Rikers High

by Paul Volponi

  That’s when you find trouble in jail. You’re all pumped up over something. Then somebody says shit to you. It’s easy to fight the wrong dude just because he’s standing there.

  “You know the drill, kid,” a CO told me. “I need to see you the way your mama brought you into this world.”

  I took off my clothes. Then he made me lift up my arms and spread my butt cheeks.

  “You pass,” he said, moving on to the next inmate.

  I put on the orange jumper and slippers, waiting to get called.

  This time Mom would see me without the bandages on my face. And I was hoping it wouldn’t make her feel too bad.

  They finally called me out onto the floor, and I was walking with my head down behind the CO. I looked up all at once and thought I was at the wrong table because of all the faces. Mom had brought Grandma and my sisters with her. And I almost couldn’t believe they were really there.

  Suddenly, all that anger was gone and a thousand fears flashed through my brain about how they’d react.

  I knew Mom wouldn’t bring them without telling about my cut first.

  Trisha and Tina ran up to hug me, like it was nothing. I closed my eyes and could hear their good shoes tapping on the floor.

  I leaned down to kiss Grandma, and she said my name.

  Mom stood up and touched my face.

  “This is what it is,” she said, and they all looked.

  I studied them, too. My sisters had gotten bigger, and Grandma was a little older. Then I focused on Mom’s face to make sure she was all right.

  She looked stronger than I’d ever seen her before.

  “This is the only time I’m ever coming to jail, and that’s because I love you, child!” Grandma said.

  Before I could say anything, Mom answered, “You won’t ever have to come back, Mama. The next time we’re all together, it’ll be at home.”

  “Amen,” said Grandma.

  Mom told her, “Martin’s been going to school here.”

  “This is where too many of our boys go back to school,” Grandma said, looking around the visit floor.

  Mom just nodded her head, holding my sisters tight by their hands.

  But I didn’t want to talk about the damn system. I wouldn’t waste my breath on that now. I didn’t want to ruin this good feeling with them all there.

  I knew that I missed being with my family. But I didn’t understand how much until we were all in one place again. It didn’t matter that we were on Rikers Island. It didn’t matter that we were at a plastic table or that I was wearing an orange jumpsuit. It didn’t even matter that I had this cut on my face.

  That night in the Sprung, I looked around and didn’t see anything I would miss when I left. And the only house I ever wanted to be in again was my own.

  SUNDAY, JUNE 14

  CHAPTER

  30

  I knew something was going on when I woke up. The COs from the night before were still on duty. Then one of the kids asked about going to church service.

  “You’re lucky God’s everywhere ’cause the Island’s on total lockdown,” the CO said. “There’s no movement.”

  A couple of dudes were standing by the big window at the back of the house. That’s when I noticed the Turtles dressed up in their gear walking along the outside of the double fences and down by the water.

  Then the COs woke everybody up and took the count twice with kids standing at their beds.

  “Somewhere on the Island the count has to be off,” Sanchez whispered. “There’s an inmate missing for sure.”

  This was the second time it had happened since I’d been locked up.

  The Department of Corrections calls it a “red alert.” They close the bridge and won’t let anyone off the Island. The last tour of COs has to stay at their posts, and the new ones coming on do all the searching.

  Inmates can’t go anywhere. There’s no mess hall, no law library, no rec, and no visits. Everybody just sits around and gets tight.

  The last time, they searched for five or six hours until the warden decided that inmate was long gone. It put a smile on dudes’ faces to think that you could really bust out and maybe beat the game. But a week later, we saw in the newspaper that the NYPD nabbed him. They caught him hiding at his girl’s crib in Queens Village. He was sound asleep and the cops just walked in and cuffed him.

  Most kids thought that dude was stupid for staying with his girl. She probably visited him before, and Corrections knew her address from the sign-in book. Still, it took them a week to catch his ass. He could have got what he wanted from her on the first night and then split. That guy was smart enough to escape, but dumb in other ways.

  “They can add seven years to your sentence for busting out,” said Jersey. “How you gonna beat that rap?”

  “Yeah, what can you say? ‘It wasn’t me you found outside the gates,’” mocked Ritz.

  Corrections wouldn’t tell anyone how that last guy escaped. Maybe he even got a deal to keep his mouth shut about how he’d done it.

  No matter what anybody says, the best way off of Rikers Island is through the front gate. Kids are always scoping the passes that civilians wear. The teachers in the Sprungs keep them clipped to their shirts, and sometimes they drop. If a kid got a hold of one and had the right kind of clothes, he could just walk out with the crowd.

  A teacher like Mr. Rowe was so old and stupid that you could walk right up to him in the parking lot and say you just got paroled. He’d probably give you a ride over the bridge and maybe even to your front door. Then the next day the FBI would be all over his ass.

  But there are other ways off Rikers, too.

  Every dude I ever met on the Island thought he could swim the half mile to LaGuardia Airport.

  Some kids started wondering if the guy who was missing swam for it.

  “The water looks all calm, but I hear there’s wicked currents,” said Jersey.

  “Corrections has a boat that passes by on the regular, too,” Ritz said. “I see it all the time.”

