The Way Home

EIGHT

For security reasons, doors had been removed in the bathroom stalls, so the boys voided their bowels in full view of the other inmates. It was something Chris had to get used to quickly. Let it bother you, you’d have to hold your shits till you got back in your cell. That wasn’t natural, and no one liked to stink up their rooms.

On the same level of indignity was the morning ritual of group showers. There were no privacy curtains or barriers of any kind, and if someone was modest or ashamed, he had to get over it, that is if he wanted to be clean. The open area was meant to discourage violence, and perhaps it had been a wise idea, as there were rarely serious altercations in the showers. The best Chris could say about the experience was that it was fast. If you lingered in the shower more than a little bit, the tepid water would go cold.

Chris and the other boys did not worry about nonconsensual homosexuality in the showers or anywhere else inside the walls. It was the most dreaded aspect of prison for a boy on the outside looking in, but the truth was, oral and anal rape were extremely rare at Pine Ridge. The boys in juvenile had not yet gone to that level of degradation that occurred in adult male prisons. There were scattered consensual homosexual relations here, but, somewhat surprisingly, it was not an issue of derision among the boys who were straight. They knew who among them had gone that way, but didn’t berate them to their faces or, for the most part, behind their backs. Those boys were just as tough as the other boys, and no one was going out of their way to find a fight.

What took away their dignity was the presence of the guards, who watched the boys shower though a Plexiglas window. The fact that they, fully clothed and outfitted with security gear, could stare at the inmates, naked and completely vulnerable, seemed wrong. Thing of it was, you didn’t know what they were thinking while they were looking at you. Chris was reminded of that one summer when his mother had persuaded his father to vacation with a wealthy neighborhood family, the Rubinos, who had invited them to their house on Martha’s Vineyard. The house was steps away from a nude beach, and from the start, even though the Flynns had been assured that they did not have to “participate,” his father had been annoyed. Many families went naked, including their prepubescent sons and daughters, and there were also grown men on the same beach, naked and alone, and Thomas Flynn said, “Why would a father let his little boy or girl go nude in front of those men? You don’t know what’s going on behind their sun-glasses.” Amanda had said, “Don’t be rude, honey; we’re guests here,” and his dad muttered something about “bored rich people” and left it at that. That was their first and last vacation with the Rubinos. Years later, when Steve Rubino cashed out of his law firm and left his wife and kids for a twenty-two-year-old GW student, Thomas Flynn said, “You know what Rubino was doing up on that beach? He was shopping. I told you that guy wasn’t right.”

Chris smiled, thinking of his old man. They had a word for the way he was. Crum-something. Always complaining but doing it in a funny way.

“What you grinnin on, White Boy?” said Lawrence Newhouse, standing beside Chris in the shower.

Chris shrugged, giving Lawrence nothing.

“Thinkin about your home?” said Lawrence. “Bet you got a nice one. A real nice family, too.”

Chris recognized the mention of his family as some kind of threat, but it had no weight or meaning. For a moment, but only for a moment, he thought, Bughouse is right. But to let himself dwell on what he’d had, and on his mistakes, was not productive. He was here now, and it didn’t matter where he’d come from; he was the same as everyone else inside Pine Ridge. Locked up and low.

“Why you never speak to me, man?” said Lawrence. “You too good?”

Chris did not answer. He stepped out of the spray and reached for a towel smelling of body odor that hung on a plastic knob.

“We gonna talk, Christina, ” said Lawrence.

Chris dried himself off and walked away.

A man who had done time at Lorton, and who had written poetry there and eventually a series of popular street-lit message novels aimed at juveniles, came to speak to the inmates of Pine Ridge late in April. The residents of Unit 5, wearing maroon, and Unit 8, wearing gray, were ushered into the auditorium, having walked from the school building through a cold rain. Many of them were soaked and shivering as they sat in their too-small chairs and half-listened to the speaker, who started his talk with the usual I-came-from-the-same-streets-as-you, I-made-it-and-you-can-too platitudes that went through them faster than the greasy Chinese food they used to eat in the neighborhoods they’d come up in.

Ali Carter and Chris Flynn sat in the row of chairs farthest back in the room. Ali was wearing his glasses, a piece of surgical tape holding them together at the bridge, and a kufi skull cap, finely knitted. The cap was allowed for religious reasons, despite the facility’s no-hat policy. Ali had confessed to Chris that he had been named by his mother after the boxer and held no Muslim beliefs. He wore the skull cap just to mess with the guards, who didn’t like the boys asserting their individuality, and to take a minor victory where he could.

