Kindness for Weakness (18 page)

Antwon steps closer. “I asked you a question. Are you a pussy, or a faggot?”

“Neither,” I say, scanning the unit floor for guards. I see Horvath in the staff office talking on the phone; Pike is nowhere to be seen.

“Prove it,” he says, and shoots a sticky glob of snot onto my chest. I look down at it passively, a greenish-yellow slimy thing stuck to my red shirt. I take in the ring of boys, their animal faces hard and crazy. They are urging me to lose control and fight. And again something is changing inside me, because I
do
feel like losing control. I
do
feel like fighting. The muscles in my arms and chest flex and tighten, ready for action. It’s a new feeling, and for the first time in my life I think I could really hurt someone. It’s like the glob of snot is made of concentrated hate and it is burning through my clothes, seeping into my skin, contaminating me with rage. I want to wash it off before it consumes me and I do something stupid, something bad that will cost me my stage and keep me here longer. But maybe none of that matters anymore. Maybe all that matters is that I finally act. The boys seem to sense my readiness. They can tell that the fight is welling up in me,
trying to take shape and get out. They all jeer. Cajole. Call names.

On its own, without any thinking or planning, my body lunges. My legs coil and spring and I am airborne, driving through space toward Antwon’s stupid grinning face. His expression shows surprise as I close my fingers around his throat, thumbs digging and squeezing at the soft spots on the sides of his windpipe, my body and hands possessing their own ugly knowledge.

We crash over a desk and onto the floor. Antwon makes a whomping noise as the impact knocks the air out of him. He tries to breathe, but my fingers press harder and shut off his supply. I am staring into his eyes, which roll back and forth with panic. What is he looking for—someone to help him? He should know that nobody’s gonna help him. He should know that it’s just him and me now, and it’s like Wolf Larsen said: “The big eat the little that they may continue to move, the strong eat the weak that they may retain their strength. The lucky eat the most and move the longest, that is all.”

Antwon thrashes his body and claws at my face, but still, my hands hold firm. I am not letting go.

I could kill him
, I think.
I could do it. And he knows it
.

Someone pounds me on the back and calls my name.

“James!” Freddie says. “Don’t do it. Let him go!” He tries to pull me off, but the other boys pull him away, hard.

“Leave ’em alone!” they say.

I release my grip; Antwon gasps for breath. He sucks air in violent spasms, chest heaving and expanding to get
more, in case my fingers threaten to squeeze again. But they don’t, and Antwon takes the opportunity to drive his knee up and into my balls. The pain explodes, knocking me clean off him and onto my side. And from this position I watch his white canvas sneaker connect with my face, before the world turns fuzzy and then black.

I come out of my first real fight with a knot on my head, a pair of seriously swollen nuts, and no more stage privileges—which means that I won’t get to lift weights with Samson anymore. Antwon, who had no privileges to lose, got another month added on to his sentence.

The facility doctor, an Indian man with small dark hands, checked me out and said I was basically fine. He said I could even play in the big flag football game Horvath and Pike have been planning all week. The game is seven on seven on the outside field with these Velcro belts that have a red flag on each hip. It’s a big deal for Bravo Unit, something that they only do once each year. Everyone except Freddie has been excited, and even though it’s been raining nonstop for three days and the field is thick with mud, the guys can’t wait to get out there to play. I’ve decided to play, too, even though my balls hurt when I run.

Only a couple of the guys are real athletes, like Levon, who played on his high school football team in Queens. And Double X can slam-dunk a basketball, and run faster
than anyone else on the unit. Tony is good, too, though Horvath says he’s got lousy technique and gets by mostly on strength. I am a terrible athlete, but I like being outside. Even though we are surrounded by a razor wire fence, I can close my eyes and feel the wind and rain and pretend that I am back home at the river, watching fly fishermen or reading a book on a flat sun-warmed rock.

Freddie is the only one who isn’t interested in the game, and he complains bitterly. “No way,” he says to nobody in particular. “I ain’t going in that mud.”

I tell him to shut up, but he doesn’t listen. I remind him that he could get written up and lose his stage, but he keeps on bitching.

“Put my ass in medical,” he says. “I’ll even do extra chores.”

