Beautiful Children

by Charles Bock

  Of the estimated million teenagers who left home each year, as many as two hundred thousand did not turn around and return home, but kept on running, their wounds too deep, their worlds simply too fucked up to inhabit any longer. At least 60 percent of these cases, Lorraine learned, involved sexual abuse, assault, and other unholy acts that by all rights should have been run away from. Which was terrifying. The day before Newell had disappeared, if you had suggested that Newell had been abused, the idea would have been too ridiculous to consider. But Lorraine no longer knew what to think, what to believe.

  She had to know more. Whether it was watching as many movie adaptations of Tom Sawyer as she could get her hands on, listening to an audio book of On the Road while driving, or spending hours at a time behind the locked door of her bedroom, running through the missing person's webpages of different sheriff 's departments, Lorraine searched for answers, for explanations. For anything she could grasp on to.

  With regards to the high rate of abuse, experts uniformly agreed: flight from home most often was an act of self-preservation. A declaration of life. This was the bottom line, a reality that also extended to cases that did not necessarily involve abuse, where assignments of blame were not so cut and dried, flawed situations that the teenager's decisions had both contributed to and exacerbated; cases where revenge, anger, shame, fear, parents, teachers, lovers, crushes, and friends all gave way to what, in the end, had to be seen as a high-stakes game of self-discovery.

  Thus, read Lorraine, there was no quote unquote point to running away. Or, if there was a point, then that point was, there was no point; flight from home was the inevitable choice, simply because a young man or woman could not run away from his or her own body.

  Denial is the natural instinct, Lorraine read, turning the page in some stupid manual. No parent or guardian can be faulted for their disbelief. However, be advised that denial solves nothing. Acceptance of larger problems is the first and most necessary step in moving forward.

  And then there were the first-person accounts. The tales from the front.

  Indeed, Lorraine had a collection of them by now, duplicates that she'd taken home from the center. Inspirational letters, mostly, their happy endings providing Lorraine with strength, giving her tangible proof that her time was being well spent, her hope well placed. But there were others, too. A few of them. Undated. Unsigned. This one, Lorraine found amid the stacks: a loose sheet that had been placed inside a binder and then forgotten. She'd flattened it out, but its creases remained prominent, dividing the paper into sections reminiscent of a tic-tac-toe board.

  She envisioned the page folded up inside the back pocket of a pair of grimy jeans, carried around for so long that its corrugations had become part of its structure. She stared at the frazzled stick letters, wild scratches that progressively had more trouble staying grounded within the notebook's light blue guidelines. She started reading and the words slapped her across the face, leaving her shocked, half-numb, and frightened, as if she suddenly had been granted access to the secret correspondence of the wartime enemy.

  Still, she could not help but read. She could not help but add the document to her collection.

  Dear Hot line fucks,

  Until I trusted you and your treachorous hotline I was doing aces. I had me a job working a piercing gun in this tent on Venice Beach, and even arranged to move in with this rasta chick who works at the next tent braiding hair with beads and sea shells. The history with my dad is still there but I wanted him to know that after all the hell I been through, I'm doing okay and there's some light. Since calls to the house still get tracked I used the hotline. It was good too, until your helping hand cownseler checks on dad's name. Turns out pop left a message. Maybe it makes me a pussy that after hearing about my brother I wanted to go home, but I'll be that kind of pussy any day, and anyone who has a problem with it is going to get their ass handed to them. So the next thing I know, I am talking to the phone cownseler about that Greyhound thing. The operater keeps me on the line while he verifys my runway status with the police. Then he tells me he has to make sure I am going to go home to my legal gardean, it's the rules. I was real nervous but I held on and after a while there is a clicking sound. I have to admit it kind of got me to hear the old man's voice, and I could tell he was releived to here from me too. We arranged everything and I got off the phone. The rule is, I have to be at the bus station a hour early to get my ticket, so Mase and me hauled ass to his van. I gathered up my shit but was getting kind of nervous because nine months is a long time. It took a while to get to the station cuz the traffic was a big pile of ass. It is total BULLSHIT that the driver does not want to let me on—I wasn't doing nothing, and even showed him my ticket too. But that FUCKER radios and gets the COPS involved. I kepped screaming how I was trying to go home to my dad but they cuffed me anyways. Now I am in the Tonapah Juvenille Youth Detention Agency. Days we wear orange jumpsuits and go out to the middle of the desert and pickaxe rocks. They got this bigass chain around our legs and it is hot as shit. There aint no shade and we only get two water breaks, and this huge nigger keeps blowing kisses at me. I hate you do gooder bleeding heart phone bastards.You ruined my miserable fucking life.

  5.3

  People want to talk. They want to give you the combination to their hearts. That's where your smart motherfucker gets the advantage. Like with Jabba. The fat bastard's delivered his defense argument, what, a hundred times? Ponyboy listened to every one. The more familiar Pony-boy became with Jabba's main points, the more accustomed he became to Jabba's digressions, the more that number leapt out at him. Jabba would say one hundred and fifty-eight, and it was like one of them little triangle things from the marching band sounded. A hundred and fifty-eight concurrent state and federal charges, DING. Ponyboy got to thinking that the feds were firing a lot of ammunition. He began to recognize the prohibitive fear that oozed through Jabba's bravado. Your smart mother-fucker, that's what he waits for. What he lives for.

