Little Boy Blue (39 page)
Authors: Edward Bunker
Dusk became darkness as the train entered the
city of Los Angeles. Union Station was minutes away. Now the ramshackle houses
with sagging fences were jammed close. In the night only their lights, not
their meanness, could be seen. A happy excitement was in the boy as the train
slowed. He was among the first to enter the domed vault of the station, the
most beautiful in America, built less than a decade before passenger trains
became obsolete.
This evening the station was nearly deserted
in the area where he disembarked. The big blond woman and the husky man almost
had to be his father’s sister and her husband. Anxiety made his stomach
queasy, but he moved toward them, at first slowly, and then when the woman
waved, he picked up speed.
“Alex?” she asked when he was
close.
“I’m… uh… he…
him?”
The woman laughed, releasing some tension of
her own. Her eyes, however, studied the nephew without laughter, sizing him up.
“Well, glad to meet you,” the man
said. “I’m Ray.” The barest trace of a Scandinavian accent
was discernible. His hand was calloused and his grip firm. “We’d
better get the car,” he said. “We’re in a no parking, and I
wouldn’t want to get towed away.”
They walked silently through the huge train
depot. Ava Hammond Olsen indicated the package under Alex’s arm.
“Is that all you’ve got?”
“All my worldly
goods.
Grown-up ex-cons do
better.”
She turned her face away quickly, affected by
the sentence. “Let’s hope that’s all behind you now,”
she said reasonably. Everyone knew the message and what had caused it.
“Are you hungry?” Ray asked,
filling the vacuum.
“I can’t really tell with all the
butterflies in my stomach.”
“We’ll go home,” Ava said.
“Eat there if we’re hungry.”
The car was a prewar Plymouth sedan, well
cared for. When Ray unlocked it, Alex got in the back seat, feeling the
upholstery and looking at the symmetry of the dashboard’s dials. He
wondered if they would lie about his age so he could get a driver’s
license. He’d be fifteen in a couple of months, and even if that was
technically too young, certainly Ava and Ray would see he was older than his
years—see how urgent a car was, and he’d pay for it from working in
the cafe. He wanted forty dollars a week, one dollar an hour, after
they’d deducted for room and board. He’d save ten a week for
clothes and another ten for the car. It wasn’t too much to ask.
In Union Station he’d had no chance to
really study the couple, his aunt and her husband. Now they were silent, dark
silhouettes lighted momentarily by splashes of street lamps. Did they like him,
or were they just doing “the right thing”? Maybe they wanted the
Aid to Dependent Children money the state would pay them for his care. That
wasn’t likely; she’d indicated he had a place to go before she knew
the state provided money for him.
The Olsen residence was a rear bungalow on a
long, narrow lot. Instead of coming in the driveway past the side of the front
house,
Ray turned down a rutted alley behind the
property. He parked next to the back door.
As Ray turned the key in the door, Ava said,
“We’ve only got one bedroom, but we fixed up the porch.” It
was where they were stepping, the foot of the bed directly to the right.
It was identical with the surplus army cot he’d been sleeping on. But he
hadn’t had a dresser, even a small, old dresser, with a mirror. If it was
small, it was larger than some places he’d been. The window had no bars;
it was big and had a screen outside the glass. He could let in the night and
keep out the insects. The way it was arranged he had some privacy. Someone
going from the kitchen door out the back door would pass by the foot of his
bed. It was more privacy than he was used to.
“We thought about a larger
place,” Ray said, “but”—he shook his
head—“but there’s a terrible housing shortage since the war
started. Now that it’s over, they should start building.”
“We even considered buying a
two-bedroom a couple of blocks from the beach, but they wanted eight thousand.
It’s better to wait until new construction brings prices down.”
While they passed through the kitchen to the
tiny living room, Ray asked, “What would you like to eat?”
Alex shrugged.
“How’s a bacon and tomato
sandwich sound?”
“Great.”
“I’d like one, too,” Ava
said. Then to Alex, “Ray does our cooking, you know. We don’t keep
much here… what with the cafe just across the way.”
