Hard City

by Clark Howard

  As winter dragged along, Richie began to think privately of something that demanded attention in his suffering mind.

  Escape.

  42

  Richie was walking out of the infirmary, one side of his mouth bulging with dental wadding, when he heard someone call, “Eh, Ri’ie!” Turning, he saw Philly hurrying toward him, grinning with delight. They had not seen each other since their last day in R and D.

  “Hey, Philly,” Richie said, bobbing his chin.

  “Wha’ de do you?” Philly asked, looking at Richie’s cheek.

  “Pulled a tooth,” Richie said, realizing that with the novocaine he was talking almost as thickly as Philly.

  The tooth he had lost was the fifth one from the middle on the bottom. It had begun hurting a week earlier and by the previous day had been giving Richie fits, the pain had become so excruciating. He had held out as long as he could, using icicles in his mouth to numb the pain for a while, but when that no longer worked, and despite the vow he had made to himself when he entered Charleytown, he eventually could stand it no longer and reported to sick call. Because the dentist did not start until ten, he had to wait two hours. Finally he was given a shot in the gum and the decayed tooth was extracted.

  “How you been, Philly?” Richie asked.

  “Ah’m doon otay,” Philly replied. “You ‘till wih Fweddie and Doey?”

  “Yeah, we’re all still in Polk Cottage.” Richie slung an arm around Philly’s shoulders. “You made some new friends, I bet, huh?” he asked hopefully.

  “Yah, ba nah like you guyd. Ah wid ah bas wih you guyd.”

  “You’re better off here,” Richie assured him, “working inside where it’s warm. Me and Freddie are outdoors all afternoon freezing our balls off.”

  Philly laughed raucously. “Fro’den balts! Dat funny, Ri’ie!”

  Richie laughed too, mostly at Philly’s amusement. “You wouldn’t think it was funny if it was your balls, Philly,” he told him.

  When Philly stopped laughing, he asked, “Dey gib you an’tang por pain?”

  “Two aspirin,” Richie said. “I’m supposed to take them when the stuff in my gum wears off.”

  “Dey wan’t do no good,” Philly said. “Way heah.” Richie waited on the cold porch, moving from one foot to the other to keep warm. In a moment Philly was back, slipping him a single white tablet smaller than an aspirin. “Dih id mor-peen,” he said. “Fits you aup good.”

  “Thanks, Philly.” They said goodbye, Richie promising to tell Freddie and Joey all about seeing their old friend, and promising to encourage them to pretend to be sick sometime so they could come over and see him too.

  Hurrying across the barren winter grounds of the institution, Richie got back to the cottage to find it deserted. His mouth already beginning to hurt, he paused at the drinking fountain and swallowed the pill Philly had given him. At his bunk, he took off his coat, made a pillow out of it, and lay down on the floor where he could not be seen if anyone came in. His anger over losing his tooth was increasing. Goddamned fucking bastards, he silently cursed the Charleytown staff. Rotten pricks, all of them. From the very first day in the place, he felt he had been degraded and demeaned. Beginning with the goddamned haircut down to the scalp, then the goddamned demerit system, being forced to try and remember a lot of shit about McKey’s fucking kid, getting the strap and the fire hose, and now having a tooth pulled because the bastards wouldn’t fix it. Well, fuck them all! He was now going to make definite plans to escape. Be goddamned if they were going to pull all his teeth. Tonight, Richie decided, he would mention the idea of escape to Freddie. So far, Richie had kept it to himself; now he was going to take action.

  As he lay there on the floor, Richie gradually became aware that his mouth did not hurt anymore and that he was beginning to feel rather pleasant, rather mellow, smooth inside. He tried to remember what Philly had called the pill he had slipped him: “feen” something, he thought. Whatever it was, sure as hell worked—

  A sudden thought exploded in his mind. Dope. Philly had given him some kind of dope! That had to be what it was; it was making him feel too good to be anything else. At once he began to worry. Could he become hooked? On one pill? No, that wasn’t possible; with his mother it had always been a gradual buildup measured by his trips to Lake Street for her. One pill couldn’t do it, he was certain.

