Mr. White, a very dark black man from Baltimore, had just exited the room after a smoke call. We got to "blow o's" about three times a day - little enough that one of the side attractions in the two mass-breakouts in which I took part was expressed hate for the lock (crack!) on that cigarette cabinet.
"Cracker!!" I raised my eyes in time to notice and flinch, but not avoid, a softball, which according to the wikipedia was moving as much as 100km/hour when it intersected with the side of my face. The "softball" was named by a man who never had one land in his face, or maybe he did catch one that way, and went crazy. CRACK!! it declared, as it stopped moving right next to my ear.
Nowhere land
Let me just say that the noise and the pain were indescribable. Crying was losing it completely, which I did, where I was, which was nowhere-land: youngest guy in the "cottage", a euphemism for one unit of the Towson, Maryland Loch Raven School for Boys, a euphemism for a brutal youth prison in the Maryland Department of Corrections, another euphemism. I was one of two "crackers" in a group of 35 juvenile delinquents between 15 and 18 years of age. About half were there for having stolen a car, the rest for other petty crimes - though not one had been accused, tried or convicted in the ordinary sense in accordance with those largely Anglo-Saxon rules of jurisprudence that America adopted from the start (presumption of innocence, due process, a defender worth the name, right to a jury of one's peers, right to appeal).
Runaway habit
I was there because a court in Rockville, Maryland had deemed me "incorrigible". According to my mother, she and my father lost custody of me on the 12th of December, 1966. Why? I had never been charged with a crime, despite several attempts at petty criminality, but like many American children from the late 1800's on, I grew up on Mark Twain (how many have blamed that yarn-spinner for their delinquent dreams?) and dreamed of freedom and adventure: I was a habitual runaway. Not the kind of problem you'd try to solve by locking someone up with a bunch of genuine juvenile delinquents.
I don't remember how many times I lit out before the court determined that I was incorrigible, but let's say it was five times, maybe a little more. Early on in my career as runaway (about once a year for a few years) it was believed I should see a shrink, and in fact met with three mental health professionals off and on for a couple years; at least one was a psychiatrist. Barry was his name, and his last name was approximately Grief, but rhymes with "strife".
Barry explained to me once that a good psychiatrist could only be that after having gone through some sort of crisis and emerging in better condition than before. Despite this kernel of wisdom, a basic tenet of our talks was that running away from home was wrong, dangerous, wrong, thoughtless, even heartless, and wrong, not to speak of wrong. It wasn't until 1982 that my gestalt therapist would say "Well, I guess that means you didn't want to live there any more." The inner searching that this conclusion enticed changed my mind about much of what had happened, back during my "childhood". More clues in Looking for Michael.
Delinquency for dummies
Don't get me wrong on the delinquency : I had done my part, however little, before being locked up in a youth prison at age 15, to qualify as a member of my present unlucky fraternity, though nothing quite as dramatic as some of my confreres in our mini-den of mini-iniquity. For example (confession): I have placed pennies, never more than one at a time, on the railroad track near my home in Kensington, Maryland, even early enough not to be sure it wouldn't derail the train.
I hoped it wouldn't, and had the testimony of other boys in our neighborhood that it not only wouldn't derail the train, but in fact I would get a much bigger penny, which sounded attractive enough. They always were - oddly none survived into my adulthood. I have also been known to snitch more than one Dubble-Bubble (which celebrates its 80th anniversary next year!) from the drug store in old Kensington. Peaches and plums, even mulberries were easy pickings back when invisibly scaling a ripe fruit tree was the most rewarding science, with its important sub-specialty to remain and gorge ourselves on whatever fruit, still without being discovered.
And there were more dramatic moments, like the stolen toys from Seabrook, MD - once a few of us chanced onto a huge garage-like building, about a mile from our houses in Kensington. It looked like it had been unused a long time, and we could just make out a motorcycle and a car hidden under tarps inside, so we had to get a better look. Someone incapacitated a lock, and once inside we discovered a gold-mine of toys, plastic models, slot-car parts, leather goods, an entire small airplane apparently re-assembled in the attic of the structure, several motorcycles, what looked like a brand new old Rolls Royce. We decided this was stolen goods - most of the toy boxes were marked with the name of a toy store in Seabrook, MD - and declared it free for all. Lots of things were removed, over a couple weeks, until one day some of us were caught in the act, but they never called the police.
