The facility was run by a warden and his two assistants.
The warden, a disinterested and overweight man in his late fort ies, was more concerned with appearances than the reality of life inside Wilkinson. He lived with his wife and two children in a large house less than a five-minute drive from the main gate. He left his office every afternoon at four and was never at his desk any earlier than ten. His young assistants, who both hoped one day to run facilities of their own, kept similar schedules.
The guards were in charge of the day-to-day operations. They ran the drills, which started with a six A.M. wake-up and a twenty-minute breakfast and ended with a nine-thirty lights-out. Each day was a series of whistles directing us to our next station—classroom, gym, showers, meals, clinic, library, and field work.
Michael, Tommy, John, and I were assigned to the second tier of group C in the third and smallest of the buildings dotting the property. We were each placed in a private twelve-foot cell that came equipped with a cot and a spring mattress, a toilet with no lid, and a sink with only a cold water faucet. The iron door leading into the room had three bars across the center and a slide panel at its base. Above the sink was a small window, its glass entwined with wire, which offered a view of what seemed to me to be an always colorless sky.
We were allowed a shower every three days and were given clean clothes every Friday morning; the dirty laundry was thrown into a hamper wheeled by a white-haired man with a limp. To avoid confusion, our green shirts, white pants, white socks, and dark blue sneakers were stenciled with the first two letters of our last name. Those old enough to shave did so under a guard’s supervision. Beards and mustaches were not permitted. Neither were portable radios or any type of recording device. There was only one television per building and that was usually watched by the guards.
Once a month, a movie was shown in the main hall and all 375 inmates were required to attend.
There were four guards assigned to each floor, with one, in our case Nokes, designated group leader. The three men working with Nokes were named Ferguson, Styler, and Addison. We were never told their first names, nor were we encouraged to ask. None was older than his mid-twenties, and they seemed to be close friends.
Ferguson was tall and angular, with feminine hands and a thin face that quickly betrayed his thoughts. He was the only son of a slain New York State trooper and was on the waiting list for both the New York City and Suffolk County police departments. He had just completed his first year at Wilkinson and was both distrusted a nd disliked by the juveniles. He had a flash temper and a brute strength that went against his physical appearance. “You could see it in him from the first day, from the first time you laid eyes on the guy,” John said. “He had the kind of temper that was either going to kill or going to get him killed. Or both.”
Styler was using his job at Wilkinson to finance his way through law school. He was short but muscular and made as much use of the gym as any of the inmates. On his evening breaks he would do chin-ups on the railing bars, his body dangling over the second level of the tiers, openly daring any juvenile to make a move. Styler was always in a foul mood, brought on by the dual demands of work and school and the frustration of spending time at a job he viewed with contempt. He was a poor kid who looked down on other poor kids. They only reminded him of where he came from and how far he had to go to get away.
Addison was a graduate of a local high school who wanted nothing more than a steady job that paid well, offered good benefits, and a twenty-year pension. He took every civil service test he found out about and was on the waiting list for eight police and fire departments throughout the area. He was the youngest of the guards assigned to us and also the loudest, eager to flex verbal muscles by barking out orders. We had seen many men like him in Hell’s Kitchen. He had little else in life but his mundane job. Off the job, he took a lot of shit; on the job, he shit on everyone.
At first look there were no surprises to Addison. There were no surprises to any of them. But that was a first look, and for once we had no idea what to look for.
I WAS SITTING next to John, our backs up against the gym wall, our legs stretched out, shirts drenched with sweat, watching six black inmates play an intense game of three-on-three basketball. We were only in the middle of our third day at Wilkinson. It already felt like three months.
I watched a muscular teen in full sweats hit a corner jumper, my eyes looking beyond him at the cement walls that kept us prisoners. Nothing that had happened during my first days at the home had helped ease my anxiety. The food was tasteless, the sleeping conditions horrid, and the atmosphere in the yards and classrooms charged. There was always a sense of impending danger, and I just couldn’t envision living a full year of my life in such a way.
As bad as it was for me, it was worse for John. The tight quarters gave weight to his claustrophobia and worsened his asthma attacks. He wasn’t eating and couldn’t drink the milk that was served at every meal, reducing his liquid intake to the tepid water he sipped from playground fountains. His skin was pale, his nose always seemed to be runny, and he looked as frightened as I felt.
“Is this how you Hell’s Kitchen boys spend your days?” It was Nokes. He was standing above us, facing the game, a black baton in his hand. “Watching niggers shoot baskets?”
“We’re takin’ a break,” John said. “That’s all.”
“I decide when you get a break,” Nokes said, a smirk on his face.
It didn’t take long for Sean Nokes to make his presence among us felt. He was one of those men who enjoyed the power he held and who looked to cause trouble at every turn. He was in the middle of his second year at Wilkinson and had been married less than six months. He lived in a two-bedroom third-floor apartment less than a five-mile drive from the home. He sent a small portion of his paycheck to his widowed mother in nearby Rochester and was captain of the guards’ bowling team. He smoked heavily and his breath often smelled of bourbon.
