Manchild in the promised land

by Brown, Claude, 1937-

  I think K.B. must have been real shy when he came to Wiltwyck, because he used to beg me to tell him about the girls I knew. Late at night when I was sleepy and tired of lying all day and half the night, I would listen to K.B. tell me about Linda. For the six months that my bed was next to K.B.'s, I went to sleep hearing about Linda. After a week of hearing about Linda, I had to meet her just to see if she was as fine as K.B. said she was. K.B. said she was real dark-skinned, had long hair, wore lipstick, had "titties, little ones, but tits just the same," had a pretty face, and was real fresh. K.B. said he had done it to her one time up on the roof, and he used to tell me about it so much and in so many different ways that it had to be a lie.

  Most of the time, K.B. couldn't think about anything but girls, and anybody who could teU him a good lie about giris could get him to do things. Sometimes when I wanted K.B. to help me steal something, I would have to promise to tell him about a real pretty, real fresh girl. K.B. was always trying to jerk off, and he said he shot one time; but I didn't see it, so I didn't believe it. But about a year after K.B. and I had moved to Aggrey House, I heard K.B. come tearing down the stairs yelling as loud as he could. It was around one in the morning. He woke up everybody in the first-floor dormitory. I was awake and wondering what was going on, when K.B. came running into the dormitory with his dick in his hand and yelling, "Claude, I did it! I did it!" When he reached my bed and yelled out, "Man, I shot," all the beds in the dormitory started jumping, and everybody crowded around my bed with flashlights before K.B. stopped yelling.

  Some guys just said things like "Wow" or "Oh, shit," but Rickets said, "Man, that's the real stuff."

  Horse said, "Man, that ain't nothin' but dog water."

  K.B. said, "That ain't no dog water, man, 'cause it's slimy."

  Horse, who was always talking about facts, said, "Man, that can't be scum, 'cause scum is white."

  Knowing that scum was white, most of the guys said that

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  Horse was right and that it was just dog water. I said that dog water was more than he ever made. Horse went heading for the bathroom saying he was going to show me what the real stuff looked like. Everybody followed Horse and watched and cheered him on while he tried for the real stuff. Horse only made dog water, just like K.B., but nobody paid much attention—everybody was trying to jerk off that night. It was a matter of life or death. After what seemed like hours of trying and wearing out my arm, I shot for the first time in my life. A lot of other guys did it for the first time too, but some cats just got tired arms.

  After K.B. and I had been tight for a few months, a lot of guys started trying to get tight with us; and before we knew it, we had a gang. Our gang was always robbing the kitchen late at night, gang fighting with Windsor House, or just stealing for the fun of it.

  One day in the summer of the year after I came to Wilt-wyck, Simms, who had been transferred from Carver House about a year before, came into the house waving a piece of paper, griiming and shouting my name. When he came into the dormitory and saw me sitting on my bed, he ran up to me, stuck the paper in my face, and said, "Read that, Claude Brown." It was a transfer slip for me and K.B. We were going to be moved to Aggrey House, the Big "A," where all the older cats lived and where Simms was a counselor. I didn't like Simms, and I didn't like the idea of going where all those big guys were. Some of them, like Jake Adams and Stumpy Edwards, were real mean cats. I told Simms that I wasn't going to stay in Aggrey House. He just smiled and said, "Don't tell me you're scared, Claude Brown?' I told him I wasn't scared, that I just didn't want to go and wasn't going to stay.

  But I really was scared of Simms. I had seen him smack big Jim Cole in the gym one day. Jim Cole was about six feet tall and weighed about 185 pounds. When Simms smacked him, the smack picked Jim up off his feet and slammed him against a wall about ten feet away. Simms was real tall, and he had long arms, big hands, and could naave real fast. He would lean toward one side of a cat and hit him when the guy started moving away from him. It wasn't easy to get out of the way if he wanted to hit you. I saw a lot of guys try, but I never saw any of them make it. I had only seen Simms hit one cat who didn't cry. That was Stumpy

  Edwards. And that was another reason I didn't want to go to Aggrey House—I didn't want to be in the same house with a cat who coi^ld be hit by Simms and not only wouldn't cry, but even looked mean.

