by Mark Salzman
“Jackson—why would I show you how to do it wrong?”
“ ’Cause you don’ remember is all. Don’ feel bad, that’s normal for a man of your age.”
Mr. Sills’ jaw dropped. “Did you hear that, Jenkins? Did you hear what that minor just said?”
Mr. Jenkins grinned and looked upward. “I’m just lookin’ at this beautiful blue sky. I won’t see nothin’ else for the next— oh, I’d say two or three minutes.”
Mr. Sills chased Kevin around the grill, then around a picnic table, where Kevin turned around to stand his ground. They shadowboxed for a few seconds, then Mr. Sills tagged him in the stomach, pulling the punch so that it was no more than a tap. Kevin grunted and fell to his knees on the ground. “Ow!” he complained. “Abuse of a minor! I’m writin’ you up.”
Sills chuckled. “Yeah, you do that. When you’re finished, just hand it in to me and I’ll see that it finds its way to the proper authorities. Now get up, Jackson—you’re makin’ me lose focus here.”
He let Kevin pour the lighter fluid over the coals but lit it himself. “No matches for you, Jackson. I don’t have time to count ’em.” As the coals burned, Mr. Sills sent Kevin into the building to gather supplies. “He seems like a nice kid,” I said as the two men watched the fire.
“Oh yes,” Mr. Jenkins said. “You’ll never have problems with Jackson.”
“You see how I sent him in there just now, by himself?” Mr. Sills asked. “I do that for a reason: to show him that I trust him. That builds up his confidence, his pride in himself. It’s how you have to work with kids like this. You give ’em a little bit of responsibility, and if they can handle it, you give ’em some more. If they fuck up, you deal with it right away. Jackson may not like it here, but at least when he leaves he’ll take something with him. He’ll know that if he respects himself, other people will respect him.”
“He’ll also know how to cook chicken,” Mr. Jenkins said, staring at the food.
“Don’t stand too close to Jenkins,” Mr. Sills warned me. “When he’s hungry, he’ll take a bite out of anything.” He checked his watch, then asked if I had ever seen the unit’s kitchen. When I said no, he told me to go inside and have a look. “It’s on the right, just after you reach the dayroom. Jackson’ll be there. He’ll show you around.”
I went in through the side entrance, which brought me past the boys’ rooms. The doors to the rooms were open, allowing me my first view of where the boys spent most of their time. The tiny cells were identical: two beds neatly made, nothing on the concrete-block walls or the floor, no furniture, no television or radio, and a darkened Plexiglas window etched with graffiti.
“Home sweet home,” Kevin said over my shoulder.
“These rooms are awfully small,” I said.
“Ten by twelve. I heard they was built for one person, but it’s so crowded here now they got two in every room. We even got guys sleepin’ on mats near the dayroom. Sills send you in here?”
“He said you’d show me the kitchen.”
“Sure. C’mon.”
Kevin gave me a tour of the “kitchen,” which was really more of a pantry. It featured a sink, some cabinets, a microwave, and a hot plate, but Kevin pointed these features out to me as if we were in the galley of a well-appointed ship. He explained how he helped prepare meals there, showed me the contents of each of the drawers, and reviewed the list of items he kept properly stocked.
“It’s all part of being a messenger,” he explained. “It’s work, but I’d rather work than do nothin’. Anything to get out of that room.”
“How many messengers are there in the unit?”
“Two right now.”
“Where’s the other one today?”
“Sills didn’t need him, I guess.”
“Hurry up, Jackson!” Sills yelled from outside.
“You want some chips, Mark? We got some nice salsa for it, too.”
“No thanks.”
“Can I get you a soda? Put one in your bag for the drive home?”
“I’m fine. Shouldn’t we be getting outside? We don’t want to make Sills mad.”
Kevin smiled. “If you hustle too quick he thinks you’re kissing ass, and Sills don’t like that.” He arranged stacks of paper plates, paper napkins, and bags of plastic utensils on a battered metal tray, then leaned against one of the counters. “So Mark—why do you come here?”
