We left. Soon as we got downstairs we started messing with the package. It was really a paper bag all wrapped up in string. I asked Clyde if he thought it was dope, and Clyde said no, that he thought it was too heavy to be dope. That was a relief. He told me to carry it and I took it from him, feeling it as much as I could, and Clyde was right, it didn’t feel much like dope. Not that I knew what a real bag of dope felt like, but this was heavier, and a little lumpier than I thought dope should be.
We got around to 118th Street and went to the house where we had been before and where they had given the party. The same guy that answered the door when we went to the party that night answered the door again. I got this picture in my mind of this guy spending his whole life at the door, waiting for somebody to knock so he could open it and be cool.
“What you guys want?” he asked.
“We got something for Charley,” Clyde said, just about as cool as the guy on the door.
“What you got?”
“What you want to know for?” Clyde asked. Now, I didn’t think that Clyde should have said that. He could have said “a package” or “something that he asked us to bring over” or anything but I didn’t think he should be too tough. The guy at the door just stood and looked at Clyde for a while and Clyde looked right back at him. Now this guy was maybe not a complete grownup but he was close enough. He had a bigger mustache than my father but he looked young. Finally he moved away from the door and let us in. That was when we saw Charley.
As soon as I saw Charley, slumped over in this big stuffed chair, I was scared. Maybe, as Sam says, I get scared easy, but I had never been so scared as when I saw Charley. He was hunched over in the chair and his breath was coming real hard, as if he had been running for a long time. When he looked up I saw that his nose was running and that some had dried on his face. He was rocking back and forth, and trying to catch his breath, and he looked terrible. I had seen some dead people before, once when a man had been hit by a car and we were waiting around for the ambulance to come and pick him up, and the second time was when I had to go to a funeral because my mother and father were going and they couldn’t get a baby-sitter. This was some time ago. Anyway, that’s what Charley looked like, a dead man. His face, which was usually shiny and even sweaty, was dull. And the side of his face, just over the cheek, was swollen as if someone had hit him.
“Hi, Charley.” Clyde got up his nerve to talk.
Charley looked up at us and motioned toward the door. I looked toward the door and another guy was standing there. He came over and took the package from Clyde. He called the guy that was standing near the door over and he took out a knife and opened the package. It was full of little cellophane packages. The guy looked at them and began to count them. When he finished he smiled and shook his head. Then he pointed at Charley. “Get that punk out of here.”
The door guy, who was wearing a jacket, opened it up and there was a gun sticking in his belt. He reached over and grabbed Charley by the collar and jerked him to his feet and pushed him roughly toward the door. Charley took a stumbling step and fell. The guy who had counted the cellophane packages came over to us and put one of the little packages into Clyde’s shirt pocket and one into my dungaree pocket and told us to get Charley out of there. I almost peed. I caught it just in time.
We helped Charley up as best we could, Clyde doing most of the lifting, and helped him out of the door. We took him to the elevator. He was able to walk a little and he was crying. By the time we got him down to the first floor, he was able to walk by himself with just Clyde helping him. He was still crying, though, and so was I. We got outside and Clyde told me that he was going to take Charley to his house and for me to go to get Sam. I took off, running. I wasn’t only running to get Sam, I was running because I was scared.
I got to Sam’s house and tried to tell him what had happened but I couldn’t. I tried real hard but I was still crying and I was still scared. Finally Sam got right in front of me, real close, and kept saying where should he go? Where should he go? I told him to go to Clyde’s house and he took right off. I started to follow him. I could actually feel my heart beating in my head. He had went down the stairs a half flight at a time and I followed as quickly as I could. By the time I had got to the street he wasn’t even in sight.
By the time I got to Clyde’s house he had Charley laying on his bed and he and Sam had taken off Charley’s jacket and shirt. Clyde said that BB, Gloria, and Maria were coming over. They got over in no time at all. It looked like the side of Charley’s face was swelling even more than it had been before. Sam said we should get Charley up and walk him around so that he didn’t die of an overdose. We got him up, which was pretty difficult to do, but then he just threw up, all over me mostly. Sam and Clyde put him back down and Maria helped me clean up while BB and Gloria helped Clyde and Sam. Gloria said that she thought Carnation Charley was going to die. After a while I started to believe her. His breathing was still raspy and his eyes kept rolling around and I knew he couldn’t control them. His nose was running, too.
Sam said that we should call the police and have them send up an ambulance, and I thought that was the best thing to do. Clyde wasn’t sure and neither was BB and Gloria. Finally Sam asked Clyde if he could use the phone and he called his father. Sam’s father was tall and kind of long-headed like Sam and he was about the youngest-looking father on the block. Sam told his father to hurry, that Carnation Charley was OD’ing. Then he had to explain what OD’ing was and he asked him to come right over.
“My daddy is coming over,” he said. And he was so calm when he said it that you just knew everything was going to be all right.