  When I told Simms for the second time that I wasn't going to Aggrey House, he showed me Stilly's name on the transfer slip and said, "Come on, boy, git your things. We're gonna see how much hell you can raise over in my house.'*

  I ran to the linen room to get our counselor, Claiborne, and said to him, "Mr. Claiborne, Simms is here wit a piece-a paper, but I ain't goin' nowhere."

  Simms was right behind me. He handed Qaibome the paper. Clay read the paper and kept looking at it for a while. Then he raised his head, looked at me for a while, smiled sadly, and said, "Claude, get your ace. You gotta go."

  Simms was still smiling when K.B. came running in, yelling like he always did. For once, Claiborne didn't bother to tell K.B. not to make so much noise. He just kept looking for some socks for us. K.B. looked at me as if to say, "Is it true?"

  Before he could say anything, I said, "Man, I ain't goin'."

  K.B. said, "Claiborne, do I have to go?'*

  Clay turned around. His face was trying to smile when he said, "That's what Mr. Stillman said."

  Everything was real quiet in the linen room , , , and real sad too. The only one who wasn't sad was Simms. He was smiling and gloating. I had become the main problem at Wiltwyck, and Simms had been telling me for nearly a year that I would be a different boy if I were in his house. Now he was going to get a chance to prove it.

  Qaibome was a strict counselor, but I had gotten used to him. I liked him even though he was always telling me he didn't trust me and always thought I had a hand in everything that went on. The moment he heard something had been stolen, he would come looking for me. But that was all right, because I was usually the one who had stolen it or had told somebody else to steal it or had stolen it from whoever had stolen it first.

  Claiborne liked K.B. more than he liked anybody else in Carver House. One day K.B. made a bet with Jody that the next time Claiborne messed with him, he was going to punch Claiborne in the mouth. Jody took the bet, but he wasn't the only one who thought K.B. was lying. We all did. I hoped K.B. was lying, for his own sake. Claiborne was mean and didn't play. On the same day that K.B. made the bet

  with Jody, Claiborne came into the dormitory and told K.B. to get into his bed and be quiet. K.B. started talking louder than before. Claiborne walked over to K.B. and reached for him. True to his word, K.B. punched Claiborne right smack in the mouth. Claiborne was more shocked than anybody else. This kind of thing just didn't happen to Claiborne, and he didn't know how to take it. Claiborne couldn't hit K.B., since K.B. was just a kid; but he grabbed K.B.'s hand and started twisting it, and K.B. started yelling for Nick, our other counselor, to help him before Claiborne broke his arm. But Claiborne wasn't crazy. For the next two weeks, K.B. was Claiborne's yardbird. He had to go everywhere Claiborne went from morning till night. He even had to ask Claiborne when he wanted to go to the bathroom. When the other guys were playing ball or sledding or ice skating, K.B. would be there, but he had to stay with Claiborne and just watch. The one good thing about it was that everybody knew why K.B. was Clay's yardbird, and it gave him a bigger reputation as a bad cat. After that, Claiborne and K.B. became real good friends. At least the friendship was as good as it could get between counselors and boys.

  The day K.B. and I were supposed to go to Aggrey House, I kept wishing Nick was around; but Nick was off. I knew Nick would have done something, because that's the way he was.

  I thought Nick was an ugly cat the first time I saw him. But before long, Nick was the most beautiful cat up at Wilt-wyck. He came in the door of Carver House one afternoon during the daily rest period. This was a time when everybody h
ad to go and lie on his bed for about two hours. We used this time to bullshit and lie mostly, but sometimes somebody would really go to sleep. Nobody was sleeping when Nick walked into Carver House for the first time. He kind of leaned over when he walked, and he had a big bounce. It was hard to tell if Nick was young or old or young and old. When I first noticed him, K.B. and Jody were talking to him, feeling him out. He was standing just inside the dormitory doorway. I had heard him say, "Hi, fellas." But looking at him, it was hard for me to believe he had said, that.

