The Hook

by Tim O'Mara

  We were crossing the new and improved Kosciuszko Bridge, which connects Brooklyn to Queens, when Jess told me how she knew Tio.

  ‘I worked with some of his … kids,’ she explained, ‘at a couple of youth facilities in Queens. He’d come by and visit, make sure they had money in their accounts, envelopes with stamps on them to write home, and books to read. He seems particularly fond of Charles Dickens, R.L. Stine, and Junot Diaz. He’s keenly aware that these kids need to read about characters who are not white. He brings those books, as well.’

  ‘Interesting guy, Tio,’ I said. ‘You could probably do your thesis on him.’

  ‘Don’t think it didn’t cross my mind,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t like talking about himself too much, though.’

  ‘There is that. So, how am I going to get onto the Island? Don’t I need an ID or something?’

  ‘I’ll get you a gate pass. Anybody asks, you’re with me to see if you wanna get involved with the program. Who knows,’ she added, ‘maybe you will be.’

  ‘Stranger things have happened.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Tio’s told me a bit about you.’

  ‘Anything good?’

  ‘He said you have a certain knack for getting yourself involved with kids in crisis. He thinks you were probably a good cop who never got it out of his system.’

  ‘I know a few people who’d agree with him,’ I said. ‘Including an NYPD detective and my uncle.’ I left out Allison.

  ‘Raymond Donne. Chief of Detectives at One Police Plaza.’

  ‘That would be him.’

  ‘I appreciate you doing this, Ray. I know you’re putting not only your name out there, but also your uncle’s.’

  ‘Funny what kids remember,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure how much Gator – Gabriel – took away from my math class, but he sure remembered who my uncle was.’

  ‘Kids who live in situations like Gator’s retain what they need to. It’s a survival skill. Let’s be honest: knowing how to find the missing angle of a pentagon is not going to do much for a kid who thinks like him.’

  Oh, man, I thought. I lean to the left myself, but Jess was really tilting here.

  ‘Part of my job,’ I said, ‘is to teach kids like Gator to think differently. Algebra is a means to an end. It teaches problem-solving. You got some info here, some info there, and you gotta put them together to find the unknown.’

  Jess smiled. ‘Kind of like police work.’

  ‘I could say that it’s also kinda like social work.’

  ‘I think you just did.’ She took the exit toward LaGuardia Airport, which also led to Riker’s. We passed the old Bulova Building, where they used to make watches. ‘But a young man like Gator is going to remember that your uncle is a bigwig cop before he remembers math formulas and how to diagram a sentence. Think about it, we wouldn’t be having this conversation if he didn’t have the retention skills that allowed him to recall that information. There’s a lot of research out there that says our ancestors who had better recall ability also had a better chance of survival. Where’s the best place to hunt? Where was there danger the last time my boys and I went hunting?’

  ‘Whose uncle could help me get out from under a possession with intent charge?’

  I got a full-out laugh from her on that one.

  ‘Tio told me about your cynicism,’ she said. ‘I guess that’s one of your survival skills. Along with the sense of humor.’

  I was close to blushing. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I didn’t say I liked it, Ray.’

  Touché. I looked over hoping for a smile. She must have been hiding it.

  Half an hour later we were walking down the longest hallway I’d ever seen; it was at least the length of two football fields. I’d already signed in, gone through a metal detector, and given up my driver’s license in exchange for a pass. We had left our cell phones in the car to avoid having to lock them up. Every corrections officer we passed during our walk down the hallway had nodded, said hello, told us to have a nice day, and then gone back to looking serious. Jess was carrying a transparent book bag filled with journals, composition paper, pens, magazines, and paperback books. She wasn’t allowed to bring in hardcover books because they could be used as weapons. As for why they allowed her to bring in pens and give them to the young men for journaling, who knew?

  We stopped in front of a metal door, and Jess pounded on the window and held her pass up to the video camera. I did the same. We got buzzed in, got buzzed in a second door, and then a third.

