Sleepers (32 page)

“It’s one o’clock, Nokes,” Marlboro said, standing behind us, his voice filled with smoke. “Your lunch shift is over.”

“I’m not through here yet,” Nokes said. “Got a few more things that need cleanin’ up before I can leave.”

“It’s my tour now,” Marlboro said calmly, walking past us and moving closer to Nokes. “I’ll clean what needs cleanin’.”

“Stay outta this one,” Nokes said. “This ain’t got nothin’ to do with you.”

“I stayed outta too many as it is,” Marlboro said, putting a cigarette to his mouth and lighting it. “This one I’m gonna stay in.”

Nokes jumped down from the table, his face as red with rage as his shirt was with blood. He walked up to Marlboro, standing no less than five inches from the taller man’s face.

“Don’t fuck with me, boy,” Nokes said. “I’m
warnin’
you.”

“Fuck with me, Nokes,” Marlboro said in a calm voice. “I’m
askin’
you.”

Nokes continued the stare-down, his eyes locked in on Marlboro. None of the inmates moved, their attention focused on the first visible break in the wall of guard unity. Michael had stopped chewing his food, tossing his fork to the ground, too humiliated to care who would win the battle shaping before him. I held a spoon in my hand, rolling its head against my thigh, my eyes on the floor, wrapped in the silence around me.

Nokes took a deep breath, letting air out through his mouth, and shifted the weight on his feet. He slapped the baton against his open palm, measuring Marlboro, the crease of a smile inching its way to the sides of his face. Marlboro stood his ground without a change in expression, content to let the pressure of the situation percolate at its own pace.

Nokes was the one to back down. His smile faded and he let his head drop so his eyes didn’t meet Marlboro’s.

“You eatin’ into my shift,” Marlboro said.

“I’ll get out of your way,” Nokes said. “For now.”

“I take what I can get,” the black guard said, walking away from Nokes and over toward us. “Just like you.”

Marlboro helped Michael to his feet and looked over
at me, the soles of his shoes sliding on the slippery turf smeared with food, spit, and hardened gravy. He nudged his head toward the guard standing in the aisle.

“If you through standin’,” Marlboro said to him. “I could use some help.”

“What do you need?” the guard said, his eyes darting, checking to see if Nokes was clear out of the room.

“Get the boys on their way,” Marlboro said, pointing to the inmates at the tables. “They’ve seen enough to last till supper time. I’ll take care of these two and what needs cleanin’ up.”

The guard nodded and began to clear out the lunchroom, one table row at a time. The inmates moved with a quiet precision, eager to leave now that the threat of violence was at an apparent end.

I stood next to Michael and Marlboro, watching the inmates exiting the hall, the three of us knowing there would be a price to pay for all that had happened on this day. Sean Nokes was not the kind of man to let a slight go by or leave an act of torment unfinished. He would go after Marlboro through the system, use whatever clout he could muster to make life difficult for the good man with the bad smoking habit. But he would save his true wrath for me and Michael. We both knew that. What it would be, what it
could
be after all the horrors that he had already initiated, was something neither one of us could envision. All we knew was that it would happen soon and, as with everything Nokes planned, it would be something we would never be able to erase from our minds.

Summer 1968

15

J
ULY
24, 1968, was my last full day at Wilkinson.

Two weeks earlier, a five-member panel of the New York State Juvenile Hearing Board had determined that a period of ten months and twenty-four days was enough penance for my crime. A written request had been forwarded to the warden, with all necessary release forms attached. Also included in the package was the name of my designated control officer, the four days in August I was scheduled to report to him, and a psychological profile written by someone I had never met.

The thick manila envelope, sealed with strips of tape, sat on the warden’s desk for three days before he opened and signed it.

“The cook makin’ anything special for your last day?” Tommy asked, walking alongside me in the yard during the middle of our morning break.

“If he
really
cared, he’d take the day off,” I said. “The food in here has been killin’ my insides.”

“Two cups of King Benny’s coffee will set you straight,” Tommy said. “No time flat.”

“It can’t happen soon enough,” I said.

