0119 Chapter One Hundred Nineteen

I heard his cackle as I stood taking in the posters taped to the inside of the windows and door. It was a different world inside Juniors Barber Shop. It may have been one of thousands of businesses in Los Angeles, Hollywood to be exact. But it was their world, not some white, farm boys world. They spoke their own language, saw the same customers, cut and styled familiar hair. I was an intruder. For a minute I pictured myself as a sheriffs deputy. I’d come for information. I’d come to ask questions. I had to believe that I was invincible, that I had a right to be there, no matter how much they thought a border existed between us, between the door and the sidewalk, between our histories, our cultures, and the color of our skin. I reminded myself that I had to be somebody. Meek was weak, and weak was asking for trouble. I may have been only a teenager, but I was nearly six foot, approaching one hundred and seventy pounds. Hadn’t Squeegy called me a giant?

“Are you a man, or a mouse?” my mother once asked after I came home from school with a shiner. A bully named Emmet had been tripping me in the hallways. One day he took it further and slugged me in the eye. Her look told me she was disappointed in me. I didn’t like to fight, but disappointing your mother is something else. I lay in bed that night feeling low. I made my resolve. The next day there he was, smiling at me, blocking my way in the hall. I blinked and it hurt. My eye was swollen and my heart was heavy. I attempted to pass, and as I had anticipated, he stepped in front of me as other kids gathered to watch, nervous grins on their faces. My ears rushed with white noise. My eyes saw red. As he looked for approval from the gathering crowd, I doubled up and knocked him clear across the hall with one punch to the ear. He crashed into the lockers and sank to the floor with a whimper. Like I said before, I’d never been in a real fight, and I never considered what happened that day a fight. It was rage. It was ugly, and just, and right. Although I garnered new respect, admiring smiles from the other students, it was never something I was proud of. Like my altercation with Steve, it was a chore. It needed to be done. I spent a week sitting after school in detention, and Emmet spent the next two years avoiding me.

I took a few deep breaths, puffed up my chest, and pushed open the door. I stood there taking in the smell of chemicals that straightened hair, that promised the latest Afro looks. “What you want, boy?” the cackler asked as they looked me up and down. “That boy frontin agin!” another barber said. “Mmm, mmm, mmm,” he continued as he shook his head.

“I’m here to talk to Junior, and I’m not frontin!” I said as I squared off to face the row of barbers and their customers.

“Damn. He ain’t frontin fo sure!” a skinny customer with an afro the size of a basketball exclaimed.

“Junior!” the cackler called as he cackled from habit. “Dat white boy hollerin fo yas agin!” The conversation had come to a stop leaving me feeling like I was alone on the witness stand, all eyes on me, hanging on my every word, waiting for my next move.

“You stay around these parts, boy?” the cackler asked.

“Yeah, I live near here. And my name is James,” I answered as I forced myself to look him in the eye.

“Cack, cack, cack!” he laughed. “James. James is his name. He say his name is James. Everybody holler at James over there, cack, cack, cack!” he laughed.

“Don’t pay them no mind,” Junior said as he stood at the curtain to the back room. “They ain’t got enough sense to pour piss from a boot.” He continued as he stood there challenging any one of them to answer back to him. They stared at the floor and nervously patted and shaped the hair they were styling. Junior nodded and I followed him through the curtain.

“Cack, cack, cack!” I heard the cackler behind me. It was a quieter cackle, lacking in confidence, measured to show defiance without pushing Junior too far.

“What you want, boy?” Junior asked as he parked his considerable girth on a stool and caught his breath. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow. I couldn’t help but notice the pistol laying on the counter beside him. He followed my eyes and shrugged his shoulders. “Never seen a gun, boy?” he asked.

“I’ve seen one before. Even shot one. A rifle,” I answered.

“Need one around these parts. Motherfuckers are gonna rob a nigger blind if he ain’t got one,” he said.

“What kind is it?” I asked. I was stalling. I wanted to talk for a minute. I wasn’t all that interested in his gun, but somehow I felt the longer I stood talking to him, the longer I spent in their world, the more respect I was gaining.

“That’s a goddamned forty four. Blow a mans head clean off his neck,” he answered as if I was going to question whether it would or not.

“Has it?” I asked. I immediately wanted to shove those two words back in my mouth. I was just making conversation, but it was a question that would be unwelcome in any circle, much less one where I didn’t belong.

“I guess you fixin to want me to holler at Leroy Reed?” he asked, ignoring my social mistake.

“I’d appreciate it if you would,” I answered, grateful for his willingness to forgive me and move on.

“Aright, boy. I’ll holler at ’em,” he said.

“James. My name is James,” I pushed as I reminded myself to straighten up and puff out my chest once again. Junior stared me right in the eyes. He was waiting to see if I’d shrink, if I was confident enough to stare back, to stay the course.