Ray had opened the front door and picked up a
folded newspaper. The bloated headline read:
bugsy siegel slain
.
Ray obviously wanted to read the story, but he had to
leave to make the sandwiches, so he gave it a cursory scrutiny,
commenting, “They all get caught… one way or another,” and he
left for the cafe.
Alex picked up the newspaper. A photo showed
the gangster’s body twisted in death, the blood black in the picture,
covering the upper part. The room was plush, and Alex noticed the hundred- dollar
shoes Bugsy wore. “It paid for a while,” the boy muttered.
“What?” his aunt asked. She was
putting her coat on a hanger.
“Nothing.”
He dropped the newspaper, planning to read it later.
In Preston the boys talked about the famous criminals—Dillinger, Capone,
Luciano. Bugsy Siegel had always interested Alex. Someone, maybe Big Zeke, had
told a story that Alex remembered. Bugsy had been in Sing-Sing on Death Row,
two weeks from meeting the electric chair for gangland killings. It was
part of “Murder Incorporated,” a press name. Anyway, Governor Dewey
had gone to see Bugsy, offering him a commutation if he’d turn
state’s evidence and cooperate. Bugsy replied, “I’ve
been icing stool pigeons all my life. I ain’t changin’ now.”
Dewey went away red-faced. Before the execution (Lepke and others burned), an
appeals court reversed Bugsy’s conviction. The state was unable to
convict him in a retrial. Alex had believed the story, and for him it had as
much courage as Nathan Hale’s famous line when facing the hangman. More,
in fact: Bugsy had been offered a reprieve.
The story was untrue, but Alex didn’t
know that yet.
Ava returned from the bedroom closet. They
sat down, he on a stuffed chair, she on the sofa, and there was an empty moment
of the kind that must be filled.
“Tomorrow morning you’ll go sign
up for school. It’s four blocks right up the street.” She gestured to
indicate which direction.
School! He’d refused to think about it
before, though he knew it was demanded by law. He loved learning but had always
loathed attending school. And it had been so long since he’d gone.
Reformatory classrooms weren’t the same thing. “Tomorrow’s
Friday, Aunt Ava. Can’t I wait until Monday?”
“Yes, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.
It might be good for you to have a few leisurely days right now.”
“Another thing.
I want to go part-time… with a work
permit… and work for you and Ray in the cafe.” The last words were
softer and less vigorous, for the wrinkles had perceptibly deepened on her
forehead, and her mouth wasn’t responding favorably either.
“We’ll talk about it later,” he finished, but his stomach was
knotted with worry.
Ray had the sandwiches and small bags of
potato chips in a sack.
“I’ll put them on dishes,”
Aunt Ava said, taking the sack and disappearing into the kichen.
“Alex… milk or coffee?”
“Milk, please.”
Ray eased the slight tension by making a
face—distended cheeks and rolling eyes. Then he shrugged as Alex smiled
and picked up the newspaper. “I have to know what’s going on in the
world—as if I could do anything about anything.”
The sandwiches had been halved and stuck with
toothpicks. “Watch for crumbs,” she said. “We usually eat in
the kitchen.”
“No, honey,” Ray said, “we
usually eat across the street. We have morning coffee here, sometimes.”
“But when we do, we eat in the
kitchen?”
“Okay.”
Alex would have eaten carefully, conscious of
it, even without the admonition. Institutions developed the habit of wolfing
down food with slight concern for amenities (more than once he’d spat
some terrible concoction on the mess-hall floor, napkins not being provided),
so now he had to watch himself. When he was through, he relaxed, and without
thinking he fired up a cigarette. Indeed, he failed to look around for an
ashtray until the match had nowhere to go except the plate. He dropped it
there; then his gaze came up to meet theirs. Their blank faces and flat eyes
made him color.
“Do that outside, please,” Ava
said. “We don’t smoke, and that foul smell stays in the house.
Don’t you know they’re coffin nails?”
