Sleepers

ONE

I had been in my cell for less than an hour when the panic set in. To fight it, I closed my eyes and thought of home, of the neighborhood, of the streets where I played and of the people I knew. I imagined a hydrant spreading its cold spray over my face, felt the stitches of a baseball in my hand, heard soft music floating off a rooftop. I wasn't yet thirteen years old and I wanted to be in those places, back where I belonged. I wanted everything to be the way it was before the hot dog cart. I wanted to be in Hell's Kitchen and not in a place with cold walls and a tiny cot. A place where I was too afraid to move.

It was dark and I was hungry, the dank air heavy with the smell of cleaning fluids. I didn't like tight places or dark rooms and my cell was both. Its walls were cracked and peeling, a torn photo of James Dean taped to one. I hated to be alone, to be without books to read or baseball cards to sort through, forced to stare at a thick iron door that was locked from the outside. The steady rumbling sounds that came out of the other cells were difficult to ignore, making me long for those peaceful hours when I would sit in Sacred Heart church and find solace in its silence.

It doesn't take very long to know how tough a person you are or how strong you can be. I knew from my first day at Wilkinson that I was neither tough nor strong. It only takes a moment for the fear to find its way, to seep through the carefully constructed armor. Once it does, it finds a permanent place. It is as true for a hardened criminal as it is for a young boy.

The first guard I met inside Wilkinson was Sean Nokes, who was then twenty-five years old. He stood inside my cell, his legs pressed close together, a black baton cupped in both hands. He had a thick ruddy face and close-cropped blond hair and he wore sharply-creased brown slacks, thick-soled black shoes and a starched white button-down shirt with a black name tag clipped to the front pocket. His eyes were cold, his voice deep.

'Toss your old clothes to the floor,' were the first words he said to me.

'Here?'

'If you're expecting a dressing room, forget it. We don't have any. So lose the clothes.'

'In front of you?' I asked.

A smile cracked the side of Nokes's face. 'For the time you're here, day or night, you do everything in front of someone. Piss, shit, shower, brush your teeth, play with yourself, write letters home. Whatever. Somebody's gonna be looking. Most times, that somebody's gonna be me?

I tossed my shirt to the floor, unzipped my pants and let them drop past my knees. I stepped out of the pants, kicked them aside and, wearing only my white cotton briefs, white socks with holes in both heels and a laceless pair of Keds, looked back up at Nokes.

'Everything' Nokes said, still standing in stiff military posture. 'Here on, the only clothes you wear are state issued.'

'You want me to stand here naked?' I asked.

'Now you're catching on. I knew you Hell's Kitchen boys couldn't be as dumb as people say.'

I took off my underwear, kicked off my sneakers and balled up the white socks, dropping them all on the pile beside me. I stood there naked and embarrassed.

'Now what?'

'Get dressed,' Nokes said, nodding his head toward the clothes that had been left on my cot. 'Assembly's in fifteen minutes. That's when you'll meet the other boys.'

'Are my friends on this floor?' I asked, taking two steps toward the cot and reaching for a folded green T-shirt.

'Friends?' Nokes said turning away. 'You got a lot to learn, little boy. Nobody's got friends in this place. That's something you best not forget.'

The bus ride up to the Wilkinson Home for Boys had taken more than three hours, including two stops for gas and a short bathroom break. Lunch was eaten on board: soggy butter sandwiches on white bread, lukewarm containers of apple juice and Oh! Henry candy bars. Outside the temperature topped ninety degrees. Inside, it was even hotter. The old air conditioner hissed warm air and half the windows were sealed shut, dust lines smearing their chipped panes.

The bus was old, narrow and dirty, painted slate gray inside and out. Half the thirty-six seats were taken up by boys younger than I was; none was older than sixteen. There were three guards along for the ride, one in the front next to the driver and two in the back sharing a pack of smokes and a skin magazine. Each guard had a long black nightstick and a can of mace looped inside his belt. The guard up front had a small handgun shoved inside the front band of his pants.

Four of the boys were black, two looked to be Hispanic and the rest were white. We sat alone, occupying every other seat, our feet chained to a thin, iron bar that stretched the length of the bus. Our hands were free and we were allowed to speak, but most seemed content to stare out at the passing countryside. For many, it was their first trip beyond New York City borders.

Michael sat two rows ahead of me and John and Tommy were close behind to my left.

'This is like the bus Doug McClure drove in The Longest Hundred Miles? John said to a pock-marked teen across the aisle. 'Don't you think?'

'Who the fuck is Doug McClure?' the kid said. 'Not important,' John said, turning his attention back to the sloping hills of upstate New York.

Earlier that morning, we had said our goodbyes to relatives and friends outside the courtroom across from Foley Square. My father hugged and held me until one of the guards told him it was time for us to go.

'Treat him right,' my father told the guard.

'Don't worry,' he answered. 'He'll be okay. Now, please, step away.'

I walked from my father and into a line forming near the bus. The crowd around us drew closer, older hands reaching out for a final touch, mothers crying softly, fathers bowing their heads in angry silence. I saw John's mother lay a strand of rosary beads over his head, her knees buckling from emotion. Michael and Tommy stood behind me on the line, their eyes staring at empty spaces; there was no one there to see them off.

I looked to my left and saw Father Bobby standing next to an open-air parking lot, his back pressing a light pole. I nodded in his direction and tried but couldn't bring myself to smile. I watched as he flicked his cigarette to the sidewalk and walked toward the bus.

I wished he wasn't there. I wished none of them were there. I didn't want anyone, let alone people I cared about, to see me get on a bus that was going to take me to a place I could only think of as a jail. Father Bobby especially. I felt I had let him down, betrayed his trust in me. He tried to help us as much as he could – sent a stream of letters to the Judge, hoping to get the charges dropped or reduced; argued to have us assigned to another institution; begged to have us placed in his custody. None of it worked and now he was left with only prayer.

He stood across from me, his eyes saddened, his strong body sagging.

'Will you write to me?' he asked.

I wanted so much to cry, to put my arms around him and hold him as close as I had held my father. I fought back the tears and tried to swallow, my mouth dirt dry.

'Don't worry,' I managed to say. 'You'll hear from me.'

'It'll mean a lot,' Father Bobby said, his voice as choked and cracked as mine.

He stared at me with wet eyes. Years later I would realize what that look contained, the warnings he wished he could utter. But, he couldn't tell me. He didn't dare risk making me even more frightened. It took all the strength he had not to grab me, to grab all of us, and run from the steps of that bus. Run as far and as fast as we could. Run until we were all free.

'Would you do me a favor?' I asked him.

'Name it.'

'Check on my mother and father,' I said. 'These last few weeks, they look ready to kill each other.'

'I will,' Father Bobby said.

'And no matter what you hear, tell 'em I'm doin' okay,' I said.

'You want me to lie?' Father Bobby said, a smile breaking through the sadness, one hand on my shoulder.

'It's a good lie, Father,' I said. 'You can do it.'

Father Bobby moved from the bus and watched as I boarded, his eyes scanning the faces of the other boys already in their seats. He pulled another cigarette from his shirt pocket and lit it, inhaling deeply. He then went over to my father and stood by his side until the bus closed its doors and pulled away from the curb. Then the two men – one a priest, the other an ex-con – walked with heads down and hands inside their pockets toward a nearby subway station for the ride back to the only place either one ever trusted.

TWO

The Wilkinson Home for Boys held 375 youthful offenders, housed in five separate units spread across seven well-tended acres. It had two large gyms, a football field, a quarter-mile oval track and one chapel suitable for all religions.

From the outside, the facility resembled what those who ran it most wanted it to resemble – a secluded private school. One hundred guards were on hand to monitor the inmates. The majority were local recruits only a few years older than their oldest charges. For them, this was a way-stop on a path to other jobs in law enforcement or government. A two-year tour of duty at Wilkinson, which was the average stay for most guards, always looked good on a resume.

The teachers, groundskeepers, handymen, cooks and maintenance crews were also local hires. This served the dual function of keeping labor costs low and secrecy high. No one was going to do damage to one of the largest employers in the area, regardless of what they might see or hear.

The facility was run by a warden and his two assistants.

The warden, a disinterested and overweight man in his late forties, 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 intwined 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 moustaches 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 and 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's 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 knees 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' 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' 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' 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 believe 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 from 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.

THREE

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 he 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 sizeable 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 streets 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.

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 sun-up.

I was walking in the middle of a line of eight, coming out of a morning math 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 heading for the Tomaine 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 side, 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.

I walked into my cell, Michael still in front of me, and found Styler, Ferguson and Addison sitting on my bunk, two of them smoking cigarettes. In the corner, wedged in between the bowl and sink, Tommy stood at attention.

Ferguson had his shirt off and kept his back against the wall. He patted Addison on the shoulder and winked, eager for the fun to begin. Ferguson seldom initiated any of the acts against us, but once they began he joined in with a viciousness that belied his size and demeanor. He fancied himself a comic and was known to slap and kick inmates until they laughed aloud at one of his stories.

I looked around the room, heard the door behind me slam shut and watched Addison, Styler and Nokes undo their shirts. My body was wet with sweat and I felt weak enough to faint. I saw Michael open and close his fists and Tommy shut his eyes to all movement. I heard John start to wheeze, his breath coming in small bursts.

Nokes pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket and asked me if I liked surprises. When I answered no, they all shared a long, loud laugh. Ferguson came off the cot and rubbed the palm of his hand across my face as he asked how old I now was.

'Thirteen,' I said.

Addison pointed a finger in Tommy's direction and ordered him to turn and face the wall. Tommy, moving slowly, did as he was told.

Ferguson moved away from me and ordered both John and Michael to do the same. They walked to the wall furthest from the bunk and turned their faces to it.

Nokes, cigarette dangling from his mouth, tossed one arm casually over my shoulders. Addison put out his cigarette and checked his watch, moving back, closer to my bunk, leaving Nokes with all the free room he wanted.

My eyelids moved like shutters, trying to block out the droplets of sweat falling into them. My voice cracked from fear and nerves. 'What do you want?' I managed to ask.

'A blow job,' Nokes said.

I don't remember much more about that day. I remember being forced down to my knees, closing my eyes, my consciousness, to all but the laughter and jeers. I remember Nokes' sweaty hands holding the back of my head. I remember feeling numb and wishing they would kill me before the night was over.

I never spoke to my friends about it, nor did they ever mention it to me. We tried as best we could to annihilate those moments – which occurred with dulling regularity after that birthday morning – as deep inside ourselves as possible. To this day, no clear picture of the sexual abuse we endured at the Wilkinson Home for Boys has surfaced in my mind. I have buried it as deep as it can possibly go. But it is there and it will always be there, no matter how hard I work at blocking it out. It occasionally surfaces, not during my most violent nightmares, of which there have been many, but in softer moments. It will show itself across more innocent images – a glimpse of a uniform, the sounds of a man's laugh, a darkened room, the clanging of a fence. It lasts for the briefest of seconds. Just long enough to once more send a chill.

The details of those forced sexual encounters have been relegated to a series of stop-action blurs.

I see hands slap bare skin. I see pants torn and shirts ripped apart. I feel hot breath against my neck and strong legs wrapped around mine. I hear groans and frenzied laughter, my back and neck wet from another man's sweat and spit. I smell cigarette smoke and hear mute talk once it's over, the jokes, the comments, the promises to return.

In those blurry visions I am always alone and crying out against the pain, the shame and the empty feeling the abuse of a body leaves in the tracks of the mind. I am held in place by men I hate, helpless to fight back, held by fear and the dark end of a guard's baton.

