Libra Read Free Page B

Clorets.”
    “Bad-breath kissing sweet in seconds.”
    “One and a two.”
    “I say all right.”
    “One two cha cha cha.”
    “He don’t know dick.”
    “I mean look out.”
    “But how come he won’t talk to me?”
    “But what do we have to do?”
    “Smoke a Fag-a-teeeer.”
    “Ex-treeeem-ly mild.”
    “I say all right.”
    “But talk to us.”
    “We’re talking bad or what?”
    “But say something.”
    “Think fast, Tex.”
    “I say all right.”
    At the gate a man in a lumber jacket and necktie asked him his name. Lee said he didn’t talk to Yankees. The man pointed to a spot on the pavement, meaning that’s where you stand until we get this straight. Then he walked over to the other two boys, talked to them for a moment, gesturing toward Lee. Nicky Black said nothing. Scalzo shrugged. The man identified himself as a truant officer. Scalzo tugged at his crotch, looking the man right in the eye. Like so what, mister. Nicky Black did a little cold-day dance, hands in pockets, giving a buck-tooth grin.
    Out on the street the man escorted Lee to a green-and-white squad car. Lee was impressed. There was a cop behind the wheel. He drove with one hand, keeping the hand that cupped a cigarette down between his knees.
     
     
    Marguerite stayed up late watching the test pattern.
    Lee purely loves animals so the zoo was a blessing but they sent him downtown to a building where the nut doctors pick at him twenty-four hours a day. Youth House. Puerto Ricans by the galore. He has to take showers in that jabber. John Edward tried to get him to talk to the nut doctor but Lee won’t talk to John Edward ever since he opened the pocketknife on John Edward’s bride. They have got him in an intake dormitory. They talk to him about is he a nail-biter. Does he have religious affiliation and whatnot? Is he disruptive in class? He doesn’t know the slang, your honor. The place is full of New York-type boys. They see my son in Levis, with an accent. Well many boys wear Levis. What is strange about Levis? But they get on him about does he think he’s Billy the Kid. This is a boy who played Monopoly with his brothers and had a normal report card when we lived with Mr. Ekdahl, on Eighth Avenue, in Fort Worth. It is a question of adjusting, judge. It was only a whittling knife and he did not actually cut her and now they don’t talk, brothers. This is a boy who studies the lives of animals, the eating and sleeping habits of animals, animals in their burrows and caves. What is it called, lairs? He is advanced, your honor. I have said from early childhood he liked histories and maps. He knows uncanny things without the normal schooling. This boy slept in my bed out of lack of space until he was nearly eleven and we have lived the two of us in the meanest of small rooms when his brothers were in the orphans’ home or the military academy or the Marines and the Coast Guard. Most boys think their daddy hung the moon. But the poor man just crashed to the lawn and that was the end of the only happy part of my adult life. It is Marguerite and Lee ever since. We are a mother and son. It has never been a question of neglect. They say he is truanting is the way they state it. They state to me he stays home all day to watch TV. They are talking about a court clinic. They are talking about the Protestant Big Brothers for working with. He already has big brothers. What does he need more brothers for? There is the Salvation Army that is mentioned. They take the wrappers off the candy bars I bring my son. They turn my pocketbook all out. This treatment is downgrading. It is not my fault if he dresses below the level. What is the fuss about? A boy playing hooky in Texas is not a criminal who is put away for study. They have made my boy a matter on the calendar. They expect me to ask their permission to go back home. We are not the common drifters they paint us out to be. How on God’s earth, and I am a Christian, does a neglectful mother