George Pelecanos - The Way Home

Chris walked into his cell.

The next day, while Chris and Ali were walking in the hall between classes, Ali took a fist in the back of the head, for no apparent reason, from a boy named Maximus Dukes. Ali tripped and fell to the floor, severing the bridge of his glasses. Without even thinking of himself, Chris was on Maximus, throwing him up against the wall and delivering several body blows and one solid uppercut to the jaw before Maximus could return fire. He was a big boy and Chris’s rain had not hurt him, and he came back strong. Chris took a glancing temple shot and one deep right to the solar plexus that blew half the wind out of him, but he kept his feet, and several more punches were thrown before the guards charged in and stopped the fight. It had been meaningless, and there was no rancor between any of them again. Because neither Chris nor Maximus had gone down, their reps had been elevated. The fight cost Chris his Level 5, but he would achieve it at a later date.

Of the many things Chris learned at Pine Ridge, one would be embedded in his mind for years after his release: When you or one of your own is attacked, retaliation is mandatory, no matter the consequences or repercussions. It has to be on.

The guards had seen Maximus blind-punch Ali. Wasn’t any need for Chris to step in. But it wouldn’t have been as satisfying to see the guards strong-arm Maximus and lead him down the hall. When Chris swung on the boy, his blood got up in a righteous way, and he felt like a man. He wished his father had been there to see that he’d stood tall.

For security reasons, doors had been removed in the bathroom stalls, so the boys voided their bowels in full view of the other inmates. It was something Chris had to get used to quickly. Let it bother you, you’d have to hold your shits till you got back in your cell. That wasn’t natural, and no one liked to stink up their rooms.

On the same level of indignity was the morning ritual of group showers. There were no privacy curtains or barriers of any kind, and if someone was modest or ashamed, he had to get over it, that is if he wanted to be clean. The open area was meant to discourage violence, and perhaps it had been a wise idea, as there were rarely serious altercations in the showers. The best Chris could say about the experience was that it was fast. If you lingered in the shower more than a little bit, the tepid water would go cold.

Chris and the other boys did not worry about nonconsensual homosexuality in the showers or anywhere else inside the walls. It was the most dreaded aspect of prison for a boy on the outside looking in, but the truth was, oral and anal rape were extremely rare at Pine Ridge. The boys in juvenile had not yet gone to that level of degradation that occurred in adult male prisons. There were scattered consensual homosexual relations here, but, somewhat surprisingly, it was not an issue of derision among the boys who were straight. They knew who among them had gone that way, but didn’t berate them to their faces or, for the most part, behind their backs. Those boys were just as tough as the other boys, and no one was going out of their way to find a fight.

What took away their dignity was the presence of the guards, who watched the boys shower though a Plexiglas window. The fact that they, fully clothed and outfitted with security gear, could stare at the inmates, naked and completely vulnerable, seemed wrong. Thing of it was, you didn’t know what they were thinking while they were looking at you. Chris was reminded of that one summer when his mother had persuaded his father to vacation with a wealthy neighborhood family, the Rubinos, who had invited them to their house on Martha’s Vineyard. The house was steps away from a nude beach, and from the start, even though the Flynns had been assured that they did not have to “participate,” his father had been annoyed. Many families went naked, including their prepubescent sons and daughters, and there were also grown men on the same beach, naked and alone, and Thomas Flynn said, “Why would a father let his little boy or girl go nude in front of those men? You don’t know what’s going on behind their sun-glasses.” Amanda had said, “Don’t be rude, honey; we’re guests here,” and his dad muttered something about “bored rich people” and left it at that. That was their first and last vacation with the Rubinos. Years later, when Steve Rubino cashed out of his law firm and left his wife and kids for a twenty-two-year-old GW student, Thomas Flynn said, “You know what Rubino was doing up on that beach? He was shopping. I told you that guy wasn’t right.”

Chris smiled, thinking of his old man. They had a word for the way he was. Crum-something. Always complaining but doing it in a funny way.

“What you grinnin on, White Boy?” said Lawrence Newhouse, standing beside Chris in the shower.

Chris shrugged, giving Lawrence nothing.

“Thinkin about your home?” said Lawrence. “Bet you got a nice one. A real nice family, too.”

Chris recognized the mention of his family as some kind of threat, but it had no weight or meaning. For a moment, but only for a moment, he thought, Bughouse is right. But to let himself dwell on what he’d had, and on his mistakes, was not productive. He was here now, and it didn’t matter where he’d come from; he was the same as everyone else inside Pine Ridge. Locked up and low.

“Why you never speak to me, man?” said Lawrence. “You too good?”

Chris did not answer. He stepped out of the spray and reached for a towel smelling of body odor that hung on a plastic knob.

“We gonna talk, Christina, ” said Lawrence.

Chris dried himself off and walked away.

A man who had done time at Lorton, and who had written poetry there and eventually a series of popular street-lit message novels aimed at juveniles, came to speak to the inmates of Pine Ridge late in April. The residents of Unit 5, wearing maroon, and Unit 8, wearing gray, were ushered into the auditorium, having walked from the school building through a cold rain. Many of them were soaked and shivering as they sat in their too-small chairs and half-listened to the speaker, who started his talk with the usual I-came-from-the-same-streets-as-you, I-made-it-and-you-can-too platitudes that went through them faster than the greasy Chinese food they used to eat in the neighborhoods they’d come up in.

Ali Carter and Chris Flynn sat in the row of chairs farthest back in the room. Ali was wearing his glasses, a piece of surgical tape holding them together at the bridge, and a kufi skull cap, finely knitted. The cap was allowed for religious reasons, despite the facility’s no-hat policy. Ali had confessed to Chris that he had been named by his mother after the boxer and held no Muslim beliefs. He wore the skull cap just to mess with the guards, who didn’t like the boys asserting their individuality, and to take a minor victory where he could.

“When I wrote Payback Time, ” said the writer, whose nom de plume was J. Paul Sampson, “I was thinking of young men just like you. Because I was once where you are now, and I understand that revenge is a natural impulse. I understand that you think it’s going to make you feel good.”

“Not as good as gettin a nut,” said Lonnie Wilson from somewhere in the crowd, and a few of the boys laughed.

J. Paul Sampson, immaculate in a custom-tailored suit, plowed on. “But revenge, my young brothers, is a dead-end street.”

Ben Braswell was a row ahead, seated among gray shirts. He was listening to the book writer and nodding his head. In the front row sat Lawrence Newhouse, defiantly slumped in his chair, arms crossed. A half-dozen guards, including Lattimer, and a few teachers, including the school’s earnest, bearded young English teacher, Mr. McNamara, were standing around the perimeter.