Rikers High by Paul Volponi Page A

suits and pass them around to show off.
    I watched Sanchez for a while. He was lying down with a pillow over his face. I could tell he wasn’t really asleep by the way he was breathing. It would change all the time from fast to slow. You watch lots of kids sleep when you’re locked up, and they always breathe steady.
    â€œHow can you lie there for so long without moving?” I asked low.
    He lifted the pillow off his face and answered, “Man, I’m already part dead.”
    Quiet time was hardest for Shaky because he couldn’t sit still like everybody else. After seeing him jump around for the first hour, Johnson got smart and sent Shaky to work with the house gang.
    Shaky pushed the pail along for one of the dudes who was mopping, talking to kids as he passed their beds.
    â€œDon’t nobody carry on with him! I want silence!” barked Johnson.
    After that, it was just Shaky talking to himself as he walked.
    There weren’t any clocks in the house you could look at. All of the COs have wristwatches. Inmates can wear watches, too, as long as the bands aren’t metal. And a couple of the kids on our side had them. I never wanted one because it only mattered what time the COs said it was. They could make their watches say anything they wanted. Besides, the only time that really counts in jail is days.
    Brick was going through his bucket, taking inventory. I saw him juggle with guys in the beds next to his. He even had some dude pass smokes off into the next row for him.
    For all his tough talk, Brick didn’t act like a killer. He acted like a greedy kid that wanted to be somebody.
    Maybe he just needed to learn some manners.
    Sanchez told me Brick had been in the Sprungs for almost four months, and that he moved in on kids because he’d been locked up before and knew how the game was played. Then he picked doldiers that were too stupid to run the game for themselves.
    Brick was already on probation for robbery and couldn’t afford to cop out to a new charge. If he did, he’d get even more time for breaking his promise to the state to stay clean after his last case.
    â€œI got a paid lawyer. A good one,” I’d heard Brick bragging to dudes. “My grandmother had the money to bail me out. But I said nahhh . I can live here, no problem. Take that cheddar and buy me the best mouthpiece there is. There ain’t a shred of evidence against me a smart lawyer can’t knock down.”
    Just after lights-out it started to rain. It beat down on top of the bubble like a drum. I ran my fingers over my scar where the skin had gotten tight and hard. You couldn’t escape the sound of being inside that drum, nobody could. You could only learn to deal with it.

FRIDAY, JUNE 12

CHAPTER
    26
    I was awake when the Turtles started across the yard the next morning. I saw them through the windows of the emergency doors in the back of the house and I knew what to expect.
    They brought crowbars, dogs, and an X-ray machine. There were at least twenty regular COs behind them. That whole outfit settled in front of Sprung #3 for a minute. Then the Turtles came inside first.
    Most of the house was still asleep when the Turtles’ captain got on a bullhorn.
    â€œEverybody up!” he ordered. “Stand beside your beds with your fingers locked behind your heads.”
    â€œDo it now! Do it now!” hollered one Turtle after another, punching inmates in the kidneys if they didn’t move fast enough.
    Some kids didn’t know what was happening.
    I’d got on a pair of pants and sneakers before they even came inside. But most dudes were caught sleeping and had to stand barefoot in their underwear.
    The Turtles are always on point, acting like super-COs 24/7. And they’re looking for high drama from the word Go.
    They get their name from the gear they wear. When there’s a riot in the jail, they get dressed in helmets and big chest protectors that cover them