Richie

by Thomas Thompson

  “I’d say you’ve been ripped off pretty good,” said Brick.

  “I’ll beat his ass!” cried Richie.

  “You’ll have to find him first,” suggested Brick. “I imagine he’ll be hiding out for a while.”

  Several weeks passed before Richie’s rage eased. Nor did he receive much consolation from Brick or Mark or Peanuts, because all had been ripped off by Richie at one time or another, and vice versa. There is companionship and need among drug users, but the honesty of deep friendship is not a part of it. Mark pointed out that once a sandwich bag of pot had been missing from his room after Richie had been present. Brick openly accused Richie of lifting a vial of Seconals once when the foursome was lying about his room, heavily stoned. Peanuts had bought a small amount of marijuana from Richie, only to discover that it had been generously laced with parsley and oregano. Richie admitted it cheerfully, saying he had raided his father’s supply of spices in his basement. But Richie had grievances against his friends, as well. He could match every one of their complaints with one of his own.

  Petty crimes among them were part of the drug culture. None of the quartet was guiltless enough to throw a very sizable stone. Each subscribed to the youthful philosophy that ripping off was neither illegal nor immoral, only necessary. “How can it be wrong to steal something that is illegal to have in the first place?” Peanuts always said, he being clever at stealing drugs from other people. And Mark, returning from a highly successful rip-off tour of a department store record shop, told Richie, “If you don’t have anything, and you need it bad—and somebody else has something, then it’s all right to take it. Every man has a basic greediness and it just has to come out.”

  Still smarting from the $100 loss, Richie picked up a rumor in school that a boy named Beaver had opium for sale. Opium! This was the first time Richie had heard of the rare drug being available in East Meadow, even though he had heard Mark and Brick brag ecstatically of its mystery and power upon encountering it in New York.

  Beaver showed Richie a tiny chunk of the black, soft, tarlike material at their meeting place in the boys’ toilet. Richie asked the price. One gram, said Beaver, cost $20. One pound, said Beaver, cost $10,000! Richie whistled in disbelief. He bought a chip for $20 and watched as the small boy with two oversized front teeth methodically whittled it off from the mother lode. “If this isn’t opium,” warned Richie, raising a clenched fist. Beaver shot up his right hand as if swearing in court.

  After school, in Peanuts’ room, first locking the door to keep his junkie sister away in case she tried to come in, Richie put the opium in his hashish pipe and inhaled. Quickly he pronounced his verdict. “Sensational! Fantastic! A new high!”

  The next day Richie found Beaver again in school. He said the opium was everything Beaver had promised. Now he wanted to buy a quarter ounce. Beaver rapidly calculated in his head. The price would be $200. Richie nodded in approval.

  Beaver knew that Richie’s reputation in drug transactions was not exactly impeccable. He said the terms would be cash, in advance.

  Richie reached into his notebook and pulled out his savings passbook. It showed approximately $180, what was left from his $375 nest egg after several weeks of buying grass and downs. “And I’ll get the other twenty from somebody who’s going in with me on this,” promised Richie.

  On the day of the sale, Richie turned up at Beaver’s house and the seller, with a voice like Mark’s that refused to change, demanded his $200. Richie counter-demanded to see the quarter ounce. He inspected it at length. “I’m not satisfied with the weight,” Richie finally said. “I think it’s a short count.” Beaver said he had weighed it that afternoon at school, on a gram scale in the chemistry lab. “You got a gram scale here?” asked Richie, knowing full well Beaver did not.

  When Beaver shook his head negatively, Richie snapped his fingers in inspiration. Could he use the phone? Dialing a number, Richie spoke confidentially.

  “This kid I know will let us use his scale,” said Richie, hanging up. “We’ve gotta meet him in fifteen minutes behind Waldbaum’s.”

  His suspicion perking, Beaver demanded first to see the money. Richie pulled a fat white envelope from his jacket. “It’s all here,” he said. “It’s yours as soon as I weigh the stuff.”

  Richie led Beaver to a deserted parking lot behind the supermarket. Twilight was darkening the area, a chill wind scooped up the last leaves and threw them about. Beaver was both worried and frightened.

