Sleepers

  “What about the warden?” I asked, leaning the mop handle against the rail. “The people on his staff. They’ve got to know what goes on.”

  “But they act like they don’t,” Marlboro said, taking still another drag. “Same as the town folk. Nobody wants to know. What happens to you don’t touch them.”

  “So they dummy up,” I said.

  “That’s the jump,” Marlboro said. “And don’t forget, from where these folks stand, you the bad guys. Nokes and his boys, they ain’t gonna break into people’s homes. Ain’t gonna hold ’em up at gunpoint. You the guys pull that shit. That’s why you here to begin with. So don’t expect no tears. To them that’s free, you belong inside.”

  “You’ve got all the answers,” I said to Marlboro, pushing the water pail farther down the center of the floor.

  “If I did, I wouldn’t need a state check every two weeks,” he said. “I just know what I know.”

  “I’ve got to finish up,” I said, pointing down to the rest of the corridor.

  “And I gotta get me some more cigarettes,” Marlboro said. “That give us both somethin’ to do.”

  He moved away with a wave, a snap to his walk, his baton slapping against the railing bars. A small pattern of crushed cigarette butts lay in the spot where he had stood.

  “You know there’s no smoking on the tiers?” I shouted after him.

  “What they gonna do?” Marlboro turned to face me, a grin soread across his face. “Arrest me?”

  10

  MY HANDS WERE folded behind my head, resting against my pillow, a thin sheet raised to my chin. It was late on a Saturday night, one week after Valentine’s Day. Outside, heavy snow fell, white flakes pounding the thick glass. I was fighting a cold, my nose stuffed, my eyes watery, a wad of toilet paper bunched in my right hand. My throat was raw and it hurt to swallow.

  I thought about my mother, wishing I had a cup of her ricota to take away the aches and chills. She would fill a large pot with water and set it to boil, throw in three sliced apples and lemons, two tea bags, two spoonfuls of honey, and a half-glass of Italian whiskey. She boiled everything down until the contents were just enough to fill a large coffee cup.

  “Put this on,” she would say, handing me the heaviest sweater we owned. “And drink this down. Now. While it’s hot.”

  “Sweat everything right outta you,” my father would say, standing behind her. “Better than penicillin. Cheaper too.”

  I tried to sleep, closing my eyes to the noises coming from outside my cell. I willed myself back to my Hell’s Kitchen apartment, sipping my mother’s witches’ brew, watching her smile when I handed her back an empty cup. But I was too tense and too sick to find rest.

  A number of the inmates, as tough as they acted during the day, would often cry themselves to sleep at night, their wails creeping through the cell walls like ghostly pleas.

  There were other cries too.

  These differed from those filled with fear and loneliness. They were lower and muffled, the sounds of pained anguish, raw cries that begged for escape, for a freedom that never came.

  Those cries can be heard through the thickest walls. They can cut through concrete and skin and reach deep into the dark parts of a lost boy’s soul. They are cries that change the course of a life, that trample innocence and snuff out goodness.

  They are cries that once heard can never be erased from memory.

  On this winter night, those cries belonged to my friend John.

  The darkness of my cell covered me like a mask, my eyes searching the night, waiting for the shouts to die down, praying for morning sun. I sat up in my cot, curled in a corner, wiped sweat from my upper lip, and cleaned my nose with the toilet paper. I shut my eyes and capped both hands over my ears, rocking back and forth, my back slapping against the cold wall behind me.

  The door to my cell swung open, thick light filtering in, outside noise coming in on a wave. Ferguson stood in the doorway, beer bottle in one hand, baton in the other. He had a two-day growth of beard on his face and his thin head of hair looked oily and in need of a wash. His heavy eyelids always gave him a sleepy appearance and the skin around his thin lips was chapped, a small row of pimples forming at the edges.

  “I just fucked your little friend,” he said, his speech slurred, his body swaying.

  He took three steps into the cell.

  I rolled off the cot and stood across from him, my eyes on his, toilet paper still in my hand.