Nokes talked and acted tough, especially around the inmates, but I always got the feeling that on his own, without the back-up guards and the power of his position, he wouldn’t amount to much. In a fair fight, on a Hell’s Kitchen street corner, any one of us could probably take him. I knew Michael would bring him down, maybe even Janet Rivera. But for now we were locked in his house, forced to play according to his rules.
“Get back out there,” Nokes said, pointing an end of the baton toward the crowded courts, “Now.”
I shrugged, turned to John, and said, “One more game won’t kill us.” Then I got up and, as I did, brushed one of my shoulders against the side of Nokes’s uniform.
Nokes, inches behind me, lifted his baton and swung it down hard, against my lower back. The pain was sharp, intense, and numbing. The force brought me to one knee.
Nokes’s second shot landed against the center of my back and was quickly followed by a third, a swing that was hard enough to crack bone. I was down on both knees now, gasping for breath, staring into the eyes of a black teen with a gel Afro. He looked back, still and silent, except for the basketball bouncing at his side.
I heard John scream from behind me. “What are you doing? He didn’t do anything to you!”
“He touched my uniform,” Nokes said calmly. “That’s against institute rules.”
“He didn’t touch you,” John said, his entire body trembling. “And if he did, he didn’t mean it.”
“Stay outta this,” Nokes told him.
“You didn’t have to hit him,” John said, a touch of Hell’s Kitchen to his tone. “Don’t hit him again.”
“Okay.” Nokes’s voice softened, but his eyes stayed hard. “Help him up. Take him back to his cell.” When John hesitated, Nokes said, “Go ahead, pick him up. Don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid,” John told him.
Nokes just smiled.
Back in the cell, John helped ease me down on my bunk and covered my legs with a folded blanket.
“I can’t belie
ve he hit you like that,” John said.
“He’s hit before,” I told him.
“How do you know?”
“While I was down, I looked over at the others. None of them seemed surprised.”
And now I wasn’t either. I understood what Father Bobby had wanted to tell me but couldn’t. I realized the weight of my father’s words. I figured out what was behind all of King Benny’s veiled warnings. They had tried to prepare me, prepare us all. But none of them, not even King Benny, could have envisioned the full extent of the horror we would face.
WE FELT THEIR presence before we heard them. John had lingered, making sure I was all right, delaying his return to the harsher world outside the cell. Somehow, when it was just us, we could make believe that things were fine. But things weren’t fine and would never be again.
Nokes stood in the cell doorway, his arms folded across his chest, a crooked smile on his face. Behind him stood Ferguson, Styler, and Addison, black batons at their sides. Nokes led them into my cell. Addison closed the door behind him. They didn’t say anything except when John, as fearlessly as he could muster, asked them what they wanted.
“You see?” Nokes said with a laugh. “See how tough this Irish punk is?”
Ferguson and Styler moved past Nokes and each grabbed one of John’s arms. Addison instantly went up behind him and wrapped a thick cloth around John’s mouth, knotting it at the back. Nokes stood over me, one of his knees pressed against my chest. I looked away from him, my eyes toward John, both our faces betraying our terror.
“Undo his pants,” Nokes said.
John’s pants slipped down around his ankles, white legs shining under the glare of the outside light.
“Hold him tight,” Addison said to Ferguson and Styler. “I wouldn’t want him to slip and hit his head.”
“We got him,” Ferguson said. “Don’t worry.”
“Okay, Irish,” Nokes said. “Let’s see how tough you really are.”
Addison beat against John’s back, rear, and legs with his baton, the blows causing the skin to swell immediately and my friend’s eyes to well with tears. His back turned beet-red and the thin muscles of his legs bent under the pounding. Each blow brought a low moan from John’s mouth, until the fifth blow caused him to lose consciousness. Still, Addison didn’t stop. He lifted his baton higher and brought it down with even more force, his face gleaming with sweat, his eyes filled with pleasure at the pain he was inflicting. He finally stopped after a dozen shots had found their mark, pausing to wipe rows of sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his shirt. Ferguson and Styler still held John’s arms, all that was keeping him from dropping to the floor.
“Think he’s had enough?” Nokes asked me.
“Yes,” I said, staring up at him.
“Yes what, you guinea fuck.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “I think he’s had enough.”
Nokes and I watched in silence as the trio pulled John’s pants up and undid the gag around his mouth. Then John was dragged out of my cell, back to his.
Nokes walked around my cell, hands behind his back, head down.
“See things my way,” he said to me. “Do things my way. Don’t fight us. And there’ll never be another problem like there was today. If not, you Hell’s Kitchen boys may never get outta here alive. It’s something to think about, isn’t it?”
It was the end of our third day at the Wilkinson Home for Boys.
3
IT WAS NOT a group of innocent young boys at Wilkinson. Most, if not all, of the inmates belonged there.
Our population was composed of the toughest kids from the poorest and most dangerous areas of the state, a number of them riding out their second and third convictions. All were violent offenders. Few seemed sorry about what they had done or appeared on the brink of any rehabilitation.
