Sleepers

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 go

'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 go

'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.