  “Take your clothes off,” Ferguson said, moving the beer bottle to his lips. “Then get back in bed. I wanna play with you for a while.”

  “No,” I said.

  “What was that?” Ferguson asked, taking the bottle away from his face, smiling, his head at half-tilt. “What did you say to me?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m not taking my clothes off and I’m not gettin’ into bed.”

  Ferguson moved closer, his feet sliding across the hard floor.

  “You know what you need?” he said, smile still on his face. “You need a drink. Loosen you up a little. So, have your drink. Then we’ll play.”

  He lifted the beer bottle above my head and emptied it. Streams of cold beer ran down my face and shirt, my mouth and eyes closed to the flow, puddles forming around my feet. Ferguson wiped the beer from my face with the fingers of his hand.

  He put his fingers in his mouth and licked them dry.

  “There’s all kinds of ways to drink beer,” he said, throwing the bottle on my cot. “And there’s all kinds of ways to fuck.”

  Ferguson threw his baton on the cot and watched it land inches from the bottle. He turned back to me and undid the buckle of his belt and lowered the zipper of his pants with one hand.

  He ran the other hand across my face and chest.

  “You’re right,” Ferguson said in a whisper. “You don’t have to take off your clothes, you don’t want to. And you don’t have to get back in your bed.”

  “Please, Ferguson,” I said, my voice barely audible. “Don’t do this.”

  “Don’t do what, sweet thing?” Ferguson asked, his eyes glassy, rubbing my chest harder, bringing his hand lower.

  “Don’t do what you’re doin’,” I said.

  “But I thought you liked it,” Ferguson said. “I thought all you boys liked it.”

  “We don’t,” I said. “We don’t.”

  “That’s too bad,” Ferguson said, his face close to mine, his breath a foul mix of beer and smoke. “’Cause I like it. I like it a lot.”

  Ferguson ran his hand past my chest and up to my face and along my neck, resting it against the back of my head. He moved even closer to me, placing his face on my shoulder.

  “Take my dick out,” Ferguson said.

  I didn’t move, my eyes closed, my feet still, Ferguson’s weight heavy against my body, his breath warm on the sides of my face.

  “C’mon, sweet thing,” Ferguson whispered. “Take it out. I’ll do the rest.”

  I opened my eyes and saw John standing in the doorway.

  He had a makeshift knife in his hand.

  John moved out of the light and into the darkness of the cell. He was naked except for a pair of briefs, stained red with blood, and one sock drooping down the sides of his ankle. He was breathing through his mouth and kept the knife, held to his hand by a rubber guard, flat by his leg.

  “Don’t be afraid, sweet thing,” Ferguson whispered in my ear. “Take it out. It’s ready for you.”

  “I’m not afraid,” I said.

  “Then do it,” Ferguson said.

  “Move out of the light,” I said. “It hurts my eyes.”

  Ferguson lifted his head and grabbed both of my cheeks in his hand, a wild, maniacal smile on his face.

  “You supposed to keep your eyes closed,” he said, moving backward, closer to John, dragging me with him. “Didn’t you know that?”

  We were inches from my cot, my hand close enough to reach the empty beer bottle and the baton. John was by the s
ide of the bed, the knife still against his leg. Ferguson let go of my face, undid his pants, and took two more steps back.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s stop fuckin’ around, sweet thing. It’s time for fun.”

  I eased down to my knees, my head up, looking into Ferguson’s eyes, my hand reaching for the baton to my right.

  “That’s it, sweet thing,” Ferguson said. “And remember, I like it slow. Nice and slow.”

  Ferguson felt the edge of the knife before he heard John’s voice.

  “That’s how I’m gonna let you die, dip shit,” John said. “Nice and slow.”

  “You little punk,” Ferguson said more with surprise than fright. “What the hell you tryin’ to do?”

  “It’s time for me to have a little fun,” John said.

  “I can have you killed for this,” Ferguson said.

