Alex listened to them, and something in how they talked seemed simplistic, even stupid, to him. He was still unfamiliar with words such as “banal” or “inane,” which fit more precisely with what he thought. He didn’t, however, think about their destination; it was their conversation that caught him. When their voices became a background hum, he conjured recollections of when things had been happier—his few interludes of freedom. So it was almost a surprise when the car braked and turned into the grounds of Pacific Colony. Spread over a hundred acres, the one-story buildings were gleaming white with red tile roofs—much like Camarillo except that they were separated, each ward at a distance from the next, each with its own paved, fenced yard. Most yards were now empty, and those that were occupied were too far away to see more than figures. Alex was nervously curious, until they turned a corner near the rear of the grounds and the narrow road was ten feet from a fenced yard. What he saw brought fear and revulsion, fear of the unusual, revulsion at semi-human monstrosities. He didn’t know that Pacific Colony was almost entirely a state hospital for the feeble-minded. In that category was what was hidden in maternity wards, not displayed in cradles beyond glass. These were hidden shames rather than children. And these represented the tiny minority that survived infancy, though few would mature. The vacant, round faces of extreme mongoloids looked beautiful compared to skulls without eyes, or with eyes next to deformed ears, or bloated heads and pinheads too small for a brain. These were far more horrifying to Alex than the wildly insane at Camarillo had been.
Still traveling slowly, the car turned another corner, heading for a sprawling ward building at the farthest reach of the institution. This one’s yard fence had a ten-foot extension of wire mesh, too thin for a grip. Nobody was going to climb out of this yard, not even standing on someone else’s shoulders. All the wards had barred windows, but these were also covered with the mesh, nearly doubling their effectiveness.
As they exited the car, someone inside who was expecting them opened the door. Alex struggled with his fear, vividly recollecting the creatures. The attendant escorting him saw his fear, or at least that he was keyed up, and firmly gripped the leather so he couldn’t bolt for freedom.
Two more men in white were inside a small, bare room. An inner door had a tiny window with a man peering out at them. He unlocked that door when the outer door was locked.
The delivering attendants had papers and a receipt for the ward attendants to sign. When they were gone he was ordered to strip naked. Then they instructed him to go through the ritual of the skin search for the first (but not the last) time in his life. His thin eleven-year-old arms were raised overhead; then he wriggled his fingers and ran them through his hair. He raised his penis, then his testicles, then turned his back to them and raised one foot at a time. Finally, he bent forward and pulled the cheeks of his butt apart. In years to come, he would do it without thought, and when in a playful mood, he would anticipate each ensuing order and carry it out ahead of the words. He could maintain dignity thereby and hoped for his arrogance to show, though this first time he was awkward and apprehensive. This was increased by the obvious hostility of the attendants. He knew this world was a nightmare compared to Camarillo.
They searched his clothes, squeezing every inch. But instead of returning them, they gave him a zip-front denim jumpsuit, freshly washed but never pressed. Instead of shoes they gave him canvas slippers.
Through an inner door was the ward office; it had glass walls overlooking the long dayroom—a dayroom as different from Camarillo’s as was everything else. Instead of the soft chairs there were hard benches in a line around the walls. Alex got a glance while a side door was being opened. Instead of the movement of Camarillo’s dayroom, everyone was seated. He noticed that the deep-red floor had a bright gloss, as if the hundred slipper-shod patients left no mark or never moved.
An attendant walked him down a hallway to a shower area and clothing room. He showered, was given a clean bedsheet to use as a towel, and was then issued ill-fitting denim pants and a chambray shirt. It had two missing buttons. When he pointed this out to the patient in charge of the clothing room, a young man going prematurely bald, he was told, “This ain’t no fuckin’ department store.” The tone used was even harsher than the words. Alex was so nonplussed that he barely heard the added statement, that he could check out needle and thread and sew buttons on in the morning. What he heard vaguely he quickly forgot. Through his mind ran a chant: Oh God, it’s awful here … awful … awful … awful.
