Walter Dean Myers

by Lockdown (v5)

  They had turned the table so that the long side was facing the door, and I sat in the middle across from Mr. Cintron, an older black dude with silver-white hair, and a really thin white woman who kept messing with the papers in front of her.

  Mr. Pugh had come in with me and he sat in the corner.

  “Maurice, as you know, I’m Frank Cintron,” Mr. Cintron said. “This is Miss Carla Evans and Mr. Alan Shaw.”

  “How do you do?” I said.

  They both nodded.

  “Panel, this is Maurice Anderson,” Mr. Cintron said, looking at me. “He was arrested for stealing prescription pads from a neighborhood physician and selling the pads to a known drug dealer. He pled guilty and was sentenced to a total of thirty-eight months which, under the good time standard, makes him eligible for release after thirty months, two weeks—”

  “That would be eighty percent of his sentence?” the black guy asked.

  “Yes. He’s served twenty-six months, twenty-two at Progress, and his petition today is for an early release, which would reduce his effective time served by four months.”

  “Mr. Anderson, can you tell us in your own words why you deserve to be rewarded with an early release?” the white woman asked.

  “I don’t intend to get into any more trouble,” I said. “I made a mistake but I’ve learned my lesson and I plan to do the right thing and avoid the kinds of people I was dealing with before.”

  “What lesson did you learn?” the black guy asked.

  “Crime doesn’t pay,” I said.

  “If it did pay, would you commit more crimes?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “So what are you going to be doing that’s different than what you were supposed to be doing before you came to Progress?” Miss Evans asked.

  “Work hard in school and maybe get a part-time job after school,” I said.

  “Why didn’t you do that before?” the black guy asked.

  “I didn’t know I was supposed to have a strategy to deal with my situation,” I said. “I was just, like, drifting from day to day. Now I know I need a plan to take care of business.”

  “And what’s your plan?” the woman asked.

  “Just keep to myself,” I said. I felt like I was floating and she was looking at me funny.

  “So you’re promising to do better, but isn’t the truth of the matter that you want to get out and so naturally you would make the kinds of promises that would get you out?” the woman asked. “What would be the difference if we were here the day after you were arrested? Wouldn’t you have promised not to do it again if we let you go?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What have you learned here at Progress that might help you turn your life around?” Mr. Cintron asked.

  Mr. Cintron was opening the door for me and I was going blank. I looked at him and couldn’t think straight, but I knew I had to say something.

  “You know, everybody’s got to survive,” I said. “And if you don’t think about how you’re going to make it, then you just go with whatever is around you. I know I have to invent something, look around and figure out some way to survive that’s not going to get me killed or get me back in the jail system. I think I can find something, because in my heart I know what I want and what I don’t want. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life being locked up or ducking and hiding.”

  “And you didn’t know that before you started stealing—what was it?” The black guy started going through the file.

  “Prescription pads,” I said.

  “You didn’t know that then?”

  “I knew I didn’t want to be locked up,” I said. “I knew that part of it, but what I didn’t know was that you needed a strategy for your life. In here, I see people working their shows and trying to get over the best way they can. One guy I work with at Evergreen—”

  “Maurice is part of our work program,” Mr. Cintron said.

  “He was a prisoner in a Japanese war camp and he was telling me how he survived,” I said. “How he figured out how to live through the war and stuff. You know, some people didn’t make it, and—”

  “What is your plan to ‘make it’?” the black man asked.

  “I don’t have a big plan,” I said. “I’m fifteen and I got to go to school, but I’ll do my best in school and I’ll just live at home and do what I can to stay out of trouble. I know that I might not become great or anything like that, but if something bad does happen to me, I don’t want to be the one to make it happen.”

  “Are you sorry for the crime you committed?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Because you made yourself part of the problem in your community,” she said. “Didn’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And what’s different now, Mr. Anderson?” she asked.

  “What I want to do is to help my little sister go to college,” I said. “I think if I keep my mind on that, just focus in on it, I can keep myself straight.”

  “You were living at home with your parents?” the black guy asked.

  “Fairly dysfunctional situation,” Mr. Cintron said. “Mother has a history of drug abuse.”

  “You saw that abuse at home and you still got involved with illegal drugs?” the black guy asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Has anyone in your family been to college?” Mr. Cintron asked.

  “No, sir, that’s one of the reasons I want to help Icy go to college.”

  “Icy?” The black guy took off his glasses. “Your sister’s name is Icy?”

