By summer’s end, I’d been back at Rikers for three months. My plate was full, with a caseload that had swelled to thirty people as well as handling the accompanying paperwork demands. The inmates I met with suffered primarily from depression, anxiety, and often a combination of both. There was little time for the in-depth work I’d enjoyed as a student, but with each person I met, I listened wholeheartedly, tried to nurture maturation, and instill reasonable hope. When I packed up to go home at night, it was with the quiet sense that I was doing something important.
And in my outside life, there was cause for celebration. Alex had passed his exams and was now a full-fledged American doctor. With his long struggle over, a world of opportunities was opening up for him. And as he began exploring new possibilities, I became more deeply immersed in my work with the men at GMDC, a population of little concern to the outside world.
But if the public was disinterested in the Rikers detainees, one accused criminal had captivated the entire nation—O. J. Simpson. By the fall of 1995, his trial was under way and the case was discussed endlessly in newspapers, on TV, in the home and workplace. The fervor was felt no less on Rikers, where officers, civilians, and inmates alike offered passionate opinions as to whether Simpson was guilty of the grisly double murder. By early October, the trial was finally wrapping up, and on a bright autumn morning, word spread that the jury had reached a decision. Officers and civilians crammed into a clinic lounge while inmates gathered around their house TVs for the verdict. When the words “not guilty” were uttered, a massive roar rose up over Rikers Island. The inmates were ecstatic—dancing in their houses, cheering in the clinic. The dour faces on the mess hall lines were replaced with broad smiles and pumped fists. None of my sessions was complete without a quick sidebar on the verdict. “Finally,” they said, “White justice for a Black man!”
But as the O. J. euphoria died down, and the inmates realized that his victory meant nothing for their own cases, the jail returned to its usual somber state.
At GMDC, I found a profound sense of sadness that I had not felt at Rose Singer. Not that Rose Singer was “Mickey Mouse land” by any means, but the difference, it seemed to me, was hope—hope for a better life after jail. Numerous programs prepared the women for better things after release. But at GMDC, programs were scarce, and the idea of something like the meditation group that Lucy Lopez had attended seemed laughable. And perhaps my biggest shock: for all of the Mental Health Department’s efforts in denying women sleep medication, no such policy existed here. In fact, it was the opposite. Here, sleep meds were doled out freely—even encouraged—as though there was an unspoken understanding of the men as a lost cause and a desire to anesthetize their pain as best we could. I suppose with more serious charges, and the heavier sentences that waited, there was little point in focusing on life afterward.
As part of my evaluations, I asked about physical injuries, and the men whipped up T-shirts to display scars from gunshots and stabbings, the result of gang warfare and stray bullets. Before GMDC I’d never even seen a bullet wound, but now the sight of scarred and puckered abdomens was routine. Many had also suffered blows to the head, usually through accidents or fights. In one grief counseling situation, I worked with twenty-four-year-old Alex Mora, who’d just learned that his younger brother had been killed by a stray bullet. He sobbed uncontrollably, grieving for the “good one” in the family, wishing it had been him. And it could just as easily have been. Alex had already survived seven gunshots to his back and now walked with a limp. Post-traumatic stress disorder was almost as common a diagnosis as drug addiction, but here, the walking wounded weren’t soldiers returning from any war, they were victims of the violence that comes with being part of New York City’s rough-and-tumble underclass.
Not surprisingly, drugs were at the heart of most men’s charges. Whether it was sales, working as a lookout, “steering” customers to dealers, robbing to get money to buy drugs, or committing a violent crime while under the influence, all roads led back to drugs.
But as I got to know these men, I discovered that they viewed drug dealing as their salvation. It was not only lucrative, but within their impoverished subculture it carried prestige. As Alonzo Gomez, a soft-spoken twenty-year-old referred for attempted suicide, put it, “I had real money in my pockets, and for the first time in my life, I was a somebody!” In their insular world, drug dealers command respect. Many are viewed as neighborhood “godfathers,” doling out cash for groceries, Pampers, and other necessities. In the larger society, these men are uneducated, unskilled nobodies, but through drug dealing, they’ve found a shortcut to the American dream of big money, power, and respect.
