Lockdown by Walter Dean Myers Page A

comes up from a small hole in the middle of the fountain. The water is warm. It comes up about an inch out of the hole, so you have to put your mouth almost on top of it to get a drink. Nothing in the room sticks out more than a quarter of an inch except the doorknob, and that is tapered so you can’t hook anythingonto it. That way you can’t make a noose out of a strip of cloth or a shoelace. In the detention cell, you can’t kill yourself.
    There is writing on the wall across from the bed—messages from other guys or girls who have been in the room. One says: “Time lost can never be found again.” Another one says: “I hate myself.” Above it, someone has written, “I hate you, too,” and drawn an arrow pointing to the sign that says, “I hate myself.”
    Each time I think there is no place lower to go, I find that there is at least one place that will mess you up worse than you were. And there were signs that made you remember if you forgot. When I lay on the cot in the detention cell and looked at the doorknob, I knew that whoever designed the room knew I would think about killing myself. No, they were saying, we understand how you’re feeling but you can’t do that, either.
    In the detention cell, you get fed before the others. You have to stand against the far wall with your back toward the door. Then they open the door and put your tray on the floor. When my supper came, I felt like turning around and yelling, “Boo!” But I knewthat would just get me more time.
    Lights-out in detention was at 8:30, same as it was with levels three, four, and five.
    The first day lasted two hundred hours. Then the days really got long.
    “You got five days in detention,” they’d said. No, all my life I was going to be in detention. All my life I was going to be locked down in some cell or in some life with steel bars, keeping me from getting up and going someplace or dying and not feeling bad anymore.
    I thought about K-Man’s letter. I didn’t care about Vincent being shot because I didn’t know him. In my life, somebody was always being shot or being beat up or being killed. I was somebody you needed to stay away from, someone who might hurt you or get you killed. Someone I wasn’t recognizing anymore.
    The second day in detention. I was thinking of fighting King Kong. I wondered if he was in his cell doing push-ups and maybe some squats to keep in shape. I got up and did some push-ups but my heart wasn’t in it. If King Kong attacked me I would just have to go all out and wreck the dude. Maybe they would send me upstate and I would have to be with grown men who could beat me up whenever theywanted to do it. Maybe if I found somebody up there who was cool, I could get a shank and stab whoever messed with me. That’s what they did upstate. You had to let them know you would stab them to death or they would take advantage of you. A little guy like Toon would just be somebody’s woman unless he found a way to kill himself.
    My father had been in jail. He wasn’t tough. Not inside. Outside he could beat me when I was little, or Willis before he got good with his hands, but he wasn’t tough. He did a lot of cursing and throwing himself around when he was drinking, but it wouldn’t be long before I could take him one on one. Although, really, it’s tough to kick your father’s ass because that’s a little like kicking your own ass. Maybe him hitting me or Willis was like him hitting himself. I don’t know.
    Me, Toon, and King Kong was all in a place under the real world. If they let us loose after breakfast—just let us walk out the front door—we wouldn’t have no place to go. Toon would go back to his parents so they could yell at him and go back to being small and pushed around. King Kong, he would go back to swinging on trees and climbing up buildings and being stupid, because sometimes settling for stupidwas easier than reaching for anything better. If you gave him a free bus pass, he couldn’t get