“Yeah, sure,” Alex replied, now
standing up, deciding. “I’ll go without this time,” he said,
then went into the kitchen, doused the cigarette in the sink, and deposited it
in the garbage can. The kitchen, like everything else, was obsessively clean.
Even the bottles of Windex, bleach, soap, and polishes were arranged precisely
in a floor-high cupboard. Everything was so neat that he was apprehensive about
touching anything. He was already feeling boxed in and uncomfortable.
About them, so far he had no feelings of like or dislike.
The serious talk about specifics was put off
that night. The Olsens went to bed virtually at sundown, especially in
midsummer. Ray was up at four-thirty a.m. to prepare the cafe for a six a.m.
opening. Ava rose an hour later. She worked both the breakfast and luncheon
rush, plus did the bookkeeping and paperwork. The cafe employed one full-time
waitress
and one part-time; also a dishwasher.
In his porch-bedroom Alex opened the window.
Insects scratched on the windowscreen, seeking admittance. But only the night
air, laden with the ocean scent, came in. Alex dropped trousers and shirt on
the floor and lay down on the cool sheets, planning to mull over his situation,
to make decisions. It was obvious that their reality was different from his.
What did they expect of him?
Before he
could do much thinking, he fell asleep. It had been a subtly exhausting day.
The bungalow was empty when Alex woke up at
eight-thirty. After a quick shower (he carefully wiped up splattered water) he
dressed in the clothes of yesterday.
I gotta get some more, he thought. His
wardrobe consisted of what he wore—slacks, shirt, windbreaker—and
one extra set of underwear and socks. He had enough for a pair of Levi’s
and tennis shoes; he’d go today. He also had to see his parole officer
within the week.
When he went out, he saw even more clearly
how small and jerry- built the bungalow was. If it hadn’t been so
well-arranged and immaculate it would have been another slum shack. The
cafe across the street was also smaller than he’d expected. What he
wanted wouldn’t be a financial burden. Ava and Ray would surely
understand.
The sunlight was already so bright on the
sidewalk that he narrowed his eyes against the glare. Later the hot, dry air
would feel weighted, draining energy and shortening tempers. His stomach called
for food. He went in through the back door, a shed added to the building. Here
the dishwasher worked and vegetables were peeled. At the moment it was empty.
Through its door was the kitchen. Ray was there, a bandanna around his forehead
so sweat wouldn’t trickle into his eyes. The kitchen was sweltering. Ray
didn’t see Alex for a minute, and Alex watched the smooth, expert motions
of spatula and spoon as Ray readied eggs, pancakes, bacon… Ray had a
spare tire of fat around his waist, and Alex was as tall, but beneath the fat
the man was powerful, much more so than Clem had been. His white T-shirt was
soaked through and stuck to his torso. He was pushing plates of food through
the slot so Ava and the
waitress
could deliver them.
“Hey, kid,” Ray said.
“Hungry?”
“Sure am.”
“We don’t have much, but you
never have to worry about having plenty to eat. How’s steak and eggs
sound?”
“I’d rather have a waffle and
ham.”
“So be it. Go out front.”
The cafe had thirty stools in a horseshoe
shape, half of which were occupied, as were three of the four booths along the
front windows. Most of the patrons were local workingmen, men with calluses and
grease embedded in their hands. They came from two machine shops, and two
new-car dealerships down the block.
Alex perched on the end seat of the counter,
next to the passage behind it and to the kitchen. The
waitress
,
who had very large breasts that popped one button on her uniform, obviously
knew of him—her wide smile and wink of greeting told him so. Ava stopped
for a moment. “What do you want to eat?”
“I told Ray already.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
“I dunno… not exactly.”
“I think you should go sign up for
school. Ray does too.”
Her tone nicked his suspicions. Sure the two
of them talked about him. That was to be expected. But something told him to be
careful; the reference to Ray had vague implications, as if they intended to
make the decisions governing his life. They wanted to perform the role of parents;
he wanted them simply to supply room and board—for work and state
money—and let him go his way. It had been so long since he’d had
parents, for ten years. He was used to doing what he wanted when outside
institutions. It would come out badly if they tried to take over as parents
according to standards followed by most fourteen-year-olds—or even
fifteen-year- olds, which was just around the corner.