What I remember most clearly from that chilly October day was that it was my thirteenth birthday and the end of my childhood.

FOUR

I was walking next to Michael in the outfield of Wilkinson Park, facing empty wooden stands. It was nearing Thanksgiving and the weather was taking a cold turn. We wore thin pea-green jackets above our prison issues, hands shoved inside the pockets of our pants.

We had been inside Wilkinson for two months. Ten months of our sentences remained. In that short span of time, the guards at Wilkinson had beaten our bodies and had weakened our minds. All that was left was the strength of our spirit and I knew it wouldn't take much longer for that last part to go.

I began to think I might never make it out of Wilkinson, that my life would end within its walls. There were plenty of rumors floating around about inmates found dead in their bunks or in the shower stalls. I didn't know how many of those rumors were true and I didn't care to know. All that mattered to me was that I was being broken down by a system built to break people like me. I slept less than two hours a night and ate no more of the food than I needed. I had lost interest in most things and went through the routine of my day with shuttered eyes, closed to as much around me as possible.

It seemed even worse for my friends. I looked over at Michael, his face tired and worn, his movements slow and tentative, humbled by the beatings and the surroundings. His passion seemed dissolved, his strength sheared. All that was left beneath the sunken eyes and beat-up body was his pride and his concern for our collective safety. I hoped it would be enough to get him through.

John's condition was even worse. He was sickly to begin with and the constant beatings and rapes combined with the lack of food he could eat had reduced his body to a withered state. He spent more time in the infirmary than he did in class or in the exercise yard. He spoke in a low, raspy voice and was losing that sharp edge of humor that had always sustained him.

Butter looked the same on the outside, his body weight holding steady, his manner seemingly unaffected. But his eyes were lifeless, stripped of any vibrancy, emptied of their spark. He was cold and distant now, his emotions locked, his responses monosyllabic. It was a survival method, the only way he could think of to make it through one more day.

Each of the guards had chosen one of us as a regular target, tagged us as his own personal pet. In my case, it was Addison. He would call on me to run his errands and even had me wash his car once a week. His hatred of me knew no barriers, his abuse no gates. He would spend hours telling me how easy my life was compared to his, how I was lucky to have a father who cared about me and a mother who didn't sleep around. He told me I should appreciate having grown up in New York City and been able to see all the things he could never afford to see. He told me I was lucky to have a friend like him in a place like Wilkinson.

Ferguson had it in for John, whose very presence would set off the guard's explosive temper. He would kick John as he walked by or hit him on the back of the head with his baton. Often the abuse would be rougher, its ugly results visible the next morning when John walked the yard with swollen eyes or puffy lips. Ferguson had a villain's heart and enjoyed whipping the weakest member of our pack. I always felt it was because he was weak himself, constantly ridiculed by Nokes and Styler. He couldn't lash out at them, so he sought an easier target. He found that target in John Reilly.

Styler claimed Tommy as his personal property. He forced him to carry his free weights around the yard and left a pair of shoes outside his cell every night to be shined by morning. He slapped and verbally abused him at will, a muscular man lording his advantage over a chubby boy. Tommy's presence set off in Styler too many reminders of his own impoverished childhood. He thought himself better than Tommy, constantly berating him over the most minor of infractions. He never let a day pass without attacking him in some form.

While Nokes abused us all, he took his greatest pleasure from beating Michael. He saw it as a match between two group leaders and always made sure that the rest of us were aware of his numerous assaults. He relished the cruelty he showered on Michael, forcing him to wipe up puddles of urine and wash the soiled clothes of other inmates. He ordered him to run laps around the playground track late into the night and then would wake him before the morning bell. He would slap and kick him randomly and trip him from behind while he walked the lunch line. It was all meant to make Michael beg him to stop, beg Nokes to leave him alone. But through it all, Michael Sullivan never spoke a word.

All four of the guards used sex as one more vicious tool in their arsenal. The repeated rapes were not only the ultimate form of humiliation, but the strongest method of control the guards could wield. The very threat of a rape kept us frightened of them all the time, never knowing when the door to the cell would swing open, always wondering when we would be pulled from a line.

We weren't the first group that Nokes and his crew treated with such levels of inhumanity and they weren't the only guards to abuse inmates. All across Wilkinson, young boys were left to the control of out-of-control guards. And the cruelty was all in the open, done without fear of reprisals. No one spoke out against the abuse and no one reported it. The guards who did nothing other than maintain order in Wilkinson could ill afford to bring attention to the situation; to do so might cost them their own jobs. The support personnel were in similar positions. The warden and his assistants were blind to what went on, at ease with the pretense that they fulfilled a necessary function by keeping kids like us off the streets. In truth, they were probably right in their thinking. After all, not many in town would waste time worrying about the well-being of juvenile offenders.

The town that surrounded Wilkinson was small and weathered. Most of the houses had been built around the turn of the century. There was nothing in the way of industry other than a few parcels of farmland, two dairies and a large plastics factory that employed nearly half of the 4,000 population. The townsfolk were friendly, the police department was small and honest and the high school football team was said to be one of the best in the county. There wasn't much money, but there wasn't much to spend it on, either. Church bells rang loud and clear on Sunday mornings and pork picnics were summer weekend staples. The citizens voted Republican every November and kept to themselves year-round. They would seem to have little time or patience for the concerns of boys sent to their town to live behind locked doors.

I stopped walking and stood looking around the fields, a group of inmates to my left playing football, a smaller group to my right huddled in a circle, talking in whispers and hand signals. The wind was blowing cold, the overhead sky dark with thick clouds that buried the autumn sun in shadow.

There were fifteen more minutes to go on our break. I left Michael to finish his walk and headed toward the library. We all needed to find a place of solace and I found mine in the pages of John's favorite book, The Count of Monte Cristo. I read and reread the novel, sifting through the dark moments of Edmond Dantes' unjust imprisonment, smiling when he eventually made his escape and walked from the prison where he had been condemned to live out his life. Then, I would put down the book and say a prayer, looking toward the day when I could walk out of Wilkinson.

FIVE

Visitors were allowed into Wilkinson on rotating weekend mornings, for a maximum of one hour. Only one visitor per inmate was permitted.

Early into my stay, I had written and asked my father not to come, explaining how it would make it harder for me to do time seeing him or my mother. I couldn't look at my father and have him see on my face all that had happened to me. It would have been too much for either one of us. Michael had done the same with the interested members of his family. Tommy's mother could never get it together to visit, satisfied with the occasional letter he sent telling her all was well. John's mother came up once a month, her eyes always brimming with tears, too distraught to notice her son's skeletal condition.

No one could stop Father Bobby from visiting.

News of his Saturday arrival was always presented with a stern warning, delivered by Nokes, to keep the conversation on a happy note. He warned us not to tell Father Bobby anything and that if we did, reprisals would be severe. He assured us that we belonged to him now and that no one, especially some priest from a poor parish, could be of any help to us.

Father Bobby was sitting on a fold-out chair in the center of the large visitors' room. He had placed his black jacket over the back of the chair and kept his hands on his lap. He was wearing a short-sleeved black shirt with Roman collar, black pants and a shiny pair of black loafers. His face was tense and his eyes looked straight at me as I walked toward him, not able to hide their shock at what he saw.

'You lost some pounds,' he said, a trace of anger in his voice.

'It's not exactly home cooking,' I said, sitting down across from him, at the long table.

Father Bobby nodded and reached out his hands to touch mine. He told me I looked tired and wondered if I was getting the sleep I needed. He asked about my friends and told me he was scheduled to see each of them later in the day.

I didn't speak much. I wanted to tell him so many things, but I knew I couldn't. I was afraid of what Nokes and his crew would do if they found out. I was also ashamed. I didn't want him to know what was being done to me. I didn't want anybody to know. I loved Father Bobby, but right now, I couldn't stand to look at him. I was afraid that he would be able to see right through me, see past the fear and the shame, right through to the truth.

'Shakes, is there anything you want to tell me?' Father Bobby asked, moving his chair closer to the table. 'Anything at all?'

'You shouldn't come here anymore. I appreciate it. But it's not a good thing for you to do.'

I looked at him and was reminded of everything I missed, everything I couldn't have anymore. I needed to keep those thoughts out of my mind if I expected to survive. I couldn't fight through those feelings with every visit. If I was going to come out of Wilkinson, I was going to have to come out of it alone.

Father Bobby sat back in his chair, then pulled out a Marlboro and lit it with a butane. He blew a line of smoke toward the chipped ceiling, gazing over my right shoulder at a guard standing at rest. 'I stopped over at Attica on my way up here,' he told me. 'To see an old friend of mine.'

'You have any friends not in jail?' I asked.

'Not as many as I'd like,' he answered, smiling, cigarette still in his mouth.

'What's he in for?' I asked.

'Triple murder,' Father Bobby said. 'He killed three men in cold blood fifteen years ago.'

'He a good friend?'

'He's my best friend,' Father Bobby said. 'We grew up together. We were close. Like you and the guys.'

Father Bobby took a deep drag on his cigarette and exhaled slowly. I knew he had been a troubled teenager, a street brawler with a bad temper who was always being dragged in by the cops. I felt that was part of the reason he went to bat for us. But it wasn't until this moment that I knew he had served time in Wilkinson.

'We were both sent up here,' Father Bobby said, his voice lower, his eyes centered on me. 'It wasn't easy, just like it's not easy for you and the guys. This place killed my friend. It killed him on the inside. It made him hard. Made him not care.'

I stared away from him, fighting off the urge to cry, grateful that there was one person who cared about me, cared about us, who knew what we were going through and who understood and would respect our need for silence. It was not surprising to me that the person would turn out to be Father Bobby.

It was also a comfort to know it hadn't killed or weakened him, but that somehow, in some way, Father Bobby found the courage to take what happened and place it behind him. I knew now that if I could get out of Wilkinson in one piece I had a chance to live with what happened. Maybe I would never be able to forget it, just like I was sure Father Bobby had visions of his own hell every day. But I might be able to live my life in step with those painful memories. Maybe my friends could too. All we needed was to find the same strength that Father Bobby found.

'Don't let this place kill you, Shakes,' he told me, the bottom of his hands squeezing the tops of mine. 'Don't let it make you think you're tougher than you are.'

'Why?' I asked. 'So I can come out and be a priest?'

'God, no,' Father Bobby said with a laugh. 'The church doesn't need another priest who lifts from the poor box.'

'Then why?' I asked.

His voice softened. 'The road only leads back to this place. And it's a road that will kill you. From the inside out. Just like it did my friend.'

Father Bobby stood up from his chair, reached his arms out and gave me a long, slow hug. I didn't want to let him go. I never felt as close to anyone as I felt to him at that moment. I was so thankful for what he had told me, relieved that my burden and that of my friends could be placed, if we needed to, on his sturdy shoulders.

I finally let go and took three steps back, watching him put on his jacket and button it, a Yankee cap folded in his right hand.

'I'll see you in the Kitchen,' I said.

'I'm counting on it, Shakes,' Father Bobby said before turning away and nodding for the guard to open the iron door leading out.

SIX

Once a year, in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the Wilkinson Home for Boys sponsored a touch football game. Local residents were invited to huddle in the bleachers surrounding the football field, at a price of two dollars a ticket, with the money going back to the town. Children under ten were allowed in free.

