The rest of the day drags until we go to the gym to play basketball. Freddie and I are the last ones picked because we’re terrible at sports. Every time I get the ball, Mr. Pike blows the whistle for double dribbling or traveling. Freddie knows how to dribble, but he misses the entire backboard whenever he shoots. The only player who is worse is Oskar, the Dr. Seuss kid. Oskar spends a lot of time with the psychologist, Dr. Souza. Other times he sleeps or just stares at his hands.
The one occasion I catch a pass, Antwon sticks out his foot, and I go sprawling across the floor. The ball bounces loose and rolls over to Oskar, who is standing at the edge of the game watching us with his big vacant eyes. He looks at the ball blankly and then bends down to pick it up.
The rest of us watch to see what he will do; even Horvath and Pike seem curious. Oskar holds the ball, staring back at us. He bounces it with both of his hands, like a little kid, smiling. Slowly he makes his way toward his own team’s basket, and we all back away to clear a lane. When he’s close enough, Oskar holds the ball between his legs and launches it up into the air. Incredibly, it bounces off the backboard and drops neatly into the hoop without touching the rim. He turns to look at us, eyes still empty.
Tony claps once, then again. He shoots us all a look that says we’d better clap, too; we do. Oskar tries to smile, but it comes out forced and crooked. He tries to laugh, but it comes out in big choking sobs. He shuffles off the court and starts banging his head on the concrete block wall. He does it hard enough to split open his forehead, smearing blood on the white industrial paint. By the time the guards realize what is happening, Oskar has slid down onto his knees and is rocking back and forth, crying, a thick stream of blood running down his face. It drips off his chin and pools on the green rubber floor. Horvath and Pike move in on him slowly, like confused wrestlers, trying to figure out what to do with an opponent who has just flopped to the mat and pinned himself. They’re not sure if they should restrain him or try to help him. But how do you help someone like Oskar? Now he is sitting, completely still, looking intently at his hands.
“Line up!” Mr. E hustles us out of the gym, straight to the cafeteria without showering or changing. When we come back to the unit, Oskar’s room is empty. A box of his belongings has been placed outside his door; I peek inside and see a pile of his books. Horton Hears a Who! sits on top.
“Where’d he go?” I ask.
“Mental hospital,” says Tony.
“For, like, the tenth fucking time,” says Bobby. “Kid’s bat shit crazy.”
“Shut up, Bobby,” Tony says.
“You ain’t the boss of me!”
“No, but shut up anyway.”
And, for once, Bobby does.
30
Tonight Mr. E and Samson throw a pizza party for the whole unit to celebrate Tony’s release. The two guards pay for a movie and food with their own money. Levon, a football player from Queens, asks if they’re going to do the same for him.
“Sure,” Samson says. “When you get your Honors Stage.”
Levon groans. “Ain’t none of us ever getting Honors Stage. Tony just a freak.”
“Speak for yo’self,” says Wilfred. “I got four good days behind me.”
Samson laughs and tells Wilfred that he is off to a good start but he’ll need eighty-six more good days.
The movie is Transformers II, which everyone seems to like. Even Antwon, who hates everything. Or at least that’s what he’d like us to believe.
“I’ll take that yellow Camaro,” he says. “That’s tight.”
Predictably, Double X and Coty agree.
We all get two slices of pizza, a cup of soda, and a piece of chocolate cake that Tony’s mother sent in for the occasion. He says that his entire family drove up from New York City and is staying at a fancy Holiday Inn, just so they can pick him up early in the morning.
“They don’t want me to ride in no transport van, so they borrowed my uncle’s Lincoln. They gonna take me home in style!”
Antwon says that Lincolns are crap, but Tony doesn’t take the bait.
“Y’all can say whatever you want,” says Tony. “Because tomorrow I’m free. No more Morton for me. No more nasty-ass chili dogs and sandwiches made from government cheese and the bad parts of animals that don’t even exist. You know, like them bologna animals and meat loaf animals.”
