Rikers High by Paul Volponi

a break, and no one told her what was going on.
    â€œOh my God!” she screamed, as she walked into the trailer and saw a whole class standing naked.
    Some of the COs were laughing hard over it.
    â€œThat’s not funny,” said Ms. Armstrong, punching Arrigo in the arm.
    I wasn’t surprised the COs couldn’t dig up Murray’s piece. Usually when a kid swipes something, other inmates see it go down. Then word gets around. If there’s too much heat the kid gets ratted out. But most dudes in our room didn’t even remember seeing Murray with the chalk holder that day. Never mind robbing him for it.
    â€œGet these inmates dressed and take ’em to lunch,” ordered Montenez.
    Maybe he didn’t want to do it, but it was the rules. Montenez had to feed us before a certain time, no matter what.
    School was canceled in the afternoon, and Sprung #3 was officially on the burn.

CHAPTER
    25
    B ack at the house, the COs took the count. I could hear defeat in the voice of every kid as they counted off. It was like we’d just been whipped in a fight that we didn’t even know was coming.
    There are always fights in jail, and mostly it’s over something that matters to someone. But nobody wanted to be on the burn over Murray’s stupid chalk holder.
    â€œI don’t even believe one of you guys swiped it,” said Dawson.
    â€œToo bad it don’t matter what we think. The captain says it happened,” said Arrigo. “Maybe they’ll bring the chair out for everybody to sit in.”
    Arrigo meant that maybe a kid boofed it.
    Corrections has an electronic chair they make you sit in, and it’ll buzz if you jammed any metal inside of you. The COs can’t make you give it up or go get it themselves. They’re not allowed to. They can just isolate you from everybody else. But I couldn’t imagine some kid sticking a piece of metal that big up his ass.
    Lots of doldiers boof razor blades in case they have to go to war. They wrap them up in wads of toilet paper so they won’t cut themselves. The only problem is that if a fight jumps off fast you can’t get to your stash right away. You have to shit it out first.
    After supper, Johnson didn’t put the phones out. He was trying to squeeze us and maybe look like a supercop if the piece turned up on his tour.
    â€œThe dayroom’s off-limits,” Johnson ordered. “Sit at your beds. I want quiet time till lights-out.”
    The only movement was for the bathroom and the house gang cleaning up. It was four hours of just sitting on our beds looking at each other. Only a couple of dudes went to sleep. Most of us were too pissed off for that.
    I looked at the face of every inmate on our side. There were thirty-two other black faces, sixteen Spanish ones, and Ritz.
    To see us locked up like that, you’d think black and Spanish people were nothing but scum. None of us believed that was true. But it didn’t make us feel any better about ourselves either.
    Ritz got called out on a visit and he was all smiles. He walked down the rows of beds with his hands curved over his stomach, like a pregnant woman.
    â€œI never know which one of my girls it is,” he whispered. “But it don’t matter. It’s the same with both of them.”
    Ritz wasn’t even sure which one was due first. Dudes told him that if he gave both babies the same name he’d never mess up and call out the wrong one. He liked that trick and decided on “Chris” because it worked for a boy or a girl.
    Some kids used the time to write letters. You never think much about writing out in the world because you can see people and the phone is always there. But when you’re locked up letters become important. You write to people and sometimes they write back. Some dudes get pictures from home of things they missed, like their baby’s birthday party. Other kids get pictures of their girls in bathing