Things moved too swiftly for deep feelings to seep into Alex, but he felt a mild, bizarre satisfaction at being the center of attention. He met the curious stares with a defiant sweep of his eyes.
Two uniformed officers drove him to the fringe of downtown Los Angeles, to a two-story yellow building that was an emergency receiving hospital and the Georgia Street Juvenile Jail. The jail occupied the second floor; it was for the temporary detention of juveniles. The law allowed police to hold suspects seventy-two hours for investigation, during which a complaint had to be filed or the person released. A writ of habeas corpus could set bail before that, of course, but the poor can seldom afford the lawyer and the bail bondsman, especially for two or three days. Adults were held in local precincts or the city jail in Lincoln Heights, but juveniles were kept separately. Because it was temporary the facilities were spartan, one vast room filled with barred cages in rows. Everything but the floor was bars—even the rear of each cage, where a lidless aluminum toilet and washbasin were attached. There was a double bunk along the side bars, and a prisoner lying down in one cell was intimately face to face with anyone doing the same in the adjacent cell. Bars, walls, bunks—everything—were enameled a brownish-yellow, and that was defaced by jailhouse graffiti, some fresh and other names gouged so deep into the underlying concrete that they showed through layer on layer of paint. Pervading everything was the odor of Lysol; it hid whatever other smells there were.
In the early afternoon when Alex was ushered through the gate, just a few cells were occupied: one by a young Mexican from across the border, and three by blacks (they were in a row) arrested together for killing an elderly transient during a mugging. Alex was across the room and didn’t speak to them, but their voices were loud and he listened, thinking that their English was more slurred and syrupy than that of most blacks he knew. He wondered if it was because of fear. All were obviously terrified, two of them shrill as they blamed the third, telling him that they weren’t going to the electric chair “’cause a stupid-ass niggah hadda use a rock.” The rock user raged back, but his voice was more than shrill; it broke and quaked with terror. Somehow Alex got the information that they were fresh from Alabama, that their sharecropping parents had gotten together to make the exodus to the promised land away from lynchings, where they could work in defense plants for decent wages. They were so dumb that he felt truly sorry for them. He called out that they didn’t have to worry about the electric chair, that they were too young to get the death penalty. His attempt to help turned fear-filled fury on him. He was a “stupid Paddy” who “damn sure didn’t know what the po-leese knowed … an’ the po-leese said they was gonna burn if they didn’t tell everything they’d been doin’ here in Los Angeles.”
Red-faced, Alex pressed his lips together and wouldn’t answer even when they called, which brought yelled curses and threats.
During the afternoon the jail began to fill up, mostly with teenaged blacks and Chicanos. They weren’t showered or given denims; they were frisked, their shoes taken, and then they were locked in a cage. Each race had a virtual uniform: the Chicanos in pomaded ducktails, “draped” slacks or khakis, and maroon shirts buttoned to the top; blacks had “conked” or “processed” hair, jeans and tennis shoes, and loud sport shirts; whites had Levi’s and leather jackets with fur collars, though they were in a severe minority. Alex was younger than most, the average age being about fifteen, so the deputy sheriff left him in a cell by himself. The juveniles came from barrio, ghetto, and slum. Middle-class and rich kids were turned over to their parents. They came for curfew violations (if a burglary had been reported in the area and they wouldn’t confess), for carrying switchblades, for burglaries and car thefts and all the other felonies in the penal code that poor juveniles could commit. They came alone, in pairs, and groups. Seven Chicanos had been pinched cruising in a stolen Cadillac Coupe de Ville. Worse than that, an ounce of marijuana in a Prince Albert can had been found under the seat. Most were familiar with this place or others like it. Some fell on the thin, sweat-stained mattresses and went to sleep; others yelled from cell to cell, increasing volume to compete with each other until a deputy came in, banging a large key on a pipe and screaming for them to hold it down. Those who were familiar with jail hated it utterly, but they were not afraid, and fear was society’s cudgel. Conditions made the person worse. Fear of imprisonment, not imprisonment, was what kept law and order.