  “It’s really Isis, like the Egyptian goddess,” I said. “But we call her Icy.”

  I was told to wait outside, and Mr. Pugh went with me.

  “You did real good,” he said. “You don’t look that smart, but you had some good things to say. You see Mr. Cintron nodding his head? He’s going to vote for you.”

  “I hope so.”

  I wasn’t sure. I had come up with some answers, but they didn’t seem all that good to me. It was like they were asking me stuff that only had one right answer, and then when I gave them that right answer they were saying it was the same old stuff. I wanted them to know that I knew it was the same old stuff too. I was going back to the same old block, the same old family, the same old neighborhood. Everybody on the block who was messing with drugs or selling drugs had seen what I had seen. And a lot of them were going to be getting abused, too.

  I had told them about Mr. Hooft’s being in the children’s camp and figuring out a way to survive by thinking about that flower. I wanted to tell them more about how Mr. Hooft and a lot of people really have to struggle just to make it from day to day. And even though we can lay out all the right answers, it doesn’t always help. Maybe I should have told them about Icy’s ideas, about dreaming up your future and then trying to make it happen.

  The buzzer went off and the secretary motioned for me and Mr. Pugh to go back in.

  Mr. Pugh took his place in the corner and I sat down in front of the desk.

  “Mr. Anderson, it’s the view of this panel that although you have shown some insight into your problems, you have also shown some behavior which indicates a lack of control,” the woman said. “You’ve had several fights despite the special attention you’ve been given and the privilege of participating in the work program.

  “We hope over the next four months you continue gaining a knowledge of what you have to do once you’re released and bring that knowledge to bear in avoiding future involvement with the justice system,” she went on. “We think your attitude and behavior are headed in the right direction, but at this time they are not worthy of being rewarded.

  “I think it’s commendable that Mr. Cintron has cast a dissenting vote,” she said. “It shows that in his eyes, you have made considerable improvement. But, as the record clearly shows, you still have problems. Do you have anything you would like to put on the record at this time?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  CHAPTER 34


  “I know this is a disappointment.” Mr. Cintron had called me from the rec room. “But it’s only four months.”

  “No, sir, it’s not just four months. It’s what my life is about,” I said. “People looking at me and hanging my record around my neck. That record is worse than those orange jumpsuits we wear. But it’s okay in a way, because I need some time to figure out where I’m going to be starting from, you know what I mean?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Home might not be where it’s at,” I said. “And everybody is telling me the streets ain’t where it’s at. So I know I got to start with me, but even though I think I know me best—better than that black dude and that woman running her mouth—I don’t know exactly where I’m at. If I was older and could catch a job, I would feel better about my chances, but I’m not older, so ain’t no use in going there.”

  “You sound really discouraged,” Mr. Cintron said.

  “Yeah, but it’s not just about the four months,” I said. “It’s more because my life is definitely on the raggedy side and everything down the road is looking hard.”

  “Reese, you know more than you did when you came in here,” Mr. Cintron said. “You need to use that knowledge to keep yourself away from places like this. I think you’re stronger than when I first met you too. You worked out all right at Evergreen because you controlled yourself and used your intelligence. You keep doing that and you can make it. Don’t give up on yourself.”

  “I won’t, sir. When I was in detention, I didn’t have no choice but to keep to myself. I didn’t have anybody on my case so I didn’t have to throw down, and that was good. I just need to stay away from people who gave up on themselves. I know I’m going to run into some bad stuff, the same way Toon knows what he’s facing. But I’m harder than Toon. I can look at that bad stuff and use it to remind me of what I don’t need in my life.

  “And what I said about Icy going to college? I meant that. I’m going to work on keeping myself correct so I can take care of her. I think I can handle this shit. I really do.”

  “See you in the morning.” Mr. Cintron put his hand out. We shook hands and he stood like it was time for me to leave his office, which I did. I closed the door behind me and I guess he went on dealing with the things in his life, and I started dealing with the things in mine.

  ONE YEAR LATER

  I’ve been out of Progress for almost one year now, and it’s harder than I thought it was going to be. It took a lot to get to the point where I felt good about myself even once in a while. When I first got out, I told myself that I had to think hard before I did anything, no matter how tempting it was or how much it looked like a get over. That didn’t work out too tough, not by itself, because even though it was the answer I knew I was supposed to come up with, it didn’t help when I looked around and didn’t see anything that made me feel different than all the other brothers I saw hanging out on the stoops or getting high in the park.

