Free The Wine of Youth by John Fante Page B

If you’re ever in that jailhouse, you’ll see our names. Look over by the window.
    You will see Dibber’s cut this way: “Kansas City Lannon.”
    I cut mine: “Two-Gun Toscana, the Death Kid.”
    Pretty soon Dibber’s father came to the courthouse. He was mad as everything. He was yelling when he came down the stairs.
    He hollered: “Where is he! Where is he!”—meaning Dibber.
    Mr. Wagner opened the jailhouse door, and Mr. Lannon ran in. He made a hard run for Dibber. He bent Dibber over the cot. And right there in front of me and Mr. Wagner he gave Dibber the worst licking I ever heard anybody get, except me. Old Dibber must have felt very cheap. I mean, you know how it is.
    Then he quit licking Dibber, and took him home. He pulled him upstairs by the ear. I heard Dibber hollering away up in the corridor, and even when they got out in the yard, and even when they crossed the street. It was tough on Dibber, but he got off easy.
    After a while, my father came down the stairs. He was not in the least bit of a hurry. Mr. Wagner opened the jailhouse door, and my father came in real slow.
    He said: “So you’re a thief, too, are you?”
    I said: “No, Papa. I’m not a thief on purpose.”
    He said: “Purpose! By God, I’ll show you some purpose!”
    Oh, but that Dibber got off real easy to what I got. Oh, my father gave it to me with his belt. My father wears a belt because he likes to show off. I mean, what’s the use to wear a belt if you’re already wearing suspenders? I call that showing off. My father hurt me all the worse, because if you think bricklayer don’t hurt, just feel their muscles. My pants hurt and hurt and hurt. What I mean is, they burned like a stove.
    After my father got tired of licking me, he pushed me into the corner and put his belt on.
    He said: “When you get home, tell your mother what you did, you twisted little snake. And if she doesn’t knock the living hell out of you, then, by God, I will.”
    â€œYou already did,” I said.
    â€œThen, by God, I’ll do it again.”
    I went out of the jailhouse and up the stairs and down the corridor and out the door and down the front stairs and across the street. I started to run. I wanted to get home before my father, so my mother could give me my other licking, because if she didn’t, my father would give it to me again, this time harder. That would be two straight for him, and I’d rather take a hundred and fifty million lickings from my mother than even half of one licking from my father.
    Ho ho! You should see my mother when she gives me a licking. Ho ho! You should see her! Ho ho! She hits me like a little tiny sissified girl, and she thinks I’m dying from it. I make faces and groans, and before two or three hits she feels so sorry she has to stop, and before long she’s the one who’s crying, not me.
    I was all out of breath when I got home. My mother was in the back yard, feeding the chickens. I told her what happened. I told her the honest-to-God truth. I told her and told her.
    I said: “Mamma, I swiped carbide. I got arrested. I got put in jail. Papa got me out. He gave me a licking. He says for you to give me another one, too.”
    But she thought I was kidding. I told her and told her and told her, but she wouldn’t believe me.
    She said: “You mustn’t talk like that.”
    I told her to hurry and lick me. I even got a stick. She wouldn’t take it. We went into the house. I was scared about my father. He is a very fast walker. I knew he was coming.
    But all my mother did was sit there and say: “You mustn’t talk like that.”
    Then I figured out a swell way to prove it to her. I phoned Mr. Krasovich. I told him to hold the line a minute. But my mother wouldn’t talk to him.
    She said: “Hang up. I won’t talk to him.”
    I said: “Honest, Ma.”
    I said: