The Crazy Horse Electric Game (16 page)

“How you doing?” he asks, sliding into line behind her.

“Okay.” She's polite; a little cool.

Willie's quiet a moment, looking for a way in. Angel
doesn't offer one. “S'pose we could have lunch?” he asks. “I'd like to talk.”

“About what?”

“I don't know. Stuff.”

“Lunch here?” she asks, pointing around the cafeteria, which has been converted for the day to the registration room. “I don't think there's lunch today. We're out at noon.”

“No, not here. We could go over to the mall. Have our choice.”

Angel looks slightly annoyed, but sighs and says, “Sure, why not? Meet you out front by the gate a little after twelve.”

 

“You still working for Lacey?” Willie asks over his bacon burger. “I mean, you still…”

“Yeah, I'm still working for him.”

Willie's quiet. That's as far as the conversation has gotten in his head. He wants to ask why she doesn't quit, now that he got Lacey to agree to let that happen; the result of a marathon argument the night after they saw Lacey's son at Highland; Willie would stay if Lacey agreed to let Angel off the hook. Lacey did agree—too easily, as if he knew something Willie did not. Two weeks later Willie asked him about it and Lacey just
said, “I tol' her,” and shrugged. Willie had been afraid to ask Angel about it, mostly because of his gut feeling that Lacey actually did offer and Angel declined.

He's still afraid to ask, but does anyway. “Did Lacey tell you what we talked about?”

Angel plays dumb.

“Last year. After the fight.”

Angel looks away, then down at her plate. She doesn't answer.

“He did tell you.”

“He told me.”

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Are you going to quit?” Willie's insides are churning in response to the head movies he always gets when he brings this up. He knows what prostitutes do, and his imagination won't leave it alone.

Angel's answer is restrained. “No, I'm not going to quit.”

The right words won't come. He wants to tell her he's concerned for her; that he cares for her; wants her life to be better. Instead: “Why not?”

Angel takes a deep breath. “What are you, my daddy?”

He leans back. “No, I'm not your daddy. I just…
Well, I just can't get you out of my head. I can't stand it that you're a…well, that you work for Lacey, and I can't stand not spending time with you.”

“I'm a whore, Willie.”

“I know. But Lacey said he'd let you off the hook.”

“You think I'm a whore because of Lacey? If Lacey wasn't my pimp, I'd get someone else. I'm a whore because that's how I survive. I
wanna
be a whore, okay? So leave it alone.”

Willie blows. “So you gonna do that crap all your life? Why you bother going to school? You don't have to go to school to be a whore. Shit, look at all the time you're wasting. Six hours a day. How many guys is that?”

Angel gets up to leave.

“Wait. I'm sorry. It's none of my business. I just can't help it. I really care about you.”

“You really care about me. Shit. You want what every man wants. You want into my pants. You're just a little sweeter about it.”

Willie's embarrassed. “No, really. That's not it. I really care about you.”

“How could you care about me? You don't even know me. You don't know
nothin
' about me. You couldn't. No one does. You care about my skin and my
body and what I can do.”

Willie knows she's right, in part. He
doesn't
know anything about her. But he's so attracted it aches. It
has
to be more than just wanting sex. “If I just wanted sex,” he tries, “why does it bother me so much that you're with other guys? If I just wanted sex, I wouldn't care. I'd just save up my money and come find you.”

“Look, Willie,” Angel says patiently. “Don't play word games with me. You know what you know and I know what I know. You know how girls get to be whores? Girls get to be whores when they grow up thinking sex is the only way to get anything. You know when I had sex first? Seven years old. My uncle. Till I was seventeen. It was ugly and I hated it, but he was nice to me and he gave me things I'd never have gotten any other way. It doesn't matter whether you care about me or not. Nothing's going to change. Now, do you want me to pay for this lunch? I probably make a whole lot more money than you do.”

“No,” Willie says, defeated. “I can pay for lunch.”

