Alex and Scabs became friends and constant companions. It was taken for granted that the older boy was the leader, and Alex went along with him unquestioningly. Just once did Alex assert himself, and he did so without thinking, the red haze of anger glowing in his skull. Scabs had referred to Red Barzo and First Choice Floyd as “those buck niggers.” It was his tone more than the words that caused Alex to snap in reflex, his voice sharp. “Don’t call ’em that. They’re my friends … and they’re both sharp cats. Call ’em colored or Negro.”
The words were an order, and Scabs’s teeth clicked shut, his eyes hooding and cheeks reddening, for an order by a peer was insult and challenge. He was older, tougher, and Alex shouldn’t—While his ire was developing, he saw something in Alex’s face—the distended nostrils and the eyes, especially the eyes—and decided Alex’s statement wasn’t intended as an insult and was, in fact, actually right. He shrugged and said he didn’t mean anything derogatory by the word, but he’d check himself from now on.
Late that night in the darkness, waiting for sleep, which was invariably when he reviewed the events of the day and thought of tomorrow’s, Alex suddenly flinched, seeing Scabs’s face in memory, not having really seen it at the time. It had nearly been trouble, and Scabs could surely kick his ass. Even worse, their friendship would cease, and replacing the good feeling would be the hollow pain of loneliness spreading from his stomach through every corner of his being. He was glad it fizzled before it lighted.
Scabs had long since explored every cranny of the grounds, and he spent a few days showing Alex everything there was to see. Legitimate activities for young boys were nonexistent, and those for older patients (weaving, art, and so forth) were excruciatingly boring. So they turned to delinquency. Scabs came up with the idea of breaking into the various hillside shacks, and Alex agreed without thinking of right and wrong, or even about the chances of being caught, or the consequences.
They spent a whole day—a swift, exciting day—prowling the barren hills, watching each shack until the owner left, then breaking in. For three such “burglaries” they got twelve packs of Camels and half a bottle of contraband wine, enough to make Alex feel really good and not enough to get him drunk.
Next Scabs led him off the property to break into a cabin in a canyon. They could take nothing with them, so they vandalized it, splattering eggs against the walls. Actually, Alex went along with the vandalism halfheartedly, feeling bad about it.
They also prowled the hospital’s parking lot, rifling the glove compartments of unlocked cars, which was most of them, despite a sign telling people to lock their vehicles.
Scabs knew how to drive a car, and Alex wanted to learn. They were planning to take a car from the lot (eventually someone would leave keys in the ignition), joyride around, and have Alex learn how to shift gears.
At this point Scabs was suddenly told to pack his belongings. He was being discharged to his parents. They were leaving the state in a few weeks and would take him with them.
The next morning Alex met Scabs’s mother and stepfather as he helped carry his friend’s belongings to the car. They brusquely acknowledged the introduction, then turned away. Scabs, too, was brusque, anxious to get into the car and be gone from the nuthouse.
Several times that morning Alex’s eyes got wet as loneliness flashed up through him. The next day the sharp hurt of losing someone had gone away. Now the ache was dull; he just moped around and watched the sun change the colors of the world.…
* * *
One week after Scabs’s departure, Alex was walking beside one of the roads near the administration building. He heard a car motor but didn’t turn until the brakes squealed and the horn bleated.
Scabs was behind the wheel of a 1936 Ford coupe, the absolute heppest car of the era. He was grinning, beckoning Alex over to the passenger door. A great surge of joy went through Alex; he’d been lonesome since Scabs had gone. Without reflecting on what he was doing, yet looking around to make sure that nobody saw him (nobody was in sight except two patients weeding a flowerbed), he slid into the open door and slid down so that just his eyes were visible.
“Atta boy,” Scabs said, poking him in the ribs. “You still have all the guts in the world.” Scabs was still grinning, but the joy of meeting turned to momentary consternation when he released the clutch unevenly and the car spasmed forward until the motor died. “Goddamn Fords,” Scabs cursed. He got under way again, more careful now, and turned on to a little-used dirt road that eventually left the hospital property for a two-lane highway toward the ocean and coast route four miles away.
