THE BILLY GOAT ACRES MOB

A Movie Treatment

 By Steven D. Bales

Bakersfield, California, 1949. A couple miles south of town was an area between Chester Avenue and Highway 99 that folks called " Billy Goat Acres."

The land belonged to a doctor who raised goats on part of the property and the rest he sold as lots to the transient harvest workers (fruit pickers). Some folks said the place got its name from all the Okies who moved out and settled there. I liked to think the name came from the goats the doctor sold.

The pickers would come to Bakersfield during the winter months to chop cotton, then wait for the potatoes and fruit seasons to begin. We were one of those families.

After World War Two, my mom and dad and their folks did anything they could to earn money. From driving freight trucks to working in shipyards. We traveled up and down the West Coast from Oregon to Southern California, living in tents and labor camps.

My dad was a tall man. I always saw him wearing a light-brown shirt and matching pants, just like the army men wore. He had brown hair and blue eyes. He was my hero.

Mom was a small woman with long dark hair. She smiled a lot and laughed quite a bit too. But she was also very strict, when she said something, she meant it. Us kids took a lot of whippings from her. If she was angry at a grownup, she’d be ready to fight them at the drop of a hat. Along with Mom and Dad I had two little brothers, Joe and Roy, and one little sister named Virginia.

Dad had an old military truck and an army tent he’d bought from a surplus store. That’s what we lived in most of the time. On one of our trips to Bakersfield my grandpa came with us. Everybody called him T. C., later I found out his name was Thurman Cleveland. Grandpa was as tall as my dad. I could recognize Grandpa anywhere, because he always wore a cowboy hat. He was my second hero, plus I thought T.C. was a good-sounding name.

Grandpa was the first in our family to buy a lot in Billy Goat Acres, where he put up a small home. That same year he let us set up our tent in his yard. Our aunts and uncles with their families also bought lots. We lived on Grandpa’s place for a while, then in early 1950 Dad bought a lot several roads up from Grandpa’s. We lived in a large trailer that was on the property. It was sure better than the army tent, mostly because it had a floor that was dry and warm.

Mom enrolled my brother Joe and me in Wayside Grammar School. We didn’t like that much, we wanted to stay around family. Anyway, Joe went to one class and I went to another. The bell rang and I was hanging up my coat when this bully jerked the hanger out of my hand, saying it belonged to him. The next thing I knew he’d thrown my coat on the floor.

"Pick it up," I said.

He just laughed and said he was going to get me after school. He went over and sat down, then snickered at me all day.

I met Joe as we were walking off the school grounds. Then I saw some kids from my class and with them was the bully. I told Joe I was probably going to have to fight the kid, and to jump on anyone who tried to help him.

As we got closer the bully hollered, egging me on. When we got face to face I took off my coat and threw it on the ground.

"Pick it up," I said.

He just laughed and said, "Make me."

So I did. I hit him in the face as hard as I could. He fell down on the ground crying. I told him to pick up my coat again. Then he reached over and handed it up to me.

When we got home Joe told Grandpa how I’d whipped that bully with one punch. Grandpa sat me down and said, "Son, listen to me. Never start a fight, but never run from any either. If you do, kids will always be pickin’ on you."

That fight seemed to bring Joe and me even closer. We never went anywhere without each other. And the next day at school, no one said anything bad toward me or him because we were poor.

We made friends with some of the guys at school. Dale was in the same class as Joe. And I met Ted, who was in the same class with me. Both Dale and Ted had just moved to Billy Goat Acres too.

Joe and I came home from school one day and there was a yellow school bus in our yard. Dad had a can of black paint and was covering over the name of the school as Mom stood beside him asking why he’d "brought that old thing home?"

Dad said the cotton farmers were having a hard time getting pickers out to the fields. They told Dad if he’d bring folks out, they’d pay him and put gas in his vehicle.

"It’s better than picking cotton and I'll make more money," Dad said to Mom.

Joe, Roy and I would take turns sitting in the driver’s seat pretending to drive the bus, shifting gears and moving the steering wheel. Driving us to an imaginary place far away from Billy Goat Acres.

Then it would all come to a sudden stop when Dad stormed into the cab and yanked the ignition keys, mad at himself for having forgot them while we were playing. He knew it was a bad idea to leave keys in a vehicle with three boys around, and in the future his instincts would prove right.

