American Outlaw (9 page)

A big, bald guy grabbed my shoulder. He was wearing the orange uniform of the K, and he was glowering at me.

“What are you talking about?”

“This,” he roared, and triumphantly he seized the Butterfinger out of my right front pocket. “I’m calling the
cops,
fucko.”

“Hell you are,” I said. “I was going to pay for that. You just didn’t give me enough time.”

“Come on, you’re coming with me.” He took my collar roughly and tugged at me.

“Dude,” I said. “It’s a fucking
candy bar,
man.”

He only yanked harder. He tugged at my collar with as much power as he had in his big arms. “Let’s go, now.”

Without even thinking about it, I decked him in the face. He dropped like a load of scrap, directly to the floor, screaming in agony. “Here’s your Butterfinger,” I said casually, as I threw the candy bar and it bounced off his head. “See ya later.”

Moronically, I thought that was it: I figured, hey, situation taken care of. Apparently, I was very wrong. Half an hour later, in my algebra class, cops came and knocked on the door. They held a quick conference with my teacher, pointed at me, and hitched up their police belts.

“Mr. James? We’d like you to come with us.”

I was hauled into juvenile custody. The Circle K guy had easily figured out who I was—that was the downside of being one of the biggest kids at the school, I guess. He wanted me charged with assault, which is what happened. I got the kids’ version of aggravated assault, and they threatened to send me to the California Youth Authority for a thirty-day period.

“So why don’t you?” I asked, pissed.

“We know you’ve done well for yourself in football. We think you can help this community. So we’re going to give you probation instead.”

I was introduced to my probation officer then, a fairly attractive older woman who wore a gold crucifix around her neck.

“I’m Ms. Torres, Jesse,” she said sternly. “I’d like you to explain to me what happened.”

“Sure,” I said. “A guy grabbed me. So I hit the fucker in his face.”

“He grabbed you without provocation?” Torres said dubiously, glancing down at her paperwork.

“Yes,” I insisted. “In fact, I’d like to request that he be charged for assault. Can we do that here?”

“The gentleman in question says that you were shoplifting from him, Jesse,” she remarked.

“Sure,” I said. “Stands to reason he’d say that. It shifts the blame from the real guilty party: him.”

Ms. Torres folded her arms and stared at me. “Why don’t I believe you, Jesse?”

“I can’t control what you believe, Ms. Torres. I can only speak the truth.” I nodded toward her crucifix. “We’ll have to leave it to the big guy upstairs to decide, right?”

Torres frowned. “Jesus has more pressing matters to attend to, Mr. James, than your tall tales. For now,” she said, “you are under my supervision. Is that understood? Keep out of trouble. No more altercations.”

Whatever. I figured it was all bullshit. It was more fun being a knucklehead. Bobby and I roamed around, sizing up burger stands and electronics stores, fantasizing that we were going to knock off another one when the mood seized us.

“Wouldn’t you love to get a taste of that, James?” Bobby said, leering at a Burger King shutting down for the night.

“You bet,” I agreed. “A nice big score, set us straight for the rest of the year.”

We had plenty of company in asshole-dom. Teenaged Riverside thieves gathered around Bobby like he was king shitpile. There was one kid who fairly idolized him. He was an auto thief who collected Clubs—as in “The Club”—just to be a massive dick about it. The crowning achievement of his life was the double closet in his bedroom that, no bullshit, contained a six-foot-high mountain of Clubs.

He was so proud of that mountain. He’d slim jim his way into a car, take a pair of bolt cutters, and snip through the steering wheel, which is just wire underneath the padding, and slide the Club off. Sure, the steering would go all wobbly after he did that, but hey, that wasn’t his problem, right? He wasn’t going to be driving that car for very long, anyway.

We pinched cars and cut them up. We sold them to various scumbags for next to nothing, or ripped them apart and tried to deal the parts. On weekends, I was chained to the swap meet for my dad. But on weeknights, I’d drive into L.A. and hang out at Golden Apple Comics, with my cousin Dave and his girlfriend. She had a Silver Surfer tattoo on her forearm, which was pretty hard-core for the eighties. Golden Apple was down on Melrose, and they stayed open pretty late. We’d geek out on comics for hours at a time.