  The unit we entered looked like an out-of-issue army barracks. All the windows had bars on them and the floor looked like it had seen its best days during World War II. There were three rows of ten metal cots, about half of them in use, in the big part of the room. Off to the side were another half-dozen. It smelled like the boys’ locker room back at school. Times five. The young men on the cots either ignored us or glanced at us with disinterest. Some were playing cards, some were watching the card-playing, and some were sleeping. I saw more than a few lumps under gray blankets. They were all dressed in the same drab khaki shirts and pants. It looked like a dress rehearsal for the all-minority teenage version of Cool Hand Luke.

  I did a quick head count and it came to about twenty young men, seventeen of whom were black or Hispanic. On the surface, that didn’t make sense, because about eighty-five percent of the crimes committed in a city like New York were not committed by non-whites. But when it came to posting cash bail – being able to pay your way out of a stay in prison until you saw a judge – not having three thousand dollars could land you in Riker’s. And you could put a color on that. Most of these inmates – no matter what they were picked up for – were currently in Riker’s because they were unable to come up with the bail money. They were incarcerated for being poor. I knew the city and the state were working on this, I just hoped the solution was quick enough to keep these young men from forgetting what life was like on the outside.

  A few of the young men were in the day room watching a TV that was encased behind a plastic barrier. The TV was tuned to one of those shows that does paternity tests to prove whether you were the Baby Daddy. Why people went on these shows was beyond me. We headed over that way, and two of the young men stood up when we entered and said, ‘Hey, Miz Jessica.’ Then they looked at me. The taller of the two said, ‘Who that?’

  Before Jess could answer, I said, ‘Raymond.’ Remembering not to give out my last name. ‘I’m working with Miz Jessica today. I hear you guys like to write.’ Normally, I would have reached out for a fist bump, but I didn’t think that would go over right now.

  The shorter one said, ‘Sometimes.’ He paused. ‘For Miz Jessica.’ He eyed me, waiting for my reaction. I’d seen that look many times before; it was the look of a young man who’d spent too much time on the streets clocking other males, playing an eyeball variation of chicken, waiting to see who’d blink first.

  Before it turned into a staring contest, I said, ‘I’ll just watch and learn then. If that’s OK with you guys.’ Just like on the streets, I knew I had to show respect; this was their hood. I was just a visitor.

  They both thought about my offer and looked at each other for a bit. After a pair of shrugs, the taller one said, ‘A’ight.’ They left the room.

  ‘They’re going to get last week’s work,’ Jess explained. She reached into her bag and started arranging books and journals on the only clean table in the room. ‘This always attracts a few more of them,’ she said. ‘They love their journals and urban fiction. I need to remember to bring some automobile and tattoo magazines next week. I only have the music ones today.’

  Sure enough, as soon as the books and journals and magazines hit the metal table, a slew of young men came into the room like it was Christmas morning. Jess knew most of them and reminded them what reading materials they had asked for the week before. The magazines went quickly. All seemed to be equally popular.

  ‘Is Gabriel around?’ I asked Jessica.
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  ‘He’s out there on one of the bunks,’ she said, paying more attention to laying out the books than to me. ‘Go ahead. I got this.’

  I went back into the bigger room and looked out over the rows of cots and the young men spread around the room. I hadn’t seen Gabriel for a few years and wasn’t sure I’d recognize him. Turns out, I didn’t have to. A tall guy of about twenty got up and started walking toward me. As soon as he got about ten feet away, he smiled. The teeth.

  Gator.

  He reached out his hand. ‘Yo, Mr D. Thanks for coming.’

  ‘Hey, Gator. I hear you been busy.’

  He looked down at his feet and kicked at an imaginary object. ‘Fucked up,’ he said. ‘I was holding for a friend. And before you say anything, that’s the truth. Gave me a book bag, said he’d be right back and before I knew it, five-oh was pulling up on me.’

