Kindness for Weakness Read online

  At some point I fall into a dreamless sleep, and it’s Mr. Eboue’s voice that wakes me. “Listen up!” he says. “Chow time. Regular order. Freddie and James, I want you two at the end with me. Tight formation, everyone.”

  I get in line behind Freddie, squaring my shoulders like the others. We walk in single file to the cafeteria and sit at other round plastic tables bolted to the floor. My table gets called first to wait in line with Styrofoam plates at a stainless steel counter; kitchen boys in latex gloves and hairnets load us up with meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, peas, and buttered bread. I am allowed two milks, two cups of water, and a bowl of chocolate pudding for dessert. It looks like school lunch food only worse, but the other boys don’t seem to notice or care. They dig in and work their mouths silently. Mr. E sits down next to me at my table.

  “Family visits are allowed every Wednesday between four-thirty and six,” he says. “But we need a three-day notice. You have family to come visit you, James?”

  “I’m not sure,” I say.

  The other boys at the table are looking down at their plates, eating slowly. But they’re also listening. I hear whispered comments: “That boy mad skinny.” “He looks like he about to cry.” “Smells like puke.” Mr. E shoots the boys a glance and then pats me on the shoulder.

  “Then you have to be extra strong,” he says. “I don’t have much family, either, and it’s tough sometimes.” He gets up and goes over to a table that’s getting loud. Almost instantly the boys seated across from me look up from their food and glare.

  A Hispanic kid with an Afro says, “Where you from, white boy?” He smiles, almost friendly, like he knows he can kick my ass if he wants to but understands it’s not necessary because I’m no threat.

  “Dunkirk,” I say. “You?”

  “Brooklyn, man. We all from Brooklyn or the Bronx.”

  The others nod and smile with what looks like pride.

  “Where the fuck is Dunkirk?” says a small white kid with big ears and spiky blond hair. His eyes are swirling with the same manic energy that Ron has when he’s tweaking on meth.

  “About forty miles southwest of Buffalo,” I say. “It’s on Lake Erie.”

  “I like Buffalo wings,” says a tall kid with the beginnings of a mustache. He looks a little dopey.

  “Buffalo’s a shit hole, ain’t it?” says the kid with spiky hair. He shifts and bounces in his seat like he’s wired up to springs.

  The Hispanic kid looks at him and says, “Yo, Weasel, how come you’re always saying other people live in a shit hole? Because your narrow white ass got ‘retarded inbred trailer park’ written all over it!”

  Other boys laugh and say stuff like “Yo, that’s fucked up,” and “Weasel’s mad inbred.”

  Weasel’s eyes get big and even more crazy-looking. “I dare you to say that again, Tony. You half-breed motherfucker! I mean, where’d you get that gay-ass seventies ’fro? Because I heard your mother was bald-headed. I heard she was a one-legged whore who was bald-headed. I heard …”

  He’s rolling, like he’s preaching a foul sermon in some kind of an ADHD-induced frenzy. I have seen kids like him at school, kids who are mental and hyper, but he’s in a league of his own. It’s funny but a little scary, too, because I don’t know how far he’ll go and what the other boy (or the guards) will do. If they mess you up for walking in the front door, then what will they do for this?

  Tony is gripping the edge of the table, veins and cords of muscle standing out on his forearms. He looks like he’s going to jump across the table and choke the shit out of Weasel.

  But Mr. E stops it from going any further by grabbing Weasel and pulling him off his stool. At the same time he locks eyes with Tony and says, “You’re too smart to let him run you with his mouth. Right?”

  Tony nods and, almost at once, lets his shoulders drop. But Weasel keeps struggling in Mr. E’s grip, shouting and talking more trash. “He started it! Get your hands off me. I can walk.”

  Horvath is nearby, watching, waiting, shifting nervously in his big work boots, ready for action. His face is red and puffy, and he looks like he wants to crush Weasel and then throw him around like a spiky-haired rag doll. I can picture it, but it’s not at all funny, because I know exactly how it would feel.

  But Mr. E says, “I got this, Mr. Horvath.” He puts his hand on the small boy’s neck and says, “Okay, Bobby. Show me how you can do the right thing.”

  Bobby, or Weasel (or whoever he is), nods, finally settling down, and they walk past a hulking Horvath, who looks angry and cheated.

  19

  After dinner the other boys go back to the unit; Mr. Horvath takes me to see the nurse. He points to a yellow-taped line on the hallway floor.

  “Always walk on the right,” he says. “Or you’ll get written up. Understand?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  The clinic is a bunch of offices and small rooms separated from the rest of the facility by another set of heavy locked doors. A guard sits outside one of the rooms in a plastic chair reading a magazine, while a boy presses his face to the small inset window to watch me as I walk by.

  “Sit down!” The guard bangs the door; the boy grins and disappears from view.

  I follow Horvath to an office with a stainless steel examination table. It looks like the kind of place where they put dogs and cats to sleep. He drops heavily into a chair and grabs a bowl of chocolates off a white Formica desk.

  “Tired, Mr. Horvath?” says a small woman in white scrubs with purple reading glasses hanging from her neck by a cord. She pours coffee into a Styrofoam cup and hands it to the guard.

  “Thanks, Terry. Three mandates this week.”

  “And it’s only Tuesday! You poor thing.” She picks up a clipboard and gestures for me to get up on the exam table. “What are we doing here, Roy?”

  “Post-restraint. New kid. Puked in the van.”

  “Oh, my,” she says, turning my head to look at my cheek. “Things aren’t going well for you, young man, are they?”

  I shake my head, ready to be comforted by this nice gray-haired nurse.

  “Don’t let Mr. Innocent fool you,” says Horvath. “He’s already thick as thieves with Freddie Peach.”

  She scowls at me like I’ve done something wrong, says, “I heard Freddie’s back. Can’t say I’m surprised, though. A born con artist, that one.”

  They go on talking like this for several minutes, like I am no longer there. Terry says that Freddie filed thirty-something grievances last year, all of them rejected.

  Horvath grunts and shakes his head. “That’s because he’s a pathological liar.”

  The nurse takes a picture of my cheek, which is red and puffy like a scraped knee or a rug burn, which I suppose is all it is. The camera is an old-fashioned Polaroid; the flash pops, and the camera spits out a square of film that Terry shakes and puts into my file.

  “Do you know why you were restrained?” she says, a ballpoint pen poised over her clipboard.

  “No,” I say.

  Her glasses drop to the tip of her nose. She looks really pissed now, no longer a nice gray-haired nurse. Horvath stops devouring the bowl of Hershey’s Kisses and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. He’s rolled the foil wrappers of the dead chocolates into tiny balls and lined them up in a neat row. “He knows why,” he says. “He’s just being a smart-ass.”

  The nurse frowns. “Okay, then. I’ll ask once more. Why were you restrained?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Horvath erupts, scattering the foil balls across the clean white desktop. “That’s a bunch of crap!” he says. “He wasn’t following directives. That’s why.”

  The nurse marks something on her form and says, “Not following directives. Okay, next question: Were you injured during this restraint?”

  I point to my cheek.

  She puckers her mouth. “Last question: Do you feel that the restraint was conducted properly?”

  “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.

  20

  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.

  21

  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.”

  22