Kindness for Weakness (8 page)

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” She sets the clipboard down, staring hard at me, clearly angry.

“I’ve never been restrained before. I don’t know how it’s supposed to be done.”

She seems to relax a little. “So you’re not aware of anything unusual about the restraint procedure that Mr. Horvath and Mr. Pike used this morning?”

“I guess not,” I say, except for the madness of grown men in prison guard uniforms pinning kids’ arms behind their backs and throwing them down on the ground. I
don’t know how it’s okay, and I don’t know why she needs to ask me these questions if she doesn’t like my answers. I don’t give a damn about any of it.

Nurse Terry picks up her clipboard and puts another mark on her form, says, “Mr. Horvath, are you ready?”

He unfolds a yellow piece of paper, smoothing it out with heavy brutal hands that look like they’re better suited for working a sledgehammer on a demolition crew than filling out forms. He fists a ballpoint pen like a husky kid with a crayon and says, “Now you get to tell your side of the story. But make it quick.”

From the way he keeps smoothing out his yellow form, it must be some kind of paperwork requirement. Otherwise, I’m sure, he wouldn’t be asking me anything.

“I don’t have a side to the story,” I say.

He gathers the little foil balls and lines them up again. After a moment he says, “Then listen better from now on. I tell you to do something, you do it. Okay?”

I nod.

He unfists the pen, beckons me over with one of his big hands. “Sign on that line.”

I do as he says to show I agree that I was restrained properly. I wonder what happens if you refuse to sign. They probably flatten you again.

Everything in Morton runs on a schedule that I’ll have to memorize. For now, Freddie tells me we’ve got an hour of leisure or room time before bed. At eight-thirty, he says, we’ll get fifteen minutes for hygiene, which is washing your face, brushing your teeth, and using the toilet. If I have to piss in the middle of the night, I’ve got to knock on the door to get the guards’ attention so they can unlock my room. And if they don’t like me, they’ll just pretend that they don’t hear, and it will be a long night.

Mr. Eboue gives Freddie and me each a laundry basket filled with clothes. We have to count out each item and then sign a form.

“I’m sorry you got dropped earlier,” Freddie says. “I thought they’d leave you alone ’cause you don’t talk junk like most kids.”

My laundry basket contains a pair of red sweats, four red polo shirts, five pairs of white starchy boxer shorts, two khaki pants, and five pairs of tube socks. I also get two towels
and a little metal basket with state-issued soap, shampoo, and toothpaste.

“It’s okay,” I say, which isn’t true at all, but I don’t want to talk about it right now. How many times am I going to have to repeat that lie? Probably a lot.

Freddie points to my shower basket. “When you earn privileges, you can get real soap and shit from the commissary,” he says.

“This stuff’s fine.”

“Suit yourself, man. You go ahead and be dried out.” He picks up his stack of clothes and disappears into his room.

The Hispanic kid, Tony, calls me over to one of the tables. “Hey, Dunkirk. Sit down and play cards with me.”

“What game?”

“Don’t matter. I wanna talk with you. James, right?”

“Yeah.”

Tony looks at me while the cards riffle through his hands like magic. “I’m only gonna say this once, so listen.”

I stare back, waiting for the threat, wondering how I will deal with it. I’ve never won a fight before, and I don’t know any good comebacks or things to say about other kids’ mothers.

But Tony doesn’t threaten me. “You got to look out for yourself in here,” he says. “It’s okay to have friends on the outside, but not in here. Got it?”

“I don’t have any friends.”

He deals out five cards so smoothly that they seem to float across the table.

“Maybe, but I see you and Freddie
startin’
to be friends. And you should second-guess that shit, James. Not because Freddie’s queer. My uncle Juan is queer, and he’s the best dude I know.”

I pick up my cards and look at them. I have a pair of aces and a six of hearts. “Freddie’s queer?” I didn’t know.

Tony laughs so hard that everyone on the unit looks at us.