  July's rolling around, mad patriot fever's everywhere, flags on lawns and in store windows, all the little civic groups got their homogay little fireworks stands outside the shopping centers. Ponyboy's in the office, stacking videotapes. The red pile. The blue pile. All the colors got their own piles. Jabba's busy with his phone calls, and Ponyboy gets to wondering: what's up with all the different colors? Ponyboy shoved his finger up his schnozz and made himself look especially bright. “Yo, Jabba. We should mix the red tapes with the blue ones. Get a little flag working. It'd be patriotic.”

  Jabba covered the mouthpiece with his paw. “Don't fuck with my inventory.”

  Well, now you know, when the fat bastard wasn't looking, Ponyboy had to pick up a red videotape. Check out the little peel-off label, the ink-jet printing:

  AMATEUR FIRST TIME DEBUTANTES #25.

  NOTICE: THE ENCLOSED CASSETTE IS RED. IF IT IS NOT RED, IT IS AN ILLEGAL, INFERIOR COPY. $500.00 REWARD FOR ARREST AND CONVICTION OF ANY COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT. All models appearing in the visual depiction of actual sexual conduct displayed on this box or in this video are over 18 years. All records comply with government-mandated record keeping and labeling requirements and are kept in the office of the manufacturer/ distributor at the following location:

  A bunch of legal mumbo jumbo, right? Nothing to think twice about. Not unless you've been hauling them little delivery packages for like eight months. You been hauling them delivery packages, though, it's possible you've noticed a few things. For instance, it's possible you've watched Kunjib tear open the brown paper on the packages you deliver. Like eight million times you've observed Kunjib counting out ten cardboard videotape boxes—each one glossy, with girls positioned all around. You've also watched Kunjib open them cardboard boxes and take out what Stevie Wonder could see were not colored videotapes, but black ones. Always they were black.

  And now it's like in them late-show movies, your detective with the trench coat and the brim hat finds his ass in the middle of something that doe
sn't look kosher. He has to stay cool, right? Camera shows Sam Spade all stone-faced. He's thinking, only he can't rub his jaw. If he rubs his jaw, the dragon lady knows something's up, she's gonna double-cross him. She and the little major are gonna betray Sam Spade. Gonna kill his little brother and go to the smoky airport and fly that propeller plane straight out of Chinatown. And where's Sam Spade then? Bent over the piano, is where. Taking it up the rear from a Bojangles. Sam taking it from the motherfucking spade.

  Everyone's ready to fuck everyone, was Ponyboy's gist. So if you discover a piece of information, a smart motherfucker zips his lip. No point in Jabba knowing you saw the difference in the videotape colors.

  ’Cause there'd been a time when this motherfucker hadn't been so smart. A time when Ponyboy'd first started working for Jabba. The fat man had put him on strongbox fetching detail, and naturally, Ponyboy'd jimmied open one of those bad boys. Jabba'd seen the lock all busted open, resealed with Krazy Glue. Jabba had played it cool, though, sucking on one of them cigars he loved so much. Out of nowhere, he'd lifted the strongbox. Said Ponyboy wouldn't be human if he hadn't taken his shot. Then he'd removed a big-ass hunting knife from the desk.

  “You got two choices,” Jabba had told him, fingering that blade, its edges so jagged the elephants screamed when you castrated them.

  “Blood on this knife is behind curtain number one,” Jabba'd said.

  The fat bastard had pushed himself up from the chair. Unzipped his slacks.

  “Curtain two, there's gonna be some shit on this dick.”

  Ponyboy'd stared at Jabba and that fat bastard had smiled this twisted-ass smile, and his eyes had been black and lusterless, and right there Ponyboy'd known that Jabba had seen straight and deep into his soul—everything that Ponyboy tried so hard to forget about late at night, the memories that sometimes still hit Ponyboy in the middle of the day, sensations that were activated by the angle of sunlight hitting a car window. Jabba saw Ponyboy's life on the streets and what Ponyboy had done to stay alive—all them old men in their long cars idling slowly on the corners, that moment when them jailhouse bastards came to the lockup and gave him the note that the most beautiful little brother that ever walked this earth was fucking dead in his sleep in a hospital bed, his big brother wouldn't even get a chance to see him, didn't even get a chance to say goodbye.

  In the office out by the airport, Jabba had stared at Ponyboy and Ponyboy had known this motherfucker had his number, and for the first time in fuck knows how long he'd felt fear, true and immaculate.

  So a lot was at stake now, even if Ponyboy couldn't let anybody know.