  ‘Bad break.’

  ‘I’m thinkin’ maybe I made a bad decision.’

  Ya think? ‘What happened to your friend?’

  ‘Nothin’. More like an associate, my moms would say. I don’t know what I was thinking.’ Before I could answer, he said, ‘I know I wasn’t the best student, Mr D, but even I know not to carry that much weight just after I got home.’

  He was right, but I wasn’t here to help him revisit past mistakes.

  ‘Tio said you have some info you want me to give the detective investigating the murder of MoJo.’ He gave me a blank look. ‘The guy on the roof of my school.’

  Gator’s face turned real serious. He looked around the big room. ‘Let me grab a journal and a book, Mr D. I don’t want the COs or the guys to think we’re not working.’

  ‘You wanna talk in the day room?’ I asked. ‘Or on your cot?’

  He scanned the room again and his eyes stopped on an empty cot away from the other young men. He gestured with his head. ‘Meet me over there. It’s the closest to private we gonna get around here.’

  I did as I was told and Gator joined me in less than two minutes. He’d picked a red journal and a book by an author whose name I did not recognize. The book had a light-skinned black woman in light-blue underwear on its cover. Urban fiction, indeed.

  He opened up the journal and started writing. As he did, he said, ‘You know where I live, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Right across from the school. Corner apartment.’

  ‘OK …’

  ‘Last week, a coupla days before the … whatta ya callit … arrow shooting, I heard some noises from the place above ours. It’s been empty for a few months, and every once in a while, some a the local crackheads sneak into the building and go up there to smoke.’ He wrote some more; it was basically the same stuff he was telling me. Proving one of my educational theories by the way: If you can speak, you can write. ‘I went up to chase them away and some white guy came bustin’ out the door, knockin’ me on my ass.’

  ‘Did you get a good look at him?’

  ‘Nah, it happened with a quickness. That’s a fact. He was wearing a hoodie, a pair of jeans and wraparound sunglasses. Kinda looked like that Unabomber guy.’

  I stayed silent for a while, processing the information. I wasn’t sure what this had to do with … It took me a minute before it hit me. Maybe Gator wasn’t the brightest kid in the math class, but he may have been onto something more important.

  ‘This empty apartment,’ I said. ‘Does it have a view of the school roof?’

  I got the famous Gator grin. ‘Now you feelin’ me, Mr D.’

  This was definitely worth telling Detective Royce about and risking his anger – again – for not following his instructions to mind my own business. I told Gator as much.

  ‘You think you can put in a good word for me with the five-oh?’ He paused. ‘Especially your uncle?’

  ‘I can do that. But I can’t make any promises.’

  ‘I feel ya. Just say some good stuff ’bout me to the right people. I shouldn’t be here, Mr D. I got some things need doin’ on the outside.’

  ‘I hope that doesn’t include getting in your friend’s face. The one who asked you to hold the bag?’

  ‘That’s my bizness,’ Gator said. ‘Gotta do what I gotta do. Know what I’m sayin’?’

  ‘I hear ya, Gator.’ I looked around. ‘I just don’t wanna see you back in here if we’re able to get you out again. You’re too smart to be in a place like this, especially when you know exactly why you’re here.’

  Gator shrugged. He was going to do what he was going to do. Nothing I said was going to change that. That wasn’t just the rules of the street or jail; it also came with being twenty years old.

  As I sat there pondering Gator’s options, I heard the planes taking off and landing at LaGuardia airport, literally less than a half-mile away. It reminded me of the Johnny Cash song where the guy’s in jail for shooting a man in Reno just to watch him die. Whenever he hears that lonesome whistle of the passing trains, he imagines who’s on those trains and where they’re going with those big cigars hanging out of their mouths.

  Is that what goes through the minds of these young men stuck in here for an indefinite period of time? Planes taking off and landing. Where they from? Where they going? Take me with you, anywhere but here. Blow my blues away.

