Sleepers

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 perso

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.'