex said. “I
don’t want to take any chances. Not now. I’m getting ready to go
home and be with my dad. What if I got sent to Juvenile Hall?”

The large recreation hall had full
bookshelves along two walls, mostly donations—an eclectic collection. Few
boys in the home were interested in reading, but Alex was at the shelves nearly
every day. He’d already devoured Edgar Rice Burroughs and the Tom Swift
books. Now it was Westerns. Reading was impossible, however, in a room with
three other boys and their friends slamming in and out. Alex loved solitude. In
addition to the patch of grass by the river, he found another secret place
under the gymnasium stage. It was a dark area, where the gym mats were stored,
but enough light came in through a hole to read by. There he hid and studied
books on ancient history and prehistory. He fantasized himself into a world of
giant lizards and other strange creatures.

Occasionally some of the older boys baited
him, in the hope of arousing another rage to entertain them, but he managed to
control himself. What they did was less painful and humiliating than it had
been in military school, where the cadet officers had authority. Alex had
smashed one of them over the eye with a large rock, bringing forth a torrent of
blood and another expulsion.

Sammy Macias was his only buddy, but Sammy
was always in trouble, usually for stealing. He was an outcast. Most of the
boys had an insatiable craving for adult approval, and they were afraid to be
tainted by association with Sammy. It was one reason Alex became his friend.

Sammy’s background was more somber than
the average boy’s at the Home. His father had gone wild after the
accident when Sammy’s mother was killed, turning to booze and bad checks;
he was now in jail. Sammy was aggressive and impulsive, nominally the leader
because he was bigger and stronger. Alex was too young to see that his friend
wasn’t very bright. They roamed the grounds together, throwing rocks at
blackbirds and trying to catch gophers, for which the Home paid a quarter
bounty
. In the evenings they went swimming.

The days were easy enough for Alex, and he
was able to avoid Thelma Cavendish’s wrath. But after lights-out he
thought of Clem’s promise and felt both lonely and excited.

On Saturdays the younger boys were taken to
the movies. The bus carried them fifteen miles into Hollywood,
then
dropped them off near a group of theaters on Hollywood
Boulevard.

One time Hollywood Boulevard’s traffic
swallowed the disintegrated group, and Alex and Sammy walked off together
toward the row of marquees, which were nearly side by side. One that specialized
in Westerns had a facade of logs and a hitching post.

They were looking at the posters in the outer
lobbies when Sammy said, “Let’s not go. I’ve got two
dollars…”

“Two dollars!
Where
… ?”

“I found it.”

“You found it?”

“Well… a visitor left her purse
in her car with the window down.” He grinned, shrugged a shoulder.
“What could I do? She had twenty dollars and I just took two. Anyway,
hell, we could hitchhike to Griffith Park and go horseback riding.”

“No, my father’s coming tomorrow
to take me horseback riding.”

“What about running away? It’s
still summer and not too cold at night.”

Alex shook his head, pursing his mouth for
emphasis. “I’m not chicken. I ran away for six days about four
months ago. I was sleeping under a shoeshine stand, and the colored guy who ran
it brought me food every morning.”

“How’d they catch you?”

“I went to the movies during a weekday,
and they look through them for truants.”

“I like running away.
Nobody to tell you anything.
You just go where you want and
do what you want—like an explorer. The only bad thing is if you get
hungry or can’t find a place to sleep when it’s cold.”

“If you want to run away, go ahead. You
can have my sixty cents.”

“It’s no fun alone. Anyway, let’s
not go to a movie. Let’s just fool around here.”

Alex hesitated, needled by a premonition of
disaster,
then
nodded agreement. Crossing the street,
they went back up the other side, ducking through alleys, wandering through a
department store, playing. At a hot-dog stand they bought hamburgers and milk
shakes. When they reached the end of the business area, they turned off along a
tree-shaded residential street and walked down to Sunset Boulevard. As much as
anything they were roaming.

On Sunset they stopped at the window of a
huge store called “Builder’s and Sportsmen’s Emporium.”
A gleaming Schwinn bicycle made them stop and stare.

“Let’s go in and look
around,” Sammy said, beckoning to his friend and walking toward the door.
Alex trotted behind.

The vast store had many aisles and
departments, selling everything from bolts to boats—
tires, shotguns, hinges, outboard motors, rakes, shovels
.
They were wandering around when suddenly Sammy touched Alex’s sleeve and
motioned to a counter laden with sheath knives in leather scabbards. Sammy
picked one up, unsheathed it,
returned
it.

The counter had no clerk. Nobody was paying
them any attention. Sammy picked it up again. “Two dollars,”
he said.

Alex sensed what was going to happen. Sammy
was glancing around; then he lifted his shirt and stuck the knife down into his
waistband. Alex held his breath, looking around in fright, remembering his
promise to his father.

They were pushing at the door, blinking at
the glare outdoors, when the man came up behind them. “Hold it,
boys,” he said, reaching for Sammy. Alex could have run but didn’t.