But it was never about football. It was about the process of breaking down an inmate. First, the body was taken, ripped apart as if it were a tackle dummy, toyed with as if it were a stage prop. Next a young man's mind was molested, hounded until all he saw was a guard's face, all he heard was a prison whistle, all he feared was to break an unknown rule. Then, to complete the process, the guards would parade their creations onto a football field in front of the good people of a small town and play a game against them. A game they were too sick, too beaten up, too mentally ruined to compete in. All this to show off the perfect picture of a perfect institution.

The breakdown didn't work with all the inmates. But it worked with enough of them to keep the portrait intact.

The guards assembled their team much in advance, practiced as often as four times a week and had full use of the fields. The inmates' team was chosen the Monday before the game, eleven reluctant players selected randomly from the various ethnic groups, placed together and told to play as a unit. They were allowed one two-hour practice, held under strict supervision. It wasn't meant, in any way, to be a fair or equal match. It was just another chance for the guards to beat up on the inmates, this time in front of a paying crowd. And the way those games were played, you didn't need a ref; you needed a doctor.

Nokes was captain of the guards' team during my months at Wilkinson. Addison, Ferguson and Styler were players. My friends and I knew, without having to wait for a roster sheet, that we would be chosen for the inmates' team. Even Tommy, who had a badly swollen left ankle, the result of a recent battering he received from Styler. The guards were on our case for days, talking football, asking if we played it in Hell's Kitchen, asking who our favorite players were. It was just their way of telling us to get ready for another beating.

We were twenty minutes into practice, surrounded by guards on the four corners of the field, when I was tackled from behind by a black kid with braces and wine-barrel arms. My face was pushed into the dirt, grass covering my nose and chin. I turned my head and stared at him.

'It's touch football,' I muttered.

'I touch hard,' he said.

'Save it for the guards,' I told him. 'I'm on your side.'

'Don't need nobody on my side,' he mumbled, moving back to the huddle.

'It's not bad enough that the guards are gonna hand us our ass,' I said, walking with Michael. 'We've got these losers thinking they're the Green Bay Packers.'

'What's the point of even having a practice?' John said, coming up behind us.

'For them.' I nodded toward a group of guards at mid-field, arms folded, laughing and nudging one another.

'We're like a coming attraction,' Tommy said, walking slowly, trying not to put weight on his damaged ankle.

'Maybe,' Michael said, looking at the inmates on the other side of the field. 'Shakes, who's the toughest guy out here?'

'How do you mean tough?' I said.

'Who can talk and have everybody listen?' Michael said.

'Rizzo,' I told him. 'Tall black guy with the shaved head. The one holding the ball.'

'A black Italian?' John said.

'I don't know what he is. I just know his name's Rizzo. He's the main guy down in B block.'

'What's he here for?' Tommy asked.

'Manslaughter,' I told him. 'Involuntary.'

'What's that mean?'

'There was a fight,' I explained. 'He walked away and the other guy was carried away.'

'There's gonna be another one if we don't get back and play,' Tommy said. 'Let's not get Rizzo angry before the game.'

'They say he's got his own crew on the outside,' I said. 'He's up from Harlem or Bed-Stuy. I forget which. And the guy he killed?'

'What about him?' Michael said.

'His mother's boyfriend. Got a little too friendly with Rizzo's kid sister.'

'That's our guy then,' Michael said.

'Our guy for what?' I said.

'I'll tell you after practice,' Michael said.

Rizzo sat by himself in the library, at a wooden table in the center of the room, turning the pages of a football magazine, the top of his shaved head enveloped in a halo from the glare of the fluorescent lights overhead. I stood to his left, browsing through the library's collection of adventure books, most of them paperback, many missing pages and covers, a few littered with pornographic sketches.

Michael, a copy of Tom Sawyer under his arm, walked to the table, pulled back a chair and sat across from Rizzo.

'Okay with you if I use this chair?' he asked.

'Okay with me if you set yourself on fire,' Rizzo said, his voice and body more man than boy. 'Okay with me if you die. I don't give a fuck.'

'Thanks,' Michael said, and sat down.

They read in silence for a few minutes, Michael turning his head once to look back in my direction, his face a blend of concern and confidence.

'Rizzo,' Michael said in a whisper. 'I need to talk to you. It won't take long.'

'How the fuck you know my name?' Rizzo snarled.

'I'd have to be stupid not to know,' Michael said. 'You the guy everybody points to and stays away from.'

'That was true,' Rizzo said. 'Till today.'

'We're wasting time,' Michael said. 'You interested or not?'

Rizzo took a deep breath and stared at Michael, his jaw set, his hands flat on the surface of the table, his eyes the color of lit cigars.

'Tell your friend over there to pull a chair next to you,' Rizzo said. 'He ain't smart enough to look cool.'

Michael smiled at Rizzo and without turning his head called for me to join them.

I walked down the aisle and eased my way toward the table, looking around the library, empty except for a guard standing by the entrance. I nodded at Rizzo as I sat down, a copy of Scammoucbe in my hand.

'You been in here longer than a year?' Michael asked him.

'Closer to three,' Rizzo said. 'Should be out come the spring.'

'How many of these football games you play in?' Michael asked.

'This one be my second,' Rizzo said. 'Why?'

'The guards win the first?'

'The guards ain't ever lost one,' Rizzo said.

'What if they did?'

'Look, white boy,' Rizzo said, sitting straight up in his chair, a tint of anger seeping through the icy veneer. 'Don't know what your play was on the street. Don't care. But, in here, the guards call the play and the play calls for them to win the game.'

'Why?'

'You think they fuck with you now,' Rizzo said. 'Beat them Saturday and see what happens. Won't be just you. Be all, in every cell block. Now, you tell me, white boy, we all supposed to get our ass split open just so you can look good in a football game?'

'They don't fuck with you,' I said, inching closer to the conversation.

'No,' Rizzo said. 'They don't. But they'll find them a nigger that ain't me and make him eat it double.'

'I'm not saving we gotta win,' Michael said. 'I just don't want to take a beating.'

'You do every day,' Rizzo said. 'Why's Saturday special?'

'On Saturday, we can hit back,' Michael said.

'You don't need me to hit them back,' Rizzo said.

'It won't work unless we're all in it,' Michael said. 'The only one who can make that happen is you.'

'Guards steer clear of me,' Rizzo said. 'They stay back and let me do my time. I play the game, put a hurt on one of them, it might change my cushion.'

'You're still nothin' but a nigger to them,' Michael said.

'Easy, white boy,' Rizzo told him. 'Just 'cause we talkin' don't mean we on the same side.'

'They don't hit you or fuck with you like they do us,' Michael said, excited now. 'They fuck with you another way. They treat you like an animal. A street animal. One they talk about when his back's turned.'

'I don't give a fuck what they say about me,' Rizzo said.

'Yeah, you do,' Michael said. 'You give a fuck. Else you wouldn't be the man back where you are.'

'And puttin' a hurt on the guards is gonna change that?' Rizzo sneered. 'That what you think?'

'It won't change a thing,' Michael said.

That stopped Rizzo cold. Now he was interested. 'Then why, white boy?' he asked. He bolted up and shoved his chair behind him. 'If it ain't gonna change nothin'?'

Michael stood up and looked briefly past Rizzo's shoulders at the guard to his right. He then leaned across the table, his eyes tilted up toward Rizzo.

'To make them feel what we feel,' Michael said. 'Just for a couple of hours.'

Rizzo said nothing for the longest time. Then his lips curled up in what I can only assume was a smile.

'Hope you play as good as you talk,' Rizzo said, turning to leave.

'I hope so too,' Michael said.

It was the first Saturday in December.

The afternoon sun did little to contain the cold winds whipping around the grounds. The stands were filled with bodies buried under the weight of wool coats, flap-down hats, furry hoods, leather gloves, wrap-around scarves and thick quilts. The crowd's collective breath broke through the protective barriers of their clothing, sending waves of warm air snaking toward the slate gray sky.

Vendors sold peanuts, hot chocolate and coffee from their stations at the base of the stands. Armed guards circled the perimeters of the field, eyeing the crowd. Another group of guards stood in a straight-line formation behind our bench, watching with smirks as, shivering in our thin pants and sweatshirts, we laced our sneakers tight.

I turned to stare at the crowd, wondering who they would root for and how far they had come just to see a touch football game between a group of guards and a collection of teenage inmates. I also stared at them with a fair amount of envy, knowing that once the game was over, they were free to leave, to return to their safe homes, dinner waiting, our game reduced to nothing more than table conversation.

The guards came out wearing shoulder and elbow pads, the spikes on their cleats shiny and new. A handful were dressed in jeans and the rest wore sweat pants. All of them had on thick cotton sweaters, a few of them with hoods. We were left to play in our prison issues, from sweats to sneakers.

The two captains, Nokes for the guards and Rizzo for the inmates, met in the center of the field for the coin toss, a guard posing as a referee standing between them. Rizzo had insisted on being named captain, feeling it would send the guards an early signal that this was not going to be just another football game. Neither one attempted a handshake, but Nokes offered to skip the toss and let us have the ball first.

Rizzo turned down the request and called for heads. Nokes didn't want any part of Rizzo, well aware of his reputation. But he couldn't back up, not with the other guards watching and not with the warden sitting in the front row of the stands. He offered Rizzo a deal. He would go easy on him and the other three members of his crew who were on the team if he laid down and stayed out of the game. If not, Nokes warned, they would be as rough on them as they planned to be on the rest of the inmates. Rizzo listened to the offer without any show of emotion, his eyes never moving from Nokes' face. He took several deep breaths and then, once again, asked for the coin to be tossed.

The coin came down heads.

Michael was in the center of the huddle, down on one knee, staring at the faces around him. He needed to see how rough the guards were going to be. He called a running play with me getting the ball. If I was touched as the rules called for, then we would be playing fair. But if I was tackled, as we all anticipated I would be, then we were in for a long and probably bloody afternoon. As Michael broke the huddle, Rizzo warned me not to fumble, regardless of how hard I was hit.

I stood behind Michael and next to Juanito, a fifteen-year-old in a T-shirt and torn pants. Tommy and John were on the line alongside Rizzo and a chubby black kid. Four inmates were spread at wideout, two on each side.

The guards played four men up front, three in the middle and four in the backfield.

Nokes and Addison were in the center of the line, both looking straight at me, their breath coming out in clouds, arms swinging at their sides, their bodies tense. Ferguson and Styler were playing deep, in a crouch, the front end of their cleats digging into hard ground.

'Watch out for the pass,' Nokes shouted to the guards positioned around him. 'Those wideout niggers can really run. Don't let 'em get in front of you.'

Michael grabbed the snap, took three steps back and nipped me the ball. I clutched it to my side, holding it with both hands, and followed Juanito into the line. The guards came off the ball with a grunt-filled fury, Nokes leading the charge. I turned a sharp left, darting from the center of the crowd, looking for an open space.

Three yards in, I was hit on the side by Addison, his arms around my waist, his weight dragging me down. From the corner of my eye, I saw Nokes, bearing down fast and hard, primed to pin me to the ground.

The elbow came out straight and hard, a black blur that was felt before it was seen. It caught Nokes flush on the side of the face and sent him sprawling to the dirt, Rizzo hovering above him, a smile on his face.

'The nigger on the line can really hit,' Rizzo said to him. 'Don't let him get in front of you.'

'All right!' Juanito said, helping me up. 'We got ourselves a game now, motherfuckers. We got ourselves a game.'

'That's right,' Michael said, giving Rizzo a wink. 'We got ourselves a game.'

For ninety minutes, spread across four quarters and a half-time break, we played the guards in the toughest and bloodiest game of touch football ever seen on the playing fields of the Wilkinson Home for Boys. For those ninety minutes, we took the game out of that prison, moved it miles beyond the locked gates and the sloping hills of the surrounding countryside and brought it back down to the streets of the neighborhoods we had come from.

