Andrew Vachss: The Weight

He nodded.

“Then, when I went in the lineup, she was looking for the guy who matched the picture, see?”

“Right. And that’s exactly what we’ll be saying. But why don’t you-?”

“It’s not much, but it’s something . If you start telling me the details, that’ll mess up the test… if they ever decide to give me one. I don’t know how the girl was raped because I didn’t rape her.”

He leaned forward. “Straight up?”

“Hey, the cops already know I’m not the guy. At least the last two detectives I talked to, they know.”

“If they know…”

“They know because they know something else. I mean, I was doing something else when that girl got raped.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah. My alibi buys me as much time as a rape would. In this state, probably more.”

He raised an eyebrow, asking me a question. This guy knew there’s things you don’t say out loud, even when you’re talking to a lawyer.

“Not that,” I said, drawing my finger across my throat, putting distance between myself and any homicides that might have gone down during what the cops call the “critical period” when they’re investigating a murder. Probably their idea of a joke.

“So…?”

“So this: if they show the girl more pictures, she might change her mind. Except for this”-I touched the scar that ran down from my forehead through my right eyebrow-“the only thing that stands out is that I’m a big white guy with two different-colored eyes. The guy who actually did the rape, he’s done a lot of them.”

“How could you know that?”

“How come she never saw his eyes? How come they don’t have a single damn drop or fiber or hair or-?”

“A pro, you’re saying?”

“There’s no such thing as a pro rapist. A pro works for money.”

“No offense,” he said, giving me a weird look. Like what did I have to be offended about? He was slick about the law maybe, and he could talk some of our talk, but now he was working without a map. He couldn’t know I wanted people to say, “Sugar’s a real pro.” Some people, I mean. But this guy wouldn’t understand that. He didn’t know the people I was talking about. He didn’t know our life.

“She saw what he wanted her to see,” I told him. “Probably one of those masks on his face. Maybe contact lenses. But how was she gonna miss a guy with two different-colored eyes, like me? So, if they were to tell her I passed a polygraph, it might be enough. Anyway, if I have to go on trial, better it’s for something I didn’t do.”

He leaned closer to me. “That scar, it’s not that visible, even up close. But, you’re right, there’s no way to miss your eyes.” He touched the right side of his pencil-line mustache. Manicured nails, no rings.

“I’ll get back to you,” he said.

Rikers never changes. Neither do the people who keep taking that bus ride. Some worked on not looking scared, others worked on looking tough. The only guys you have to watch are the ones who look bored.

The same Inside, too. They keep you separated while you get “processed,” but you could still hear voices calling out what they were going to do to you as soon as you got out of the fish tank. Some of the first-timers tried shouting back at them. Most of us knew better than to waste our breath on cell gangsters.

The first test was always Population. This time, it happened real quick. Some greasy little punk half my size says, “What they call you on the street, esé? In here, you got to pay to stay. Otherwise, what they be calling you is the other white meat, comprende ?”

“Azúcar,” I said, smiling at him.

“What?”

“You asked me what people call me on the street, right? So I just told you… esé .”

His boys were all watching, but they weren’t close enough to hear anything. Maybe he was a prospect they were testing. He pulled up his shirt to show me he was carrying, but I knew he wouldn’t go for it. He’d just tell the crew watching him that he’d warned me off and I’d gotten the message.

I left him a good out on purpose. Inside, if you take a man’s dignity in front of his own people, he has to go for you, right that second. He doesn’t do that, he’s got no backup, ever again.

But I also know what happens if you let anyone so much as tap your commissary, never mind turn it all over. So I tried to practice what Solly’s always telling me: the older you get, the weaker your body, so the only way to balance out is to grow a stronger mind.

Giving that punk an out, it was the same as me driving weight. Building myself bigger. Adding to the armor.

This was my third time on the Rock. First time, it was short-stay before I went Upstate. The second was that ninety-day joke. This time, it was going to be just like my first.

Except for the testing. When I was a kid, my size-and I was real big, even then-that didn’t mean anything. Plenty of big guys roll right over when they see steel.

But nobody ever really pushed that hard. I even knew a few guys I had been locked up with before. Maybe they spread the word a little, I don’t know.

So buying that shank this time, it was more about the message. The guy I bought from, he was AB, so I knew they’d know . I hadn’t dealt with coloreds; that was good. But I hadn’t asked to join up, and that could mean anything.

I knew flashing it would be all wrong. That’s a rookie move, not something a pro does. Besides, the guy I bought it from, he’d take care of letting the word get around.

My first time in happened because I made a lot of rookie mistakes. Me and a couple of older guys, we figured, how is a fence ever going to run to the cops? That was before I knew some of them stay in business by switch-hitting.

I was seventeen. I wanted to be a heist-man, not a mugger. The fence wasn’t any big-time guy. He ran a garage over by Shea Stadium, under the bridge. The way it worked, you drove your swag over to him; he’d close the doors, look over what you had, and tell you what he’d pay.

We had a little panel truck one of the other guys took right out of a parking lot. He picked us up and we threw in a bunch of empty cartons. Big ones, like the kind TVs come in. I sat next to the driver, and the third guy was in the back. While the fence was waiting for the guy in the back to open the boxes, I just stepped out and yoked him until he went limp.

When he came to, he reached for the phone.

My Legal Aid said I was being charged with strong-arm robbery. All that means is nobody showed a weapon.

He kept talking about a YO-that’s Youthful Offender-like it was the greatest thing in the world. The way he ran it down, if the judge would give me a YO, my record would be sealed. That way, it couldn’t be used against me if I ever got in trouble again.

He said “again” like it was a sure thing.

I already knew that sixteen was the cutoff. No more Family Court for me. No more rehabilitation bullshit, no more counseling, no more GED classes. Prison.

I knew I’d have to go sooner or later if I wanted the right people to see me, so I was just as glad to get it over with.

Back then, on the Rock, they’d separate the young guys from the older ones. That was supposed to keep us safe from “predators.” I wondered if anyone actually believed that stuff.

But it wasn’t bad at all. Nobody was going to be there long enough to worry about pulling me into their crew. And I had enough juvie time to send out the right signal: I’m not going to gorilla anybody into anything, and I don’t have anything you want, either. But if you come at me, it’s going to cost you something.