Free Little Boy Blue by Edward Bunker

to stop grab-assing.
Three older boys swaggered beside the column, each with a blue kerchief folded
into a rectangle and pinned at the shouldertop as a badge of authority. They
were “monitors,” and each was of a different race. A thin Mexican
with kinky hair started whispering to another boy and was seen by a black
monitor, who trotted forward and kicked him in the butt, using the flat side of
his foot against the soft flesh. It arced the victim
upward, humiliating more than hurting. Alex’s cheeks turned red in
sympathy. Mr.
    Barnes saw the kick and said nothing. The
company was at a stop when it happened, and he simply waved them forward.
    Silence prevailed in the mess hall, too. Ten
boys sat at each table, with a monitor at the head. The monitor filled the
bowls with oatmeal and did the same with the milk. He used the sugar shaker
first and watched to make sure nobody took more than his share.
    While the meal was being eaten, Alex’s
eyes roamed furtively over the faces, all of which were engrossed in getting
down the plain but wholesome fare: oatmeal, bread, prunes, and milk. Except for
the numerous olive and brown skins, the faces were no different from those at
military schools and other places he’d been. He’d expected them to
be… different. He couldn’t remember details, but he recalled the
stories about Juvenile Hall, all frightening. He expected tough kids and faces
that showed it. He felt less out of place than he’d expected. Nobody was
paying him any attention—that was part of it—but it was also that
the other places had, in their regimented atmospheres, somewhat prepared
him for this. He did notice that most whites and Chicanes had ducktail hairdos
that shone with grease, and he saw a few boys sneak the white margarine into
pieces of paper and slip the packages into shirt pockets.
    When they went back through the corridor it
was to a large room with straight-backed wooden benches and a waxed floor. The
benches were covered with names gouged in the soft pine, so that ensuing layers
of lacquer didn’t erase them. He was to learn that the Los Angeles gangs
took their names either from neighborhood streets or from some landmark in the
neighborhood: Chapo de Temple (street), Alfie de Forence (street), Topo de
Dogtown (dog pound), Sonny de Hazard (park).
“De” meant “of.”
    The boys sat in arms-folded silence, except
for the monitors. They sprawled in a corner at the front of the room and played
Monopoly, though even they didn’t get loud. Mr. Barnes sat in a chair
tilted back against the wall beside the door, a clipboard cradled in his hand.
He nodded affirmatively when a boy asked to go to the bathroom. They had to ask
by holding up a hand, extending one finger as a request to urinate, two to
defecate, and three to get a drink of water. It was done one at a time, so that
when one boy returned, half a dozen arms shot up.
    One boy that Alex thought was Mexican, except
for his slanted eyes, was passing the time by forming bubbles on the tip of his
tongue and blowing them into the air. None lasted more than a few seconds, but
it fascinated Alex, and he worked his mouth in futile imitation, unable to form
a bubble much less blow it into the air.
    Half an hour later the company trudged
outdoors. Juvenile Hall was larger than Alex had thought, larger than any
military school he’d been in. Buildings blocked his view for half a mile,
mostly two- story brick, though others were simply concrete covered with paint.
Other columns of boys were emerging from the buildings, and these seemed to be
grouped according to age. The youngest group was seven or eight years old and
wore bib overalls, whereas the oldest was sixteen or seventeen and wore khakis.
The company marched along a road underneath a fifteen-foot wall topped with
barbed wire. Alex looked up, and the weight of imprisonment pressed on his
young mind.
    Across a hundred and fifty yards of lawn,
surrounded by pepper trees, was a building that stood