About six-thirty, adult trusties pushed a cart into the cage area. A deputy followed with a clipboard. As he called off a name, the name called his cell number, and a trusty passed through an aluminum bowl—they looked like small hubcaps, actually—of boiled pinto beans, a slice of bologna, and two slices of bread. Not everyone was fed, only those at the jail when the “count” was called to the kitchen at four P.M. Alex was given a bowl of ugly food that he normally would have disdained, but he hadn’t eaten since the night before, and he wolfed it down. When voices began screaming in protest at not being fed, he stopped with half the bowl eaten. He wrapped the bologna and bread in toilet paper for a later snack and asked the unfed Chicano in the next cell if he wanted the bowl.
“Do people in hell want ice water?” the Chicano quipped. He had to eat with a spoon through the bars because there was no way to pass the bowl without spilling the beans.
Sharing the ill-tasting ration had a compensation. The Chicano, a slight fifteen-year-old nicknamed Mousey, had smuggled two cigarettes in his sock through the booking desk frisk. Discolored from sweat and misshapen, they nevertheless made Alex’s mouth water with desire.
“You can have one, or we can fire ’em up one at a time and pass ’em back and forth … save one for mañana after breakfast.”
“Whatever you think, man. They’re yours. You don’t owe me nuthin’.”
“I know, ese. But you did me right.… What’re you busted for?”
Alex hesitated. “Escape.”
“Oh yeah! Where’d you split from?”
Again the hesitation, a fearful anticipation of Mousey’s expression if “nuthouse” was mentioned. “Reform school,” he said.
“Wasn’t Preston. You’re too young. Gotta be Whittier. My carnal is there. Ernie Obregon?”
Alex was shaking his head, his face hot as the lie got bigger. He couldn’t claim Whittier because Mousey might well know things that he, Alex, didn’t. “No, I split from reform school in … Arizona.”
“Are you from over there?”
“Uh-huh. I just stole a car and got busted over there.”
“Is that right, and they put you in reform school there?”
“Yeah.”
“They gonna send you back?”
“I dunno.… Say, how are we gonna light that cigarette? No matches.”
“Look at that,” Mousey said, pointing at the bare hundred-fifty-watt light bulb in the ceiling above the bars. It was within arm’s reach. It was over Alex’s cell, so he followed Mousey’s instructions, putting a sock over his hand before unscrewing the hot bulb. Mousey meanwhile made a string by shredding the corner of a blanket and then dug a hunk of cotton from the mattress, fluffing it out. He fastened the cotton to the bulb by wrapping the string around both.
“Screw it in,” he said.
While they waited, he told Alex of another way to “hit” the lights if the bulb was too small. Get a pencil or paper clip and wrap the cotton around that. Unscrew the light and stick it up there. Bang! “The sparks light the cotton, but sometimes it blows all the lights out. It ain’t what they teach in the Boy Scouts, but.…” He shrugged.
A thin tendril of smoke started in two minutes. Another two went by and the smoke increased.
“Blow on it,” Mousey said.
Alex stood on the top bunk, tilting his head to the overhead bars and blowing as hard as he could. Suddenly the cotton, which had already darkened, smoldered orange. Alex pulled it away without unscrewing the bulb. Moments later they were puffing on the cigarette, passing it back and forth.
The smell wafted through the large room. Delinquent, caged youths began calling out. “Hey, somebody’s smoking. Hey, gimme one!”
“Damn assholes,” Mousey said. “The deputy is sitting right outside. He hears everything. I’ve been in here and heard guys confess without knowing it … just yelling to their partners.”
The first smoke he inhaled made Alex dizzy for half a minute, a pleasurable dizziness, cousin to when he huffed and puffed and held his breath. Then it was really good, and even in jail he was momentarily happy.
The cell on the other side of Alex’s had two sixteen-year-old blacks, one with a heavily blood-spattered shirt. Usually just the jailer deputy came in to lock up new arrivals, the delivering deputies waiting beyond two sets of steel gates. But four burly deputies, two to each youth, had brought in this pair—and they didn’t remove the handcuffs until after the gate was closed. From sentence fragments he overheard from the deputies, Alex had learned that the pair had fought in the substation. “If they weren’t juveniles they’d get an issue,” one deputy said while leaving.
