Miracle? Maybe not. But it feels good. When Javier catches my eye, he taps his f ist to his chest. No one has ever done that to me before.
Chapter 25
“Yo, why you be printing a rap by that ponketo Javier Muñoz anyway?” Cardo asks me that night in our cell. “I see your name on this thing.”
He shakes his copy of the newsletter in my face.
“It’s not a rap, Cardo. It’s a poem.”
“It’s bullshit. All that crap about ‘I don’t deserve this.’ Fuck you, man. You don’t deserve it, then why you sitting here in juvie?”
I’ve been sitting on my bunk, minding my own beeswax, trying to get through Deon’s article about programmers, with many, many breaks to stare into space. It’s actually a relief to have an excuse to put it down. “Did you get to the last line?” I ask him.
“Yeah, so what?”
“So what he’s saying is he doesn’t deserve this because he deserves even worse. It’s about feeling worthless, man. Don’t you get it? It’s about how everything in here is crap and how hard it is, with people telling you what to do and where to go. But that ain’t nothing, because deep down you know you don’t even deserve that. You deserve even harsher things because of what you done.”
Cardo’s face goes through a series of expressions—disbelief, confusion, ridicule—before settling down into warning. “So how come you printing this dude’s thing, but not something by the Disciples?”
“I didn’t know the Disciples of Vice wrote poems.”
“You think we can’t write this shit? You ever heard Felipe rhyme? That dude rap like nobody’s business.”
“Yeah, but it’s not a rap, Cardo. It’s a poem.”
“What’s the difference? ’Cept that punkass Muñoz piece of shit don’t even rhyme.”
I actually wondered about that myself. But it didn’t bother me. Even without rhyming, there’s a rhythm to Javier’s poem, something musical.
“Look,” I say. “If you want to submit something by the Disciples—”
“Hold on. I got to submit something? Like, you in charge?”
“I’m not in charge. I just typed out that poem. The newsletter’s Deon’s thing.”
“Deon? You mean Deon Wilson? Dude’s a punk.”
Everyone’s a punk to Cardo now, everyone who isn’t Cardo or a member of the Disciples.
“He’s all right,” I tell him. Saying anything more is a risk not only to my own safety but to Deon’s too. I don’t know if Deon’s all right. Maybe he killed one of Cardo’s friends. Maybe he stole Cardo’s girl. I don’t know what Deon’s in for, and I don’t feel right about asking.
“And how come he writing about how blacks be kept out of computers but not Latinos? You see a Hispanic Bill Gates around? You see any Guillermo Gates?”
There are actually three Hispanics in the computer class: Memmo, a kid named Inzy, and some super-quiet girl named Maria.
“That’s an awesome question, Cardo. Why don’t you write an article about that?”
“Naw,” Cardo says. “But I get you a rap from Felipe knock your socks off.”
“Great. I’ll ask Deon to put it in the next newsletter.”
“I got your word?”
“Well, yeah. We’re trying to improve it. That’s why we got Barbie Santiago to do an advice column.”
“You got to be hard up you asking that Dominicana for advice.”
“She’s not that bad.”
“Oh really? Like you and her are tight now?”
“I’m just saying she’s not as bad as you said. There’s more to her, that’s all.”
Cardo laughs that chimpy laugh of his. “Aw man, you so p-whipped right now. You don’t even know it. You all, yeah, there’s more to this bitch than a stone-cold killer. She care about me. Ooh.” He hugs himself. “Let me tell you something about Barbie Santiago, bro. That bitch a she-devil. Just ask Enrique Cabron. Dude was her boyfriend.”
This is a detail I didn’t know. We haven’t gotten to Barbie’s crime story in group yet. I f igured Enrique Cabron was some banger who got on the wrong side of Sol D.
“Yeah,” Cardo says. “Dude got into it with some other girl. Barbie’s friend or something. Girl cried rape or some shit. So Barbie smoked him.”
“Sounds like she did the world a favor.”
“Yeah, except that friend of hers? The little puta with the tears running down her face, she moves straight on to Cabron’s brother. Hell, the whole family having a piece of her.”
“That girl, Barbie’s friend, she have a name?”
“Yeah, she got a name. Mariana something. Why?”
The girl from Barbie’s quinceañera story.
“Anyway,” Cardo says. “Everybody knew that girl was community property. Everyone ’cept Barbie Santiago. Bitch wants you to think she some avenging angel. Naw, man. She just a bitch with a vendetta.”
“Right.”
“What, you don’t believe me? Suit yourself, bro, but keep your eyes open. That’s all I’m saying. She be all patting you on the back like she your best friend, but watch out, ese, ’coz she got a knife in her hand.”
Oh, that’s another thing. Everybody has a knife in hand. The blacks, the whites, the guards, the cops, his lawyer, his counselor, even the mother of his unborn child who went from being “the light of my life” to a ho-bag he doesn’t trust anymore. You’d think a fellow Latina like Barbie would get some kind of free pass, but no way. She’s in the wrong gang.
In Cardo’s mind, there’s a shadow world under the surface of the regular world. But he’s the only one who can see it. Everyone else is “living in a dream.” The group therapy team he used to love? They’re all suckers now. The life he dreamed about in Miami? That was a scam. And the more he rages about this shadow world, with its racism and unfairness, the closer it brings him to the Disciples. They’re the only pure ones. They’re the ones who have his back. He practically tears up when he talks about them.
“Well, you’ll get a chance to see what Barbie’s made of in the next newsletter,” I tell him.
“I ain’t reading that shit.”
“Might be entertaining at least.”
“I’ll tell you what’s entertaining. You print a rap by the Disciples instead of that pussy-ass no-rhyming bullshit by Javier Muñoz.”
“Bring me one then. And it wasn’t a rap, Cardo. It was a poem.”
Chapter 26
“Yo, we got problems.”
Deon. In the computer room.
“I got guys coming up to me all day, handing me shit like this.” He shoves a piece of paper in my face.
It’s a poem called “The Face in the Dark.” Apparently, this face appears whenever the poet, one Darius Johnstone, closes his eyes. The face is either a warning of evil things to come or a promise from his dead mother that angels are waiting for him in heaven. Johnstone doesn’t seem to be sure which. When I f inish reading that one, Deon hands me a stack of others. “I’m telling people you’re in charge of this, since you started it,” he says.
“In charge of what?”
“Poems and shit. Anyone got poems, essays, stories, or whatever, you take care of them.”
“What am I supposed to do with them?”
“Pick out the ones you like. Type them up. Lay them out.”
“Lay them out?”
“Yeah. You got to learn how to do that. Get me six different things. And mix it up. Some long, some short. Some funny. Some serious. Let’s give the people what they want.”
“I’m only here for another week, you know.”
I shouldn’t have said that. Having a short sentence at Haverland does not make you popular.
“All right, then you got one week to get me six things and f ind yourself a replacement. You started this. You gonna f inish it.”
“
Smart move, Deon,” Mr. Klein says. “Get kids to submit their own work, so now they’re invested in reading it. Really smart.”
“Yeah,” Deon says. “And some people thought it’d be better if nobody read the damn thing. Ain’t that right, Huang?”
“Whatever,” Huang says. Then he rubs that great big ruby of a nose.
Chapter 27
Deon was right. Javier’s poem was such a hit that now everyone wants in on the action. When word gets out that Isaac West is in charge of “poems and shit,” that I’m the damn Poems and Shit Editor, they stop me everywhere—out in the yard, in the cafeteria, in the hallways. Sometimes they’re all shy and embarrassed about it, shoving a crumpled-up napkin into my hand with some love note scrawled on it. Other times they march right up to me in full view of their friends and unfold a piece of paper like it’s the Ten Commandments.
