Rikers High (17 page)

I thought about giving Sanchez up all the way until we walked out of the school trailer. Then it was over with. I played the jail game, deciding to keep my mouth shut. It was just another choice.

O
fficer Carter took the count back at the house. Sanchez was thirty-nine, and I was forty. It had been that way since I got to the Sprungs. Only nothing stays the same for too long on Rikers Island. I was waiting for Friday and the possibility of home, like a kid waits on a Christmas present he's almost positive he's getting. But if I could have asked for presents ahead of time, Sanchez not having any real drama that night would have been at the top of my list.

Sanchez wouldn't show me the setup in the bathroom. He was afraid Brick would find out I knew his business and cancel the whole thing. So I went in there on my own to scope it out.

I found the sink that was under the hot water pipe.

Some kid was scrubbing his socks and drawers there, and it was filled with black water. The pipe was all rusty, and I didn't even think it could hold Sanchez. His weight might rip that pipe right out of the wall or break it clean in two. Then he'd flood the house in the middle of the night.

The COs would kick his ass good as a going-away present over something big like that.

I looked into one of the metal mirrors, thinking about how shook Sanchez must be to get himself into this shit. Like life in Bellevue was going to be some sort of dream. He should just sit his ass down on that bus and go upstate. How much worse than Rikers could it be?

Then I studied my own face, and was ready to smack myself in the mouth for even thinking I had something to say.

What did I know about anything?

Dudes could pick up on how this place kicked my ass from a mile away.

So what if people thought Sanchez tried to kill himself or that he was too scared to go upstate? All that could change or wear off when he got older.

My mark was going to stay with me like a neon sign, blinking, RIKERS HERB! RIKERS PUNK! RIKERS THUG!

Sanchez and Brick stuck close together for the rest of the afternoon, watching TV in the dayroom. They didn't talk much at all. Brick was going over his accounts, and Sanchez was staring at the screen. It didn't matter if the program or a commercial was on. Sanchez's expression never changed. It was just cold and blank.

At supper, Sanchez was sitting at a table in the front of the mess hall with Brick, and I couldn't get close. But I saved my milk and orange for him. When we got back to the house I snuck them into his bucket. He might not eat for a while before they took him to Bellevue from the clinic. So I thought he should stuff himself tonight. I was probably the first reverse sneak thief that Rikers Island had ever seen.

Sanchez got back to his bed and laid down.

He saw what was at the top of his bucket and looked over at me.

“What'd I do to deserve this?” he asked, as he grabbed for the orange and started peeling away the skin.

“For all the help and info you gave me here,” I answered.

After the outside peel was gone, he picked away at the stringy white threads on the outside. It took him almost five minutes to get that orange just right. But when Sanchez was finished, it was nothing but the fruit.

“Here's for all the times you listened to me,” he said, ripping the orange in half.

We both took our time enjoying it.

Then I emptied my bucket and put it halfway between our beds.

We made a contest of trying to spit the seeds into it.

Jersey saw us and got all pissed off.

“You know the house gang's gonna get blamed for your bad aim and have to clean up this mess,” Jersey said.

Sanchez broke into a half-smile and told him, “That's what the
housemaids
get paid for, son.”

I felt better to think he wasn't so tight, and could laugh a little.

When it got late, Sanchez started to walk laps around the house. He would circle around the dayroom, past the beds and phones, and up to the officers' station. Then he'd start all over again.

He never once walked into the bathroom or even looked inside.

It was almost lights-out, and he hadn't even packed up.

“What about all your stuff?” I asked, once he stood still.

He just looked at it and said, “Later, for that shit.”

It was the first time I ever saw Sanchez with a watch. He must have got it from Brick. That way they could all be organized. It wouldn't be much of a plan if everybody was just guessing when to move.

The COs got the house to bed and turned out the lights. It felt like my insides were starting to freeze up solid in the dark. And the waiting that night felt as long as my five months on the Island put together.

A
fter what felt like a couple of hours, I heard Officer Johnson cursing up front. His tour was over and he should have been gone by now. He'd probably got stuck doing overtime when another CO called in sick or something. And having Johnson around wasn't good news if you were trying to run some kind of game in the house.

I was lying flat on my stomach looking over at Sanchez. He had his back up against the pillow and his eyes wide open. Sanchez wasn't even blinking much. But every time I closed my eyes, I saw him with a sheet around his neck hanging from that pipe, trying to call out for help. So I kept my eyes open, too, and wondered about the time.

Soon Brick started making little throat-clearing noises, like he was ready to go. Sanchez never budged or even bothered looking at his watch. Then the dude from the midnight crew walked through and kicked the leg on Sanchez's bed.

None of it moved him.

Sanchez sat there for a long time. Then he jumped out of bed all at once. He headed straight for the bathroom and disappeared inside. I figured it would take a while for him to set everything up. So I started counting Mississippis in my head. I was up to three hundred when the dude from the midnight crew walked into the bathroom. But he came right back out again, and I couldn't figure out what was going on.

I was worried about Sanchez and wanted to go rushing in there. I didn't give a shit about their plan. I just wanted to make sure that he was okay.

As many times as I ran it over in my head, I never got up because another side of me kept saying,
He's doing what he has to do
.

At five hundred Mississippi, the dude went back inside. The sound of my heart beating got louder with every number I counted off.

Then, suddenly, that midnight suicide dude busted out screaming for the COs.

“Help! COs! Help!” he yelled, with his voice running through me cold, like a ghost.

It wasn't the scream of a kid that was running some scam.

It sounded too real, and out of control.

