Kindness for Weakness (12 page)

“What happened?”

“We got behind early and spent the whole game trying to catch up. But I tied it up with a three-run homer in the eighth.”

“You won?”

“Lost in the bottom of the ninth. Last time I ever played ball.”

“Man, that sucks. But at least you made it that far. That’s something.”

“My old man didn’t think so. To him you were a winner or a loser; there wasn’t no in-between. He drove the whole way home without saying a word.”

“He didn’t say nothin’?”

“Nope. Not one word.”

“No offense, but he sounds like a big asshole. That ain’t no way to treat your kid. And you got a home run, too! Fucking-A, Horvath.”

I look out the small rectangular window set in my door. I can see Pike holding up his hand for a high five, but his partner leaves him hanging.

“Shut your mouth, Pike,” he says. “He was my father, and you’re missing the point.”

“All right, what’s the point?”

“That I showed him respect. And none of these entitled delinquent pussies knows how to do that. Not the street thugs, the nutcases, or the ones who are just stupid. Freddie Peach is the worst, because he’s gonna go on and ‘Yes, sir’ everyone and get his privileges without learning a fucking thing. In and out in ninety days. You wait and see.”

“I hear that. It’s like he thinks he’s better than everyone else. Makes me sick to look at these queers on TV running around flaunting their perversions, like it’s a constitutional right or something.”

But Horvath isn’t listening. He’s leaning back in his chair, hands laced behind his thick neck, staring at some distant point on the concrete block wall in front of him.

Pike tries again. “It ain’t like the old days, before all this therapeutic bullshit.”

Horvath drops the legs of his chair with a thud and rolls his heavy shoulders forward. He looks focused, no longer lost in memories of his father and the state Babe Ruth championship. “You know what I think, Pike?” he says.

“Negative, Horvath. Tell me.”

“Everybody gets what’s coming to them. That’s my philosophy, and Freddie’s gonna get his. He’ll run his mouth one too many times.”

Pike smiles, happy to finish the shift on a positive note. “And when he does …”

But I don’t get to hear the rest, because the door to the unit opens; Crupier and a guard from a different unit come in, ready to start their shift.

Today we all get two stamps and envelopes for letter writing, which we’re allowed to do during school. I write one really short letter to my mother, telling her I’m okay and listing the phone number for Morton, along with the times she can call (even though I know she won’t). The other letter is for Mr. Pfeffer. It goes like this:

Later, at three o’clock, we have group. Mr. E says to the circle of fidgeting boys, “Let’s say you’re getting onto a bus or a subway, and it’s really crowded.”

Wilfred, who seems to do everything slowly—walking, talking, thinking—raises one of his big hands halfway into the air. Yesterday I heard Mr. Eboue tell him he had the fingers of a jazz piano player, and Wilfred said, “Is that good?”

“You have a question already, Wilfred?”

“Yes, mister, I do.” Despite being at Morton for almost a year (according to Freddie), he still can’t remember any of the staff’s names.

“Okay, shoot.”

“What I want to know, mister, is if it’s a subway or a bus.”

“Whichever, Wilfred. Doesn’t matter.”

“But it matters to
me
, mister, because I’m trying to picture it in my head. If it’s a bus, then I’ll be standing at the
bus stop, freezing. But if it’s the subway, then I be inside the mall entrance, watching to see when the train pulls up.”

Mr. E sighs and says, “Let’s go with the subway, Wilfred, so you can stay warm.”

Wilfred smiles and sits back in his chair, satisfied.

“So, you’re about to get on the train, and some dude jumps out and steps right on your new Jordans, the ones you bought with your own hard-earned money.”

Levon, Double X, and Antwon groan to show how bad it would be to get your new Jordans stepped on.

Mr. E says, “It’s the first time you ever wore those shoes, and the brother doesn’t say ‘Sorry,’ or ‘Excuse me,’ or nothing. He looks you in the eye and walks past, like you’re a punk. Worse than a punk because you don’t even get so much as a glare. It’s like he doesn’t even recognize you exist.”

