In a Tuxedo They’re Tender, But on the Streets They’re Tough

Ivan the thief looked like a choirboy.

He was, in fact, dressed like a choirboy. His brown, alert, upturned face protruded from an oversized blue robe as he explained how he ended up in the talent and fashion show at Sylmar Juvenile Hall.

Ivan, 17, has always liked to sing. Before he buzz-cut his hair and joined the 18th Street gang, before he stole cars and broke into houses, before they locked him up, he used to sing to his baby sister.

“We would put on the radio and sing songs,” he said in a cholo accent; gangbangers from hard streets speak soft, Spanish-tinged English. “I would sing my sister to sleep.”

County probation agents asked Ivan for an on-the-spot audition: a slow song. Ivan, and his homeboys, and just about all the other homeboys in Los Angeles, live and breathe oldies. So he broke out an a cappella version of “Always and Forever,” by Heat Wave.

And they put him in the show. One of a dozen juvenile offenders, all of them deemed a danger to society, who took the gymnasium stage in front of dignitaries, parents and volunteers.

The production was called “My Face is America”--a title with a good mix of irony and inspiration.

Guests nibbled grapes in the courtyard of the juvenile hall, as young, big-shouldered probation officers stood around in double-breasted suits holding walkie-talkies.

County Supervisor Mike Antonovich read a letter of support from Vice President Dan Quayle, who with all the wisdom gained growing up as a rich kid in Indiana, told the Sylmar juveniles: “You represent the future of this great nation. Always do the best you can. Never give up or get depressed. You will succeed in whatever you do.”

Ivan and the rest of the choir sang an earnest, tremulous “America the Beautiful.” As they reached the finale, the boys and girls raised both arms skyward in a dutiful, choreographed gesture of exaltation. They were backed by the vocal artillery of the choir director, a man as big as a house with a gospel voice as big as three houses; the blue notes seemed to reverberate off purple mountain majesties.

The fashion show opened with a funk fanfare and the sonorous narration of Fitzgerald Martin, a dapper counselor with a shaved head and spectacles.

“The casual scene,” Martin intoned, as a youth named Casper strutted in wraparound shades and a leisure ensemble donated by a Valley clothing store. “Casper’s looking very chic. Casper, the friendly ghost . . . This is something you can go out to dinner in. Something you can go visit Granma in.”

The models high-stepped to the music, threw spins. One youth stopped and adjusted his sunglasses with a flourish, peering at the appreciative crowd. A tall and fierce-looking girl took ungainly strides on high heels. A small black girl looked like a frightened angel in a white evening dress.

Henry, a tall 17-year-old gang member from Pacoima, wore a tuxedo for the first time in the final piece, a wedding number. He was the groom.

“Take that walk down the aisle, Henry,” Martin said, as the “bride” towed a full-length train behind her to the front of the stage.

Ten minutes later, Henry sat in an empty classroom next to the gym and grinned hugely.

“I never wore anything like this stuff,” he said. “It’s pretty expensive. When my homeboys saw me they said, ‘Damn, ese, you look weird.’ It felt pretty good, though.”

Henry was arrested in March for assault and battery. He and several homeboys jumped a rival gang member from San Fernando and broke bottles over his head. Henry has been locked up previously for robbery, car theft, gang activity. And he talks the talk; he said appearing in the show indicated to his peers that he has “juice” at Sylmar.

“They call it juice when you get picked for something. That means you’re running a good program.”

To Henry the stage was scarier than taking on a carload of San Fernando gangbangers. “My lips were shaking,” Henry said. “I was real nervous. I was trying to get a smile, look at the people. I tried to play it off and make everything smooth.”

Henry will serve an 18-month sentence at the California Youth Authority camp in Paso Robles. He is aware of the wistful adult expectation that the challenge and novelty of fashion modeling might help reform him. He wants to do better, but he said it might be difficult at the camp.

“There’s gonna be gangbanging up there,” he said.

This was not Father Flanagan territory. Mickey Rooney wouldn’t last long at Sylmar if he copped an attitude.

Still, it’s hard to believe that Henry and Ivan are loathsome hoodlums whose appearance--nice, sharp, friendly kids--is purely a mask.

And maybe it isn’t a mask. Maybe that’s the scariest thing about kids like them. They are both nice kids and hoodlums; they are capable of total personality swings; they are vicious when they break bottles over heads, tender when they sing lullabies.

Probation officers brought Henry to a hallway outside where his mother and three sisters were waiting. They hugged and talked excitedly in Spanish and English.

“You looked good up there,” one sister said. “You did good.”

Then Henry went back to his dormitory. His mother and his sisters walked into the long empty yard of the compound. They were good-looking, well-dressed women with carefully arranged long hair. They crossed the yard, high heels clicking in the night.

As the four women approached the security booth, and the glazed face of a guard behind thick glass, and the metal detector, all of them were crying.