The Boys of Alpha Block

Chapter One

Intake Blues

            Tarvis Philip James strained against the seat belt, balling himself into a tight human fist. Making himself invisible. Well, it was too late for that. The deputies up front could see him, and worse, they could smell him and the vomit and stench he carried with him from the Bradley Detention Center.

           He sat up, careful not to make a sound, and peered out the side of the van as it rumbled down the drive. A grey cinder block building squatted among the palm trees. An ugly place. Only one way in, he could see, and certainly no way out.

           The van screeched to a halt. Tarvis’s knees shook. His insides were screaming. The back window was open an inch, and the quiet—except for the crackle of palms in a light wind—was unnerving.

            What if I just bust out of here and make a run for it? What would they do? Shoot me? 

            The metal double doors on the side of the building blasted open. Two, maybe three, deputies in green tumbled out of the darkness, shiny metal objects jangling at their waists. To Tarvis, it seemed like some damn alien movie.

            One deputy sauntered toward the van. A pair of handcuffs spun round and round on an index finger. He yanked the door open. The damp, swampy air of a Florida morning rushed at Tarvis. The yellow bile pooled at his ankles. He folded his arms tightly against his chest, cringing against the back of the seat. He hated to stay, he hated to go, but he didn’t have much choice. He didn’t have any choice.

            “Well, what do we have here,” said Deputy Martin Haver. He clipped the handcuffs onto his belt. “It ain’t smellin’ like a rose.”

            Tarvis did not look up. He drew down further.

            He couldn’t go back to where it all started. That would be unthinkable. A bitter taste hit the back of his throat, his thighs ached though he couldn’t remember why. His only feeling was panic, like a cornered wild thing. 

            In one swift move, Haver’s beefy hand clenched Tarvis’s arm. He stumbled out of the van and stood on the asphalt. His knees shook so badly, he thought he’d collapse. The deputy’s fingers gripped him in a vice, and squeezed. There wasn’t a chance of moving an inch, up or down.

            “Welcome home.” The leering expression on Deputy Haver’s face said otherwise. He dragged Tarvis across the short stretch of scalding parking lot toward the building. The brown rubber sandals—a gift of the detention center—were too big. He couldn’t negotiate the steps in time with the deputy, and he nearly fell, stubbing his toe and drawing blood against the burning asphalt.

            Birds twittered and the trees whispered in the hot sun, but Tarvis hardly noticed the soft sounds. To him, it was all harsh and dry. He was going to prison for three years, which seemed like a lifetime, and the fear of not knowing what would happen next doubled down on his anxiety every time he thought of it.

            Tarvis found himself in a long hallway, the vague shape of a metal door at the dark end. Deputies walked around him, slamming doors as they went. Tarvis was scared, and other feelings were exploding so fast and gone again that he couldn’t quite sort himself out. He could smell the vomit streaking his jeans and the front of his t-shirt that read: “Rock and Soul. Get loaded.”  It was a message to consider with deep regret, since that’s what had gotten him into real trouble: He’d been drunk as hell. Waved a loaded pistol in a convenience store. Several times in the past few nights, he’d woken up sharply and replayed the events, thinking about how very stupid he’d been.  So smart and smooth at first, so stupid in the end.

            He nearly sweated to death remembering it all.  His friend Randall had said it would be an easy gig, and who was Tarvis to question that? Randall had been around the block a time or two. He was one smart honky with a steady job as a “stocking engineer” at the busy crossroads of the Quick-All convenience store in Palm-ghetto.  Sometimes he was “management,” but mostly Randall stocked cans of Vienna sausage and Dinty Moore stew in neat rows on the shelves behind the donut display. He’d told Tarvis it would be an easy inside job. 

            “Sweet as cream in yo banana pie…”

            “What’s that supposed to mean, Randall? I ain’t no pie eater.”

            “But yo is sweet, T.”

            The plan: Randall would set up the time for the robbery, pick up the guns from that flea brain, Ash Kepple. Tarvis, packing, would act as a screen and distraction when it all went down. 

            Randall went down, hard.  He never knew, or forgot, that Nidal, the clerk, had a pistol of his own under the counter, and when things got hot, he didn’t hesitate to use it on both boys. Tarvis had managed to stay out of the line of fire, but Randall had not. 

            Tarvis had the fleeting thought, as he considered his prison sentence, that Randall was much better off than Tarvis, planted as he was six feet under a soft green carpet at Miller Field Cemetery in Pokatoy, Florida.            

             It was all Tarvis could do to stay on his feet in that hallway.  He tried to straighten up. Lifted his chin. Haver was back. “What’s this shit,” growled the deputy in a gust of fetid breath. He stood inches from Tarvis’s ear, jabbing his finger in the back of Tarvis’s shirt that read, “The Blues When You Need It: Mercenary Blues Band.”

