'It's a good lie, Father,' I said. 'You can do it.'
Father Bobby moved from the bus and watched as I boarded, his eyes scanning the faces of the other boys already in their seats. He pulled another cigarette from his shirt pocket and lit it, inhaling deeply. He then went over to my father and stood by his side until the bus closed its doors and pulled away from the curb. Then the two men – one a priest, the other an ex-con – walked with heads down and hands inside their pockets toward a nearby subway station for the ride back to the only place either one ever trusted.
TWO
The Wilkinson Home for Boys held 375 youthful offenders, housed in five separate units spread across seven well-tended acres. It had two large gyms, a football field, a quarter-mile oval track and one chapel suitable for all religions.
From the outside, the facility resembled what those who ran it most wanted it to resemble – a secluded private school. One hundred guards were on hand to monitor the inmates. The majority were local recruits only a few years older than their oldest charges. For them, this was a way-stop on a path to other jobs in law enforcement or government. A two-year tour of duty at Wilkinson, which was the average stay for most guards, always looked good on a resume.
The teachers, groundskeepers, handymen, cooks and maintenance crews were also local hires. This served the dual function of keeping labor costs low and secrecy high. No one was going to do damage to one of the largest employers in the area, regardless of what they might see or hear.
The facility was run by a warden and his two assistants.
The warden, a disinterested and overweight man in his late forties, was more concerned with appearances than the reality of life inside Wilkinson. He lived with his wife and two children in a large house less than a five-minute drive from the main gate. He left his office every afternoon at four and was never at his desk any earlier than ten. His young assistants, who both hoped one day to run facilities of their own, kept similar schedules.
The guards were in charge of the day-to-day operations. They ran the drills, which started with a six a.m. wake-up and a twenty-minute breakfast and ended with a nine-thirty lights out. Each day was a series of whistles directing us to our next station – classroom, gym, showers, meals, clinic, library and field work.
Michael, Tommy, John and I were assigned to the second tier of Group C in the third and smallest of the buildings dotting the property. We were each placed in a private twelve-foot cell that came equipped with a cot and a spring mattress, a toilet with no lid and a sink with only a cold water faucet. The iron door leading into the room had three bars across the center and a slide panel at its base. Above the sink was a small window, its glass intwined with wire, which offered a view of what seemed to me to be an always colorless sky.
We were allowed a shower every three days and were given clean clothes every Friday morning; the dirty laundry was thrown into a hamper wheeled by a white-haired man with a limp. To avoid confusion, our green shirts, white pants, white socks and dark blue sneakers were stenciled with the first two letters of our last name. Those old enough to shave did so under a guard's supervision. Beards and moustaches were not permitted. Neither were portable radios or any type of recording device. There was only one television per building and that was usually watched by the guards.
Once a month, a movie was shown in the main hall and all 375 inmates were required to attend.
There were four guards assigned to each floor, with one, in our case Nokes, designated group leader. The three men working with Nokes were named Ferguson, Styler and Addison. We were never told their first names nor were we encouraged to ask. None was older than his mid-twenties, and they seemed to be close friends.
Ferguson was tall and angular, with feminine hands and a thin face that quickly betrayed his thoughts. He was the only son of a slain New York State trooper and was on the waiting list for both the New York City and Suffolk County police departments. He had just completed his first year at Wilkinson and was both distrusted and disliked by the juveniles. He had a flash temper and a brute strength that went against his physical appearance. 'You could see it in him from the first day, from the first time you laid eyes on the guy,' John said. 'He had the kind of temper that was either going to kill or going to get him killed. Or both.'
Styler was using his job at Wilkinson's to finance his way through law school. He was short but muscular and made as much use of the gym as any of the inmates. On his evening breaks, he would do chin-ups on the railing bars, his body dangling over the second-level of the tiers, openly daring any juvenile to make a move. Styler was always in a foul mood, brought on by the dual demands of work and school and the frustration of spending time at a job he viewed with contempt. He was a poor kid who looked down on other poor kids. They only reminded him of where he came from and how far he had to go to get away.
Addison was a graduate of a local high school who wanted nothing more than a steady job that paid well, offered good benefits and a twenty-year pension. He took every civil service test he found out about and was on the waiting list for eight police and fire departments throughout the area. He was the youngest of the guards assigned to us and also the loudest, eager to flex verbal muscles by barking out orders. We had seen many men like him in Hell's Kitchen. He had little else in life but his mundane job. Off the job, he took a lot of shit; on the job, he shit on everyone.
At first look, there were no surprises to Addison. There were no surprises to any of them. But that was a first look, and for once, we had no idea what to look for.
I was sitting next to John, our backs up against the gym wall, our knees stretched out, shirts drenched with sweat, watching six black inmates play an intense game of three-on-three basketball. We were only in the middle of our third day at Wilkinson. It already felt like three months.
I watched a muscular teen in full sweats hit a corner jumper, my eyes looking beyond him at the cement walls that kept us prisoners. Nothing that had happened during my first days at the Home had helped ease my anxiety. The food was tasteless, the sleeping conditions horrid and the atmosphere in the yards and classrooms charged. There was always a sense of impending danger and I just couldn't envision living a full year of my life in such a way.
As bad as it was for me, it was worse for John. The tight quarters gave weight to his claustrophobia and worsened his asthma attacks. He wasn't eating and couldn't drink the milk that was served at every meal, reducing his liquid intake to the tepid water he sipped from playground fountains. His skin was pale, his nose always seemed to be runny, and he looked as frightened as I felt.
'Is this how you Hell's Kitchen boys spend your days?' It was Nokes. He was standing above us, facing the game, a black baton in his hand. 'Watching niggers shoot baskets?'
'We're takin' a break,' John said. 'That's all.'
'I decide when you get a break,' Nokes said, a smirk on his face.
It didn't take long for Sean Nokes to make his presence among us felt. He was one of those men who enjoyed the power he held and who looked to cause trouble at every turn. He was in the middle of his second year at Wilkinson and had been married less than six months. He lived in a two-bedroom, third-floor apartment less than a five mile drive from the Home. He sent a small portion of his paycheck to his widowed mother in nearby Rochester and was captain of the guards' bowling team. He smoked heavily and his breath often smelled of bourbon.
Nokes talked and acted tough, especially around the inmates, but I always got the feeling that on his own, without the back-up guards and the power of his position, he wouldn't amount to much. In a fair fight, on a Hell's Kitchen street corner, any one of us could probably take him. I knew Michael would bring him down, maybe even Janet Rivera. But for now, we were locked in his house, forced to play according to his rules.