Dad and Grandpa would stay in the fields all day sometimes. Joe and I would ride along with Dad as he made his trips with the school bus. One day Dad told Mom how they could make more money. He said a lot of the pickers were thirsty after work and were asking him if he had anything to drink? That’s when Dad got the idea for a "lunch wagon." Mom could run it, and have things for the pickers to drink and maybe something for them to eat too.

In no time they found a small enclosed single-axle trailer, which Dad cut the side out of and made Mom her lunch wagon.

Mom would go to the cotton fields pulling the lunch wagon behind our ’41 Chevy. She’d build a fire beside the trailer and would have coffee made when Dad and his bus arrived. On days when the fog covered the valley, no one could start work until it cleared. On those days she sold plenty of coffee and biscuits.

One Saturday morning Grandpa took Joe and I out to the fields. Along the way he stopped and bought two cases of wine, which he’d sell to the pickers.

After he sold the wine, Grandpa called Joe and me over to his truck. "Steve, I want you and Joe to do somethin’. I want you to go to the end of the field and sneak up behind the ones that bought the wine and break their bottles."

At first I was surprised he’d said that.

Then I got to feeling excited.

Grandpa went on, "They keep several bottles at the end of the row in a sack. Don’t let ’em catch you!"

I don’t remember how many bottles of wine we broke, but I sure remember the last one! This tall, wiry fella caught us and we ran quick as we could back to Grandpa’s Model A truck. We dove in the back trying to hide. I guess thinking Grandpa would save us.

The man was mad as a hornet. Grandpa stopped him before he could beat us and asked what we’d done. They talked for a while and Grandpa smoothed everything over by giving him some more wine.

We lived in Billy Goat Acres several more years. Mom and Dad spent most of their time working in or around the cotton fields. Joe, Roy, Virginia and me were left alone or at Grandpa’s or our aunt’s house. Truth be told, for a kid to turn out okay, they have to have their parents around. Grandpas and aunts always want to be friends, and kids never learn any discipline from those relationships. Kids left on their own, always fall to the lowest common denominator.

If Mom didn’t come home early, so we could get something to eat from the lunch wagon, I’d go to the corner store and try stealing something for us kids to eat.

The man that owned the store was Mr. Miller. He lived next door to Grandpa. I didn’t think I was really stealing from Mr. Miller, somehow I got it in my head that Mr. Miller saw me taking the food and just wrote down what I took and would tell Grandpa or Dad and they’d pay him.

Mr. Miller was a kind man. When I’d go to Grandpa’s house, sometimes Mr. Miller would be in his yard and would say hi and talk to me. He never once told me to stay out of his store.

Our Aunt Mamie bought a house next to ours and she had a dog named Butch. Aunt Mamie and her husband worked all the time, so Butch would play with us kids most of the day. Everywhere we went, Butch would be right there with us. He’d even help when we got in fights. One day after school, there were some guys that said they were going to beat up Joe and me. What they didn’t know was that Butch always met us by the little soda shop across the road from school. How he knew what time we got out I don’t know, but he was always there. Anyway, we started fighting those boys and Butch bit both of them on their legs.

Next thing I knew, Dad pulled up in his truck and saw Joe, Butch and me fighting. Dad threw open the truck door and Butch hightailed it down the road, he was a smart dog.

The two guys we were fighting took off running too. Then I saw Dad pull off his belt. He wore a big plastic belt, and began whipping Joe and me. We told Dad they started the fight, but he didn’t care, he whipped us anyway. "You boys get to the house!"

We ran home fast as we could. Dad told Joe and me that we had to stay in the yard the rest of the week when we came home from school. Butch was no where to be found.

One day Joe brought his friend Dale to the house. Dale lived about the same way we did, his parents were never around either. One afternoon we were getting real hungry and Dale said he knew where we could get something to eat, but we’d have to steal it.

Dale, Joe and I took off to Chester Avenue on our bikes. We stopped at a bakery where they made pies. Dale was small, so we helped him through a window that was open in the side. A minute later, Dale opened the back door. We ate cakes and pies until we almost got sick. Then for whatever reason, we started throwing pies and cakes, everything we could find, at the walls and each other.