  “Then I’ve got nothin’ to lose.”

  I grabbed the baton, jumped to my feet, and held it with both hands. I looked past Ferguson at John, saw something in his eyes that had never been there before.

  “You can’t cut him, Johnny,” I said.

  “Watch me, Shakes,” John said. “Sit down on your cot and watch me.”

  “Go back to your cell,” I said. “Leave him to me.”

  “He’s not gonna get away with it,” John said. “He’s not gonna walk away from what he did to me. What he’s been doin’ to all of us.”

  “He has to get away with it,” I said.

  “Who says?” John asked. “Who the fuck says?”

  “We’re gonna get out of here in a few months,” I whispered slowly. “If you stick him, we aren’t going anywhere.”

  “Listen to your friend, Irish,” Ferguson said. “He’s talkin’ sense here.”

  I braced my legs and shoved the fat end of the baton into the center of Ferguson’s stomach. I watched him flinch from the blow, his lungs hurting for air.

  “Stay outta this, scumbag,” I said. “Or I’ll kill you myself.”

  John moved the knife away from Ferguson’s neck, stepping back, holding the sharp edge of the blade in the palm of his hand. His face was a portrait of hard hate, emptied of its sweet-eyed charm, a resting place for all the torment and abuse he had endured.

  In so many ways he was no longer the John I had known, the John I had grown up with. Wilkinson had done more than beat and abuse him. It had taken him beyond mere humiliation. It had broken him down and pulled him apart. It had ripped into the most gentle heart I had known and emptied it of all feeling. The John Reilly who would turn our clubhouse into a safe haven for lost kittens was gone. The John Reilly who stole fruits and vegetables off supermarket trucks and left them at the apartment door of Mrs. Angela DeSalvo, an elderly invalid with no money and no family, was dead and buried. Replaced by the John Reilly who stood before me now, ready to kill a man and not give it another thought.

  “Let it go, John,” I said. “He’s a piece of shit and he’s not worth it.”

  “Glad to see you got smarts,” Ferguson said, getting his wind back, looking up at me. “I’ll go easy on you in my report.”

  “There won’t be a report,” I said.

  “Fuck you mean, there won’t be a report?” Ferguson said, the drunken slur of his words replaced by a steadfast anger. “You two assaulted a guard. There’s gotta be a report.”

  “Just go, Ferguson,” I said, handing him back his baton. “Fix your pants and get the fuck outta here.”

  “I ain’t leavin’ before Irish over there hands me the knife,” Ferguson said.

  “There isn’t any knife,” I said.

  I walked over to where John was standing, the steel look still on his face, his eyes honed in on Ferguson. I rested my hand against the one holding the knife, knuckles tight around the edge of the blade.

  “It’s okay, Johnny,” I said. “You can let go now. It’s okay.”

  “He’s not gonna touch me again,” John said, the voice no longer that of the boy who cried at the end of sad movies. “You hear me, Shakes? He’s not gonna touch me again.”

  “I hear you,” I said, taking the knife from my Mend’s hand.

  I nudged past Ferguson and walked over to my cot. I lifted the thin mattress and put the knife on top of the springs.

  “Like I said, Ferguson,” I said, turning to face him. “There’s no knife.”

  “I ain’t gonna forget you did this,” Ferguson said, pointing a shaking finger at both me and John. “You two hear me? I ain’t gonna forget this.”

  “It’s a devil’s deal, then,” I said.

  “What the fuck’s that mean?” Ferguson said.

  John explained it to him. “First one to forget dies,” he said.

  11

  THE ENGLISH TEACHER, Fred Carlson, stood before the class, his tie open at the collar, his glasses resting on top of his head, a thick piece of gum lodged in the corner of his mouth. He had his back to the blackboard, hands resting on its edge. He was young, not much past thirty, in his first semester at Wilkinson, paid to pass on the finer points of reading and writing to a class of disinterested inmates.

  “I was expecting to read thirty book reports over the weekend,” Carlson said in a voice that echoed his country home. “There were only six for me to read. Which means I’m missing how many?”