“Jackson!” Sills hollered again. “Let’s see some plates.”
“Can we go outside now, Kevin?”
“Sure, Mark. But you at least gotta let me give you a soda, or Sills’ll say I didn’t hook you up right. He invited you to the barbecue—you’re family now.”
18 / Two-Face
“Something’s up,” Benny said. He was the first to make it into the library that night. “Wu got sentenced today, and it was bad. The staff are letting him come to class tonight instead of going straight to the Box.”
“How is he holding up?”
“I don’t know, he’s been in the office since he got back. You can see him from here.”
Jimmy stood with his back to us, speaking to Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Warren.
“There’s more,” Benny said. “Chumnikai and Hall are gone.”
“You mean gone temporarily, or gone for good?”
“For good. I’m not sure about Chumnikai, but Hall got put on the county hit list.”
“What’s the county hit list?”
“It’s for people who cause too much trouble around here, so they send ’em to county jail. That’s the worst place to go. Maybe that’s why Hall was stressing so much last Wednesday, he might have known something was up.”
Francisco had a bounce in his step as he crossed the dayroom. “Hey Mark! I’m in a great mood today.”
“I can see that.”
“I passed the last test we took for confirmation. Man, I never worked so hard for something! That is some complicated shit you gotta know if you wanna get close to God. I nailed it, though.”
“You still cuss the same as before,” Kevin noted.
Francisco shrugged. “Right now I’m workin’ on my temptation to do evil. Cusswords—that’s down the road.” He looked at me for reassurance. “I mean, we could use cusswords in our writing, right? How bad could it be if we could use it in class?” Before I could respond, Francisco pointed over my shoulder. “Hey—here comes Wu. He looks like shit.”
Jimmy stepped into the room looking pale. He sat down across from me but didn’t say hello.
“What happened, Wu?” Francisco asked. “We prayed for you in my confirmation class.”
“The judge wouldn’t listen to anything my lawyer said.”
“Wha’d she give you?”
“Fifteen years and two strikes.”
“What kinna shit is that? All you did was rob somebody! One time! Nobody even got hurt! There’s murderers who get less than that, Wu.”
Jimmy looked through me, his eyes fixed in a thousand-yard stare. “It’s over. My life is over.”
“Don’t say that, Wu! It’s gonna be OK. You gonna get out soon. Hell, you prob’ly be out in twelve. And you’ll only be . . . seventeen plus twelve plus . . . fuck it, how old will he be, Wong?”
“Twenty-nine.”
“See? That’s young, homes! You can have a family an’ everything. I’d be doin’ back flips an’ shit if I got fifteen years.”
Jimmy’s eyes gradually focused on me. “You heard about Hall and Chumnikai?”
“Yes. I’m sorry about your news, Jimmy.”
“At least I get to say goodbye. They didn’t.” He shook his head slowly, then looked around the room. “When I got back just now, I was thinking about how everything in this place, everybody, all of you—this’ll be the last time I ever see any of it.”
“It’s like you die but don’t get no funeral,” Francisco said.
“I had to say goodbye to my roommate just now and all we could do was shake hands,” Jimmy said. “It makes me wonde
r—if I’m like that now, not even able to hug my friend on the worst day of my life, what am I gonna be like after fifteen years in the pen?”
None of the boys could bring themselves to look at Jimmy now; they were all staring at their folders or at their hands.
“See? We can’t even talk about it in here. It’s not allowed. That’s how fucked up we are.” Jimmy asked if he could have a notepad and a pencil. When I gave them to him, he began writing immediately.
The others, seemingly relieved that emotions were no longer being discussed, started bitching about the staff, about the food, and about how society judges young people without knowing the whole story. When I handed out paper and pencils, they either ignored me or practiced writing their names in graffiti-style lettering. I had to pester them for twenty minutes before getting anyone to start writing. “We’re stuck, Mark. Give us somethin’ to write about.”
“How about freedom? Can you write on that?”
Benny said he would try; the others said it was too depressing to think about. I asked Francisco to write about what he was learning for confirmation. “There’s too much, Mark. That’d take me days.”
