Walter Myers - Lockdown

The story was that everything was up to Mr. Pugh and Mr. Wilson. I figured Mr. Pugh didn't care one way or the other and would follow whatever Mr. Wilson wanted to do. If Mr. Wilson was mad, then me and King Kong would probably be written up and both of us on our way to 23-7. If I went to 23-7, then Mr. Cintron would definitely tear me up. If Miss Rossetti could get Mr. Wilson over his mad, I had a shot.

We were lined up and taken to the dorm hall, where we had to stand at attention with our hands in the "perp" position, behind our backs as if we were cuffed, for fifteen minutes. Then Mr. Wilson came and got me and King Kong and took us into one of the 23-7 rooms.

"What you guys need to learn?" he asked. "That these steel bars will keep your dumb butts calm if you can't control your dumb-ass minds? That's what you need to learn? Or if the steel bars don't slow you morons down, you know what will? That little chalk mark they put around your body in the street. What's your pleasure, girls?"

"He started it," King Kong said.

"I didn't mean to start nothing," I said. "I was just having fun."

Mr. Wilson leaned close enough to me so I could actually smell him and spoke softly into my ear. "Your life ain't about fun," he said. "It's about holding enough of your ass together to walk free again. You understand that?"

"Yes, sir."

"If either of you so much as cross your eyes in group, I'm going to nail you to a wall just like they do those bear skins," Mr. Wilson said. "We're trying to give you a chance to make something of your ugly selves because that's our job, and we'd like to turn you around so you don't mess up our lives with your bullshit. But don't think for a minute that it's personal, because it's not. Any of you mess up, we'll nail you, send you to the next lockup, and move on with our lives and the routine here like you never even existed. Do I make myself clear, Mr. Anderson?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do I make myself clear to you, Mr. Sanders?"

King Kong said he understood.

But when we were leaving, King Kong gave me a look and screwed up his face. Sucker didn't understand nothing.

"So why do you think I put the chairs in a circle?" Miss Rossetti asked.

"So we can check out the girls?" Diego asked.

There were two girls at the group session, Kat and Eileen, a black girl who worked in the nurse's office sometimes.

"Because circles are nonthreatening," Miss Rossetti said. "And the girls aren't here to be 'checked out.' At this session we're going to see how brave everyone is. What I want us to do is for anyone to start, and tell us two things that they're afraid of."

"What's brave about that?" Play asked.

"Well, let's find out," Miss Rossetti said. "Would you like to start?"

"I ain't afraid of nothing," Play said.

"Everybody has fears," Miss Rossetti said. "I think we can all agree to that. Anybody else want to give it a try?"

"I'm afraid anytime I leave Alphabet City," Diego said. "You can let your mind wander-you know, thinking about your woman or something-and step into another gang's turf. Then you end up getting shot or stabbed or beat down just for not paying attention. That's one thing I'm scared of."

"So you're afraid of street violence," Miss Rossetti said. "Would you like to say anything more about street violence? Are you only afraid when you leave your neighborhood?"

"Yeah, more or less," Diego said. "When I'm on my block, my boys got my back and I know I'm cool."

"If your boys really had your back, you could walk anyplace you wanted to and nobody would mess with you because they'd know there would be some comeback." King Kong was looking smug.

"Comeback ain't doing me no good if I'm being wrecked," Diego said. "You thinking I'm going to be up in heaven looking down and getting happy over some comeback?"

"Diego, if you die you ain't going to heaven," Play said. "Suckers like you die and go to Walmart. They got a storage area in the back for dead punkeros."

"We don't need to make this personal," Miss Rossetti said. "And we won't. I think that neighborhood violence is something to be afraid of, especially when you're young."

"Another thing I'm afraid of is getting caught up in a stickup or a drive-by with some fool who don't know how to use a gun just popping off caps and killing everybody," Diego said.

"More neighborhood violence," Miss Rossetti said. "And the thing to remember is that violence doesn't stop affecting us when we get behind closed doors. The threat is always there in our subconscious. Do you agree?"

"Not really," I said. "Unless some dudes are outside your door and trying to get in."

"That doesn't hold true for everyone," Miss Rossetti said. "And people do handle their fears differently. How about you, Deepak?"

Toon looked up when he heard his name. He smiled, shrugged, and folded his hands. "I'm afraid…sometimes I'm afraid, but not all the time…" He looked around and sort of half smiled. "Sometimes I'm afraid that my father will be disappointed in me."

We waited for him to go on, but he didn't.

"We have expectations of ourselves," Miss Rossetti said. "And people have expectations of us and sometimes we worry, as Deepak said, about how we measure up."

"You got a little saying for everything we're afraid of?" Play asked.

"Well, I've been thinking about this for a long time and a lot of people have done studies on adolescent fears," Miss Rossetti said. "And although I have some insights, I think we all can look at the problem of fear and come to some conclusions. Don't you think so?"

"I guess," Play answered.

"Anything else, Deepak?" Miss Rossetti asked.

"Sometimes I think my mother will be mad at me," Toon said.

Miss Rossetti nodded slowly. She looked around the room and then held out her hand toward King Kong.

"Mr. Sanders?"

"I ain't afraid of nothing," King Kong said. "I can handle my business and everybody knows that. Anybody even act like they want to mess with me, I'll go to work on their ass."

"So you're afraid that people might mess with you?" Miss Rossetti said.

"No, I ain't."

"Ladies?"

"I'm afraid of losing my child," Eileen said. "When I come up here, my case manager was talking about how she didn't know if I could be a good mother and then she was talking about how my baby could be put with a responsible family. I had a girl friend who went away for eighteen months and…"

Eileen started crying and turned her head away. We waited a few minutes for her to get herself together, but she didn't say anything else. Miss Rossetti looked at me and gave me a little smile.

"I don't know what I'm afraid of," I said. "You know, like you say, everybody's afraid of something and I guess I'm afraid of something too, but I don't know what it is. Maybe getting old and dying. That don't look cool."

"I'm a little afraid of that myself," Miss Rossetti said. "My mother lost her memory when she got up in years and, quite frankly, that frightened me a lot. I even dreamed that I was losing my memory."

"So they put her baby with this couple-they were like black middle class"-Eileen had started again-"and then when my friend came home they didn't want to give the baby up. She said that Family Services put pressure on her too."

"Was she working when she came home?" Miss Rossetti asked.

"No, she was having some trouble. She was using again, but all she needed was some time," Eileen said. "I don't want to lose my little girl. She's all I got."

"I can understand that," Miss Rossetti said.

"You got kids?" Eileen asked.

"No, I don't," Miss Rossetti answered. "But I can imagine how it must be to have someone in your life you love and then have them taken away."

"Another thing I'm afraid of," Eileen said, "is being in a fire. I'd rather be in a drive-by than in a fire."