Sleepers

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. Joh

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 stu

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 ru

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 go

'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 ru

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 ru

'You're dead,' he said. 'You are go

'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.