Sleepers

I stood next to Michael and Marlboro, watching the inmates exiting the hall, the three of us knowing there would be a price to pay for all that had happened on this day. Sean Nokes was not the kind of man to let a slight go by or leave an act of torment unfinished. He would go after Marlboro through the system, use whatever clout he could muster to make life difficult for the good man with the bad smoking habit. But he would save his true wrath for me and Michael. We both knew that. What it would be, what it could be after all the horrors that he had already initiated, was something neither one of us could envision. All we knew was that it would happen soon and, as with everything Nokes pla

Summer 1968

July 24, 1968 was my last fall day at Wilkinson.

Two weeks earlier, a five-member panel of The New York State Juvenile Hearing Board had determined that a period of ten months and twenty-four days was enough penance for my crime. A written request had been forwarded to the warden, with all necessary release forms attached. Also included in the package was the name of my designated control officer, the four days in August I was scheduled to report to him, and a psychological profile written by someone I had never met.

The thick manilla envelope, sealed with strips of tape, sat on the warden's desk for three days before he opened and signed it.

'The cook makin' anything special for your last day?' Tommy asked, walking alongside me in the yard during the middle of our morning break.

'If he really cared, he'd take the day off,' I said. 'The food in here has been killin' my insides.'

'Two cups of King Be

'It can't happen soon enough,' I said.

'Don't forget us in here,' Tommy said, his voice a tender plea.

I stopped and looked over at him. He still had the baby weight and face, but had changed in so many other ways. His eyes were clouded by a veil of anger and, in place of a swagger, there was now a nervous twitch to his walk.

His neck and arms were a road map of cuts and bruises and his left knee cap had been shattered twice, both above and below the main joint. It was the body of a boy who had done a man's prison time.

'I won't ever forget you,' I said, watching the anger briefly melt from his eyes. 'In or out of here.'

'Thanks, Shakes,' he said, picking up the walk. 'Might help knowin' that one body outta here gives a shit.'

'More than one body, Butter,' I said. 'You'd be surprised.'

'It's go

'It'll be over soon,' I said, passing a grunting trio of weightlifters. 'By the time the Yankees drop out of the pe

'Nokes say anything yet about you leavin'?' Tommy asked.

'There isn't much more he can do,' I said. 'Time's on my side now.'

'Until you're out of those gates,' Tommy said, 'there ain't nothin' on your side.'

TWELVE

I sat in my cell, quiet and alone, in my last hours as an inmate at the Wilkinson Home for Boys. I looked around the small room, the walls barren, the sink and toilet cleaned to a shine, the window giving off only hints of nighttime sky. I had folded the white sheet covering, wedged it under the mattress and laid against it, my legs stretched out, feet dangling off the end of the cot. I was wearing white underwear and a green T-shirt in the stifling heat.

All my prison issues, except for a toothbrush, had been taken away by the guards earlier that afternoon. In the morning, they would be replaced by the clothes I wore on the day I first arrived at Wilkinson. A sealed white envelope containing four copies of my release form rested against one of my thighs. One was to be handed to the guard at the end of the cell block. A second was to be given to the guard stationed at the main gate. A third was for the driver of the bus that would take me back to lower Manhattan.

The last copy was to be mine, the final reminder of my time behind the bars of Wilkinson.

I reached over, picked up the envelope, opened it and fingered the four copies of the form. I stared at them, my mind filled with the images of pain and punishment, humiliation and degradation it took to get these forms in hand.

To get back my freedom and send me on my way.

I had walked into Wilkinson a boy. Now, I wasn't at all sure who or what I was. The months there had changed me, that was for certain. I just didn't know how or in what way the changes would manifest themselves. On the surface, I wasn't as physically ruined as John, nor as beaten down as Tommy. I wasn't the lit fuse Michael had become.

My anger was more controlled, mixed as it was with a deep fear. In my months there, I never could mount the courage that was needed to keep the guards at bay, but at the same time I maintained a level of dignity that would allow me to walk out of Wilkinson.

I don't know what kind of man I would have grown to be had I not served time at The Wilkinson Home for Boys. I don't know how those months and the events that occurred there shaped the person I became, how much they colored my motives or my actions. I don't know if they made me any braver or any weaker. I don't know if the illnesses I've suffered as an adult have been the result of those ruinous months. I'll never know if my distrust of most people and my unease when placed in group situations are byproducts of those days or simply the result of a shy personality.

I do know the dreams and nightmares I've had all these years are born of the nights spent in that cell at Wilkinson. That the scars I carry, both mental and physical, are gifts of a system that treated children as prey. The images that screen across my mind in the lonely hours are mine to bear alone, shared only by the silent community of sufferers who once lived as I did, in a world that was deaf to our screams.

I couldn't sleep, anxious for morning to arrive. It was still dark, the early hours offering little more than thin blades of light filtering into my cell from the outside hall.

I wondered what it would be like to sleep once again in a bed not surrounded by bars, to walk in a room not monitored by alternating sets of eyes. I was anxious to eat a meal of my choosing without fear that the food had been toyed with or tainted.

I thought about the first things I would do once I was back out on the familiar streets of Hell's Kitchen. I would buy a newspaper and check the box scores and standings, see how my favorite players had fared while I was away. I would walk up to the Beacon on West 74th Street and see whatever movie was playing, just to sit once more in those plush seats and breathe air ripe with the smell of burning popcorn. I would go to Mimi's and order two hot slices with extra cheese, stand at the counter and look out at the passing traffic. I would go to the library next to my apartment building, find an empty table and surround myself with all the books I loved, ru

It was my way of life and I wanted to get back to it.

I never heard the key turn in the latch. Never heard the snap of the bolt. I only saw the door swing open, a crowd of shadows washing across the floor of my cell.

'You should be asleep,' Nokes said, his words slurred. He was the first to enter, his uniform shirt off, an empty pint of bourbon in his right hand. 'Need all your rest for the big trip back home.'

'Told you he'd be up,' Addison said, walking in behind Nokes, just as drunk, face, neck and arms wet with sweat. 'These fuckers are like rats. They never sleep.'

'What do you want?' I asked as calmly as I could manage.