Several of the guys say they’d give him an ass whooping.

“It’s a matter of respect for yourself,” says Antwon. “Because if you act like it’s okay, then nobody going to respect you, and you ain’t even going to respect yourself, which is worse, ’cause it gives you, like, this smell in the streets where other people can tell that you’re weak.”

Everybody else agrees, but I’m not sure. I haven’t had an expensive pair of sneakers. But if I did, I wouldn’t fight someone just because they stepped on them. It seems stupid, but the other guys see it differently.

“Show of hands,” Mr. E says. “How many of you would give the homeboy a beat-down?”

All hands shoot up in the air except for mine.

Mr. E pretends to be surprised. “Freddie, you too?”

“Just because I’m
G-A-Y
don’t mean I’m a pussy. I
know
how to fight, Mr. E.”

Everybody laughs.

“That’s funny, Freddie, and I hear what you’re saying, but please don’t talk like that.”

“It’s true, and I ain’t ashamed no more,” he says.

“I’m glad, Freddie, but even so …”

“Okay. Sorry, Mr. E.”

“Wilfred?” says Mr. E to get us back on track.

“I throw down, mister. Nobody step on my Jordans.” He slaps the back of one extra large hand against the palm of the other for emphasis.

Levon eggs him on. “You git him, Wilfred!”

Wilfred looks angry and fired up, like he’s really on the streets in his newly scuffed Jordans. He stands and starts a slow, loose shadowboxing sequence with his giant half-closed fists. “You
know
I will, Levon! That’s just me doing me, you know what I mean?”

Hooting and cheering ring out, and it takes a while for Mr. E and Samson to settle everyone down. In a moment Wilfred remembers where he is; he looks around, embarrassed, then takes his seat.

“Okay. Now imagine that you’ve just been released. You’re on aftercare, and probation. And your family needs you at home to help out. So if you get in a fight with this dude, it’s back to lockup. And the folks who are counting on you will be sad and disappointed.”

Everyone groans with the difficulty of this twist.

“Well, how about it?”

“That ain’t fair,” Antwon says.

“You set it up!” says Levon.

“Yo, that’s messed up!” Double X says.

Before we’re dismissed for free time, Mr. E says, “I want you all to think about it for a few days, and then I want to hear your answers.”

After group, Samson asks Freddie and me to stay back. “Either of you know what I want to talk to you about?”

We look at each other, shaking our heads.

“We had a treatment team meeting yesterday and scored your behavior checklists. Congratulations. You both got your A-Stage.”

A-Stage, or “Adjustment Stage,” is what you can get after three weeks of good days. To go home, you have to earn Transition Stage. You also need a positive home assessment, which means there’s enough room for you in the apartment, food in the fridge, etc. Honors is the highest stage, but Tony was the only resident in the last two years to earn it.

Samson hands us a folder that’s filled with take-out menus for pizza, Chinese food, and subs. “This Friday is Stage Night,” he says. “If you guys have enough money from chores and want to order out, write it down and I’ll take care of it. And decide what you want to do after. We can watch a movie, go to the gym, whatever. Until someone
else gets it together and earns their stage, it’s just the three of us.”

On our way back to the unit, Samson says, “You guys are doing a good job. Keep it up and you’ll be going home soon.”

Freddie and I pore over the menus during free time. We weigh the merits of pizza and wings versus chicken Parmesan subs versus egg rolls and shrimp lo mein. Freddie is obsessed with food and talks forever about the best restaurants in Harlem.

“There’s this one place,” he says, “where they got these things called bento boxes that have little compartments filled with different kinds of Chinese foods, like tempura vegetables, and sushi rolls, and teriyaki chicken and shit. You have to eat it all with chopsticks, which is harder than it looks, but I’m good at it.”

He gets this far-off dreamy look on his face, but he says, “I like Asian food, but it don’t fill you up like plain old pizza and wings.”

“Okay,” I say. “We’ll have that.”

“Cool. You like Hawaiian pizza? I love that shit. We can get a large Hawaiian pizza; that’s four big slices each, and then three or four dozen wings. How many wings you eat?”

