The Crazy Horse Electric Game (9 page)

Petey is struck dumb, staring at Willie from his seat on the floor two feet away from the end of the cane. “I'm sorry…” he starts, and Willie swings. “Shut up!” he screams; Petey is silent.

Mr. Zimmer is standing at his desk, but hasn't spoken, nor moved.

Willie points the baseball end of the cane at Jeff Rhodes, starts to speak, then turns to Jenny. “You lied…Jenny. I…saw it…today. I know,” though he didn't really, not until this moment when Jenny glances to Jeff, back to Willie, then drops her gaze to the floor.

A guttural roar starts in Willie's gut, spraying out
through clenched teeth, as he fires his cane through the closed window out into the snow. He snatches his books and starts for the door as Mr. Zimmer, speaking softly, carefully, tries to bring him down. “Willie…”

Willie looks him square in the eye and says, “…Don't. I'm…leaving. I'll…pay…for…the window.” Then he's gone.

Jenny catches him in the hall, headed for the steps. “Wait, Willie. I'm sorry. I didn't know what to do.”

“You…coulda…just…told me…the…truth,” Willie says between clenched teeth. “Just…the truth.”

“I couldn't. I just couldn't say it.”

“You…said…you'd stay.” Somewhere deep in him, Willie knows he'll be sorry; that he's ready to say things that are irreversible, but he can't stop.

“Willie…”

“No…‘Willie.' Just…stay away…from…me. You…lied. I…hate you…Jenny.”

And now Jenny is wounded. “You hate me! You hate me! I saved your life, you bastard. You don't even know that. Your dad was sure a lot of help…And what do you think it's been like for the last six months with you walking around like a goddam zombie? There's no sense of humor. There's no fun. You treat
your friends like spit. I'd have stayed with you, Willie, if you'd have made any attempt to be decent. But no! Not Willie Weaver! If he can't be a hero, then to hell with everyone else…”

Stunned, Willie stares into her eyes. He just wants to hurt her back. “You…bitch. You…lied.”

Jenny wheels to go. “To hell with you, Willie. I can't spend the rest of my life feeling sorry for you. To hell with you.”

Willie stumbles through his own tears down the stairs to the front door and kicks the panic bar with his good foot, blasting the door open against the outside wall. For a reason he doesn't understand, he stops to retrieve his cane, leaving his books lying in the deep snow. Then he jerks and lurches for home.

The big tires of the Greyhound hum on the cold, dry pavement, headed west. Willie stares out over the shadowy land, cast in an eerie blue by the near-full moon reflecting off the snow. The bus driver could shut down the headlights if he wanted to. Willie switches positions uncomfortably, pulling his coat tighter to his chin, pressing the button on the side of the arm rest, allowing the seat to recline a few inches. Outside, the snowbanks shoot by like walls on a bobsled run, interrupted only by tall, bare willows; markers placed there to signal state crews where to plow when the road and the bank and the sky all blend together.

His ticket is for Spokane, but he'll get another one at the bus station there and head south. California, maybe. There are distant relatives outside of San
Francisco, he thinks, and some kids he met at a West Coast All-Star game when he played Babe Ruth League. Worse comes to worst, he'll look one of them up. He can't remember exactly where most of them are from, but it can't be too hard to find them once he's there.

He sure couldn't stay in Coho.

Willie stole from his parents before he left; went through every nook and cranny in the house looking for money. He cleaned out his savings account: $479. Told Millie at the teller's window he was buying a VCR.

Millie thought that would be a wise purchase.

At the drugstore, which doubles as the bus station, he told Al Carson he was headed for Spokane to see some kind of specialist. Al didn't bat an eye.

Willie didn't leave a note. If his parents knew he was actually leaving, they'd check the bus station and Amtrak and if they found out which way he headed, they could have him picked up in Spokane.
Crippled kid
, he hears them describing him.
Got a cane with a brass baseball on the handle
.

No way. He'll write later; a postcard from Spokane maybe, saying he's headed for Seattle. Gotta do this right. Gotta disappear right; take appropriate evasive action. First thing he's done right since the accident.