For those ninety minutes, we were once again free.

We were down by a touchdown mid-way through the fourth quarter, our energy sapped by the cold and brutal tactics employed by the guards in their all-out effort to emerge with a victory.

Michael stood in the center of the huddle, the sleeve of his left arm drenched in blood, courtesy of a cleat stomping he received from Addison and Styler on a long run shortly before the end of the half. Two thin streaks of blood flowed down the right side of his face. Tommy was breathing heavily, his ankle thick and purple. Johnny was barely able to stand, having been sandwiched a number of times by Nokes and Ferguson out in the middle of an open field.

I sat on my knees, spitting blood from a split lip, my breath coming in spurts, the pain from my rib cage too strong to ignore. I looked around at the others, all of them bleeding and raw. Rizzo's right hand was broken, twisted in a pile-on four plays earlier.

Behind us, the crowd, so clearly rooting for the guards early in the game, sat stunned into eerie silence, stifled by the sight of a field filled with red-tinged grass. The spectators were left with little else to do but watch the drama play itself out.

We had come so far, our energy level as high as the pain we felt in our bodies. We were all tired from the long game and weak from the blows we had taken. A tall kid, standing next to me in the huddle, had blood running down both his legs.

We needed one more play. A big play, one the guards wouldn't expect us to be able to carry out. It would have to be a street play. The kind that ends in a touchdown and a knockout. All the inmates had played in games that ended in blood. But for the guards this was a new experience and they didn't much care for it.

Rizzo called the play. Michael would fake pump a pass to a wide-out named RJ. and then turn and throw deep, about forty yards downfield, right to the edge of the goal line. Rizzo would be there, step by step with Styler, both of them reaching for the ball. Rizzo's broken right hand was now hanging softly against his waist. It was Styler who had crushed the knuckles and bones and it would have to be Styler who was paid back, which now meant that the play required more than a touchdown to be successful. We came out of the huddle looking at six points for our team and a broken jaw for Styler. It didn't matter which came first.

Michael called for a quick snap and dropped back as far as he could, one arm useless at his side. I stayed next to Juanito, looking to block anyone who crossed our path. The two front lines banged at each other hard, blood, saliva and tiny pieces of flesh flying through the air. Nokes, bloody and bruised, came in from the left side of the field, leaping over one inmate and reaching both arms out for Michael. I jumped from my feet and met him square on, both of us falling within inches of Michael's legs, just as the ball left his one good hand to head downfield on a spiral.

'You fucker!' Nokes shouted, slapping and punching at me with both hands. 'I'm gonna fuckin' kill you!'

'Get off him!' Juanito screamed, pulling at Nokes' hair, grabbing one of his arms. 'Get the fuck off him!'

Michael and another guard were pushing at each other. Two of the inmates were squared off against two other guards. Punches and kicks were being tossed up and down the field. Bodies were crumpled on all sides. Shrill alert whistles were going off in every direction. Guards, in uniform, armed with mace cans and swinging batons, were running onto the playing area. The warden and his assistants were being driven down the sidelines, in a car with siren blaring, coming in from the goalposts to our backs.

Then the crowd, long silenced, erupted.

They stomped their feet against the base of the wooden stands, clapped their gloved hands in a wild frenzy, and screamed out in a uniformed chorus of cheers.

Michael fell to his knees and pumped a fist in the air. Downfield, his arms raised to the sky, Rizzo basked in the applause, waiting for the guards to come take him away. He held the football in his good hand, a smile as open and as free as the emotion he felt spread across his face.

Styler's body lay inches from Rizzo. He was face-up, his legs spread, his head at an angle, motionless.

From inside the prison we heard shouts and yells.

The other inmates, forced to watch the game from their cells or outside open gym windows, celebrated the moment, many screaming out Rizzo's name. A number of the players rushed toward Rizzo, hoping to get to him before the guards, to lay a hand on the hero of the yard.

Nokes stood up on one knee, staring at me and Michael, the blood from his nose running into his mouth.

'You're dead,' he said. 'You are gonna pay for this in ways you never dreamed of. All of you. You're all gonna pay.'

'You ain't worth shit, Nokes,' Juanito said to him.'We always knew it. After today, everybody knows it.'

'Outta my way, you fuckin' spic,' Nokes said, standing on both legs, limping away to join the rest of the guards.

Michael walked up to him, waiting until he was inches away. 'Hey, Nokes?'

'What?' Nokes said, turning, the hate in his eyes enough to chill the blood oozing out of our bodies.

'Good game,' Michael said.

SEVEN

It was my second day in the isolation ward, my back against a damp wall, my knees tight against my chest, sitting alone in darkness. I was brought down to the place the inmates called 'the hole' immediately after the game, dragged down by Ferguson and a heavy-set guard with a red beard. They threw me face forward to the cold cement floor and watched as I crawled about, looking for a way to lift myself up.

They laughed at me and mocked my movements as I tried to make my way around the room. Then they slammed the door behind them, bolting it from the outside, their heavy footsteps soon an empty and distant echo. There was no bed in the hole. There was no toilet. There was no noise. There was no food. There was no water and there was no fresh air. There was only darkness and large hungry rats.

In the hole there was only madness.

I inched my way toward a corner of the room, trying to ignore the dust, the blood that still flowed from my football wounds and, most of all, the soft squeaks of the rats moving somewhere in the black of the cell.

I spent my first day in the hole sleepless, moving my legs from side to side, hoping to keep the rats away from my cuts, knowing that sooner or later, I would have to give in and close my eyes and they would make their move.

My hours were filled with terror. Any noise, even the slight whine of a floor board, sent fear through my body. My clothes were drenched with sweat, my face was wet to the touch, my hair matted against my forehead. I took deep, shivering breaths, my eyes open wide, looking out into the stillness that surrounded me, my hands and feet numb from the cold.

I could not distinguish morning from night, dawn from dusk, each passing moment awash in a darkness that promised no rescue. The guards had not brought in any food or water, and the stench of dried urine and feces was overwhelming.

I was not alone in the hole.

I knew that my friends were somewhere down in the depths with me, each in his own cell, each in his own pain, suffering his own demons. Rizzo was there too, brought down by the guards, his other hand broken on his way in. There was no use shouting out to them; the walls and the cell door were much too thick for sounds to slip past.

I knew enough about the hole to know it was the place where the guards put inmates who had trouble adapting to their system. It was where they earned their control. The usual length of time spent in isolation was a week, never more than two. No one came out of it the same.

I had been there only a matter of hours when I began to think about death. It was what I most wished for, the only thing worth praying for to any God willing to listen.

I do not know how long I had been there when I heard the click of the lock, the bolt being pushed back, the handle as it snapped down. The sharp light that filtered in sent the rats scurrying into corners and forced me to shield my eyes. I heard footsteps approach as a large shadow hovered near.

'Thought you might be hungry, football star,' a voice said. It was Nokes, standing above me, a large bowl in his hand. 'I brought you some oatmeal.'

He placed the bowl down by his feet, in the center of the room, sliding it closer to me with the edge of his shoe.

'Looks a little dry though,' he said. 'Nobody likes dry oatmeal. Tastes like shit.'

I heard a zipper slide down, watched him spread his legs and listened as he peed into the bowl of food.

'There,' he said, when he had finished. 'That's better. That should help it go down easier.'

He walked out of the room, a set of keys rattling in his hand.

'Enjoy your meal, football star,' Nokes said, closing me back into my dark world.

The minute I heard the lock turn and the bolt shut down I rushed for the bowl and ate my first meal in the hole.

I stared at the rat, inches from my face, watching him nibble on the skin of my stretched out fingers. I was resting flat against the hard surface of the cell floor, my clothes soiled, my body empty of feeling. I had lost any sense of time, any grasp of place, my mind wandering back and forth on the cloudy road between delusion and nightmare. Rats crawled up and down my back and legs, feasting on my cuts and scabs, nestling in the holes in my clothes.

One of my eyes wouldn't open, feeling sticky and swollen to the touch. One of my hands was balled into a tight fist, the fingers locked in place. My lips were swollen and dry and there was steady pain from my neck to the base of my spine. I couldn't compose a complete thought, and when I tried to call up memories, I could see only fragments of faces. I heard the voices of friends and enemies, the thick tones of my father and King Benny, the empty sounds of Nokes and his crew, the gutter accents of Fat Mancho and Father Bobby, floating in and out, words and faces mixing as one.

I felt the open hydrants of Hell's Kitchen on my body, the cool spray of water stripping away summer heat. I tasted Sno-Kones and hot pepper sandwiches and listened to Frankie Valli hit a high note and Dinah Washington ache with the blues. I tossed pennies against the side of a warehouse wall, dropped water balloons on the head of a passing stranger, ran into the winds of De Witt Clinton Park and fished off the piers of 12th Avenue. Left for dead in that hole of despair, I sought refuge in the safest spot my mind could wander – the streets of Hell's Kitchen.

Only then, during those rare cloudless moments, could I escape my dark surroundings, clear away the dirt and the pain, the rats and the pools of urine.

Only then could I move away from the wails of the walking dead and feel, for a fragment of time, that I was still alive.

I was released from the hole after two weeks and sent to the prison infirmary, where my wounds were cleaned, my clothes thrown away and my meals served on plastic trays. I was carried into the twenty-two-bed ward fifteen pounds lighter than the day of the football game, my body wracked with a high fever and a series of infections.

The medical staff at Wilkinson was a small one, led by an elderly doctor with a chronic cough and three nurses years past their prime. For each, it was a last stop in an otherwise undistinguished career. While they all must have been aware of what went on, they lacked the desire or conviction to question it, let alone bring the abuse to the eyes of a higher authority. They had more to lose than to gain by such confrontation and would be out-manned, out-maneuvered and out-smarted if they dared.

'You're lucky,' I heard the prison doctor say to me. 'Another day in there and we wouldn't be any help.'

'I wasn't alone,' I said, my voice barely above a whisper, my mind still circling around empty spaces.

'They took everyone out,' the doctor said.

'Were we all lucky?' I asked.

'No,' the doctor said. 'Not all.'

Rays of sunlight came down through an open window, warming my face, my left eye still sealed shut. The bed and the sheets felt soft against my bare skin, white bandages covering whole sections of my chest, arms, legs and feet. An IV bag dripped fluid into one of my arms and two plastic tubes were in my nose, feeding me air from an oxygen cannister off the side of the bed. Somewhere in the distance, a radio played a song I hadn't heard before.

I turned my head to the right and saw Michael in the bed next to mine. His left arm and right leg were in soft casts, his face was puffy and bruised, the rest of his body bandaged as heavily as mine.

'I thought you'd never wake up,' Michael said, looking over.

'I never thought I'd want to,' I croaked.

'John and Butter are at the other end of the hall,' Michael said.

'How are they?'

'Alive.'

'Who isn't?'

'Rizzo,' Michael said.

'They killed him?'

Michael nodded. 'They took turns beating him until there wasn't anything left to beat.'

Rizzo was dead because of us. We made him think that going up against the guards in a meaningless football game had some value, would somehow make us better than them. That it would give us a reason to go on. And, once again, we were wrong. We had made another mistake. While it is normal in the course of growing up to have lapses in judgments, our errors always seemed to carry a deadly price. We were wrong to take the hot dog cart and that mistake nearly ruined a man and landed us in a juvenile home. We were wrong to go to Rizzo and talk him into taking part in our silly plan. That conversation cost him his life.