After a couple of months of hanging out there, the owner of the store started looking at me all funny.

“Hey, kid. Come over here.”

I looked at him suspiciously. “I haven’t stolen anything, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“No, it’s not that,” he said. “Listen, I need a big kid like you to work security for me. We got an event coming up tomorrow night, and my regular guy’s busy. You ever work security before?”

I shook my head. “What do I have to do?”

“You just make sure no one gets in without paying. And once they’re in, you gotta see to it that no one stuffs anything in their pants. Not rocket science.”

“What do you pay?”

“Fifty bucks a night, plus you get to listen to everything, front row. How’s that for a deal, kid?”

I agreed for the pure hell of it. I thought it was very funny: me of all people making sure no one pilfered anything. But then I decided to take the job seriously. Golden Apple had a lot of great readings in those days. Charles Bukowski came around two different times
when I was working. The second time he was there, he brought me several signed first editions of his books. I really had no idea who he was until years later. I just liked him because he was the crusty, angry type of fucker I’d gotten used to at the swaps.

The days passed, and soon I missed having a girlfriend. Before long I got it into my head that I’d like to try making Patty into Rhonda’s replacement. Beyond the fact of knowing it would piss off that John kid no end, she was just really adorable. I called her up a couple of weeks after the party to see what the deal was.

“So, I was just thinking about you,” I said.

“I was thinking about you, too,” she confessed.

“That’s great,” I said. “Well . . . are we gonna get together sometime?”

“Sure,” Patty said. “You can take me out to the movies this Friday, if you want.”

“No way!” I said, unable to believe my luck. “I mean, yes. Yes, I want.”

“Great, smooth talker,” she said, laughing. “Come over around seven. You can meet my dad and my stepmom then.”

So I got all excited. That Friday, I showered up and dressed to the preppy nines: Chess King shirt, flared jeans, the whole thing.

Patty lived on the other side of Riverside, in an upper-class neighborhood with big, quiet houses and sports cars in the driveways. Her front yard was well manicured. No misfit washing machines rusting in the front yard; clearly, this was not my ’hood.

I rang the doorbell and a familiar face answered. A gold crucifix glinted in my face, and to my utter dismay, I realized I was looking at Ms. Torres, my probation officer.

I watched her face turn from puzzled, to disgusted, to plain frightened, as she remembered me. Finally, she muttered, “Please, come in.”

“Jesse!” Patty sang, coming down the stairs as I entered. “I see you’ve met my stepmom.”

“Patty,” Ms. Torres said drily. She folded her arms and looked at Patty pointedly. “You and I need to have a little talk in the kitchen.”

That was the sum total of my first—and last—date with Patty.

Still, life went on. I got up early every Saturday morning to work the swaps. Gradually, I learned how to read customers, sell them on whatever crap my dad had found at auction: a bundle of rags, ten boxes of Tupperware, didn’t matter. If we acquired it, I could sell it. Nights, I’d play tough guy at Golden Apple. A hesitant Southern California winter shuffled in for a visit. Six weeks later, it was gone.

Home was home. I didn’t much want to be there. Despite the renovations, the house still smelled like the fire. It may have had a new roof and new carpets, but the walls had a faint stench of black smoke that you couldn’t ever get rid of. Bad memories came flooding back every time I walked down the hall.

My dad and I spoke to each other only when we had to—by this time, I was old enough to understand that I no longer respected him. Yet there was literally no other place I could go.

Except, of course, jail. And that’s where I was headed next.

4
 

Looking back, I’m tempted to blame it all on Bobby. Of course, I won’t. Still, the appeal is there.

“We’re gonna hit Rybeck’s Saturday night,” he confided to me. It was late afternoon, just before our senior year was going to begin. We were lounging on his roof. You could see the whole shitty neighborhood from where we were. Kings of all we surveyed. “And we need you.”