Willie stares out the window onto the infinite
snowfields and the tears stream once again; they just won't stop. He hopes he can pull it together in Spokane so the ticket man won't be suspicious; but there are many miles to go before he has to worry about that, so for now he lets them run.

The woman beside him stinks. She's old and she stinks. She's got her wrinkled old self wrapped in a frayed, colorless afghan; her nose whistles incessantly, and Willie tries to block out her fragile, sickly sounds. Still, it's better than sitting beside someone who wants to talk.

Outside, the ocean of snow shoots past.

 

In the Spokane terminal, it turns out, there's nothing to worry about. No one there, nor in any other bus terminal on the route, cares one bit about a crippled kid with a Crazy Horse baseball cane. Probably Willie's parents think he's at one of his friends' and are only really worried that they'll have to explain last night's fight to him. That is, if they've figured out he heard it. He's traveling under the name Louie Banks, after a character in a book he likes, to be sure they can't trace him, and at the counter in Spokane he's without his cane. He says only “San Francisco” and answers all other questions with head movement so no one will
remember a kid who couldn't talk right.

Shooting through the early-morning blackness of the eastern Washington scabland, headed for Portland, then south, he feels a huge blanket of anonymity covering his tracks; a frontier scout, pursued by the Sioux, but he's riding his getaway horse down the middle of the creek. Only the best could track him.

And Willie's mom and dad aren't at their best right now.

Each leg of the trip takes forever. The Greyhound is like a huge pencil; the land an enormous children's game of Connect-the-Dots. The Greyhound pencil connects
all
the dots, stopping at each, if even for only a few seconds.

At approximately forty-five-minute intervals, a choking fear creeps in, almost paralyzing Willie, telling him to turn back before he's in so deep there's no way out. But each time he looks at what he'd be turning back
to
, he strengthens his resolve. He'd rather be dead than be the person he is in his parents' and his friends' lives.

He held on to his rage at Jenny for only a few hundred miles; then it began to melt and now he remembers their friendship. But the searing pain of seeing her with Rhodes, of
knowing
, doesn't dissipate quite so easily.
He's not mad anymore, though, and he wishes he hadn't called her a bitch. He'll write someday; apologize for that.

And Johnny. Boy, he's going to miss Johnny. All those crazy jokes; his lunatic way of walking the very edge of people's tolerance, yet knowing that edge as well as a tightrope artist knows his wire. And Johnny was the only one who showed any signs of understanding; of knowing Willie didn't want to be babied or looked out for. Johnny just didn't know what to do with that.
He might have, though
, Willie thinks,
given a little more time
.

Boy, he's going to miss Johnny.

In the Portland terminal, waiting for the connecting bus down the coast, Willie thinks of Cyril. Cyril would chide him for running away—for not facing everything hurtling his way. But Cyril is a friend and he'll understand, at least. He'll talk to Willie's parents and to his friends and piece things together. He'll understand. Just the same, it would be good to drop him a line.

In the tiny gift shop, he buys several plain postcards, stands at an eating counter and scribbles:

on four of them, then waits by the ticket counter near a sign reading
PHOENIX
until a boy about his age approaches to buy a ticket. Willie watches the boy, reads his face, looking for something he can trust. Finally, as the boy moves away from the counter, Willie approaches him, asking, in his halting way, if the boy would do him a favor and mail these postcards from Phoenix. “It's…a joke,” he says, only half smiling. “But…it's…real im…portant.” The boy looks doubtful, hesitates a second, and Willie says, “It's…worth…five bucks.”

The boy looks poor. Patches on his pants, a shirt too big; probably his dad's or an older brother's. Five bucks would be nice. “Okay,” he says, and takes the postcards, placing them carefully in an outside pocket of his tattered duffel bag and depositing the five-dollar bill in the watch pocket of his Levis.

Willie hears the call over the intercom and heads for his bus. He says, “Thanks.”