  Nick was looking real serious while he was talking to K.B. and Jody. He was a funny-looking guy. He had real sad eyes that kept trying to smile at every cat who came up to him to ask if he was the new counselor and to size him up. His teeth all seemed to be rotten and stuck out too far. Looking

  at his face, i thought his hair should have had a lot of gray in it, but it was a*rough black all over. I liked the way Nick looked—kind of ciutious, as if he knew he was in our turf and had to be cool till we got to like him. I started to yell out to the guys on the other side of the room to stop fucking with that man and tell him where Claiborne's room was. But before I could say it, Nick was bouncing up the stairs like he knew where he was going, and K.B. and Jody were arguing about whether or not he was a nice guy. Before long, somebody in the dorm said that he was nicer than Claiborne, and nobody argued about that.

  In a couple of months, Nick was running Carver House. We were all part of his gang. He would never help us rob the kitchen and stuff like that, but he used to take us on hikes around Farmer Greene's apple orchard and look the other way sometimes. He was more like one of the guys because he liked a lot of the things we liked. He would play the dozens, have rock fights, and cxirse us out. But I think we liked Nick mostly because he was fair to everybody. Nick never liked to see anybody getting bullied, but he was always ready to see a fair fight. I liked the way Nick was always lying to us. Everybody knew he was lying most of the time, but we didn't care, because he used to tell such good lies. Nick was a real big cat, even bigger than Simms, and he was from Texas; and some of the lies he used to tell were bigger than him and Texas.

  Nick was much better to have as a counselor than Simms. Nick didn't get excited real quick the way Simms did, and Nick had sense. I wasn't so sure about Simms. I was always getting into fights with Nick, since I knew I wouldn't lose too bad. When Nick hit me, I would just hit him back and keep swinging. But somehow I just couldn't see myself taking Simms on and living afterwards.

  Within six months after I had moved into Aggrey House, most of the guys who had been in Carver House with me had been transferred to Aggrey. I had my old gang from Carver and some bigger cats who were already in Aggrey when Ij got there. I was raising twice the hell that I had raised in Carver House, and Simms wasn't smiling now. Some of the counselors were starting to say that nothing could be done with me and that I should be sent to Warwick. But there was a new man,^Papanek, in charge of everything at Wilt-wyck, and he didn't feel that I should be sent to Warwick or ij

  anyplace like that. Papanek had the last word on everything about Wiltwyck. Even Stilly had to listen to him, like it or not. At first, most of the cats up at Wiltwyck thought Papanek was kind of crazy. And I think some of the counselors felt that way too. But Papanek wasn't anything like crazy. He was probably the smartest and the deepest cat I had ever met. Before long, we all found out that Papanek was the best thing that had ever happened to Wiltwyck and maybe one of the best things that could ever happen to any boy who got into trouble and was lucky enough to meet him.

  I remember the first day Papanek came to Wiltwyck. Everybody was told to come to the auditorium that afternoon. For a long time, we had heard rumors about getting a new director, and it seemed that this was the day. The counselors usually had a lot of trouble getting guys to go to the auditorium for anything other than a movie. But the day Papanek showed, it was different. Everybody, boys and counselors, was real anxious to see what this cat looked Uke, if he knew anything, if he was big or small, mean or kind, colored or white, young or old. We wanted to know what kind of changes were in store for us . . . for Wiltwyck. Every boy and every counselor knew that the man we were going to meet that afternoon would be the one to handle all our troubles at Wiltwyck for a long time to come. Just the thought of a cat being able to do that was enough to make us really wonder about him. Some of us wanted to know mainly if he was as mean as the outgoing director. All I ever knew about that cat was that he was mean as hell, and I think that's all a lot of cats ever knew about him. He looked like one of those mean old preachers who would think nothing of killing somebody in the name of the Lord. I hated to be around the cat. He never smiled, and he was too quick to take off his belt and beat your ass.

  After Stilly told us that the new director was going to introduce himself to us and and say a few words, most of us were still looking for the cat when he started talking. I remember Papanek saying, "My name is Ernst Papanek." I just watched him. He wasn't tall or short, and he was real straight, with a bald head and a kindly face. He didn't look real bold, but he seemed to have a whole lot of confidence, as if he knew he could handle Wiltwyck. Like everybody else, I was more interested in him than in what he was talking about. To me, he just didn't look like the kind of cat who could handle Wiltwyck. The poor guy looked like some-

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  body even the counselors could run over. After a while, Papanek stop{)ed talking and asked if there were any questions. After the fi^st question, it seemed that Papanek was talking with everybo'dy, not to us.

