Excerpts from Tattoo The Wicked Cross by Floyd Salas

The phonograph on the chapel porch played a swing band accompaniment to Aaron's swaggering march through the crowd on the chapel lawn, to the nods of respect from colored guys, the grinning hellos from Mexicans, and the waves of white hands But unlike Dominic, whom he followed and whose powerful shoulders served as a natural ballast for a muscular torso, his shoulders jerked and floated like half-inflated balloons upon the strings of his arms, and his swagger was a twisting motion of his body alone.      "This is Jenson, man," Dominic shouted over the blare of the loud-speaker, propped on the top porch step. "This is Aaron, Jenson," introducing him to the blond guy from the dorm with the hooded eyes.      "Champ, you mean," Jenson said without warmth, although the slitted mouth suggested a sullen compliment.      He lifted the speaker to the porch, turned it, muting the blare of the music, stepped down the stairs and reached for Aaron's hand.      "Champ! Kicked Dominic's ass today."      The twinge of pain from his bunched knuckles reminded Aaron that Jenson got up at five in the morning to milk cows, and that he didn't see Jenson until they had lined up for lunchtime count at the diary.      Frosted blue eyes glanced approval to Dominic.      "He goes," Dominic said, and Aaron was too flattered to work his numbed fingers.      "What-a-ya wantta hear? Pick it, man," Jenson said and stepped back up the stairs to the record's final strains.      "Some jazz, man. Something that jumps. I don't want be sad."      "Go ahead, Tiger," Dominic said and chuckled, and the scowling furrows and lines of his face softened, and Aaron wished it could always look as relaxed and then began to believe that this was possible.      For he was getting a rep. Guys treated him with respect. Every word was a tribute and sounded like fine jazz. The grunting mother in the nightmare was like a scene in a black-and-white movie that he had already seen twice and no longer scared him. And neither the Buzzer nor Barneyway seemed much of a problem since Dominic had consented to let Barneyway play shadow to them, for Dominic was a duke, and when you ran with a duke, guys treated you good      "Hey, man. How about 'The Seventh Street Boogie'?" Jenson asked, slipping the record onto the felted pad of the turntable, and he began to snap his fingers in two-beat time before the solitary bass of the piano began its climbing roll.      A solo left hand straddled the keys, took a key's step with the thumb, followed by the ring finger, and made its rocking way up and then down the bass, once, and, then, twice before Ivory Joe Hunter's black right hand began to pick with one finger at the keyboard in a counterpointing melody, played coquette with it for a couple of bars or so and jumped into the music with all five fingers, followed by the brass, rhythm, and strings of the whole rocking band.      Aaron's response was a tap of his foot to the solo left hand, the nodding of his head to the climbing bass, the snapping of his fingers as the left hand started up for the second time, and then the swaying of his entire body in accompaniment to the counterpointing melody; and when the whole rocking band joined in and started blowing away at the repeated, pulsating, vibrating, beating melody, he thanked Jenson with the vital, charging heat of his blood, with the rhythmical sway of all his loosened bones, with the tingling energy that swept over his entire body, with joyous visions of a hundred spontaneous dance floors, between the counters stools and the tables in a hundred cafés, in which a hundred tight-skirted girls boogied toward him through the shimmering colors of jukebox rainbows with snapping hips and shaking breasts.      "Go, Joe, go!" he shouted, and Barneyway started clapping his hands in time from his seat on the bottom stair. Several boys joined him. More boys stood and started tapping their feet. The boogie got louder and more wicked. A couple of guys started snapping their hips. Soon, all the guys were standing, tapping, shuffling, rocking, and Aaron was surrounded by a rhythmic bobbing of heads, a blue sway of bodies. Everybody was great, was a superman, a great pachuco, a boogie-woogie rocker, a King Kong Duke, with a thousand broads waiting for him at the gate, and there wasn't no man, no institute, no mothers, no fathers, no outs, no misery, no blues, nothing but boogie, boogie, boogie!      "It's 'The Seventh Street Boogie.' Yeah! Yeah!"      A chubby colored kid began to soft-shoe down the sidewalk toward the porch, sanding his rubber soles upon the concrete with the easy swish of wire brushes on a snare drum. The sound captured Aaron and held his inspired attention before the swaying boys cleared the walk and he recognized Buckshot.      Buckshot's fat body rolled forward with effortless steps, fat belly and plump butt quivering with dancing jazz. He hopped into the air when the bass of the piano neared its lowest depth, seemed to hang suspended for a moment with one knee bent against his chest, balanced on the toe's tip of the outstretched leg, then stomped his foot in mock anger right on time with the final bass note.      "Yeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaah!" the crowd chorused.      "Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!" Aaron cried, dancing every step with Buckshot, anticipating every graceful quiver and effortless roll; and when Buckshot raised up, with an arrogant expression on his face, one eyebrow arched in a mocking, feminine manner, tan cheeks sucked in, lips pursed in a cupid-bow's kiss, little pinkie beckoning, beckoning, the back of a hand on the hump of an out-flung hip, a sardonic smile playing over his pursed lips, brightening the brown eyes, he jelly-assed with him in a mincing, knock-kneed gait closer to the porch and called out:      "Boogie, baby, boogie!"      "Boogie, boogie, boogie."      The piano rolled down deep again, and when it reached its lowest notes, Buckshot hopped into the air again, brought his right foot down with terrific force, but stopped it a scant inch from he walk, and gently tapped his toe.      "Go ahead, baby! Go ahead! Go ahead!" Aaron cried, sharing that immense and beautifully controlled power.      And as the brass joined in again, and a wild trumpet began to solo with shrill authority, Buckshot threw his hands in the air, scattered his fingers, and rocked up the walk with tight legs, top-heavy in the head, still sanding, his whole body quivering with exalted joy, his eyes as moist as melting chocolate, his mouth open in a silent cry of ecstasy.      "Take us with you, Buckshot! Take us with you!"      But when the band settled down to a journeyman's beat, he began to sand like a train chugging up a track: bent back, bent kneed, head down, and double fisted. His lips puffed out. His eyes chinked. He became the man!      "Oooooooooooh, Buckshot! Oooooooooooh, Buckshot! Tell us like it is! Tell us! Tell us!"      He hopped into the air again and came down on the sidewalk with a loud smack, hopped up again, and came down harder, and as the band swung into a roaring, rocking jazz climax, he did it again and again, his face a mask of brutal anger and confident, self-righteous power.      "Kill those punks, Buckshot! Kill 'um! Kill 'um!"      Buckshot then jumped high in the air with the final, blaring measure, inspired by the cries, both knees tucked, and came down on the bottom step with all his weight and the explosive force of his heavy brogans in perfect time with the final beat.      "Yeah! Yeah! Yeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaah!"      Hand clapping smothered the final yells and pattered off in the upsurge of happy conversation, the shifting of the pleased crowd toward the porch, and a melancholy blues number. And, panting, tan cheeks balls of sweat, Buckshot sat down on the stair between Barneyway and Aaron.      "You were great," Aaron said.      "Thanks, man," Buckshot said and, turning to see who had spoken, recognized Aaron. "Say, man, you were pretty great yourself this morning. I wouldn't have believed you could go like that! You're a future pro champ, man. You made this bad Dominic look easy."      He jabbed a finger at Dominic, who leaned against the banister.      "Little man make you go, huh?"      "Go-go!" Dominic said.      "Little man make your broad, too, if you ain't sharp," Buckshot warned.      "I'll make your mama, if you ain't careful," Dominic countered, but without anger.      "I'd make your mama, but you ain't got no mama," Buckshot said, leaning back on the stairs, exposing a sweat line under the gleeful expanse of his double chin, and thin slashes of facial shadow made Dominic's silence seem threatening until he rhymed his challenge:      "Now if you wantta play the dozens / let's have some fun. / But I gotta dozen caps / for just your one."      "You can't cap me," Buckshot said, "'cause I come from way down West, / down by Third and Pine, / just as close as I can get / to the railroad line."      Aaron saw yellow SP buildings, rusty tracks, and the soot and grime that coated the old wooden houses at the foot of Pine Street in West Oakland. But although the cap was good and made him want to join the fun, he couldn't help thinking that Pine Street, which was the roughest, toughest borderline by the bay among pachucos, was a good street to be from not to live on.      Dominic had evidently expected a cap on his mama and he hesitated, and Aaron joined the contest, proud that his own neighborhood was on the opposite side of West Oakland, near town, proud that the tall, old buildings were owned and cared for by the people who lived in them, proud, too, that there was only a scattering of colored people, none of them poor.      "I do my living up on Fourteenth Street, / on the corner of the block where the best streets meet."      Buckshot offered Aaron some skin, and Dominic leaned down and slapped his palm to welcome him into the game, and Jenson joined in from the porch with a singsong bass: "Now you cats act / like a bunch of paddies, / got no mamas, nor daddies, yeah!"      "Yeah! yourself, Big Jenson, / go hide your head / 'cause your mama's getting laid / on top your bed," Dominic countered, and they all laughed as Jenson covered his face.      Two boys on opposite sides of the porch fired a volley of their own partly memorized, partly ad-libbed caps at each other, and Aaron ducked his head and covered his ears and pretended he didn't want to get caught in it, but he hoped somebody would throw a cap at him so he could get back in the game.      A small crowd began to gather as Jenson spun the record into a revolving wheel above his head, caught it without touching its grooves, put a longer playing disk on the turntable, turned the volume of the speaker down to background level, and took up Dominic's taunt.      They exchanged caps two or three times until they ran out of verses, and Buckshot, with his twisted copper curls, chose Aaron; but before Aaron could answer, the slurred drawl of a colored kid from the South put Buckshot down, and a pock-marked white kid put him down, and another boy put him down, and the lawn became a no man's land of dirty caps. The crowd shouted at good caps, laughed at funny ones, and jeered and moaned at poor ones.      A nudge of Buckshot's knee at a cap made Aaron laugh. He'd laugh at a poor cap, although he might moan, too. He'd laugh and shout at a good cap, and he'd laugh in expectation before a cap was finished. For the dozens was dirty kicks, nothing counted, nothing was sacred, nobody had to be afraid or get mad, everything was for fun, for freezies: king's X and kick right back.      The free-for-all was at its peak -- guys were interrupting each other, guys were speaking at the same time, trying to finish a cap which another guy had started, stopping, laughing at their own attempts -- when the Buzzer and Rattler appeared on the outskirts of the crowd with two guys from the kitchen.      The weasel-face blond guy was slouched over in a pachuco pose, pretending he was tough. Aaron despised him, suspecting him of joining in the classroom taunts. He had learned his name was Bobby Shuck and that the big Mexican guy with him was called Boomby and was duke of the kitchen. Dark pimple specks spread over Boomby's brown cheeks as if he were smiling, but his mouth was set and mean; and although Aaron was sure he was involved in the classroom hassle, too, he feared him.      The Buzzer rested his knuckle on the humps of his butt, and Rattler's mouth was a sharp crescent beneath the tattooed cross.      Words dribbled slowly to a stop. There was a long pause in which all heads turned toward them, in which Jenson picked up the phonograph arm, held it between his fingers, and which he finally ended by setting the arm down on another record.      The music began with the low, harmonious and consoling orchestrations of Glenn Miller, but Rattler broke into it with his throaty voice, pointed a knobby finger at Barneyway, and used a stock verse known by everyone:      "I saw your mutha down on Seventh and Pine / selling her pussy for a bottle of wine."      Saxophones throbbed to the pulses of Aaron's heart, and no one spoke, for Rattler was playing dirty -- not by what he said but how he said it. Aaron then leaned forward to see around Buckshot's plump body and to prompt Barneyway to come back with a happy cap, save the game, and put Rattler down by treating the attack as a joke.      