  But one pill sure as hell was making him feel good. For the first time he had some inkling of why his mother might have used dope. Previous explanations he had heard, from Vernie, Stan, and others, had always been a little cryptic, involving terms like “getting high” and “feeling no pain.” He had known it made its user feel good in a way like masturbation, he presumed, but he had no idea how good. That one little pill from Philly had him floating in a fine, soft euphoria.

  So, Chloe, he thought, this is what it was all about.

  Grace Menefee came to visit him in the spring. Sitting at a visitors’ table when he walked in, her mouth dropped open at the sight of him.

  “Richie, my God!” she exclaimed when he sat down. “Look how you’ve grown! You must be as tall as I am! And you’ve gained so much weight! What in the world do they feed you down here?”

  “Different stuff,” he told her with a shrug. “Lot of the guys call it slop, but I think it’s kinda good, most of it.”

  “Well, how are you?” she gushed, patting his hand.

  “Okay, I guess.” She had not changed much, he thought, her hair still looking as if she had been interrupted in the middle of combing it.

  As if reading his thoughts about hair, she said, “I see I don’t have to push your hair back off your forehead anymore,” referring to his Charleytown crew cut.

  “Yeah. We should’ve thought of this a long time ago.”

  Still shaking her head in wonder at the size of him and the way he looked, Grace Menefee was ebullient. “I’m so pleased that you’ve settled in and seem to be doing so well, Richie. I’ll have to admit, I was worried about you after you took that John Garfield position and refused to tell the juvenile court where you’d been living all that time. But you’ve really come through with flying colors!”

  Inside Richie, Grace Menefee’s joy was tying a knot in his stomach. Why in hell did she have to pick now to come see him, when he and Freddie were making their final plans to escape? He was just going to be another disappointment to her now. Why didn’t she just forget about him and leave him alone? He didn’t like having to worry about upsetting her and hurting her feelings.

  “Are you still reading as much as you used to?” she asked eagerly, smiling.

  “Not as much,” he admitted. “The library here’s not all that hot.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “But I get paperbacks from one of the staff,” he amended. “Right now I’m reading Kings Row by Henry Bellamann. Have you read that?”

  “Uh, no, I haven’t,” Grace Menefee replied. “I’m afraid I haven’t had as much time to read as I’d like to. Our office has really been swamped.” Changing the subject, she tapped his arm with her fingers and said, “I’ve got a bone to pick with you, young man. Why didn’t you tell me you’d been born in that little town in Tennessee? The name of the town is Lamont, incidentally.”

  “I guess I forgot. I even forgot the name of the town. All these years I’ve been saying I was born in Chicago. I feel like I was born in Chicago.”

  “Nope,” Grace Menefee said, shaking her head. “Lamont, Tennessee. I found it listed on the very first school enrollment form your mother filled out for you eight years ago, when you were six.” Smiling again, she sat back and added, “We’re in touch with the Tennessee state welfare people trying to locate your grandmother. So there’s a possibility you might be out of here soon, Richie.”

  Sooner than you think, he had the urge to say, but did not.

  “That’s swell,” he told the caseworker. She had still been trying to help him, all the time he had been in Charleytown and now he was
going to let her down again. Goddamn! Why did things never work out for him? If he stayed where he was and let her get him out her way, then he would be letting down Freddie, his best friend, who had been helping plan their escape for nearly two months. Freddie wanted out of Charleytown as badly as Richie did. Tougher than most other kids in Polk Cottage, Freddie was able to take punishment better, and it was obviously galling McKey; he gave Freddie demerits at the least excuse, bringing him up for punishment as frequently as he could. Richie had to go through with his plans with Freddie.

  He just hated like hell to make Grace Menefee suffer for it.

  Richie was convinced he had found the ideal way to escape from Charleytown: on the transfer bus that brought new kids down every Monday.

  “It’s perfect,” he said the first time he confided his plan to Freddie. “The bus always gets here between twelve and one, when nearly everybody’s at lunch except the R-and-D people. While the escort hack takes the new fish inside to get their I.D.s checked and turn ’em over, the driver pulls the bus around to the side so it won’t block traffic at the gate. I been skipping lunch for the last six Mondays and hiding behind the trash cans to watch him. He always does the same thing while he’s waiting for the escort hack: walks around to the front of R and D and sits in the office to have a smoke. He leaves the bus door open, and the escort hack has already hooked the cage door open for the new fish to get off. All’s we gotta do is sneak aboard and hide behind a couple seats in the rear. Then we ride back to Chicago on the return trip. Not only do we get out of this fucking place, but we get back to the city before they even realize we’re gone. The reason most runaways get caught is that they never make it out of the St. Charles area. That won’t happen to us; we’ll be long gone.”