I frowned. Rybeck’s Cameras was the biggest photo store in Riverside. “Who’s we?”

“Me and Dave,” Bobby whispered, naming one of his old friends. He looked over both shoulders, hamming it up. “We’re going to go in after hours and clean up, man.”

“That sounds perfect,” I said. “For you.”

“Noooooo,” Bobby said, slowly wagging a finger. “For all of us.”

I shook my head. “I can’t do it, Bobby. This year’s going to be big
for me. I’m going to have scouts at the games this year. I gotta stay focused. It’s my ticket out.”

“James,” Bobby said, “I’m very disappointed. How could
you,
of all people, leave me alone, when I got the heist of a lifetime all primed and ready?”

“I’m not leaving you alone,” I pointed out. “You have Dave.”

“Dave’s no fun,” Bobby protested. His shoulders slumped, and he looked like a giant, sad dog. “He’s all business. He’ll just want to get in and get out. Thanks a
bunch.
”

“I’m sorry, man,” I said, laughing. “Maybe some other time.”

Football just felt too critical. It overshadowed even my desire to screw around. Over the summer, I’d attended an offense/defense camp at UC Riverside. Among my coaches were Ed “Too-Tall” Jones and Lester Hayes, both former stars in the NFL. Under their guidance, I’d won most valuable defensive player of the whole camp. I was going to be captain this year. I felt ready to take on the world.

High school football was a pretty big deal in Riverside in those days. People came to the games looking for entertainment and adrenaline. We held our games at Riverside Community College, instead of at the high school, because we’d draw such a huge crowd. Local rivalries were crucial and intense. Sometimes, looking out at the thousands of screaming fans in the stands, I’d realize with satisfaction that I wasn’t the only fucker out for blood.

Our biggest rival was Notre Dame. My senior year, their quarterback was a heavily recruited kid named Tony Nordbeck. He was an excellent athlete and a talented passer, but a big crybaby, too. That combination always exasperated me.

I took Nordbeck down hard in the first quarter. “Good
hit,
James!” Bobby cried.

“Thanks,” I grunted, lining up again.

“Listen, I gotta talk to you,” he whispered. “It’s about Rybeck’s! Dude, we got an
unholy
load!”

“Not now, Bobby.” I waved him off.

“Sure, you’re right! Let’s play football!”

I flew off the line, smashed through a double team block, and took Nordbeck out at the knees before he could get rid of the leather. Ten-yard loss. Third and twenty. No chance, Notre Dame.

We punished them that game. Thrashed them into the ground, embarrassed them, made them hate the sight of a football and everything it stood for. They had thousands of their own fans at the game, and the lewd chants and rowdy discontent between the opposite sides of the stadium increased palpably as the time ticked down on the clock. By late in the third quarter, the game had long since been decided, but we were still gutting hard, going for murderous hits on every play. You could feel the drunken hate of the crowd hovering in the fall air. It was special. It was why we played.

Our cornerback, Albert Cornejo, looked up at me and grinned. “Almost too easy, huh?”

“
Way
too easy,” I yelled, loud enough for the other team to hear.

“You guys think you’re funny, huh?” spat one of their linemen. His uniform was messy, ripped, dirt-smeared and grass-stained.

“We are pretty funny,” Cornejo agreed. He pointed up to the scoreboard, which read 45–14. “But
that
shit . . . is
hilarious.
”

A play or so later, I faked a charge at Nordbeck, then immediately cut back to cover the short pass. The ball came spinning in the air only a few feet out of my reach. I jumped as high as I could, and managed to bat it lightly with my fingertips. The football played in the air for a moment, then descended straight into my hands. I pulled the ball to my chest and took off running down the field, uncontested.

Halfway to the end zone, I realized that no one on either squad had bothered to follow me. The entire Notre Dame football team, to a man, had executed a rotten sneak attack on Albert Cornejo. They were hell-bent on bludgeoning him to death with his own helmet.