When Alex first came in, the charge attendant, a middle-aged man with close-cropped steel-gray hair, had been off the ward at lunch, but now he was in the office. He ordered the escorting attendant to close the dayroom door, which made Alex even more anxiously conscious of the eyes beyond the glass. Indeed, he was so intensely aware of being scrutinized that he had to concentrate on the words so they didn’t dissolve into a nonsensical drone.
“I’m Mr. Whitehorn,” the man said. “I’m the big boss around here. We heard a little about you—how you shot a man and all that, then raised hell in Camarillo and finally escaped. Well, this ain’t Camarillo. You’re a few years younger than most of ’em around here … and you look a lot less tough. If you cause any trouble here, you’ll think you ran into a shitstorm. Most of ’em here are judged feeble-minded, though this is a ‘high-grade’ ward. It’s also the high-security ward. We’ve got some mean people here … some dangerous people. But we handle ’em. We can handle you too! Now you’re just here for observation. The staff at Camarillo said you were a borderline psychotic—know what it means?”
Alex shook his head. He’d heard the term “neurotic,” but not what Mr. Whitehorn said.
“It means nuts. They also said you were a psychopathic delinquent … and even I don’t know exactly what that means except that there’s no hope for you. Anyway, the court wanted another report, so that’s what you’re doing here. So we’ll not only keep you in line if you cause trouble, we’ll send a report that’ll bury you.…”
While the charge attendant stared challengingly at the boy, there came a loud crash from beyond the glass. A bench had toppled over backwards as a fight was in progress. A Chicano and a black were rolling on the floor and punching. Both were nearly grown men in body, though the black was heavier and more muscular. Attendants were pulling them apart even before Mr. Whitehorn could tear through the door out of the office. Alex watched through the glass, unable to hear the words, though they were unnecessary to understand what was happening. Mr. Whitehorn spoke to each of them, and each nodded vehemently. Benches were pushed aside as the combatants took off their shirts and kicked off their slippers. The charge attendant said something, and the hundred patients rushed from their seats to form a human ring. Half a dozen attendants were in the forefront.
Mr. Whitehorn stood in the center, a referee. He used both hands to motion the combatants to come together, and then stepped back to the side. For perhaps ten seconds the battlers circled each other, hands raised in a facsimile of boxing. When they finally lunged together the facsimile ended. They weren’t allowed to wrestle or hold. They stood toe to toe and punched as hard and fast as they could. Though the black was bigger and stronger, it seemed that his hands were a fraction of a second slower, or perhaps his rhythm of battle was wrong, for the Mexican’s fists landed an instant sooner, hence with more force because they sucked power from the black’s. Yet the black was forcing the Chicano back, step by step. When he came to the human ring, an attendant put hands on his back, signaling the end of retreat. The hands didn’t shove, for the intention was not to give advantage, but nonetheless they upset his balance. He tried to duck and circle to his left, but he ran into a looping right hand. It hit him above the eye and blood sprayed out instantly. He stiffened for a moment but kept circling. Now he was in the center again, but he was already defeated. He still punched but defensively now, thinking of the other’s fists, ducking from feints, tiring himself. The black’s fists found solid fl
esh more often. He stalked, his whole body exuding confidence. He lashed out with a left jab that hit the Chicano’s mouth, splitting lips against teeth. The Chicano’s head snapped back, and his hands dropped. The black punched a powerful right. It landed on the chin, and the Chicano dropped to the seat of his pants. An attendant pulled the black away. Mr. Whitehorn helped the Chicano to get up, said something to him, shrugged, and stepped back, waving for them to continue.
Now the Chicano was standing on pride alone. The black faked a left, crouched, and sunk his right to the solar plexus, sending the Chicano’s hands up in a jerk. The ensuing gasp could be heard throughout the large room. The Chicano started to double over. A clubbing right hand sent him on down, his legs twisted awkwardly beneath him. He was fighting for breath, spraying flecks of blood from his torn lips.