  “Give me the money,” he pleaded.

  “Give me the dope,” ordered Richie.

  Suddenly Peanuts stepped out from a shadowy place of stacked-up boxes and approached Beaver. The little boy sagged. His mouth flew open. The normal solemnity of Peanuts was now alarming. Calmly Richie snatched the opium from Beaver’s hand and said, “Thanks very much.”

  Richie and Peanuts, laughing, skipped successfully away. As they rounded the corner, they heard Beaver moaning, “I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe I got ripped off for $200.” Beaver sat down on an apple box and wept for several minutes before he began the long walk home.

  As they smoked the opium together, Richie speculated on what Beaver might do in revenge. “Nothing,” said Peanuts. “He’s a little jerk, and besides, he’s in business. Businessmen have problems. You know, like strikes.”

  Athough the two boys relished the big opium rip-off, and the telling of it for weeks thereafter, it paled beside the Solly Greene caper, a blustering drama of violence in two acts.

  One winter afternoon Richie assembled his foursome and asked if everyone knew Solly Greene, a boy of twenty-one who lived in East Meadow with his well-to-do parents. “He’s a creep,” proclaimed Peanuts. Mark nodded. “A real schmuck, he’s that skinny lame with fuzz coming out of his face.”

  Satisfied, Richie laid out his plan. “He’s a cheap cocksucker and we’re gonna rip him off tonight.” A small grievance was held by Richie against Greene, because in their last transaction, during which Richie bought forty-five dollars’ worth of hashish, he idly picked up a book of matches on Solly’s desk. Solly wanted an extra penny for them.

  Now, weeks later, Richie went to the telephone and made an arrangement to buy thirty-five dollars’ worth of marijuana.

  At 8:30 that night, Richie rang Solly’s doorbell. The older youth opened it instantly and seemed surprised to find Richie accompanied by Brick, Mark, and Peanuts. He did not know the other boys well, but he knew they were Richie’s running mates, so he let them all in. An enormous black dog growled behind Solly’s legs. Mark, fearful of animals from his burglary days, asked if Solly could put the monster away. Mark, at 110, weighed perhaps less than the dog. Later that night he would brag that this had been expert thinking on his part. “That dog could have gotten rough on us,” said Mark, because that was the only thing he contributed all night. His mouth surpassed his muscle at all times.

  Solly shut the dog up in a room off the hallway and brought out a medium-sized plastic garbage bag. He led his customers into the living room, available for drug transaction because his parents were on the last day of a winter Florida vacation. He turned to Richie. “Two ounces, right? It’s twenty dollars per ounce, but you’re getting a discount for two.”

  Brick interrupted. “I also want a quarter ounce of hash,” he said, “if it’s good stuff.” To emphasize that he was “quick with the bread,” Brick whipped out his wallet. At the same time, Richie was peering into the open garbage sack. More drugs than he could estimate lay in its recesses.

  “What all have you got in there?” asked Richie casually.

  Solly replied with some pride. “Couple ounces blond hash, best that’s been around here for months. Four ounces Nigerian grass. A few ups. About fifty downs. Pharmaceuticals. It’s all worth around $380, I guess.”

  Brick made a different calculation. On the spot he figured mentally the bag’s contents would bring at least one thousand dollars.

  Mark’s eyes shifted from the bag
to Richie. His red-haired friend obviously had the same thought: We have no money, nothing to smoke, and all that is going to be ours.

  With no grace, no cunning, Richie simply shot his hand out and seized the bag from a startled Solly Greene. Even as Solly formed a protest, Richie was out of the living room and through the front door, his trio of adventurers a split second behind him. Crashing out, Richie broke a window pane on the door and cut his hand. Blood ran onto the thousand-dollar garbage sack.

  Shrieking hysterically, with long piercing screams that reminded Mark of “a woman getting raped,” Solly raced after his goods. He made a flying tackle at Richie, but just as the antagonists fell to the grass, Richie made a dazzling forward pass to Brick, yelling “Grab the bag!” Brick had rushed to his car, flinging open its doors to receive his friends. It was left to Peanuts, who made a balletic leap high into the air to catch the bag. Richie disentangled himself and ran toward the open car door. Brick bulled into the pursuing Solly and pinned him to the ground. With the aid of Peanuts, they pummeled the skinny dealer. Brick even yanked out a clump of his hair.

