by Mike Walsh
“How old are you kid? Got any ID?”
Michael had only the social security card he got in Texas showing him as seventeen, not enough time having gone by to be older, so he said “No, but I’m eighteen.”
Someone told him there was a curfew for under eighteen but he had never paid attention to it. It was two in the morning and he was the only one on the street, including cars.
“Let’s see your draft card. You did register for the draft, right?”
Michael just looked at the cop. He didn’t look mean or menacing, just wanted to see his draft card. “I don’t have one. I don’t even know what that is.”
The cop looked back at the driver who nodded.
“OK, in the car. Let’s go.”
Michael got in the back of the police car and the door was slammed shut. He was comfortable in the car, having had dozens of rides in police cars back home when he was picked up for running away. The ride was short and they drove around the building that out front had a thick metal sign that said “Hollywood” and above it “Police Station.”
Michael was ushered into a back door and up to a cage. He was told to empty his pockets, take off his belt and pull out his shoelaces. He did nothing because he had nothing in his pockets except his social security card and no belt. His shoes were the loafers he had swiped in Salt Lake City. He was patted down and taken down the hall to a large open space. There were desks and cabinets all around and right in the middle was a large cage split in four sections. They put him in one of the cages. The other three were empty. There was nothing in the cell. No cot, seat or toilet. He sat on the floor with his knees up and put his head on his arms.
He woke up with a start, someone opened the cell door.
“Let’s go kiddo, the Feeb’s want to talk to you.” What’s a Feeb?
He was taken down another hall and down some stairs to a basement. The sun was streaming in some high windows and his stomach was growling, so Michael figured it was mid-morning or so. The guard put him in the tiniest room and sat him on a bench nailed to the wall. There were two chairs facing the bench and Michael thought that anyone sitting there would be touching his knees.
And they did. Two guys with flat-tops and drab suits, wide ties and hats squeezed in and looked him over. Michael decided this was a good time to say nothing and he didn’t. The two guys weren’t pissed, just bored with the questions they asked and no answers. They finally left and Michael was taken back to the holding cell. A tray of breakfast was on the floor and he ate it. A guard asked him if he wanted to use the bathroom and put cuffs on his ankles with a foot long chain holding them together. When they came back, all the cells were full of Mexicans, about ten of them. They looked like gang members and real mean. The guard took him to a desk and the cop there said “Paper him over to county,” and he was led off to the back door where he had come in originally.
He sat in the back of a van for what seemed like hours, and finally a cop holding a file got in the truck and drove off, Michael all alone in back, shackled.
Chapter 16 – L.A. County Jail
The sign said “Los Angeles County Jail.” It was hard to walk with the chains on his legs but he made it inside without falling down.
The driver handed his file, he assumed it was his file, to a cop behind a cage and said, “He’s all yours” and walked back out. Another guard came up to Michael, the guard in the cage said “Put him in number two tank” and made a note on the file.
He was shuffled to an old elevator and it went up one story and they got out. The guard took him by the arm and walked him around a corner to a long open cell with small cells within. The open cell in front of the small cells was the tank. The guard shouted “Everybody back.” A couple dozen men of all colors pushed back and away from the tank door. The guard opened the door with a key and told Michael to get inside and stand against the bars. He did, and after locking the door, the guard bent down and removed the shackles from Michael’s feet. That felt good.
Immediately, a Mexican boy came up to Michael with his hand out. The others drifted off. “I’m José, and you are?”
Michael stared hard at him.
This was the time to make it known you were not to be fucked with. All the thoughts of the reform school and all the stories he had read came to him. This brown-skinned kid, clear eyed and almost beautiful had to be testing him. Michael, although skinny, was six feet tall and could scrap with the best of them. He continued to stare down the kid José.
“I’m your worst fuckin’ nightmare, you don’t get out of my face, José.”
José looked shocked, tears welled up in his eyes and he turned and walked quickly away.
A tall, skinny Italian looking guy came up to Michael. “You don’t have to treat José like that, pal. He’s harmless if you stay friendly. He likes everyone. But he’s got a knife somewhere. You better mosey up to him, make him feel better. You only have to watch your stuff after dark. All these guys are sneaks. They’re all afraid of each other. No need to get tough. Now those are the guys to stay away from, the ones in the cells. We’re all just drunks or petty thieves or AWOL from Fort Ord, like me. But those guys, murderers, rapist and the like. Stay away from those bars. They’re bad news.”
Michael thanked the guy, Mario, and shared a butt with him. He told him he was stationed at Fort Ord, an army base in L.A. and got picked up by the cops after the last bus to the base had left. They make the rounds around town to the known hangouts of the soldiers and if you were smart, you would get your ass over to one to catch that last bus. It wasn’t that Mario wasn’t smart, just too drunk to find his way.