  ‘I got a girl, y’know,’ Gator said, bringing me back to the now.

  ‘Congrats. Is she from the school?’

  ‘From high school. She finished up and now she’s pushing me to get my GED.’

  ‘Sounds like a good influence.’

  ‘She’s also pregnant,’ he said. ‘Told me she wants both the kid’s parents to have high school diplomas. That’s another reason I wanna get outta here and not come back.’

  I stood up. ‘I’ll do what I can do, Gator. I’ll even help when you do get out, if you want. I know a guy runs a GED-prep program. He owes me a favor.’

  ‘That’d be cool, Mr D. First, I gotta get outta here, though.’

  ‘I hear ya. One step at a time. When’s your girlfriend due?’

  ‘End of September. Be good to have my GED and a job by then. Can’t afford to even do a city bullet.’ A city bullet was eight months, six with good behavior.

  ‘Then,’ I said, sticking out my hand, ‘let’s make that happen.’

  ‘I remember you used to say that in math class.’

  ‘See? Some things you learn in school do come in handy in real life.’

  We said our goodbyes and I promised him I’d see what I could do. He looked like most minority kids do when a white guy promised something. But, again, he had come to me. Through Tio.

  I went back into the day room to see what Jess was up to. She had the two young men I’d met earlier reading aloud from a copy of a poem one of them had written since her last visit. It was the ‘Where I’m From’ poem we used in school to prompt kids to write. I remembered the first time I’d taught that to my self-contained class of twelve kids. I read them one I had done:

  I am from green lawns you could not run across

  I am from Bayer aspirin and Clorox bleach

  I am from crucifixes on every floor and church every Sunday

  I am from Fish Sticks Friday and Meatloaf Mondays

  I don’t remember the rest, but you get the idea. It’s a great way to get kids who ‘don’t write poetry’ to write poetry. I liked this program Jess was running; I’d have to look at my schedule and see if I could get more involved. For now, I just observed.

  ‘Did you get what you needed from Gabriel?’ she asked. ‘Gator?’ We were exiting the building and were safely out of earshot of anyone who’d care. The Manhattan skyline was a few miles away to the west, the sun setting behind the tall buildings most of the young men we’d just been with may never even get close to. I was always amazed at the number of kids from the other four boroughs who never went into Manhattan.

  ‘Now I just have to figure out the best way to present what I know to the detective in charge of the case.’

  ‘Can�
�t you just tell him? This information helps his investigation, right?’

  ‘It’s not that simple,’ I said. ‘Detective Royce and I have a bit of a history and sometimes he thinks I help too much.’ I slid into the passenger seat. ‘He’s right.’

  ‘Is what Gator told you enough to help him out?’

  ‘Sounds like it could be, yeah. Again, I have to give that information to Royce in just the right way. If our past is any indication, he’ll be pissed at me for getting involved and then use the info anyway.’

  ‘Are you going to ask your uncle to help?’

  ‘I could, but he feels like Royce does, and the less I involve him, the better.’

  Jess started the car and backed out of the parking spot. ‘I wish I could say I understand, Ray. But I don’t.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘It’s kind of a boy thing. A boy/cop thing.’

  Jess dropped me off at my place about fifteen minutes later.

  We said our goodbyes and she told me to think about getting more involved with her Riker’s program. She held my gaze a bit longer than I would have expected, and I told her I would. Think more about it.

  Before I went upstairs, I called Royce from the street. He didn’t sound surprised to hear from me. I told him what I had learned from Gabriel Ocasio.

  Royce said, ‘And he reached out to you because …’

  ‘No offense, but he has reason not to trust the police, Detective,’ I said. ‘He feels he may have been set up on that possession charge.’

  ‘Which one?’

  I was not going to play that game. ‘The most recent one. Also, he figured if he came to me, I might be able to get my uncle to get him home quicker.’