Rikers High (14 page)

It was almost lights-out.

I climbed into bed, careful, still looking for the traps and holes.

I
n school, Demarco wouldn't even crack a smile over Murray getting tossed off the Island. Kids pushed him to say that he was happy about it. Only he wouldn't go there.

“My lesson today's too important to waste time on
him
,” said Demarco. “It starts off like this: Where do you want to be in five years?”

Demarco did tell us that Murray wasn't really fired. He was sitting in a Board of Education office somewhere in Queens, until everything got looked into. And he'd probably just get sent to another school in the end.

“It sounds like the pen for teachers,” cracked Jersey.

“In fact, Murray's collecting the same money, even though he's not teaching,” said Demarco.

“That's probably why he did it,” some dude said. “A paid vacation.”

And nobody argued.

After a while, most kids were headfirst into writing an answer to Demarco's question. But I was stuck. I didn't know where I wanted to be in five years, except home.

“If you can't find the exact place,” Demarco told me, “then write about what it should be like there.”

I wrote that I wanted to be in a place where people know my real name, a place where I could find something important to do with my life. That there should always be at least one other person around who cares about me, and maybe someone extra special to watch out for the traps and fill in all the holes.

Demarco looked at it and said he liked it fine, but didn't understand the part about the traps and holes. So I showed him Pops's letter and let him read it.

“Your father must really love you to want to share what he's learned,” said Demarco, when he'd finished. “Martin, you should be proud to have this kind of relationship with him.”

Other dudes wanted to see the letter, too, but I wouldn't let them. I said it was private, and that Demarco was the teacher and couldn't understand my answer without reading it.

I guess I really wanted Demarco to see it from the start. I knew it was full of mistakes and bad spelling, but I didn't care. I wanted him to say something good, like Pops was
somebody
.

And he did.

Just as Demarco's time was up, Mr. Green, the guidance counselor, came to the door and called Sanchez outside again. Since he'd started seeing Green, Sanchez seemed braver about going upstate. Or maybe he just didn't have the time to worry about it since Brick kept him hopping now.

I never asked Sanchez what he talked about with the counselor, and he never said anything about it either.

There are no bells to signal when a class is over in the Sprungs. The only bells that go off in jail are alarms, and the COs wouldn't want to mix up the two. So teachers go to the door of their next class when it's time, keeping one eye on the kids they left behind. It hardly ever goes smooth with five teachers trying to pull off that trick at the same time.

A dude from another room snuck over to us while the teachers were changing. He flashed a piece of carbon paper, and dudes picked their heads up like he had the key to the front gate.

“I got it from Murray's substitute, Mr. Powell,” the dude said.

“He a herb?” somebody asked.

“Can't tell yet,” he answered. “But he's at least stupid-new.”

Right away kids started to scheme. A new teacher meant someone who didn't know the system and maybe somebody you could play big-time.

Then Miss Archer arrived and gave that dude the boot from our room.

“Let's go,” she said, tugging him by the arm all the way to the door.

He just smiled and rolled his eyes at her.

“You can touch me anytime you want,” he said. “I love you.”

Inmates use carbon paper to make jailhouse tattoos. First, you heat a safety pin over a match to kill all the germs. Then you use the ink on the paper to fill in the holes you leave with the pin on a dude's arm. Some kids are good at it. Other tattoos look like shit and you can't even figure them out.

I was always too scared of the pain to get one, in jail or out in the world. But I'd laugh at that pinprick now. I was stuck with a different kind of mark. One I couldn't cover up.

The COs won't let you have carbon paper. They don't give a damn about tattoos. They think you'll use it to print a fake ID. Tinfoil is contraband, too. They're afraid you'll try to copy a badge and walk out.

Miss Archer had us writing about the grades we deserved in her math class. She even made kids read the assignment out loud. Most of them started out with, “I never disrespected you,” or, “Everybody knows how you feel about me.” Dudes were really loving it, but I didn't know what to write because I'd only been in her class for a week.

I glanced out the big window into the hall. I saw Ms. Jackson with Captain Montenez and a full-bird deputy warden watching us.

Jersey saw them, too.

“Oh, shit. Deputy warden on deck,” he said, without ever moving his lips.

Dudes just froze and only their eyes turned sideways to see, because that deputy warden had probably ten times the power of a captain.

After a while, they all moved on to the classroom across the way.

Everything was quiet for a second, then Montenez screamed for the COs.

I could see him charge into Mrs. Daniels's room and snatch up a kid who was sleeping. That kid probably got yanked out of some good dream to find himself hooked under the neck by Montenez and being dragged through the hall.

“Not in my school you don't!” hollered Montenez, shoving the kid into the officers' desk. “Mr. Arrigo, pack this young man up. We'll see if he likes sleeping in the building with all the wolves running around.”

The deputy warden nodded his head in approval. And it was plain to see that since the COs and teachers weren't going to hammer kids about sleeping, that miserable Ms. Jackson had gone and found herself a deputy warden that would make them.

Mrs. Daniels ran into the hall and started arguing with Montenez.

“You can't put your hands on these kids for no reason!” she yelled. “That's police brutality, and I'll report it!”

Montenez tried to blow her off, but Mrs. Daniels said she was going to write it up and send it to the newspapers.

“These are inmates,” the principal told her. “You have to respect the system.”

Mrs. Daniels didn't back off, and she wrote down the badge numbers of Montenez and the deputy warden.

By the time things got calmer, Miss Archer was at the door, ready to leave, and Mrs. Daniels was coming into our class.

“I'm going to put something about the solar system up on the board,” Mrs. Daniels told us. “Copy it down and give me quiet so I can write something.”