The blacks, feeling their bruises, had lain down until now.
“Hey, Paddy boy,” one of them said, standing at the bars, “let us have a cigarette.”
“I haven’t got any cigarettes,” Alex said.
“Whaa! What’s that—you punk motherfucker! Lyin’ junior redneck.”
The words felt like slaps. Alex enjoyed being generous, would have shared even the butt if it had been his. But at insults, and especially at threats, something short-circuited in his brain and throbbed hot in his skull. “Your mother’s a lyin’ punk motherfucker,” he said.
“Wha…?” The second black rose into sight from the bunk, standing beside his partner. Both of their faces were lumpy with rage. “Little white punk! I’d put this black dick in your ass if I was over there.”
“You’d suck a dick,” Alex retorted, but into the momentarily mind-blotting temper came some reasoning. And fear. Either of the older, muscular youths would mangle him without difficulty. Not that he would ever back down. “I really don’t have any cigarettes,” he said in a conciliatory voice, thinking the situation senseless and unnecessary.
“Naw, white boy, you can’t clean it up. You been talkin’ ’bout my mama.” To his partner. “Look at this jive punk motherfucker tryin’ to clean it up. Talk all that shit behind bars. He’d scream like a bitch if I got at his ass.”
“Well, fuck you in your black ass.”
“Better hope they don’t open our gates at the same time.”
“If they do, do what you’re big enough to do.” He turned away to Mousey, who had been a silent spectator, boldly puffing the last of the first cigarette in hope that they would say something to him. “Most of ’em are bluffs,” he said. “I live in the projects in Hazard with lots of ’em. Some are cool, but most ain’t shit. They talk bad, bad, but mostly it’s a fake.”
Alex grinned. “I don’t think these cats are bluffing.”
“Forget it.”
“Yeah, ain’t nuthin’ gonna happen.”
At ten-thirty the main lights went out, those over the cells, but jails are always lighted twenty-four hours a day, the many sets of bars slicing and reslicing the light in squares, rectangles, and parallels. Slowly the youths quieted, and the conversations of those still up became softer, soothing murmurs rather than discordant roars. Everyone had troubles, but most wore them more lightly than an adult would. Most would be released in a day or two; some would be charged but allowed to go home during court proceedings. Others would go to Juvenile Hall, and a few from there to a California Youth Authority institution, AKA reform school.
Mousey and Alex talked through the bars late into the night. He’d been in Juvenile Hall five times already, for burglary and car theft (“just joyriding, ese”), and had already served six months in a county juvenile camp, the last stop before reform school. “I’m a cinch for Whittier this time, burglary and car theft, and smashed the car into a fireplug when they chased me. I’m okay. Except it’s gonna kill my mom. I’ve got five brothers. The oldest one is a dope fiend. The next one is straightened up. He’s in the Eighty-second Airborne … but he was a fuckup. The rest are okay except the one in Whittier. I’m the baby, and it hurts my mother worse when—”
“Then why do you fuck up?”
“I dunno. I just … wanna, I guess.”
They told each other stories until Alex dozed off while listening. He hadn’t thought about the altercation with the blacks for two hours.
Mousey saw his friend asleep, shrugged, and pulled the blanket up to his chin.
The blacks had been waiting for both of them to close their eyes. Now the blacks threw the paper cup of piss and spit at him through the bars. The vile mess landed on his chest and splattered on his face, bringing him out of sleep, aware both of the sticky wetness and the laughter. It took just a few seconds for realization to come, rudely slapping grogginess away. He came off the bunk with tears of fury in his eyes. He spat at them through the bars, but it was powdery saliva. Emotions had his mouth dry.
“You dirty, fuckin’… cocksuckin!” He wanted to scream “niggers,” but it was a word he couldn’t call a black, not even these.
“Shaddup, white punk!”
