Walter Myers - Lockdown

"Yeah, they were looking for you, man," he said. "One of them had a ball and chain to tie around your ankle and the other one had one of those black-and-white-striped prison suits for you to wear."

"That's supposed to be funny, huh?"

"They know where you are," Play said. "If they wanted to come and get you, they wouldn't be riding all the way up here. They probably would have had Mr. Pugh just drop you off at Alcatraz or wherever."

"Alcatraz is in California," I said.

"Then they could fly you in one of those prison planes," Play said. "Remember that picture with Nicolas Cage?"

"Yeah."

I told him I remembered the picture, but that didn't stop Play from telling me the whole story again.

While Play talked, I was wondering about what Mr. Pugh had said and what he meant. I didn't want to catch a twenty bid, but I knew I couldn't tell what was going to happen if I went on trial.

The food didn't go down and I asked the cook for two apples when I turned my tray in.

"No," he said.

"I can't eat now," I said. "My stomach is upset."

"No."

I would have loved to punch him right in his greasy face.

What I told myself was that the detectives wouldn't come after six, but I kept looking at the door anyway. Every time it opened, my heart jumped a little.

The word was out that Toon got a release date.

"Yo, Toon, what's the first thing you're going to do when you get home?" I asked him. Me and Play had sat with him off to the side of the rec room.

"Maybe I'll try to memorize one book in school," Toon said, pushing his glasses up on his nose. "I think if I memorize one whole book then I can just work on the other ones and get better grades."

"Hey, I might try that too," Play said.

"You going back to school?" I asked.

"I got to unless I go into one of those special programs they have in the Bronx," Play said. "I got to get either my GED or diploma if I want to go to college one day."

"I would like to get into a good high school," Toon said.

"You will," I said. "You're smart enough."

"Brothers always says that," Toon said. He looked down but I saw he was smiling.

Eight thirty was lights-out, but I didn't mind. I was tired anyway.

When I woke up, it was three seventeen in the morning. There was some scuffling in the hallway and I kept real still to hear what was going on, but I couldn't tell. I thought I heard Mr. Wilson's voice. Then everything was quiet.

I remembered the dream I had been having. Icy was a movie star and I was a photographer taking her picture. She was walking on that red carpet in front of a light blue board-maybe sky blue-and she was with Paris Hilton, Mariah Carey, and Alicia Keys. Then Bow Wow got into the dream and he was escorting her and all the while I was snapping pictures like a professional. Every once in a while she would look over at me and give me a big smile and I was snapping perfect pictures and she was looking better than all the other women there. It was a boss dream.

Six thirty formation. Mr. Cintron had us.

"You guys have problems, you need to come to a staff member and talk about it," he said. "I realize that's not always easy, but you need to give it a try. Last night we had to transfer Trevedi to the L wing. I hope we don't have to transfer anybody else. Anderson, you see me after breakfast."

I didn't know why they had to transfer Toon to the L wing, but it usually meant that he had went off or something.

At breakfast, Leon said that Toon had tried to hang himself.

"Didn't he get a date?" Play asked me.

"Yeah." I remembered Toon in the visiting room with his parents yelling at him and then him saying how he was never as good as his brother. Toon knew about home.

Mr. Cintron didn't look too anxious when he told me to see him after breakfast, and when I went to his office, his secretary didn't say anything, so I thought it wasn't about the detectives. I sat there for five minutes on the wooden bench before he called her and told her to send me in.

"Okay, Reese, so you've got seventy-two dollars in your account now," he said. "You made minimum wage, which added up to a hundred thirty-four dollars, but they took out taxes, and we're charging you for transportation to and from the senior citizens' home."

"You're charging me for Mr. Pugh driving me back and forth?" I asked.

"Yeah, and you're lucky, because we're only charging you per mile and not for his time, or you wouldn't be getting anything," he said. "You can use the money to make phone calls and to spend four dollars a week at the commissary. Do you understand that?"

"Yeah."

"If you abuse the money in any way, I'll just take it all as a fine, do you understand that?"

"Yeah."

"That's it," he said. "Go to your first class."

"How's Toon?" I asked.

"Toon?"

"Trevedi."

"He'll live," Mr. Cintron said. "He's a little depressed, but he'll get over it."

"Can I ask another question?"

"About Trevedi?"

"About those detectives," I said. "They said on the phone they were coming up yesterday."

"They've dropped it," Mr. Cintron said.

"Just like that?" My voice went way up and I felt weak all over. My brain went black-nothing was in it for a few seconds. I wanted to cry and not cry at the same time. "Just like that? They just dropped it?"

"You were pretty worried, weren't you?"

"They were talking about three years or twenty years and I didn't know-I didn't know what to do," I said. "Sometimes I was thinking about pleading not guilty because I didn't do anything, but I didn't want to risk no twenty bid."

"Sit down, Anderson," Mr. Cintron said. "Look, if you run across the street in the middle of the day dodging traffic, you might get hit by a truck or a bus and get seriously hurt or killed; but if you make it to the other side, you're home free, out of danger. But if you commit a crime, a felony…you pick up a gun or a knife and do some serious harm or commit an aggravated felony, you put yourself at risk for the rest of your life. Anytime something happens near you, they're going to be looking in your direction to see if you had anything to do with it.

"And if you hang with people who put themselves at risk, you're going the same route. It's like running with a pack of starving dogs. The only thing you're going to know about them is that if they think you're weak, they'll eat you in a heartbeat."

"But those two detectives…" I looked around the room. My feeling of relief was turning to being mad. "They were acting like they had a done deal. I think they were ready to burn me, man."

"They're human too," Mr. Cintron said. "And if they thought they were right, well, yeah, you're going to feel the heat. And this guy you were involved with-"

"Freddy."

"He doesn't care anything about you," Mr. Cintron said. "He'd put you in jail for twenty years to get a week off his time. That's the way these guys operate. You got to remember that this is the world you walked into when you opened the door back then."

"Yeah."

"I'll let you know how Trevedi is," Mr. Cintron said, standing. "Maybe you can even go talk to him. It might do him some good."

"So I'm going to be having my hearing this afternoon," I said. Mr. Cintron had given me permission to visit Toon, and I was sitting on the chair at the end of his bed. "If everything works out, I'll be getting my date."

"I hope it works out for you," Toon said.

"Where does your family live?"

"In Brooklyn," Toon answered. "Do you know where Clinton Avenue is?"

"I don't know anything about Brooklyn," I said. "But I was thinking, maybe when we get out, we can hook up and hang out sometimes. That cool with you?"

"That's very cool with me."