  As we left the auditorium after hearing Papanek tell us who he was, where he was from, and what he wanted to do at Wiltwyck, I had the feeling that the rule of the staff was over. It was a good feeling. I knew that the boys were going to run Wiltwyck now. And I was going to be the one in charge. I was going to be the director of Wiltwyck, thanks to that poor old nice Mr. Papanek.

  I tried to joke about Papanek's accent with K.B. and Horse, but they seemed to be kind of lost. Tito said, "Man, he sure can't talk." J.J. said something about how shiny Papanek's bald head was. A few guys tried to laugh, but I could tell they were faking. Some of the counselors were trying to make fun of Papanek, but they were faking it too. I couldn't understand this. I started talking to everybody about the new director, counselors and boys; everybody was lying and trying to hide it, but I could tell that they liked him and thought he was a nice guy. I got kind of scared of this guy Papanek. He had come to Wiltwyck and talked for a littie while. And in that little while, with just talk, he had won every living ass in the place—just took over everything with a few words that we couldn't even understand too well. No, I didn't like this cat. He was sUck . . . real slick. Papanek was so slick that he didn't have to be mean. He could take anyplace right on over in less than a day and never fire a shot. I had never met anybody that slick before. He scared me a little bit, but I had to get to know this cat and find out just how smart he was.

  I went looking for Papanek. I had to talk to him and find out about him. I saw him coming out of the dining room, talking with a couple of kids. He had his arm around their shoulders, and a lot of guys were crowding around him and walking with him. I wondered if he thought he was Jesus or some fucking body like that. Papanek stopped and started answering questions asked by some of the cats crowding around him. He was leaning forward with his neck stuck out and his hands folded behind his back. I used to be afraid of people who kept their hands behind their backs, because I once had a teacher who used to slap me right after she put her hands behind her back.

  When I came up to Papanek and his crowd, I just stood on

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  the outside and listened for a while. I don't know if I was scared or just wanted to get a better idea of what I was up against before I declared war. Floyd Saks was telling Papanek about all his ills and troubles, Papanek was listening, but he seemed to know that Floyd was a little crazy and just liked to fuck with people by talking a lot of nonsense for a long time. P
apanek knew Floyd had him, but he didn't seem to know how to get away. He kept looking over the crowd and all around him, as if hoping to see somebody who would call him and save him from Floyd. Every time Papanek would look away, Floyd would call his name and make him pay attention to what he was saying, crazy though it was. I think too many people were trying to pick Papanek's pocket at the same time, so nobody was getting anything. But it didn't really matter, because they would have just given whatever they took back to him. They liked this cat.

  I didn't say anything to Papanek that first day, but after he took over, we were warring until I went home for good. After I got to know Papanek, I found out how to really bother him; but I had to keep finding new ways, because the cat was slicker than anybody else at Wiltwyck. It was hard to bother him the same way twice. Papanek brought a whole new way of doing things to Wiltwyck. He made a rule that boys were not to be beaten or even slapped by counselors any more. I expected Stilly to leave the day that Papanek passed that rule, but he didn't. He stayed on for nearly a year. Then I guess he just couldn't take it any more.

  Papanek might have been a little crazy, but he meant all the crazy things he said to the boys and counselors. This was one of the things that made Papanek so hard to fight. I could never catch him in a lie, and he would never hit anybody. And as time went by, nobody could make him mad. At least he never showed it. He would look real sad sometimes, but he wouldn't get mad. But you could always tell when he got excited, because his accent would get stronger but his words would be real clear. I had never met anybody before who never got mad, and I had never met anybody who was always telling the truth like Papanek. But that's the way he was. If you asked him the hard Wiltwyck questions like, "When am I going home?" or, "Why are you keeping me here so long?" and Papanek couldn't tell you, he wouldn't lie about it. He would tell you something that left you knowing no more than before you asked him the question, but you would feel kind of satisfied about it. Sometimes