The First Third by Cassady Neal;

Author:Cassady, Neal;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: City Lights Publishers

Chapter 3

THE BIG DAY had arrived. School was out, and Father showed up as per agreement, so, begrudgingly over the brothers’ protests, I was again given up to the happier life — supposedly for only the summer, but autumn and much of winter was to pass before I rejoined Mother at the Snowden. Pop and I immediately bummed off for the West Coast with no special plan in mind; we’d just go until something unforeseen stopped us, like work, women, wine or, as it turned out, jail, then on again to the next chance stop. We got to Salt Lake City (Dad blubbered anew when contrasting sweet memories of the February day I’d been born there in the County Hospital with the present sour life he’d sown for us all), and we even toured the Tabernacle for free before trouble started.

How it happened is obscure but simple enough: Father, being very drunk on the night-time street, had been arrested. Naturally I was picked up also, and, separated from Dad because of my youth, quickly lodged in the juvenile jail. This particular place was frightening, mostly because of the steel everywhere; for, unlike many almost resident-like detention homes, the Salt Lake one had more metal about than some prisons. Not just wire mesh outside the windows, but wire mesh and bars, and not only steel doors, stairways, tables, benches, etc., but even the walls, and overhead as well, I think, were of this same frightfully clanging substance. For three long days I filed from our woven iron cages to eat mush and bread with a couple dozen other boys, most of whom, of course, were here for more serious anti-social behavior, and timid as I was, they seemed regular convicts, like the real bigtime criminals, to be stared at in fascinated wonder and fear. The rougher ones didn’t fancy this ogling much — as a new “fish,” I was in for it anyhow — and during the first play period on the roof-court, I was shoved, hit and kicked before eventually being ignored. Despite this, I played volley-ball with the best of them. It was our only organized game, the ball being tied to the net with a long rope to prevent knocking it over the parapet, and so I compensated rather easily, after all, and thinking of them as equivalent to murderers, I didn’t identify enough to feel their rebuffs deeply.

After the 72-hour hold period — to find out if he was wanted anywhere — Father was released on a “floater” and came for me with chastisement and shame flooding his florid features. Heading south and eastward again, we soon ended up in Albuquerque, geography notwithstanding. I know it was Albuquerque because we camped there a week or so, but about all else I can remember is tortillas and beans of the poor Mexican families and the railroad section-hand handouts, off whose generosity we generally lived.

Continuing our zig-zag of the West, we hi-balled to northern California above Sacramento for some reason (probably a work mirage) then backtracked slowly toward L.

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