“You’re funny, James. I like that. But it’s no bullshit. Freddie’s got to make his own way in here, whatever that means for him. This is his second time, so he’s a revocator, which is good for him, ’cause it means he might only have to do, like, three or four months. But guys like Horvath and Pike and Crupier gonna be all over him.”

“Why?”

“Five card draw,” Tony says. “How many you want?”

I discard and take two.

“Think about it, man. He’s a black kid from Harlem, he’s a criminal,
and
he’s homo. In their eyes, ain’t nothin’ worse. Three strikes, bro. They’ll be dreamin’ of ways to mess him up. When it goes down—and mark my words, it will go down—you got to stay out of it no matter what. You hear me?”

“Yeah, but why are you looking out for me?” I lay my cards out to show a full house, aces high.

“Check you out, man!” Tony throws down two pairs. He’s surprised that I know how to play.

“My older brother, Louis, taught me.”

“Well, you lucky, man. I got five sisters. Believe that
shit? Anyway, I’m not looking out for nobody. Just giving a little free advice is all.”

A pasty overweight kid with a shaved head and weird blue eyes is sitting by himself reading from a Dr. Seuss book. He flips the pages back and forth, like he’s reading at random.

“That’s Oskar,” says Tony. “He loves them books.
The Lorax, Horton Hears a Who!, Yertle the Turtle
, crazy shit like that.”

“What’s wrong with him?” I whisper.

“You ain’t gotta be so quiet, man; he don’t give a fuck what you say. Oskar’s on, like, six or seven different meds. All he does is read them books, bite his fingernails, and sleep. Ain’t that right, Oskar?”

The kid looks up from
The Lorax
and raises a hand in a sort of wave/salute. Tony and I wave/salute back.

Lights-out is at nine o’clock. Mr. E says good night to all of us, making his way around to the rooms to shake hands and shut our doors.

When he gets to me, he says, “You doing okay?”

“Yes,” I say.

“I seen you talking to Tony. He’s a hard worker. Follow his lead and you’ll do fine. Get some sleep now.”

He shuts my door and engages the automatic lock with a loud click. At first it’s weird; I wonder what happens if there’s a fire or a tornado or something. But it’s also the first time I’ve had my own bedroom. And as small as it is, it’s mine. No more couch, and no more Ron, at least for the next twelve months. I lie down on the bed and close
my eyes without taking off my clothes or peeling back the thin blanket. Except for the distant sounds of Mr. E and another guard talking in the staff office, it is nice and quiet, and I drift off to sleep.

Someone knocks three times on the wall and calls my name; I look around for a speaker or an intercom, but I see nothing, just a dark room.

“Hey, man, it’s me. Freddie. Talk into the vents in the heater panel.”

I put my face up against the sheet metal. “Can you hear me?”

“I hear you. What did Tony want?”

I don’t know what to say. I can either lie or hurt his feelings.

“He said to toughen up and look out for myself.”

Freddie is quiet, thinking. “It’s good advice, but Tony’s different. He don’t need anyone to cover his back.”

“Then how come he’s here?”

“Same old: running the streets, bangin’, dealing weed. Plus his family’s shit.”

“How do you know about that?”

“You locked up with the same assholes day after day, you learn more than you want to know about them.”

“How about the loudmouth from the cafeteria?”

“Bobby the Weasel? Harmless. Got the name because he stole an albino ferret—his school’s mascot. That simple bastard didn’t think he’d get caught! How many albino ferret mascots you ever seen?”

“None.” I laugh a little, just to be polite. “I gotta get some sleep, Freddie.”

“Okay.”

But when I get into bed, he says, “Hey, man. Did Tony say anything else? Anything ’bout me?”

I remember Tony’s words exactly and decide to listen to them. I’m going to worry about myself and do my placement as quickly as I can. If things go bad for Freddie like Tony predicted, he will have to be on his own.

“Did he tell you
what
I am?”

Damn
, I say to myself. I get up from my bed and go back to sitting next to the heater panel. “Yeah, he told me.”

“Well, it’s true. I’m gay.”