Weekends during the first two months of school, André, Lisa, Willie and anyone they can recruit paint the school building. OMLC starts to take on the look of the castle André envisioned, and they work like demons, taking breaks for three-on-three games with neighborhood stars and barbecued chicken and ribs and burgers that André cooks on his portable hibachi. Willie, under Lisa's constant “guidance,” works as much as possible with his left hand. Sometimes her guidance includes tying his right hand to his belt.

These are wonderful, relaxed days for Willie. He loves being part of whatever club it is that André and Lisa belong to; the days have been sunny and warm, for the Bay, and he's getting strong and tan and confident. Sometimes Sammy comes to help and he always does
the hard places, hanging upside down off the roof to paint under the eaves and threatening to drop on his head and splatter if Lisa won't take five quick minutes to run into the thick shrubbery behind the building with him. “I know you,” she says. “What'll we do with the other four minutes?”

Sammy giggles his high giggle and paints away like a madman, moving along the roof like a cat, singing a song he obviously made up called, “Shoulda Been a Sherpa.”

Some days kids from the school come and paint, but more often than not they work for about a half-hour, spending the rest of the afternoon shooting hoop and eating whatever André cooks. Except for Telephone Man. Telephone Man comes to work; and though he moves pretty slow and gets paint on a lot of windows, he contributes, staring closely at his work, talking to his scraper or his brush about the infinite number of “chickenshit rip-offs” that exist in his universe. André usually gives him an area of his own to work on, promising a small memorial plaque to let future generations of OMLC know Telephone Man's part in beautifying their school.

On a Saturday in late October, when the outside work is nearly finished, Willie lets himself into the building early in the morning to polish the floors. He unlocks the student-lounge door so he can get the floor
polisher out of the storeroom located just off the kitchen, and freezes. Scrawled in black spray paint on the off-white wall, probably four feet high and six feet long, is JO BOYS. Willie's heart instantly leaps into his throat and he hurries around the building, checking the entrances and exits. All locked.
How did they get in?
He rushes down the stairs to the basement and sees the logo again on the staircase, and again scrawled across one complete wall in the open room in the basement. He checks the entrances once more, thinking maybe one was left ajar, but now he'll never know because he's pulled them all tight. The sight of the name sends chills shooting through him and he gets the extra paint out of the storeroom to cover it, knowing it won't do a lot of good if they have a way in, but just wanting it gone. His heart settles some by the time he's painted everything over, and he continues with the floors, telling himself that most likely the panic bar on one of the doors was down and all he needs to do is be sure everything is tight when he leaves in the evenings. His mind tells him there's no way those guys would remember him or know where he was if they did, but his paranoia says they've followed him and want to put him away for some reason.

He decides to have lunch at the mall and uses the short-cut down the steep concrete stairway from
Kempton to Broadway, avoiding the tougher section of the neighborhood, as he usually does. A half-block from the stairway he looks up to see a sight equally as chilling to him as the message sprayed on the school walls. It's Kam—has to be—spinning and kicking, spinning and kicking on the concrete bench at the top of the stairway. His buddies are cheering him on, almost absent-mindedly, laughing and slapping each other around, looking bored; dangerous. They've noticed Willie coming and Willie feels he can't turn around, let them smell his fear; so he walks on toward them, avoiding eye contact. For a moment he thinks it's over when they leave no room to pass and none of them makes space, but after a tense five seconds Willie mumbles, “Excuse me” and they move aside. Kam stops; watches him. Willie thinks he notices the cane
—recognizes
the cane—but can't be sure. Descending the steps, he holds his breath, listening for footsteps, but the voices get fainter and fainter, and by the time he's at the bottom, Willie feels he's cheated death. He stops, closing his eyes. They still look young, and they still look scary. Especially Kam, with his cold, vacant stare; he looks like a guy with nothing to lose.