Horvath walks by grinning, a sack of red and yellow pinnies slung over his shoulder. Normally he’d write Freddie up or at least give him a hard time. Instead he says, “What’s the matter, Peach? Afraid you’re going to get your clit dirty?”

The unit explodes with laughter, myself included. I don’t know why I’m laughing, because I am supposed to be Freddie’s friend. And also it’s a stupid joke. But I really
do
want to play football in the mud, like a regular kid, and I’m sick and tired of all the fights and arguments. It’s like I am too tired to resist anymore, too tired to stand up for Freddie against Horvath and Pike, and against the other boys, who are so quick to laugh at the gay jokes or the dick jokes or, in this case, the dirty clit jokes. Freddie tries his best to laugh it off, but I can see that he is tired of it, too, but in different
ways. Tired of being laughed at and picked on. Tired of never being taken seriously, even when he is the only one with a plan and a ticket to college.

Outside, Freddie and I put on red pinnies and make our way through the drizzle to Mr. Pike, our coach. He’s got a dry erase board with our positions marked out. Levon is quarterback; Double X and Coty, wide receivers; and the rest of us are linemen.

The game is ridiculous, with more fumbles, fouls, and incomplete passes than anything else. The slick bottoms of our canvas sneakers glide across the puddles and patches of mud, threatening to dump us on our asses at any moment. On one play, Wilfred catches a pass from Antwon and takes off right down the middle of the field. He’s high stepping toward a touchdown, when, all of a sudden, his feet shoot up into the air so high that they’re even with his head. He lands with a splat, and the play ends with a pileup on a loose ball.

Levon stands out clearly as the best athlete. He throws blistering passes that only Double X can hang on to; they bounce off everyone else’s chests or whistle through outstretched hands. Once, in a pinch, he throws a pass to Freddie, who shrieks and ducks out of the way. Everyone laughs except Levon, who seems to take it deeply personally, as though Freddie refused to accept a handmade gift.

“Man,” he says. “Why’d you duck? That was a good pass.”

“I don’t know how to play football! I told you.”

Levon shakes his head sadly. “Then why you out here? Why you got a red pinney on and flags on your belt?”

Coach Pike tells me to get ready to punt. “Drop back and wait for the snap, James,” he says.

“What do I do when I get the snap?”

He laughs at my ignorance of the game. “Kick the hell out of it,” he says. “That way.” He points at the other team’s end zone, just in case I have forgotten which way we’re going. Double X squats down, and on the count snaps me the ball. I juggle it, trying desperately to get a grip. But the ball seems to have a mind of its own; it dances on my fingertips, threatening to jump away from me altogether. I grab it just before Wilfred rushes me. At the last second, I cut to the right; he changes directions midstride and makes an athletic grab for my flag, but misses. I hold the ball in front of me with both hands, just like Mr. Pike said, and I kick it as hard as I can. It feels like a good one, but instead of a high looping punt like Mr. Pike showed me to do, it dives low and bounces down the field. A couple of yellow players try to get their hands on it, but it skips past them and settles near the goal line.

“Good kick!” Pike yells.

Tony picks up the ball and starts running. He’s fast enough to get past the first red players and is at the mid-field mark when Levon cuts across the field to snatch his flag. It looks like the two of them are out for blood, going too hard, and when Levon’s right leg makes contact with Tony’s, it sends Tony sprawling out of bounds and into the fence. All the other yellow players cry foul, and Horvath blows his whistle.

“Excessive force!” he says. “Ten-yard penalty. First down.”

Levon looks like he’s going to argue, but he knows the rules: anyone argues with a ref, and they’re out of the game.

Tony picks himself up and knocks the clods of dirt and grass off his face. He shoots Levon a look that says, “You’re dead, motherfucker.”

On the next play, Levon intercepts a terrible pass from Antwon and runs down the right sideline, cutting and spinning, reversing directions and, finally, making a ridiculous dive for the end zone, which isn’t a real end zone but a rectangle marked off by four orange cones. It looks like he’s going to make it, too, up and over Wilfred’s outstretched hands. But Tony comes flying out of nowhere. He runs across the backfield, full tilt and with his head and shoulders down, and collides with Levon’s airborne body. There is an audible crunch as the ball pops loose and Levon crumples to the ground. Tony stands with his hands at his sides, twitching with readiness. For what, I wonder? He’s already trashed Levon.