Now Alex sat erect, almost stiff, leaning slightly forward in tense anticipation of each new sight; he knew he was embarking on a course of adventure. Minutes before he’d had misgivings in some compartment of his mind, and for another moment he’d thought of having Scabs take him back before the institution count found him missing, but he slammed the lid on the idea without really viewing it. Like most people, Alex could highlight justification for what he wanted and minimize the contrary realities. So now he overflowed with joy at the imminent possibilities for adventure without envisioning the probable repercussions. Why doubt? he thought; it was already too late. He was committed to the unknown.
The few miles until the seacoast highway were fields of emerald alfalfa in undulant waves made by the breeze; there were also unbelievably neat and uniform orange groves. A white frame house sat at the edge of a lemon orchard, picture postcard-pretty, and several boys around Alex’s age were tossing a football. A pang of envy’s cousin went through him, as it always did when he saw boys leading normal lives, but this time it went away quickly. They were playing football but he was riding around in a car, could go anywhere, because he was utterly free—or so he felt. Everything was so beautiful. He looked over at Scabs, whose damaged face was rigidly expressionless as he concentrated on the road; he wasn’t that at ease behind the wheel, and the road curled and had lots of traffic.
“Where’d you get this?” Alex asked.
“I stole it, dummy. Whaddya think, Eleanor Roosevelt come down and give it to me?” The chiding rebuke was intended as humor, for there was whimsy in Scabs’s voice and eyes. Nevertheless, Alex blushed for a moment. Scabs glanced over, reached out his arm, and tugged the younger boy’s earlobe. “Take it easy. This is the day you learn how to drive.”
“Aw, man, really! No jive?”
“N’no jive. Anyway, you’ll learn to shift gears, and after that it’s just practice mostly.”
Alex nodded, grinning yet suddenly apprehensive too. Would he make a fool of himself, run into something? Would he get stupid and clumsy at a critical moment? His hands sweated. Yet he had to learn. It was a rite of passage.
“You gonna teach me how to hotwire it, too?”
“Sure. That’s easy. You just—forget it till we get there.”
“Where?”
“I know a huge parking lot they don’t use since the war started. It’s got grass coming up through the cracks, but it’s still a good place for this. Say, you got any money?”
Alex felt the handful of change in his pants pocket. “A little over a dollar.”
“I’m hungry. You gonna buy me a hamburger?”
“Sure, Scabs. Glad to.”
* * *
Abundant refreshment stands served the hundred miles of beach.
“Get that one,” Alex said. “They’ve got twelve centers.”
Scabs started to pull right but then straightened and kept going past the stand.
“What happened?” Alex asked.
“There’s a highway patrol car in the lot. I’ll bet he’d want to see my driver’s license if he spotted me.”
“Yeah, that’s right. I didn’t think. I didn’t even look. I will now, though.”
Scabs grunted, obviously liking the role of mentor. His marred face brought him a dozen jeers for every sign of respect, and Alex instinctively knew how to make his friend feel good.
Scabs
parked on the highway shoulder, one hundred yards from the next hot-dog stand. Sweating beachgoers seeking cool refreshment gave the stand a lot of business, so the boys had to wait to be served. The sun was hot on Alex’s cheeks, but the sweat brought by the sun was cooled by a soft sea breeze. He had been away from the free world enough months for its sights, especially normal people, to appear strange, ever so slightly out of focus. The abnormal had become the norm for him. And he felt a new sensation, too, as he looked at women’s bodies in tight one-piece bathing suits. He’d never before given any attention to female legs and asses; now they fascinated him—some more than others—and he got hard and felt a wonderful sensation spreading from his crotch through his lower stomach. To a much lesser extent he’d felt this when masturbating in hiding, envious of Scabs having an orgasm while he couldn’t. Now, however, he was sure he could have one, except this wasn’t exactly the time or place to masturbate.