  The thing was that the streets had their own sense, a different view of what real was all about. I saw people living in that street world and all the time knowing how dangerous it was, how they could slip and fall through a hundred cracks that would leave them either dead or in some lockdown. I knew what was happening on the streets and how to deal with it, and even though I had an idea of what was going down in the outside world, I didn’t know if I could ever really deal with it. But what I could do was keep my mind on Icy and college for her. It wasn’t all I wanted in the world, but it was something to live for and I was cool with it.

  I looked up Toon and he’s not doing so good, but he’s hanging in there too. I told him if he ever thought about hurting himself again he should call me and we could go out for a pizza or something.

  “Pizza is better than dying,” he said, looking down the way he always did.

  Once we went to the park in Brooklyn and played two-on-two basketball and got killed by two Spanish dudes who went to Wadleigh. I was mad, but Toon thought it was the funniest thing that had happened and that lifted me up a little. Toon is all right. A little strange, but all right. I was glad to see him trying to keep himself together. Just looking at us you wouldn’t think about us as being heroic or nothing, but I think sometimes we are.

  Mom is still Mom. She’s about the same, which is better than getting worse. She stumbles through her days, and it’s almost like Icy is the woman of the house. Sometimes she makes me breakfast. Her eggs always stick to the pan, but I still eat them.

  Willis is on Riker’s Island. He says when he gets out he’s going to make a rap CD. He knows in his heart that’s not going to happen, but he’s still running it.

  I work after school at Evergreen, making minimum wage. By the time I buy stuff for school and buy food for me and Icy, the money’s gone, but at least I’m not stealing.

  Right after New Year’s Day, Mr. Hooft died. He hadn’t seemed that sick or anything, but one day he woke up and felt terrible. Simi said he seemed to know that he was going to die.

  “Sometimes people know these things,” she said.

  He left a note with his silver soap dish. It read Reese, keep this for me and do not get into any trouble. Your friend, Pieter.

  Mr. Cintron called once to see how I was. He said that Play was at Bridges in the Bronx and headed for Highland upstate. He said that it made him sad to hear that. I believed him.

  Sometimes at night, Icy comes into the living room where I sleep and sits on the end of the couch and we talk. She tells me about her plans and I tell her mine. I make stuff up for her and sometimes we pretend together. Icy believes in herself big-time, and you can see it when she talks about going to college and becoming a teacher or a lawyer. The longer I stay out of trouble, the more I’m beginning to believe in myself, too. It’s like, okay, something good could happen.

  I know in my heart that my life could still end up in the gutter or in jail. But, like Mr. Cintron said, I know more than I used to, and I’m stronger, too. I know what I got to do for Icy, and I know what I got to do for me, and I’ll do it as long as I can and hope for the good parts.

  About the Author

  WALTER DEAN MYERS is a New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed author who has garnered much respect and admiration for his fiction, nonfiction, and poetry for young people. Winner of the first Michael L. Printz Award, he is considered one of the preeminent writers for children. He lives in Jersey City, New Jersey, with his family.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  ALSO BY WALTER DEAN MYERS

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  ANGEL TO ANGEL:

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  BAD BOY: A MEMOIR

  BROWN ANGELS:

  AN ALBUM OF PICTURES AND VERSE

  THE HARLEM HELLFIGHTERS:

  WHEN PRIDE MET COURAGE

  IDA B. WELLS: LET THE TRUTH BE TOLD

  I’VE SEEN THE PROMISED LAND:

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&n
bsp; Coretta Scott King Author Award

  Credits

  Jacket art © 2010 by Gary S. Chapman/Getty Images

  Jacket design by Tom Forget

  Copyright

  LOCKDOWN. Copyright © 2010 by Walter Dean Myers. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  a cognizant original v5 release november 11 2010

  Myers, Walter Dean, date

  Lockdown / Walter Dean Myers.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Teenage Reese, serving time at a juvenile detention facility, gets a lesson in making it through hard times from an unlikely friend with a harrowing past.

  ISBN 978-0-06-121480-6 (trade bdg.)

  ISBN 978-0-06-121481-3 (lib. bdg.)

  [1. Juvenile delinquents—Fiction. 2. Juvenile detention homes—Fiction. 3. Conduct of life—Fiction. 4. Friendship—Fiction. 5. Self-perception—Fiction. 6. Old age—Fiction. 7. African Americans—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.M992Lo 2010 2009007287

  [Fic]—dc22 CIP

  AC

  EPub Edition © December 2009 ISBN: 978-0-06-196854-9

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