 

On Sunday, Willie takes the bus up to school just to check the place out; hoping—silently
chanting
inside—
that the Jo Boys couldn't or didn't get in. His heart sinks when he opens the lounge door to see their name freshly sprayed again over his repair work. Again he checks the windows and doors, but everything's locked tight.

He's frustrated and angry and for the first time he wonders just how tough this Kam really is. Before, when Kam wasted him, Willie was scared and crippled, but he doesn't feel crippled anymore and now his cane isn't just something to walk with; not since Sammy showed him all the things it can be used for in a pinch. He leaves the slogan on the walls for André and the rest of the school to see tomorrow. Hawk just might have feelings about some punks sneaking in to mess up “his place” and maybe the contacts to do something about it.

When André sees the Jo Boys' handiwork on Monday morning, he immediately calls the police, with whom he has an intimate relationship, partly from the nature of the school itself and partly because one of the men assigned to patrol the area has two kids enrolled. Willie walks into the office in the middle of André's conversation with him, a thick, quiet fireplug of a man named Maurice.

“…goes up into the prison system,” Maurice is saying, as André listens intently. “See, they recruit these
gang kids as young as they can. Then if they want a felony done on the outside, they get one of them to do it because the law usually won't do much more than put them away for a few months at most; particularly if they don't have priors. And when I'm talking felony, I'm talking anything from assault to robbery to murder.” He leans forward. “I don't want to make you nervous, André, but I've taken some awful big guns away from some awful little kids.”

André shakes his head in disbelief, but he's lived in this town long enough to believe. “So what happens, we just let them run loose?”

“Not necessarily,” Maurice says. “They're tough, but they're still kids. Sometimes we can scare them. If they don't have a beef with someone here—any reason for revenge—sometimes we can make it worth it for them to leave things alone. Roust 'em. Ship 'em off for a few days. Make deals.”

“Well, I don't
think
they have a beef with anyone here,” André says. “I haven't even heard them mentioned other than the time they beat up Willie here, but that was before he was a student. 'Course I don't hear everything that goes down in drug deals.”

At Maurice's request, Willie goes over the incident at the bus stop his first night in town, and Maurice is
convinced it has nothing to do with the current problem. He gets up to leave. “Well, see what you can find out, but make sure your kids know not to escalate things. We'll do what we can.”

“I'll do what I can, too,” André says. “But I don't know how much control I'll have over some of my kids if they think they're being held hostage by a bunch of punks. I've got some fighters here.”

Maurice says, “Don't I know it,” as he disappears through the door.

“That's all I need,” André says. “I can hear me telling a guy like Warren Hawkins I want him to lie low while these guys trash our place.”

Willie nods. He knows André's like a rudder here; guiding from behind, watching which way the river's going at all times; helping kids do their best in the direction they're already headed because he knows too much has already gone on in their lives for him to be able to change the course of that river. He uses a heavy hand once in a while, but not often, and if this stuff with the Jo Boys blows up, André might not be able to stop it. Street law is street law.

Telephone Man slithers in the office door, hugging close to the wall, and drops a note on André's desk. “From my mom,” he says in his deep bass voice. “Don't
read it till I leave.”

“Stay where you are,” André says, opening it. He frowns. “It says there's a box of Bisquick missing from your kitchen,” and Telephone Man nods.

“So what about it?” André asks.

Telephone Man shrugs.

“Does she think you took it?”

Telephone Man shrugs again.

“Did you?”

Telephone Man hesitates, looking at the ground. He shakes his head. “No.”

“So why did your mom send me this note?” André asks.

Telephone Man shrugs again, palms up.

“Okay,” André says, “go to class. I'll call your mom.”

Telephone Man disappears around the door jamb and is gone, Willie watching in wonder.

Willie looks up to André. “What was that?”

André laughs. “I don't know. His parents aren't without their strangeness either. Jack didn't get that way on his own. Sometimes when they fight with him about something, they threaten to tell me and he straightens up. They don't have much control over him. Hell, they don't know what to control.” He shakes his head. “Listen, if you see him with a box of Bisquick any
time today, let me know, okay?”