The black’s right eye was swollen and discolored, and his dark flesh had red lines where skin had been raked off. He’d been hurt, and his fury was not sated. The attendant was holding him lightly. The black jerked free, stepped around Mr. Whitehorn, and kicked the Chicano in the side of the head. Even barefooted, it elicited a yelp of pain.
“Bastard!” Mr. Whitehorn said, letting go a backhand that knocked snot from the black’s nose. He flinched, but instead of giving up he lowered his head to ram through to the Chicano. Before the black could launch himself, Mr. Whitehorn had a headlock on him. Other attendants piled in. Instead of just restraining him, they began punching and kicking. Their fists landed mainly on his kidneys, though some were in his face until Mr. Whitehorn, grazed by a punch, commanded: “Easy … easy.…” The kicks were at his knees and ankles—until he went down. Then they were everywhere except his head, and they missed that only because his arms covered it. They reviled him while kicking.
Fear had begun in Alex at the beginning, a nervousness of identification mingled with excitement. But the excitement disappeared when the attendants rushed in. Even in Camarillo an attendant sometimes lost his temper and hit a violently objectionable patient. But what Alex watched now was four attendants methodically stomping a human being senseless. Alex was trembling as he stared through the glass. It was arbitrary and unjust, but fear outweighed his indignation.
The Chicano was brought into the office. He had to be driven to the infirmary for sutures, and Mr. Whitehorn was going with him. From the man’s expression it was obvious that he’d forgotten Alex. “Mr. Hunter,” he said to a short, older man with muscular wrists, “get this new punk a seat … and put that nigger on the cement block for eight hours. See how much he wants to keep swinging when it’s time to stop.” Whitehorn was rubbing his right hand. “Fuckin’ niggers have heads like granite.”
“Can’t take it down in the breadbasket though,” another said.
The attendants all had an excited levity following the incident, as if they felt both good and a bit ashamed. Their faces were flushed and their laughter was nervous.
Alex was given a seat on a bench near a corner. His name was inked on adhesive tape fastened to the bench. He was told to sit without talking when everyone else did so.
So now he sat, conscious of his heartbeat, wondering if his feelings showed to the many eyes that seemed to be studying him. He was afraid to meet any gaze because his moving glances told him that nearly everyone was older; some were even young men. Nor did he see any of the horrible distortions of the fenced yard, nor even the disarray of Camarillo’s deranged minds. In the coming weeks, he would learn that nearly all of these (except for three or four like himself, who were observation cases) had gotten into trouble with the law and had scored below 65 on I.Q. tests, which got them committed as feeble-minded. However, all functioned at least adequately in the world of institutions. But when Alex tried to explain something abstract, even something simple like “light years,” he failed to get through no matter how he tried. Some, however, had apparently just not tried to perform on the tests. It was a way to keep them out of society for long periods.
But these things were in the future, and now he was conscious of being younger and smaller. Though someone sat at his right, the person didn’t try to speak. The seat on his left was empty. Everyone was silent, and attendants walked quietly in a space behind the benches. If someone was caught talking during silent periods, they were knocked off the bench. Alex saw it happen before he was seated ten minutes.
An attendant banged a key on a door. “Yard and recreation,” he yelled. The room erupted in movement. About half of the men gathered around the door to the yard; others dragged two large tables and benches to the center of the room. Blankets were stretched over the tables, and there was a scurry for seats in the two poker games, one for higher stakes than the other. An attendant turned a radio in a wall cabinet to a rhythm and blues station, then locked the cabinet.
Alex sat watching. Nobody spoke to him. He could see down one of the two corridors. From the foot traffic in and out of a door he was certain it was the latrine. His bladder ached with fullness.
When Alex entered, several youths were lounging next to a barred window, smoking and talking. None spoke to him, but he could feel their eyes as he relieved himself. On the way out, as he reached for the door, someone called:
“Hey, you! New guy!”
