Walter Myers - Lockdown

I could walk out and let the cops come and get me. Maybe I would pull my hand out my pocket real fast and they would think I had a gun. Maybe that would be better than twenty years. Or maybe the same.

Icy didn't deal with stuff the way I did. She was all about what was going to go down and wasn't tied down to what had already happened. That's what I would have liked to have. Put Progress out of my head forever and move on like nothing had happened. No break-in, no getting arrested, no sitting in the courtroom listening to people talk about how much of my life they were going to take away, no crying in the van up to the facility.

Before I got to Progress, I didn't know time had a weight to it. My sentence was already too heavy to carry around all the time and I was praying for a release date. I couldn't wrap my head around getting out from under three more years. That was just too much of a load.

I thought about detention. I had dealt with it even though some dudes cracked up from being by themselves all the time. Maybe I could learn to deal with three more years. Then, when I got out, I'd move to another city. Maybe in the South, because I had never been there. I'd do any kind of work, sweep floors or mop and live in a small room, and I'd send any money I'd make to Icy so she could go to college. In three years, Icy would be twelve. I'd work until she was eighteen to help pay for her education. Then, if I kicked off, she could make up good stories about me.

I hated the idea of three more years, because it was already making my stomach turn. I didn't see what else I could do. I couldn't take a chance on a twenty bid.

"Where are you, Reese?" Simi's voice startled me. "Boy, you looked like you were a million miles away!"

"Just thinking," I said.

"You come up with something good?" she asked, hands on her hips.

"I don't know," I said.

"Life goes on, honey," she said. "Sometimes it seems hard, but you have your whole life ahead of you. Don't forget that. Now come on downstairs with me, because the woman in three eighteen is complaining that I didn't sweep her floor and is threatening to write to the president."

We cleaned 318 with the woman standing in the doorway complaining the whole time. Then I went back to Mr. Hooft's room and he told me how mean the doctor had been to him.

"All doctors like to hurt people," he whispered to me. "They just pretend to help you!"

"That's not true," I said. "They don't want to hurt people."

"Come over here," he said. "Sit next to me."

I was surprised, but I sat on the bed next to him. He put his hand on mine. "You should always try to be a good boy," he said. "It's better that way. Then you won't be in jail. You going to try?"

"I'll try," I said.

He motioned for me to go away and I went and sat in the chair. I felt a little funny, but really glad because I knew he was trying to be my friend. Like Toon was trying, and it was hard for all of them. And for me.

Mr. Pugh was talking to Father Santora in the lobby when I went down at four.

"Everybody likes Reese," the priest was saying. "He's a fine young man and a good worker."

"Okay, so maybe I won't shoot him on the way back to the facility," Mr. Pugh said.

Father Santora laughed and the receptionist laughed, but I didn't think it was all that funny.

Mr. Pugh sat me up in the front of the van and cuffed me to the grating that separated the cab from the back.

"You think I might overpower you and escape?" I asked.

"I used to play right tackle for Mississippi," he said. "I could crush your black ass with one hand and eat a sandwich with the other hand."

He acted kind of pissed off and I didn't say anything else. I was glad to sit in front instead of bouncing around in the rear. We drove through the city and I could see dudes just strolling and taking care of their business and it reminded me again of how much I wanted to be free.

"You like Spanish girls?" Mr. Pugh asked me as we passed a crowd of kids.

"I like all girls," I said.

"I never hear you guys talking about girls," he said. "If I was locked up, I'd be thinking about girls all the time."

"If you were locked up, you'd be thinking about getting free all the time," I said. "You can't be in jail and think like you're out in the world."

"So I hear you're in trouble again," he said.

"They're talking about some charge I don't know anything about," I said. "They said I stole some drugs from the doctor's office two years ago and gave them to the guy who was arrested the same time I was. He messed with the drugs and somebody died or something, and they want to run a homicide charge on me."

"You do what they said?"

"No, but it don't matter," I said. "When I was on trial before, I looked over at the jury and they looked at me, and I could tell they were going to toast me. I go to trial again, the same thing is going to happen. The detectives said that they might give me a chance to cop to a lesser and pull a three instead of a twenty."

"Oh, yeah?" Mr. Pugh looked at me. "That's a good break for you, huh?"

"I don't know, I guess."

"What you going to plead guilty to?"

"I don't know," I said. "They didn't tell me yet."

Some brothers walked in front of the van and stopped in the middle of the street. One was on his cell phone. Mr. Pugh hit his horn and one of the brothers grabbed his crotch with one hand and gave Mr. Pugh the finger with the other.

Mr. Pugh hit his horn again and the brother came over to the driver's side. Mr. Pugh pulled his gun and held it on his lap.

"Yo, bitch!" The black guy reached in and grabbed Mr. Pugh by the collar.

Mr. Pugh grabbed the guy's wrist and put the gun right under his chin. "Is your mama in heaven, boy?" he asked. "And do you want to go see her? Is that why you need to mess with a cop this afternoon?"

"Hey, I'm just playing, officer."

Two of the other dudes came over and started cursing but backed off when they saw Mr. Pugh's gun.

"Now, I got to get the criminal with me back to jail," Mr. Pugh said. "But I got room in the back if you need a lift."

"No, man, I'm good," the brother said.

Mr. Pugh let him go and the guy backed away. Mr. Pugh put the gun back in his holster as we moved off.

"You know how much I love that?" he asked.

"Yeah, I got an idea," I said.

We drove for ten more minutes before he said anything else, but he kept looking at me like he wanted to say something. I hoped he wasn't going off or something. When he did speak, I didn't know what he was talking about.

"You know what my daddy used to say?" he asked. "He used to say that the snake that's gonna kill you is probably wearing your damned shirt."

I waited for him to say something else, but he didn't.

We didn't talk anymore until we got to Progress and he was uncuffing me.

"Why did you say a snake was going to be wearing your shirt?" I asked him.

"I didn't say it," Mr. Pugh said. "That was what my daddy used to say. He meant that if somebody was going to mess you up, it was probably going to be you."

I thought back to what we had been talking about before the brother came over to the car. Mr. Pugh had asked me what I was going to plead guilty to and I said I didn't know. I wondered if he was saying I shouldn't plead guilty to nothing. When he was patting me down, I wanted to ask him, but he finished real quick and was walking away before I got my thoughts together.

I was scared that the two detectives from Harlem would be waiting for me, but I didn't see them when I hit the corridor. Everybody was lining up for dinner and it was Play, instead of one of the regular guards, taking us into the dining room. Me and him sat together after we got our food, and I asked him if he had seen the detectives that afternoon.