The mistakes we were making could never be repaired. I could never give James Caldwell back the feeling in his arm or take away his pain. I could never give the hot dog vendor back his business or his dreams. I could never bring smiles back to John and Tommy, return the sweetness that was at the core of their personalities. I could never take the hardness out of Michael and the hurt out of me. And I could never bring Rizzo back to life. A young man was dead because he went deep against the guards and reached for a ball he shouldn't have caught. Who went deep because we asked him to.

I looked over at Michael and he stared back at me and I knew we both had the same thoughts raging through our brains. I turned away and laid my head against the pillow, staring at the white ceiling with my one good eye, listening to a voice on the radio talk about threats of snow and holiday sales. I looked down at my hands, the tips of my fingers wrapped in gauze, scratches like veins marking their way across my flesh. My eye felt heavy and tired, the antibiotics and painkillers making me as foggy as a street junkie.

I shut my eye and gave in to sleep.

It was two days later when I heard the footsteps, familiar in their weight.

'Hello, boys,' Nokes said, standing between our two beds, a smile on his face. 'How we feelin' today?'

Michael and I just stared back, watching him swagger up and down, checking our charts, eyeballing our bandages and wounds.

'You should be outta here in no time,' Nokes snarled. 'It's gonna be good havin' you back. We missed you and your friends. Especially at night.'

Michael turned his head, looking down the corridor, checking the faces of the other sick inmates. Juanito was two beds down, his face a mask of cuts, welts and stitches.

'It's been nice visitin' with you,' Nokes said, standing close enough for us to touch. 'But I gotta go. I'm on shift. I'll see you soon, though. You can count on that.'

Michael motioned for Nokes to stop. 'Kill me now,' Michael whispered.

'What?' Nokes moved to Michael's side of the bed. 'What did you say?'

'Kill me now.' It wasn't a whisper this time. It was in a normal tone of voice, calm and clear. 'Kill us all now.'

'You're fuckin' crazy,' Nokes said.

'You have to kill us,' Michael said. 'You can't let us out alive.'

Nokes was still startled, but he shook it off and replaced his uneasiness with his usual smirk. 'Yeah?' he said. 'And why's that, tough guy?'

'You can't run the risk,' Michael told him.

'What risk you talkin' about?'

'The risk of meeting up,' Michael said. 'In a place that ain't here.'

'That supposed to scare me? That street shit of yours supposed to scare me?' Nokes laughed. 'Your friend Rizzo was tough too. Now he's buried tough.'

'Kill us all,' Michael said. 'Or sign yourself up for life in here. That's the choice.'

'I've been right all along,' Nokes said. 'You are crazy. You Hell's Kitchen motherfuckers are really crazy.'

'Think about it,' Michael said to our tormentor. 'Think about it hard. It's the only way out for you. Don't take a chance. You can't afford it. You kill us and you kill us now.'

Winter 1968

I squeezed the mop through a wooden ringer, dirty brown water filtering back into the wash pail. I was on the third tier of C block, washing the floors outside the cells. It was my first week out of the infirmary and my wounds, bound by tight strips of gauze bandages against my ribs and thighs, still ached. After a few strokes with the mop, I rested against the iron railings, my legs weak from days in the hole. It was early morning and the cell block was quiet, inmates either attending classes or exercising in the gym.

I looked around the block, gray, shiny and still, winter light from outside merging with the glare of overhead fluorescents that were kept on twenty-four hours a day. In its silence, Wilkinson looked serene, cell doors open, floors glistening, steam from large central radiators keeping out the cold winds of winter.

The peace was not meant to hold. Wilkinson was a prison on the brim of a riot. Rizzo had been right. The guards did not take kindly to our playing them even. The day after the game, all inmate privileges were canceled. The late-night beatings and abuse accelerated to the point where no inmate felt safe. The most minor infraction, ignored in the past, was now cause for the most severe punishment.

For their part, the inmates were stirred by Rizzo's death and the conditions in which the rest of the team were released from the isolation ward. Makeshift weapons – zip guns, sharpened spoons stuck into wooden bases, mattress coils twisted into brass knuckles – now appeared in every cell block. The inmates still obeyed every order, but their faces were now masked by defiance.

I was half-way down the corridor when I saw Wilson on the circular staircase, making his way to the third tier. Wilson was the only black guard in our cell block and the only guard who shunned the physical attacks enjoyed by his coworkers. He was a big man, a one-time semi-pro football player with a scarred knee and a waistline that stretched the limits of his uniform. He smoked non-stop, and always had an open pack of Smith Brothers cherry cough drops in his back pocket. He had a wide smile, stained yellow by the smoke, and big hands, topped by thick, almost-blue fingers. The inmates called him Marlboro.

Marlboro was older than the other guards by a good ten years and had two younger brothers who held similar jobs at other state homes. In summer months, he was known to smuggle in an occasional six-pack to some of the older inmates.

He was also Rizzo's connection to the outside.

'Seem to be doin' a good job,' he said when he reached my end of the hall, his breath coming in short spurts, a long stream of smoke flowing out his nose. 'You take to the mop real good.'

'Some people do,' I said. 'Some people teach.'

'Got that right,' he said, laughing, a rumble of a cough starting in his chest.

'How many of those you go through a day?' I said, pointing to the lit cigarette in his hand.

'Three,' he said. 'Maybe four.'

'Tacks?'

'We all got habits, son,' Marlboro said. 'Some that are good. Some that are bad.'

I went back to mopping the floor, moving the wet strands from side to side, careful not to let water droplets slip over the edge of the tier.

'How much more time you got?' Marlboro said from behind me. 'Before they let you out.'

'Seven months if they keep me to term,' I said. 'Less if they don't.'

'You be out by spring,' Marlboro said. 'Only the baddest apples do full runs.'

'Or end up dead,' I said.

Marlboro lit a fresh cigarette with the back end of a smolder between his fingers, tossed the old one over the side and swallowed a mouth of smoke.

'Rizzo was my friend,' Marlboro said. 'I didn't have a piece of what went down.'

'Didn't break your ass to stop it,' I said.

'Look around, son,' Marlboro said, cigarette clenched between his teeth, veins thick on his bulky arms. 'You see a lot of other nigger guards around here?'

'Guards is all I see around here,' I said.

'I got me a good job,' Marlboro said. 'Work is steady. Pension, if I make it, a good one. Vacation and holidays are paid and every other weekend belongs to me and my lady.'

'And it keeps you in cigarettes,' I said.

'I hate what they do to you and the other boys,' Marlboro said, cigarette out of his mouth, sadness etched across the stark contours of his face. 'Hate what they did to Rizzo. That boy was blood to me. But there ain't nothin' I can do. Nothin' I can say gonna change this place.'

I put the mop back into the pail and ran it through the ringer, hands on the top end of the handle, eyes on Marlboro.

'You ever hit a kid?' I asked.

'Never,' Marlboro said. 'Never will. Don't get me wrong. There's some mean sons of bitches in here could take a beatin.' But it ain't what I do. Ain't part of the job. Least not the job I took.'

'How do the other guards feel about you?'

'I'm a nigger to them,' Marlboro said. 'They probably think I'm no better than any of you. Maybe worse.'

'They always been like this?'

'Since I been here,' Marlboro said. 'Goin' on three years come this June.'

'How about you and Nokes?' I asked.

'I do my work and keep my distance,' Marlboro said. 'He does the same.'

'What's the deal?' I said.

'Same as the others,' Marlboro said. 'They don't like who they are. They don't like where they are.'

'There's lots of people like that,' I said. 'Where I live, every man I know feels that way. But they don't go around doing the shit Nokes and his crew pull.'

'Maybe they different kind of men,' Marlboro said. 'Nokes and his boys, they ain't seen much of life and what they seen they don't like. You grow up like that, most times, you grow up feelin' empty. And that's what they are. Empty. Nothin' inside. Nothin' out.'

'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 those 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 gun point. 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 further 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 spread across his face. 'Arrest me?'

EIGHT

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 ricotta 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 awhile.'

'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 kind 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 on 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, if 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 expect 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 backwards, 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 side 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 smart,' 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 friend'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.

NINE

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 awhile.'

'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.

'For not making me think I'm just spinning my wheels in here,' Carlson said. 'That somebody, even if it is only one student, listens.'

'You're a good teacher, Mr. Carlson,' I said. 'You're just stuck with a bad bunch.'

'I can't imagine being locked in here,' Carlson said. 'For one night, let alone months.'

'I can't imagine it either,' I said.

'It's not what I thought it would be like,' Carlson said, with a slow shake of his head.

'I don't think it's what anybody thought it would be,' I said.

'No, I suppose not,' Carlson said.

'Listen, I've got to run,' I said. 'Thank you again for the book. It means a lot.'

'Will the guards let you keep it?' Carlson asked.

'They won't know I've got it,' I told him.

'We can discuss the book in class on Friday,' Carlson said. 'That's if you think The Count can hold their attention.'

'He's got a shot,' I smiled.

'Any special section I should read from?' Carlson asked, snapping his leather bag shut.

'That's easy,' I said, moving toward the door, book in my hand. 'The part when he escapes from prison.'

TEN

It was my first time inside the guards' quarters, a series of lockers, couches, bunks, shower stalls, soda machines and coffee makers spread through four large rooms at the back end of C block. The rooms smelled of old clothes and damp tile and the floors were dusty and stained, cigarette butts scattered in the corners. Floor lamps, covers torn and smeared, cast small circles of light, keeping the quarters in a state of semidarkness. Dirty clothes were tossed on the floor and on the furniture. A large framed photo of the Wilkinson Home for Boys, taken during a snowbound winter many years earlier, hung in the main room.

Nokes sat behind a desk, its top cluttered with memos, open binders, a tape recorder, two phones, a handful of magazines and open packs of cigarettes. A thick toaster-size cardboard box, its center slit open, rested in the middle.

'You asked to see me?' I said, standing in front of him.

'Hang on a second, soldier,' Nokes said. 'I wanna get the other guys for this.'

Nokes lifted the phone off its cradle and pressed a yellow intercom button.

'Get off your asses,' he shouted into the speaker. 'He's here.'

Addison, Styler and Ferguson walked in from a side room, each in various stages of undress. Ferguson had shaving cream along his face and neck, a straight razor in his hands. Styler, naked except for a pair of white briefs, was smoking a cigar with a plastic tip. Addison held a folded paper in one hand and a slice of pepperoni pizza in the other.

They stood behind Nokes, their attention more on the box than on me.

'You know the rules about mail?' Nokes asked, looking up at me, an unlit cigarette clenched between his teeth. 'About what you can get and what you can't?'

'Yeah,' I said. 'I know them.'

'You can't know 'em too fuckin' well,' Nokes said, a finger pointing to the open box. 'Havin' your mother send all this shit.'

'That box's from my mother?' I asked.

'I mean, look at this shit,' Nokes said to the three guards surrounding him, ignoring my question. 'Where the fuck she think her son is at, the army?'

'What the fuck is this?' Styler asked, his hand pulling out a small jar filled with roasted peppers in olive oil.

'The warden is supposed to clear the mail,' I said. 'Not the guards.'

'Well, the warden ain't around,' Nokes said. 'And when he ain't around, we clear it.'

'None of the shit I see would get past the warden,' Styler said. 'Ain't none of it on the approved list.'

'I'm sure your mama got a copy of that list,' Addison said. 'It gets sent to all the parents.'

'My mother doesn't read English,' I said.

'Don't blame us for her being stupid,' Nokes said, tossing a jar of artichoke hearts to Styler.

