Walter Myers - Lockdown

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Icy come out of the bathroom. She came over with her hands on her hips doing her movie-star walk.

"Reesy, darling!"

"Yo, Icy!" I got up and she threw her arms around me and hugged me harder than I thought she could. "Let me look at you, girl."

Icy stepped back and put her hands on her hips and turned around.

"Yo, you sure you're nine or you're nineteen?" I asked.

"What were you doing?" Icy asked, slipping into a chair at the table. "I bet you were playing video games."

"I don't think they have any video games in here," I answered. "How long it take you to get up here?"

"We got the bus at twelve thirty," Mom said. "But I bet it stopped in every little place that had a convenience store or a gas station. My back is killing me."

"You should try riding the van all the way up here," I said. "When I came up, the scenery was nice, though."

"They got a school," Mom said. "I saw it in the brochure. You learning much?"

"Learning I don't want to be up here," I said.

"We're learning how to divide fractions in school," Icy said.

"You going to summer school?" I asked.

"If I go to summer school, then I can get into Harlem Children's Zone." Icy squinched her eyes up and wiggled the way she does when she's pleased with herself.

"They're not taking you just because you got a half a dimple," I said. "You got to have something in here." I tapped her on the head.

"I got smarts going on," she said. "And now that I heard the good news, you know I'm going to study hard."

"What's the good news?"

"Hillary Clinton is not going to be the president, so that leaves the door open for me to become the first woman president," Icy said.

"They giving out GEDs?" Mom asked.

"You can take the course or you can apply for the tests," I said.

"'Cause you know you got to be doing something with your life when you get out of here," Mom said. "You know that, right?"

"Yeah, I know it," I said.

There were two other families in the room. One was a girl's family and the other one I recognized as Play's aunt and cousin.

"Did you look into any of the family programs they have?" Mom was still talking.

"Like what?"

"You're just going to do your time and then slide on out to the streets again?" she asked.

"I'm going to school," I said. "You don't have any choice. Even if you have a high school diploma or a GED, you got to go to school unless you're on some kind of medication where you can't learn anything."

"You can learn if you put your mind to it," Mom went on. "If you don't put your mind to it, then naturally you won't learn anything. I don't want you coming home and just hanging out…"

She was starting to drone on, talking about the value of education like she was inventing it or something. She came up to visit and she was sounding like a recording or a television commercial. I knew she didn't care about what she was saying, either.

I checked out Icy and she was looking around, scoping what the inside of a jail was like. Jail wasn't the visitors' room and I knew Icy was getting the wrong impression, but I didn't want to say nothing.

"…they have programs at the Family Resource Center down on Worth Street to help keep the family together when you get out." Mom was still talking. "You know anything about them?"

"Not really," I said. "They down there and I'm up here."

"I left some papers for you to look at in the office," she said. "They aren't that hard to read."

"Yeah, okay."

Her skin was dull and her eyes were a little watery. I wondered if she was using again.

"So if you run for president, what's going to be your slogan?" I asked Icy.

"Okay, I got the whole thing figured out," Icy said. "I'm going to tell everybody that they can get free food. In school we learned that the average family of four can be fed for seven thousand dollars per year, okay?"

"Go on."

"I need you to write a letter for me," Mom said.

"Let me finish telling him this, Mama," Icy said.

"We can't stay all day, girl!" Mom snapped at Icy.

"You just got here," I said.

"I'm starting a new job tonight," she said. "I'm going to be working as a waitress at Sylvia's."

Lie.

"What kind of letter?" I asked.

"Reese, I'm really worried about your brother," she said. She put her hand on mine. "I think he's running the streets too much. He's either going to get himself killed or end up in jail."

"He knows what he's doing," I said.

"I don't think so," Mom said. "In a way I think he's looking up to you instead of the other way around. You're in jail now, so he thinks it's cool or something. I'm trying to get him to go into the army and do something with his life. Learn a trade or even make a career of it. You know what I mean?"

"Plus he'll get an enlistment bonus. The man told us," Icy said.

"And he can use that for his college education when he gets out." Mom shot Icy a glance.

"So you can feed a family for seven thousand dollars…" I looked back at Icy.

"Are you hearing me?" This from Mom.

"Yeah."

"So I want you to write Willis a letter telling him that you think it's a good idea for him to go into the army before he gets into trouble," Mom said.

"Yeah."

"No yeah," she said. "Do it! I don't want to see both of you in jail."

"Okay, I'll do it," I said.

"Where's the bathroom?"

Icy pointed it out to her, and she got up and walked away.

"What you thinking?" Icy asked me when Mom was going into the bathroom.

"Tell me about your campaign for president," I said.

"You didn't tell me what you were thinking," Icy said.

"That's 'cause you're too ugly," I said, tapping her on the wrist.

"Anyway…so there are a hundred and ten million families in the country. So to give them free food every year will cost us seven hundred seventy billion dollars. That sounds like a lot but it's really not that much. If you're in a war, you can spend that much in three years. So my campaign is that you give everybody free food for four years-"

"While you're the president?"

"Yeah."

I loved my sister's smile.

"And then what?"

"Then they would be fed for four years, we couldn't afford to pay for a war, and people could turn their attention to doing stuff for themselves and be happy."

"Okay, you got my vote," I said.

"Can you still vote if you go to jail?"

"Not while you're in jail," I said. "I don't know, really."

"How do you think Mom and I look?" Icy asked.

"You look fine," I said.

Mom came back and said they had to go. "I don't want to mess this job up," she said. "I figure if I'm making money and can help Willis, he won't be stealing or anything."

They weren't there but a minute and then they were gone. If they hadn't come at all, it would have been cool, but just to blow in like that and then blow out was hard.

"You headed back to the dayroom?" Wilson asked.

"Can I sit here a minute?" I asked him.

"Yeah."

I sat for a while trying to think why I was feeling so bad. I was in the facility and I couldn't go home and I was feeling lonely, but there was more to it. It was like I wasn't connected with nothing in the friggin' world. Nothing.

Play's people were hugging him and I saw them leave. Then I watched some more people come in. Indian people. A man and a woman. They were kind of heavy and they sat in a corner. After a while Wilson came in with Toon. He went over and sat with the Indian people and they started in on him. Toon had his head down.

"Look at what you are doing! This is a disgrace!" the woman was saying. "Look at where you are!"

I knew Toon felt bad. I felt bad for him. Parents were supposed to be loving us, not telling us about how we were disgracing them.