A lot of it is garbage: pissed off tirades about enemy gangs, lame personal beefs, or hopeless declarations of love for some girl who doesn’t have the time of day. Someone even hands me a rhyming shopping list that includes “a gold-plated Hummer” (for “cruisin’ in the summer”) and “a hot tub full of big-ass bitches” (for “when you get those shaboink-boink itches”). Believe it or not, it gets worse.
Even Cecil Boone has something for me. He looks scared as a mouse walking up to me out in the yard. “Thanks, buddy,” he says as he hands me this folded-up piece of paper that’s so sweaty it must have been sitting in his bear-sized palm all morning. I can’t be sure Boone remembers me from our “incident” in the cafeteria. But as he heads off on his trunk-sized legs, all I can think of is, Yeah, man, thanks for not killing me.
My career as Poems and Shit Editor will be short. But I f igure I may as well throw myself into it. Turns out I like reading other people’s stories, even the stupid ones. No, especially the stupid ones. People unload all kinds of crazy shit onto paper, things they’d never say out loud. Give me a textbook to read and it’ll be a struggle just to get me to open the stupid thing. But scrawl some crazy-ass love poem onto a napkin, and you got me.
My favorite one is a poem by Tiana Grasley called “My Secret.”
You came into my bedroom
in the middle of the night.
I never opened my eyes.
I was pretending to sleep.
Don’t worry because I’ll never tell.
You can take my body
but my words belong to me.
I know some of the guys at Haverland are guilty of the secret Tiana’s talking about. Sometimes I hear them bragging about their “hos” and “bitches” and it makes me want to kill every single one of them. Tiana’s secret is as common as dirt. But there on the page it’s something else. A battle cry. I can’t wait to unleash it. I have six pieces to f ill up the next issue of The Free. And they are going to explode people’s heads.
That will be my parting gift to Haverland.
And in the meantime, before I clear out of here, I get a little bit of cred. You want your shit published, you’ve got to come to me, Isaac West. Normally, I’ve got no interest in being the man in charge of anything. I prefer to be invisible. But this little kingdom of poems and shit is just the right size for me, big enough to buy me some cred, small enough to keep that target off my back.
Chapter 28
Janelle is holding steady at Mrs. Rodriguez’s house while Mom sucks up the luxury of rehab. If it turns out like all the other times, she’ll stay sober just long enough for DCF to lose interest in her case. She knows that drill cold. Then she’ll spend a few days actually believing she’s turned a corner this time. She’ll make vague promises about getting her GED or looking for a job somewhere in “accounts.” Karen West does have bursts of promise from time to time. She knows how to act responsible. It’s all bullshit, but it means Janelle and I will get a little break from the usual insanity at home, and I, for one, am looking forward to some peace.
There is no peace in the orange-rug room, though. It’s Friday, my last day of group, and Dr. Horton is determined to make the most of it.
“I wish we had a little more time with you,” he says. “I feel like we’re just getting to know you, Isaac.”
I like Dr. Horton. I don’t meet too many people like him. He’s the kind of guy you’re supposed to think of as a role model. Not that I’m an expert in role models. Other than the dirtbags who buzz around my mother, I don’t meet too many grown men at all. The only stable man in my life is Tom Flannery, but even I know you’re not supposed to have a car thief as a role model. You take what you can get, though.
“So, how about one last role-play?” Dr. Horton says.
I’d prefer to spend my last day listening. We haven’t gotten back to Sandra and her disappearing problem yet. And I still haven’t heard Barbie’s crime story. I’d like to connect the dots between that girl, Mariana, and Barbie’s victim, Enrique Cabron. Listening is my favorite part of group and the thing I’m actually going to miss when I get out of here.
“What do you say?” Dr. Horton’s making that “Here, have a cookie” face again. So obvious. “I want to leave you with something to work on when you get home. Something I think I’ve identif ied in your stories. A common thread, if you will. Humor me?”
“Yeah, come on, Ike,” Barbie says.
Ike? When did I become Ike to her? Nobody calls me Ike.
“Don’t you want your farewell gift?” she asks. “From all of us?”