Samson laughs. “What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get home?”
“I’m gonna eat my mom’s cooking,” he says. “Then I’m gonna see my girl, and then my homeboys. Don’t worry, Samson. I ain’t gonna party or nothing. But I’m not living like a monk, neither!”
Before lights-out Mr. E says, “Right now I have something to say to Tony, but you all might want to hear it, too. If not, that’s fine; you can go get ready for bed.”
No one moves.
“One of the things I like about people is that everybody has their own story. Doesn’t matter if it’s a lawyer, or a cop, or somebody’s mother cleaning office buildings or working as a home health aide. And all of you have stories, too, even if you don’t realize it. But right now I want to tell you mine.”
“I come to the United States when I was thirteen. From Grenada, a small island. My family was broke so we lived in the projects and got everything from the Goodwill: shoes, clothes, furniture. Even the knickknacks and the pictures on the wall.”
There is a chorus of uh-huhs from kids who know this part from their own experiences.
“Me and my cousin, Raymond, got our asses kicked every single day because we had secondhand clothes and Caribbean accents that the other kids said were stuck-up. Then we joined a gang and no one messed with us. We had friends and respect.”
Coty, Double X, Levon, and Antwon all say, “Yeah, I hear that,” and “True, true.”
Mr. Eboue continues, “Until I got busted and locked up. At a place just like this, but it’s closed now because a kid was killed there.”
“Who kilt him?” says Wilfred. Mr. E ignores him and continues.
“I followed the rules in lockup, but I didn’t learn anything. So when I got out, I thought I had outsmarted the system. But what I didn’t know is that the system doesn’t care if you change. The system is like a machine; all it cares about is its gears and levers and shit. Input and output. If you do six months and earn your stage, you go home. Lots of kids are getting arrested and the system needs your bed? That means you go home whether you’re ready or not.”
“So everything was cool until I got off the bus in Brooklyn and learned that my cousin, Raymond, had been shot dead in some gang shit. Nobody told me!”
“Why not?” Wilfred says.
“Because they thought I’d flip out and do something self-destructive, which is probably true.”
Levon says that his cousin got shot last year. Danny, a white kid from Schenectady, says his little brother was stabbed but didn’t die. He’s in a wheelchair now. Other kids say who in their family was killed. Mr. E waits patiently until they’re done.
“I didn’t believe that Raymond was dead. ‘Show me!’ I said to my mother, who is only, like, five feet tall and was working two jobs to pay for rent and food for me and my brothers and sisters. By that time, my father had split and started a whole new family someplace else, but that’s a whole nother kind of story. My mother just cried and took me to my old bedroom that I used to share with my cousin.”
“What’d you see?” says Wilfred again.
“Pictures from his funeral. She had them up on the walls like a shrine. ‘It was a nice funeral,’ she said. ‘You would have been proud.’ ”
Mr. E takes a moment to breathe. He touches the corner of his eye with a hand. “Man, I went off the train tracks for a long time. And let’s just say that I did some things, and that I was lucky I didn’t get locked up again. Or killed.”
“Did you find the dudes that done it?” Coty says.
Mr. E waves off the question with a hand and continues. “But when it was al
l done, when I was done reacting … to this thing that I couldn’t accept, I realized that the only difference between me and my cousin was that I got locked up. I was off the streets when the guns came out. Otherwise, I’d be dead, too.”
Wilfred raises his hand. “No offense, Mr. E, but what’s this story mean? That it’s good to be locked up so you don’t get shot?”
“It means that you’re all marked and you have to try to live the rest of your life so you’re not around violence.”
Wilfred nods, but he still looks confused.
Before bed Tony says his goodbyes; he’ll be leaving early in the morning while we’re all still asleep. Handshakes or hugs aren’t allowed, so he gathers up his personal items, which are a bundle of papers and a few family pictures.
“Y’all take care of yourselves,” he says. To Mr. E and Samson he says, “I’m gonna make you guys proud of me.”
“Do that by having a good life and not coming back,” says Samson.