“Don’t forget us in here,” Tommy said, his voice a tender plea.

I stopped and looked over at him. He still had the baby weight and face, but had changed in so many other ways. His eyes were clouded by a veil of anger and, in place of a swagger, there was now a nervous
twitch to his walk. His neck and arms were a road map of cuts and bruises, and his left kneecap had been shattered twice, both above and below the main joint.

It was the body of a boy who had done a man’s prison time.

“I won’t
ever
forget you,” I said, watching the anger briefly melt from his eyes. “In
or
out of here.”

“Thanks, Shakes,” he said, picking up the walk. “Might help knowin’ that one body outta here gives a shit.”

“More than one body, Butter,” I said. “You’d be surprised.”

“It’s gonna be a bitch,” Tommy said. “These last coupla months.”

“It’ll be over soon,” I said, passing a grunting trio of weightlifters. “By the time the Yankees drop out of the pennant race, you’ll be home.”

“Nokes say anything yet about you leavin’?” Tommy asked.

“There isn’t much more he can do,” I said. “Time’s on my side now.”

“Until you’re out of those gates,” Tommy said, “there ain’t nothin’ on your side.”

16

I
SAT IN
my cell, quiet and alone, in my last hours as an inmate at the Wilkinson Home for Boys. I looked around the small room, the walls barren, the sink and toilet cleaned to a shine, the window giving off only hints of nighttime sky. I had folded the white sheet covering,
wedged it under the mattress, and laid against it, my legs stretched out, feet dangling off the end of the cot. I was wearing white underwear and a green T-shirt in the stifling heat.

All my prison issues, except for a toothbrush, had been taken away by the guards earlier that afternoon. In the morning they would be replaced by the clothes I wore on the day I first arrived at Wilkinson. A sealed white envelope containing four copies of my release form rested against one of my thighs. One was to be handed to the guard at the end of the cell block. A second was to be given to the guard stationed at the main gate. A third was for the driver of the bus that would take me back to Lower Manhattan.

The last copy was to be mine, the final reminder of my time behind the bars of Wilkinson.

I reached over, picked up the envelope, opened it, and fingered the four copies of the form. I stared at them, my mind filled with the images of pain and punishment, humiliation and degradation it took to get these forms in hand.

To get back my freedom and send me on my way.

I had walked into Wilkinson a boy. Now I wasn’t at all sure who or what I was. The months there had changed me, that was for certain. I just didn’t know how or in what way the changes would manifest themselves. On the surface I wasn’t as physically ruined as John, or as beaten down as Tommy. I wasn’t the lit fuse Michael had become.

My anger was more controlled, mixed as it was with a deep fear. In my months there, I never could mount the courage that was needed to keep the guards at bay, but at the same time I maintained a level of dignity that would allow me to walk out of Wilkinson.

I don’t know what kind of man I would have grown to be had I not served time at the Wilkinson Home for Boys. I don’t know how those months and the events that occurred there shaped the person I became, how
much they colored my motives or my actions. I don’t know if they made me any braver or any weaker. I don’t know if the illnesses I’ve suffered as an adult have been the result of those ruinous months. I’ll never know if my distrust of most people and my unease when placed in group situations are by-products of those days or simply the result of a shy personality.

I
do
know the dreams and nightmares I’ve had all these years are born of the nights spent in that cell at Wilkinson. That the scars I carry, both mental and physical, are gifts of a system that treated children as prey. The images that screen across my mind in the lonely hours are mine to bear alone, shared only by the silent community of sufferers who once lived as I did, in a world that was deaf to our screams.

I couldn’t sleep, anxious for morning to arrive. It was still dark, the early hours offering little more than thin blades of light filtering into my cell from the outside hall.

I wondered what it would be like to sleep once again in a bed not surrounded by bars, to walk in a room not monitored by alternating sets of eyes. I was anxious to eat a meal of my choosing without fear that the food had been toyed with or tainted.