“Where is it?”
“Not too far. Go down to Sixteenth
Street, that’s two blocks, then turn left and it’s about four
blocks.”
“Okay.”
Two men in shirtsleeves and neckties came in
the front door. As soon as they were in a booth, Ava had glasses of water and
menus in front of them. Before she could return to Alex, three men in overalls
came in and took another booth.
The
waitress
brought
Alex his breakfast. It was delicious. For three years he hadn’t eaten a
waffle, since before he ran away from the Valley Home for Boys. Institutions
never served real syrup, or else diluted it grossly with water. Now Alex gulped
down the waffles, syrup, and ham; it was too good to savor slowly. When he was
through, the cafe was busy. Aunt Ava was too rushed to talk for more than a
quick good-bye. He promised to be back before dark.
When he stood in the sunlight on the sidewalk
he nearly skipped with joy. Without thinking about it, he’d started
toward the high school, but before covering the first two blocks he decided
that he would postpone that ugliness. The day was too beautiful; he felt too
good. He’d tell Ava and Ray that they wanted him to come back on Monday.
Today he’d enjoy himself, visit Teresa and JoJo, find out how to locate
Wedo, maybe even look up Miss Coupe de Ville after dark; he’d never find
her during the daylight hours. His stride had a bounce as he headed for the streetcar
line. He felt glorious as he rode for fifty minutes on the big red trolley. The
ride itself was a joyful excursion past an exciting sight—the bizarre but
beautiful Watts Towers. The sun was behind the towers, fringing them
orange. Plaster curlicues with bottoms of Coca-Cola bottles implanted glistened
in the sunlight, while arabesques of steel gave the towers great strength. They
somehow reminded Alex of pictures of Angkor Wat in Indochina. Engineers, he
remembered
reading,
had examined Roda’s towers
and declared them safe. Dozens of times he’d ridden by on the streetcar,
often thinking he’d someday visit them. It could not be this day; he had
serious matters waiting for him.
His destination was ten minutes away when the
streetcar rattled past the oil refinery—a gigantic tangle of pipes,
valves, wisps of steam, and giant tanks. Next were the shipyards, now nearly
deserted compared to his memory of
them.
Finally, he
smelled the stench of fishing boat docks and canneries, an odor that could
nauseate but which now excited him. In minutes he’d be walking up the
hill to the house.
He got off the big red streetcar. Front
Street’s denizens kept holed up during daylight. The neon signs were out;
for all their brilliance they couldn’t compete with sunlight. The hot-dog
stands still had their graffiti-emblazoned shutters down; the box offices of
burlesque theaters and triple-feature movie houses were closed; the latter had
dumped their bleary-eyed lost souls on the sidewalk about seven a.m., and they
had scurried for cover. Shanghai Red’s, the Top Hat, and most of the
other bars were open, but nobody was in them except a bartender and janitor,
one rinsing glasses, the other mopping the floor. Alex strolled along with a
bounce, looking into the dark doorways, feeling wonderful.
But he knew it was too early. Those he might
want to see came out closer to twelve midnight than twelve noon. Even the pool
hall was empty, the manager counting the change in the cash register. He was
new—or at least newer than the eighteen months that Alex had been gone.
Alex wanted to stop and ask him about JoJo, but the house was just a few
minutes away. Someone there would tell him all he wanted to know. Teresa would
be in school, but JoJo himself might be there if he’d gotten out, and if
nothing else, Lorraine would know. He would take her something to drink; just
some beer would be okay. Lorraine would like that.
Alex circled through the side streets and
alleys, and found whom he was seeking—actually three of them
together—sucking wine from a bottle in a paper bag. For fifty cents one
of them got him the bottle he wanted.
He headed toward the house, a stupid grin on
his face as he went up the front steps and rang the bell. Immediately the
family dog barked. Moments later the curtain moved, exposing the flash of a
face—and then the door opened wide. It took some blinking moments to
recognize Lisa: the eleven-year-old was now thirteen, and her metamorphosis
into a young woman was nearly complete. Curves had replaced bony angularity.
