When it comes to homosexual behavior I tend to consider myself open minded. It's fine with me as long as you respect yourselves in the morning. However, I think this cowboy will be just mozying along right about now. In fact, at several crucial moments I have wished I enjoyed homosexual sex.
If it were not for that aspect of jail and prison life, I surely would have sent at least three bullying morons I have confronted at gigs off to the proverbial journey on the gurney.
This morning I have only one student, Pedro Parabola, and he radiates unexpressed pain. He is a young Latino, quite finely featured oval cameo face. This is his first time at Rikers. He is about five foot six, my height, with long hair that he wears in a pony tail.
Although in quite good physical shape, he lacks the comic book bulk of "prison muscles." There are dark circles around his eyes, and they are set in what seems like a permanent squint.
He has attended classes on a very regular basis and sings with one of the prison's many a-capella groups and choirs. Some of them are quite good. It is a very disorienting experience to see a group of toughened cons sweetly harmonizing Up on the Roof.
"Because I never want to come here again."
I’ve always seen him arrive at classes with the hulking, amiable Angelo. Quick of hands and scarred of cheekbones, Angelo has an easy smile unbroken gapped front teeth. Mute testimony to his twenty something pugilistic skill.
When Angelo’s not smiling, I’ve watched inmates twice his size avoid his reach. His thick, tightly corded forearms zig-zag with thin scars from unsuccessfully delivered slashing. Nothing really penetrating.
Unfortunately that also applies to his brain. I would ball park his academic level generously at a NYBOE fourth grade. One class Pedro spent close to an hour explaining "carrying the one" to him, while the rest of us were doing per cents. He kept asking why it had become so weak that it needed the help. I found myself at an uncharacteristic loss for words.
But today Pedro is alone. They’ve stuck to each other like glue. Such close brain/brawn friendships are common in jail, like two shipwrecks clinging to the same piece of flotsam. The system discourages this behavioral pattern, and keeps shuffling prisoners around in order to emotionally isolate each inmate. Presumably, this makes them easier to manage.
"So, where's your main man today?"
"He got released this morning."
"That's great!"
"Well sorta...."
His voice trails, and he has a thousand yard stare x-raying its way through me toward some unimaginably distant point on an invisible horizon.
With increasing frequency, the Officers have been doubling up on supervising the female teachers, leaving none for mine. The facility’s corridor ends with a room reserved for mops, buckets, and a stack of forlorn brown folding chairs. When this happens we are locked down. I have nicknamed it "Siberia." I break out one of the seats and motion him to do the same.
He walks in long ellipses, like a parody of a pace. He avoids my eyes. We are on delicate ground.
"Well, so what do you feel like doing today? It looks like it's just you and me."
"I dunno, man, I dunno...." His arms are closely wrapped around his chest, as if he is trying stave off a penetrating chill.
"Well, we can always do some math." He has always been very enthusiastic in his participation in fraction and decimal work, and has made enormous progress towards his GED. He is one of the people upon whom I have pinned some hope.
"Maybe, I dunno."
There are scratches on his shoulders that continue below his t-shirt. These are red, angry, and new.
He is not carrying his folder, normally always with him. Time to improvise.
"Listen, we can basically do anything you want."
"How about get the fuck out of here?"
Uh oh. One of those special conversations is a-coming like freight train.
"That's an order too tall for me."
"This place is hell. Sometimes I feel like if I spend another minute in this place, I'm just going to explode. And the only reason I'm here is STUPID SHIT."
I know this to be true because I have seen his rap sheet. There is not very much there. One lousy prior on a TNT(Tactical Narcotics Terrorists) sweep for selling dime bags of pot. He's nineteen looking like fifteen for Chrissake, give me a break. The only reason this guy is here could only be due to an incompetent lawyer, non-existent family, or an arbitrary decision by a judge who was in a bad mood. Yet once more I am reminded of the absolute idiocy of the Rockefeller Laws.
I grasp at straws.
"Stupid shit will get you every time."
"It sure will...."'
He keeps orbiting the stack of chairs with a pinched, mincing walk. Despite the lack of eye contact, he keeps his face towards me.
"Listen, man, you know I love school and all that, but I really don't feel like doing it today. Do you mind if I see the chaplain? There's something I really need to talk to him about."
"Hey, man, no problem."
"Okay, thanks. I'll see you tomorrow."
It is only as he turns to leave that I notice that there is a patch of fresh blood staining the seat of his white, baggy pants.
I hit the call button for the guard and shudder.
Alone in the room I sit and begin to connect some the dots that constitute my memories.
"The raping at Rikers is greatly exaggerated. It's a transitional facility, so the inmates still have some hope.
However, if the CO has a beef with a prisoner, then he'll leave him alone with a known rapist."
"Do they have a condom distribution program there????"
"Supposedly. But it's kept pretty quiet, because officially nothing like that ever goes on there, of course. And anyway, how many rapists are going to show that kind of consideration?"
"Hell, I don’t know. How about live to rape another day?"
"Quit jerking yourself off, man. That's not even what it's about. It's power. It's one person desperately trying to prove to himself that he has any power at all, entrapped by a system and society that have broken all but his prison muscles."
"Yeah, but look at the implications of that. Rikers already has an inordinately high percentage of HIV positives."
"That's right. But they are not separated, because that would be discrimination."
"Beautiful. It's an AIDS factory. So much for expanding the future orientation in the lower depths."