  The next day, he chilled at the counter of the video store. Taking out one of the sparklers that he'd strong-armed from a troupe of Cub Scouts, Ponyboy dug for ear wax, whistled himself a happy little tune, and watched Kunjib take out a notebook with a professional wrestler on its cover. Kunjib marked the ledger with inventory numbers for each box, and moseyed over to the back shelves. When he got to the rows of televisions and video machines, Kunjib then loaded each delivered cassette into a different videotape machine. Cracking open a set of blank videotapes from Price Club, he began loading them into the machines too.

  A suit was approaching the counter with one of the cardboard box covers, and Ponyboy smiled and entertained thoughts of making a necklace from the guy's teeth. Then he got out of the dude's way, watching the sale. Just like Ponyboy guessed, Kunjib came back from the inventory closet, bringing the suit what Stevie Wonder could see was one of them black Price Club videotapes.

  Ponyboy leaned over for a peek at its little dot matrix printer label.

  1st Tyme AMATeur debuatants.

  NOTICE: THIS VIDEO MAY INSITE BOUTS OF FRENZIED MASTURBATION. The producer assumes no liability for low sperm count, chafeing, or an abnormally muscular right arm. VIEW AT YOUR OWN RISK

  Peace out, Ponyboy told Kunjib. Keep on mopping, he shouted to Asaaf.

  The sun beat down on Ponyboy like he was its favorite thing in all creation, and he saddled back up onto the bike and cruised down Tropicana Avenue. Ponyboy lifted his hands from his handlebars and navigated with his knees. He held a bottle rocket close to his body, lit the fuse, and shot the rocket into the open partition of a nearby fireworks stand. Someone yelled Fire in the hole and, immediately, a whole bunch of 4-H'ers came running out then and the place exploded.

  Ponyboy's mind churned faster than his legs, and he joyously trekked toward his next drop-off. He had all kinds of time for ruminating now. The way he figured it, Jabba had a hundred and fifty-eight concurrent jail sentences breathing down his fat neck, but still was shrewd enough to double-dip, ordering a small number of colored videotapes from his bosses, then selling black duplicates to all the Asaafs and Kunjibs out there. Dude's that smart, wouldn't be anything to do away with a curious little shit like Ponyboy. Nothing but a chicken wing on a yo-yo string.

  Ponyboy was riding like a motherfucker now, his legs pumping themselves to butter. He's thinking how every porn store he delivers to is in a fucked-up neighborhood—low-ass rents, a bunch of Asaafs for employees, always looking over their shoulders to see if immigration or whoever is on their tail. Ponyboy, he's Sam Spade meets Oliver Goddamn Stoner, connecting dots left and right. And them Price Club videotapes got to cost lots less than if you bought the real movies from Jabba, correct? Makes sense for the Asaafs to order less videos from Jabba than they needed, pay Jabba enough so that he's satisfied, and make their real money from the bootlegs they print behind the front counter. Jabba don't notice because he's too busy pulling the same duplication scam with whoever he's working for, who's probably screwing over someone else. Bottom line, everyone's filling their own pocket. So long as one of them glossy cardboard boxes is on the shelf, the suit picking through them, he doesn't give a shit. Only thing the suit cares about is, the chick on the box cover bears some resemblance to his wife from back when they started dating, that plus she takes it in her ear.

  A beautiful scam. Just beautiful.

  Two days later, Ponyboy cut side deals with Asaaf and Kunjib and Mujibar and all the other glottal clusterfucks on his route. In exchange for a small fee, he agreed to haul videotapes in bulk over from the Price Club. But goodness gracious, wasn't it a coincidence: each porn store just happened to order one extra pack of clearance-price generic low-end videotapes?

  Now he was rolling. The Chink tattoo artist was more than agreeable, for a small cut, to peddle videos from his cubicle. Where all the stores charged thirty, Pony and the Chink would charge fifteen. The Chink didn't even need that much convincing to volunteer his videotape machine.

  The same afternoon, he gets back to Cheri's place. She's recovering from her shift, wrapped in silk sheets, snoring like a twin cam engine. Ponyboy hooked up the Chink's videotape machine to hers. Cheri's VCR was programmed to tape the morning show with the rich white bitch who made quilts so your home looked all homey. It was also programmed for the one with that black whore who got all meaningful and sensitive-looking while she explained why every trouble in a relationship was the man's fault. Well, Cheri'd have to live without her shows for a day. She was a big girl; she'd be fine.

  Cheri's living room carpet was plush and white, so snowlike in appearance that Ponyboy fought the urge to whip out his dick and write his name on it. He disengaged his ammo belt of interlocked backpacks, unlinking their straps from across his chest. The packs landed with a thud and dust went everywhere and Ponyboy dumped out the contents of the nearest sack. A whole stash of them different-colored videotapes from Jabba's office fell out and now Ponyboy dumped another bag, this one full of generic black videotapes. Walking around in a circle, Ponyboy checked to make sure Cheri's bedroom door was shut, then he cranked speed metal on her stereo and swallowed fistfuls of cheese crackers. Pony-boy plopped down with his back against the bottom of the couch Cheri had dragged his ass to the furniture store to see. He banged his head to the beat and hit play on one VCR. He found the remote control for the second machine, then
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