“When I wrote Payback Time, ” said the writer, whose nom de plume was J. Paul Sampson, “I was thinking of young men just like you. Because I was once where you are now, and I understand that revenge is a natural impulse. I understand that you think it’s going to make you feel good.”

“Not as good as gettin a nut,” said Lonnie Wilson from somewhere in the crowd, and a few of the boys laughed.

J. Paul Sampson, immaculate in a custom-tailored suit, plowed on. “But revenge, my young brothers, is a dead-end street.”

Ben Braswell was a row ahead, seated among gray shirts. He was listening to the book writer and nodding his head. In the front row sat Lawrence Newhouse, defiantly slumped in his chair, arms crossed. A half-dozen guards, including Lattimer, and a few teachers, including the school’s earnest, bearded young English teacher, Mr. McNamara, were standing around the perimeter.

“Where I was,” said J. Paul Sampson, “in lockup? It was full of men who felt they’d been disrespected, and because of that, they acted on impulse and got violent. With the passage of time, as the years went by in prison, they couldn’t even tell you why they’d killed. Because what they did was unreasonable. You know what that means, don’t you, gentlemen? There was no reason.”

In one of the rows ahead, a young man in a gray polo shirt had turned his chair slightly so that he could look to the back of the room. His gaze was focused steadily on Ali.

“Why’s that dude eye-fuckin you?” said Chris, keeping his voice low.

“Calvin Cooke,” said Ali, leaning in close to Chris. “Boy’s from Langdon Park, over there off Rhode Island Avenue. It’s a Northeast-Southeast thing. I guess he feel the need to stare.”

“So?”

“He just bein unreasonable,” said Ali with a small smile.

Ali often got singled out for intimidation because of his short stature and, due to his eyeglasses, his studious appearance. Some called him Urkel as he passed. The ones who said nothing had taken note of his big chest.

“I’m here to tell you that the life I have now is better than the one I had,” said J. Paul Sampson. “I made a choice when I got out of prison, and I’m a successful and productive member of society today. You can make the same kind of choice.”

Luther raised his hand. “Do you get paid?”

J. Paul Sampson chuckled nervously. “Yes, of course.”

“Do you get pussy?” said another boy, and the auditorium erupted with laughter. A guard pulled that boy roughly out of his chair and led him from the room.

“Show respect to Mr. Sampson,” said the English teacher, McNamara. “He took valuable time out of his day to come here and talk to you. Listen to what he has to say.”

There were murmurs in the room, and the boys’ posture slackened further.

“I got a question,” said Lattimer, stepping forward from the back of the room. “I knew you were coming to speak, so I read one of your books. You know that one, Brothers in Blood?”

“Yes?”

“The boy in that book is bad, almost all the way through. He’s in a crew, he gives other kids beat downs, he drops out of school. To him, all the authority figures, including the police, is hypocrites and fools. Then in the last chapter, the boy comes to his senses and turns his self around.”

“That’s right. The message is, you can make many mistakes, but it’s never too late to change.”

“See,” said Lattimer, “I kinda figured out what you’re doing. What they call the formula. You’re getting kids all jacked up on one hundred and eighty pages of violence and disrespect, and then you add ten pages of redemption in the end that they not even gonna read. What I’d like to see is a whole book about a kid who doesn’t do any wrong at all. Who stays on the straight even though he may be living in a bad environment, because that’s the right thing to do. Because he knows the consequences of being wrong.”

Scattered mumblings came from the crowd: “You stupid, Shawshank,” and “Why you got to talk?” and “Sit down, Mr. Huxtable.”

“I try to tell the truth, sir,” said the author amiably. “My books reflect the reality of the street.”

“A little more respect for authority is all I’m looking for,” said Lattimer. “That’s what these boys need to read about and learn.”

“I appreciate your comments.”

“Got to give Shawshank credit,” said Ali, staring at the boy from Langdon Park, who was still staring at him. “Man believe what he believe, and you can’t move him off it.”

“Shawshank’s a rock,” said Chris.

Luther raised his hand. “Can I be a book writer, too?”

“You can be whatever you want to be,” said J. Paul Sampson. “If there’s one thing I want you gentlemen to take away from this today, it’s that.”

“I want to be one now,” said Luther.

“It’s a goal to strive for,” said J. Paul Sampson, exasperation replacing the fading brightness in his eyes. “But it takes time. Like anything worth having, you need to work for it. Being an author is like having any other job.”

“I don’t want no job,” said Luther. “ Fuck that.”

