Sleepers

'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 sca

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.