Michael looked around to get the lay of the land. The tank was about nine feet deep from the bars with the aisle on the outside, to the interior cells. Those cells were about eight feet wide and another nine feet or so deep. They had a cot on each side with a metal toilet and a sink in the middle at the back wall. There were five cells in the first tank with an arched opening to another, four altogether. In each of the four tanks, the middle cell was open with no cots, just the toilet and sink for the tank residents to use, and a big pile of mats and blankets. All the other cells were full with bad-looking guys Michael preferred to stay away from and not make eye contact with. He learned a long time ago, when in jail, don’t make eye contact with another inmate you don’t know. It’s like a challenge that could get you hurt.
• • •
Michael finally did make up with José, him all smiles again, jabbering away about who knew what. Metal food trays were brought around with a spoon to eat with. All needed to be turned in and accounted for.
You could go from one tank to another, but when Michael wandered to the third tank he was stopped by a big black guy that wanted to know where he thought he was going. No place. Back to the first tank and stay there. Mario had said the cells were for “sentenced” prisoners and the tank was for people like them, waiting for trial, a hearing or some other disposition.
• • •
When a bell rang and the lights blinked, everyone lined up to get a bedroll from the middle cell. Michael grabbed one and found a space to put his bedroll down, took off his shoes and went to sleep.
In the morning, after being awakened by a guard running his club across the bars, he saw his shoes were gone. He decided this was not for him. He went to the end of the tank, waited for the guard to come back and told him he was fifteen and maybe didn’t belong in here. The guard went to a wall phone and talked to someone. The he leaned against the wall and waited.
Pretty soon another guard came along with a set of shackles. He told Michael to turn around, back to the bars. Michael did and was shackled and removed from the cell after the guard called everyone back from the door. He was taken down in the elevator and put in a small holding room. In a few hours, a cop came in holding some papers. “Well, kid, we got a judge to transfer you. Lucky you weren’t hit on up there, we could have been in some deep shit. Let’s go, your new home is waiting.”
&n
bsp; Chapter 17 – Whittier
It was like a walled in school, right in the middle of the city. The two story buildings were against one wall taking up half the city block, and the other half was playground and outside activity areas. The walls had flowering vines crawling over the tops from the other side. Michael had not seen the other side. It was dark when he was brought in. So, here he was, among hundreds of snot-nosed kids, most younger than him. He was set up in a bunk on the second floor of a dormitory, the first floor being the day room, dining room, and some class rooms.
They held school every day for those that wanted to attend. There didn’t seem to be any strict rule about it. The people running the place and minding the kids seemed to have the attitude “You leave me alone, and I’ll leave you alone.” That was fine with Michael. There was plenty to read and because he was the biggest kid in the place, no one bothered him.
The most work he had to do was polish the dining room floor. He had half to do and others did the halls and other rooms. They were shiny hardwood and polished every day, so it didn’t take much. It was kind of fun, anyway, he thought. Tie these straps on top of some pads to your feet and whisk them sideways back and forth. The first set had a little wax in them and the next set was for polishing nice and shiny. There were other kids that swept the floor clean first. Michael did this every day and then was allowed to go outside. Sunny California. He saw it in the movies too times, and now here he was. At least a half block of it.
The days continued to drift by uneventfully, just a bunch of questions from some social worker types. It sounded like they were setting him up to go home. But then the trouble started.
A big colored boy came in one day and got the empty bunk next to Michael. He was kind of goofy looking with arms too long. He liked to throw things at night and giggled when someone hollered out in pain. Trouble was, the things he liked to throw were not his to throw. Like Michael’s and shoes and other stuff. Michael told him to knock that crap off or he’d bust him in his chops.
But the next night, he started throwing things again and pretty soon stuff started to come back. Before you knew it, there was a regular riot going on. Michael got caught up in it like everyone else and pretty soon stuff was going out broken windows, including the bed cots. The matron outside the swinging doors sitting up in her cage was screaming into the telephone but wasn’t about to leave her locked sanctuary. By the time the city cops arrived, there was seventy-two beds outside on the ground and no window left unbroken. None of the inmates were hurt, just soaking wet from a fire hose wash-down.
Michael was cuffed and dragged down to a police van along with three others. He overheard stuff like “ringleaders” and stuff like that. They spent that night in the Whittier city jail.
The next morning, he was questioned by a detective and he just clammed up. Pretty soon, a woman took him from the cell to an interview room, as noted on the door.
“Michael, you know you’re in big trouble.”
A statement that he felt required no answer. Hell, he wasn’t going to answer anyway. He shrugged.
“They want to send you to a Youth Authority camp. You know what that is?”
Another shrug.