I thought about the first things I would do once I was back out on the familiar streets of Hell’s Kitchen. I would buy a newspaper and check the box scores and standings, see how my favorite players had fared while I was away. I would walk up to the Beacon on West 74th Street and see whatever movie was playing, just to sit once more in those plush seats and breathe air ripe with the smell of burning popcorn. I would go to Mimi’s and order two hot slices with extra cheese, stand at the counter, and look out at the passing traffic. I would go to the library next to my apartment building, find an empty table, and surround myself with all the
books I loved, running my hands across their pages, holding their torn binders, reading the fine old print.

It was my way of life and I wanted to get back to it.

I never heard the key turn in the latch. Never heard the snap of the bolt. I only saw the door swing open, a crowd of shadows washing across the floor of my cell.

“You should be asleep,” Nokes said, his words slurred. He was the first to enter, his uniform shirt off, an empty pint of bourbon in his right hand. “Need all your rest for the big trip back home.”

“Told you he’d be up,” Addison said, walking in behind Nokes, just as drunk, face, neck, and arms wet with sweat. “These fuckers are like rats. They never sleep.”

“What do you want?” I asked as calmly as I could manage.

“I just want to say good-bye,” Nokes said. “We all do. Let you know how much we gonna miss havin’ you around here.”

“We’re friends, right?” Styler said, entering the cell, sober and in full uniform, holding John and Tommy by his side. “All of us.”

John looked at me with dead eyes, as if he knew what was going to happen and was trying to shut it out of his mind. Tommy was crying, full tears running down the sides of his face, afraid more for me than for himself.

“Must be hard to leave your friends,” Ferguson said, walking in with Michael and locking the cell door behind him. “We’ve been together for so long.”

“Can’t leave your friends without a party,” Nokes said. “It just wouldn’t be right.”

Michael, as always, stayed silent, his face, his eyes, his entire body, coiled into one large mask of hate. John and Tommy may have lost their heart, but Michael was in danger of losing his humanity. Everything that was
done to him, everything that was said, served only to fuel his hate. By now he had enough fuel to last a lifetime.

“It’s over, Nokes,” I said, standing up in the crowded room, the heat strong, the air rancid. “Please let it go.”

“It ain’t over till morning,” Nokes said. “It ain’t over till the party’s over.”

“I don’t want a party,” I said.

“That’s too bad,” Styler said. “I even went out and got you a gift.”

“A special gift,” Nokes said. “One you ain’t ever gonna forget.”

Ferguson and Addison stood next to me and held my arms while Styler reached into his pocket and pulled out a few feet of nylon cord. He tied the cord around my arms, knotting it secure at the back. Styler shoved a wad of tissues into my mouth and held my face as Addison ran thick yellow tape across my lips. Nokes walked over, a wide black belt dangling in one hand.

“Tie his feet too,” Nokes said, handing the belt to Styler. “I don’t want him to move.”

My three friends stood before me, as still as the air, only their eyes betraying their terror. John’s lips were trembling and Tommy kept his head tilted to the ceiling, his mouth mumbling a secret prayer. Michael was a silent statue, his rage at rest.

“We got a full house tonight,” Nokes said, leaning over and whispering in my ear, his breath bourbon-coated. “First we take care of your friends. And then we take care of you.”

I watched Styler walk over to John and lock a handcuff around one of his wrists. The other half of the cuff was put on Tommy’s wrist. Addison did the same to Michael and Tommy, locking the three together.

“Move them up closer,” Nokes said, sitting on the
cot, one arm hanging over my shoulder. “We wanna get a good look.”

Styler pushed the three forward with one hand, lighting a cigarette with the other. Ferguson wiped sweat from his face and forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. Addison stood with his back against the door and giggled.

“Best seats in the house,” Nokes said to me. “You won’t miss a thing from here.”

There was no place for us to go, nowhere for us to run. Our screams would go unheeded. Shouts for the warden would be ignored. No one would listen. No one would care. Fear ruled the night and fear controlled this place.

My friends were facedown on the floor, their pants stripped off and tossed to the side, the three guards on their knees behind them, laughing, sweating, hands rubbing flesh, glazed, watery eyes looking at Nokes, waiting for the nod of his head.

“Everybody’s ready,” Nokes said to me, squeezing me closer to his side. “Time to drop the ball.”