“James,” Tony says before I go into my room. “You remember what I told you, bro?”
I give him the thumbs-up sign to show that I remember: take care of myself, fight Antwon, and let Freddie deal with his own problems.
“Thanks for the free advice,” I say.
“No problem. Have a nice life, man.”
“You too.”
31
Every Saturday we’re allowed to sleep in until nine o’clock, but I am awake at six, cursing my brother. Yesterday, he finally got around to calling to apologize for missing our visit. “Something came up, bro,” he said. “Next week. I promise.” Like I’m going to believe that.
So I stare out the window at the razor wire fence and the parking lot. I watch the seven-to-three staff park their Chevy Tahoes and Silverados, Ford F-150 pickups, and big Harley-Davidson motorcycles. They carry giant cups of coffee and bags of hash browns and Egg McMuffin sandwiches from McDonald’s.
The big wall-mounted clock hammers out time while, beyond my door, Horvath and Pike talk through the final hour of the eleven-to-seven shift they picked up for overtime. They are talking just to talk, to keep themselves awake. And if I didn’t know any better from what happened the other day with Bobby, I would think of them as just a couple of regular guys staying up late bullshitting, instead of hateful assholes in charge of the lives of a bunch of kids.
“You ever play baseball when you were a kid?” Horvath says.
“Yep. Wasn’t no good, though.”
“I played catcher.”
“You look like a catcher. Bet you wore them husky-sized kid jeans, right?”
Horvath ignores the joke. “My old man was the coach. He said the catcher controls the game.”
They are silent for a moment before Horvath picks up the thread of his story. I’m surprised that he even has a story; none of the adults I have known—not my mother, or even Mr. Pfeffer—have talked about their pasts. In a way, I don’t want to know more about Mr. Horvath, because I don’t want to understand why he is a bastard. As far as I’m concerned, he’s the biggest piece of shit I’ve ever met next to Ron. But at the same time, hearing him talk about his childhood is oddly compelling, like wanting to see a car wreck. So I keep my ear pressed to the door.
“My last year in Babe Ruth, we made it to the state championships. My old man told us the other team was better but that talent didn’t matter; what mattered was heart. He said if we wanted it bad enough, if we had the heart, we’d win.”
“What happened?”
“We got behind early and spent the whole game trying to catch up. But I tied it up with a three-run homer in the eighth.”
“You won?”
“Lost in the bottom of the ninth. Last time I ever played ball.”
“Man, that sucks. But at least you made it that far. That’s something.”
“My old man didn’t think so. To him you were a winner or a loser; there wasn’t no in-between. He drove the whole way home without saying a word.”
“He didn’t say nothin’?”
“Nope. Not one word.”
“No offense, but he sounds like a big asshole. That ain’t no way to treat your kid. And you got a home run, too! Fucking-A, Horvath.”
I look out the small rectangular window set in my door. I can see Pike holding up his hand for a high five, but his partner leaves him hanging.
“Shut your mouth, Pike,” he says. “He was my father, and you’re missing the point.”
“All right, what’s the point?”
“That I showed him respect. And none of these entitled delinquent pussies knows how to do that. Not the street thugs, the nutcases, or the ones who are just stupid. Freddie Peach is the worst, because he’s gonna go on and ‘Yes, sir’ everyone and get his privileges without learning a fucking thing. In and out in ninety days. You wait and see.”
“I hear that. It’s like he thinks he’s better than everyone else. Makes me sick to look at these queers on TV running around flaunting their perversions, like it’s a constitutional right or something.”
But Horvath isn’t listening. He’s leaning back in his chair, hands laced behind his thick neck, staring at some distant point on the concrete block wall in front of him.
Pike tries again. “It ain’t like the old days, before all this therapeutic bullshit.”
Horvath drops the legs of his chair with a thud and rolls his heavy shoulders forward. He looks focused, no longer lost in memories of his father and the state Babe Ruth championship. “You know what I think, Pike?” he says.