We took what pies we could and put them in our shirts and left. We rode our bikes real slow on the way back, so we wouldn’t drop anything. Just before we got home, Joe’s pants leg got caught in his bike chain. He went flying off, and when he hit the ground, all the pies inside his shirt got smashed all over him.

Dale and I laughed so hard we almost lost our pies. Joe didn’t think it was so funny.

The next Saturday Joe and I were playing on the railroad tracks when we met up with Dale and Ted. They said there was a warehouse down the tracks and that no one was around the place.

The warehouse was a big rust colored metal building. We crawled through a hole in the back. There was bale after bale of burlap sacks. So we started breaking them apart and throwing the sacks all over the place.

After we’d messed the place up, we crawled out and walked back down the tracks. Then we saw a house sitting in an open field, it was a little white one that needed paint. Dale wanted to go over and see what was inside.

We went down and snuck to the windows. When we didn’t see anyone inside, we broke in and started destroying everything. We smashed all the windows, mirrors and dressers. Then cut up all the beds with some knives we found in the kitchen. We totally ruined everything the owner had. I don’t know why, but we just went crazy.

Then Ted found a gun, a real one. When we’d finished with the house and started to leave, Ted said he was taking the gun with him. It was getting late, so we buried the revolver under a railroad tie.

I don’t know who saw us, but that evening the police were at our front door asking for me. I went out to the police car while the cop talked with my folks. In the backseat were Dale and Ted.

"If you rat me out, I’ll beat the snot out of both of you! I mean it!" I made the threat sound as menacing as I could without the cop or my folks hearing.

The cop came to talk to me at the car and Dale and Ted changed their story. They said I wasn’t the kid he was looking for . . . it was Joe.

I didn’t know what to do. I was too scared to admit what’d I done. So now instead of me going to jail, my little brother was going.

The officer went back to the house, came out with Joe and put him in the backseat. Mom, Dad, our aunts and uncles, little Roy and Virginia stood out there in the yard as the cop took Joe away.

Dad walked back inside to his bedroom, laid down on the bed and started crying. I followed Roy as he went to the doorway and asked what was wrong. Dad turned over wiping the tears from his face and told us to go back in the other room.

I felt sick about what I’d let happen to Joe. And now Dad’s heart was broken because of it.

A few days later, we found out that the house we’d broke into belonged to a police officer. Dad, a couple uncles and Grandpa were sitting under a shade tree in our yard talking about what Joe and the other boys had done. Dad said the police had told him that the boys took a toy gun from the house.

Without thinking, I said, "No, it wasn’t a toy, it was real."

Dad turned and gave me a look that I’d never seen before or since. It was like there was fire coming out of his eyes. He knew I’d been with them. And I knew I’d made a terrible slipup.

Dad slowly stood up while unfastening that plastic belt of his. He whipped me until I told him where we’d hid the gun. He beat me so hard that the belt broke, so he tore off the loose piece, punched a new hole in what was left of the belt and made me wear it as a reminder.

Dad called the police and told them what I’d done and where to find the pistol. An officer came and we went up the tracks and gave the gun back.

Joe got out two weeks later. Soon we were together with Ted and Dale again. They said someone in the neighborhood had cut down one of those wooden oil derricks, and they thought it was Joe and me.

We hadn’t done it, but that sparked enough interest for us to go out and see what’d been done. We climbed up on those old derricks and looked around. You could see forever.

After we climbed down, we broke the lock off an old shed and looked inside. There was a bunch of tools and a couple axes. That’s when we got the idea to chop down one of the towers. We took turns, me swinging at one leg and Dale swinging at the other. Then Joe and Ted would spell us and chop a while.

Before we knew it, the tower was making creaking noises. Then it started to sway back and forth. One of the legs began cracking and splitting.

We took off running and as soon as we stopped to look back the tower exploded on the ground. Wood and dust flew everywhere. We started jumping up and down laughing and shouting. We thought that was the most exciting thing we’d ever seen.

When I’d go over to Grandpa’s house I’d hear folks talking about things that happened in town. Listening to my dad, uncles and Grandpa talk about all these "goings on" made me feel big, like I was as big as them, because I was the one doing the things.

