Billy Straight

5

Two hours of walking. I'm not tripping as much.

The way he stabbed her.

PLYR 1. There's a bar on the Boulevard called Players where pimps hang out. Maybe they call themselves that because they fool around, don't do real work.

What he did to her makes me think of something I saw in Watson, out in one of the dry fields behind the orange groves.

These two dogs were passing each other. One was white with brown spots, full of muscles, kind of like a pit bull but not exactly. The other was a big black mutt that didn't walk well. The white dog looked calm, happy with life, had almost a smiley face. Maybe that's why at first the black dog didn't seem afraid of him. Then the white dog just turned without barking, jumped on the black dog, got his jaws around the black dog's neck, twisted a couple of times, and the black dog was dead. That fast. The white dog didn't eat the black dog or lick the blood or anything, he just kicked the dirt with his hind legs and walked away, like he'd done his job.

He knew he had the power.

I was wrong. I'm not close yet. My feet weigh a ton, and I start to feel stupid for living in the park, tell myself I'm not it's a smart decision.

What's the choice, something like the Melodie Anne? That's a building on Selma, just off the Boulevard, burnt-out from a fire, with the windows boarded up. Lots of kids crash there, and late at night you can see them bringing older guys in there. Sometimes you actually see them giving the old guys blow jobs right outside in the alley, boys and girls.

I would rather kill myself than do that. Suicide is a sin, but so is living the wrong life.

I check the Casio: 4:04. I must be close. No matter how many lists I try, my head is filled with terrible pictures. Men hurting women, dogs killing dogs, planes blowing up, kids snatched from their bedrooms, drive-by shootings, blood everywhere.

I think about Mom but see Moron instead and now I'm thinking about the way he called Mom a whore all the time and she took it, just sat there.

On bad days he hit her. I used to close my eyes, grind my teeth, try to beam myself somewhere else. For a long time, I couldn't understand why she took him in. Then I figured out she thinks she's not worth much 'cause she's got no education and he's what she deserves.

She met him at the Sunnyside, which is where she finds all the losers she brings home. She wasn't working there anymore, but she was still going there to drink and watch TV and joke with the guys shooting pool.

The other losers never stayed long and they ignored me. The first night she brought Moron home he stank up the trailer with body odor and motorcycle grease. The two of them got stoned. I was out on the sleeper couch, could smell the joints they lit up, hear them laughing, then the bed squeaking. I put my fingers in my ears and got totally under the blankets.

The next morning he came out into the front room naked, holding his shorts in one hand, flaps and folds of tattooed fat all over his body. I pretended to still be sleeping. He opened the door, grunted, put his shorts on, and went outside to pee. When he finished he said, “Yeah,” and cleared his throat and spit.

On the way back to Mom's bed, he tripped and his knee came down on my back. It felt like an elephant crushing me; I couldn't breathe. He came back, went into the kitchen, got a box of Cap'n Crunch, and scooped cereal into his mouth, spilling it all over.

I pretended to wake up. He said, “Oh man, a rug rat. Hell, Sharla, you didn't say you had onea them.”

Mom laughed from the bedroom. “We wasn't talking much, was we, cowboy?”

Moron laughed too, then he held out a hand for a high five. His nails were black around the edges and his fingers were the size and color of hot dogs.

“Motor Moran, bro. Who're you?” For such a big guy he had a high voice.

“Billy.”

“Billy what?”

“Billy Straight.”

“Ha, same as her- so you got no daddy. Little fuckin' accident, huh?” I lowered my hand, but he grabbed it, shook it hard, hurting me, looking to see if I'd show it. I ignored him.

“This your cereal, bro?”

“Kind of.”

“Well, too fuckin' bad.” That made him really laugh.

Mom came in and she giggled along with him. But her eyes had that sad look I've seen so many times before.

Sorry, honey, what can I do?

I don't protect her, either, so I guess we're even.

He punched my arm hard. “Motor Moran, little bro. Don't fuckin' use it up.” Tossing me the cereal box, he went to the fridge and got beer and salsa.

“Got any chips, woman?”

“Sure, cowboy.”

“Then move your ass and fix me some dip.”

“You got it, cowboy.”

She calls all the losers she brings home “cowboy.”

Moran thought it was all for him. “Back in the saddle, baby, we goin' gallop!”

Motor Moron. His real name is Buell Erville Moran, so you can see why he'd want a nickname, even a stupid one. I saw it on his driver's license, which was expired and full of lies. Like his height being six-four when it's maybe six-one. And his weight being two hundred when it's at least two-eighty. In the picture he was wearing a huge red beard. By the time Mom brought him home, he'd shaved off the chin hairs and the mustache and left humongous sideburns that stick out, really stupid.