  Fearful that neighbors would soon materialize, drawn by Solly’s terrible screams, Mark yelled for Brick to get into the car. As the elderly Plymouth hurried away, Solly hurled rocks and threats in its wake. “Bastards!” he bellowed. But his words were lost on Richie and Peanuts and Brick and Mark. All four were doubled up with laughter and pride in their accomplishment.

  Now the problem was where to go to examine the haul and partake of its promise. Each boy said his parents were at home that night. It was decided to visit a friend named Turk whose parents, Mark always said, “were lame, like the Beverly Hillbillies.” Mark bragged of once stealing a car, driving it into Turk’s garage, stripping it there, and at the same time eating a sandwich brought to him by Turk’s mother, who allowed that the child must be hungry from all that mechanical work. “You can blow grass smoke in Turk’s old man’s face and he’d think it was corn silk,” agreed Richie. He had found a piece of cloth on the floor of Brick’s car to wrap around his bleeding hand.

  The four were warmly received by Turk and his parents. True to form, the father noticed Richie’s bleeding hand and began to bandage it. “I fell on the playground after school and cut it on a bottle,” explained Richie. The mother bustled into the kitchen to bring cookies and milk.

  After the social amenities, the boys went to Turk’s room, where they divided the bag’s contents, tested the hash, proclaimed it indeed excellent, and awarded their host a small sample for his hospitality.

  Not trusting Brick’s ability to drive, for his body was jiggling from his high, Richie and Mark and Peanuts elected to walk home together, creeping through backyards and across fences to avoid the streets. “Solly’ll be out looking for us,” predicted Richie. Mark was more worried about a cop stopping them and discovering the forbidden riches in their pockets.

  When he reached his home, Richie noticed that his parents’ car was missing, and he invited his friends in for a few minutes. Carol no longer informed her son in advance when she and George planned a rare evening away, even when they were visiting her sister, as they were doing this evening. She was afraid Richie would fill their home with his pot-smoking friends. The last time she had asked Richie to baby-sit with Russell, she returned home at midnight to find a dozen boys and girls, and a house ripe with the odor that she was now sophisticated enough to recognize. The next day, a neighbor complained not only of the noise, but of one of the revelers swinging on his tree branch and breaking it. George ordered Richie to saw the limb off, apply tree medicine, and apologize to the neighbor.

  Only Russell, then eleven years old was in the Diener house when the three boys returned from the Solly Greene rip-off. Sitting down at the dining-room table, they rolled joints and began to smoke. Mark noticed Russell watching them. “Wanna try it?” he said. Russell shook his head. He was watching a comedy on television. Mark walked over to the child sprawled on his stomach on the green carpet. “It won’t hurt you. Come on and try a puff.” Russell put the cigarette into his mouth and blew smoke out inexpertly. Instantly he began to cough.

  Richie moved over and snatched the joint from his brother’s hands. “Don’t make him do it if he doesn’t want to,” said Richie to Mark. And he warned the child, “If you tell Daddy, I’ll bust you.” Then he knelt down and looked the little boy squarely in the face. His voice was oddly tender. “If you turn into a head, I’ll break your bones.”

  The next day Richie stayed at school only long enough to hear that Solly Greene had vowed to kill him. The victim had even sent an emissary to East Meadow High to spread the warning. On hearing it between first and second periods, Richie professed scorn. But he cut out before noon and went home. Telephone calls flew back and forth between the foursome the rest of the afternoon. It was decided the best defense was a good offense. “We’d better get him before he gets us,” said Mark, ominously, although his soprano voice never sounded so incongruous as when making dark threats.

  At 7 P.M. Brick collected everyone, and the four smoked grass and hash for a half hour to boost their courage before pulling up in front of Solly’s home. Each was prepared for battle. Richie had two short pieces of rubber hose, one of which he gave to Brick. Hose is limp in the summer, but in winter, Richie pointed out, it is cold and hard. “It can rip your skin off,” he said. Peanuts had a pair of homemade brass knuckles that he had fashioned from an old sword handle. Mark juggled a rock in his small, girlish hands.

