Rikers High

by Paul Volponi

  After he was done talking, I shook his hand for Sanchez.

  Demarco told Green, “This is Martin Stokes, a really good student.”

  Then Green asked about my case, and what I expected to happen. I told Demarco and Green that I was probably going home from court tomorrow. I wanted them to know that I was going to finish school and make something of myself. I didn’t care how many other dudes were listening anymore. Nobody in that house was getting in the way of my going home. Nobody!

  The COs called us out into the hall. School was over with. We were going to the mess hall, then back to the house. But Demarco asked me to wait a minute. He went back into Sanchez’s folder and gave me the copy of his GED diploma.

  I hugged Demarco and said, “Thank you.”

  Dawson was in the hall lining kids up and calling for Brick. He had a visit and there was an escort waiting for him at the officers’ desk with Ms. Armstrong.

  “I’m gonna refuse that visit,” Brick told Dawson.

  “Go up to the desk and let them know,” Dawson shot back, as he counted kids.

  Brick told the escort he wasn’t going to the visit floor to see anybody.

  “That’s the first one of those in a long time,” the escort laughed.

  “Kids are just ungrateful sometimes,” Ms. Armstrong said.

  Brick turned back to them and said, “That’s my grandmother waiting on me. Last week, she forgot my money. I know her government check doesn’t come again until next week. I’m not in the mood just to make small talk with her.”

  Ms. Armstrong shot out of her chair like she was the judge and jury all rolled up into one. She smacked Brick across the face with an open black hand. He went to the floor on one knee. Then she slapped him in the back of the head even harder.

  “You’re going to see your grandmother,” she warned, standing over him. “Aren’t you, little boy? You going to see your grandmother because she loves you, and she came all the way to Rikers Island.”

  The tears were pouring out of Brick’s eyes.

  “Now get up and go with this officer,” Ms. Armstrong demanded.

  Brick picked himself up, crying all the while. Then he followed the escort out of the trailer. Kids gave Ms. Armstrong a real cheer. But she didn’t want to hear any more about it.

  CHAPTER

  38

  Captain Montenez showed up at the house in street clothes, with his gold badge around his neck. It was his day off, but he came back to the jail when he heard that a kid from the Sprungs had hung up.

  “Bad shit only happens when I’m not around to supervise,” he told Dawson with a straight face.

  Montenez sat down and read every report there was. Then he went off to inspect the bathroom with Dawson. When they got back, Montenez called the carpenters out from the main building. They came on the double with their toolboxes and a shopping cart full of wood.

  The COs closed the bathroom because of all the tools that were laid out. They don’t want some kid walking off with a screwdriver or a hammer, and then have to search the whole damn house.

  Dudes that peeped inside said they were building a cover around the hot water pipe. That way no one could ever slip a bedsheet over it again, like Sanchez did.

  The captain grilled the dude from the midnight suicide crew for almost an hour. Then he ran the dude back and forth from the bathroom to replay everything that happened. Every time they disappeared inside, my stomach started to knot up all over again.

  After the captain was through with him, that dude got the nerve up to ask about his $150 for finding Sanchez.

  Montenez grinned and said, “You have to save somebody to get paid. You don’t get any prizes around here for breaking bad news!”

  The dude didn’t say anything more about it. I guess he saw that it was going nowhere and quit on the whole idea.

  I was pissed off at the dude for trying to cash in on Sanchez being dead.

  I didn’t hold much against him before that. He was only playing his end of the game that night, just like I was by keeping my mouth shut. And I knew that Sanchez killing himself probably had more to do with what was going on inside his own head than any bullshit plan. But I thought it was really fucked-up the way that dude asked to get paid anyway.

  When Johnson came on, Montenez was still in the house. Johnson told Montenez that it was the worst thing he’d seen in all his time on the Island.

  “I don’t need another night like that one,” moaned Johnson. “You go home and just keep thinking about it. To waste a life like that!”

  “If it wasn’t a kid, you could almost stand it,” Montenez said, moving for the front door in his jeans and sneakers.

  Jersey and Ritz were both looking at me sideways. They had heard me tell Demarco and Green about going home tomorrow. Jersey was all insulted, wanting to know why I’d been so tight-lipped.

  “I understand not putting that news out on the loudspeaker. But we’re not the rest of these dudes up in here,” he said, pointing to himself and Ritz.

  I told him he was right, and that I should have said something. They both came around after a while and shook my hand. And it felt good not to hide it anymore.

  “We’re a righteous crew, my brothers,” said Ritz.

  Maybe I hadn’t realized how much standing up to Brick really meant to them.

  After supper, I called my real house. I knew that Mom would be in court the next day, but I wanted to hear the words come out of her mouth. Just like I wanted to hear my lawyer say that we were all straight with the DA. I wanted everything nailed down, with nothing left to chance. I wanted to hear the judge say, “Have a nice day, and get home safe.”

  “I’ll be there,” Mom said.

  It had all gone bad three times before. There was almost nothing left that could go wrong, and I was hoping this screwed-up system didn’t have any more surprises for me. If there were an earthquake tomorrow that split the courthouse in two, I’d just sit there and let everybody else go running. I’d wait for the system to stamp me GOOD TO GO.

