“Beat it,” Jack told them.
“Well I really,” the girl said.
“What the hell,” the boy said.
But they left, and Jack started looking for the cigars. There was a cupboard under a glassed-in section of books. They were in here, he thought, squatting down. He got out a cigar, licked it down, bit an inch off the end, and lit it. The cigar tasted raw and burned his throat as he inhaled. The rich life; rich folks smoke these fuckin ropes; I’m gonna smoke em if it kills me. He looked around the room. Books. Money hidden behind the books. Of course. Where else? Got to be money in this house, must be behind the books. He began sweeping books off the shelves, and looking behind them. After a moment he sneezed; it was very dusty behind the books, and the dust had a particularly acrid smell. He swept the books off the open shelves carelessly, and they tumbled to the rug, spines cracking, dust flying. Jack did not find any money. The glassed-in shelf of books was locked. That would be where the money was. Jack picked up a copy of Wake of the Red Witch and used it to smash the glass on both sides. He dropped the book and reached in. Have to be careful, now, and not get cut. And open every book; maybe twenty dollar bills will be between the pages of the books. He pulled out a thick little book called The Perfumed Garden and riffled the pages. No money in it. He threw it across the room. He pulled out more books, most of them dealing with the Civil War, riffled them, and dropped them on the pile on the floor. He finally found some money. A Confederate twenty-dollar bill, used as a bookmark. It took him a long time to decide what it was. Then, holding the worthless money in his hand, he really lost his temper, kicking the stack of books and cursing in a deep, enraged voice. He looked around for something vicious to do, but the room was already a shambles, and so, stepping over the books or kicking them out of his way, he left, still holding the Confederate money.
As he passed through the dining room, he saw a boy lying under the table, his mouth open, snoring. Jack stared at him, and then got down and stuffed the twenty into the boy’s mouth. The boy gagged, his eyes opening, bulging, and he turned on his side and began vomiting on the rug. Jack said, “I’m sorry, dint mean it that way,” and went back into the kitchen. He wanted an egg salad sandwich. And there was only one way for him to get an egg salad sandwich. And that was to boil some eggs, chop them up, add mayonnaise, find some bread, and make the sandwich. He jerked open the refrigerator, and looked through it. There was plenty of food in it, but no eggs. “What the fuck is this?” he said. He swept some of the bottles and packages out of the refrigerator, and heard the cracking of glass.
“Hey, we gonna go get some air,” Denny said into his ear. “Come on, you look drunk.”
“I am drunk,” Jack said. He wanted to tell Denny all about the books, but he could not find the words. He followed Denny and Billy out into the back garden. Maybe now we’ll pop the little fucker an take his money, he thought.
The three of them sat on the damp grass and lit cigarettes. Jack still had his cigar in his hand, but he did not smoke it; he just let it burn.
“God damn,” Denny said through the gloom. “What a rotten goddam life. You know what?”
“What?” Billy said dully. He did not sound drunk to Jack.
“Aint you drunk?” Jack asked him.
“Feelin no pain,” Billy said.
“Shit. I bet you don’t drink.”
“Sure I drink.”
“Chickenshit nigger mother.”
“Aw,” Denny said. “You know what? I’m gonna join the Marines. No shit. Get out of this rotten life. School. I hate school.”
“Me, too,” Billy said. “But I just took off; I aint going to join no Marine Corps.”
Jack drew the clear cold air into himself, held it a moment, and let it out. The air almost cleared his head.
“Marines?” he asked. “What the hell for, Denny? Are you gone crazy?”
“Aw, shit. I aint gettin nowhere. I cut school all the time, get caught, get suspended, my old lady eats my ass out, then I got to go to school again. I don’t do nothin there, just sit around. It’s the shits. I don’t do nothin down at the poolhall neither. I just wastin my life. You know what? You know what Clancy Phipps tol me? He says, `You join the service now, while you can, cause after you get a record you can’t get in.’ Aint that an awful thing? Here all his fuggin life he wants to go in the fuggin Marines, an so he cops a radio an gets six months an now the Marines won’t take him. Me’n his kid brother Dale, we’re gonna join together. Dale Phipps, nex his brother, he’s the toughest fucker I ever met in my life. Him’n me, we’re gonna join.”