Mom and Dad had been arguing on and off for years. Eventually the arguing grew into shouting matches. They’d yell so loud it would rouse the neighbors who’d sometimes call the police.

I guess they fought because they never had enough money. For one of them to stay home and take care of us kids would have meant the whole family starving. My parents finally got a divorce. Mom moved into a small trailer that was about to fall over. It was a dirty brown color and there were no axles, so it sat right on the ground. There was a small stove, but no furnace.

Mom got a job working in a restaurant at night. She’d work two shifts, one waiting tables and one cooking in back. Every time I saw her at home she was sleeping. I had no idea what it was like to feel like she did, to work two shifts just to put the minimum food we needed on the table and then to lose her marriage on top of it.

It was early February, 1952, I looked outside and the fog had rolled in, covering the whole valley in a big white blanket. I couldn’t even see across the road. I had to get Joe and Roy up for school. Roy was just seven years old, and when I woke him he began crying, saying he was cold and hungry.

I worked in the school cafeteria to help pay for me and my brothers lunches, and I told them if we hurried to school we might be able to get something there, which we did.

I didn’t mind working in the cafeteria, but sometimes I had to fight other kids who laughed at me because we didn’t have enough money to buy food.

On our way home from school one day we saw that Dad was at Grandpa’s house. Joe ran toward him and grabbed him so hard I thought he’d never let go. No matter how Dad had ever treated us, he was still our hero.

Later, Joe told Mom that Dad had been at Grandpa’s and that we’d been to see him. Since the divorce, Mom had harbored hateful feelings toward Grandpa too, probably because she thought he talked about her. All the bad feelings Mom had toward Grandpa and Dad rushed back at once as she began shouting, "No, by God! You’re not going over to that bastard’s house ever again!" Then she went outside and came back in with a pine two-by-four. "Don’t you ever go to that house again!" She hit me everywhere, my arms, legs and even my face. I made a tight fist and gritted my teeth to make the pain go away. I knew if I fell down she’d start kicking me. So I just took it until she was done, all the time thinking that I wasn’t going to stay there any longer. Just those few words about my father had set her blood to boiling.

When she was done I sat down on the bed rubbing my arms, thinking that any place would be better than this. Joe and Roy hadn’t said a word during the beating or they knew they would’ve got the same.

When Mom left for work I told little Virginia to go over to Grandma’s house and stay with her. I left the trailer, heading across the desert. Joe and Roy ran after me with Butch the dog trailing.

"Where you goin’?"

"As far away from here as I can."

They both wanted to come with me. I told them they should stay, because I didn’t know where I was going. Then I thought for a second and realized their lives were as bad as mine, so I let them come along.

We went to the railroad tracks and played a while. Soon we saw Dale, who was with another friend of ours, Howard. I told them about the beating and they wanted to see my arms and legs. I told them that was the last time she was going to hit me. They wanted to know where I was going. I told ’em I didn’t know and I didn’t care, just somewhere down the tracks.

I asked Dale where Ted was and he said he’d gone to Ted’s house and found him chained to his bed. Dale said he couldn’t get the chains off him. Ted’s mother would chain him like that because she didn’t want him running around with us.

It wasn’t quite dark yet as the fog rolled in covering the whole valley. We headed east down the tracks toward Highway 99 and met up with Jack. I told him what’d happened and he deiced to come with us.

Soon we came to Edison Highway, which we knew headed east over the Tehachapi Mountains. Next to the railroad tracks was a car lot, so we went over to see if there were keys in any of the cars, but they were all locked.

The office had a small window that was part way open, so we lifted it up and helped Dale through and he opened the back door. A board above the desk was covered with sets of car keys, all of them with a green four-leaf clover key chain. We tried a bunch of keys in different cars, but couldn’t find the right key for any of them. So we just broke some of the office windows and left.

Walking east along the tracks toward the mountains we came across a road where a fruit stand was set up. No one was there and it had a tall fence around it. We were getting hungry, so we searched and finally found a spot where we could pull back the wire and get inside.

There was row after row of fruit boxes, apples, oranges and bananas, so we helped ourselves, eating what we wanted and loading our pockets with more.