  Mom didn’t think she’d be able to sleep.

  “I’ll probably lie awake in bed watching the clock move forward,” she said. “Then when it makes it far enough, I’ll get up and dress for court.”

  I didn’t mention anything about Sanchez because I didn’t want that on her mind, too.

  At the end, we didn’t get tied up in a lot of I love yous. It was just “good night” and “keep your fingers crossed.”

  But I knew she was worried more about me going through the pens and having beefs than about my case. So I told her I’d keep my head up and stay away from trouble.

  Maybe I was trying to convince myself, too.

  Brick wasn’t anywhere near the phones. He was laying low off the licks he took from Ms. Armstrong. For most of the night, he was either sulking in the dayroom or at his bed going through the store. He was like a ghost now. And kids were probably wondering why they’d put up with his bullshit for so long.

  Barnett didn’t know if he should hassle kids over the phones, so he just backed off. That’s the way it is when you’re a doldier and the boss cracks. It leaves you standing in the middle of nowhere, with a lot of enemies.

  I felt bad for Shaky. He just kept going around the house saying he couldn’t believe Brick really cried. I told Jersey that Shaky could hold down my spot after I left. But he just made a face and didn’t say a word.

  After lights-out, I spent a long time looking over at Sanchez’s empty bed. When the new jacks rolled into the house there would be another “thirty-nine” to take his spot.

  I was glad I wouldn’t be around to see it.

  There’d be another kid to take my bed, too. And I already felt sad for him and his family, and for what he might have done to somebody to get locked up on Rikers Island.

  FRIDAY, JUNE 19

  CHAPTER

  39

  It was five o’clock in the morning when the CO coming on duty stumbled down the rows of beds, counting
. It was Ms. Armstrong. She had a cup of coffee in one hand and was touching each sleeping kid with the other. She mumbled the numbers softly and her voice went up and down like a lullaby.

  “Thirty-six . . . thirty-seven . . . thirty-eight,” she counted.

  She got to Sanchez’s empty bed and said, “Bless that child’s soul, Lord.”

  Then she saw my face looking back at hers.

  “Forty,” she whispered and touched my shoulder.

  I had put on my clean pants and shirt before she even started. I was just lying there waiting for her to round up the courts.

  “I see you’re ready this morning, honey,” she said, and kept moving.

  When she made her way back past my bed, I got up and followed her to the front of the house. There were a couple of other dudes headed to court, too. But they were either still getting dressed or cleaning up in the bathroom.

  Ms. Armstrong pulled my card from the box.

  I sat down in an open chair, and she said, “Stand up, please. This is not a hangout.”

  I jumped up like my own mother had told me to move.

  Then she looked at the unscarred face on my card, and her eyes got sad.

  “How did this happen, Martin?” she asked.

  When she called me “Martin,” everything I’d been holding back just wanted to come flooding out.

  “I got cut on the way back from court. They wanted some other dude, but I got caught in the middle,” I answered.

  She shook her head, and I really believed she was sorry.

  That was the first time I had told anyone on the Island. I never thought I would breathe a word of it inside the house. Only the inmates on that bus, the COs who saw it go down, and the kid who cut me knew the story. But I wasn’t going to play Ms. Armstrong out in the cold, not now.

  She flipped that card out on the desk, and I prayed it would be the last time anyone would think of me as “Forty.”

  “Once you make it home, I don’t ever want to see you out here again,” she said.

  She was always talking to kids about her son in junior high. I thought he was lucky to have a mother who was a CO. He could hear all about what it was really like in jail. Then it would be his own damn fault if he didn’t listen.

  When the other dudes got up front, Ms. Armstrong dropped that kind of sensitive talk with me. I knew she was being respectful of my privacy.

  One dude was so nervous about his case he couldn’t stop talking. He replayed the whole thing a couple of times.

  I couldn’t concentrate on anything except what was ahead of me, and his words just flew right past. I was busy looking out at the house, thinking about all that had happened here. I was thinking how I never wanted to see this place again. But I knew that I was going to carry it with me forever, like this mark on my face.

  The only thing that stuck with me about that dude’s case was Ms. Armstrong telling him, “Pray for the best, child. Just pray for the best.”

  My kidneys were starting to burn, but I wasn’t going into that bathroom. I just wanted to hold out until I got to the pens.

  The escort picked us up. We walked through the front doors of the house and it was over. Sprung #3 was behind me now. Then we moved across the yard, past the school trailer. I thought about Demarco trying to prove he knew every kid’s first name. That lifted me up inside. Maybe he wasn’t the best teacher I ever had for teaching verbs and nouns. But he was the best kind a kid on Rikers Island could run into. He was nothing but real, and he understood how kids were feeling.

  We stopped for inmates at some of the mods inside the main building, and our group doubled in size. I began to feel tight about all those other dudes. But I told myself, It’s just the same old building game. Dudes want to look hard and walk tough. That’s all it is.

  In the transportation yard, the COs patted everyone down.