“It’s a huge facility up north near the capital where they send the hardened criminals under twenty-one. They have murderers and rapist there. They’re going to send you there unless you stop them, you understand.”
A hard stare.
“All they want to know is how the riot started, who started it, why it happened. Everyone is saying you and a colored boy started it. Do you have a racial problem with this boy? C’mon, talk to me.”
Michael shook his head and started to tear up. He said nothing.
“OK, then. It’s back to county for you. They have a special place for hard cases like you.”
He slept through the night at the Whittier City jail and in the morning had a breakfast on a steel tray. Then the social worker was back.
“Well, Michael, you seem to have been a busy boy. LAPD wants you to take a ride with them. You know what this is all about?”
“No, Ma’am, I don’t know what you mean.”
She walked out abruptly saying, “Well, they’re your ride back to county anyway. The sheriffs usually do that but they have something else in store for you.”
Michael sat there in the cell, wondering what this was all about. Pretty soon, two cops in plain clothes came and unlocked the door.
“Hello, Michael, I’m Detective Moran. This here is my partner, Detective Weiss. We’re with the Vice Department, Victims Unit. That’s crimes against children. We want to talk to you about the creep that picked you up and molested you.”
Michael looked at them both, clean cut in suits, just a little rumpled, like they’d been up all night. He decided to keep his mouth shut, as usual. He had no idea what they were talking about. Who had molested him, and when?
They nodded their heads, together, deciding on something. Looked at each other, one saying, “Yeah, he’ll do.”
• • •
“Look, Michael,” the Moran cop said, “we’ll lay it on the line for you. We need your help, and if you help us, we’ll help you. That sound fair enough?”
Michael looked at them, both staring at him with eyebrows slightly up, hoping for the right answer.
“What do I have to do?” Biting his lips now, mind racing, not wanting to get caught up in something he couldn’t handle.
Moran again. “Alright, look, there’s this creep out there we’ve been after for years. A Puerto Rican dude, almost black. He’s a real slime bag and likes little kids. Boys to be specific. We need to take him down, but even with all the parent complaints, we still can’t get any of them to testify. And the word on the streets is the complaining parties are just the tip of the iceberg. Everyone’s afraid of him. He deals dope, slashes the late payers and who knows what else. You see where we’re at? You haven’t got any parents here and the social worker gave us the nod. There’ll be no trouble. Just acknowledge yes when we show you a building and some pictures. And we know he’ll cop a plea when he sees what we have and you in the courtroom. You won’t even have to testify. What do you say? You want to help us?”
They were in the cop’s car, a plain Ford, Michael in the back. He didn’t say he would help, said nothing, actually. But his look told them to give it a try. He remembered they didn’t say anything about helping him. What could they do, anyway. He did nothing wrong except lie a little. Can’t get the chair for that. He still didn’t know if it was the girl that gave him up, what she might have told the cops, if she called them. There was that statement he heard the cop that picked him up say. “That looks like him.” Or something like that.
The cop was driving like he knew where he was going. He pulled to the curb at an intersection, actually, a split in the road. The street went left and right, leaving a pie shaped building in the middle. It was an apartment building with stores on the bottom floor.
“This look familiar, kid?” The cop. Michael looked, didn’t know where they were.
“No sir.”
“Look kid, you’ve got to cooperate, you know? We got to nail this guy. He’s slippery as shit. We got to get a handle on him. Just say that’s the place. We’ll take care of the rest, OK? Study it good so you remember what it looked like. Remember the Chinese deli wrapped around the corner? There’s the dry cleaners on one side. You remember the bike tied out front to that pole, dont’cha?”
“Yeah, that’s the place.” Michael.
“Great, that’s great.” The cop. “Let’s get back, Weiss. We got work to do.”
Michael was taken to the downtown police station, a big ugly building that looked like it should be torn down. The Vice Squad was on the third floor, no elevator, and they went into a large room full of desks. Michael noted the green painted walls half way up, all scarred and chipped. He’d seen the same thing in Providence police stations. He was seated at the end of a desk and Moran sat at the desk.
> “OK, kid. Here’s how we’re going to help you. We need your right name and address and age so we can verify it. No more bullshit stories. Where you ran from, when and how long you been in town. Once we verify and we know we got a good witness, we’ll get a judge to foster you here, actually remand you here, and we’ll pull the prick in.”
He pulled over from the side of the desk a big book and opened it sliding it around so Michael could see the pictures. A number was under each picture, no names or anything else. Moran flipped a few pages until he was satisfied and said, “OK, pick him out. We’re not going to help.” He hollered over to another cop in plain clothes to come over and witness. Weiss was nowhere around. The other cop came over and gave Michael a little nod and stood next to Moran’s chair.