Dirt Road Home (3 page)

Dear Carla,

I’m at my new school now. My lawyer came by and told me he is going to try and get me out as soon as he can. He doesn’t know how long it will take. If my daddy keeps his job and does not drink and I do not get in any trouble it might all work out. I am just going to lay low in here. I have seen a few boys from my old school that I know. I hope you don’t find another boyfriend before I get out. I will write again later.

There were lots of things I could have told her about being in lockup. It was a place I was sure she couldn’t imagine. I called it “school” just to try and make it sound better than it was. And I didn’t want her knowing any more about it than she did. I hoped maybe there’d come a time when everybody would forget it ever happened to me. A time when I was just a normal person with a life outside the fence.

I read it again and made sure my spelling wasn’t too bad. Then I thought about how to sign it. I figured now wasn’t the time to hold back on letting her know I liked her. I might as well overdo it.

Love,

Hal

I folded the letter and stuck it into one of the envelopes they gave us. I licked it and sealed it quick before I could change my mind. Just as I reached into my pocket for the address, a hand came out and snatched the envelope away. Preston leaned against the bunk and studied it.

“Who you writin’ to?” he said.

The floorwalker didn’t seem to notice us. I stared at my letter in his hand.

“Who’s your girlfriend, Hal?”

I looked away and didn’t say anything. I heard him opening the letter. Then I saw the envelope flutter by.

“ ‘Dear Carla,’ ” he said. “Caaarla?”

“That’s right.”

“Ain’t that sweet . . .” He continued reading. “ ‘I’m at my new school now.’ ”

“You must have some big boys watchin’ your back, Preston.”

“I’ve earned respect, Hal. Somethin’ you don’t have here.”

“I ain’t lookin’ for trouble with you, Preston. Nobody else either.”

He was quiet for a moment. Then I heard the paper tearing. He set the pieces in front of me. “Jack says you’re gonna be with us.”

“I don’t even know Jack.”

“You will.”

“Yeah? You tell him I’m fine like I am. I won’t get in anybody’s way.”

“Leroy’s gonna go Ministers,” he said.

“Leroy can do what he wants. I don’t run with Leroy.”

“You go Hounds and you’ll get your ass kicked.”

I looked away and didn’t answer him. I saw the floorwalker coming toward us. Preston backed off. “You don’t wanna get on the wrong side of Jack.”

“Number one twenty-six!” the floorwalker boomed. “Get back to your area.”

Preston turned and walked off. I got the torn letter and pieced it back together. Then I got another sheet of paper and began copying it.

Just before lights-out an awful smell came drifting over me. If it were possible, I would have thought it was sun-ripened roadkill. It was so thick and pungent that I felt like it had settled on my skin. I looked around, but no one else seemed to notice.

“Lights out!” the floorwalker yelled.

I put the letter away and got under my blanket just before he flipped the switch. Then I lay there in the dark,
careful not to breathe through my nose, and listened to the shifting and mumbling of the boys.

It wasn’t long before someone came crawling beneath the bunks and stood up near me. “Paco said for me to tell you there’s a spot open with the Hounds if you want it,” he whispered. “If you go Ministers, he can’t help you.”

“Who’s Paco?”

“He’s the leader of the Hounds. The big Mexican guy with the slick head.”

“Tell Paco I said thanks. Tell him I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

“You go Hounds and you don’t have anything to worry about. We’re the oldest and the best.”

“Tell him I’ll think about it.”

That night I heard a lonely wail echoing through the hall behind me. It was coming from somewhere at the back of the building. Somewhere near the area with the black doors. I turned and looked down at Leroy, but it was too dark to see his face. No one moved or said anything about it, like it was a noise they were used to hearing. The wailing went on for what seemed like a half hour while I lay in the dark with my eyes open and a sick feeling in my gut. With a sound like that, I realized things at Hellenweiler were probably going to get a lot worse than I’d imagined.

Monday morning I ate slowly and studied the Hound table. I picked Paco out of the group. He was not the tallest of the boys, but he was built like a bull. His Mexican face was pocked and dented like rough cheese. While the rest of his gang talked and joked, he remained expressionless and alert, eating slowly and cocking his eyes about the room.