He was certain the large eye in profile could see him. But Barneyway only rubbed his hands on his dungarees, and Aaron slid to the very edge of the step, trying to force an answer, for his own prestige was at stake, too. Any cap would do for answer. But Barneyway had to answer!      "Hee-hee! This boy can't talk. Hee-hee!"      Rattler posed in an exaggerated slouch, dungarees pulled down below his hips, baggy seated, shirt unbuttoned.      "Maybe he ain't go no mama?" the Buzzer asked. "Now a man that'll run when his mama is called, / will suck on a dick if its balls are bald."      A blush ballooned Barneyway's face, seemed to set it afloat, rising and lifting his body with it into an erect position. He stuttered, stopped, mouth open, struggled to answer, stuttered again, and closed his mouth, and Aaron declared: "The Buzzer and Rattler think they're bad. / Good in a gang but alone they're had."      The figures of his enemies shimmered in the hot sun before him. Tiny wrinkles wormed over his tight chin. He heard the needle scratch as Jenson picked up the phonograph arm, getting ready for action, and in the quiet, he could feel the support of the crowd. It was a battle for himself alone now.      A confused babble broke from Rattler and the Buzzer, both speaking at the same time. Rattler stopped and the Buzzer repeated his verse: "Some little boys think they keen. / A bust in the mouth decide who mean."      Rattler added: "Some little boys need to be schooled. / If they keep actin' up, they gonna get cooled."      Arms loose and ready, they challenged Aaron and all eyes watched him. The whole scene flashed before him. He saw himself battling, throwing punches from a gang-fight crouch, maybe losing, maybe getting lots of help, maybe getting to see the Buzzer and Rattler and their two buddies smothered under an angry storm of boys. But he also saw the gray misery of the isolation cell, Big Stoop, and his own puffed face in the mirror. He saw himself as a loser, falling off the perch which he had climbed that morning and which was above most of his problems, and he said, coolly, trying to keep the battle on a speaking level:      "Everybody got a right to rhyme if he wants to. We were having fun until you guys got into it."      Worms wrinkled over his chin again as he tried to keep his face from showing fear. He didn't think he sounded chicken, although he was trying to keep out of a fight. But the Buzzer thought he was scared and called:      "Stand up, if you ain't a punk like you friend," and Aaron jumped to his feet, shouting:      "Don't call me no punk, Buzzer."      He shouted it again when the Buzzer started toward him, side-stepping and hopping with quick, broken movements through and over the squatting boys, unable to make progress because no one would make room, but advancing with the slow, unreal, and inescapable force of a phantom in a nightmare.      The muscles in Aaron's legs collapsed and he caught his breath, but in the catching found the courage to fall into a fighting crouch, and heard before the Buzzer had covered six feet -- although he almost couldn't believe it -- Jenson's deep voice, warning, ironic:      "Now you ain't going to try and punch on that boy? Are you, Buzzer? I thought the dozens were supposed to be fun? You ain't actin' like you're enjoying yourself."      The Buzzer slowed but kept moving, and Dominic said, "Lay off him, Buzzer. You started playing rough and he just gave you some rough talk back."      The Buzzer stopped, pink gums exposed by the angry working of his jaw, and Aaron felt the strength come back into his legs.      "Leave the little guy alone," someone said, and the Buzzer turned to see who it was, and Buckshot sang out: "Now let's have some dozens with plenty of rhyme, / 'cause we gotta do something to kill this time."      And all the boys started throwing caps at the Buzzer. He sneered as he tried to answer the first one, but another was thrown at him before he could get to the rhyme; he tried to repeat it but forgot the rhyme when a third cap was thrown at him; he tried a new cap but stuttered with a new challenge; he didn't get to begin again before another cap hit him and another and another and another, and he finally gave up under a bombardment of taunts and jeers and laughter, and Jenson put on another jumping record, and Aaron spit at Barneyway's feet.