There was a pair of cowboy boots hanging on a nail up high and Roy wanted them, so we lifted him to where he could reach them. The boots were way too big for him, but he wanted them anyway

We left the tracks and crossed Edison Highway, then started down a road when we noticed a bar with red and blue neon lights flashing on and off. There were several cars parked in front and some on the side. We started looking in the cars to see if there were any keys.

Then Howard found one. It was just like Mom’s car, except it was black. We climbed in and Howard got behind the wheel.

"Can you drive, Howard?" I asked.

"Hell yeah, Steve!"

Howard backed up the car, then down the road we went. In no time we were in the mountains and the fog was gone. I looked back and couldn’t even see Bakersfield. Relief washed over me knowing I was never going back there.

The road going out of Bakersfield was full of sharp curves as you went up. Howard went around a corner and we got behind a loaded-down truck that was barely moving up the hill. Howard started to go around him, and just as we got to the side of truck we met a car coming down the hill straight at us. Howard floored the gas and we barely missed crashing head-on, but in the same instant we heard a loud bang from our rear bumper clipping the front fender of the truck.

Several miles up in the mountains there was a turnout with a billboard sign set up. Howard pulled off the road and wanted to do some donuts in the car, so we did. He spun the car around and round as we all laughed. Dust was flying everywhere, we couldn’t even see out the windshield.

Roy was plastered against the right side backseat, when all of a sudden the door flew open and Roy sailed out.

"Stop the car, Howard, Roy’s gone!"

Howard slammed on the brakes and the car slid to a stop. I jumped out and grabbed Roy. When we saw that he was okay, we got back on the road. We went on through the mountains, but in no time the car started running real slow, then it started smoking, I guess the donuts had taken everything out of it. When Howard went to get off the road he accidentally drove off in a drainage ditch. And when we got out we saw that all four tires were flat.

We took off walking along the road. It was getting pretty cold when we saw a house on the side of a hill with a narrow road leading up to it. We decided to head for the house.

When we got there Joe noticed a white car sitting in a garage. Howard and I ran over and saw that the keys were in it.

"Come on, guys, let’s push her out . . ."

We rolled it out of the garage as quietly as we could. Suddenly, a light came on inside the house. We all left the car and ran up a little hill to a wood pile with a barbed-wire fence behind it. Everyone made it through the fence but me, I hit a post and bounced off onto the ground, falling behind the wood pile.

Dale, Joe, Jack and Howard broke out laughing.

"Quiet! It’s not funny!" The wire had punched holes in my arms and face and tore my shirt.

The others lay on the opposite side of the fence, with me beside the wood pile until the light went out in the house. We snuck back to the car. I told Joe, Roy and Dale to get Butch and get inside.

Howard, Jack and I pushed the car until it started rolling downhill, then Howard jumped in and put his foot on the brake. Jack and I jumped in and we coasted down to the highway.

Howard started the car and we were on the road again. One thing about the white car was that it looked and smelled brand new and had a lot more power on the road.

Joe, Roy and Dale were wore out and soon fell asleep in the backseat with Butch on the floor.

As we went through the town of Tehachapi the road straightened out and the mountains were behind us.

A few miles later we saw another small town in front of us, the sign said Mojave. There was only one yellow traffic light hanging over the road and it didn’t take long for us to blow through town. But we’d made a mistake, we thought we were heading east when we went straight through the light, but I found out later that we should have turned right.

Several hours had passed and the car was running out of gas, the needle was buried on "E." We were rolling on fumes when Howard said he was going to pull over and find another car.

"No," I said. "This is a good one. Let’s just keep it and steal some gas."

Howard pulled onto the shoulder as we went past a café. There were some houses around and a lot of trees for cover. The problem was we looked, but couldn’t find a hose or can to get any gas with. We got back in the car to go up a little farther, but as soon as Howard put it in gear the tires sank into the soft shoulder.

"Damn it!"

We all climbed back out and started looking around the café at the cars, trying to see if any of them had the keys inside. Then we spilt up and started looking at the cars in the driveways of the houses behind the café.

Howard signaled that he’d found one. It was at a house with a yard full of trees. We wanted to get in and get gone, but Butch had taken off chasing some kind of varmint. Joe and Dale started calling for him.

"Shut your mouths! You’re gonna stir the folks in the house!"

The next thing we knew a light came on inside the house.

Howard started the car, and Butch, with his incredible sense of timing, dove inside the open car door as we drove out of town as fast as we could.