After breakfast I attended class in the separate building across the yard. Our teacher was young and soft-spoken. He kept his back to us and scribbled on the blackboard while the boys joked and passed notes. I imagined Mr. Fraley had given the same talk to our instructor about the uselessness of teaching the dogs.

I carried my lunch tray past Caboose and sat across from Leroy. He looked surprised. He set his fork down and watched me.

“Thought you’d be at the Ministers’ table,” I said.

“How’d you know?”

“Preston told me.”

“Yeah, well, they don’t have initiation until Friday.”

“What do you have to do?”

“Preston won’t tell me,” he replied. “Said it would be a surprise.”

“I’d hate to know how that hot nail feels against your skin.”

Leroy rubbed the back of his neck.

“Which one’s Jack?” I asked.

“He’s the skinny one with the black spiked hair. Next to Preston.”

I looked over Leroy’s shoulder and saw the boy he was talking about. I guessed he was about sixteen. He wasn’t even close to being the biggest guy at the table, but I recognized the look in his eyes right away. There’d been a kid at Pinson with the same look. A crazy, fearless look. He had eyes that darted about constantly and you never knew when he’d lose his temper on you. After he bit a cook in the leg the guards had to haul the boy at Pinson off in a strait-jacket. He never came back.

“What makes you wanna go Minister?” I asked Leroy.

“They seem to want me the most.”

“That oughta tell you somethin’.”

“Blacks and Mexicans don’t usually get along real well.”

“There’s blacks on both sides of this room.”

“Preston says now that Jack’s back, Paco’s bunch is scared.”

“Preston’s an idiot too.”

“Well, that’s what he says.”

I took a bite of my food and didn’t answer him.

“They say Jack’s got a rich daddy who has a bunch of lawyers that get him out. This is his third time to come back.”

“What you gonna do when he leaves again?”

Leroy stared at me. “I don’t know. I just feel like I’ll be safer with them.”

I looked over at Caboose. He was chewing and staring at his plate. “Do what you gotta do,” I said.

We got out of our afternoon classes at two o’clock and all of the boys filed through the gate into the recess yard. It was two treeless acres of packed red clay surrounded by a ten-foot fence. It smelled of sweat and hot tar from the roof. Beyond was the plowed field and then a line of trees.

I saw Caboose walk to the far corner and back against the fence and stare at his shoes. There were basketball goals at each end of the yard. Paco and his boys gathered at one and Jack and his crew at the other. Before long there was a game going at each location.

There was one more way onto the yard. A door opened from the office area of the main building. Mr. Pratt stepped out of this door and closed it behind him. He stood against the wall of the building and folded his arms and scanned the grounds.

I crossed between the basketball courts and went to the far fence, just down from Caboose. I leaned against it and turned and watched. After a minute, Leroy walked up to me.

“Preston tell you to keep buggin’ me about the Ministers’ gang?” I said.

“No,” he said.

I frowned at him.

Leroy continued. “He says he knew you before.”

“I’ve seen a few guys here I knew before.”

“He says you were the toughest boy at the place.”

I didn’t answer him. I watched a basketball roll across the yard onto the Ministers’ court. A chubby Hound from
Paco’s group chased after it. Before he could get to it, one of Jack’s Ministers picked it up. Then the Hound and the Minister were in a face-off. I saw their mouths moving but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I glanced at Mr. Pratt just in time to see him look away.

“Somethin’s about to go down,” I said.

The Hound slapped the ball out of the Minister’s hand and bent down to get it. The Minister kneed the boy in the stomach and the Hound collapsed, holding himself. The basketballs at Paco’s end of the yard were dropped and his boys started walking across the yard. Paco stepped away from the fence and straightened up and watched. Jack waved his hand and ushered the Ministers to meet them.

“What’s the guard’s problem?” I asked Leroy.

“I don’t know.”

Mr. Pratt was watching closely now, but he made no move to interfere. The gangs were now only a few yards apart and still closing on each other.

“He gonna let ’em all go at each other?”

Leroy started to answer me, but suddenly Mr. Pratt uncrossed his arms and took a few steps forward. “Hey!” he yelled.

