Mad Boys (11 page)

“How does she look?” the photographer asked.

“She?” DeGraccio broke into some sarcastic laughter. “She’s not in too bad shape for your page one, but she is dead.”

“Perfect,” said the photographer.

We crept down into the only lighted cabin in the yacht. I was really curious about what the murder scene would look like. Whether there would be blood everywhere. Whether the eyes of the victim would be open or closed. Whether the skin would be blue. I’d heard somewhere about dying people turning blue. Maybe blue was the race of the dead. Maybe the body would be an entirely different color, like orange or aqua.

The door to the cabin was open and we just walked in, if you can count motoring on all fours as walking, because we were on our hands and knees. There in front of us was the victim, a girl about sixteen. The fact that she was so young knocked me sideways a little. It bothered Terry, too. He stopped dead in his tracks, and his eyes bugged out of his head; I crawled past him. The girl’s skin was very pale. I wondered whether that was her natural color. It was interesting to me that a person who was as white as white can be was dead. Was white the race of the dead?

The victim wore a short, lacy gown and high-heel shoes. She was laying on her side, arms outstretched. Her face was very heavily made up with shiny red lipstick, rouge on the cheeks, and black stuff around the eyes, which were closed. I could smell her perfume. Stinky and chemically—I didn’t like it. I didn’t see any blood. That was disappointing. I wanted to touch the body, and I even had it in the back of my mind to roll open the eyes.

Meanwhile, Terry had gone chicken on me. He had crawled to a corner of the room and curled up into a human granny knot. I lost respect for him. I knew I had to get him out of there before we got caught, but first I wanted to get a good look at the dead body.

I got down on my belly, lower than a worm, and inched forward. As I got closer I could see how the girl had been killed. There was a bruise around her throat, like a purple necklace. Somebody had strangled her, probably with a belt. When I got to her, I saw that her cleavage was open and that she was wearing a black bra. Inside the bra was a pack of Marlboro cigarettes. I helped myself to a cigarette. When I replaced the pack in the bra, I noticed that she was wearing falsies.

The sound of the water lapping against the boat caught my attention for a second, and I listened. I heard a ship’s horn far away, car traffic nearby, no voices, and an eerie sound, a sustained hush. It took me a moment to realize I was listening to the river. I was starting to feel fairly secure. I decided to try to get a look at the victim’s eyes, and I flipped back an eyelid. All I saw was bloodshot whites, no pupils. Apparently, the seeing part of the eyes had meandered to the back side of the eye socket.

Then something strange caught my attention. The gown the victim was wearing was of a dark, see-through material, and something underneath didn’t make sense. I didn’t want to disturb the body because, really, I didn’t want mess up the investigation. So what I did was look up the gown from the feet end. The toenails were painted the same bright red as the fingernails and the lips, but the feet were pretty good-sized. It was dark under there, but there was no mistaking the sight. It wasn’t a girl at all. It was a boy dressed like a girl!

From the corner, I heard a strangled whisper from Terry, “It’s my brother.”

My heart started to pound, and my breath came quick and shallow. Everything went strange. Even the light was strange, too yellow. I lifted the nightie at the backside. On the buns was a tattoo, d-a-d.

We didn’t bother to crawl; we just ran out of the cabin, scampered along the side of the boat, and almost fell off the ladder into the dinghy. I rowed back to the River Rats, as Terry hugged himself, shivering even though the air was warm.

“Tell the Rats I freaked out, and I’ll kill you,” he said, and I respected Terry again.

When we reached shore, he made an announcement: “The River Rats are declaring war against the sugar daddies and their kind.”

“What are you talking about, Terry?” Ronnie said.

“I’m talking about revenge!”

“Revenge!” shouted Ronnie, liking the sound of the word.

“Revenge!” yelled Dunc. All together, the Rats shouted, the word. “Revenge! Revenge! Revenge!”

Later that night, we built a bonfire down by the river and marked our faces with war paint like the Indians in old Westerns. Terry led us in a chant, “We the River Rats swear to rid the world of the evil black race. Swear!” he ordered.

We boys answered, “We the River Rats swear to rid the world of the evil black race.”

This went on for a while, and then as the fire died down the frenzy wore out. After all, what could a few boys armed with paint guns do? And then Ronnie said something that recharged the group. “Look at Web’s skin. He’s darker than the rest of us.” The Rats’ eyes glowed as they glared at me.