  I was shackled by the wrist and foot to one of the adults. He looked calm enough, and I was relieved to see that he was my partner. But when the shackles closed shut, that whole slashing came roaring back at me. I almost couldn’t breathe and my heart was pumping out of control.

  My legs and feet turned numb and I could hardly walk. That adult tried to pull me along a little, but I couldn’t go any faster. The sweat was falling off my face and I probably looked like some dude facing the electric chair, instead of going home.

  “Ease up, kid. You’re making this hard,” my partner said.

  I wanted to scream out at the top of my lungs for the COs to take those damn shackles off. But they wouldn’t have listened. They’re deaf to shit like that. And I was so shook that maybe nothing would have come out of my mouth, even if I’d opened it.

  We got on the bus and I was sitting next to a window. I closed my eyes tight and listened to the sound of the big engine cranking up. Then the bus started to roll past the checkpoints to the main gate. I counted them off blind in my head with every stop.

  The Rikers Island Bridge came up fast, and I could feel the slight incline as we picked up speed. I finally opened my eyes, and there was nothing out the window but blue water and sky.

  The bus hit the streets of East Elmhurst and rolled toward the highway.

  I kept opening and closing my hands, trying to get the feeling back into my fingers. I’d made the trip from Rikers to the courthouse and back three times before. Every bump and turn was part of my memory. But I couldn’t find my way now. Everything was out of place. The sweat was stinging my eyes and I kept seeing buildings I would have sworn we’d already passed.

  The dude sitting behind me moved to get himself straight, and I nearly jumped out of my seat.

  It felt like it was a hundred and fifty degrees and that bus had become an oven.

  We turned from Queens Boulevard into the courthouse yard.

  The COs ran us off the bus and through the system quick.

  But that fever burning inside of me didn’t stop until one of them turned a key and those shackles finally came off.

  Once I got put into the pen, I headed for the toilet in the corner. I must have stood there for almost two minutes emptying my bladder.

  After that, I found a quiet spot in the back, near the wall.

  The pen filled up fast, and was crowded as anything.

  By nine o’clock, the COs started to call a few inmates out for their cases. I was just waiting out my time, hoping I was getting ready to walk free.

  Then one of the COs came up to the pen with some kid in a headlock. Another officer turned the key and pushed open the gate. Together they shoved his ass inside.

  “Start any more trouble,” the CO told him, “and I’ll chain you to a parking meter outside like a dog.”

  The kid said some smart-mouthed shit back. But I wasn’t listening to his words. I was glued to his face. It was the kid who’d cut me. I kept looking to make sure. I needed to be positive. Then I saw the spiderweb tattoo on his neck.

  Anything hard that was ever inside of me came boiling up to the top. My fists squeezed tight, and my brain was all static.

  Some guys I’d never seen before were zeroed in on that kid, too.

  Then one of them said something to him.

  I was working my way closer to them, when it all broke loose.

  Three of those guys grabbed the kid and rushed him to the back while the others blocked the COs’ view up front.

  It was like the devil had sent him to me, special delivery.

  There were hands around his throat, and his head was pushed hard against the wall.

  “You’re the one who cut my cousin Frankie,” growled one of those guys. “You think I wouldn’t recognize you?”

  The kid was struggling to breathe and get loose, and I could hear him squeal. I was sizing up the bunch of them. Numbers didn’t mean shit to me anymore.

  I stepped over to where they had him pinned.

  “Maybe you don’t remember this face,” I said.

  My voice took two of those dudes by surprise and they jumped back. That let the
tattooed kid tangle himself up good with the guy who was fighting for his cousin.

  They both had a solid grip on each other now, and neither could break free from the other.

  “This prick cut you, too?” asked the guy that was tied to him.

  But I couldn’t answer. I was hooked on looking through that tattooed kid.

  I could see everything working inside of him. His blood was pumping hard and the veins up and down his spider-webbed neck were ready to explode.

  “Give it to ’im,” the guy grunted, pushing his chin at me.

  One of his friends cupped his right hand and brought it over to mine. He pushed a razor blade flat into my palm. I closed a fist around it tight and felt how cold it was.

  I moved the blade between my thumb and fingers. Every bit of the last five months on Rikers was crammed into that space with it.

  I raised that hand as high as my cheek, with that spiderweb in front of me.

  A piece of light hit off the blade, shining into my eyes.

  I could feel the kid’s heart go numb and see it in his face as I followed through.

  Every trap and hole this fucked-up system had to offer was right there.

  I was standing on a ledge they’d set up for me out in the middle of nowhere. And the only thing I had to fall back on were the people who’d tried like hell to save me.

  For a split-second I thought about Mom and I saw her face.

  I crashed my elbow into the kid’s forehead, knocking him loose from that other guy. The blade went flying across the floor. I smothered that tattooed kid in my arms, wrestling him to the front of the pen.

  “COs! COs!” I screamed, and they came busting in.

  In a split second, I’d decided that nobody was going to get cut today.

  They dragged us out of the pen, pulling us apart.

  No matter which way they turned me, I kept fighting to look at that tattooed kid’s face. I wanted to see everything he was feeling. I wanted to see what it was like for him to walk that ledge, too.