Alex half turned.
“You were in Juvenile Hall last year, huh?”
Alex nodded.
“Shot a guy, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Kill him?”
“No.” Alex waited, but the questioner turned away, speaking to his friends. Alex couldn’t hear. Slightly embarrassed, conscious of his face warming up, he pushed out into the corridor, feeling simultaneously stupid and yet gratified. What he’d done in the darkness of the grocery store on the beach gave him some status in the topsy-turvy world of institutions and outlawry. He’d felt it way back in Juvenile Hall, but his pain and remorse and despair had overwhelmed any shred of gratification. Now it was so long ago that remorse was gone, and his spirits lifted mildly at the recognition.
Thus, looking inward, he stumbled over a weird contraption. He didn’t fall but almost lost his balance. Then he froze and stared at it in disbelief. A hundred-pound block of concrete was sewn into several layers of old blanket. A twelve-foot canvas harness stretched from it and was wrapped around the waist of the black who’d been fighting. His dark face was puffed and discolored. Thick wax had been put on the floor. He pulled the device up and down the corridor, turning the wax into a sheen. His face was expressionless as he looked at the younger boy. The dread and gloom that had lessened in the latrine now rushed back more intensely than ever. It was horror.
It’s torture, he thought while walking back to the dayroom, fighting tears of despair while wondering how such things could be.
The dayroom was noisy now with music on the radio and voices from the poker game, which had a crowd of spectators. He, too, stopped at the rear of the crowd, but just momentarily, his mind not on it, except to note the stakes (nickel ante, fifty-cent limit), and that two attendants were playing. Poker was apparently a big thing here. For the first time he had no desire to play. And as he went back to his place on the bench, he vowed also, for the first time in his life, to stay out of trouble.
Patients going by looked at the new arrival, but nobody said anything to him, which was fine with him. He hungered for friendship and acceptance, but he wanted nothing in this place except to be left alone—and to get away. Why had he been such a fool to go with Scabs?
At three-thirty in the afternoon, those in the exercise yard came inside. The poker game broke up and everyone went to their places. At a signal the noise became silence. Half a dozen patients swept the floor and then ran steaming, wrung-dry mops over it; then they had to push wooden polishers up and down to restore the shine. An attendant came along the benches with a clipboard, taking count by checking off each name.
For the next hour they sat in silence. Some whispered or made faces when no attendant was watching. One young attendant, a clea
n-cut young giant in his early twenties, tiptoed behind the benches. He came upon two whispering patients and smashed their heads together. It brought titters of laughter from most of the others, and the young attendant grinned. Alex didn’t laugh; into his fear came hatred.
At five o’clock they lined up in the corridor, double-file against the wall, and trudged into the mess hall. They passed the black still hauling the concrete block, his swollen face stoic.
An attendant supervised the mess-hall seating, filling each eight-man table, letting each start eating when the table was full. A cafeteria-style serving table wasn’t used. The food was already on stainless steel trays and already many minutes cold. If hot it would have been unpalatable even by institutional standards. Alex gagged, forcing down a few bites of something resembling stew, though the nearest thing to meat was grayish lumps of grease. Alex hadn’t eaten in a dozen hours and had an institution-strengthened palate, but his stomach threatened to throw this back up. He saw that others were managing to nibble down bits and pieces picked out. They all wolfed down the two slices of bread; it was the main thing they ate.
Hunger’s hollowness was still with Alex when he followed the others out. In coming weeks he would manage to eat a little more of the swill and crave much less as his stomach shriveled. The awful food was a small problem in the sea of torments.
As the patients crowded the hallway another fight suddenly erupted ahead. To Alex, it was as if the whole press of bodies became agitated. He could hear grunts, curses, and blows and see the movement, but all he really saw of the fight was two Chicanos being dragged away in choke-holds and arm-locks. The next day he saw them in leather restraints, the punishment for an unauthorized fight.
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