“Hawaiian pizza’s disgusting,” I say. “How about sausage and pepperoni?”

“With black olives?”

We shake on the deal, forgetting for a moment that in Morton residents can’t shake hands, bump fists, hug, horseplay, or have any other kind of physical contact with each
other. It says so on the first page of the resident handbook and is followed by a list of consequences including a formal write-up and temporary loss of privileges. Maybe we forget because the guards have been preoccupied with the baseball game that is on TV, or maybe it’s because we’re having fun for a minute, feeling like normal kids instead of criminals. But right away Horvath’s voice booms across the unit floor.

“Why are you two touching each other?” he says.

The room gets cold, and I can feel the eyes of the other boys on Freddie and me. Coty and Double X are pointing, whispering. Antwon mouths the word
homo
.

“We wasn’t,” says Freddie. “We was just shaking hands ’cause—”

“Save it,” Horvath says. “Nobody wants to hear the details, so just keep your perversions to yourself.”

Now the whole unit is laughing. Horvath is laughing, too. “You two can be special friends at home if you want, but not on my unit. Got it?”

I am turning deep red from embarrassment, but I can’t help it. Freddie puts his hands palms-down on the table and breathes slowly, trying to keep calm. I know that I have nothing to be ashamed of, that we’re not
special friends
, but the shame burns through me nonetheless. It’s crazy, but I feel totally guilty, like I’ve been caught doing something bad.

“I got it,” I say.

“Good,” says Horvath. “Now how about you, Peachy?”

He hesitates just enough to let Horvath know that he’s
got some fight in him, that he’s not going to play along so easily because Horvath has a uniform and keys. Finally he says, “I got it.”

And we are spared the disgrace of losing our stages only minutes after getting them. Horvath appears satisfied, or maybe just more interested in the game. He grunts and returns to the TV.

At dinner on Friday (spaghetti and meatballs with buttered white bread) Antwon lines up behind me at the counter. “Yo,” he says. “Now that your spic big brother ain’t here, we gonna have that talk.”

“Okay,” I say. “No problem.” But I have no idea what to do. I can put him off for another day or two, but sooner or later I’ll have to deal with it. Gratefully, Samson pulls Freddie and me from the line and takes us for Stage Night.

“Did you two fools forget?” he says.

“No way,” says Freddie. “I didn’t eat none of that nasty spaghetti, ’cause I know we’re havin’ the good stuff.”

“That’s right,” says Samson. “You thought about what you want to do for an activity?”

“Let James pick,” Freddie says. “All I care about is eatin’.”

Samson raises an eyebrow, waiting.

“Can you show me how to lift weights?”

“Absolutely,” he says. “Come on.”

We spend the next hour in the weight room. Freddie sits on the exercise bike and watches television while Samson starts me out on the bench press. He shows me how to grip the bar and plant my feet flat on the ground. He tells me how to breathe the right way, exhaling when I push the weight up.

“Okay,” he says. “See if you can do fifteen using just the bar. It weighs forty-five pounds.”

It’s easy at first, but toward the end my arms get weak and shaky. After a short rest he puts twenty pounds on each side. “Do as many as you can,” he says. I make it to five before my chest and arms are burning with fatigue. He has me finish up with fifteen more using just the bar.

“How do you feel?” he says.

“Weak.”

“Yeah, but aside from that, how do you feel?”

“Pretty good. Like I’m doing something good for myself.” I can’t help smiling, because it’s true.

Samson puts his hand on my shoulder and says, “That’s right. You did do something good for yourself.”

Then he shows me how to do squats for my legs, dips for my triceps, and two different kinds of curls for biceps. “I’ll work with you every Friday,” he says, “so long as you keep your stage. Any questions?”

“You think I can get stronger?”

“Absolutely,” he says. “You’ll see.”

We finish the night eating take-out pizza and Buffalo wings. Freddie devours an entire piece of pizza in two bites. The wings he eats whole, pulling clean bones from his mouth. Soon there’s a small pile of them.