Maria got some ice and put it in a towel and placed it against Charley’s cheek where the swelling was. Clyde loosened his clothing and he and Sam kept turning him over every time he had to throw up a little bit of white stuff. When Sam’s father got there he took one look at Charley and lifted him to his feet and started shaking him and making him walk. He lifted Charley like Charley was as light as a feather. He told Gloria to put on some coffee and she and BB ran to do it.
“What you boys messin’ around with this dope for?” Sam’s father’s face had a wild look about it and his eyes would catch us and stop us just where we stood. And all the time he talked he kept looking at us the same way and making Charley walk around.
“We weren’t fooling around with any dope,” Clyde said. “He’s the only one that was fooling around with dope. Not us.”
“Sam, you ever touch that dope?” Sam’s father stopped in the middle of the room and gave Sam a look. He was holding Charley under the arms and the sweat on his forehead ran down and gathered on his eyebrow and would fly off as he jerked his head around, looking from Charley to Sam.
“No, Daddy.” Sam’s voice went about as high up as it could go. “None of us were fooling around with dope. Really, none of us.”
Slowly Charley started coming around again. He began to mumble, and then he seemed scared. Sam’s father sat him down in front of the window. When Charley started coming around and realized where he was, he tried to act cool, but Sam’s father took his head between his hands and turned his face up so he could look right into it. Charley struggled for about a few seconds and then he was still when he found out that he couldn’t get away. We didn’t know what Sam’s father was going to do.
“Why you want to die, boy? You tell me that!”
“I don’t want to die,” Charley said. His voice was weak and he was trying to keep his eyes closed so he wouldn’t have to look into Sam’s father’s face.
“You mess with dope you’re going to die. You never see no old dope fiend, do you? That’s ’cause they all die young. So why you want to die?”
Charley really looked miserable. There was still some mess on the side of his face from where he had been throwing up. He tried to push away the strong hands that were holding him but he couldn’t. That was the first time I noticed how badly his hands were swollen. They were p
uffed up almost twice the size of normal hands.
“Why you want to die, boy?”
The front door opened and Clyde’s mother came in with Kitty. When they told her what had happened she just sank into a chair. She didn’t seem very upset, just very tired. She did ask if anybody else was involved in the drug thing. Maria said no—I think she was going to say it was just Charley but instead she kind of nodded at him and said, “Only some people.”
Mrs. Jones looked up at Clyde and reached out for his hand.
“Hey, Mom, we’re all cool.” Clyde lifted his mother’s face and looked right at her and kissed her.
So we got Charley all right, at least so he could get himself together and go home by himself. Sam’s father offered to take him home, but Charley said no, that he’d be all right. When Charley left, Sam’s father went to the door with him and watched him as he walked to the staircase. Through the open door I could see Charley go slowly down the hallway and then, as if he felt us watching him, he glanced back for a second and then dropped his head and went off into the night. We all felt a little relieved when Charley left, I guess, but I kept thinking that the club hadn’t helped him at all. We had saved his life but I wasn’t even sure that was really helping. Sam’s father cooled down and we thought everything was okay.
But we hadn’t been arrested yet.
* * *
I figure that for a guy of thirteen I’d spent a lot of time in jail. There was that time when Binky and Robin had a fight and we took Binky’s piece of ear to the hospital and got taken down to jail. That was about an hour. Then there was the time that Sam and Clyde and me got taken down to jail when we got that lady’s purse back from the purse-snatchers. That was almost three hours. And then there was the night we helped Charley.
I got home and I was in my room telling Sharon what had happened. My father had to work late and I was going to tell my mother, but Sharon wanted to know about it first so she could tell her friends. Anyway, I told her not to tell anybody because it wasn’t anybody’s business except the people who were actually there. Also, I didn’t want to be the first to tell everybody if Clyde and Sam didn’t tell. But I was telling Sharon when all of a sudden I heard voices in the hallway. Then there was a key in the door and my father came in with two policemen.
“Boy!” my father called out to me. I saw the policemen with him, and I thought he was in trouble. So I went on out into the kitchen where they were. “You been messing around with any dope?”
“No.” I said.
“Let’s see your arms.” One of the policemen grabbed my wrist and started pushing up my sleeve.
“Take your hands off my boy!” My father’s voice came out so loud it scared me. “He can roll his own sleeve up. Roll your sleeve up, son.”
I rolled up my sleeves and started to cry at the same time. I don’t know why I always start to cry at the least little thing, but I sure did. I rolled up my sleeves and the policeman looked at my arms and then he looked at my eyes. Then he took out a picture and showed it to my father and asked if that was me in the picture. My father said yes, it was me, and the policeman said I’d have to come downtown with him. My mother, who was standing in the doorway all the time, looked at me and her eyes were as wide as anything. Her lip was quivering, too, and I just started into crying more. I hadn’t done anything but I just kept crying. My father got on his coat and he said he was going with me.
“You can meet us down at the precinct,” the policeman said. “You know where the Twenty-eighth is?”