“He aint so tough,” Jack said. He felt envious, but not enough to join the Marines. “You know what? The Marines is worsen prison. You really got to snap shit.”
“No,” Denny said seriously. “In the Marines, sure, you got to toe the line, but man, they’re tough ; you got to be good to make it. That’s worth doin.”
Billy said, “Man oh man. But they’re on your ass day an night. Me, I’m goin on the road. I figger I’m good enough, fair country poolshooter, an I can make my own livin.”
“Gee,” Denny said. “That’s great. You really got the talent, too. You got a skill, see; I aint got one. So all I can do is join the service. An the Marines are the cream of the crop. See?”
“Yeah,” Billy admitted. “But Jesus, what a way to go.”
“Fuck you guys,” Jack said dully. “You got your ambitions. I don’t.” He was feeling very sorry for himself.
“No,” Billy said. “I know it’s gonna be tough, me bein colored an all that; but I figure I can take it, cause I got the skill, see? An that makes all the difference. My old man, shit, he’s got no skills or nothin, so when they layin off all the colored people he goes out of his head, runs around the house drunk an cryin over himself. An there’s a lot of us to feed, man, so I just cut out, you know? I mean to make it.”
“You will,” Denny said with admiration. “You got the guts, an Kol Mano says you got the brains. Hey, tell me one thing; how much money you got on you? No kiddin, we won’t take it; I just want to know how much you won today an how much you stashed. Come on.”
Billy laughed lightly. “I brought twenty; I win almost a hundred today.”
“God!” Denny said.
“Balls!” Jack said. He got up, his joints already rusty, and moved back toward the house. He could still hear them talking about their future plans as he went into the house. It was not a significant moment for any of them, but later on, when Jack had plenty of time to think, the moment took on significance: it was the last time he was to see either of them for years. He thought about them, both of them, often, as he sat in darkness and dreamed away his past; thought of Denny’s friendliness, his openhearted kindness; blew it up all out of proportion, made Denny into a kind of saint in his memory; effectively destroyed the real Denny—thought about Billy and about his talent, his courage, exaggerated him as he did with Denny, so that both boys became almost symbolic of what he lacked, or what he dreamed, in darkness, that he lacked. Then he forgot about them as he forgot about almost everything. But that was later.
Right now, all he wanted was sleep. He was utterly drunk, and sleep seemed as desirable as a woman. He made his way upstairs, and looked into the boy’s bedroom. There was a couple on the bed. He said, “Excuse me,” and went to one of the girls’ rooms. It was empty. He got onto the bed, his body almost deadweight, felt the coolness of the coverlet under him, and passed out.
Six
They really did not know what to do with him. He refused to tell them who he was, or how old he was, or anything at all. They took him down and booked him as John Doe and threw him in City Prison to await magistrate’s court.
It was not easy to do. When he awakened, turned over, and saw the two big plainclothesmen standing over the bed, he only blinked his eyes once, and then started fighting. He did not really try to get away; it did not occur to him that it would be possible; he just started fighting. One of the officers had
to hit him along the side of the head with his lead-and-leather sap, and then Jack’s legs went out from under him and with one last wild, swinging left, he collapsed to the rug. They handcuffed him while he was still groggy, and then one of the officers stood straddled over him and hit him in the face, to let him know how things were. It did not occur to him to resent it.
They marched him down the stairs, and he got one last quick look at the house. The living room was a shambles; drapes torn, vomit and cigarette burns on the carpet, a lamp overturned, its shade askew. He did not realize how much the house reeked of smoke and vomit and urine until they opened the front door and he smelled fresh air. “Whew,” he said. It was the first remark he addressed to the officers, and it also turned out to be the last.
For once it was sunny in Portland, and Jack saw on the front lawn the bright diamondlike glitter of broken glass. They climbed into the black police car, one officer in front and one in back with Jack, and drove down the curved streets toward the heart of the city. The motion of the car made Jack sick to his stomach, and his head hurt. He leaned over and vomited onto the officer’s lap, felt something jarring, heard a loud sharp noise, and passed out again.