She had breasts instead of flatness.
“Alex!”
“Is that you—Lisa?”
She laughed to cover her blush.
“Don’t stare… come in!” She turned and yelled,
“Mama! It’s Alex!”
The reply was muffled, but Lisa led him into
the kitchen. As usual, the unwashed dishes filled sink and counter. Lorraine
was in a housecoat at the kitchen table, drinking coffee. She rose to hug him
with real affection, apologized for her garb and the condition of the
house—as if the dirt and clutter were unusual. “Sit down…
down. My goodness you’ve filled out,” she gushed, feeling his
biceps like a little girl. It made her daughter blush.
“I’ve filled out—but not as
much as Lisa.”
The girl colored even more.
Lorraine made a twisted face, saying silently
that Lisa caused her worry because of her blossoming. “I thought Teresa
hypnotized the boys—but this one…”
“Mama…
please
.”
“Get Alex some coffee.”
As Alex put in the cream and sugar, he told
them about getting paroled yesterday and that he was living with an aunt and
her husband. He also realized that this unkempt house enfolded him in more
human warmth than did the house of his relatives. There was something cold
about Ava and Ray. Their sternness (he knew they were holding some of it back)
was unmollified by warmth and love.
“Oh Alex,” Lisa said, “I
have to go to school. I really would like to stay and talk.”
“You have to see the eye doctor,
too,” Lorraine said. Then to Alex, “She might need glasses.”
“I’ll never wear them.”
“Yes you will.”
Alex laughed. Even this trivial family
argument warmed him. It was so utterly different from the world he was
accustomed to. His laughter brought a truce between Lisa and her mother. The
girl kissed his cheek and departed.
Two cups of coffee later, he learned of
events during his absence. JoJo had been paroled from Whittier six months ago
and was now living with a maternal uncle in King City, a farm town an hour
southeast of San Francisco; he was working in a gas station. Lorraine
would give Alex the phone number if he promised not to give it to Wedo.
“How come?
You always liked Wedo.”
Lorraine’s eyes dropped, and either
sadness or hardness masked her features. Instead of speaking, she silently made
a gesture of pumping her right hand toward the inner aspect of her left elbow.
It took a few puzzled seconds before Alex realized she was depicting that Wedo
was “shooting” with heroin. It stunned Alex, and then, very
clearly, he thought: That isn’t the end of the world. I know junkies and
they aren’t zombies.
“What about Teresa?
What’s
with her and Wedo?”
“Her father will call the police if he
tries to see her.”
“What does she say about that?”
“What can she say? She just
cried.”
One reason Alex had come here was to locate
Wedo. This was where he could pick up the trail. Or so he’d thought
before. Now he didn’t know—and didn’t know if he wanted to
see Wedo.
“Are you sure it’s heroin? What
about pills and pot—or booze?”
“No, no, it’s—that! He used
our bathroom and didn’t come out. When we finally went in—Teresa
first and she screamed—he was out on the floor with dried blood on his
arm. The kit—”
“Outfit,” Alex corrected.
“Okay, the outfit—was right there
on the floor. He was out cold and gasping like he was dying. My husband called
an ambulance, but before it got here Wedo woke up—sort of. He was still
woozy and goofy, but he wouldn’t wait for the ambulance. He got out the
back door. When he called the next afternoon, my husband told him to never show
his face or we’d call the police.”
“That’s too bad,” Alex
said, having learned a little guile, wondering how he’d locate Wedo.
Teresa might still have contact without her parents knowing. It was
probable,
knowing her, for loyalty was one of her strong
traits. But it was just noon, and she wasn’t expected until after four p.m.
That was too long to wait, not if he had to just sit with Lorraine doing
nothing. Freedom was still too new. It was unlikely Wedo, now nineteen, still
lived in the smelly room with his mother, but she still might be there, and
wherever Wedo was and whatever he was doing, he would be in touch with his
mother. Even a junky could be a loving and dutiful son.