While they ate the hamburgers, their mouths too full for much conversation, Alex also watched the other customers. Two little girls, perhaps sisters, tried to bite delicately through the surface of a candy apple. Alex felt much older than they. Silliness was in their eyes, gawkiness in their movements. It amused him to feel wise and mature, and he could see them glancing at him, too, in a way that was entirely new but that he recognized instinctively. All were too young, getting ready for when they wouldn’t be.
Scabs gave no heed to his surroundings. His hamburger was collapsing, so he was bent forward at the waist to avoid the drippings, trying to stuff the end of it, but not the paper, into his mouth. He’d gotten most of it when a bold seagull banked in swiftly, making its foul noise, and zoomed by just four feet away.
“Aw, shit!” Scabs said, throwing what remained into the air behind the gull. That one didn’t get it, but another had a fat neck within a second after it landed on the sand. Almost immediately a young man, suntanned to the marrow and wearing a lifeguard patch, was on them. “Don’t feed the birds, boys,” he said.
It was time for them to go. When they were in the car, Scabs said he wished the lifeguard hadn’t noticed them. “The beach is a good place to steal,” he said. “People leave their wallets in their cars, or in their clothes on the sand when they hit the water.”
The teeming beach, where it was hard to know who was watching what, made Alex hope that Scabs wouldn’t want to steal from clothes. The cars were bad, too, but Alex could crank up enough nerve for that. Scabs, however, kept on talking while starting the motor, watching the highway in the mirror and pulling into the river of cars.
“Don’t people lock their cars?” Alex asked.
“Sure, but you can get in with a coat hanger quicker than with a key. You straighten it out, put it through the windwing, and pop the lock on the door.”
“Is that right?”
“I’ll show you when we stop.”
Scabs seemed to know everything, and Alex was insatiable to learn about anything. Alex was already more intelligent and better educated, since Scabs didn’t read books except for an occasional Captain Marvel Comic. But Scabs was an encyclopedia of delinquency; actually, he knew more than many adult criminals, and had been in Juvenile Hall a dozen times. They would have sent him to the Youth Authority and reform school, except that they thought his problems were psychological—a reaction against his blemished flesh. Scabs didn’t see it that way, and after getting accustomed to the pitted face Alex forgot it, though he could see it bothered Scabs whenever women were around. How much depended on the attractiveness of the girl.
“Say, Scabs,” Alex asked.
“Huh?”
“I think I can come when I jack off now.”
Scabs jerked and turned his head. “So.”
“I dunno,” Alex said, shrugging. “I don’t know when I’m gonna get a chance to fuck—and I don’t know what to do.” He waited, hoping his talkative friend would offer information about that. Scabs, for once, had nothing to say. “Do I just stick it in?”
“Yeah, but not just…”
“What’s that mean?”
“There’s more to it than just that.”
“Well, tell me, Scabs. Would ya?”
“No! I won’t! Quit buggin’ me.”
Taken aback, Alex knew the shrill response came from more than the question; he had touched a nerve. Scabs had claimed that he’d been with girls and gone all the way, but in everything else he was vociferous in giving details and embellishments, while now he snapped and stifled conversation. To Alex it was a revelation—not just that Scabs lied, for lying was as common as truth everywhere. Alex’s revelation was that people unwittingly exposed themselves by word, gesture, and attitude, that deep chambers were unintentionally opened if the right button was pushed. It wasn’t lying, not exactly; it was that their view of themselves, or of things, was sometimes more pleasurable than truthful.
Alex would have to think about it more at a later time.
* * *
It was afternoon when they reached the empty asphalt acres of Santa Anita Racetrack, now closed in its off-season. The stands were nearly a mile from the street entrance where they turned in.
“You can’t hit nothin’ here,” Scabs said. They cruised slowly across the endless white lines.
“Won’t somebody say something?”