He wears the same thing every day: greasy jeans, smelly black Harley T-shirts, and boots. Trying to make like he's a Hell's Angel or some big outlaw biker, but he has no gang and his chopper is a rusty hunk of junk, usually broken. All he does is fool with it alongside the trailer, get blasted, watch talk shows, and eat, eat, eat.

And spend the AFDC and the disability checks. The AFDC's are basically mine. Aid to families with dependent children. My money.

At least I'm not dependent anymore.

Mom changed when I turned around five. She was never educated, but she used to be happier. More interested in how she looked, using a hot comb and makeup and wearing different outfits. Now it's all T-shirts and shorts, and even though she's not really fat, she kind of droops and her skin's pale and rough.

She used to work the Sunnyside weeks and only drink and toke on weekends. I don't want to blame her- she's had a hard life. Started picking in the fields when she was fourteen; had me when she was sixteen. Now she's twenty-eight and some of her teeth are gone, because she has no money to take care of them.

She never had much schooling, because her parents picked fruit, too, traveling up and down with the crops, and they were alcoholic and didn't believe in education. She can barely read and write and she doesn't use good grammar, but I never said anything to her about that; it really didn't bother me.

She had me nine months after her parents died in a car crash. Her dad was drunk, coming back to Watson from seeing a movie in Bolsa Chica, and he drove off Route 5 straight into a power pole.

Mom and I passed by the exact spot lots of times on the bus. Every time we did, she'd say, “There it is, that damn pole,” and start rubbing her eyes.

She didn't die, because she was out partying with some grove workers instead of being with her parents at the movies.

She used to tell me the whole story, over and over, especially when she was drunk or stoned. Then she started adding stuff to it: The party was at some fancy restaurant, with big shots from the farm workers' union. Then it turned from a party into a date, her and some rich union guy, and she was all dressed up, “looking hot.” Then she really got going, saying the rich guy was handsome and smart, a lawyer who was a genius.

One night she got totally blasted and made this big confession: The rich guy was supposed to be my father.

Her version of Cinderella, only she never got to live in the palace.

Having a rich, smart, handsome father would be a cool thing, but I know it's bull. If he had money, why wouldn't she go after it?

When she got that way, she sometimes pulled out old pictures of herself, showing me when she was slender and pretty and had thick, dark hair that hung down past her waist.

She has no pictures of the amazing rich guy. Big surprise.

When she told Moron the story, he said, “Cut that bullshit, Sharla. You fucked a million assholes, can't remember nonea them.”

Mom didn't answer and Moron's face got dark and he looked over at me and for a minute I thought he was going to come after me, too. Instead, he just laughed and said, “How you ever gonna know which gleam in the eye produced this little piecea shit?”

Mom smiled and twisted her hair. “I just know, Buell. A woman knows.”

That's when he backhanded her. She fell back against the fridge, and her head snapped back like it was going to come off.

I was sitting at the table, eating the little he'd left me of a jumbo can of Hormel chili, and all of a sudden fear and anger were burning through me and I looked for something to grab, but the knives were across the kitchen, too far away, and his gun was under his bed with him right in the way.

Mom sat up and started crying.

“Cut the bullshit,” he said. “Shut the fuck up.” He raised his hand again. This time I did stand up, and he saw me and his eyes got really small. He turned red as ketchup, started breathing hard, made a move toward me. Maybe Mom was trying to help me or maybe she was just helping herself, but all of a sudden she was in his lap, wrapping her arms around him, saying, “Yeah, you're right, baby, it is bullshit, total bullshit. I don't know jack. Sorry. I'll never lay that bullshit on you again, cowboy.”

He started to shake her off, but changed his mind, said, “You gotta cool it with that bullshit.”

Mom said, “I ain't arguin'. C'mon, baby, let's scoot into town and party.”

He didn't answer. Finally he said, “Fucking A.” Looking over at me, he licked her cheek and slipped his hand under her tank top.

Moving his hand in slow, slow circles.

“Let's party right here, baby,” he said, starting to pull the tank top off of her.

I ran out of the trailer, hearing him laughing, saying, “Looks like the rich guy's kid got all hot.”

He started off with more hand squeezes, tripping me, pinching my arm. When he saw he could get away with that, he started slapping me for stupid reasons, like when I didn't get him a pickled egg fast enough. It made my head buzz and I couldn't hear right for hours.

The worst time of the day was when I came home from school. He'd be outside the trailer working on his bike. “Hey you, rich guy's jizz! Get the fuck over here.”