“Won't let him out of my sight,” Willie teases.

 

In the English room, just before first period, Hawk holds court. “Them China boys come in here one more time, get me some silky black scalps,” he says. “I be seein' that karate boy flippin' his feet around like he some kinda hot shit, but he mess with the Hawk, I put him a-
way
.”

Mr. Sauer, the English teacher, enters and listens a few minutes, then says, “Why don't we just wait and see what happens? No sense getting all dressed up if there's no place to go.” André has obviously talked with the teachers and told them to downplay things as much as possible—avoid giving guys like Hawk a good reason to get cranked up.

“Oh,” Hawk says, “I wait an' see, all right. But don'
be
no punk China boys messin' up my place. Get they heads fixed.”

“I didn't realize you cared so much, Mr. Hawkins,” Mr. Sauer says. “I mean, judging by the number of holes you've put in things around here…”

Hawk looks down. “Ain't done that in a while,” he says, almost apologetically. “‘Sides, it's one thing when you mess up you own place; somethin' else when someone else does it.”

“I suppose that's true,” Mr. Sauer says. “At any
rate, let's develop a patient attitude, okay?”

As Hawk shrugs, Telephone Man enters the room, holding his stomach, and slides into his desk near the rear of the room, next to the door, unnoticed. Halfway through class he slips out again the same way he came.

Willie feels tremendous relief when the buzzer rings to end class. He knew he had to go to the bathroom a half-hour before class started, but kept putting it off for one reason or another and then class started and he had to wait. Stuffing his books carelessly into his pack, he heads to the rest room. He bursts through the door into a war zone. The walls and ceiling are spackled with a reddish-brown substance vaguely resembling cookie dough, but smelling of human waste and strawberries. Through the open door of one stall he sees the toilet stuffed with clothes; Telephone Man's clothes; and huddled in the middle of the floor, stark raving naked, squats Telephone Man himself, rocking, shivering; staring straight ahead.

“Hey, Jack, man, you okay?”

Telephone Man doesn't answer, but his lower lip quivers. Beside him, speckled with whatever it is that covers the rest of the room, sits his half-open book bag. Willie looks inside; reaches in to pull out an empty box of Bisquick. “This what your mom was looking for?” Willie asks.

Telephone Man nods, his lower lip quivering more. Willie digs deeper into the bag and comes out with an empty plastic bottle of strawberry-scented shampoo. The chemistry of what has happened flashes in his head, and Willie turns away, clamping his hand over his mouth to cut off a burst of laughter. At best, Telephone Man's eating habits are horrid, and he
can't read
. He must've eaten the Bisquick on the way to school, then found the shampoo in the restroom when he got here. It's Willie's; or it was. He keeps it here for times when he showers at school because his time is so short. Telephone Man must've thought he'd run into a big bottle of Smucker's surprise.

“Hey, Jack, man, you really okay now?”

Telephone Man nods and wraps his arms tighter around his shoulders.

“It's okay, man. Really,” Willie says. “Listen, you stay right here and I'll go get you some clothes from Lost and Found. I'm gonna lock the door, okay? So nobody will come in.”

Telephone Man nods, and starts to cry; a silent cry from deep, deep down inside. The cry of one more humiliation.

Willie squats down beside him and puts his hands on his shoulders. “Hey, come on,” he says. “No one's
gonna find out, okay? I'll tell everyone the toilets are plugged and they can't come in. They'll just have to use the girls' can. I'll get you out of here as soon as class starts. No one will know. Really. Promise.” Willie shakes him gently. “Okay?”

Telephone Man is still crying, but he nods, and as Willie leaves he padlocks the ancient free-swinging door from the outside, scrawling
OUT OF ORDER
on a piece of notebook paper and sticking it to the door with a piece of gum. On his way down the hall, he says loudly, “Men's can is out of order. You'd be
real
sorry if you went in there. Use the girls' can.”