Time passes. I sit on my side of the wall waiting. For what? Am I supposed to say I don’t care that he’s gay? But I just don’t have it in me to worry about someone else’s problems. I want to worry about myself. Why can’t I do that? Why can’t he leave me alone?

“But so fucking what?” he says. “Freddie Peach don’t need nothing from nobody. So fuck all y’all!”

I still don’t want to talk, but my mouth opens. “I don’t care if you’re gay,” I say. “But I’ve never been locked up, and I haven’t had many friends. So cut me some slack, okay?”

The clock ticks away outside my room; it must be mounted on the wall next to my door, to be so loud.

“No friends?” says Freddie.

“Nah.”

“Damn!
Sorry-ass
white boy. You worse off than my gay Negro self.”

“Good night, Freddie.”

“Good night, James. And hey …”

“What?”

“Thanks for … you know, for being my friend.”

I’m trying to remember the daily schedule, which is posted on the wall outside the staff office. It never changes except for on weekends when we have leisure and rec in place of school. Here’s what our days look like:

Every time we change activities, we have to line up by the door and get counted. It seems like we’re always waiting to be counted, which makes no sense to me, since all the doors are locked and there are guards everywhere. We must spend two hours per day just standing in line getting counted. The guards will call in our number on their radios:

“Two staff and eighteen residents going from Bravo to the cafeteria. Over.”

Central Services, which is kind of like a control booth where they keep track of each unit’s movement, will check the count and give us the green light.

“Bravo, this is Central. You have permission to move.”

Like that. It takes forever, and several of the kids get screamed at because they can’t stand still or keep quiet.

As far as school goes, it sucks and is insanely boring. The actual work has got to be on a fifth- or sixth-grade level, but only Tony, Freddie, and I are able to keep up. The rest tap on their desks and fidget, or else sleep. We aren’t allowed to look at each other, either, which means that the guards have to sit with us and constantly yell.

“Eyes ahead, Antwon,” they say. And, “Stop drumming on the table, Bobby. This ain’t music class.”

Weasel scowls and puts his head down.

The English teacher, Ms. Bonetta, is this very pretty dark-haired woman who dresses like she’s going to work in a fancy office or something. I’m talking pearls, heels, the works. She’s nice, too. We spend the class doing a writing assignment about the last book we read. I pick
Rule of the Bone
, by Russell Banks, which is one of my favorites and
was given to me by Mr. Pfeffer. I write about how the main character, Chappie Dorset, is a lot like me. Because even though Chappie gets in trouble, drops out of school, and sells drugs, he is still basically a good person. At least, that’s the argument I try to make in the essay.

At shift change (three o’clock), Mr. Eboue and another guard I’ve never seen before come in and get us ready for group. The other guard’s name is Mr. Samson, and he’s an absolute giant of a man. His shoulders are so broad and thickly muscled that he looks like he could be in the WWF. He’s so big that he dwarfs Horvath and my brother. The boys of Bravo Unit, seated in a crooked row of plastic chairs, grin and put out their palms for Mr. Samson to slap.

He walks down the line giving us high fives and bumps, saying, “Hey,” and “How’s it going, my man?”

Bobby the Weasel shouts, “Do the thing!” as he bounces up and down in his chair again like he’s on springs. “Come on, just once!”

Mr. Samson looks at Mr. E, who shrugs. The rest of the boys join in, “Yeah, Samson. Come on!”

He drops his hands by his belt so that one is gripping the other. He flexes his pec muscles, making them jump up and down. It’s funny to watch, like his stretched-tight shirt is dancing; we all laugh and cheer. Then he takes a step toward me.

“I haven’t met you yet,” he says, sticking out his hand.

I brace myself for a bone-crushing shake, like Louis’s, but his grip is light, almost gentle.

“I work three to eleven with my friend Mr. E,” he says. “We do group every day at three with Bravo. Anger Replacement,
Beat the Streets, and others. You should participate in every group, but today you can just listen. Okay?”

“Okay,” I say.

“We’re still working on being able to tolerate things that are unfair. Who wants to start us off?” he says, standing in front of us.