It was dark and I was hungry, the dank air heavy with the smell of cleaning fluids. I didn't like tight places or dark rooms and my cell was both. Its walls were cracked and peeling, a torn photo of James Dean taped to one. I hated to be alone, to be without books to read or baseball cards to sort through, forced to stare at a thick iron door that was locked from the outside. The steady rumbling sounds that came out of the other cells were difficult to ignore, making me long for those peaceful hours when I would sit in Sacred Heart church and find solace in its silence.
It doesn't take very long to know how tough a person you are or how strong you can be. I knew from my first day at Wilkinson that I was neither tough nor strong. It only takes a moment for the fear to find its way, to seep through the carefully constructed armor. Once it does, it finds a permanent place. It is as true for a hardened criminal as it is for a young boy.
The first guard I met inside Wilkinson was Sean Nokes, who was then twenty-five years old. He stood inside my cell, his legs pressed close together, a black baton cupped in both hands. He had a thick ruddy face and close-cropped blond hair and he wore sharply-creased brown slacks, thick-soled black shoes and a starched white button-down shirt with a black name tag clipped to the front pocket. His eyes were cold, his voice deep.
'Toss your old clothes to the floor,' were the first words he said to me.
'Here?'
'If you're expecting a dressing room, forget it. We don't have any. So lose the clothes.'
'In front of you?' I asked.
A smile cracked the side of Nokes's face. 'For the time you're here, day or night, you do everything in front of someone. Piss, shit, shower, brush your teeth, play with yourself, write letters home. Whatever. Somebody's gonna be looking. Most times, that somebody's gonna be me?
I tossed my shirt to the floor, unzipped my pants and let them drop past my knees. I stepped out of the pants, kicked them aside and, wearing only my white cotton briefs, white socks with holes in both heels and a laceless pair of Keds, looked back up at Nokes.
'Everything' Nokes said, still standing in stiff military posture. 'Here on, the only clothes you wear are state issued.'
'You want me to stand here naked?' I asked.
'Now you're catching on. I knew you Hell's Kitchen boys couldn't be as dumb as people say.'
I took off my underwear, kicked off my sneakers and balled up the white socks, dropping them all on the pile beside me. I stood there naked and embarrassed.
'Now what?'
'Get dressed,' Nokes said, nodding his head toward the clothes that had been left on my cot. 'Assembly's in fifteen minutes. That's when you'll meet the other boys.'
'Are my friends on this floor?' I asked, taking two steps toward the cot and reaching for a folded green T-shirt.
'Friends?' Nokes said turning away. 'You got a lot to learn, little boy. Nobody's got friends in this place. That's something you best not forget.'
The bus ride up to the Wilkinson Home for Boys had taken more than three hours, including two stops for gas and a short bathroom break. Lunch was eaten on board: soggy butter sandwiches on white bread, lukewarm containers of apple juice and Oh! Henry candy bars. Outside the temperature topped ninety degrees. Inside, it was even hotter. The old air conditioner hissed warm air and half the windows were sealed shut, dust lines smearing their chipped panes.
The bus was old, narrow and dirty, painted slate gray inside and out. Half the thirty-six seats were taken up by boys younger than I was; none was older than sixteen. There were three guards along for the ride, one in the front next to the driver and two in the back sharing a pack of smokes and a skin magazine. Each guard had a long black nightstick and a can of mace looped inside his belt. The guard up front had a small handgun shoved inside the front band of his pants.
Four of the boys were black, two looked to be Hispanic and the rest were white. We sat alone, occupying every other seat, our feet chained to a thin, iron bar that stretched the length of the bus. Our hands were free and we were allowed to speak, but most seemed content to stare out at the passing countryside. For many, it was their first trip beyond New York City borders.
Michael sat two rows ahead of me and John and Tommy were close behind to my left.
'This is like the bus Doug McClure drove in The Longest Hundred Miles? John said to a pock-marked teen across the aisle. 'Don't you think?'
'Who the fuck is Doug McClure?' the kid said. 'Not important,' John said, turning his attention back to the sloping hills of upstate New York.
Earlier that morning, we had said our goodbyes to relatives and friends outside the courtroom across from Foley Square. My father hugged and held me until one of the guards told him it was time for us to go.
'Treat him right,' my father told the guard.
'Don't worry,' he answered. 'He'll be okay. Now, please, step away.'
I walked from my father and into a line forming near the bus. The crowd around us drew closer, older hands reaching out for a final touch, mothers crying softly, fathers bowing their heads in angry silence. I saw John's mother lay a strand of rosary beads over his head, her knees buckling from emotion. Michael and Tommy stood behind me on the line, their eyes staring at empty spaces; there was no one there to see them off.
I looked to my left and saw Father Bobby standing next to an open-air parking lot, his back pressing a light pole. I nodded in his direction and tried but couldn't bring myself to smile. I watched as he flicked his cigarette to the sidewalk and walked toward the bus.
I wished he wasn't there. I wished none of them were there. I didn't want anyone, let alone people I cared about, to see me get on a bus that was going to take me to a place I could only think of as a jail. Father Bobby especially. I felt I had let him down, betrayed his trust in me. He tried to help us as much as he could – sent a stream of letters to the Judge, hoping to get the charges dropped or reduced; argued to have us assigned to another institution; begged to have us placed in his custody. None of it worked and now he was left with only prayer.
He stood across from me, his eyes saddened, his strong body sagging.
'Will you write to me?' he asked.
I wanted so much to cry, to put my arms around him and hold him as close as I had held my father. I fought back the tears and tried to swallow, my mouth dirt dry.
'Don't worry,' I managed to say. 'You'll hear from me.'
'It'll mean a lot,' Father Bobby said, his voice as choked and cracked as mine.
He stared at me with wet eyes. Years later I would realize what that look contained, the warnings he wished he could utter. But, he couldn't tell me. He didn't dare risk making me even more frightened. It took all the strength he had not to grab me, to grab all of us, and run from the steps of that bus. Run as far and as fast as we could. Run until we were all free.
'Would you do me a favor?' I asked him.
'Name it.'
'Check on my mother and father,' I said. 'These last few weeks, they look ready to kill each other.'
'I will,' Father Bobby said.
'And no matter what you hear, tell 'em I'm doin' okay,' I said.
'You want me to lie?' Father Bobby said, a smile breaking through the sadness, one hand on my shoulder.