His fury was so great that he couldn’t find adequate words; the most vulgar curses were insufficient. Though he couldn’t call them “niggers,” if he’d had a pistol he would have opened up point-blank and without concern for the consequences. He looked around the barren cell, his eyes glazed with madness, but there was no weapon. Then he felt the fullness in his bowels. He knew what he’d do—if he could. He lowered his pants and sat on the toilet, straining. He’d pick it out with his bare hands and let it fly through the bars.
“Hey, what’re you doin’?” one black asked. “What’s that crazy motherfucker doin’?”
“Okay, motherfucker!” Alex said.
“Hey, deputy!” the other black called. “We got a crazy motherfucker in here!”
“Jailer!” screamed the other. “Jailer. Get in here!”
The rattling keys, the clank of one going into a big lock, heralded the jailer’s entry. “What’s wrong? Who called?”
Alex was straining, his face contorted. He needed just another minute.
“Right over here, deputy.”
The jailer came, his flashlight’s beam swaying and bouncing along the cells. “What’s wrong?”
“This crazy sonofabitch is trying to throw shit on us.”
The flashlight illuminated the dark face, the pointing finger swiveled over to Alex on the toilet. “Oh, you! The nuthouse kid. Get off that toilet. What’re you doin!?”
A little bit was loose, but not enough, and it was hard when he wanted it splattery soft.
The deputy saw Alex’s reaching hand. “Better not or I’ll kick your ass up to your throat.… You’ll spit out shit instead of throwing it.”
“Get him outa here. He’s been callin’ us niggers, too.”
“You snitchin’ cocksuckers,” somebody yelled. “Tell ’em what you did.”
“What’d you do?” the deputy asked. “What’d they do?” he asked Alex.
Alex was so young that the “code” wasn’t yet imprinted indelibly on his values, much less down to his essence as the ultimate commandment and value; his reflexive desire was to tell what they had done, about the cup of piss. What stopped him was the previous yelling voice calling them snitches. He said nothing.
“Okay, Bogart,” the deputy said. “I’ve got a place for you.”
Ten minutes later Alex was escorted by the jailer and another deputy to the “hole,” a carbon of the hole he’d been in at the first substation, narrow and dark with a hole in the floor for body waste—a hole exuding a stench that nearly made Alex retch. It was absolute darkness, without even a peephole or a crack beneath the door. He was drained of tears of rage, of indignation, of pain—sapped of emotions and utterly exhausted. He slept deep on the dirty concr
ete.
* * *
Late the next afternoon, the door opened and two white-clad hospital attendants accompanied the jailer inside. They had leather restraints and put them on Alex. He couldn’t remember seeing them at Camarillo, and as they crossed the parking lot to the car, he asked what ward they worked on. “We’re not from Camarillo. We’re from Pacific Colony. It’s got security, and we can handle escapees.”
“And troublemakers, too,” the other said. “We heard about your starting trouble with those colored kids back there.”
Pacific Colony was near Pomona, the city farthest east in Los Angeles County, fifty miles from City Hall. The drive was start-and-stop in the rush hour traffic, giving time for Alex to think while looking out at the passing city. What was happening to him? Where was he going?
One husky attendant rode in the back seat with Alex, covertly glancing at him from time to time. The boy understood the logic but thought it was exaggerated and silly because he was in leather restraints and the inside door handles had been removed. Moreover, if security at Pacific was even faintly like Camarillo (and he had no reason to think otherwise), anyone could escape whenever they wanted.
While still in the heavy city traffic, the attendants watched him closely, as if he would suddenly become a demon of some kind, but Alex ignored them and sat staring out at freedom. When the car reached the open highway the attendants seemed to forget their passenger, or at least talked as if they were alone. It was gossip from small minds: whose wife or girlfriend they wanted to lay, which ones could be laid—and this somehow became comments on how bad the food was at the employees’ cafeteria. One of them was planning to go home for lunch; he lived just five minutes away. “Eat a little and eat a little,” he said, laughing snidely. The other, younger attendant, was newly married. His wife “can’t boil water.” “Yeah, I saw her at the employees’ dance. With her legs, who cares if she can cook. I’ll trade you my ace cook for her.” He slapped the now blushing younger man on the shoulder, leaning from the back seat to do so.
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