“So pick one thing you’ve learned that has been especially meaningful to you.”
I thought he would enjoy this topic, given his enthusiasm for religious matters, but he looked as if I had assigned him to write a term paper about Thomas Jefferson. “You can’t think of nothin’ else?”
“Try, Francisco.”
“What about me?” Victor asked.
“How about this: If you could have one superpower, what would you choose?”
He grimaced. “That’s too easy! Everybody here’d pick the same thing—to be invisible so we could sneak the fuck outta here. I need something else.”
“How about a time you helped a stranger?”
“I can’t remember ever helping a stranger, Mark.”
“OK, then,” I said, getting exasperated, “how about what Jimmy was just talking about. How you’re not allowed to show emotion in here.”
Victor grimaced again. “How can I write about it if I can’t show it?”
“I don’t know, but you’ll find a way. That’s your topic.”
“That leaves me,” Kevin said. “I can’t write on emotions, Mark. Not now, anyway.”
“Could you describe someone who influenced you?”
“You mean like a role model?”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t have none.”
I threw up my hands. “Have you ever had a pet, Kevin?”
He smiled. “Don’t trip, Mark. I’ll come up with somethin’.”
At ten minutes before eight, all of the boys except Jimmy had finished writing and were getting restless. I didn’t want to interrupt Jimmy, but I knew that if we waited too long, none of them would get to read. I asked him how much longer he thought he would need.
“Go ahead and start reading. I’ll be finished soon.”
“Good enough. Francisco, why don’t you begin? Tell us something meaningful that you’ve learned.”
Francisco blushed. “Aw—I couldn’t think of any one thing, Mark. It’s all meaningful.”
“But you seemed to be writing,” I said.
“He was drawing,” Benny said.
“Shut up, Wong.”
“I think he should share the drawing with us,” Kevin needled.
“Can we see it?” I asked.
Francisco shrugged and turned his notepad around. He’d drawn an idealized, low-rider-style gangster with a bald head, Ray-Ban sunglasses, handlebar mustache, and tattoos. A woman with bare breasts clung to his arm. For a background, he’d drawn a sunset and some gulls. A clock and a monthly calendar floated in the sky next to the sun; several pages of the calendar had been torn out and were drifting away like clouds. At the bottom of the page, he’d written the words “Good Luck” in an elaborate, decorative script.
“Nice titties,” Victor said.
“It’s for Wu,” Francisco said. “The message is: You do the time. Don’t let the time do you.”
Jimmy was still writing; he didn’t seem aware of anyone else in the room.
“I wanna hear about Jackson’s pet,” Benny said.
“I bet it was a pussy!” Francisco blurted, guffawing at his own cleverness.
“Can’t we be serious even for five minutes?” Benny asked, looking dismayed. “It’s Wu’s last night.”
“Can’t we be theriouth even for five minuth?” Victor echoed in a high-pitched voice.
“Some quiet, please,” Kevin said, “or you’ll miss the show.”
Around when I was nine or ten me and my friend Arthur had a puppy named Sparkie. Well, really Sparkie wasn’t our dog, he belonged to someone that lived up the street from me. When they would go to work me and my friend would climb the fence and steal their dog for a few hours to play with him and then we would return him before the owners knew he was even gone. But one day when I went over there to get him he wasn’t there. I wanted to ask the owners what happened to him but I couldn’t do that, they would of got suspicious. So every day for a week I checked, but the dog was never there. Even now I still wonder what happened to the dog. I wonder if Sparkie and I were to cross paths again, would he remember who I am?
“Dogs never forget,” Francisco insisted. “I had a pit bull and he remembered me even when I was locked up for six months. When I came home from YA the last time, he was like, all happy and shit, jumpin’ up and down.”
“Who got the dog now?”
“Nobody. The cops shot him. They did it just to be dicks! My dog wasn’t doin’ nothin’. He was just in the yard when they came to bust me. I mean, a course he was gonna bark! What’s he s’posed to do when all these people show up, yellin’ an’ shit? But he wouldn’t bite nobody. Dicks.”