Alarming
Another ridiculous event was the convoluted incident of the fluky fire alarm. Pedro, Carlos and I sold subscriptions to the Evening Star, once one of DC's two main daily papers. We were good at what we did, and had learned the hard way that in fancier apartment buildings, usually good for a few subscriptions (at a dollar a piece in commission, they were worth all the walking), the thick rugs covering the long corridors we had to traverse built up a magnificent charge of static electricity. We learned to lightly tap every metal object on the way from one end of the corridor to the other, to discharge in increments, instead of all at once.
Once I tapped a fire alarm less lightly than I wanted, and it fell to the floor. I picked it up and put it back - FIRE ALARM! FIRE ALARM! FIRE ALARM! Shit, I had sent a false alarm and I couldn't turn it off. Quick, down the hall to that cleaning closet I passed, in and shut the door just before I heard voices from people emerging from their apartments, talking about it, and leaving the building. It was winter. Yikes! I shuddered in silence in there for a good half hour, heard voices returning, even comments on "that paper-boy".
A while longer and I could hear no more voices, so I finally dared to show my face, and slithered down the stairs like the creep I was, right into the arms of a local Fire Chief. From there it was a short trip to the police station (can't recall where, but probably a Maryland suburb of D.C.), a pick-up by my thoroughly pissed off father. This kind of criminality was right up there with the penny incidents, and luckily they believed me. Turned out the fire alarm I had hit had lost a screw, and the matter was dropped.
Another time, I convinced a friendly developmentally delayed gas station attendant to give me some of the money in his cash register, since he had so much, and he thought that was cool, though the sheriff didn't. That was in Schuyler, Nebraska - probably worth its own story. But it added to the picture of a boy on the labyrinthine path to perdition.
Back to Towson
I knew the word racism when I went into youth prison, but it was there that I learned what it is. I remember about six faces, but only four names:
Mr. White, brutal, psychopathic head of "the household" in that particular cottage, heavy-set, but not fat: people weren't fat, on the whole, in the United States in 1966 - 1967.
Mrs. White, his wife, short, wiry, nasty to one and all, sharp as a hawk, who took every opportunity to rat on the rest of us prisoners - a single hair out of place and she went tattling, and Mr. White showed up in a jiffy. If you were lucky, and he wasn't in a nasty mood, which he usually was, punishment might mean no smokes, or no dinner, or ECD (extra cleaning duty), or even RCD (ridiculous cleaning duty) - ever try to polish a floor with a toothbrush?
I am ready to testify: you can make a floor shine like burnished gold with a toothbrush and a spare week. If you weren't so lucky, Mr. White barreled down several flights of stairs and into the room like a steam-roller, maybe swinging a leather lanyard to whip your back, or a size 12 tennis shoe to whip your backside.
Father Edward J. Murphy, who we called "Ned" - a Jesuit priest, not completely through with his education but nearing completion in the long journey to full vows in the Society of Jesus.
Waymon P, very friendly and very short black guy from Baltimore - I won't set his last name out: he or his boss might read these lines and he might not like that.
Then two faces that come with no names: here's the "crooner", a long tall guy from Baltimore, blacker than most of the other African American guys that made up the majority of inmates at Loch Raven: he could do an intensely good imitation of anything Motown, but he really lightened up the winter of 1966 with an unforgettable rendition of "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas".
Lastly there's the head of the print shop, a man in his 50's or 60's, that used us as free labor for his moonlighting for odd jobs - wedding invitations, fancy certificates. He taught me to hand-set lead type from California job cases, and to run old-time printing presses, and I got to use a linotype. Learned how to gild fancy documents in an oven. The last step was to be offset, which was new for that level of technology, and he was going to teach me that too, but I might have missed it anyway, since our third mass breakout - something we planned even though the Man had told us that anyone caught this time would be put permanently into Patuxent, which we were told was a mostly underground facility for the criminally insane - was scheduled for the 3rd of June, the day after I actually ended up leaving. Thus I never took part in that breakout, since I got out on the 2nd of June, 1967, thanks to a cab driver and a trellis.
Crack of dawn
Back to the crack at the ear of this cracker: I looked up "softball" - wikipedia explains what it looks like, and what you do with it (when not attacking young crackers), but it doesn't say why "softball". Sure isn't soft, and it made quite an impression on me. I never discovered who delivered it, and the weird thing is it was one of those few acts of completely senseless physical violence I've ever experienced, right up there with the times Keith S who lived with his two bigger brothers by Plyers Mill used to mug me on the way to Wheaton Plaza to play pool, especially when I wore a cast on a broken arm one summer. Or that alcoholic that kicked me down the stairs in the hotel in Schuyler, Nebraska, not to speak of the gang that attacked Pedro and me in downtown DC, when we escaped by throwing coins and running. But: I'm getting both ahead of and behind myself.