“I’m going down with the boy.” My father said it again and I know he meant it. The policemen looked at each other and shrugged.
My mother asked to see the picture, and I saw it, and it was a picture of me and Clyde helping Carnation Charley down from the house on 118th Street. I didn’t remember seeing anyone taking our pictures, really, and I don’t know where it could have come from.
My father and I sat in the back of the police car while the two policemen sat in the front. Oh, yes, when we came downstairs all the neighbors were standing around watching. They were saying things like ‘Hey, ain’t that Mrs. Williams’ boy?’ They knew who I was. They just wanted something to talk about, that’s all.
All the way down to the police station my father had his arm around me. He said that no matter what happened he was on my side. I told him that I didn’t do anything and he said, “Good.” I don’t ever remember him putting his arm around me like that before. I wish we hadn’t been in the police car when he did it.
When we got to the police station we had to go up to the second floor. Everybody was there. They had Clyde, Sam, Charley, Robin, the guy that was in the apartment with Robin, and about five other guys I didn’t even know. Everybody had on handcuffs except Clyde. Even Sam had on handcuffs. One policeman, who was dressed in ordinary clothes instead of a uniform, told the policemen who brought us in to take me into another room. My father said he was coming with me. We went into a small dark room and the policeman told me that I didn’t have to say anything if I didn’t want to and if I wanted a lawyer they would get one for me. I told him I didn’t do anything and he said he didn’t think I had. Then he told me to tell him the whole story about us going into that building today.
So I did. I told him about us getting the phone call from Carnation’s girl friend and us going over to this house. I even told him about the party that I had went to before, and the policeman asked me if I had ever smoked a reefer. I said no, that I didn’t smoke. Then he went over to the wall and pulled back a curtain and told me that it was a one-way mirror. He told me to look through it and see if I knew anybody that was in the other room. I told him I knew Sam and Clyde and Carnation and Robin but that I really didn’t know anybody else they had there.
Then they brought in Gloria’s father and mother and I said I knew them, too. They put us all into a big room with about four policemen and we weren’t allowed to talk to each other or sit next to each other. Sam still had the handcuffs on. Finally they came and took away Robin and his friends, or at least I guess they were his friends because I didn’t know any of them. They took Carnation Charley, too. They told the rest of us we could go. When we went downstairs all the rest of the parents—Clyde’s mother, Sam’s parents, and everybody—were downstairs.
Then a policeman came and told us that they had just broken up a drug ring that was getting a lot of kids messed up in the neighborhood. That the police had been photographing everyone that went into the building and that they had just picked up everybody to check them out. They were just about ready to let us go when one of the detectives asked Clyde if we had any dope. Clyde said, to my surprise, that we did. He said that the guy at Robin’s place had given him some and me some. Then he took his out of his shirt pocket and gave it to him and then the detective came over to me and I looked in my shirt pocket and mine was gone. I could have died. I looked in my pants pockets and then my shirt pocket again but it still wasn’t there.
“Did your mother give you your shirt to put on?” a detective asked me. I told him yes while I kept looking through my pockets. He left the room and came back a few minutes later. He had checked with my mother and she had said that she had given me a clean shirt to put on and he sent her home to look in my other shirt pocket. It took her almost an hour to get back, but she brought the other shirt. The detective looked into the pocket and there it was. What a relief. Then they told us that we probably wouldn’t have to testify at a trial or anything but that we might and not to leave town or anything. Then they let us go.
When I got home, first, of course, I had to get my lecture from my father about the next time something happened I was supposed to tell him about it first. And then I got lecture number two about how bad dope was and how I should stay away from people who offered me dope and how some people were just looking for kids to mess with and everything. He didn’t really have to tell me that. I mean, I saw Charley and I saw everything that was going on and, after all, I had been in jail.
We were coming home from practice two days later when we saw Carnation Charley again. He came over to us and said hello and everything and we said hello. He said that he was in a rehabilitation program and that he had finished with drugs for good. They were giving him something to help him get off whatever it was he was taking and also helping him to get his credits for high school. Sam said that he should really stay away from drugs because it really messed him around.
“We thought you was going to die, man,” Sam said, “you were about that close to being gone.”
“I’m hip.” Carnation Charley leaned against a lamppost and talked to us. “You know, I realized that if I’m ever going to make anything of myself—well, that’s not the way. What I’m going to do now is to finish school and try to get into this program they have over at the State Employment place—it’s a earn-while-you-learn thing—and work there long enough to get money for college. Then when I get into college I’ll probably go out of state and get a degree in accounting or something like that. That’s what they were saying over to the place where I’m in this program. They were saying that if you get into accounting you’re okay because any business you get into has an accountant.”
He went on talking about what his plans were and what he was going to do. After a while he said that he was looking into the possibility of getting a scholarship for music at a school in New Mexico. He said that sometimes they give scholarships for singing.
Fast Sam, Cool Clyde, and Stuff Page 12