“Sorry about your dog.”
Francisco shrugged. “Who’s next? Look at Wu—he’s still writin’.”
“Wong’s next. Woooong.”
“I wrote about freedom. It starts—”
“I just realized somethin’,” Francisco interrupted. “Society can take away our physical freedom, but we still got spiritual freedom. Nobody can take that away from us! You could be in the worst place in the world, but still get as much freedom as you want, as long as you got God in your heart.”
“You gotta have both to be free,” Kevin said, shaking his head. “Physical and mental.”
“I agree with Jackson,” Benny said.
“Easy for you to say, Wong. You’ll walk outta here with time served.”
“Yeah, Wong, shut the fuck up. All I know is, I am free ’cause I’m doin’ God’s will. That’s all I need.”
Benny would not back down. “I’m happy for you, but most people need more than that. Like Wu said, nothing about life in here is normal. We’re like rats in a big lab experiment. ‘Let’s see what happens if we put all the bad rats in one tiny place. If they get worse or kill each other, well, too bad. They deserved it.’ I don’t think God would agree with that. In the Bible, Jesus helps criminals, he doesn’t punish them.”
Francisco seemed to be having trouble deciding whether to argue with Benny or agree with him. “Fuck it, Wong. Why is it that even when you say the right thing, it still gets on my nerves?”
“Let the man read,” Kevin said.
“OK. Like I was saying, I wrote an argument between my conscience and my mind. The idea is, it’s in the future and I’m free, but I can’t decide what to do on a Friday night.”
“Only Wong would have that problem.”
“Shut up, Martinez.”
Conscience: Now that I’m out free, should I read as much as when I was in Central? Or should I go out and have as much fun as I can to make up for the time I was at Central? . . . I think I better stay at home to study more so I can transfer to USC in my junior year . . .
Mind: Noooo! Benny, it’s Friday night! Go find a date or something. It won’t hurt to go out just for a few hours. Plus, you�
��re lonely. Stop being a nerd that stays home “24/7” for once and have a little fun!
Conscience: Aaaaah, but school . . . so many things I should read to prepare for next week. I remember I promised myself to study hard when I get out. I’m supposed to make up for all that time I didn’t study in high school. I’m supposed to study hard so I can get to USC in my junior year to study business. . . .
Mind: Come on, Benny, you’re only going out for a few hours. It ain’t gonna hurt you. Don’t you know you’re smart? Everyone tells you you’re smart, don’t they? You’ll be all right to be out for a few hours. Go now before it’s too late! Now Benny, put on some nice clothes too!
Conscience: Should I? . . . Nah, if I go today for a few hours, then I might go out a few more tomorrow or next week…eventually, I’ll be out for a long time every day.
Mind: No you won’t, just hurry up, get dressed, and leave before it’s too late!
Conscience: Nah, I actually don’t feel lonely at all and I SHOULD stay home to study! What if I don’t make it to USC? What if I fail all my classes? What if . . .
Mind: So what if you fail all your classes? So what if you don’t make it to USC? Life is short! Now think: What if you die soon and you miss out? Then it’ll be too late to regret you didn’t enjoy your life, Benny. Go now or you’re gonna regret it.
Conscience: NOOO! FUCK YOU! I can’t waste all the hard work I already did! I can’t let down all the people that gave me a second chance! I’m gonna stay home tonight and just leave me the fuck alone!
“Damn, Wong! Your conscience is even more of a punk than you are.”
“Maybe so,” Kevin said, “but he’s probably the only one in this room’s gonna make it. Hell, if I could do my life over again, I’d be a nerd. Like Bill Gates. Nobody jacks his shit now.”
“Me too,” Francisco said. “Fuck it, I’d wear suspenders and a plastic pocket protector. You know, like—who’s that little fucker on TV? Urkel! You know he’s rich by now. He prob’ly got a different Playboy bunny every night givin’ him blow jobs.”
“Wu, you almost finished? It’s after eight o’clock, they gonna kick us out soon.”
“I’ll be done in two minutes.”
“Martinez, you go.”