“Nope. People use it all the time for this. It’s where my uncle taught my mother. And if the police come, we can see ’em when they turn in, go around the other side, and jump out into miles of orange groves and countryside. So it’s really cool.”
For no particular reason Scabs came close to the entrance gates before stopping, turning off the engine and getting ready to start the lesson. A statue of a horse was there, slightly pigeon-stained. The plaque said SEABISCUIT, and an ache went through Alex; he remembered being a very little boy in the car with his father and some neighbors, listening to a portable radio (nobody had car radios then) tuned to the Santa Anita Handicap. Clem had nearly run into a car at a light as he pounded his hands on the wheel and urged Seabiscuit to victory. Then he’d head-locked his son and kissed him on the forehead. The flash memory made Alex hurt now, almost to wet eyes, and then to mute anger at life itself. It wasn’t right; he’d had nobody but a father. Others had mothers or aunts and uncles or brothers—or somebody.…
“Damn, Alex. C’mon, quit daydreaming,” Scabs said. He had come around the car and had the door open. “Slide on over.”
For a fourteen-year-old, Scabs was a good teacher. He started from the beginning: have the gear in neutral and the emergency brake on, or have the clutch pressed down before starting the motor.
Alex’s tenseness and total concentration made things harder, at least the most important thing of releasing the clutch in conjunction with feeding the gas for a smooth start. Again and again the car lurched forward and died, or gave lots of bounce-jerks before dying or keeping on. When the latter happened, the subsequent shifts were also bad, but not so completely.
It was when tenseness and concentration seemed to have drained him that things smoothed out. All of a sudden he had the knack of it, and he was exalted. The jerks in reverse were gone in half a dozen tries. Then Scabs taught him arm signals.
“You got most of it now,” he said. “All you need is practice.”
“I don’t know where I’ll get that,” Alex said.
“Steal cars,” Scabs said, then burst into laughter. “My mother taught me how to shift. She thought it was cute. Now she curses herself. She pulls her hair and says, ‘A monster I made.’”
“How many cars you stole?”
“They know about over twenty. I must’ve stolen twice that. But I don’t hurt ’em, just drive ’em for a few hours until they run out of gas.”
“Didn’t you wreck one?”
“Oh yeah, one. But it wasn’t my fault. That old lady slammed on the brakes to miss a cat, and I was getting ready to pass her. Bet she don’t go nuts for a fuckin’ cat no more.”
Neither of the boys had a
watch, but the boulevard traffic had grown heavy and then thinned. The sun softened, shadows lengthened, and a breeze began stirring things.
“Well, I gotta go home, Alex,” Scabs announced.
Throughout the afternoon, Alex’s thoughts had flicked to this moment. He’d hoped it wouldn’t come, that Scabs would run away. And now he momentarily regretted getting into the car in the first place, but he immediately ridiculed the regret. His black, junkie pals had taught him about the futility of regret. He didn’t articulate the thing that worried him, but it was the dread of loneliness. The night would come and he would be alone with no place to go.
Scabs glanced over at the younger boy while following a homeward course on residential side streets. “Less liable to meet a prowl car that sees how old we are,” he explained. When they were near where he lived, one of the first tracts in southern California, which was also one of the last constructed before the war ended the building trade for the duration, his guilt at leaving Alex came out obliquely. “You wait with the car around the corner. I’ll go in and get some money for you.”
“Okay. Thanks,” Alex said unenthusiastically, barely nodding and continuing to stare from the window.
“Keep the car, too. It’s got half a tank of gas and it won’t be on the hot sheet until tomorrow. As long as you don’t get stopped for something, you’ll be okay.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Alex said.
“Come by tomorrow morning and we’ll go fuck around together.”
“What time?”
“Early. Seven-thirty—when they leave for work. We can make breakfast. I cook pretty good…”
Alex replied with a noncommittal grunt this time, and for the first time saw the flaws in Scabs. The older boy was obviously discomfited, afraid—not physically, but of losing his young follower.
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