“Aright, James,” he said with a half-smile. Leroy Reed say you aright, he say you righteous. I gonna holler at ’em fo yas.” I looked down at the pistol again, wondering what it would feel like to hold it.

“You don’t ever wanna put yo prints on no gun, James,” Junior said as he read my mind. His look told me It was time for me to go. I’d completed my mission and anything further would be an annoyance, would reek of desperation.

“You ain’t seen nothin.’ Yas never been here, see?” he said as he stood.

“Yeah. I understand. I see. And thanks,” I said as I turned and walked through the curtain. I didn’t bother to return the glares of eyes that burned a hole in my back as I headed out the door and into the brightness of the day. I took a big breath of chemical free air, and walked down Sunset with mixed feelings. I felt heroic for standing up to the cackler and his flock of crows sitting clear of danger on a telephone line strung between two poles. But at the same time I’d made a critical error, an elementary infraction of the code of the streets. I was only buying time, but I’d asked a question I shouldn’t have. “I’ll have to do better,” I thought.

I decided to stop for subs on my way home. The boys would be hungry, and I had just enough money for three of them. We’d have to split them, but it was better than nothing. The shop was empty except for a man I recognized. I knew I’d seen him at The Cup more than once, and maybe a few times on the street. He sat eating his sandwich with his good hand, a withered, useless arm hanging from his shirtsleeve. He nodded at me as I stepped to the counter to order. I nodded back. I ordered and then sat in the booth next to his.

“I’ve seen you around. I’m Vince,” he said in a gravelly, cigarette ravaged voice as he began to offer his good hand for a shake. It was covered in mayonnaise and I didn’t reach out to oblige. He pulled his hand back as if we’d shaken anyway. I wondered if he was the Vince Donnie and Johnny knew, the one who was in love with Johnny, and bought them beer. He looked worn out. He could have been one of the men in the huge photograph that covered the wall, the one taken in the twenties or thirties that showed men and women standing in heavy coats and hats beside a street car stuck in a snow drift. He had the face of past generations, a face that spoke of long years and hard times.

“Yeah, I’m James,” I answered.

“You work the boulevard?” he asked.

“No. I don’t work the boulevard,” I lied.

He thought for a minute and then leaned toward me, and in a conspiratorial voice asked, “Did you hear the one about Willy, the One-Eyed, One-Legged, Tasty Freeze man?”

“Willy, the what?” I asked.

“Willy, the One-Eyed, One Legged, Tasty Freeze man,” he answered, annoyed that I’d made him repeat himself.

“No. I can’t say I remember hearing that one.”

“There was this old man named Willy. He drove a Tasty Freeze truck around the neighborhood selling ice cream. You know, Fudgecicles, Eskimo bars, Nutty Buddies, frozen treats,” he continued as he held my eyes as if what he was telling me was of historical importance.

“Alright.”

“Willy was one scary looking old man. He wore one of those black patches over the hole left after one of his eyes was gouged out in a prison riot. And he had a wooden leg to replace the one blown off by a land mine in the war. He was six foot six and had a beard that went down to his belly. He could have walked right out of a pirate movie. He drove the Tasty Freeze truck and all the kids were scared of him at first. But a kid hears them speakers coming down the street playing the ice cream song and he wants some damn ice cream, right?

“Right.”

“So the kids warmed up to him soon enough. He was always right on time, and if some kid was short on dough for an ice cream, Willy would give him a break, give the kid the ice cream anyway.”

“OK.”

So at the end of summer one year, about September, a couple teenaged boys went missing. See, Willy was a pervert, and he kidnapped a couple young cats and took them to his house. Willy lived in a decent neighbothood, nice houses, families all around, and no one would suspect him. But he had built a dungeon in his basement. He tied the boys up and kept them alive because that was his trip. He was lonely, and he liked teenaged boys, and he was keeping them for himself.”

“Oh, wow!” I managed as I squirmed and checked the counter for the subs.

“Yeah. Willy was pure evil. He liked to torture boys too. So he tied them up and wrapped a wire around their balls. See, he was so twisted that he liked to shock boys in the testicles,” he continued. “But, the thing is that One-Eyed, One-Legged Willy was so twisted that he wanted the shocks to be a surprise to them all. So he rigged it so that anytime someone rang the doorbell the boys would get a little shock to the balls. Completely random. Fucking diabolical.”

“holy Crap!” I squirmed some more, checking the counter again for the subs.

“So, Willy wasn’t real popular or anything. He was ugly as hell, drove the Tasty Freeze truck all day, not a lot of visitors. He wasn’t exactly hosting Tupperware parties or weekly poker games at his house, right?”

“Right.”

