Young and Violent by Vin Packer Page B

the Youth Board.
    “It isn’t hard,” Tea grins.
    • • •
    After Dan Roan has read the letter Red Eyes handed him, he puts it down on his desk, rubs his eyes, thinking, and sighs. A few boys have wandered into the room outside his office, and he hears the noise of the ping-pong balls being hit across the wooden table, the phonograph blaring, and the sound of the boys’ gruff voices intruding on the still interior.
    Sitting on the edge of his seat, Eyes searches Dan’s face anxiously. “Of course I don’t know where I’m going to get seventeen dollars, Dan, that’s the only thing. I mean, I just don’t have that kind of money.”
    Dan nods. “Umm,” he says, meditating.
    “It’s a swell letter, isn’t it? Geez, I never even got a letter before, and this one’s swell.”
    “They don’t mention the title of your song in the letter, Red Eyes. Is it one I know?”
    “I don’t think I ever sung it for you, Dan. It’s a recent one. I mean, it’s serious, you know?”
    “You want to sing it?”
    Eyes glances at the open door nervously, and Dan stands, pushes it to, and sits back again in his chair. “Go ahead,” he says.
    Whenever Eyes sings a song he has written, he sings it on his feet, in a rigid posture, with his hands at his sides.
    Invariably, his face reddens, and he cannot look anywhere but at the floor.
    He mumbles, “It’s called
I’ve Got Some News.”
    He waits a moment, shuffles his feet, draws a breath, and then sings his song.
    I’ve got some news for you
    I cruise just you
    I flip more than on booze for you
    Your lips are the sweetest lips
    I’ve ever tasted
    For your lips, for your kiss,
    I’d even get wasted.
    I’d take a lickin’, dear
    I’d chicken, dear
    I’d punk out without any fear
    If you would only say “I do”
    I’d do anything you wanted me to …
    I’ve got some news for
    you I cruise just you
    I even sing the blues for you …
    So say okay, say sure, say yes,
    Say by the way, I too confess
    I’ve got some news for you….
    When Eyes is finished he slumps down in the armchair opposite Dan and blushes, and pulls at his nails, not looking up at Dan.
    Dan says, “It’s a good song.”
    “Geez, thanks, Dan! Course, you understand the music I sung to the words ain’t going to be the music. I mean, the music I sung is just stuff I put to the words myself. That’s why I need the seventeen. To get some real classy melody to the words. I’m strictly a words man, you know? A lyricist.”
    Dan doesn’t say anything for a while and it makes Eyes uncomfortable. He says, “I thought maybe even I’d take a job or somethin’. Earn the moola I need. You think I could take a job, Dan?”
    “I’m sure of that.”
    “You think that’s the best idea?”
    “I think it’s a swell idea for you to take a job. Not just for this, but because you’d earn yourself quite a bit, be sort of free from dependence on home.”
    “Home! For Chrissake, only money I get from home, I get takin’.”
    “How do you have any to spend, Red Eyes?”
    “Lorry — I mentioned her before — she gives me a little now and then from what she earns, but not much. And I don’t like to take it from her!” Eyes says emphatically.
    “So?”
    Eyes shrugs. “So I do errands for the numbers boys, or pick up a little here and there. Nothin’ really against the law, you know? Small time stuff, just like all the other guys.”
    “Well, I think a job would be swell. I’ll start working on one for you.”
    “When I get seventeen dollars, I quit. I’ll make big money then. Geez, these songs make a lota moola, Dan. Records, and all.”
    Dan stands up and walks to the window, his fists leaning on the sills. The scene outside is backyards of tenements; and smoke from trash fires. He says, “Eyes?”
    “Yeah?”
    “You want me to give it to you straight?” “Sure, Dan, only no preaching.”
    “No, I’m not going to preach. I’m just going to explain something to you.” “Go right