In a few minutes we came over a hill and down into the largest town I’d ever seen. There were lights as far as you could see. The road turned into a straight four-lane and there weren’t many cars on the road. By now it was early in the morning.

The next thing I knew Howard shot through a red light. And there on a corner was the last thing we wanted to see, a cop car. He pulled out and got right behind us.

"Oh, shit, Howard!"

Just as Howard turned to look over his shoulder the cop’s blue light came on. Joe, Roy and Dale had their knees on the seat and were watching the cop through the back glass with Butch on the floor.

Howard punched the gas. "Let’s outrun ’em!"

The car blasted off and actually got some distance from the cop. We ran through two more red lights, but the cop had managed to close on us.

Worse than that, down the road in front of us was another cop car parked right in the middle with a blue light flashing and two officers waving their arms.

When the cops saw we weren’t going to stop, they dropped their arms and ran off the road. Howard whipped the wheel and swerved to the side of the cop car and managed to get around them.

The cop behind us got as close as he could, at the same time we saw the cops we’d just flew past racing to get in their car. Now there were two of them chasing us.

We ran through a couple more red lights and that’s when I heard a couple "bangs" hit the car.

"There shooting at us, Steve!" Howard shouted.

"No they’re not. It’s just rocks hitting the car." To be honest, I thought they were shooting at us too, but I didn’t want to scare my little brothers any more than they already were. I leaned over to the backseat and told Joe, Dale and Roy to get down on the floor where Butch was and stay there. They did as I said and Jack, who was in front, got down under the dashboard.

Howard floored the car going up a little hill that crossed a set of railroad tracks and I swear that Chrysler must have flew a hundred feet in the air before we hit the other side. The car bounced and Howard almost lost control, then he got it straightened out.

The cops weren’t giving up for anything and now we knew they were shooting at us. They were so close we could hear the blasts from the revolvers and the bullets as they tore through the metal skin of the rear of the car. The shots came one right after another.

The next thing we saw was a police barricade made from boards that they’d placed on the road to try and stop us. But Howard stayed on the throttle and crashed through sending wood flying everywhere. There had been two cops standing there with rifles and as we went past they opened up on us. Bullets were pounding up and down the side of the car like hammer blows.

"They’re gonna kill us! I’m stoppin’, Steve!"

Howard slammed on the brakes and the car skidded a long ways, then rocked as it came to a stop. You could smell the burned rubber on the blacktop road.

We’d only been stopped for seconds before the cops cautiously approached the car from both sides with their guns out. In a flash they yanked open the doors. One barrel was aimed right between Howard’s eye and another right between mine.

The cop on Howard’s side shouted, "All your hands up and don’t move until . . . What the hell!" The look on the cop’s face went blank and the pistol in his hand began to shake, then he actually dropped it. He quickly reached down and picked it up. "They’re kids! Just a bunch of kids!"

Then the officer got mad, real mad. He reached into the car and jerked Howard out by the hair, slapping him in the face four or five times as he dragged him to the back of the car.

The other cop pulled Jack and me out of the car by the hair too, screaming all the while, "What the hell you think you’re doing!" Then he started slapping me in the face.

When he had us at the back of the car he said, "Go ahead and run! I’ll blow all your damn legs off!"

The two cops that had Howard and me threw us in a cop car, me in the driver’s seat and Howard in the passenger side, with the car still idling. I don’t know what they were thinking . . . maybe they were as confused as us.

They were getting Jack when he told them there were other boys hiding in the backseat floorboard.

Again the doors were jerked open and the cops yelled for Joe, Dale, Roy and Butch to get out of the car. The cops took a few steps back when Butch came out. They had the four of them at the back of our car questioning them when I looked down in the seat between Howard and me and saw a revolver lying there.

I swallowed hard and picked up the gun. I looked at Howard and neither of us said a word. I think we were both just overwhelmed. I knew what a real outlaw would do, and for a time I thought that’s what we were. I’d done a lot of bad things.

I took a good long look at the pistol in my hand, then laid it back down in the seat.

I guess I was still feeling a little survival instinct to get out of there, ’cause I reached up to put the car in gear and was about to tear out of there, when the driver’s door flew open and the cops dragged me and Howard to the back of our car. By this time every cop in town must have been there, standing around pointing at us and talking.