It did no good to search him; he had no identification at all. He probably would have been arraigned, tried, and sent to prison if one of the policemen hadn’t recognized him from Ben Fenne’s. The policeman spent his lunch hour at the poolhall playing keno almost every day, and he knew Jack’s name. As a matter of routine, they checked the records and learned that he was a Missing Person, and to their dismay, a juvenile. So instead of being sent to prison, in Salem, he was sent to reform school, in Woodburn.
PART TWO
A Death on the Big Yard
1954–1956
Seven
Denny had gotten his growth since Jack had seen him last; he was now at least three inches taller than Jack, heavier, his face filled out and his red hair receding slightly from his temples. But there was no mistaking his greenish eyes or his smile—still boyish, even though Denny was twenty-four or twenty-five. They were sitting in a Market Street poolhall and Denny was telling Jack a funny story:
“What a mess. We was goin to take this gambling joint down in South City, an the guy who cased it said all you have to do is grin at the guy at the door and he lets you in, an then pull the guns and yell for everybody to hit the floor; the money’s right there in a big wooden cabinet between the tables, an the cat with the green apron has the key, dig? Well, it sounded easy; the caser said no problem. He always said that, no problem, cause he never went along so everything was always real easy, all you got to do is scare hell out of everybody an pick up the money. What a joke.
“So anyway, I’m standing there at the door telling the guy to lemme in, wearin this big topcoat with my hands on the guns in my pockets, and he swings the door open and I blaze in there with the guns out, yellin like hell, and everybody’s jumping for the floor an tippin tables over an turning green and all that shit, and there I am standing there lookin at myself in one of these great big mirrors, you know, set into the far wall. Man, I like to shit right on the spot. I knew goddam well there was a couple of nasty wops or something back of that fuggin mirror with a couple of big tommy guns or shotguns or something, you know, laughin their asses off at me an just itchin to shoot. So there I am, starin at myself, and everybody in the room is cuttin out or yellin or eatin sawdust on the floor; and I decide to fire a couple shots into the mirror, you know, to scare them off or something, and then I thought, oh, fuck it, and went for the guy with the green apron and he opened the money box and gave me the cash like he did it every day or didn’t give a shit, and I stuffed the money in my pockets and yelled for everybody to stay down an split. Man, I could practically feel them bullets going up my ass, but I got all the way out to the car an nothin happened, and I jumps in and tells Tommy, ` Make it! ’ and we zoom off, an nothin happened at all. Can you figure it?”
He laughed and looked at Jack puckishly. “You know, them poker clubs are legalized, and the next day’s paper said we got away with eighty thousand dollars. So I knew why the guys back of the mirror didn’t just cut loose and turn the corpse over to the cops; the boss himself was probably back of the mirror and says, `Hey, let the asshole rob the joint; we’ll clean up off the insurance company.”’
“How much did you really get?” Jack asked.
Denny snorted. “Eighteen hundred, total. What crooks!”
Jack smiled. He was glad he had run into Denny after so many years. “So you’re a big thief now,” he said.
“Well, I ain’t done anything for a while. We really got fucked up. Let’s get out of here.” They got up and left the poolhall where they had accidentally met, walked up Turk Street a few doors, and went into a bar. It was the middle of the afternoon, and there were only a few people in the half-darkened place. They took a table in the back, and Denny said, “We was gonna knock over Playland, out at the beach, you know? We really had a big one planned, this caser guy I was tellin you about, he worked on it for weeks, goin out there, wanderin around, lookin for the money and getaway routes and stuff, and then we got together a bunch of guns, too; man, we must of had ten or twelve guns, rifles, automatics, revolvers, tear-gas guns, everything; and so one night we go out there, Tommy, the guy that drove for us, had just bought himself a brand-new personal car, and we had all the guns in the car, like, and we went out there, and Tommy parks the short and we get out and look around, ride some of the goddam rides, play the machines, really have a pretty good time, and then we go back to get the car, and man you wouldn’t believe it—Tommy’d parked the fucker in a towaway zone! It was gone. The cops had took it to one of their garages. Guns and all. So we were out of business, like. Tommy took off for Mexico. It was his car, registered in his name and everything. You ever go to Mexico?”