  “This here’s English class,” a kid in the back shouted. “Math’s down the hall.”

  A few inmates laughed out loud, the rest just smirked or continued to stare out the classroom windows at the snow-filled fields below.

  “I’m doing my best,” Carlson said, his manner controlled, his frustration apparent. “I want to help you. You may not believe that or you may not care, but it’s the truth. But I can’t force you to read and I can’t make you write the reports. That’s something only you can do.”

  “Must be easy to read where you live,” an inmate in a thin-cropped Afro said. “Easy to write. It ain’t that easy to do in here.”

  “I’m sure it’s not,” Carlson said. “But you have to find a way. If you expect to get anywhere once you get out of here, you have to find a way.”

  “I gotta try stayin’ alive,” the inmate said. “You got a book that’s gonna teach me that?”

  “No,” Carlson said, stepping away from the blackboard. “I don’t. No one does.”

  “There you go,” the inmate said.

  “Then I’m just wasting your time,” Carlson said. “Is that what you’re saying to me?”

  “You wastin’ everybody’s time,” the inmate said, hand slapping a muscular teenager to his right. “Give it up and keep it home. Ain’t no place for what you got here.”

  Fred Carlson pulled a metal chair from behind the center of the desk and sat down, both hands on his legs, his body rigid, his eyes on the inmate.

  He stayed that way until the whistles sounded the end of the period.

  “See you Friday, teach,” the inmate said on his way out the classroom door. “If you still here.”

  “I’ll see you then,” Carlson said. “If you’re still alive.”

  I was walking down a row behind four other inmates, a black-edged notebook in my hand, a dull pencil hanging in my ear flap.

  “You got a second?” Carlson asked as I passed by his desk.

  “I do something wrong?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head and smiling. “I just want to talk to you.”

  I stood my ground, waiting for the classroom to empty, hands in my pants pockets.

  “You did a great job on your book report,” Carlson said.

  I mumbled a thank-you.

  “How come you were able to find the time to do the work?” Carlson asked with a slight hint of sarcasm. “Aren’t you worried about staying alive?”

  “I worry about it all the time,” I said. “That’s why I read and write. It keeps my mind off it a while.”

  “You really seemed to like the book,” Carlson said. My report had been on The Count of Monte Cristo.


  “It’s my favorite,” I explained. “I like it even more since I been in here.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I told you why in the report,” I said.

  “Tell me again.”

  “He wouldn’t let anybody beat him,” I said. “The Count took what he had to take, beatings, insults, whatever, and learned from it. Then, when the time came for him to do something, he made his move.”

  “You admire that?” Carlson asked, reaching across the desk for a brown leather bag stuffed with books and loose papers.

  “I respect that,” I said.

  “Do you have a copy of the book at home?”

  “No,” I said. “I’ve only got the Classics Illustrated comic. That’s how I first found out about it.”

  “It’s not the same thing,” Carlson said.

  “There’s a librarian in my neighborhood, she knows how much I like the story,” I said. “She makes sure the book’s always around for me. It’s not that big a deal. Not many people look to take it out.”

  Carlson had his head down, rummaging with both hands through his bag.

  “I gotta get goin’, Mr. Carlson,” I said. “Can’t miss morning roll.”

  “One more minute,” Carlson said. “I’ve got something for you.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “This,” Carlson said, a hardbound copy of The Count of Monte Cristo in his hand. “I thought you might like to have it.”

  “To keep?”

  “Yes,” Carlson said.

  “Are you serious?” I asked.

  “Very serious,” Carlson said. “You love a book that much, you should have a copy of your own.”

  “I can’t pay you,” I told him.

  “It’s a gift,” Carlson said. “You’ve received gifts before, haven’t you?”

  “It’s been a while,” I said, opening the book, flipping through its familiar pages.

  “This one’s from me to you,” Carlson said. “My way of saying thanks.”

  “Thanks for what?” I asked.