I backed up a step. “I’m a spy for the sugar daddies.” I didn’t speak those words; Xiphi did, and laughed hysterically.

“I knew it,” Chuck snarled. He was still holding a grudge from the day I stared him down.

Xiphi went phttt! in Chuck’s face, and turned on Terry. “Coward, chicken liver. My great-great grandfather was an African king.”

Terry doubled his fists.

“Give him room, he’s going crazy,” Aristotle said.

“The sugar daddies are coming for you. They’re going to drag you below decks. Suffocate you. Drown you. Drown you. . . .”

“Get him!” ordered Terry.

Chuck swung wildly, and Xiphi backed away, screaming, running, Rats on his heels. He got to the dingy, pushed off from shore into the current. The Rats threw stones, but Xiphi just laughed at them and pretty soon the boat was out of range. The current carried the boat downstream and Xiphi lit the cigarette I had snitched from the dead boy/girl. It was fresh and good and strong, and with the shock of it Xiphi withdrew into his dark world and I took his place in the boat. I lay on the bottom, staring at the stars.

The next thing I remember is waking up to a roaring sound. The air was chilly, the wind had picked up, and the little boat bobbed up and down. Beyond I could see open water, the ocean. The sound I’d heard was breakers far way. I didn’t want any part of an ocean, so I rowed to shore and jumped out of the boat, tripped, fell, and got soaked. I staggered along a road until I reached a bridge over a small stream. I went under the bridge, curled up, and fell sleep.

DALI STREET

Dawn.

At about the moment when I believed myself fully awake, I thought I saw a family of masked Indians with flattened heads loping on all fours by the stream bed. I waved to them. A second later a figure appeared in front of me. It was the Director from my imagination. “Look again,” he said. I blinked and looked again. Something about the morning light and my own imagination had tricked me. These were not Indians, but raccoons heading home after an evening outing.

The raccoons marched in single file with drooping heads and skulking airs. “Like altar boys in a religious procession,” said the Director. As the raccoons were almost past me one of the parents turned toward me and sniffed. I aimed an imaginary rifle at its head. “Breakfast!” I whispered to myself, and wished I’d had a real gun. At the motion, the Director said to the raccoons, “That’s your cue, Mother!” The mother raccoon said, “You don’t have to be sarcastic,” and turned to her young. “Don’t speak to that dirty boy; just ignore him.” The masked family members raised their noses and hurried off in an orderly huff. “Okay, cut. Print that one,” the Director said and sank back into the depths of my mind.

I holstered my imaginary weapon and headed into the light of the dawn. I walked in the road, which was blacktopped but very narrow, without even a yellow line down the middle. I don’t know how much time passed; blankness came over me. The road blended into another wider road, and another, wider still. Cars passed by. The road was suddenly very busy.

Dumpsters in a shopping center drew my attention. Food. I climbed one of the dumpsters and looked inside. I must have arrived on the day the trash collectors made a stop because it was empty.

Beside the entry doors to a department store, a glass dome on a three-foot pedestal attracted my notice. Someone had forgotten to bring the gum-ball machine inside. A sticker on the dome held a photograph of Jerry Lewis; Jerry said, “Help These Kids. Muscular Dystrophy Association.
Chickalets.”

I dragged the machine to the rear of the shopping center, where I found a discarded concrete building block. And bombs away!

Chickalets
spilled out. I reached in with both hands and stuffed gum into my mouth until my cheeks bulged. I sucked and sucked, chewed and chewed. Sugared flavors sent shock waves through my arteries, to my brain and back again. Orange, butterscotch, cherry, mint, raspberry, lemon—I tasted them all.

The booster shot from the sugar was starting to wear off when about fifteen minutes later, trudging down the service avenue, I saw a Mrs. McIntosh’s Kitchen—
Graphic Food for Graphic Folks
.

I went inside and grabbed the mouse, clicked the breakfast drop-down menu, moved the pointer to “orange juice,” clicked, moved the pointer to “English muffin,” clicked, and released the mouse. Thirty seconds later the juice and the muffin slid along a conveyer belt. I grabbed the food, gave the robot behind the counter one of the bills I’d stolen from Father’s wallet, and collected my change. I sat by the window, staring at the statue of Mrs. McIntosh. She was plump, with white hair and spectacles. While I sipped my juice, I played the free video that came with my booth. It showed Mrs. McIntosh in a parade float throwing chicken doubloons to the homeless, and then there was a commercial with Mrs. McIntosh’s voice-over: “Wholesome food. Nutritious. Tasty. Good-looking. The look and feel of graphic food for graphic folks. National governments as franchises of Mrs. McIntosh’s.”

