Monkey Boy by Francisco Goldman (best self help books to read .TXT) 📕

was drunk or drugged. I ran and dodged past couples holding each other up to keep from falling, saw a kid stumble forward with windmilling arms and land on his face; he lifted his head, blood sloshing from his nose as if from a tipped-over bottle. Rizza was tossing kids out of his way as he went for the exit, police charging in right past him. As far I was able to figure out later, the police must have grabbed hold of Bonks, slower than the rest of us, and warned him that we’d better go back to our town right away or else. I don’t think any other of us knew that as we piled into the car, waiting for Bonks to catch up and get in, and when he did, we yelled go, go, go, and he peeled out of the parking lot like in a movie. Flashing blue lights, a police car zoomed up alongside us, Bonks hit the brakes. A policeman, not the one driving, got out of the cruiser and stalked over, shouting at Bonks through his lowered window that he’d cut us a break letting us go, but then someone yelled “fuck the pigs” and gave the finger. I couldn’t see the policeman’s face, only his wide uniformed torso, his knuckly hands grabbing the bottom of Bonks’s window frame like he was about to lift the car over his head and hurl it as he shouted: So which one of you was it? Come on punk, own up, or I’m taking you all in! I hadn’t shouted anything out the window or given the finger. I hadn’t heard anyone else shout those words through the commotion inside the car, but if someone had shouted “fuck the pigs” and given the finger, it was probably Joe Botto, sitting up front. Did Bonks hold the cop’s eye and slightly jerk his head back at me? I’d bet anything. The back door was yanked opened, and the policeman, face looking about to burst, roared at me to get out. It wasn’t me, I pleaded. Don’t make me tell you again, punk, get out of the car! I got out, body filling with the helium gas of terror and disbelief. The policeman took me by the arm and walked me through the glare of the cruiser’s headlights, opened the back door, and guided me into the back seat with a firm shove. Another policeman was sitting at the wheel. But officers, I begged. It wasn’t me. The policeman, now in the front passenger seat, barked, Shut up you little jerk! I saw you give us the finger. You think I’m blind? The policeman driving said, You stink like a brewery. You’re stinking up the whole car. Don’t even think about throwing up back there. If you wanna throw up we’ll pull over and you get out and do it. You need to throw up? Punk, shouted the other policeman, you heard him. Are you going to puke? I had the idea of answering yes, getting out, staggering toward some bushes as if to vomit, and taking off running. No, I’m not going to puke, I said. The drive to the police station didn’t even seem to take two minutes. It was the first time in my life I’d even been inside a police station. Gray, chocolate, and custard-yellow-hued floor. I’ll never forget that floor, I feel like I even remember how it tasted. I answered questions, date of birth, address, home phone. Year after year, a policemen said, we have kids from your town coming over here to make trouble. It doesn’t happen the other way around, said another policeman behind the main desk, an Asian man with a long, melancholy face. With an air of concerned curiosity, that policeman asked, What do you kids have against this town? Nothing, sir, I answered. You kids are jealous of this town, he said flatly. Your town is not so good as this town. I was put alone in a small room, a door with a wire mesh window, like a classroom for only one student. I sat on the edge of a high wooden bench that must also have been where I was supposed to sleep.

In the morning the door opened, and my father was in the doorway, his eyes fixed on me like a bad-tempered old dog’s. Beside him was the same policeman who’d pulled me from the car. I told my father I’d been wrongly accused, that I hadn’t shouted anything at the police or given anybody the finger. The policeman said with a loud weariness: We saw your hand come out the window. You were the one sitting by that window. He told my father that my friends and I had come to their town’s high school dance to pick a fight. When they brought your son in, the policeman said in a disgusted tone, he smelled like a brewery. I was lucky they weren’t charging me with disorderly conduct, he went on. That was only because they’d phoned the police in my town and there was no record of my having been in trouble before. The next thing I remember I was no longer in the detention room but outside its door, facedown on that grimy floor. There’d been other beatings in which my father had probably punched and kicked me as hard as he did in the police station, swatting at my head, hoisting me off the floor and slamming me down, kicking me in the side, under the ribs, against my thighs, though maybe he’d never done so with so much rage. The police stood and watched. I glimpsed some of their faces; I remember a pair of pale-blue eyes like soap bubbles. I’d never felt such shame, such a helpless rage of my own, had never experienced anything so sordid as being on that police station floor being beaten up by my father, had never felt such hatred as I did for