Rikers High

Table of Contents

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

VIKING
Published by Penguin Group
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Published in slightly different form as
Rikers
in 2002 by Black Heron Press.
This edition first published in 2010 by Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

Copyright © Paul Volponi, 2002, 2010 All rights reserved

 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Volponi, Paul.
Rikers High / by Paul Volponi.
p. cm.
Originally published in 2002 in slightly different form by Black Heron Press under title: Rikers.
Summary: Arrested on a minor offense, a New York City teenager attends high school
in the jail facility on Rikers Island, as he waits for his case to go to court.

eISBN : 978-1-101-18512-4

[1. Jails—Fiction. 2. Prisoners—Fiction. 3. Juvenile delinquency—Fiction.
4. Rikers Island (N.Y.)—Fiction. 5. African Americans—Fiction.] I. Volponi, Paul. Rikers. II. Title.
PZ7.V8877Ri 2010
[Fic]—dc22
2009022471

 

 

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.

 

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of
the author 's imagination or are used fictitiously.

T
his text is dedicated to all of the high school students behind bars. Students who face the types of pressures that would break most adults, yet still find the strength to be concerned about moving forward with their education, for themselves and their families.

 

Special thanks to Joy Peskin, Regina Hayes, Rosemary Stimola, Jim Cocoros, David Addison, Tyrone Thompson, April Volponi, Mary Volponi, and Sabrina Volponi.

The overwhelming majority of incidents that occur in this book really happened. I witnessed them firsthand during the six years I worked as a teacher on Rikers Island. The fiction here is the creation of a protagonist who represents the actual experiences of several student-inmates.

E
very morning at five o'clock another correction officer came on duty and started to count. For five months it had been the same. One of them would drive in from someplace nice, like Long Island, while another went home. The one coming on would start down the row of beds, counting, before he could steal an hour or two of sleep in the Plexiglas bubble—their little command center at the front of our module.

They can't take the count by looking. Just like in the movies, a kid could roll his clothes up under a blanket and be on the loose. So they count by feeling for a warm body.

There's nothing worse than waking up when a CO touches you. For a second, you might not remember where you are. You might even think you're home. Then it all comes rushing back into your brain. You're on Rikers Island. To fall asleep again is like spending another night in jail.

“Thirty-six . . . thirty-seven . . . thirty-eight,” the CO muttered.

The new jack next to me had spent the night before fighting off the wolves for his good kicks. He didn't know the routine yet, and wasn't ready for anyone to touch him while he was still asleep.

“Who's that?” he screamed, jumping up in his bed.

“Yo, thirty-nine!” the CO shot back, pinning his shoulders to the mattress. “I'm just takin' the count, kid. Grab a fuckin' hold of yourself!”

It seemed like half the house was awake for a few seconds, until they saw it was nothing.

“Forty, court!” the officer hollered, and shook me with one hand.

I was going to court this morning. I got my best clothes—my cleanest jeans and collared polo shirt—from the plastic bucket under my bed. Then I got dressed in the dark.

I didn't tell anyone I expected to go home. Some inmates will start trouble with you because they're jealous or think you won't fight back and chance getting a new charge. The ones you owe from juggling commissary will want to settle right away. Anyone who owes
you
will put it off, hoping you don't come back from court. And the sneak thieves will be looking for your blanket and what's left of your commissary and clothes before your bed gets cold.

I walked up to the bubble where the COs sit, and I got in line with the other courts. A CO pulled my ID card from the box and threw it on top of the pile of black and brown faces. It read, “Martin Stokes—Adolescent Reception and Detention Center, Mod-3, North Side #40.” I had been answering to “Forty” for so long, it was almost like that was really my name. I would only hear “Martin” when I called home, or when Mom came on a visit.

The picture stapled to the corner of the card was taken my first day on the Island, two weeks before I turned seventeen. I thought I'd be here for a hot minute then. It was such a bubble-gum charge. I thought Mom could make my $5,000 bail, or I'd get a program and probation when I got to court. But my case was put off twice for bullshit.

First, my lawyer had to tell the judge we weren't ready. Then the judge got held up on another case. Now it had been five months since I was out in the world, and I was hungry to see it again without peeping through a chain-link fence.

There was a bang at the steel door to our mod.

It was a woman CO who'd come to collect me and four other kids. We eyeballed her up and down. She was pretty enough. But women don't have to look too good in jail to get a lot of attention. Most times, inmates, especially adolescents, are just happy to be anywhere near one. Only I was thinking more about Mom, and getting a chance to see my little sisters, Trisha and Tina, and Grandma again.

We deuced it up in the hall, getting into two lines. That woman CO had inmates from other houses out there, and we were already mixing with adults, who have their own modules.

Then she marched us down the main corridor. Except for other officers standing their posts, it was totally empty. And with the sun coming up behind those barred windows, I started to think about how it's almost peaceful on Rikers that early in the morning, when the only movement through the halls are the courts.

W
e got to the yard, and I was shackled to another inmate by my foot and wrist, so it would be that much harder for either of us to run. They loaded us onto a blue and white bus with the word CORRECTION painted on the side. Like people on the streets wouldn't figure it out from the metal bars and plates on the windows. Then the bus started up, and we passed through the big gates and over the bridge that separates Rikers Island from the world.

There were fourteen pairs of inmates shackled together and two officers along for the ride. One CO stays with the inmates, and the driver sits on the other side of the bars so no one can take control of the bus. There's even a cage that the CO can lock you up in if you start trouble or need protection. The mood on the way to court is usually pretty good. But the ride back can be long and hard if enough dudes get smacked down by the judges.

We crossed the bridge and were on the streets of East Elmhurst. It felt good to see people walking in any direction they wanted, without a CO to stop them. And I wanted to be that way again, too.

I saw a man picking up after his dog on a corner, and I thought about my first trip to the Island. Maybe I was ten years old then. Mom took me on a visit with her to see Pops on Rikers. But we got off some city bus and couldn't find the jail.

She stopped a white man walking a black Rottweiler and asked, “How do you get to Rikers Island?”

The man just laughed and said, “Rob a bank, lady. Rob a bank.”

I know where the Island is
now
. I know the bus route from the jail to the Queens Criminal Courthouse and back. I've taken that ride so many times on this one case, I could close my eyes and tell you where the bus is by the bumps and turns. From the streets to the Grand Central Parkway, through the exit ramp and the turn onto Queens Boulevard, I could feel it in my bones.