'Those are things she made,' I said. 'Things she knows I like. She didn't look to do anything wrong.'

'Other than have a jackoff for a son,' Styler said, opening the jar and putting it to his nose.

'Can I have the box?' I asked. 'Please?'

'Sure,' Nokes said. 'The box is yours. What's in it is ours. That seem fair?'

'Is there anything in there other than food?' I asked, my hands bunched in fists by my side.

'Just this.' Nokes held up a brown set of rosary beads. 'Mean anything to you?'

'More than they would mean to you,' I said.

'Suppose you'd like to have them then?' Styler said, his mouth filled with artichoke hearts.

'They belong to me,' I told him.

'What do you do with these things?' Nokes asked, fingering the rosary beads in his hand.

'You pray,' I said.

'Fuckin' losers like you ain't got a prayer,' Styler said.

'Take the food, Nokes,' I said. 'All of it. Just let me have the beads.'

Styler walked around the desk and came up alongside me, one of his arms around my shoulders.

'You gonna let us hear you pray?' he asked me.

'I like to do it alone,' I said, my eyes still on Nokes. 'It works better that way.'

'Like jerkin' off,' Addison said.

'Just this once,' Styler said, smiling and winking at the other three. 'Let us hear you.'

'Maybe he needs something to pray about,' Nokes said, reaching a hand under the desk, coming up with a black baton.

He gave the baton to Styler who took it with his free hand, pushing me closer to his side.

'Put your hands on the desk,' Styler said to me. 'Lay them down flat.'

'And start thinkin' up some prayers,' Addison said.

My hands were inches from the box my mother had sent. Styler spread my legs apart and pushed down my pants, tearin' off the top button with the force of his effort. Nokes laid the brown rosary beads across both sets of my knuckles. I felt Styler's hands rub against the base of my back, his skin coarse, his manner rough.

'Remember, fucker,' Nokes said, eating my mother's peppers with his hands. 'We want to hear you pray. Loud!'

Styler put an arm around my stomach and slid the front end of the baton inside me. The pain came in a rush, leg muscles cramping, chest heaving, stomach tied in a knife-like nerve of knots.

'We can't hear no prayers,' Nokes said.

'You better start,' Ferguson had a terrible smile on his face. 'Before Styler there loses his baton up your ass.'

'Our Father,' I said, my lips barely moving, my breath short, my lungs on fire. 'Who art in heaven.'

'Nice and loud,' Styler said from behind me. 'Pray nice and loud.'

'Hallowed be thy name,' I said, tears falling down the sides of my face. 'Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.'

'Don't say come in front of Styler,' Nokes said with a loud laugh. 'You don't wanna get him excited.'

'On earth as it is in heaven,' I said, my legs starting to buckle, my body damp with cold sweat. 'And forgive us our trespasses…'

'That part must be about us,' Addison said, his eyes wide, his tongue licking at his lips.

'As we forgive those,' I said, my hands starting to slide off the desk, knuckles still gripping the rosary beads. 'Who trespass against us.'

'Louder, fucker!' Nokes said, standing now, holding my face with two hands. 'Make like you're in a fuckin' church.'

'And lead us not into temptation,' I said, the room around me a shifting blur, my arms and legs empty of feeling. 'But deliver us from evil.'

'Too fuckin' late for that now, loser,' Styler said, as he released me and let my body crumple to the floor. 'Too fuckin' late.'

I woke up in my cell, on my cot, my pants still wrapped around my knees. I was shivering, sheet and blanket under me, my body numb to movement. The rosary beads were still in my hand, the cross wedged into my palm. I brought the beads to my lips, slowly, and kissed them.

I opened my eyes, looked out into the darkness and cried till the sun came up.

Spring 1968

Michael hit the handball against the cement wall, watching it one-bounce its way toward John, who waited for it near the middle of the white divider line. I played off the back line, alongside Tommy, my mind more on the weather than on the game.

It was early afternoon and warm for a mid-April day. The sun was still strong, scattered rays bouncing off the hardened tar floor and onto our arms, legs and faces. The air was dry, humidity low, soft breeze blowing at our backs.

The handball court was seldom free: the black inmates had coopted the area as part of their domain. But, for now, they were out of the picture, joined together in organized protest, a reflection of their outrage over the murder earlier in the month of Martin Luther King, Jr. They stayed in their cells and refused to engage in any prison activity, insisting that even meals be brought to them. Initially, the guards reacted as expected, with intimidation and force, but the inmates held firm, anger and pride keeping the rules of the prison at bay. The warden, fearing outside attention, ordered the guards to back off and allow the protest to flame itself out.

The ball came in a dark blur toward Tommy, who took two quick steps back, balanced his weight, swung his hand and missed. He turned around, picked up the ball and tossed it back to Michael.

'I don't get this game,' Tommy said. 'I don't understand it at all.'

'That makes me really glad you're on my team,' I said.

'What's the point?' Tommy asked.

'We don't have any points,' I said. 'Michael and John, they have all the points. Go ask them.'

'It's six to nothing,' Michael said, walking toward me, bouncing the ball against the tar, his right hand wrapped in heavy black adhesive tape. 'You wanna switch sides?'

'How about we take a break?' I said. 'I'm not used to getting this much sun.'

'There ain't much shade around here,' Michael said.

'Let's go near the trees,' I said. 'The guards can still see us from there and it's gotta be cooler.'

We walked past the wall, wiping sweat from our faces and arms, toward a small chestnut tree with drooping limbs, the duty guard following us with his eyes.

We sat around the tree, our arms spread behind us, legs rubbing against grass, staring out at the square-shaped brick facade of C block, our home these past seven months.

'Nice view,' John said.

'Just looks like any other place from here,' Tommy said. 'It don't look like what it is.'

'I'll never forget what it looks like,' I said. 'Or what it is.'

'You might,' Michael said. 'If you're lucky.'

'They give you your release date yet?' Tommy asked me.

'Nokes had the letter from the warden,' I said. 'He waved it in front of me. Then he tore it up.'

'When do you figure?' Michael asked.

'End of June,' I said. 'Maybe early July. Something like that.'

'I wish we were goin' with you,' John said, his voice crammed with sadness. 'Woulda been nice for us to all walk out together.'

'I wish you were, too,' I said, smiling over at him.

'No use thinking about it,' Michael said. 'We're gonna do a full year. Not an hour less.'

'I could talk to Father Bobby after I get out,' I said. 'Maybe he could make some calls, shave a month or two off.'

'There's nothing to talk about,' John said.

'There's lots to talk about, Johnny,' I said. 'Maybe if people knew what goes on in here, they'd make a move.'

'I don't want anybody to know, Shakes,' John said, the center of his eyes filling with tears. 'Not Father Bobby or King Benny or Fat Mancho. Not my mother. Not anybody.'

'I don't either,' Tommy said. 'I wouldn't know what to say to anybody that did know.'

'What about you?' I asked, turning my head toward Michael. 'You gonna stay quiet?'

'I can't think of anybody who needs to hear about it,' Michael said. 'Guys did time in this place or places like it, they know what went on. Those who didn't won't believe it or won't give a shit. Either way, it's nothin' but a waste of time.'

'I don't even think we should talk about it,' John said. 'Once it's over.'

'I want it buried, too, Shakes,' Tommy said. 'I want it buried as deep as it can go.'

'We've got to live with it,' Michael said. 'And talking makes living it harder.'

'People might ask,' I said.

'Let 'em,' Michael said, standing up, brushing loose grass off the back of his sweats. 'Let 'em ask, let ' em think. But the truth stays with us.'

'Just be glad you're going home, Shakes,' John said. 'Forget everything else.'

'And try to stay out of trouble till we get back,' Michael said.

'That should be easy,' I said. 'Without you guys around.'

'What's the first thing you're gonna do when you get back?' John asked.

'Go to the library,' I said. 'Sit there for as long as I want. Look through any book I want. Not have to get up when somebody blows a whistle. Just sit there and listen to the quiet.'

'Know what I miss the most?' Tommy asked in a sad tone, his face up to the sun, his eyes closed.

'What?' John said.

'Running under an open johnny pump late at night,' Tommy said. 'Water cold as winter. Stoops filled with people eatin' pretzels and drinkin' beers outta paper bags. Music coming out of open windows and parked cars. Girls smilin' at us from inside their doorways. Shit, it was like heaven.'

'Two slices of hot pizza and an Italian ice at Mimi's is heaven,' I said.

'Walkin' with Carol down by the piers,' Michael said. 'Holdin' her hand. Kissing her on a corner. That's hard to beat.'

'What about you, John?' I asked.

'I don't want to be afraid of the dark again,' John said in a voice coated with despair. 'Or hear an open door in the middle of the night. And I don't wanna be touched, don't wanna feel anybody's hands on me. Wanna be able to sleep, not worry about what's gonna happen or who's comin' in. If I can get that, I'd be happy. I'd be in heaven. Or close to it.'

'Some day, John,' Michael said. 'I promise that.'

'We all promise that,' I said.

In the short distance behind us, a guard's whistle blew. Overhead, rain clouds gathered, darkening the skies, hiding the sun in their mist.

ELEVEN

The prison cafeteria was crowded, long rows of wooden tables filled with tin trays and inmates elbowing their way through a macaroni and cheese dinner. Each inmate had twenty minutes to eat a meal, which included time spent on the serving line, finding a seat and dropping an empty tray on the assembly wheel in the back of the large room. Talking was not permitted during meal time and we were never allowed to question either what we were given to eat or the amount doled out.

The food was usually at the low end of the frozen food chain, heavy on processed meat, eggs, cheese and potatoes, weak on vegetables and fruit. Each table sat sixteen inmates, eight to a bench. One guard was assigned to every three tables.

As with every other social situation at Wilkinson, the dining area offered limited opportunities to make friends. The guards were always wary of cliques forming or expanding and moved quickly to split up any such attempts. This left the inmates with no choice but to stick to their original alliances. Living in an atmosphere that stressed survival above all else, random friendships posed too great a risk, for they required a level of trust that no one was willing to concede. It was safer to stay within your own group.

I was fourth on the serving line, standing a few feet behind Michael, empty trays held in our hands. A blank-faced counterman dropped an empty plate on each of our trays, his head rocking up and down, rolling to its own private rhythm. Further down the line, I grabbed for two spoons and an empty tin cup.

'Can you see what we're having?' I asked Michael.

'Whatever it is, it's covered with brown gravy.'

''All our meals are covered with brown gravy.'

'They must think we like it,' Michael said. Then he turned off the line and moved to his left, his tray rilled with dark meat, gray potatoes, a small, hard roll and a cup of water, looking for a place for us to sit. He headed for the back of the room, where there were two spots. I followed, right behind him.

The spaces between the tables were narrow, wide enough for only one person at a time to make his way through. The guards stood to the sides, their eyes focused on the tables assigned them. They controlled who left his seat and who sat in his place, all accomplished with hand gestures, nods and shoulder taps. It was a system that functioned through precision and obedience, guards and inmates merged in an assembly line of human movement. There was no room for error, no space for accidents, no place for a mental lapse.

No time to bring the assembly line to a halt.

Michael was halfway down the row of tables, his eyes focused on two seats in the rear of the room. I was directly behind him, followed by a short teenager with a limp. None of us saw the inmate on Michael's left stand and begin to move out of his row.

Michael moved three steps forward, the edge of his tray barely grazing the arm of the inmate walking toward him on his left. The inmate shot his arm against the tray and sent it skyward, out of Michael's hands and crashing to the floor in full view of a guard.