Lawrence Newhouse had been put on heavier meds, rumored to be in the lithium family, and when his behavior improved it became contagious. Unit 5 was more peaceful when Lawrence was subdued, and at times the atmosphere was nearly congenial. There were arguments, but the fire in them died quickly, and people laughed at Luther’s dumb jokes and listened patiently to Lonnie Wilson’s boasts and three-way fantasies though they had heard them many times before.

Ali and Chris were in the common room one night, Chris sprawled out on the couch. A guard was nearby, but he was sleeping. Many of the boys from the unit were in media, watching television, Joneing on one another, cackling at whatever was onscreen, debating whether the male actors were real or soft, talking about the girl actors and what they’d do to them if they had the chance. Someone was riffing on an actress, twisting her name, predictably, into something obscene, and Ben Braswell was laughing. Also laughing, in baritone, was Scott, the big guard.

“You high?” said Ali, putting the book he was reading down on the floor beside the ripped fake-leather chair where he sat.

“Nah,” said Chris. “Just chillin.”

“You look like you’re high.”

“I’m not.”

“ ’Cause you need to stop doin that shit.”

“I been stopped,” said Chris.

“You know they gonna make you drop a urine. And you got that level meeting comin up. Ben does, too.”

“I haven’t given Ben any weed,” said Chris. “Not for a while.”

“That’s good. Ben needs to drop a positive so he can get out this piece. Just like you do.”

“Ben gets out,” said Chris, “he’s just gonna steal a car again and come right back in. That’s who he is.”

“Ben wants y’all to think that. He tells everyone how he was born to hot-wire, how he loves to get behind the wheel of a vehicle, how he can’t stop himself, all that. Truth is, it’s a crime he can do where he doesn’t have to hurt no one. All he wants is to get his self put back inside these walls.”

“Why would he want that?”

“Because this is the only place where he feels right. I’m not talkin about that three-hots-and-a-cot bullshit you hear all the time. You notice nobody ever comes to visit him? I mean, we all got some one, right? Ben got nobody. His crackhead mother died young and then he got moved to foster homes, and everywhere he lived was shit. In here, at least he got friends. In the classroom, he listens, even though he doesn’t understand half the stuff the teachers be sayin, and you know he can’t read. The fact that anyone notices that boy or calls him by his name is good to him. Bad as it is, this here is his home.”

“He can’t stay, though.”

“No,” said Ali. “Neither can you. Won’t be long before I’m out, too.”

“You’re always saying how I don’t belong here-”

“You don’t.”

“What about you? How’d someone smart like you fuck up so bad?”

“Which time?” said Ali.

“I hear you,” said Chris, thinking on his many mistakes, how he’d piled them on top of one another without consideration or even a glancing thought.

“The last time, though,” said Ali, shaking his head, “with my uncle? That’s what got me put away.”

“Talkin about the armed-robbery thing.”

“Yeah. My mom’s half brother, he ain’t but five years older than me. He’s ignorant and weak, I see it now, but me bein a dumb-ass kid, I looked up to him at the time. He was more like a father to me than an uncle. I’m sayin, when he put his eyes on me, I wanted him to see a man. So when he asked me to come along with him, and told me I had to hold the gun and do the thing, on account of I didn’t know how to drive the car, I did it. You think I’m smart and maybe I am. But I wasn’t smart that day.”

“So now you got yourself a Pine Ridge education. You learned.”

“Not the way they wanted, though. They tryin to break us down to nothing, so we can get reborn. But all their commands and speeches don’t mean shit to me. I learned on my own. I’m not what they think I am and I’m not gonna be what they expect me to be. Once I’m out, I’m not coming back, but not because of anything they did to me in here. I’m gonna be right because I want to be.” Ali jabbed a finger at his own chest. “For me.”

“Nuff ’a that high-and-mighty talk,” said the guard, who had awakened. “You boys need to get to bed.”

Later, in his cell, Chris lay atop his scratchy wool blanket with his forearm covering his eyes. The unit grew dead quiet as one by one the boys fell asleep. Chris was not tired. His head was full of contemplation and, for once, regret. He sat up on the edge of his cot.

Chris stood and went to the wall where he’d taped Taylor Dugan’s drawing. He looked at his image, shirtless, eyebrow arched, mouth in a bold smile, his hand holding a beer, and it did not make him feel proud or amused.

Bad Chris. He was not sure who he was, but he was certain that he was no longer the boy in the drawing. Nor did he wish to be.

Chris peeled the paper off the wall, ripped it apart, and dropped the pieces in the trash. He went back to bed and fell asleep.