In the Oakland bus terminal, Willie sits back in his seat and waits. The driver has said there'll be a delay before the bus crosses the Bay Bridge to San Francisco, and Willie is in no hurry to get off. The bus has become something of a cocoon, another cave, and he's aware that once he steps off for good, he's out in the open. On his own. He pictures finding a motel room for a few days, or a hotel, and looking for work; maybe at a McDonald's or a Kentucky Fried Chicken, something that will keep him from having to spend all his money while he figures out what to do next.

Doubts crowd into his thinking and he forces them out. They persist:
You should have gone somewhere you know someone. Who's going to hire a cripple? Who's going to hire someone who can't even tell them what he
wants?
No. He'll just walk up,
take his time
and tell them what he wants. His speech is better; he knows that. As long as he's not nervous…

His thoughts shatter at the sound of the bus driver's voice over the intercom: “Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to have to make some minor repairs on this bus before we can take her into San Francisco. If we can't get them done in a half-hour or less, we'll transfer you to a different vehicle. If you're in a hurry, we can issue you a transfer to the local bus transit system or to BART. Those transfers can be picked up in the terminal at the main desk. Thank you for your patience.”

There are groans; passengers talk among themselves; a few pull their baggage down from above and move out of the bus and toward the terminal. For a moment Willie is relieved. It gives him more time to think; time to fend off this strange new world he's chosen. He can sit here while they fix the bus and nothing will change. But it's getting late; after ten. Dark. He better check things out. As he stands, his bad leg fails him momentarily and he catches himself on the back of the seat in front of him, waiting to feel his balance, then reaches for his duffel bag in the top rack. And the cane. The driver is writing something on a clipboard and Willie stops momentarily, waiting for his attention. The
driver looks up, only semi-patient.

“Excuse…me,” Willie says. “What's…BART?”

The driver seems momentarily confused; then a flash of recognition as he realizes what Willie is asking. “Bay Area Rapid Transit,” he says. “It's like a subway. You can take a city bus to the BART station. It goes under the bay to San Francisco.”

Willie nods. “Thanks.” He starts to walk away.

“Someone picking you up?” the driver asks.

Willie's not sure how to answer. He doesn't want to seem lost; can't flounder. “Not here,” he says finally. “In San Francisco.”

The driver nods, maybe not quite believing him. “Well,” he says, “you might do well to wait for the bus to be repaired. This isn't the best part of town to be out on the street alone; even to catch the bus. Especially for a…For a kid.”

For a cripple
, Willie thinks.
Just say it, for Christ sake
. He says, “Thanks,” then moves slowly through the concrete garage, the sound of his cane echoing off the bare gray walls, into the brightly lit terminal.

The Oakland bus terminal is not what Willie Weaver had in mind when he got it in his head to travel. Though a janitor moves constantly with a mop, the floors are sticky and grimy. Transients sleep on nearly
half the available benches; men and women whose dignity has been swallowed up by their histories; histories a relatively sheltered young man from Coho, Montana, can only imagine. These are not the indigents who pass through his hometown, receiving traveler's aid or help from the Red Cross to get to the next small town; and these are not farmers or ranchers down on their luck, looking for extended credit to get through the winter or through a dry spell. These are people to whom hard times—desperate times—are the order of the day. “Abandon Hope…” is written across their faces in greasy city dirt.

Willie is astonished by what he sees, and immediately decides to march right over to the ticket counter and purchase a ticket back home. But his parents' voices echo through his head from the bedroom, followed instantly by the poster-sized, full-color paste-up of Jenny and Rhodes bursting into the walkway together. The answer, Willie decides, isn't to turn tail and run. The answer is to get the hell out of the Oakland bus station.