  I’d never even heard of anybody who made it into the water. And I don’t know what kind of chance you’d have with the police at the airport if you got across. When they see you streaking across the runway soaking wet, they might catch on faster than you think.

  You could tell from the Turtles’ faces that they were nervous. I never thought I’d see a squad of COs with clubs and helmets look spooked, but they were.

  “That’s because they know if a dude could bust out, he could get his hands on a gun,” Sanchez told me. “Then all their padding wouldn’t mean shit.”

  Most COs carry guns with them out in the world. If they run across a dude they smacked around on the Island it could be drama. There wouldn’t be a whole squad to back them up either. It would just be one on one, and that tin badge wouldn’t count for much.

  Most of the COs I had on the Island were square with me. And if I saw most of them out in the world, I’d just walk past without saying anything. But if I ever saw Officer Johnson on a street corner, I’d probably be scared shitless and run.

  By two o’clock there were more kids looking out the back window than watching TV in the dayroom.

  Then a CO announced, “Alarm’s over. Lunch will be late, but it’s coming.”

  The COs wouldn’t say anything about who was missing or what happened. Corrections tries to keep you in the dark so you don’t get any big ideas of your own.

  They brought the food out from the main building, with the mess hall workers moving double-time. When we finally got lunch it was past three o’clock. Not everybody could afford Brick’s new prices to juggle. Most kids were light in their buckets and didn’t eat since supper the night before, including me.

  We got served cheese sandwiches.

  “How old’s this cheese? It’s hard and brown around the corners,” some dude complained.

  But kids were practically starving and wolfed those sandwiches down like it was McDonald’s.

  We
marched back to the house from the mess hall, and Ms. Armstrong was sitting up front giving out mail. I was surprised when she put a letter in my hand. Usually my sisters sent me cards they made in grade school with flowers pasted on them. But this envelope was flat and thin.

  The address in the corner read, “Auburn Correctional Facility.” The letter was from my pops and postmarked June 4th, two days after I’d got cut.

  It was the first time I’d heard from him since I’d been locked up. And I wasn’t sure if I was ready for what he would say.

  There was a knot inside me that kept getting tighter, so I put the letter down on my bed and walked in circles around the house.

  Finally, I just grabbed for it.

  I opened it and tried to read fast. But I got stuck halfway through the first sentence, and the same words kept running over in my head.

  “Son, let me tell you something about jail. . . . Son, let me tell you something . . . let me tell you something about jail. . . .”

  I climbed into bed, fell back on the pillow, and pushed the letter up over my face. The lights from the top of the house kept coming through the paper, and I had to hold it off to the side to see clearly.

  I took a deep breath and started from the beginning.

  Son, let me tell you something about jail because its the only thing I ever learned good, and I want you to learn more then me in this life, they have traps to keep you here, you have to look down every day to see it, they put big holes in the floor, every day they put it some place new, inmates and C.O. dig holes together, they dont want you to be happy or ever go home again, that way the C.O. can keep their good job, your old enough to understand what I say, they want to steal you from your family to keep them poor in the dirt, dont let them do it to you, keep your foot out of the traps, keep your eyes looking down for the holes, go home and help your mother, and watch your sisters for me.

  Love, Pops

  xxxxxooo

  That was the first time I’d ever heard him talk about jail. Two or three times a year, Mom would take me with her to visit him. He would always ask how I was doing in school and if I was staying out of trouble. He never talked about any problems or if it was rough for him there. But things were different now. I could understand where he was coming from, and he could be straight with me. It felt bad to think about it, but being locked up was something we shared together.

  I kissed his letter and put it in my pocket so I wouldn’t lose it.

  That night Sanchez said Brick wanted to meet with Jersey, Ritz, and me. I didn’t want to have anything to do with it, but Jersey and Ritz wanted to hear him out.

  “I’ll bet you he begs for our help,” said Jersey, pumped up.

  “That’s something I gotta see,” Ritz said. “I can’t risk missing that.”

  When I couldn’t talk them out of it, I decided to go along so they wouldn’t get into anything stupid. But I was curious, too.

  Brick got us in the corner of the dayroom and talked like it was nothing special. He said we could live in the house for free. We could eat and smoke from his store and use the phones, like it was all ours. All we had to do was play on his side and back him up to the end.

  When we didn’t jump at his offer right away, he started to yap.

  “You dudes don’t know when you’ve got it good,” he said. “See what happens if I close up shop and kids are sparring over every little thing. This house will get burned every other—”

  “We’ve got to think it over,” Jersey cut him off, before walking away.

  I almost fell back.

  Jersey had laid it on Brick right to his face.

  I knew he was pissed at being replaced by Shaky. Dudes in the house had even started calling him “less than a retard.”

  But Jersey had got some real fire in his belly since then, and Brick’s rep had cooled way down.

  After Brick left, Ritz had a big shit-eating grin on his face.

  “I want to be the one to tell Brick no,” Ritz said. “Tomorrow. Let’s make him sweat it overnight.”

  It was hard to believe, but the only white boy in the Sprungs was going to tell the house gangster that he wouldn’t watch his back.