When she was done at the board, Mrs. Daniels pulled out a sheet of paper and put the date up at the top. Dudes crowded around her desk as she wrote how Montenez snatched the kid up, and that he was only sleeping. She wrote how the deputy warden was there and that Ms. Jackson didn't report an assault on a student.

“Damn,” Jersey said, amazed. “She's going after Montenez in his own jail.”

“It's not
his
jail. He doesn't own
it
or
you
,” Mrs. Daniels said.

One of the house snitches went right to Dawson and Arrigo with the news.

They were steamed and tried to talk Mrs. Daniels out of it, but she wouldn't listen.

Then Carter came in and said, “I'm sorry to say this, but maybe we should stop watching your back, Mrs. D.”

Mrs. Daniels wrote that down, too, and called it a threat.

The truth was that the COs
didn't
need to watch her back anymore. Kids gave her mad props for what she was doing. Mrs. Daniels was putting herself out there for us like nobody had before. Right then, dudes would have done anything for her. She was free and clear with us.

We had almost forgot about Murray's substitute, until he showed up at our door once science class was over. He had a Caribbean accent and was wearing a suit and tie, with a history book under his arm. Kids walked him into class, pulled out his chair, and sat his fresh ass down.

We started asking him questions about his family, the kind of car he drove, and where he lived. After a few minutes, we knew lots of things about Mr. Powell, like that he lived on State Street in Brooklyn. And his eyes even lit up when dudes started calling him “Pow.”

Then kids noticed the cell phone on his belt.

“Hey, Pow, that's off the hook. Let me have a look at that,” a dude said.

“I'd rather just hold onto it,” said Powell.

Before you knew it, the dude told him a sob story about not being able to get a hold of his lawyer and Powell gave him the phone.

Then kids were making calls in the corner of the room.

Powell looked like he was starting to get nervous, but he probably didn't know to get the COs.

Dudes argued over who'd use the cell next.

Carter heard the racket from the officers' desk. He busted in and took the phone away. Then Dawson and Arrigo strolled in, laughing their asses off. They gave Powell a big speech right in front of everybody.

“Listen, Mr. Powell,” said Arrigo. “I know you're a smart guy and all because you went to college and graduated. But these kids are inmates. Don't give them your watch so they can see the time. They don't need to borrow lunch money. And most of all, don't give out any personal information about yourself.”IT

“Not unless you want them visiting you out in the world,” grinned Dawson.

After they left, Powell just looked at us for a while without saying a word.

He was probably feeling like a real jackass.

“Don't worry 'bout it, Pow,” said Jersey. “That's the game out here. We've got to test you.”

Some dude asked him why he came to teach in jail, and if he was afraid we'd all jump him. That's when the COs called us out for lunch. We just left Powell sitting there before he could answer.

After lunch, we had Mr. Rowe's life skills class. I was the first one back to the room, and he was already there, sitting behind the desk. He looked at me like he'd never seen me before.

“Are you sure this is your class?” he asked.

I couldn't believe it. I'd been sitting five feet from Rowe for a week, with a big cut on my face. But he still had no clue I was his student. He should have been a detective instead of a teacher. Then maybe the jail would be empty and some high school out in the world would be full of kids.

All through class, I kept staring at the yellow pass clipped to Rowe's shirt collar. That plastic ID was the only thing that made him different from me. It was even more important than the color of his white skin. It got him through the gates and home every night without a second look from the COs.

Dudes were screwing around while Rowe was
teaching
us.

Then Brick walked in and called out his name.

“Mr. Roooowe,” he said, dragging it out. “Gimme some skin.”

But when Rowe reached out to slap his hand, Brick pulled it back and left him hanging there like Super Herb.

The whole class busted out laughing.

Brick took the chair right behind me and Sanchez.

“So what's it gonna be?” he asked in a low voice.

I looked over at Ritz, knowing he'd already delivered the news.

“I don't care what the white boy told me,” said Brick. “I'm talking to
you
now.”

“I'm straight,” I answered. “I don't need anything better.”

Brick studied my eyes and said, “You must be going home if you can stay living like this. What are you facing, Forty?”

I wouldn't tell him shit.

I hadn't told anyone in the house about my case, except that it was a drug charge. Soon as dudes find out what you're facing, they can start to play you. Nobody knew I was supposed to be going home on Friday, and it was going to stay that way.

Brick picked up, annoyed now, and moved to the door.

“There should be more new jacks in the house this week. I'll bet some of them will be hungry to play on my team,” Brick said, and left.

Sanchez had a worried look on his face. I could see that he had a lot on his mind, so I asked him about it after school.

“Mr. Green checked with the Department of Corrections,” answered Sanchez. “He found out that beds are opening soon upstate. He says I should be gone by Thursday morning, the latest.”

Then Sanchez talked about holding his own up north and staying clear of trouble. His voice was steady, and it sounded like he believed every word of it. But Sanchez's hands were shaking a little, and I decided to keep a close eye on him for the rest of the day.

That night, Brick called some herb that owed him out of the dayroom. It was a big production. Barnett watched the bathroom door and Brick went inside with the kid. He smacked him around pretty good and the kid walked out all lumped up.

Then Shaky went around telling everyone in the house that Brick was getting serious. I guess that was the good part about having someone like him in your crew. He could get the word out fast. And kids would believe it was just
Shaky being Shaky
—that he couldn't help but say what was in his head, and that he wasn't fronting for you.

W
e got to the school trailer the next morning and everything was set up different. The teachers and the principal were waiting in the hallway, and there was a table with cookies and soda in the corner. Kids saw that and got all excited like they were back in the third grade or something.