  “Yeah, but what about when we get back to Chi?” Freddie asked. “The hack’ll prob’ly lock the cage door and we’ll be trapped on the fucking bus.”

  Richie smiled. “We’ll get Joey to swipe us a hacksaw blade or a file from the plumbing tools in the laundry. Wherever they park the bus, we wait until dark and cut a hole in the grille.”

  “Joey goin’ too?”

  “If he wants to,” Richie shrugged, “but I don’t think he will. His old man’s got a bad heart an’ he’s promised his mother not to get in no more trouble. But he’ll get us something to get out of the bus with. Joey won’t let us down.” Richie paused for a moment, studying Freddie Walsh closely, hoping he had not misjudged his friend, hoping that Freddie, who had taken an enormous amount of punishment from McKey over the past few months, had not lost his heart, his nerve. If he had, Richie was determined to do it alone. “You with me?” he finally asked.

  Freddie did not let him down. “I’m in,” he answered with a smile.

  From that point on they worked on the plan together. Richie let Freddie hide and watch the bus driver for several Mondays, just to confirm that the routine did not vary. In the meantime, Richie made contact with one of the R-and-D orderlies who took care of disposing of the clothes of new transfers. Everything that was put into the wire baskets on arrival, with the exception of watches, rings, and religious medals, was thrown into the main furnace and burned. Talking to the orderly, Richie realized that he would never see his treasured Buck Jones billfold again. And realized too that it had gone the same way Buck himself had, or nearly so. But Richie had no time to feel badly about it; he had to tend to the serious business of escape.

  The R-and-D orderly agreed, for some morphine, to steal the best clothes he could find that would fit Richie and Freddie, and at a specified time to hide them in the trash barrels next to the building. That deal made, Richie then sneaked over to the infirmary to see Philly again.

  “I need six of those pills like the one you gave me when I had the tooth pulled,” he said.

  Philly was reluctant. “Dos mor-peen ain’ no good to take doo many, Ri’ie. You can ge’ ‘ooked.”

  When Richie explained what he wanted them for, Philly still hesitated. He did not want to be responsible for anyone, even a kid he did not know, getting hooked. Richie had to do some fast reasoning. “There’s no way the guy’ll get hooked, Philly. He’ll have a few highs and that’ll be that. Sure, he might have a bad time for a couple days when the pills run out, but it’ll prob’ly be worth it to him.” Richie put on a grieved expression. “You’re not gonna let Freddie and me down, are you, Philly?”

  Philly gave him the morphine tablets.

  Richie and Freddie were set to go.

  On Sunday night before the planned escape on Monday, McKey returned to the cottage after supper with an unexpected announcement: he was going to conduct the monthly fire hose punishment a week early, because the following Sunday night his son Gordie was being inducted as a Young Deacon in their church. When the news spread through the dormitory, Richie and Freddie looked at each other in surprise. Both of them were due for fire hose punishment; they had scheduled their escape to avoid it.

  “Son of a bitch,” Richie said in disgust. “Wouldn’t you know it? Jesus, I hate his goddamned kid.”

  McKey came in and called out the names of those to receive the punishment. Like the others, Richie and Freddie started stripping. Walking over to them, McKey asked, “You going to be the last one to beg again tonight, Walsh?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. McKey, sir,” Freddie answered. He always looked McKey straight in the eyes, and McKey hated it; the house father was more comfortable when kids cowered before him.

  “I think you’ll beg early tonight, Walsh,” McKey said almost clinically. He smiled his cold, humorless smile and walked away.

  “Don’t let him sucker you,” Richie said as they finished stripping. “Let’s just get it over with and get back up here. We’ll beg right away.”

  “Not me,” Freddie told him. “I ain’t gonna let the lousy son of a bitch bluff me. I’m coming up last, just like I always do.”

  “Fuck him, Freddie. That’s just what the cocksucker wants.”