Willie moves to the rear of the line of people waiting for Alameda County Transit and BART transfers and stands patiently as those ahead of him receive instructions. He strains his ears to hear; to get a picture
of what he'll need to do when he gets outside. There's a bus stop down the block, he hears the man behind the counter saying, and the 51 bus will take you to BART. If you miss the 51, just wait for any bus with the BART logo. Or you can walk the several blocks to the downtown station; might be faster, depending on how the buses are running. Willie decides he'll do that; the fewer transfers he has to make, the better chance he has of reaching the destination. Getting on local transportation has the feeling of getting on the Space Shuttle. He asks for, and gets, instructions to the nearest BART station, takes the BART transfer from the ticket man and heads for the door.

Willie wasn't paying attention when the Greyhound pulled into the terminal; he was half asleep, slumped down in his seat with his coat most of the way over his head, so he had no idea what part of town he was in. In Coho the bus station is also the local drugstore; certainly as safe a place as there is in town. But the Oakland bus terminal is not in the center of some innocuous middle-class community. The Oakland bus terminal is
downtown
, and Willie steps into an almost suffocating wall of tension as he moves out onto the street. There are predators here. Though the area directly in front of the terminal is brightly lit, he can
barely see to the end of the block in either direction through the darkness. Bars cover the windows of all the buildings adjacent to the terminal, and for as far as he can see, for that matter. Bums huddle against vacant buildings, coats pulled high, hats pulled low; insulating themselves like ostriches from the reality surrounding them. The sense of danger is so thick, so real, it permeates Willie's heavy jacket, and though the temperature is in the high fifties—warmth he hasn't felt since before October—he shivers. He turns back into the terminal; he'll get the bus transfer and not try to walk to BART, knowing he'd be frozen with fear by the time he got to the end of the block. The line is longer than before, but he waits, scooting his bag forward with his cane each time another customer is serviced.

“Hey, kid, get out of here,” the ticket taker says when the woman in front of Willie shuffles off. “I already gave you your transfer.”

Willie tries to explain, but the man cuts him off. “Look, kid, don't give me a hard time. I remember you, okay? I gave you a transfer. Now don't try to con me. Move along or I'll have to get someone to move you.”

Disgruntled voices from behind float up. “Move it outta there, kid…We ain't got all day…Come on, mister, move him.”

Willie shrugs and moves out of line and back toward the front exit. Okay. He'll just carry his bag and follow the instructions the guy gave him before. He won't look at anybody and he'll walk as fast as he can. Straight to the BART station. It can't be that dark on the street
all
the way there.

He's so rattled worrying about how to negotiate his way to where he's going, he doesn't realize that even without a transfer to the local bus, he could still ride for only sixty cents. Fear has thrown him off.

Strapping his duffel bag over his shoulder, he walks through the exit and heads into the darkness. Goose bumps run up his back and down his arms in waves as he passes desperate men standing against buildings, hears noises from blackened doorways. He looks directly at the ground, striking the concrete sidewalk purposely, in exaggerated fashion, with the metal tip of his cane. He tries to whistle, but his mouth is dry as dust. At the corner of the second block he stands, waiting for the
WALK
sign, gripping the cane tightly, feeling the strap of his duffel bag absently with his bad hand.

“Boy,” a voice says, and Willie starts, gripping the cane tighter. “You got fiffy cent?” It's a drunk; an old leathery man, hair greasy and gray, tattered sport coat pulled tight around his shoulders.

Willie stares at him as if he didn't hear.

“Jus' fiffy cent,” the old man says. “Coffee. Buyin' me some coffee. Won' spen' it for booze. Gonna buy me some coffee.”

Willie reaches into his pocket and comes out with all his change, dropping it into the man's cupped hands. The light changes and he walks away without a word, somehow feeling lucky all the guy wanted was a little money. He can't explain his fear, just knows it's there and it's real. The power and intensity of his mission fade again and he wishes he were back in Coho. He could stay away from Rhodes and Jenny, bury himself in his speech therapy; maybe even racquetball. He could live with Petey until his parents got things worked out. Maybe running away to the city was not all that great an idea; maybe he should just head back to the bus station and buy a ticket for home. Yeah. Crawl back after two days in the world; unable to make it, just like everyone is probably saying. No, not yet. A little longer.