Michael whirled to face the inmate who called himself K.C. and who was now standing with a smile on his face and his hands balled into fists. 'What the fuck you do that for?'

'You brushed me,' K.C. said.

'So?'

''Nobody touches me,' K.C. said. 'I ain't like you and the rest of your fag friends.'

Michael swung a hard right at K.C., landing it flush against the much taller boy's jaw. The blow, one of the hardest I'd seen Michael land, barely caused a flinch. Michael looked at me in disbelief and, for a moment, it was almost funny, like something out of a James Bond movie. But K.C. wasn't in on the joke and, as we knew all too well, this was no movie.

K.C. looked to be about three years older than Michael, perhaps eighteen, with broad shoulders, bulked arms and a crew cut so close it showed little more than scalp. In the few months that he had been inside Wilkinson's, K.C. had already razor-slashed another inmate, done time in the hole for his part in a gang rape and spent a week in a strait-jacket after he took a bite out of a guard's neck.

He rushed Michael and they both fell to the floor, shirts and skin sliding against spilled food. K.C. threw two sharp right hands, both landing against Michael's face, one flush to the eye. A circle of inmates formed around them, quietly watching the action, a few holding trays and eating the remains of their lunch. The guard, less than a month on the job, stood off to the side, his face a blank screen.

I held my ground and scanned the circle for other members of K.C.'s crew, watching to see if any weapons were passed over, waiting for one of them to make a move and join their friend against Michael.

K.C. was rubbing a fist full of meat against Michael's face, grinding it into his eyes. Michael shot a hard knee into K.C.'s groin and followed it with a short left to his kidney.

'Your fuckin' life's over,' K.C. said, putting his hands around Michael's throat and tightening his grip. 'You gonna die here today, punk. Right on this floor.'

I tossed my tray aside and jumped on KC.'s back, punching at his neck and head, trying to loosen his hold. K.C. let one hand go and turned it to me, swinging his punches upward, brushing my shoulder and side. The reduced pressure allowed Michael to take in some fresh breath. K.C. swung his body at an angle, his open hand against my chin, trying to push me off his back. He rolled over with me still clinging to him, his strength taking Michael around with us. I landed on top of the spilled tray, my shirt wet and sticky from the gravy, meat and potatoes spread across the floor. K.C. was now all flailing arms and legs, kicking and punching at us both with a wild, animallike intensity. I covered my face with my hands and kept my elbows slapped against my sides, blocking as many of KC's kicks and punches as I could.

Michael did the same.

The crowd inched in closer, sensing that what they wanted to see was about to take place – a bloody finish to the battle.

A sharp kick to the throat stripped me of wind and a wild punch to my jaw forced blood out of my nose. Voices in the crowd, fueled by the rush for the kill, cheered K.C. on.

'Finish him!' someone from behind me shouted.

'Kick him dead!' another said.

'One and two belong to you!' still another screamed. 'Step back and just watch 'em die.'

The shrill sound of a police whistle brought the shouts to an end.

The crowd parted to let Nokes walk past, each inmate staring at him in silence. Nokes held a can of mace in one hand and the thick end of his baton in the other. He was chewing a piece of gum and had a cigarette tucked behind one ear. The back of his shirt was streaked with sweat. His eyes moved from me to Michael to K.C. The three of us stood facing him, our bodies washed head to knee in food and blood.

Nokes stood in front of me and took the cigarette from behind his ear, put it to his mouth and lit it with a closed matchbook. He took in a lung full of smoke and let it out slow, through his nose, his closed jaw still moving to the gum.

'All these months here, they haven't taught you shit,' Nokes said. 'You're still the same fuckin' clowns you were when you walked in.'

Nokes turned from us and faced the inmates behind him. He scanned their faces, running a hand through his hair, cigarette still hanging from his lower lip.

'Back to your seats and finish your lunch,' Nokes said to them. 'There's nothin' more to see.'

'That go for me too?' K.C. said, rubbing his hands against the sides of his pants.

'No,' Nokes said, turning back to him. 'No, it don't go for you. I want you back in your cell. You're done with lunch.'

'Me and you finish this some other time,' K.C. said, looking over at Michael. 'Some time real soon.'

'Maybe at dinner,' Michael said, watching K.C. walk out of the lunch room.

'You two get any lunch?' Nokes asked, stubbing out the cigarette with the front end of his boot.

'I got to smell it,' Michael said. 'That's better than eating it.'

'How about you finish it now?' Nokes said.

'I'm not hungry,' Michael said.

'I don't give a fuck you hungry or not,' Nokes said. 'You eat 'cause I'm tellin' you to eat.'

I started to walk past Nokes, back toward the lunch counter to get a new tray. Nokes put a hand against my chest and held it there.

'Where you think you're goin'?' he asked, his voice louder, playing it up for the inmates watching.

'You said to get lunch,' I said, confused. 'You boys don't need to go back on line for food. There's plenty to eat right where you standing.'

I stared at Nokes and tried to imagine what had been done to him to make him this cruel, had driven him to the point that his only pleasure came from the humiliation of others. I more than just hated him. I had passed that state months ago. I was digusted by him, his very presence symbolizing the ugliness and horror I felt each day at Wilkinson. I thought there wasn't much more he could do to me, do to any of us, but I was wrong. There was no limit to Nokes' evil, no end to his torment. And now, we were about to take one more plunge into the hellish world he had forced on us. Michael and I didn't move.

The inmates were pointing and whispering among themselves. A few of them giggled. The guard in the center of the aisle held his position.

'Let's go boys,' Nokes said, smiling now, his anger having found an outlet. 'There ain't much more time in the lunch period.'

'I'm still not hungry,' Michael said. Nokes immediately brought the back end of the baton down against the side of Michael's head. He quickly followed it with a level blast across his face. The force of the shot sent blood from Michael's nose and mouth spraying onto Nokes' uniform shirt.

'I tell you when you're hungry!' Nokes shouted, swinging the baton again, this time landing a sharp blow to Michael's neck. 'And I tell you when you're not! Now, get on your fuckin' knees and eat.'

Michael dropped to one knee, a shaky hand reaching for a fork, his eyes glassy, the front of his face dripping with blood. He picked up the fork and jabbed at a piece of meat near his leg, slowly bringing it to his mouth.

'What the fuck are you waitin' for?' Nokes asked me. 'Get down on your knees and finish your goddamn lunch.' I looked beyond Nokes at the faces of the inmates staring back at me, their eyes a strange mixture of relief and pleasure. They had all been at the edge of Nokes' baton, had all felt his fury, but none would ever move against him for the sake of two prisoners they barely knew. Nokes could have killed us on the floor of that lunch room and no one would have said a word.

I went down on my knees, picked up a spoon, scooped up a potato slice and put it in my mouth.

I looked up at Nokes, his shirt drenched and tinged red, his face splattered with Michael's blood.

'Eat faster,' Nokes said, swinging his baton against the base of my spine. 'Don't think you got all fuckin' day.'

Nokes walked between us as we ate, smiling and winking at the other inmates, stepping on the pieces of food we were about to put in our mouths.

'Let's go,' he said, pulling the top of Michael's hair and slapping his face. 'Nobody leaves here until you clowns are finished with your meal.'

Nokes walked to the edge of one of the tables and rubbed his boot on top of a crushed slice of bread. He took a cigarette out of an open pack in the front of his shirt and put it in his mouth. He lit it and sat on the side of the table.

'There's some bread over here,' Nokes said, blowing two smoke rings toward the ceiling. 'Can't have a good lunch without a slice of bread.'

Nokes spread his legs, looked down at the bread, took in a deep breath and spit on it. He took another drag of the cigarette and wiped at the sweat and blood on his face with the sleeve of his shirt.

'Now, how about you boys crawl over here and get yourself some?' Nokes said.

We were on our knees, chewing our food, our bodies trembling more out of shame than fear. Each humiliation plotted by Nokes and his crew was meant to be a breaking point, to make us crack and finally give in to Wilkinson. We were too young to know that the break line had been passed the minute we entered the prison walls and we were much too stubborn to understand that nothing we did or didn't do would allow us to defeat Nokes while we were still behind those walls.

'I don't see either of you scumbags crawlin',' Nokes said, finishing the cigarette and dropping it down on top of the bread. 'Don't make me come drag you on over here.'

We went down on our elbows, rubbing against the gravy that was spread across the ground, our faces inches from the food and dirt. Michael's nose was still bleeding and the swelling on his face had forced one eye to shut.

'That's it, now you're startin' to listen,' Nokes said. 'Show the boys here how to do a good crawl. Show them you know how to follow my rules.'

'It's one o'clock, Nokes,' Marlboro said, standing behind us, his voice filled with smoke. 'Your lunch shift is over.'

'I'm not through here yet,' Nokes said. 'Got a few more things that need cleanin' up before I can leave.'

'It's my tour now,' Marlboro said calmly, walking past us and moving closer to Nokes. 'I'll clean what needs cleanin'.'

'Stay outta this one,' Nokes said. 'This ain't got nothin' to do with you.'

'I stayed outta too many as it is,' Marlboro said, putting a cigarette to his mouth and lighting it. 'This one I'm gonna stay in.'

Nokes jumped down from the table, his face as red with rage as his shirt was with blood. He walked up to Marlboro, standing no less than five inches from the taller man's face.

'Don't tuck with me, boy,' Nokes said. 'I'm warnin' you.'

'Fuck with me, Nokes,' Marlboro said in a calm voice. 'I'm askin' you.'

Nokes continued the stare-down, his eyes locked in on Marlboro. None of the inmates moved, their attention focused on the first visible break in the wall of guard unity. Michael had stopped chewing his food, tossing his fork to the ground, too humiliated to care who would win the battle shaping before him. I held a spoon in my hand, rolling its head against my thigh, my eyes on the floor, wrapped in the silence around me.

Nokes took a deep breath, letting air out through his mouth, and shifted the weight on his feet. He slapped the baton against his open palm, measuring Marlboro, the crease of a smile inching its way to the sides of his face. Marlboro stood his ground without a change in expression, content to let the pressure of the situation percolate at its own pace.

Nokes was the one to back down. His smile faded and he let his head drop, so his eyes didn't meet Marlboro's.

'You eatin' into my shift,' Marlboro said.

'I'll get out of your way,' Nokes said. 'For now.'

'I take what I can get,' the black guard said, walking away from Nokes and over toward us. 'Just like you.'

Marlboro helped Michael to his feet and looked over at me, the soles of his shoes sliding on the slippery turf smeared with food, spit and hardened gravy. He nudged his head toward the guard standing in the aisle.

'If you through standin',' Marlboro said to him, 'I could use some help.'

'What do you need?' the guard said, his eyes darting, checking to see if Nokes was clear out of the room.

'Get the boys on their way,' Marlboro said, pointing to the inmates at the tables. 'They've seen enough to last till supper time. I'll take care of these two and what needs cleanin' up.'

The guard nodded and began to clear out the lunch room, one table row at a time. The inmates moved with a quiet precision, eager to leave now that the threat of violence was at an apparent end.

I stood next to Michael and Marlboro, watching the inmates exiting the hall, the three of us knowing there would be a price to pay for all that had happened on this day. Sean Nokes was not the kind of man to let a slight go by or leave an act of torment unfinished. He would go after Marlboro through the system, use whatever clout he could muster to make life difficult for the good man with the bad smoking habit. But he would save his true wrath for me and Michael. We both knew that. What it would be, what it could be after all the horrors that he had already initiated, was something neither one of us could envision. All we knew was that it would happen soon and, as with everything Nokes planned, it would be something we would never be able to erase from our minds.