“Yeah, something to remember us by,” Wayne adds.
They won’t let up. They love to throw themselves into character, get straight down into the rot with you. The uglier the better. I f igure I owe them one more tumble to make up for that lie I told f irst time around. What a mistake that was. These people are way too sharp for a story like that.
“Sure,” I say. “Why not.”
“That a boy,” Dr. Horton says. He passes out a script to Sandra, Barbie, Riley, and Wayne. “I want you to observe f irst time around,” he tells me. “Why don’t you wait outside with Javier while we block it.”
Javier and I go out into the hall and sit with our backs against the cement wall. Javier looks tired.
“How long you been here?” I ask him.
“Eleven months. Still waiting for my court date.”
“It can take that long?”
“Take as long as they want. What do I have to go back to?” He stares at the radiator across the hallway, where clumps of gray fuzz have collected in the pipes. Every few seconds it burps out a hiss. “I did real good on all my role-plays though. I played my victim. I played myself. I even played that lady judge who sentenced me. I got straight up in her head too, felt the pain she had when she put me in here. She wasn’t out to get me. Her hands just tied and she got hundreds of cases to get through. She just looking out for the community, that’s all. I was right there.” He presses his f inger into his forehead.
I wonder if he wants me to say something, but I stay quiet.
“I didn’t hide nothing,” he goes on. “Man, that was rough. ’Coz I thought I’d already dealt with what I done, but no way. Not till you’re reliving it. That’s when you realize what you done. I was kind of like you. I didn’t put the knife in Jorge Losado. But I didn’t stop it, neither. Christ, I held him down while my brother did it. I didn’t even realize how heavy that was until I got in there.” He taps his knuckles on the door. “That’s when it got mad real.”
“Yeah?”
“Shit, yeah. I mean, on the night in question, I didn’t even know what the hell I was doing. I was stoned out of my mind. But in there. I don’t know. Maybe it’s ’coz you don’t have that adrenaline no more clogging up your brain, so you can think. Maybe it’s ’coz you already know how it turns out, so there’s no suspense or something. All’s I know is something happens in there. Something real. If you let it. I mean, if you’re honest.”
I lo
ok at him.
“All I’m saying is you ain’t the only one running away from shit in here,” he says. “We all playing that game. And we got damn good reasons to run too. You think Sandra likes living with what she did? Or Riley?”
“What did Riley do?”
“He burned his best friend’s house down. Snuck in with a can of gasoline while they were sleeping and lit the place up. Kid’s mother got third-degree burns.”
“Jesus. Why’d he do it?”
“Because the kid called him a pussy on Facebook or some shit. You know how that goes. But I’ll tell you something. Riley gets in there and he tells it all. He doesn’t hide nothing. We doing a role-play? Don’t matter if it’s his or someone else’s. He’s up in it. He’s all the way there. Not just his mind, either. And this scene we’re doing for you now? Come on, this is your last chance. There ain’t no role-plays out in the free. So if it makes you feel something, go ahead and feel it. You know we ain’t gonna ride you for it. You got tears, let ’em out. You should have seen Wayne when we did that role-play about how his dad beating on his mom. Dude was curled up on the f loor, crying like a baby. And that wasn’t just for Wayne’s sake, neither. That was for all of us. ’Coz we all got some kind of pain like that in us. Ain’t nobody winds up in juvie without there’s some tears in his past.”
The door cracks open and Riley pokes his head through. “We’re ready for you.”
Chapter 29
I sit next to Javier. In front of us are three chairs pressed together in a line. The cardboard box is emptied out and turned upside down on the f loor in front of them. Barbie steps forward and motions for Riley to join her. Then she tells Sandra and Wayne to sit on the chairs. They refuse. Barbie stamps her foot and jabs her f inger toward the chairs, but they stay put. Pissed off now, Barbie stalks over, grabs them both by the wrists and drags them to the chairs. They go limp and drop into the chairs, then stare straight ahead like they’ve given up.
The Free Page 13