            “My band.”

            “Oh, yeah?”  Haver planted his feet farther apart and crossed his arms. His biceps bulged like small melons, and Haver, with a nervous tic, or just because, made the melons jump up and down. Tarvis was mesmerized, and to his horror, tried not to laugh.

            “Yeah.”  It was the wrong thing to say. Tarvis found himself face down on the concrete floor, a large hand on the back of his neck, fighting to keep his teeth and lips intact. Then just as fast as he was down, he was up again and facing Haver.

            “You’ll start right now. Didn’t you read the handbook, boy? Cain’t you read?”

            Tarvis tasted blood. “Yes. I can read.” He didn’t move.

            Haver was lathered up. “It’s ‘sir, deputy, sir’ when you address me or any other staff around here, and don’t you forget it,” he said. “And the ladies is ‘ma’am’ but you ain’t gonna see much of the ladies, my man.”

            Tarvis tucked his chin in; stared straight ahead at nothing but the pock marks on the cinder block wall. 

            “Mr. Band Man,” Haver said, still poking the back of Tarvis’s shirt. “What is it you do for The Mercenary Blues Band? I can’t imagine, but what the hell.”

            Tarvis was surprised the deputy was asking him about music. “Lead guitar and singer,” he said. “Old school blues, mostly.” Out of the corner of his eye, Tarvis caught Haver’s sneer, but his hands stayed clenched at his sides, his chin pinned to his chest.

            “No shit,” said Haver. “Well. Welcome to your new band.  By the way, I thought you assholes only liked that punk ass god awful rap shit.”

            Tarvis felt his scalp bristle, a terrible knot forming in his chest. 

            So this is how it is going to be. More shit from the man. 

            Haver stuck his face, red and rock hard, close to Tarvis. He wanted to bite off the deputy’s nose, but he still possessed a shred of common sense—and an instinct for survival.

            The deputy shook his head, picked up a clipboard off the wall, and began scribbling on the pad. “Just shit,” he mumbled.

            Tarvis had trouble keeping it in. Especially where music was concerned. “It’s a free country,” he whispered. “I like all kinds of music. Blues, Stones, Tupac, Beatles, all of it.”  He wanted to add, but didn’t, that the best white music came from black music. Tarvis had been playing Robert Johnson and Blind Willie and Honeyboy and Lead Belly and the roots of great rock from the time he could get a decent reach on the strings of the beat-up Martin his Uncle Tendris had given to him. The guitar had come to Tarvis with hours of stories about the musicians who traveled with Tendris throughout the south.  Tarvis had wanted to get on that circuit one day.  He wanted to go on the road with his uncle, and play until the air all around him was charged with music and nothing else and all the other sounds of any misery in his life were drowned out. But Uncle Tendris died, the needle still stuck in his arm, a bottle of muscatel soaking the bed clothes. He took most of Tarvis’s dreams with him, except for the buds of hope he left in his nephew’s soul. Tarvis often got that guitar out, stroked its smooth sides, his fingers sliding past the ragged hole dug out with pick and passion under the strings.

            As soon as Tarvis opened his mouth and said it was a “free country,” he regretted it. Held his breath. The remark finally registered with Haver, and his volume shot up to ear-splitting. He shoved Tarvis against the wall inside the receiving den.  

            “Did you say free country, asshole?  Free country?  We’ll see how free you are,” screamed Haver. “And I just told you, and I ain’t gonna tell you again, you address me as ‘sir,’ faggot. And don’t you forget it.”

            Yes, I will address you as Sir Faggot. And then I will be dead. 

            He had an unquenchable urge to giggle. Again. But the thought of doing such a thing sobered him up. “Sir, yes, sir,” said Tarvis. It would be hard to address the deputies with respect, he knew, but he had to try if he were to survive. 

            They would all be “sir” or “ma’am,” and Tarvis would be Youth James. He would precede and conclude all comments and responses to men with “sir” and to females with “ma’am.”  To do otherwise would warrant a stroke on his chart. A good dose of those would only make his life more miserable. It was one of the many initiation rules in a book full of them he’d been given at the detention center. But it was all a blur. 

            He still stood in the receiving den. It was freezing cold and the vomit had congealed on his clothing. Deputies milled about, mostly ignoring him. Another metal door opened somewhere down the hall. Keys jangled, then a door slammed, and the sound of it closing was terrifying in its weight and finality. It sealed off the air, the outside world. Freedom. It clanged shut with the unmistakable message that Tarvis was in and the rest of the world was out.

            Then he had more company. The room seemed to fill with deputies and the smell of doom, all of it a frightening mix, everyone yelling and laughing at once, all together there to welcome Youth James home to Alpha Juvenile Correctional Center.

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Nancy Nau Sullivan

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