Sleepers (25 page)

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 the out-of-control guards. And the cruelty was all in the open, done without fear of reprisal. 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’s 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.

6

V
ISITORS 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.

F
ATHER
B
OBBY 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-sleeve 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 that 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.

7

O
NCE 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 was 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? 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.”