Joseph Wambaugh - The Blue Knight

There were only three counter customers, two con guys, and a wino drinking coffee. They glanced up for a second and nobody even noticed the kid was cuffed. I pointed toward a table at the rear.

“Got no waitress this early, Bumper,” said T-Bone, the proprietor, a huge Frenchman who wore a white chef’s hat and a T-shirt, and white pants. I’d never seen him in anything else.

“We need a table, T-Bone,” I said, pointing to the kid’s handcuffs.

“Okay,” said T-Bone. “What’ll you have?”

“I’m not too hungry. Maybe a couple over-easy eggs and some bacon, and a few pieces of toast. And oh, maybe some hash browns. Glass of tomato juice. Some coffee. And whatever the kid wants.”

“What’ll you have, boy?” asked T-Bone, resting his huge hairy hands on the counter and grinning at the boy, with one gold and one silver front tooth. I wondered for the first time where in the hell he got a silver crown like that. Funny I never thought of that before. T-Bone wasn’t a man you talked to. He only used his voice when it was necessary. He just fed people with as few words as possible.

“How can I eat anything?” said the kid. “All chained up like a convict or something.” His eyes were filling up and he looked awful young just then.

“I’m gonna unlock them,” I said. “Now what the hell you want? T-Bone ain’t got all day.”

“I don’t know what I want.”

“Give him a couple fried eggs straight up, some bacon, and a glass of milk. You want hash browns, kid?”

“I guess so.”

“Give him some orange juice too, and an order of toast. Make it a double order of toast. And some jam.”

T-Bone nodded and scooped a handful of eggs from a bowl by the stove. He held four eggs in that big hand and cracked all four eggs one at a time without using the other hand. The kid was watching it.

“He’s got some talent, hey, kid?”

“Yeah. You said you were taking these off.”

“Get up and turn around,” I said, and when he did I unlocked the right cuff and fastened it around the chrome leg of the table so he could sit there with one hand free.

“Is this what you call taking them off?” he said. “Now I’m like an organ grinder’s monkey on a chain!”

“Where’d you ever see an organ grinder? There ain’t been any grinders around here for years.”

“I saw them on old TV movies. And that’s what I look like.”

“Okay, okay, quit chipping your teeth. You complain more than any kid I ever saw. You oughtta be glad to be getting some breakfast. I bet you didn’t eat a thing at home this morning.”

“I wasn’t even at home this morning.”

“Where’d you spend the night?”

He brushed back several locks of hair from his eyes with a dirty right hand, “I spent part of the night sleeping in one of those all-night movies till some creepy guy woke me up with his cruddy hand on my knee. Then I got the hell outta there. I slept for a little while in a chair in some hotel that was open just down the street.”

“You run away from home?”

“No, I just didn’t feel like sleeping at the pad last night. My sis wasn’t home and I just didn’t feel like sitting around by myself.”

“You live with your sister?”

“Yeah.”

“Where’s your parents?”

“Ain’t got none.”

“How old’s your sister?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Just you and her, huh?”

“Naw, there’s always somebody around. Right now it’s a stud named Slim. Big Blue always got somebody around.”

“That’s what you call your sister? Big Blue?”

“She used to be a dancer, kind of. In a bar. Topless. She went by that name. Now she’s getting too fat in the ass so she’s hustling drinks at the Chinese Garden over on Western. You know the joint?”

“Yeah, I know it.”

“Anyway, she always says soon as she loses thirty pounds she’s going back to dancing which is a laugh because her ass is getting wider by the day. She likes to be called Big Blue so even I started calling her that. She got this phony dyed-black hair, see. It’s almost blue.”

“She oughtta wash your clothes for you once in a while. That shirt looks like a grease rag.”

“That’s ’cause I was working on a car with my next door neighbor yesterday. I didn’t get a chance to change it.” He looked offended by that crack. “I wear clothes clean as anybody. And I even wash them and iron them myself.”

“That’s the best way to be,” I said, reaching over and unlocking the left cuff.

“You’re taking them off?”

“Yeah. Go in the bathroom and wash your face and hands and arms. And your neck.”

“You sure I won’t go out the window?”

“Ain’t no window in that john,” I said. “And comb that mop outta your face so somebody can see what the hell you look like.”

“Ain’t got a comb.”

“Here’s mine,” I said, giving him the pocket comb.

T-Bone handed me the glasses of juice, the coffee, and the milk while the kid was gone, and the bacon smell was all over the place now. I was wishing I’d asked for a double order of bacon even though I knew T-Bone would give me an extra big helping.

I was sipping the coffee when the kid came back in. He was looking a hundred percent better even though his neck was still dirty. At least his hair was slicked back and his face and arms up to the elbow were nice and clean. He wasn’t a handsome kid, his face was too tough and craggy, but he had fine eyes, full of life, and he looked you right in your eye when he talked to you. That’s what I liked best about him.

“There’s your orange juice,” I said.

“Here’s your comb.”

“Keep it. I don’t even know why I carry it. I can’t do anything with this patch of wires I got. I’ll be glad when I get bald.”

“Yeah, you couldn’t look no worse if you was bald,” he said, examining my hair.

“Drink your orange juice, kid.”

We both drank our juice and T-Bone said, “Here, Bumper,” and handed a tray across the counter, but before I could get up the kid was on his feet and grabbed the tray and laid everything out on the table like he knew what he was doing.

“Hey, you even know what side to put the knife and fork on,” I said.

“Sure. I been a busboy. I done all kinds of work in my time.”

“How old you say you are?”

“Fourteen. Well, almost fourteen. I’ll be fourteen next October.”

When he’d finished he sat down and started putting away the chow like he was as hungry as I thought he was. I threw one of my eggs on his plate when I saw two weren’t going to do him, and I gave him a slice of my toast. He was a first-class eater. That was something else I liked about him.

While he was finishing the last of the toast and jam, I went to the door and looked across the street. A garage attendant was replacing my battery. He saw me and waved that it was okay. I waved back and went back inside to finish my coffee.

“You get enough to eat?” I asked.

“Yeah, thanks.”

“You sure you don’t want another side of bacon and a loaf or two of bread?”

“I don’t get breakfasts like that too often,” he grinned.

When we were getting ready to leave I tried to pay T-Bone.

“From you? No, Bumper.”

“Well, for the kid’s chow, then.” I tried to make him take a few bucks.

“No, Bumper. You don’t pay nothin’.”

“Thanks, T-Bone. Be seeing you,” I said, and he raised a huge hand covered with black hair, and smiled gold and silver. And I almost wanted to ask him about the silver crown because it was the last time I’d have a chance.

“You gonna put the bracelets back on?” asked the boy, as I lit a cigar and patted my stomach and took a deep sniff of morning smog.