I ran to the bathroom and got there with the COs and a bunch of other kids on my heels. I looked up and Sanchez was hanging from the pipe with the sheet wrapped tight around his neck. His face was horrible and twisted. He looked nothing like the kid I knew, and I would have sworn it was somebody else.

I never saw a body in so much pain. And I almost heaved right there.

Officer Johnson bulled his way through the bodies at the door.

When he saw Sanchez hanging there he started hollering, “You idiot kid! Look what you fucking did! Look at what you fucking went and did!”

The other COs pushed kids back outside and the alarm went off.

But I just spun back around and stayed in the bathroom, close to the wall.

I watched Johnson cut Sanchez down from the pipe and loosen the sheet around his neck. He put his fingers on Sanchez's throat to feel for a pulse. Then he exploded, pounding his fist on the floor.

“Damn you!” Johnson yelled. “Damn you!”

Johnson hit the floor so hard he split one of the tiles in two.

He saw me standing behind him and smacked me hard in the head.

“You seen enough?” he hollered, with his voice echoing off the walls.

Johnson wrapped one hand around my neck and dragged me out of the bathroom. He passed me off to another CO, and I got pushed into the dayroom with everyone else.

My ears were ringing and I couldn't stand.

I just collapsed to the floor.

Sanchez was gone.

He wasn't going upstate. He wasn't going to the mental ward at Bellevue. And he was never going home again. It didn't make any sense.

Every CO in the Sprungs who wasn't tied to a post rushed to our house. They had kids pinned down at tables in the dayroom. Then the Turtles showed up and rushed a doctor from the clinic straight into the bathroom.

No matter how many COs watched us, they couldn't stop kids from talking. Enough dudes had seen Sanchez hanging there that word spread quick.

For all the bullshit we threw at each other on the Island, no one wanted to see another kid get hurt like that. And no one wanted to believe somebody could really die in the Sprungs. But when they wheeled Sanchez out with a clean white sheet over his head, they could have thrown a sheet over every bullshit threat that kids ever laid down out here, too.

Right then, it seemed like no one wanted anything but peace. And all of a sudden, that dayroom became more like a church than a jail.

Jersey and Ritz came over to where I was sitting on the floor.

“Did you—see him in there?” stuttered Ritz.

I couldn't answer.

They must have been able to tell I had from the look on my face, and didn't ask again. They both sat there next to me, taking turns keeping a hand on my shoulder. And I appreciated that.

Lots of kids had tears in their eyes. But I knew they were crying for more than Sanchez. They were crying for everything we ever did to each other on the streets and in the Sprungs. And they were crying because they were scared of what could happen to them on Rikers Island, too.

I thought about that kid who'd cut me and how I wanted to slice him back. Then I thought about how Mom must have felt when she heard I got cut, and how
his
mother would feel if it happened to
him
.

I just couldn't get the sight of Sanchez hanging there out of my head. How his face was in so much pain.

I knew that Sanchez's mother was already dead. That would be one less mother getting a bad phone call and crying.

Brick was sitting at a table trying to blend into the scenery. He looked more worried than upset. Kids were talking about what happened to Sanchez, and Brick was listening like it was all news to him. I always thought of Brick as just another jail thug running his bullshit games. But right then, I started to hate him with some real heart. Not because his whole fucked-up plan went wrong, but because he didn't give two shits about Sanchez. Even when it all broke down to nothing, he only cared about himself.

I wasn't really sure if Sanchez had killed himself by mistake or not. Maybe something went wrong with the plan, or Sanchez just had enough of everything in his life. I knew that he was scared, and sometimes fear can push you too far.

Unless the dude from the suicide watch came clean, everybody was going to think Sanchez went in there to kill himself, straight-up. The COs had that dude at the officers' desk filling out reports. But I couldn't see him sticking his own neck out for Sanchez now.

I'd already made my choice not to tell Demarco. There was no going back on that. I knew that Sanchez got caught up in the traps and holes on Rikers Island, big-time.

Maybe I did too by keeping my mouth shut.

A couple of kids fell asleep in the dayroom. But most dudes just quit on sleeping that night. The COs didn't let us go back to our beds until every last investigator and photographer had packed up.

Most of the extra COs who got sent to our house that night were respectful. They saw right away that no one was going to wild out. Kids were too shook for that. So they talked to us.

“It's a shame what can happen,” said a CO I'd never laid eyes on before. “I got a son almost his age. This cuts deep.”

I didn't want to go back to my bed. I didn't want to look over at Sanchez's blanket and pillow anymore. I could see them from the dayroom, and that was close enough for now.

Johnson was still doing paperwork on Sanchez when the morning tour of COs came on. All of them knew what had happened before they even got to the house. They either heard about it at the front gate or at roll call.

I watched Ms. Armstrong walk across the yard through the windows of the emergency doors. She held her palm flat against her mouth the whole way.

Dawson and Carter came in together. They were both acting stiff and did everything in slow motion that morning.

After an hour or so, Dawson called me up front.

“Forty, you slept next to Sanchez,” he said, handing me a plastic laundry bag. “You know what belonged to him. Pack it all up so they can send it to his family. I heard he had an aunt and uncle in the Bronx.”

I was about to tell Dawson that I didn't want any part of it, when Brick came up from behind me.

“I can handle it,” Brick said, reaching out his hand.

I spun around hard, tightening my grip on the bag. Then I walked right through Brick's shoulder to the beds. I wasn't about to let
him
go through any of it.

Sanchez's bed and bucket were just like he'd left them.

No one was going to sneak-thief from a kid who'd just died.

But I couldn't stand his bed being all messed up. It was like he was coming back from the bathroom to fix it. I even touched his sheet, thinking it might still be warm.