Summer 1968

July 24, 1968 was my last fall day at Wilkinson.

Two weeks earlier, a five-member panel of The New York State Juvenile Hearing Board had determined that a period of ten months and twenty-four days was enough penance for my crime. A written request had been forwarded to the warden, with all necessary release forms attached. Also included in the package was the name of my designated control officer, the four days in August I was scheduled to report to him, and a psychological profile written by someone I had never met.

The thick manilla envelope, sealed with strips of tape, sat on the warden's desk for three days before he opened and signed it.

'The cook makin' anything special for your last day?' Tommy asked, walking alongside me in the yard during the middle of our morning break.

'If he really cared, he'd take the day off,' I said. 'The food in here has been killin' my insides.'

'Two cups of King Benny's coffee will set you straight,' Tommy said. 'No time flat.'

'It can't happen soon enough,' I said.

'Don't forget us in here,' Tommy said, his voice a tender plea.

I stopped and looked over at him. He still had the baby weight and face, but had changed in so many other ways. His eyes were clouded by a veil of anger and, in place of a swagger, there was now a nervous twitch to his walk.

His neck and arms were a road map of cuts and bruises and his left knee cap had been shattered twice, both above and below the main joint. It was the body of a boy who had done a man's prison time.

'I won't ever forget you,' I said, watching the anger briefly melt from his eyes. 'In or out of here.'

'Thanks, Shakes,' he said, picking up the walk. 'Might help knowin' that one body outta here gives a shit.'

'More than one body, Butter,' I said. 'You'd be surprised.'

'It's gonna be a bitch,' Tommy said. 'These last coupla months.'

'It'll be over soon,' I said, passing a grunting trio of weightlifters. 'By the time the Yankees drop out of the pennant race, you'll be home.'

'Nokes say anything yet about you leavin'?' Tommy asked.

'There isn't much more he can do,' I said. 'Time's on my side now.'

'Until you're out of those gates,' Tommy said, 'there ain't nothin' on your side.'

TWELVE

I sat in my cell, quiet and alone, in my last hours as an inmate at the Wilkinson Home for Boys. I looked around the small room, the walls barren, the sink and toilet cleaned to a shine, the window giving off only hints of nighttime sky. I had folded the white sheet covering, wedged it under the mattress and laid against it, my legs stretched out, feet dangling off the end of the cot. I was wearing white underwear and a green T-shirt in the stifling heat.

All my prison issues, except for a toothbrush, had been taken away by the guards earlier that afternoon. In the morning, they would be replaced by the clothes I wore on the day I first arrived at Wilkinson. A sealed white envelope containing four copies of my release form rested against one of my thighs. One was to be handed to the guard at the end of the cell block. A second was to be given to the guard stationed at the main gate. A third was for the driver of the bus that would take me back to lower Manhattan.

The last copy was to be mine, the final reminder of my time behind the bars of Wilkinson.

I reached over, picked up the envelope, opened it and fingered the four copies of the form. I stared at them, my mind filled with the images of pain and punishment, humiliation and degradation it took to get these forms in hand.

To get back my freedom and send me on my way.

I had walked into Wilkinson a boy. Now, I wasn't at all sure who or what I was. The months there had changed me, that was for certain. I just didn't know how or in what way the changes would manifest themselves. On the surface, I wasn't as physically ruined as John, nor as beaten down as Tommy. I wasn't the lit fuse Michael had become.

My anger was more controlled, mixed as it was with a deep fear. In my months there, I never could mount the courage that was needed to keep the guards at bay, but at the same time I maintained a level of dignity that would allow me to walk out of Wilkinson.

I don't know what kind of man I would have grown to be had I not served time at The Wilkinson Home for Boys. I don't know how those months and the events that occurred there shaped the person I became, how much they colored my motives or my actions. I don't know if they made me any braver or any weaker. I don't know if the illnesses I've suffered as an adult have been the result of those ruinous months. I'll never know if my distrust of most people and my unease when placed in group situations are byproducts of those days or simply the result of a shy personality.

I do know the dreams and nightmares I've had all these years are born of the nights spent in that cell at Wilkinson. That the scars I carry, both mental and physical, are gifts of a system that treated children as prey. The images that screen across my mind in the lonely hours are mine to bear alone, shared only by the silent community of sufferers who once lived as I did, in a world that was deaf to our screams.

I couldn't sleep, anxious for morning to arrive. It was still dark, the early hours offering little more than thin blades of light filtering into my cell from the outside hall.

I wondered what it would be like to sleep once again in a bed not surrounded by bars, to walk in a room not monitored by alternating sets of eyes. I was anxious to eat a meal of my choosing without fear that the food had been toyed with or tainted.

I thought about the first things I would do once I was back out on the familiar streets of Hell's Kitchen. I would buy a newspaper and check the box scores and standings, see how my favorite players had fared while I was away. I would walk up to the Beacon on West 74th Street and see whatever movie was playing, just to sit once more in those plush seats and breathe air ripe with the smell of burning popcorn. I would go to Mimi's and order two hot slices with extra cheese, stand at the counter and look out at the passing traffic. I would go to the library next to my apartment building, find an empty table and surround myself with all the books I loved, running my hands across their pages, holding their torn binders; reading the fine old print.

It was my way of life and I wanted to get back to it.

I never heard the key turn in the latch. Never heard the snap of the bolt. I only saw the door swing open, a crowd of shadows washing across the floor of my cell.

'You should be asleep,' Nokes said, his words slurred. He was the first to enter, his uniform shirt off, an empty pint of bourbon in his right hand. 'Need all your rest for the big trip back home.'

'Told you he'd be up,' Addison said, walking in behind Nokes, just as drunk, face, neck and arms wet with sweat. 'These fuckers are like rats. They never sleep.'

'What do you want?' I asked as calmly as I could manage.

'I just want to say good-bye,' Nokes said. 'We all do. Let you know how much we gonna miss havin' you around here.'

'We're friends, right?' Styler said, entering the cell, sober and in full uniform, holding John and Tommy by his side. 'All of us.'

John looked at me with dead eyes, as if he knew what was going to happen and was trying to shut it out of his mind. Tommy was crying, full tears running down the sides of his face, afraid more for me than for himself.

'Must be hard to leave your friends,' Ferguson said, walking in with Michael and locking the cell door behind him. 'We've been together for so long.'

'Can't leave your friends without a party,' Nokes said. 'It just wouldn't be right.'

Michael, as always, stayed silent, his face, his eyes, his entire body, coiled into one large mask of hate. John and Tommy may have lost their heart, but Michael was in danger of losing his humanity. Everything that was done to him, everything that was said, only served to fuel his hate. By now, he had enough fuel to last a lifetime.

'It's over, Nokes,' I said, standing up in the crowded room, the heat strong, the air rancid. 'Please let it go.'

'It ain't over till morning,' Nokes said. 'It ain't over till the party's over.'

'I don't want a party,' I said.

'That's too bad,' Styler said. 'I even went out and got you a gift.'

'A special gift,' Nokes said. 'One you ain't ever gonna forget.'

Ferguson and Addison stood next to me and held my arms while Styler reached into his pocket and pulled out a few feet of nylon cord. He tied the cord around my arms, knotting it secure at the back. Styler shoved a wad of tissues into my mouth and held my face as Addison ran thick yellow tape across my lips. Nokes walked over, a wide black belt dangling in one hand.

'Tie his feet too,' Nokes said, handing the belt to Styler. 'I don't want him to move.'

My three friends stood before me, as still as the air, only their eyes betraying their terror. John's lips were trembling and Tommy kept his head tilted to the ceiling, his mouth mumbling a secret prayer. Michael was a silent statue, his rage at rest.

'We got a full house tonight,' Nokes said, leaning over and whispering in my ear, his breath bourbon-coated. 'First we take care of your friends. And then we take care of you.'

I watched Styler walk over to John and lock a handcuff around one of his wrists. The other half of the cuff was put on Tommy's wrist. Addison did the same to Michael and Tommy, locking the three together.

'Move them up closer,' Nokes said, sitting on the cot, one arm hanging over my shoulder. 'We wanna get a good look.'

Styler pushed the three forward with one hand, lighting a cigarette with the other. Ferguson wiped sweat from his face and forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. Addison stood with his back against the door and giggled.

'Best seats in the house,' Nokes said to me. 'You won't miss a thing from here.'

There was no place for us to go, nowhere for us to run. Our screams would go unheeded. Shouts for the warden would be ignored. No one would listen. No one would care. Fear ruled the night and fear controlled this place.

My friends were face down on the floor, their pants stripped off and tossed to the side, the three guards on their knees behind them, laughing, sweating, hands rubbing flesh, glazed, watery eyes looking at Nokes, waiting for the nod of his head.

'Everybody's ready,' Nokes said to me, squeezing me closer to his side. 'Time to drop the ball.'

Nokes pushed my head onto his shoulder and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, sweat pouring out of both of us like a light, steady rain.

Styler was slapping John's back, playful taps that echoed off the walls of the small room.

Addison hovered over Tommy, fondling himself and staring at me.

I'm gonna fuck your friend,' he said in a shaky voice. 'Every night. Every night you ain't here, I'm gonna fuck your friend.'

Ferguson rested his body on top of Michael's, his eyes wide with anticipation.

'Let's go, Nokes,' he said. 'Stop wastin' time. Let's give 'em what they want.'

Nokes pushed us both back against the wall, one of his hands holding my face to the scene before me.

'Go to it,' Nokes said, his eyes, his breath, his body on me. 'Make it party time.'

They tore at my friends, attacked them as if they were animals freed from a cage. The cries, the screams, the shrieks were all a valued part of their beastly game. I sat there, sweat running down my body and onto the sheet beneath me, and watched three boys be ripped apart, living playthings lost in a garden filled with evil intent.

'You gonna think about this when you're gone,' Nokes said, rubbing his arms over my body. 'Ain't ya', you little fuck? Ain't ya'?'

Nokes leaned over and pushed me face down on my cot. His hands tore at the few clothes I was wearing, stripping me naked, my arms still bound by the nylon cord. He undid the belt around my legs, folded it and began to lash at my back and rear with it.

'You're gonna remember this little party, all right,' Nokes said, as he continued to hit at me with the thick edges of the belt. 'You gonna remember but good. I'm gonna see to that. Don't worry, fucker. I'm gonna see to that.'

Nokes tossed the belt to the floor and lowered his pants, his breath coming in heavy waves, sweat slicing down off his body. His mouth rested against my ear, his teeth chewing on the lobe.

'This is so you don't forget me,' he said again, the weight of his body now on top of mine. 'Can't let you do that, sweet thing. You gotta remember me like you gotta remember this night. Forever.'

I heard John cry, pitiful moans coming from a well deep inside his soul. I saw Tommy's head bounce like a rubber ball against the cement floor, blood flowing from dual streams above his forehead, his eyes blank, the corners of his mouth washed in foam. I saw Michael's left arm bend across the side of his back until the bones in the joint snapped, the pain strong enough to strip the life from his body.

I felt Nokes pulling at me, hitting me with two closed fists, his mouth biting my shoulders and neck, drawing blood. The front of his head butted against the back of mine with every painful thrust, my nose and cheeks scraping the sharp edges of my cot. One of his knees, the pointy end of his belt now wrapped around it, was wedged against the fleshy part of my thigh, stabbing into it, blood coming out in spurts.

A part of all of us was left in that room that night. A night now far removed by the passage of time. A night that will never be removed from my mind.

The night of July 24, 1968.

The summer of love.

My last night at the Wilkinson Home for Boys.