Afterward I filled out the “How do we measure up?” card.

Food Quantity: Okay.

Food Taste: Can’t remember.

Friendliness of Service: Excellent.

Speed of Service: Excellent.

Order Accuracy: (This one threw me. I couldn’t understand why they wanted to know whether I had ordered accurately, but I didn’t want Mrs. McIntosh to know I was confused, so I wrote “Good.”)

Cleanliness of Seating Area: Excellent.

Rest Room: Liked the blower.

Outside Appearance: Can’t remember.

Additional Comments: Liked the statue of Mrs. McIntosh.

Name and Address: Secret, can’t tell you. Am spy for foreign power.

I left the restaurant and resumed my wanderings. Half an hour later, I found a train station. Good thing I still had the money I stole from Father.

The ticket seller said, “Where to?”

“Where’s the train go?” I said.

“Two trains. One goes north, one south.”

“I want to go to South Bronx, New York, Dali Street,” I said.

“That’s rough territory,” he said.

“Not for me. My family lives there. My father’s chief homicide inspector for the police department, and my mother’s a singer. Thousands of people from all over come to hear her sing. I’ve been staying with my brother from a previous marriage. You see my mother used to be married to. . . .” Aygand saygo faygorth.

The ticket seller gave me directions. Take this train, get off at this stop, take that train, don’t get off at that that stop, get off at this stop. I didn’t understand a word of what he said, and I took four or five wrong trains and subways and asked directions half a dozen times before I finally found my way to the South Bronx.

I looked up at the high-rises in the lee of the expressway that cut through the city. Each apartment had a balcony sticking out. It occurred to me that the balconies would make terrific launching pads for bungee leaps. I walked on and found myself in a different world. Nearly empty streets. Abandoned, crumbling brick buildings, five to ten stories high. Some with not a single unbroken window. And everywhere messages written on the walls in spray paint, so apparently this was a very literate borough of New York.

I soon came out of this district. The buildings were still grimy, but they showed evidence of habitation, with curtains on the windows and laundry hanging on rope lines. Vehicle traffic was heavy and slow moving. The sidewalks were crowded with pedestrians of varying shades of skin color, brown, red, yellow, black, blue-black. I even saw orange-brown people with freckles. Something dawned on me. Most black people weren’t really black, but red-brown, yellow-brown, or blue-brown; most white people weren’t really white, but beige, red-beige, yellow-beige, or blue-beige. Sometimes gray. It was only when they were like Terry’s brother / sister, dead, that they were really white.

In between decrepit buildings were vacant lots. Weeds and grass pushed up through cracks in the hardtop. I thought it was kind of romantic, flowers growing out of bomb craters. Music played from kitchen radios, and TV sounds blared from living rooms. An old man with tootsie-roll colored skin sitting on a porch stoop played the harmonica, but no noise came from it. I strained to listen. The old man stood, gestured for me to come forward, and disappeared.

I went into an alley, curled up on a piece of cardboard like a caterpillar lit by a match, and in two seconds I was out cold. When I woke up it was dark. I started walking the streets again. A homeless man, off-white but with kinky black hair and with a patch over one eye and carrying a sack over his shoulder, gave me directions to Dali Street. “Off of Lafeyette Avenue. Follow me,” he said.

Hungry but refreshed from my nap, I didn’t have any trouble keeping up with the trudging homeless man. He sang to himself as if I wasn’t there. We passed stores closed up in cages of steel; apartments with people on the steps singing and drinking and scolding, or sometimes quiet and playing checkers under the light of street lamps; night clubs from which came the sounds of laughing, conversing people and occasional shouts of adult joy, such as hey-yoop, and ee-oo and ah-ah. I kept looking for kids, but I didn’t see any. I did see some very well-dressed people disappear into a restaurant, a blue-black old guy about forty and a lady about twenty with chocolate-colored skin and dyed-blond hair. He must have been a gangster, and she was his moll.