“Once or twice,” Jack said. “Down through Laredo and that’s about all.”
“What have you been doin with yourself all this time?”
“Well, you know.”
Denny waited a few moments, but Jack did not say anything more, so he laughed. “Well, yeah.”
“I been boxing,” Jack admitted. “Southwest circuit, Los Angeles. I just quit.”
“Hey, no kidding? A fighter?”
Jack nodded and drank some of his beer. He did not add that he had also bucked logs, worked in a cannery and a furniture factory, robbed gas stations, rolled drunks, and lived in half a hundred arid furnished rooms, pretended the vacuum was freedom, wakened almost daily to the fear that time was a dry wind brushing away his youth and his strength, and slept through as many nightmares as there were nights to dream. He just sat and smiled at Denny and saw what time had done to him and wondered, now comfortably, why he was so bothered by time. It happens to everybody this way, he thought, we sit here and get older and die and nothing happens.
“Listen,” Denny said. “This is great. I got a couple of chicks on my back; picked up one of them and the other come along, and we’re all stuck together. You can take the other chick, okay? What’d be greater?”
“Too much,” Jack admitted. He felt something coming loose inside him, and he decided that he was glad it was going away. This would be much easier. There would be time to think.
Denny’s hotel room had one double bed and a very small single bed over in the corner. Sitting on this Jack could look down at the crowds of people on Turk Street, eddying around the entrances to theaters, clubs, hot-dog palaces, magazine stands, barbershops. He had a barrel-shaped thick hotel glass half full of whiskey in his hands, and Denny was spread-eagled on the double bed, thumbing through a comic book. There were comic books all over the room, and girls’ clothes piled on both chairs, dripping off onto the thin carpet. Packages, empty sacks, wadded string, yellow-orange cheeseburger wrappers were on the floor and under the beds, and in the corner beyond the small bed Jack was on were the torn halves of the room’s stock Bible among the dust motes.
How do you wake up? I
t was one thing to know that you had been asleep all your life, but something else to wake up from it, to find out you were really alive and it wasn’t anybody’s fault but your own. Of course that was the problem.
All right. Everything is a dream. Nothing hangs together. You move from one dream to another and there is no reason for the change. Your eyes see things and your ears hear, but nothing has any reason behind it. It would be easier to believe in God. Then you could wake up and yawn and stretch and grin at a world that was put together on a plan of mercy and death, punishment for evil, joy for good, and if the game was crazy at least it had rules. But that didn’t make sense. It had never made any sense. The trouble was, now that he was not asleep and not awake, what he saw and heard didn’t make sense either.
Mishmash, he thought. You know enough to know how you feel is senseless, but you don’t know enough to know why. Sitting in another lousy hotel room waiting for a couple of girls you’ve never seen before to do a bunch of things you’ve done so many times it makes your skin crawl just to think about it. Things. To do. That you dreamed about when you couldn’t have them. When there was only one thing, really, that made you feel good, and now you’ve done that so many times it’s like masturbating. Except you never really made it, did you. Never really killed anybody. That’s what you’ve always wanted to do, smash the brains out of somebody’s head; break him apart until nothing is left but you. But you never made it.
Even before the reform school had shown Jack its worst he had tried to kill a guard, so the urge had been in him already; he knew that he, or the urge to kill in him, was not the result of a process of brutalization in the reformatory, he was not a victim of their stupidity and cruelty. Actually, the reform school was a model of life without artifice, without the gilding of purpose and reason to brighten the truth: that men were units to be taken care of and kept quiet—nothing else mattered except you weren’t supposed to kill them. Jack did not understand this last rule, and the only way he could comprehend it was to think that if the guards killed all the prisoners then they would be out of work. Either that, or they didn’t have the guts. He had a long time to think about it.