The punishment was left to Thelma Cavendish.
The assistant superintendent of the Home came to the store, thanked the
manager for not calling the police, and drove the boys back to the cottage. He
walked them to the housemother’s open door. She was in her chair, and a
boy was in the doorway, but when she saw the new arrivals she told the boy to
step out and close the door. The assistant superintendent also left.

The culprits stared down at their shoetops
while the woman, immobile as a statue except for her breathing, glared at them
with contempt. Alex’s panic in the store and worry during the silent ride
back slowly dissolved in resentment. He hadn’t stolen anything. This was
persecution. Instead of nervous fear he had anger, and instead of looking down
in guilt he met her eyes, until it was she who looked away.

Finally she spoke: “Well, let’s
hear what you’ve got to say.”

Neither one answered. Sammy moved his feet
and kept looking down. Alex stared at her. The challenge was so open that she
had to meet it.

“Sneak thieves… dirty little
sneaks. You steal small things now and get off
light,
you’ll steal bigger things later.” Her voice rose with the fervor
of her simplistic convictions. “Believe
me,
I’m going to teach you… both of you.” But her eyes were on
Alex. She rose from her chair and waddled, shaking with tension, to a cluttered
table, where she picked up a paddle. It was like a table tennis paddle, except
the handle was extended, and it had holes the size of quarters in it.
“Five swats apiece,” she adjudged. “Drop your pants,
Alex.”

Alex’s breath was coming faster, and
the fever was rising in his brain. “No,” he said, tears of fury
starting. “You’re not going to hit me with that.”

The intensity froze her, but just
momentarily. She was a determined woman, and her authority was the focus
of her life. Rebellion was sacrilege; she flushed under layers of face powder.

“Don’t try that with me,”
she said. “Take your pants down and bend over.” She looked above
him; he could smell the decay beneath the scent of flowers. Her bulk was
intimidating, but his brain was frozen on refusal to submit to injustice. He felt
smothered. Oh, God, I wish my father—
The
thought
was unfinished as tears flowed.

“You’re the smart one.
Sammy’s a follower. I’m going to teach you
who’s
boss.”

She reached for him with a liver-spotted hand
with purple fingernails. At her touch he leaped forward, butting her with
his head, pushing and clawing but not using his fists. The charge surprised
her, driving her back a pace.

“Oh you… little bastard,”
she said, fending him off and reaching for his hair. As she forced his head
away, he grabbed the top of her dress. The cloth ripped away, exposing the
fish-white flab above her slip. She dropped the paddle and pulled the cloth up
to cover herself.

Alex stepped back, at bay. Then he stopped
crying, for Thelma Cavendish had tears in her eyes too. It was unbelievable.

“You’ll get it now,” she
said, her
voice shrill
. “Now you’re in
real trouble. You’re going to reform school for that.”

Alex was no longer furious. Tears started
again, but they were from the ache. It was all wrong. He wanted to tell her the
whole thing was a mistake. He was even ready to blame Sammy, something he
wouldn’t have done a minute earlier. “Mrs. Cavendish…
I’m sorry, but…”

“Go to your room while I have the
superintendent call the police. We don’t have a place for heathens like
you.”

Alex’s heart pounded with fear, and he
stumbled out—Thelma Cavendish following him to the door—and down
the hallway to his room. Nobody was there. He stood trembling in the middle of
the room.

Sammy came in, staring at him. Their
relationship had changed. Sammy was afraid of him. Anyone who would do what
he’d done— attack Mrs. Cavendish—was capable of anything.

Alex conjured up an image of Juvenile Hall,
one based on movies with the Dead End Kids. He had no reason to doubt that the
superintendent could call the police and have him taken away. It had
happened last week to a boy, though Alex didn’t think that the boy had
set a brush fire in a vacant lot, which had burned down a garage.

Suddenly he knew the answer: he’d run
away. He wouldn’t wait for either the superintendent or the police. He
opened a closet and grabbed his windbreaker. From a dresser drawer he took a
rolled pair of clean socks. One of the room’s missing residents had a
piggy bank in a different drawer. Without hesitation, Alex took it and put it
in the pocket of the windbreaker.

“What’re you doing?” Sammy
asked.

“Getting away from
here.”

“The superintendent is coming,”
Sammy said. He was by the window.

“Are you coming with me?”

“Where?”

“Running, you ninny.”

Sammy’s face churned, shaded with inner
confusion.

“You wanted to today,” Alex said.
“What happened to your guts since then?”

“Let me think…”

“The guy’s coming,” Alex
said, heading for the door. “I’m going.”

“Let me get a coat,” Sammy said.

“Hurry!”

The cottage had two doors. The back door was
swinging shut behind Sammy as the superintendent opened the front door.

The boys skirted the building and ran
toward a line of trees beyond the lawn. Within the trees it was already night.