There was only one door to the trailer and he was in front of it, so I had to do it.

Sometimes he bugged me, sometimes he didn't, and that was almost worse, 'cause I kept waiting for it to happen.

Rich man's kid, fuckin' rug rat snotty-little-asshole think-you're-smartern everyone.

Then he started with the tools. Putting a chisel under my chin, sticking my thumb in a lug wrench and tightening it on the bone, watching my eyes to see what I would do.

I worked hard at not moving my eyes or any other part of me. The wrench felt like when you catch your hand in a drawer, but at least that's over fast- this kept throbbing and throbbing. I could imagine my bones cracking and breaking and never healing again.

Going through life with broken hands and being called Claw Boy.

Next time was a screwdriver. He tickled my ear with it, pretended to jam it in with the heel of his hand, laughing and saying, “Shit, I missed.”

A few days later, his hacksaw blade went up against my neck and I could feel its teeth, like an animal biting me.

After that, I couldn't sleep well, would wake up a bunch of times a night, and in the morning I'd have a sore face from clenching my teeth.

Why didn't I just sneak over to their bed and get his gun and shoot him?

Part of it was being scared he'd wake up, get to the gun first. And even if I did shoot him, who'd believe I had a good reason? I'd end up in jail, ruined forever; even when I got out I'd be an ex-con, with no right to vote.

I started thinking about running away. The thing that decided it for me happened on a Sunday. Sundays were the worst because he sat around all day drinking and smoking weed and popping pills and watching Rambo videos and soon he'd feel like being Rambo.

Mom was in town getting groceries and I was trying to read.

He said, “Get the fuck over here,” and when I did, he laughed and pulled out a pair of wire cutters, then yanked down my jeans and my shorts and put my dick between the blades. The sac, too.

Billy No-Balls.

I almost peed, but forced myself to hold it in because if I wet him I was sure he'd cut it off.

“Rich guy's kid got a little one, don't he?”

I stood there trying not to feel, wishing I could be somewhere else. Lists, lists; nothing was working.

He said, “Snip, snip, go sing in the fuckin' pope's choir.”

He licked his lips. Then he let me go.

Two days later, when they were both at the Sunnyside, I went through the trailer looking for money. All I found at first was eighty cents in change under the couch cushions, and I was getting discouraged and wondering if I could leave without money. Then I came across the Bathroom Miracle- some money Mom had been hiding in a Tampax box under the sink. I guess she never really trusted Moron, figured he wouldn't look there. Maybe she felt trapped, too, wanted to get out one day. If I messed up her plans, I'm sorry, but she still has the AFDC and it was my balls between the blades of that cutter and if I stayed longer he would've killed me. Which would make her feel terrible and probably get her in trouble for child neglect or something.

So by leaving I was doing her a favor.

The money in the Tampax box came out to $126.

I wrapped it in two Ziploc bags, put them in a paper bag tied with four rubber bands, and stuffed it all in my shorts. I couldn't take books or too many clothes, so I just put my most comfortable stuff in another paper bag, buckled my Casio on my arm, and walked out into the night.

There are no street lamps in the trailer park, just lights from inside the trailers, and at that hour most people were in bed, so it was nice and dark. It's not really a park, just a dirt field next to a grove of old twisted orange trees cut low by the wind that don't fruit anymore and one long, curvy, open road that leads to the highway.

I walked the highway all night, staying on the grass, far as I could from the road so cars and trucks couldn't see me. It was mostly trucks, big ones, and they just zoomed by, creating their own storms. I must have walked twelve miles, because the sign at Bolsa Chica said it's that far to Watson. But my feet weren't hurting that bad and I felt free.

The station was closed because the first bus to L.A. was at 6 A.M. I waited around till some old Mexican went behind the counter, and he took forty of my Tampax dollars without even looking up. I bought a sweet roll and milk at the station and a Mad magazine from the news rack, was first on the bus, sitting in the last row.

Everyone else was Mexican, mostly workers and a few women, one of them pregnant and moving around in her seat a lot. The bus was old and hot but pretty clean.

The driver was an old white guy with a crushed face and a hat too big for him. He chewed gum and spit out the window; started off slowly, but once he got going, we were rolling along and some of the Mexicans took out food.

We drove by some used-car lots on the outskirts of Bolsa Chica, all these windshields reflecting white light like mirrors, then some strawberry fields covered with strips of plastic. When I'd passed them with Mom, she'd always say, “Strawberry fields, just like the song.” I thought about her, then made myself stop. After the fields came nothing but road and mountains.

A little while later we passed the place where Mom's parents drove off the road. I stared at it, watched it disappear through the back window. Then I fell asleep.