A few of the inmates enjoyed their stay, viewing it as a break from the pressured street world they inhabited. Others, ourselves included, marked off the days on the walls against our bunks, scratching lines against concrete, much like we had seen actors do in many a prison film.
Most of the convicted were there on assault charges, more than half of them drug-related. Cocaine had just begun to sink its sinister fangs into poor neighborhoods, quickly replacing the more tranquil heroin as the drug of choice among the wayward.
Blacks and Hispanics were the first among the poor to taste the drug’s power, to feel its need and, as a result, their crimes, previously bordering on the petty, had taken a more vicious direction. Unlike their suburban compatriots, they had no parents with crammed wallets who could be counted on when the urge for the powder grew strong. And so they turned to the defenseless to support their habits and desires.
The Italian and Irish poor, in 1967, still found their troubles through drink and bravado. Street fights were quick to turn into vendettas when the cork was out of the bottle. A sizable portion of the white inmates were serving time on assault charges, almost all fueled by booze and revenge. The others were nabbed for foiled attempts at robbery, committed either while drunk or in the company of older men.
My friends and I fell uncomfortably in the middle. We were there on assault charges, caused neither by drunkenness nor anger.
We were there because of pure stupidity.
There were few solid friendships at Wilkinson. A handful of alliances existed, all of them uneasy. Blacks and whites, as in any penal institution, separated themselves by color. Ethnic groups paired off, neighborhood factions looked to stay together, friends on the street tried to cover for each other.
It was the guards’ function to break through the allegiances, to cause dissent, to eliminate any barriers to their own power. Up against a lone individual, the guards easily maintained control. Up against a united group, it would not be so easy.
My friends and I were one of many groups who tried to stick together. That was one reason we were singled out by the guards in our block, Nokes and Styler in particular. They also knew we were an easier problem to solve than other groups, many of which numbered far more than four members. It might be hard, even dangerous, for Nokes and his crew to do battle with the tougher, more seasoned inmates. Keeping those groups in line was merely a part of their job. Recreation came in the form of me and my friends.
We were regarded, from the beginning, as a group that could be toyed with, partly because of our ages, partly because of the simple nature of our crime, and partly because we didn’t belong to an already existing gang. With other inmates, other groups, the guards drew a line and waited for that line to be crossed before they attacked.
With us there never was a line. With us Nokes and his crew could go on the attack at any moment, for any reason.
For us there were never any rules.
Fall 1967
4
IT WAS THE morning of my thirteenth birthday.
Our first month at Wilkinson had passed without further incident. Except for Butter—Tommy—my friends and I had lost a few pounds, due to the quality of the food and our inability to sleep through the night. My father had warned me that the noise inside a prison was, initially, the hardest adjustment, and he was right. The moans and groans, the constant coughs, the occasional screams, the flushing toilets, the music from hidden radios—none of it ceased until sunup.
I was walking in the middle of a line of eight, coming out of a morning match session taught by a sleepy-eyed former drug addict named Greg Simpson. The classes at Wilkinson were, at best, mediocre. Most were overcrowded, often numbering close to forty students, the majority of them as openly bored as the teachers. English and history were still my favorite classes and, while neither of the teachers could hold a torch to Father Bobby, they at least attempted to get some points across. My friends and I welcomed the homework assignments, since they gave us something to do in our cells besides stare at the walls or listen to the constant cries.
We were on the first tier, Michael in front of me, John bringing up the rear, all headi
ng for the Ptomaine Tavern, as the inmates had nicknamed the mess hall.
“Hold the line,” Nokes barked out from my left. “Carcaterra, Sullivan, Reilly, step out. The rest of you, mouths shut and eyes forward.”
We had, ever since the beatings John and I had taken, kept our distance from Nokes and his cohorts. We had withstood their steady barrage of verbal abuse, ignored their nudges, slaps, and taunts. It was certainly our safest play and, as we saw it, probably our only play.
We stood at attention, arms brushing the sides of the iron rail, eyes straight ahead.
Nokes eased his body in alongside mine and, with a broad smile on his face, ordered the three of us back to our cells. He knew it was my birthday and began to tease me about it. He told me his was coming up later in the week and Styler’s was soon after that. I tried to avoid his gaze, his breath coming on me heavy and strong. He looked drunk, his footing unsteady, his face red, eyes slightly glazed. Whatever was going to happen, I knew it wasn’t going to be good.
Nokes stepped away from me and moved toward Michael. He stared at him for a few seconds and then tapped him lightly on the shoulder with the end of his baton, the smile still on his face. He told us he had planned a birthday party, a special celebration we would all enjoy. While Nokes talked, his speech slurred by the booze, a few of the other inmates on line began to giggle.
John and I were too scared to move and had to be pushed along by Nokes. John turned to look at me, his face pale with apprehension. Michael walked with his head down, hands at his sides, powerless to help the friends he had always been there to protect.
We didn’t know what Nokes had in store for us, but we knew enough not to expect a cake, balloons, and party hats. The four of us had been locked inside the walls of Wilkinson long enough to expect nothing but the unimaginable.