  “How can you turn that sweet deal down?” asked Sanchez, upset as anything when I told him how it went down.

  I felt bad for Sanchez, who had to front for Brick.

  He was an all-right dude. But that’s what happens when you get in deep and owe somebody. Sometimes you have to play the wrong side.

  It was almost lights-out.

  I climbed into bed, careful, still looking for the traps and holes.

  MONDAY, JUNE 15

  CHAPTER

  31

  In school, Demarco wouldn’t even crack a smile over Murray getting tossed off the Island. Kids pushed him to say that he was happy about it. Only he wouldn’t go there.

  “My lesson today’s too important to waste time on him,” said Demarco. “It starts off like this: Where do you want to be in five years?”

  Demarco did tell us that Murray wasn’t really fired. He was sitting in a Board of Education office somewhere in Queens, until everything got looked into. And he’d probably just get sent to another school in the end.

  “It sounds like the pen for teachers,” cracked Jersey.

  “In fact, Murray’s collecting the same money, even though he’s not teaching,” said Demarco.

  “That’s probably why he did it,” some dude said. “A paid vacation.”

  And nobody argued.

  After a while, most kids were headfirst into writing an answer to Demarco’s question. But I was stuck. I didn’t know where I wanted to be in five years, except home.

  “If you can’t find the exact place,” Demarco told me, “then write about what it should be like there.”

  I wrote that I wanted to be in a place where people know my real name, a place where I could find something important to do with my life. That there should always be at least one other person around who cares about me, and maybe someone extra special to watch out for the traps and fill in all the holes.

  Demarco looked at it and said he liked it fine, but didn’t understand the part about the traps and holes. So I showed him Pops’s letter and let him read it.

  “Your father must really love you to want to share what he’s learned,” said Demarco, when he’d finished. “Martin, you should be proud to have this kind of relationship with him.”

  Other dudes wanted to see the letter, too, but I wouldn’t let them. I said it was private, and that Demarco was the teacher and couldn’t understand my answer without reading it.

  I guess I really wanted Demarco to see it from the start. I knew it was full of mistakes and bad spelling, but I didn’t care. I wanted him to say something good, like Pops was somebody.

  And he did.

  Just as Demarco’s time was up, Mr. Green, the guidance counselor, came to the door and called Sanchez outside again. Since he’d started seeing Green, Sanchez seemed braver about going upstate. Or maybe he just didn’t have the time to worry about it since Brick kept him hopping now.

  I never asked Sanchez what he talked about with the counselor, and he never said anything about it either.

  There are no bells to signal when a class is over in the Sprungs. The only bells that go off in jail are alarms, and the COs wouldn’t want to mix up the two. So teachers go to the door of their next class when it’s time, keeping one eye on the kids they left behind. It hardly ever goes smooth with five teachers trying to pull off that trick at the same time.

  A dude from another room snuck over to us while the teachers were changing. He flashed a piece of carbon paper, and dudes picked their heads up like he had the key to the front gate.

  “I got it from Murray’s substitute, Mr. Powell,” the dude said.

  “He a herb?” somebody asked.

  “Can’t tell yet,” he answered. “But he’s at least stupid-new.”

  Right away kids started to scheme. A new teacher meant
someone who didn’t know the system and maybe somebody you could play big-time.

  Then Miss Archer arrived and gave that dude the boot from our room.

  “Let’s go,” she said, tugging him by the arm all the way to the door.

  He just smiled and rolled his eyes at her.

  “You can touch me anytime you want,” he said. “I love you.”

  Inmates use carbon paper to make jailhouse tattoos. First, you heat a safety pin over a match to kill all the germs. Then you use the ink on the paper to fill in the holes you leave with the pin on a dude’s arm. Some kids are good at it. Other tattoos look like shit and you can’t even figure them out.

  I was always too scared of the pain to get one, in jail or out in the world. But I’d laugh at that pinprick now. I was stuck with a different kind of mark. One I couldn’t cover up.

  The COs won’t let you have carbon paper. They don’t give a damn about tattoos. They think you’ll use it to print a fake ID. Tinfoil is contraband, too. They’re afraid you’ll try to copy a badge and walk out.

  Miss Archer had us writing about the grades we deserved in her math class. She even made kids read the assignment out loud. Most of them started out with, “I never disrespected you,” or, “Everybody knows how you feel about me.” Dudes were really loving it, but I didn’t know what to write because I’d only been in her class for a week.

  I glanced out the big window into the hall. I saw Ms. Jackson with Captain Montenez and a full-bird deputy warden watching us.

  Jersey saw them, too.

  “Oh, shit. Deputy warden on deck,” he said, without ever moving his lips.

  Dudes just froze and only their eyes turned sideways to see, because that deputy warden had probably ten times the power of a captain.

  After a while, they all moved on to the classroom across the way.

  Everything was quiet for a second, then Montenez screamed for the COs.

  I could see him charge into Mrs. Daniels’s room and snatch up a kid who was sleeping. That kid probably got yanked out of some good dream to find himself hooked under the neck by Montenez and being dragged through the hall.