Only two of my anti-homeward journeys were truly memorable (though the first time lingers vaguely), and they were the time before and the time after youth prison. The time before Loch Raven germinated during the summer of 1966, when my next younger brother Bobby, lately known as Thunder, and recently deceased, was given a punishment of some sort for a now forgotten infraction. He mentioned for the first time the idea that he might be leaving, and would I come along. The deal was quickly made, and the date set: Halloween. And we needed money.
The dream was San Francisco - we had a hunch, even though Scott McKenzie's hit was still a year away - and we had all kinds of plans, but we never really got it together, except for some money, and the day before we were to leave, he jumped ship! Still, I was determined to make it out there, to see what the fuss was about, so I split on time - early morning, Halloween of 1966. Hitched a ride into D.C., got to Union Station, bought a ticket for a train to Winchester, then took a bus from there to Harper's Ferry, and was just about running out of cash when a guy on the bus offered to loan me enough to pay my ticket through to St. Louis, where he said he had a car and could drive me to where I was going: Omaha, Nebraska. So that's what we did, and in Omaha, where I was supposed to pay him back after a couple days but never did, I spent a night at a Salvation Army shelter, on a wooden pew among snoring old men.
He ain't heavy, Father
Next morning I headed west again. I was almost penniless when I got to Boy's Town, where I explained I had run away from my foster home in Sacramento, California, where my evil uncle made me work long nights at his filling station, short-circuiting my dreams of academic achievement. The monsignor that interviewed me told me curtly that during the decades he'd been there, only a couple of the stories he got from runaways had turned out to be true.
Right then he was called out of the room for a minute, and I took the opportunity to scoot out of his window and across the fields, where I hid among corn rows until late in the night. State troopers flashed by on the highway for a few hours, but nobody actually went into the fields to look for me. I moved parallel to the road for a few hours, then dared my way onto the road again and hitched a ride further west, arriving at nightfall at Schuyler, Nebraska.
Popcorn
Schuyler was a small town known at the time for a few things, and one of them was popcorn: "Popcorn Capital of the World!" I read on a calendar in the main office of Schuyler Mills, where I worked for a couple weeks taking silo temperatures (milo, popcorn and others), helping to move freight cars, loading trucks with chicken manure, gathering eggs in mornings and other odd jobs.
Gathering eggs in a building housing some unbelievable number of hens (noise! stench!) bright and early is a lot harder than it sounds. Hens back then had more space than they do today - as I recall Schuyler Mills had only one or two in each cage. After egg-hunting it was time to do the rounds of the silo-thermometers, requiring an amazing amount of climbing ladders - I think I knew already then that the pressure in those silos together with microbiological growth processes could raise temperatures to the point of combustion, so they were keen to have that done right.
A couple weeks down the line, in some pretty unclear situation a drunk guest at the hotel I lived at knocked me down the stairs, and I hurt my back enough so that I couldn't go to work for a couple days. That cost me the job, and I got my paycheck and was asked not to come back. It wasn't enough to get the ticket to Frisco, and it was then that I tricked an attendant (with a developmental disorder) at a gas-station to give me some of the money in his cash register. It was enough to buy the ticket, but before the train arrived - I could hear it coming, somewhere down the track - the sheriff arrived and asked to talk with me. The money was returned, and while there were no charges brought, I was placed in the courthouse cell-block, and for a week claimed I had run away from my evil uncle in Sacramento. They never managed to find this uncle, and I recanted, and a couple days later my father picked me up and we drove home. This was near the end of November 1966 - a couple weeks later, I was in the custody of the State of Maryland.
Bittersweet release
That stay at the tax-payers' expense lasted about 6 months - I was finally released on the 2nd of June 1967. My father, inhalation therapist at NIH (in today's terms roughly similar to an anaesthesiological nurse, which didn't exist at the time) by day, taxi-driver by night, who had a pre-existing heart condition, was overweight, diabetic, and smoked, tore down a rose-trellis from a derelict house to give my mother, and got chest pains - 12 hours later he was history. The juvenile court in Rockville released me to my mother's custody - I didn't have to return to Loch Raven!
My last split from my family of origin came in early 1968. I had been playing bass with a new band for a few months, thanks to my mother, who had given me a Hagstrom bass and Univox amp for Christmas, and had finally had it with the straight and narrow, and I moved out for the last time.
My mother called the police again, but this time my resources were better, and I moved to the home of a friend of one of the band-members, in Garden City on Long Island. I spent a few weeks there, and finally called my mother and asked her to call off the police, so that I could come home to Kensington but not have to live with her any more. And she did, and I did, and we made peace, and the band played on.
Copyright © 2008 Michael Bransome