  “That’s what he’s gonna get, too,” Freddie said grimly. “I don’t back down from no motherfucker like that.”

  They marched into the basement with four other boys whose demerit totals were high for the month, and lined up in front of but not touching the wall. McKey dragged the hose down, got a good grip on the big brass nozzle, and yelled up to his night orderly, “Let her go!” The boys tensed fearfully as they watched the flattened hose inflate with the sudden surge of water, and the shiny nozzle bucked in the house father’s hands as the blast was released.

  The water hit like a mule’s kick, knocking the naked boys down as if they were figures in a shooting gallery. As soon as they were all down, curling their bodies into the smallest possible target, McKey turned the spray down, washing them back, rolling them over, causing them to begin their crying and pleading for relief.

  Richie and Freddie, on their knees, sitting back on their heels, bent as far forward as possible, kept away from the wall if they could. They knew from experience that bracing against the wall with one part of their body and taking the force of the hose with another part, was like being crushed in a vise. Better to let your body go as limp as possible and keep it moving so that the surging squall of water could not build up its impact in one place. Raised shoulder protecting one ear, arm curved around their faces, hand over the other ear, opposite hand covering their testicles, the two best friends gasped for breath and took the jolt from the hose as McKey slowly released all the other boys to run back upstairs.

  With only the two of them remaining, McKey directed the water anyplace that seemed vulnerable to him: heads, necks, shoulders, backs, buttocks—whatever he could hit.

  “Hang on, boys!” he taunted gleefully. “You’re tough, you can do it!”

  Richie and Freddie kept turning and twisting, sliding and slipping, dancing and dashing away from the water, as McKey shifted the nozzle to keep up with them, catching one, then the other, knocking them back down in turn. Finally Richie was hit in the lower back, just above the
hipbone, and felt a bolt of pain all the way up to his eyes. “Okay! Please!” he begged. “Lemme—out—please!”

  “Upstairs!” McKey ordered.

  Staggering, feeling his way along the wall, Richie saw the house father smile the same tight, mean little smile he had shown upstairs before the punishment began. “Okay, Walsh!” McKey yelled. “Let’s see how long you can take it!” With the rod of water, he pinned Freddie Walsh’s curled-up form to the line where the wall met the floor.

  Half crawling up the stairs, a crying Richie looked back and saw through his tears that Freddie was not dodging the water any longer, not moving and maneuvering to make it hard on McKey. Grimacing, wiping his eyes, Richie realized that Freddie was not moving at all. Starting back down the stairs, he shouted, “Cut it out! Let him up!”

  McKey kept the hose blast on Freddie, holding it steadily, low on the crouched boy’s back.

  “Cut it out!” Richie yelled again. “Please, Mr. McKey, let him up! Please, sir!”

  Finally Mr. McKey also realized that Freddie had stopped moving, because he yelled up to the night orderly, “Turn it off!” As the water ceased with a long, slow dribble, McKey looked angrily at Richie and ordered, “Get upstairs! Now!” Disobeying, Richie started for Freddie. McKey grabbed his arm and pushed him to the night orderly, who was coming down the stairs. “Take him to his bunk! Lock down the dorm!”

  Struggling against the strong grip of the orderly, naked, dripping wet, angry, and frightened, Richie was dragged out of the basement.

  Richie did not run away the following day. With Joey and the other boys in Polk Cottage, he had watched out the window on Sunday night and seen Freddie Walsh taken out and carried toward the infirmary on a stretcher. After seeing that, Richie could not go ahead with his escape plan without first finding out how Freddie was.

  After supper on Monday, McKey came into the dorm and called the boys to order. “I’m sure some of you,” he said, avoiding Richie’s stare, “are wondering what happened to Walsh. Well, I want you to know he’s all right. He just passed out, that’s all. I guess,” McKey forced a smile, “he wasn’t as tough as he thought he was.” There was a smattering of nervous laughter. “Anyhow, he’s going to be in the infirmary for a couple of days, then I’m having him transferred to another cottage. I don’t like trouble-makers in Polk Cottage,” he glanced at Richie now. “The rest of you straighten up and fly right, and maybe we can do away with fire hose punishment altogether. I don’t like it any better than you do, you know. All right, that’s all.”