Rikers High by Paul Volponi Page B

from front to back. That way no one can stab them with a banger. When they put everything on, they look just like turtles in their shells.
    They wear a darker uniform than the regular COs—one that’s almost black, like Darth Vader’s. And even when they aren’t wearing those shells, kids still call them “Turtles.”
    Most dudes knew them from the corridors in the main building.
    If your house is on the move and Turtles pass your way, inmates have to play the wall and let them go by first. They even make you put your head down, because you’re not allowed to look them in the face.
    There’s always one Turtle that will make a show of it and start to scream at some kid who’s hanging on the wall.
    â€œAre you looking at me, maggot? Put your eyes on me again!” he’ll warn.
    Two or three Turtles will circle around the kid in case he talks back. But the kid just usually shits a brick in his pants. Then everybody goes back to their house talking about how crazy the Turtles are and how nobody in their right mind would ever want to fight them.
    The Turtles stood watch inside the house while a search crew of COs went through everybody’s stuff.
    COs patted down dudes and emptied their buckets onto the floor. Then they flipped the beds over and made everyone drag their mattresses to the X-ray machine. Most of the mattresses were stink-old. They were so ripped you couldn’t tell if a dude had buried a weapon in one or not. So they used the machine to make sure.
    All the COs wore rubber gloves while they searched. It was like our shit would give them some sort of disease if it touched their skin. The only things I had in my bucket were a couple of shirts and an extra pair of pants. The COs went through them quick and then made me open my mouth and move my tongue around to see if I was hiding any razor blades.
    The search team found a homemade banger in Luis’s mattress.
    â€œAll right, there’s number one,” said a CO, celebrating.
    The COs with the X-ray machine saw it clear as day on their monitor. They dug it out of the stuffing and were waving it around in the air like a prize.
    The banger was made from a sharpened piece of metal, with tape wrapped around the bottom for a handle.
    â€œThis was ripped off the bottom of a chair,” said a CO. “Probably from the school trailer.”
    â€œHey, genius. I’m glad you picked something up in that school,” a CO taunted Luis.
    The Turtles’ captain served Luis with a write-up on the spot and then packed his ass up.
    Luis would do sixty days in the bing for sure.
    It doesn’t matter if a weapon is yours or not. If they even find it near your shit, you get charged. Lots of times a dude will slide a banger across the floor, just to get rid of it when things get hot. If it winds up under your bed, you’re the one that gets screwed.
    The dogs sniffed around for drugs, but didn’t find any.
    Dawson and Arrigo were watching from up front with Captain Montenez. They didn’t show much expression at all. The less the search team found, the better those three were going to look.
    Brick was standing at his bed stone-faced. If the house got burned for the banger, it would be because of his doldier. I wondered if other dudes would get brave and give him lip for that. He was already weaker with Luis out the door.
    The search team even tore through the GED books in the house. They were looking for razors hidden between the pages and in the bindings.
    â€œOfficer, I need that book,” pleaded a kid who was taking the test soon.
    â€œStop crying, little boy,” ripped a CO. “We do this so nothing happens to you. We don’t want anybody getting cut.”
    Those words stung me hard.
    I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, “Assholes! If you’d checked the kid that cut me coming back from court, I wouldn’t look like this! I’d have one less thing to worry about all