Sleepers

ELEVEN

The prison cafeteria was crowded, long rows of wooden tables filled with tin trays and inmates elbowing their way through a macaroni and cheese di

The food was usually at the low end of the frozen food chain, heavy on processed meat, eggs, cheese and potatoes, weak on vegetables and fruit. Each table sat sixteen inmates, eight to a bench. One guard was assigned to every three tables.

As with every other social situation at Wilkinson, the dining area offered limited opportunities to make friends. The guards were always wary of cliques forming or expanding and moved quickly to split up any such attempts. This left the inmates with no choice but to stick to their original alliances. Living in an atmosphere that stressed survival above all else, random friendships posed too great a risk, for they required a level of trust that no one was willing to concede. It was safer to stay within your own group.

I was fourth on the serving line, standing a few feet behind Michael, empty trays held in our hands. A blank-faced counterman dropped an empty plate on each of our trays, his head rocking up and down, rolling to its own private rhythm. Further down the line, I grabbed for two spoons and an empty tin cup.

'Can you see what we're having?' I asked Michael.

'Whatever it is, it's covered with brown gravy.'

''All our meals are covered with brown gravy.'

'They must think we like it,' Michael said. Then he turned off the line and moved to his left, his tray rilled with dark meat, gray potatoes, a small, hard roll and a cup of water, looking for a place for us to sit. He headed for the back of the room, where there were two spots. I followed, right behind him.

The spaces between the tables were narrow, wide enough for only one person at a time to make his way through. The guards stood to the sides, their eyes focused on the tables assigned them. They controlled who left his seat and who sat in his place, all accomplished with hand gestures, nods and shoulder taps. It was a system that functioned through precision and obedience, guards and inmates merged in an assembly line of human movement. There was no room for error, no space for accidents, no place for a mental lapse.

No time to bring the assembly line to a halt.

Michael was halfway down the row of tables, his eyes focused on two seats in the rear of the room. I was directly behind him, followed by a short teenager with a limp. None of us saw the inmate on Michael's left stand and begin to move out of his row.

Michael moved three steps forward, the edge of his tray barely grazing the arm of the inmate walking toward him on his left. The inmate shot his arm against the tray and sent it skyward, out of Michael's hands and crashing to the floor in full view of a guard.

Michael whirled to face the inmate who called himself K.C. and who was now standing with a smile on his face and his hands balled into fists. 'What the fuck you do that for?'

'You brushed me,' K.C. said.

'So?'

''Nobody touches me,' K.C. said. 'I ain't like you and the rest of your fag friends.'

Michael swung a hard right at K.C., landing it flush against the much taller boy's jaw. The blow, one of the hardest I'd seen Michael land, barely caused a flinch. Michael looked at me in disbelief and, for a moment, it was almost fu

K.C. looked to be about three years older than Michael, perhaps eighteen, with broad shoulders, bulked arms and a crew cut so close it showed little more than scalp. In the few months that he had been inside Wilkinson's, K.C. had already razor-slashed another inmate, done time in the hole for his part in a gang rape and spent a week in a strait-jacket after he took a bite out of a guard's neck.

He rushed Michael and they both fell to the floor, shirts and skin sliding against spilled food. K.C. threw two sharp right hands, both landing against Michael's face, one flush to the eye. A circle of inmates formed around them, quietly watching the action, a few holding trays and eating the remains of their lunch. The guard, less than a month on the job, stood off to the side, his face a blank screen.

I held my ground and sca

K.C. was rubbing a fist full of meat against Michael's face, grinding it into his eyes. Michael shot a hard knee into K.C.'s groin and followed it with a short left to his kidney.

'Your fuckin' life's over,' K.C. said, putting his hands around Michael's throat and tightening his grip. 'You go

I tossed my tray aside and jumped on KC.'s back, punching at his neck and head, trying to loosen his hold. K.C. let one hand go and turned it to me, swinging his punches upward, brushing my shoulder and side. The reduced pressure allowed Michael to take in some fresh breath. K.C. swung his body at an angle, his open hand against my chin, trying to push me off his back. He rolled over with me still clinging to him, his strength taking Michael around with us. I landed on top of the spilled tray, my shirt wet and sticky from the gravy, meat and potatoes spread across the floor. K.C. was now all flailing arms and legs, kicking and punching at us both with a wild, animallike intensity. I covered my face with my hands and kept my elbows slapped against my sides, blocking as many of KC's kicks and punches as I could.

Michael did the same.

The crowd inched in closer, sensing that what they wanted to see was about to take place – a bloody finish to the battle.

A sharp kick to the throat stripped me of wind and a wild punch to my jaw forced blood out of my nose. Voices in the crowd, fueled by the rush for the kill, cheered K.C. on.

'Finish him!' someone from behind me shouted.

'Kick him dead!' another said.

'One and two belong to you!' still another screamed. 'Step back and just watch 'em die.'

The shrill sound of a police whistle brought the shouts to an end.

The crowd parted to let Nokes walk past, each inmate staring at him in silence. Nokes held a can of mace in one hand and the thick end of his baton in the other. He was chewing a piece of gum and had a cigarette tucked behind one ear. The back of his shirt was streaked with sweat. His eyes moved from me to Michael to K.C. The three of us stood facing him, our bodies washed head to knee in food and blood.

Nokes stood in front of me and took the cigarette from behind his ear, put it to his mouth and lit it with a closed matchbook. He took in a lung full of smoke and let it out slow, through his nose, his closed jaw still moving to the gum.

'All these months here, they haven't taught you shit,' Nokes said. 'You're still the same fuckin' clowns you were when you walked in.'

Nokes turned from us and faced the inmates behind him. He sca

'Back to your seats and finish your lunch,' Nokes said to them. 'There's nothin' more to see.'

'That go for me too?' K.C. said, rubbing his hands against the sides of his pants.

'No,' Nokes said, turning back to him. 'No, it don't go for you. I want you back in your cell. You're done with lunch.'

'Me and you finish this some other time,' K.C. said, looking over at Michael. 'Some time real soon.'