Now the two groups were face-to-face. Mr. Pratt began walking toward them.

“Paco’s bunch doesn’t look that scared to me,” I said.

Leroy didn’t answer me. I looked over at Caboose. He was still leaning against the fence, watching his shoes like he didn’t know anything had happened. Mr. Pratt stepped between the gangs and eyeballed them back to their sides of the yard. Then he pulled out a notepad and jotted something down.

*   *   *

I didn’t go to the rec room that evening. I lay on my bunk listening to the floorwalker tap a pencil against the wall. Sometimes I would look over at him, trying to find some sign of compassion, but his pink pig face was unreadable. He always stared at nothing and seemed to think nothing.

The boys burst through the doors at seven-thirty and both ends of the room were suddenly filled with talking and joking. I stared at the ceiling and waited for lights-out. Then that awful smell of roadkill settled over me and I flipped and pressed my face into my pillow.

“Lights out!” yelled the floorwalker.

I heard the boys leap into their bunks and go quiet. I stayed like I was, breathing through the pillow fabric. It wasn’t until the wailing started again that I sat up and looked down at the dark shape that was Leroy.

“What is it?” I whispered.

“Seg,” he said. “Solitary.”

“Who?”

“Quiet down there!”
the floorwalker boomed.

Leroy took a bite of a Baby Ruth bar during breakfast and slid it back into his pocket.

“Where’d you get that?” I asked.

“Canteen yesterday. You didn’t buy anything?”

“I don’t need any zoo zoos and wham whams.”

“I’ll give you some money if you need some.”

“I told you I don’t need anything.”

He hung his head. “I’m just tryin’ to help.”

“Well, don’t.”

Preston came up to me during recess on Wednesday. “You made up your mind yet?”

“Yeah.”

“Who?”

“Nobody.”

“We’re gonna leave you alone for the rest of the week. After that, you got no friends.”

“I don’t want friends in here.”

“You have to pick,” he said.

“I don’t have to do a damn thing.”

“I’ll tell Jack you said that.”

I put my hands in my pockets and looked at the ground and didn’t respond.

“Wuss,” he said.

I felt my temper flare. I clenched my fists inside my pockets and eyeballed the tips of his shoes. After a moment he turned and walked away.

Later that afternoon Paco’s recruiter approached me again.

“You goin’ Ministers?”

“Tell Paco I ain’t goin’ nothin’. I’m mindin’ my own business right here against this fence.”

“You can’t do that, man.”

I didn’t answer him.

“You don’t know how this place works. You should listen to us.”

“I’m listenin’ to you. I just don’t want any of it.”

I got my first letter during mail call that afternoon. It was from Daddy. I stuffed it into my pocket and saved it for later. I wanted his voice to be the last thing in my head when I went to sleep.

After supper I stepped into the washroom in the hall. It was smaller than the shower room, with just two urinals, two commodes, and four sinks. I splashed water on my face and took deep breaths. I heard the door open and watched in the mirror as Paco walked behind me to the urinal. Fear surged up into my throat.

Paco spoke in calm, precise English. “Going nothing, you say . . . Interesting.”

“I just wanna be left alone.”

Paco chuckled. “There are two places where they will come for you. The first is the yard. The second is in here.
This is where there is no guard. No floorwalker. The boys call it the confessional. If they want to hurt you bad, they will do it in here. If they want to do more than that, there is one more place. But this last place is by appointment only.”

I swallowed, grabbed a paper towel, and dried my face while keeping an eye on his back. He zipped up, turned, and stepped sideways to lean against the wall. He looked at me in the mirror.

“You think you can do this, but you cannot,” Paco said.

I stared at the sink.

“Jack’s boys will come after you. Eventually my boys will too, but Jack’s will come first. There is nothing you can do in no-man’s-land to avoid it. You are just an open target. You have to choose your friends.”

I didn’t respond.

“With me, I don’t care if you choose my side or not. I’ve got all the people I need and Jack knows it. But I will make it easier for you. I will decide. You see, when Jack’s boys come after you, I’ll have my boys step in. After that, you might as well consider yourself a pledge of our gang. You will be in debt to my boys. That is how it will work.”