'Get back out there,' Nokes said, pointing an end of the baton toward the crowded courts. 'Now.'
I shrugged, turned to John and said, 'One more game won't kill us.' Then, I got up and, as I did, brushed one of my shoulders against the side of Nokes' uniform.
Nokes, inches behind me, lifted his baton and swung it down hard, against my lower back. The pain was sharp, intense and numbing. The force brought me to one knee.
Nokes' second shot landed against the center of my back and was quickly followed by a third, a swing that was hard enough to crack bone. I was down on both knees now, gasping for breath, staring into the eyes of a black teen with a gel Afro. He looked back, still and silent, except for the basketball bouncing at his side.
I heard John scream from behind me. 'What are you doing? He didn't do anything to you!'
'He touched my uniform,' Nokes said calmly. 'That's against institute rules.'
'He didn't touch you,' John said, his entire body trembling. 'And if he did, he didn't mean it.'
'Stay outta this,' Nokes told him.
'You didn't have to hit him,' John said, a touch of Hell's Kitchen to his tone. 'Don't hit him again.'
'Okay.' Nokes' voice softened, but his eyes stayed hard. 'Help him up. Take him back to his cell.' When John hesitated, Nokes said, 'Go ahead, pick him up. Don't be afraid.'
'I'm not afraid,' John told him.
Nokes just smiled.
Back in the cell, John helped ease me down on my bunk and covered my legs with a folded blanket.
'I can't believe he hit you like that,' John said.
'He's hit before,' I told him.
'How do you know?'
'While I was down, I looked over at the others. None of them seemed surprised.'
And now I wasn't either. I understood what Father Bobby had wanted to tell me but couldn't. I realized the weight of my father's words. I figured out what was behind all of King Benny's veiled warnings. They had tried to prepare me, prepare us all. But none of them, not even King Benny, could have envisioned the full extent of the horror we would face.
We felt their presence before we heard them. John had lingered, making sure I was all right, delaying his return to the harsher world outside the cell. Somehow, when it was just us, we could make believe that things were fine. But things weren't fine and would never be again.
Nokes stood in the cell doorway, his arms folded across his chest, a crooked smile on his face. Behind him stood Ferguson, Styler and Addison, black batons at their sides. Nokes led them into my cell. Addison closed the door behind him. They didn't say anything except when John, as fearlessly as he could muster, asked them what they wanted.
'You see?' Nokes said with a laugh. 'See how tough this Irish punk is?'
Ferguson and Styler moved past Nokes and each grabbed one of John's arms. Addison instantly went up behind him and wrapped a thick cloth around John's mouth, knotting it from the back. Nokes stood over me, one of his knees pressed against my chest. I looked away from him, my eyes toward John, both our faces betraying our terror.
'Undo his pants,' Nokes said.
John's pants slipped down around his ankles, white legs shining under the glare of the outside light.
'Hold him tight,' Addison said to Ferguson and Styler. 'I wouldn't want him to slip and hit his head.'
'We got him,' Ferguson said. 'Don't worry.'
'Okay, Irish,' Nokes said. 'Let's see how tough you really are.'
Addison beat against John's back, rear and legs with his baton, the blows causing the skin to swell immediately and my friend's eyes to well with tears. His back turned beet-red and the thin muscles of his legs bent under the pounding. Each blow brought a low moan from John's mouth, until the fifth blow caused him to lose consciousness. Still, Addison didn't stop. He lifted his baton higher and brought it down with even more force, his face gleaming with sweat, his eyes filled with pleasure at the pain he was inflicting. He finally stopped after a dozen shots had found their mark, pausing to wipe rows of sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his shirt. Ferguson and Styler still held John's arms, all that was keeping him from dropping to the floor.
'Think he's had enough?' Nokes asked me.
'Yes,' I said, staring up at him.
'Yes what, you guinea fuck?'
'Yes, sir,' I said. 'I think he's had enough.'
Nokes and I watched in silence as the trio pulled John's pants up and undid the gag around his mouth. Then John was dragged out of my cell, back to his.
Nokes walked around my cell, hands behind his back, head down.
'See things my way,' he said to me. 'Do things my way. Don't fight us. And there'll never be another problem like there was today. If not, you Hell's Kitchen boys may never get outta here alive. It's something to think about, isn't it?'
It was the end of our third day at the Wilkinson Home for Boys.
THREE
It was not a group of innocent young boys at Wilkinson. Most, if not all, of the inmates belonged there.
Our population was composed of the toughest kids from the poorest and most dangerous areas of the state, a number of them riding out their second and third convictions. All were violent offenders. Few seemed sorry about what he had done or appeared on the brink of any rehabilitation.
A few of the inmates enjoyed their stay, viewing it as a break from the pressured street world they inhabited. Others, ourselves included, marked off the days on the walls against our bunks, scratching lines against concrete, much like we had seen actors do in many a prison film.
Most of the convicted were there on assault charges, more than half of them drug-related. Cocaine had just begun to sink its sinister fangs into poor neighborhoods, quickly replacing the more tranquil heroin as the drug of choice among the wayward.
Blacks and Hispanics were the first among the poor to taste the drug's power, to feel its need and, as a result, their crimes, previously bordering on the petty, had taken a more vicious direction. Unlike their suburban compatriots, they had no parents with crammed wallets who could be counted on when the urge for the powder grew strong. And so, they turned to the defenseless to support their habits and desires.
The Italian and Irish poor, in 1967, still found their troubles through drink and bravado. Street fights were quick to turn into vendettas when the cork was out of the bottle. A sizeable portion of the white inmates were serving time on assault charges, almost all fueled by booze and revenge. The others were nabbed for foiled attempts at robbery, committed either while drunk or in the company of older men.
My friends and I fell uncomfortably in the middle. We were there on assault charges, caused neither by drunkenness nor anger.
We were there because of pure stupidity.
There were few solid friendships at Wilkinson. A handful of alliances existed, all of them uneasy. Blacks and whites, as in any penal institution, separated themselves by color. Ethnic groups paired off, neighborhood factions looked to stay together, friends on the streets tried to cover for each other.
It was the guards' function to break through the allegiances, to cause dissent, to eliminate any barriers to their own power. Up against a lone individual, the guards easily maintained control. Up against a united group, it would not be so easy.
My friends and I were one of many groups who tried to stick together. That was one reason we were singled out by the guards in our block. Nokes and Styler in particular. They also knew we were an easier problem to solve than other groups, many of which numbered far more than four members. It might be hard, even dangerous for Nokes and his crew to do battle with the tougher, more seasoned inmates. Keeping those groups in line was merely a part of their job. Recreation came in the form of me and my friends.