Mr. Pike is blowing his whistle like crazy in the backfield, but he’s too late. Before he can cross the field, Levon picks himself up and slams Tony with a heavy straight punch to the nose. Tony’s head jerks back from the blow, and then he starts swinging with both fists.

Horvath has the good sense to push the pin on his radio before working his way into the tangled, swinging, kicking, mud-covered mess of two fighting boys. Then he grabs Levon across the shoulders and under his armpit. With a powerful jerk he lifts the boy off his feet and away from his swinging opponent. At the same time, Pike grips Tony by the shoulder and yells, “Enough!” But Tony hasn’t had
enough, because he turns around and decks Pike right in the nose.

Across the muddy field, a trio of guards sprints toward the fight, metal handcuffs and radios flopping up and down on their utility belts. Crupier is high stepping so he doesn’t get his new boots covered with mud, and the others plunge headlong into the mess. Mr. Eboue and Samson stay to help break up the fight, while Crupier and another guard take us back to the unit to shower and clean up.

When we return to Bravo from dinner, Tony’s room is empty. Freddie says he is bound for Penfield Secure. Surprisingly, Levon shows up at dinner.

“How come you don’t get sent away?” says Wilfred.

“I don’t know, man,” says Levon. “I thought I’d be gone, too.” He shovels a spoonful of mashed potatoes. “I kind of wish I was.”

Mr. Crupier pulls Levon, Wilfred, and me during homework time. “Crupier with three from Bravo to the gym,” he says. “Over.” The rest of the guys are sitting at their desks working hard at not finishing their assignments. They are a study in pencil-tapping and random page-turning. Bobby hums; Antwon’s eyes are almost fully closed, from fatigue or boredom I can’t tell; and Coty draws pictures of four-wheelers.

The guard’s radio crackles a response. “Copy that, Mr. Crupier.”

Crupier unlocks the big steel door and leads us to the main hallway. Automatically we stop and face the wall while a line from Charlie Unit goes by. “Go on,” he says when they are past.

Levon says, “Why are we going to the gym?”

“You guys get to see the dogs because you’re the only ones who finished your work.”

“What dogs?” I say.

“They got a new program with dogs,” says Wilfred. “These people bring them for us to play with and stuff. It’s cool.”

Levon stops in the hallway with a troubled look on his face. “I don’t do dogs,” he says. “Mr. Crupier, can I go back to the unit? You can give someone else my spot?”

But Crupier doesn’t slow down. “Better keep up,” he says over his shoulder. “You can sit on the bench if you’re afraid of dogs.”

“I ain’t afraid of dogs.” Levon is trotting to catch up. “I just don’t like them. They nasty. They lick their privates.”

Inside the gym, a bunch of men and women stand waiting with dogs on leashes. There’s a chocolate Lab, a couple of golden retrievers, three little gray dogs, and a fat rottweiler. Mr. Crupier points to an old bearded man standing next to one of the goldens.

“James, you’re with Max over there.”

I’m not sure if Max is the dog or the old man. When I get close enough, I can see that the animal is old, too, because it’s got white around its eyes and muzzle. The guy says, “I’m Max, and this here is Apollo. You can pet him if you want, but you don’t have to.”

The dog looks at me with big sorrowful eyes like he’s done something wrong and he knows it. His head is low, but his tail is slowly swishing back and forth.

I put my hand out for him to sniff, just like Louis taught me to do when we were little.

“Apollo is a rescue dog,” says Max. “The Golden Retriever Rescue Society took him away from a bad situation.”

“Was he beaten?”

Max nods.

“But he’s okay now?” It looks like such a nice animal, the kind you’d expect to see in someone’s yard watching over a bunch of kids. It’s hard to imagine someone could beat it.

“How does he look to you?”

Apollo licks my hand and then lowers his big golden head. When I scratch behind his ears, he kicks his back leg reflexively and stretches. Then he flops down on his side for a belly rub. I sit on the floor next to him; it feels good, running my fingers through his thick soft fur, and I want to lie down on top of him and close my eyes and shut out the concrete block walls and the giant fluorescent lights and the guards with their radios and cuffs. I want to burrow my face into the softness of this old dog and hide, even if it’s just for ten or fifteen minutes.