  Richie rang the doorbell. To his surprise, Solly’s father, returned from vacation, answered it. The four boys stared at him. Mark, with his gift for imagery, described the man later as. “a gray, sad-looking old poop. He looked like Silly Putty, like he was ready for the coffin.”

  “Yes?”

  “Is Solly home?” asked Richie.

  At once the giant dog began to bark from within. Mark tensed, trying to keep the smirk on his face that the others had.

  Solly appeared at the door. “Did you pricks come to pay me, or give me back my stuff?” he said.

  Richie broke out laughing, his comrades following suit. Solly quickly sensed he was in danger. He saw the rubber hoses, the brass knuckles on Peanuts’ clenched right fist, the rock in Mark’s hand.

  He let out another of his eerie screams. Mr. Greene rushed back to the door. “What’s the matter, son?” he asked. He saw his boy dive at Richie, yelling, “I just wanna get this one motherfucker!”

  Like two objects that had been glued together and resisted all attempts to unstick them, Solly and Richie rolled across the lawn, both screaming, both enraged. Mr. Greene ran to the aid of his son, only to see Brick hurrying to help Richie. The father intercepted Brick, grabbed him by the shoulders, and pushed him against the family car. Shaking Brick’s shoulders so hard that his long hair and scraggly beard bounced, Mr. Greene shouted, “Had enough? Had enough?”

  He stepped back for his answer, whereupon Brick made a fist and slammed it into the gray old man, square in the stomach. Across the yard, Richie had now freed one hand enough to crack Solly over the head with his hose.

  Mrs. Greene, hearing the commotion, rushed to her front door and began screaming, “I’m calling the police!” Behind her, the giant dog yelped and begged to be turned loose into the fray. Mr. Greene staggered about his yard with his hands at his stomach, doubled over in pain. Solly managed to rise, blood streaming from somewhere on his head.

  Mark, more valuable as lookout and warning siren than combatant, shouted that it was time to leave. The four piled rapidly into the car and Brick slammed his foot against the accelerator, throwing up a shower of dirt and gravel.

  Mr. Greene ran after the car until his breath gave out. He cried in triumph, “I’ve got your license number.” But the number he called out, which Brick heard, was not correct. “He’s not only old, he’s blind,” whooped Peanuts.

  As soon as the Plymouth careened around the next corner, out the window and into a clump of brush fle
w the pieces of rubber hose and Peanuts’ brass knuckles. Tires screeching, the car sped away, its occupants merry and proud. “Just like in the movies,” cried Mark. “We’re the fucking late show.”

  George Diener answered his telephone later that night and spoke with Solly Greene, who demanded that Richie’s father do something about the assault.

  “I’m deeply sorry,” said George. “But the only thing I can do is suggest you call the police and let them handle it. I’ll back you all the way.”

  But Solly never notified the police. He was between a rock and a hard place. How could he seek help from the law when the cause of the fight was a thousand-dollar garbage bag of drugs, when the law said it was illegal—and worthy of prison—to possess them?

  For weeks the postmortems went on among the four boys. The episode, though it lasted only five minutes, stretched into an epic drama of heroism and high danger. Mr. Greene turned from a gray old man into a giant, his son from a schmuck into a mean potential killer. Richie spent hours on the telephone telling and retelling the great Solly Greene adventure. He spoke in low tones on the kitchen phone so that his father would not overhear.

  But George did not need to overhear. He knew it all. For several weeks now he had been tape-recording every word his son spoke on the telephone. For more midnights than he could count, he had listened with sorrow, anger, and total bewilderment as cassette after cassette revealed the story of the son who was becoming his enemy.

  Chapter Eighteen

  A few weeks before the Solly Greene incident, George chose an evening when there was quiet in the house, with Richie away and Russell asleep. He sat down next to Carol on the burnt-orange sofa. Almost casually he brought up an idea, one that, if successful, would allow them to find out exactly what Richie was doing in the drug world.

  But, as George had predicted to himself, Carol was immediately opposed to the plan. In fact she was shocked.