Sleepers

I shut my eye and gave in to sleep.

It was two days later when I heard the footsteps, familiar in their weight.

'Hello, boys,' Nokes said, standing between our two beds, a smile on his face. 'How we feelin' today?'

Michael and I just stared back, watching him swagger up and down, checking our charts, eyeballing our bandages and wounds.

'You should be outta here in no time,' Nokes snarled. 'It's go

Michael turned his head, looking down the corridor, checking the faces of the other sick inmates. Juanito was two beds down, his face a mask of cuts, welts and stitches.

'It's been nice visitin' with you,' Nokes said, standing close enough for us to touch. 'But I gotta go. I'm on shift. I'll see you soon, though. You can count on that.'

Michael motioned for Nokes to stop. 'Kill me now,' Michael whispered.

'What?' Nokes moved to Michael's side of the bed. 'What did you say?'

'Kill me now.' It wasn't a whisper this time. It was in a normal tone of voice, calm and clear. 'Kill us all now.'

'You're fuckin' crazy,' Nokes said.

'You have to kill us,' Michael said. 'You can't let us out alive.'

Nokes was still startled, but he shook it off and replaced his uneasiness with his usual smirk. 'Yeah?' he said. 'And why's that, tough guy?'

'You can't run the risk,' Michael told him.

'What risk you talkin' about?'

'The risk of meeting up,' Michael said. 'In a place that ain't here.'

'That supposed to scare me? That street shit of yours supposed to scare me?' Nokes laughed. 'Your friend Rizzo was tough too. Now he's buried tough.'

'Kill us all,' Michael said. 'Or sign yourself up for life in here. That's the choice.'

'I've been right all along,' Nokes said. 'You are crazy. You Hell's Kitchen motherfuckers are really crazy.'

'Think about it,' Michael said to our tormentor. 'Think about it hard. It's the only way out for you. Don't take a chance. You can't afford it. You kill us and you kill us now.'

Winter 1968

I squeezed the mop through a wooden ringer, dirty brown water filtering back into the wash pail. I was on the third tier of C block, washing the floors outside the cells. It was my first week out of the infirmary and my wounds, bound by tight strips of gauze bandages against my ribs and thighs, still ached. After a few strokes with the mop, I rested against the iron railings, my legs weak from days in the hole. It was early morning and the cell block was quiet, inmates either attending classes or exercising in the gym.

I looked around the block, gray, shiny and still, winter light from outside merging with the glare of overhead fluorescents that were kept on twenty-four hours a day. In its silence, Wilkinson looked serene, cell doors open, floors glistening, steam from large central radiators keeping out the cold winds of winter.

The peace was not meant to hold. Wilkinson was a prison on the brim of a riot. Rizzo had been right. The guards did not take kindly to our playing them even. The day after the game, all inmate privileges were canceled. The late-night beatings and abuse accelerated to the point where no inmate felt safe. The most minor infraction, ignored in the past, was now cause for the most severe punishment.

For their part, the inmates were stirred by Rizzo's death and the conditions in which the rest of the team were released from the isolation ward. Makeshift weapons – zip guns, sharpened spoons stuck into wooden bases, mattress coils twisted into brass knuckles – now appeared in every cell block. The inmates still obeyed every order, but their faces were now masked by defiance.

I was half-way down the corridor when I saw Wilson on the circular staircase, making his way to the third tier. Wilson was the only black guard in our cell block and the only guard who shu

Marlboro was older than the other guards by a good ten years and had two younger brothers who held similar jobs at other state homes. In summer months, he was known to smuggle in an occasional six-pack to some of the older inmates.

He was also Rizzo's co

'Seem to be doin' a good job,' he said when he reached my end of the hall, his breath coming in short spurts, a long stream of smoke flowing out his nose. 'You take to the mop real good.'

'Some people do,' I said. 'Some people teach.'

'Got that right,' he said, laughing, a rumble of a cough starting in his chest.

'How many of those you go through a day?' I said, pointing to the lit cigarette in his hand.

'Three,' he said. 'Maybe four.'

'Tacks?'

'We all got habits, son,' Marlboro said. 'Some that are good. Some that are bad.'

I went back to mopping the floor, moving the wet strands from side to side, careful not to let water droplets slip over the edge of the tier.

'How much more time you got?' Marlboro said from behind me. 'Before they let you out.'

'Seven months if they keep me to term,' I said. 'Less if they don't.'

'You be out by spring,' Marlboro said. 'Only the baddest apples do full runs.'

'Or end up dead,' I said.

Marlboro lit a fresh cigarette with the back end of a smolder between his fingers, tossed the old one over the side and swallowed a mouth of smoke.

'Rizzo was my friend,' Marlboro said. 'I didn't have a piece of what went down.'

'Didn't break your ass to stop it,' I said.

'Look around, son,' Marlboro said, cigarette clenched between his teeth, veins thick on his bulky arms. 'You see a lot of other nigger guards around here?'

'Guards is all I see around here,' I said.

'I got me a good job,' Marlboro said. 'Work is steady. Pension, if I make it, a good one. Vacation and holidays are paid and every other weekend belongs to me and my lady.'

'And it keeps you in cigarettes,' I said.

'I hate what they do to you and the other boys,' Marlboro said, cigarette out of his mouth, sadness etched across the stark contours of his face. 'Hate what they did to Rizzo. That boy was blood to me. But there ain't nothin' I can do. Nothin' I can say go

I put the mop back into the pail and ran it through the ringer, hands on the top end of the handle, eyes on Marlboro.

'You ever hit a kid?' I asked.

'Never,' Marlboro said. 'Never will. Don't get me wrong. There's some mean sons of bitches in here could take a beatin.' But it ain't what I do. Ain't part of the job. Least not the job I took.'

'How do the other guards feel about you?'

'I'm a nigger to them,' Marlboro said. 'They probably think I'm no better than any of you. Maybe worse.'

'They always been like this?'

'Since I been here,' Marlboro said. 'Goin' on three years come this June.'

'How about you and Nokes?' I asked.

'I do my work and keep my distance,' Marlboro said. 'He does the same.'

'What's the deal?' I said.

'Same as the others,' Marlboro said. 'They don't like who they are. They don't like where they are.'

'There's lots of people like that,' I said. 'Where I live, every man I know feels that way. But they don't go around doing the shit Nokes and his crew pull.'

'Maybe they different kind of men,' Marlboro said. 'Nokes and his boys, they ain't seen much of life and what they seen they don't like. You grow up like that, most times, you grow up feelin' empty. And that's what they are. Empty. Nothin' inside. Nothin' out.'