In the dim streetlight at the end of the block, Willie sees a bus-stop sign and a bench. The sign has a BART logo and, according to the ticket man at the Greyhound terminal, that means at least some of the buses that stop there can take him to the subway. He's figured out his money is as good as a transfer and he can ride. At least
the bus will be lighted. But people are at the bench, and they aren't just waiting for the bus. Kids. They look like kids, and as he approaches, he sees they're all Oriental, and young. One, a tall, thin boy probably not more than fourteen, stands on the edge of the bench, his leg kicking effortlessly out in front of him like a snake's tongue. The boy begins to turn slowly, kicking every forty-five degrees or so, his foot snapping in the air easily eighteen inches above his head. As his friends begin to cheer, he spins faster, flicking the foot effortlessly in all directions, lethally protected from all sides. Willie knows these guys are dangerous, even though they're young, but if he doesn't get on a bus pretty soon he'll be choked by his own heartbeat. He decides to wait at the bench; mind his own business and sit and wait. At the sound of his cane clicking on the concrete, the boy on the bench stops, turns simultaneously with his friends to silently greet. Willie's approach. Willie nods and stands away from the bench, next to the bus-stop pole. The gang watches; Willie stares ahead. Finally the boy on the bench hops down lightly and approaches. “Hey, man. How you doin'?” Perfect English. Somehow Willie expected Chinese or something.

“Okay.”

The boy nods, his friends filling in behind him.

“Where you headed?”

“…BART.”

“What's that?”

Willie glances out of the corner of his eye, seeing the boy's face for the first time. He does look young; his face smooth as porcelain; cold eyes fixed on Willie's cane.

“A…cane.”

The boy reaches out and takes it from Willie's grasp, holding the baseball head up to the light, reading: “‘Willie Weaver—1. Crazy Horse Electric—0.' You Willie Weaver?”

Willie nods. “My…friends. For…my leg.”

“Crazy Horse. Ain't that an Indian?”

Willie nods again. That's all Crazy Horse is now. An Indian.

“What's the matter with your leg?” a voice from the small crowd behind. The kid who belongs to it can't be more than twelve, but he's as menacing as the rest. “You a crippled kid?”

Willie starts to answer, to explain, then just nods.

“You need this cane to walk?” the leader asks.

“Yes,” Willie lies.

“You know we own this corner?”

Willie shakes his head.
Here it comes
.

“Well, we do. It costs you money to take the bus from here. You got money?”

Willie's so scared his knees actually feel as if they're going to just give way and leave him floundering on the sidewalk like a dying fish, but he concentrates hard, reaching casually for his cane. The boy moves it just out of reach. Willie says, “How…much?”

“How much you got?”

“Five. Maybe…six,” he lies, regretting his money is all wrapped in a tight ball in his pocket. If he has to get it out, it'll all come at once; several hundred dollars. And if he gives up his money, he's done.

“Well, it costs six bucks to take the bus from here,” the boy says. “You're a very lucky crippled kid.”

“Maybe…I can…walk,” Willie says, and reaches again for the cane.

“It costs six bucks to leave, too,” the boy says evenly. “Or even to just stand here. We're businessmen. We have to make a living with our corner. It's the only one we own.”

I'll bet
, Willie thinks, but only grimaces, reaching into his pocket, hoping to be able to peel off a couple of bills while making it appear that's all he has.
Please don't let the whole roll come out
. As he slips the rubber band off the roll inside his pocket, he hears a diesel
engine roar and glances up to see a bus rounding the corner, headed for the stop. It pulls up to the stop and the doors open with a hydraulic blast. The leader's attention is diverted momentarily; Willie snatches the cane, stepping onto the bus at the same moment. He reaches into his pocket for the sixty-cent fare posted on the box. There is no silver, only bills. He looks at the driver, who says; “Can't make change.” He peels a single off the roll, stuffing it into the box, then looks up to see the gang leader watching over his shoulder.

“Six bucks, huh?” the boy says, leaning in close to Willie's ear, and hands the driver a transfer. His buddies board behind him.