“Negative, Horvath. Tell me.”
“Everybody gets what’s coming to them. That’s my philosophy, and Freddie’s gonna get his. He’ll run his mouth one too many times.”
Pike smiles, happy to finish the shift on a positive note. “And when he does …”
But I don’t get to hear the rest, because the door to the unit opens; Crupier and a guard from a different unit come in, ready to start their shift.
32
Today we all get two stamps and envelopes for letter writing, which we’re allowed to do during school. I write one really short letter to my mother, telling her I’m okay and listing the phone number for Morton, along with the times she can call (even though I know she won’t). The other letter is for Mr. Pfeffer. It goes like this:
Dear Mr. Pfeffer,
I’m sorry I haven’t come to your class lately, but I did something bad and got locked up in this place called the Thomas C. Morton Jr. Residential Center, which is what most people would call juvie. Maybe you already know this, but it’s possible no one told you, in which case I’d like for you to hear it from me. I didn’t hurt anyone or steal, but what I did was wrong and I deserve to be here. Morton is not a very good place to be, except for Mr. Samson, who is a bodybuilder and quotes books, too. I think you’d like him.
Anyway, I wanted to thank you for all the early-morning talks, cold root beers, and great books. You’re the best teacher. Ever. If you have time to write me back, it would mean a lot—but I know you’re probably busy.
Sincerely,
James
Your Student
Later, at three o’clock, we have group. Mr. E says to the circle of fidgeting boys, “Let’s say you’re getting onto a bus or a subway, and it’s really crowded.”
Wilfred, who seems to do everything slowly—walking, talking, thinking—raises one of his big hands halfway into the air. Yesterday I heard Mr. Eboue tell him he had the fingers of a jazz piano player, and Wilfred said, “Is that good?”
“You have a question already, Wilfred?”
“Yes, mister, I do.” Despite being at Morton for almost a year (according to Freddie), he still can’t remember any of the staff’s names.
“Okay, shoot.”
“What I want to know, mister, is if it’s a subway or a bus.”
“Whichever, Wilfred. Doesn’t matter.”
“But it matters to me, mister, because I’m trying to picture it in my head. If it’s a bus, then I’
ll be standing at the bus stop, freezing. But if it’s the subway, then I be inside the mall entrance, watching to see when the train pulls up.”
Mr. E sighs and says, “Let’s go with the subway, Wilfred, so you can stay warm.”
Wilfred smiles and sits back in his chair, satisfied.
“So, you’re about to get on the train, and some dude jumps out and steps right on your new Jordans, the ones you bought with your own hard-earned money.”
Levon, Double X, and Antwon groan to show how bad it would be to get your new Jordans stepped on.
Mr. E says, “It’s the first time you ever wore those shoes, and the brother doesn’t say ‘Sorry,’ or ‘Excuse me,’ or nothing. He looks you in the eye and walks past, like you’re a punk. Worse than a punk because you don’t even get so much as a glare. It’s like he doesn’t even recognize you exist.”
Several of the guys say they’d give him an ass whooping.
“It’s a matter of respect for yourself,” says Antwon. “Because if you act like it’s okay, then nobody going to respect you, and you ain’t even going to respect yourself, which is worse, ’cause it gives you, like, this smell in the streets where other people can tell that you’re weak.”
Everybody else agrees, but I’m not sure. I haven’t had an expensive pair of sneakers. But if I did, I wouldn’t fight someone just because they stepped on them. It seems stupid, but the other guys see it differently.
“Show of hands,” Mr. E says. “How many of you would give the homeboy a beat-down?”
All hands shoot up in the air except for mine.
Mr. E pretends to be surprised. “Freddie, you too?”
“Just because I’m G-A-Y don’t mean I’m a pussy. I know how to fight, Mr. E.”
Everybody laughs.
“That’s funny, Freddie, and I hear what you’re saying, but please don’t talk like that.”
“It’s true, and I ain’t ashamed no more,” he says.
“I’m glad, Freddie, but even so …”
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