“But every now and then the mailman, the package delivery guy, or maybe the Jehova’s Witnesses would come calling, ring the doorbell, and the boys would get a few shocks to the testicles, not strong enough to do real damage, but enough to get their attention. One eyed, One Legged Willy would come home from driving the Tasty Freeze truck, open the basement door, and go down the stairs… step, thump. Step, thump. Step, thump. And he’d ask, ‘Well, boys, have we had any visitors today?'”

“Yikes!” I said out of nervousness. “Just throw the meat and cheese on the bread already!” I thought.

So, after a couple months one of the boys escaped. One- Eyed, One Legged Willy was out driving the Tasty Freeze truck, and the kid wiggled free of his ropes, ran up the stairs, out the front door, and found a neighbor who called the cops. The cops came and the boy lead them back to the house to free the second boy while they sent other cops to look for Willy.”

“Ok” I answered. I was more than a little spooked by the imagery, but something in his bloodshot eyes told me there was a punch line coming.

So, they took the boys down to the station to get their stories, and their stories were mostly the same, but a little bit different, because they had been kidnapped at different times, right?”

“Right.”

“But there was one thing they agreed on,” he continued as he began to break up.

‘What’s that?” I asked in anticipation.

“Halloween was a bitch!” he answered as he burst out with a laugh that soon turned into a cough that had him gasping for breath and wiping his nose and eyes. I almost laughed too. Despite the scene he had created in my head, it was funny in a sick way.

I knew it was just a bogeyman story, an urban legend passed around by the underbelly of society like a bottle in a brown paper sack. But, for a minute I wondered if there really was a One-Eyed, One-Legged Willy. Perhaps Vince was Willy. He seemed to know enough about ice cream. Even with the punch line it was a chilling story, and one I was glad the little guys weren’t there to hear.

None too soon the subs were ready and I was glad for it. “See you around, kid. And watch out for Willy!” Vince choked as I hit the door.

“What did you get?” Squeegy asked as I lay next to him in the cool, darkness of the garage.

“Three subs. We can split ’em,” I answered as he turned onto his back and I recognized his milky breath.

“Johnny’s still here. We’ve all been sleeping,” he mentioned absently, as if he was counting heads and I would have somehow missed the fact that they were all asleep when I arrived. “Did you tell the guy?” he continued, suddenly remembering where I’d gone.

“Yeah, I told him,” I answered as got up and put the subs in the fridge.

“Do you think he’ll come tonight?”

“I don’t know. He’ll come as soon as he can,” I reassured him as I undressed.

“I hope he comes tonight. I miss him,” he thought to himself.

“You miss everyone,” I teased him as I lay down beside him and pulled a blanket over us.

“Naw, not everyone. Just the good ones,” he corrected me as he took my hand, brought it to his warm belly, and backed into his nest.

“I see,” I said as I felt him fit within me.

“Did you go up and check if he’d been there?” he asked.

“We were just there a couple hours ago. Besides, I don’t think it would be good to be seen climbing up there in the daytime,” I answered.

“I hope he’s OK,” he thought.

“I think he’s alright. He’s just laying low for a while.”

“Leroy Reed will know what to do.”

“He’ll help us all he can.”

“James?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think we can go to Miss Moon’s later today? Johnny’s never been there. He’s heard a lot about her, but he’s never been to her house. Plus I wanna ask her some stuff about school. It starts day after tomorrow, remember?”

“I haven’t forgotten. Sure, we can go over there, Squeegy.”

“Thanks, Sunny Jim,” he said as he yawned and moved my hand with his in circles around his smooth belly. I thought I could even smell marshmallow moons, hearts, and clovers, along with the milk on his breath. I found his pink neck under his hair with my nose and lips and took in the scent there. It was infinitely familiar, like bread baking in the oven on a winter afternoon.

“For what?” I asked, aching to hear his voice a little longer.

“For everything,” he answered. “I don’t know where we’d be without you taking care of stuff,” he continued.

“You take care of stuff too, Squeegy. Don’t forget that.”

“I guess. I hope it stays like it is. I mean, once Crazy Mike is OK.”

“Like it is?”

“Yeah. You know, with Zac and Daniel safe with us. With Donnie here, and Johnny can stay too if he wants. I like it better this way,” he thought.

“You mean better than before? When Joe was here?”

“Yeah. And Steve. It seems like there was more fighting, more arguing then.”

“I like it this way too,” I agreed.

“I hope Joe and Steve are OK,” he added.

“I do too, Squeegy.”

“I have to remember to set the alarm Sunday night.”

“You will.”

“Will you remind me?”

“I’ll remind you.”

“I need to look at our clothes too. We need to look our best for the first day.”

“We’ll look fine, Squeegy. Now, don’t start fussing over things. Let’s get a little more sleep,” I pleaded.

“I love you, James,” he whispered.

“I love you too, Squeegy,” I whispered in his pink ear.