Other folks showed up, several with cameras and they took our pictures, flashbulbs were going off everywhere.

I had a really bad feeling in my gut about these cops, we’d made them so angry, I was afraid they were gonna take us somewhere and just beat us to death. I was thinking hard as I could, trying to figure a way to get out of there, but the crowd of people just kept growing to where it became impossible.

The cops took Howard and me in one car and Joe, Roy, Dale, Jack and Butch in another, to the police station in New Hall, which was just north of San Fernando. They sat us in the middle of the room on the floor, away from a wooden banister and the desk behind it. We spent the rest of the morning there.

A few hours later, I heard Butch growling. I looked up and saw one of the cops open the banister gate and start to come toward us. When he heard Butch and saw his teeth he closed the gate and stepped back out of the room. I didn’t know what that cop was about to try, but I trusted Butch’s instincts and was sure thankful to have him with us that night.

When the sun was up Mom and Aunt Mamie came into the room. Aunt Mamie took Butch, gave us a mean look and off they went out of the room.

Mom called to Roy with a choking sound in her voice, saying son we’re taking you home. As they started to leave she turned and looked at me with the saddest eyes I’d ever seen. All I could do was hang my head and sit there.

Later I asked the officer if I could go to the bathroom. He took me. I’d been wishing there’d be a window I could get out of. There was, but it was too tall for me to reach.

The cops took us back to Bakersfield in a van with bars all across the windows. When we got there they put us in juvenile detention.

Six months later we were standing in front of a judge. "Why did you do all this?"

"I wanted to be with my dad," I said. "And any place was better than where I was."

Joe and Roy told the judge that they just wanted to be where I was. Roy went home with Mom that day. I wouldn’t see him again for three years, although I thought about him all the time.

The California Youth Authority sent Joe and Dale to a place in northern California. They sent Howard, Jack and me to a place in southern California.

One afternoon, two years later, Howard told me he was getting out. I was truly glad for him. A month later, I was sent to the main office and my dad was waiting for me. The officer said my time was up and I could go home. I signed some papers, with no idea what they said, and we started toward the gate. When I stepped out on the other side I took a deep breath and asked, "What time is it, Dad?"

"Twenty-nine minutes after ten, Son."

As we walked down the sidewalk that moment in time stuck in my mind, twenty-nine minutes after ten o’clock, the eighth day of February, 1954. I thought that day would never come, but it had. I was finally on my way home with my dad.

I never saw Jack after that day. I heard he got out a month after I did and often wondered where he was and what he was doing. But I would never find out.

A month later Dad went and picked up Joe. I was never so glad to see him and hugged him for the longest time. Dad watched Joe and me real close for about a year.

When Joe and I asked where Roy was, Dad told us he was at our mothers in Oregon. We asked Dad if he would take us to see him and he did. We were driving down Sandy Boulevard in Portland, almost to Mom’s house when Dad pointed to a boy on a bicycle riding down the sidewalk.

I leaned out of the truck window. "Roy! Hey, Roy! It’s Steve!"

Roy was so surprised he just about fell off his bike when we passed him. He pumped his legs as hard as he could as we turned onto Mom’s driveway.

Joe and me ran up to him and hugged him for a long time. Tears ran down my face, then I saw that Joe was crying too. Joe and I loved Roy very much, and I knew Dad saw how much that day.

Dad stayed at Mom’s house about a week, then he told me that he and I were going over to his brother’s house, because Joe was going to stay with Roy and Virginia at Mom’s house. Dad’s brother, Elva, had lived in Portland for a long time and Dad had asked him if I could stay with him. Not long after, Dad headed back to Bakersfield. I stood outside Uncle Elva’s house and watched Dad drive away.

I stayed with Uncle Elva about two years, until my probation was over. Then I left Portland and joined the military. I’ve seen Howard twice since then, but I’ve never seen Jack or Dale. I often wondered where they went and what they were doing.

We had some hard times and some good. But you never know what to make of your life until you have a chance to look back and see what was and what could have been. And then just maybe say a simple prayer for still being alive and with your family.

THE END

Steven D. Bales

1217 Mark Drive

Mtn. Home, AR 72653

(870) 424-3242