But the dream is short-lived, and the downside—violence, death, prison—is horrific, as Antwan Williams was discovering. Since our initial session, I’d been meeting with Antwan regularly, and as the shock of his arrest wore off, he knew his life would never be the same—nor would the lives of his family. By the fall, his three boys, aged ten, eight, and five, were returning to school and becoming more upset that Daddy wasn’t home. “I used to walk them to school every morning,” said Antwan. “That’s where I should be now—taking my kids to school.”
Initially, Antwan’s wife tried to shield the children from the truth, but when it became apparent that he wasn’t coming home any time soon, she started bringing them on visits. “It’s terrible for them to see me in here like this. My youngest, he just hugs me and cries, ‘Papi, come home!’ I can’t take it, Miss B! The whole reason I did this was to help my family. I wasn’t looking to buy fancy cars. It was to take care of them—and now look at the pain I’ve caused!”
Although medication provided Antwan with considerable relief, he still lived in a state of high anxiety, especially as he contemplated his future. Not only was he facing serious drug charges, but he was also being implicated as part of a larger operation. “They’re saying I’m part of some big drug gang that I never even heard of! I wasn’t in any gang. I just ran duffle bags around for a few weeks!”
Antwan was determined to take his case to trial and reject any plea bargain. “These charges aren’t fair!” he protested. But after several court hearings, he was reconsidering. His judge was a woman who’d carved out a citywide reputation for the heavy sentences she imposed on drug dealers—she’d been hailed in the press and lauded by Mayor Giuliani for being tough on crime. “Just my luck,” lamented Antwan.
But there was some hope. After his arrest, his family rallied to come up with money for a lawyer and succeeded in amassing $5,000. With this precious bankroll, Antwan could hire private counsel and was hopeful of at least getting his case switched to another judge. At Rikers, a private lawyer is a rare luxury; virtually all the detainees are represented by court-appointed attorneys. Although $5,000 was a fortune for Antwan’s family, sadly, it was eaten up in the earliest stages of the case and the private lawyer was gone. His spirits plummeted as he faced the same judge, but now with a Legal Aid lawyer. Although still inclined to go to trial, his apprehension about this judge was further heightened when court officers warned him against it. “These guys rush up and whisper, ‘Don’t go to trial with her—nobody ever wins in here! Don’t do it!’ I want to go to trial, Miss Buser—I want to fight these charges, but I’m so scared of this judge. I don’t know what to do. I mean, it’s not like it’s coming from the guy in the next cell—it’s the officers in her own courtroom!”
As Antwan agonized over his case, he also faced day-to-day survival behind bars. “It’s scary in here. Guys get jumped, beaten. I can understand why so many of them join gangs—nobody messes with you. But that’s not all,” he whispered, glancing out at Miss Edwards. “It’s the officers too. We had a search this morning, and it was bad. All these COs showed up in helmets and face shields, and they made us strip and line up with our hands against the wall. Then they started flipping mattresses and throwing our stuff all over—pictures, shoes—and laughing while they’re doing it. My muscles are shaking, and I’m just saying, ‘Oh God—please get this over with!’ And the one in charge is yelling, ‘Don’t move, don’t anybody turn around.’ And this one kid, he’s kind of stupid, you know, and he must have turned around ’cause next thing you know, he starts screaming, and they’re dragging him off to a corner and beating him. All the while, they’re saying to us, ‘Don’t turn around!’ Jesus! It’s like they were hoping for someone to move so they could beat the shit out of him. Then they threw some clothes on him and dragged him out. I don’t know where they took him . . . maybe to the clinic or to another house . . . I just don’t know.”
After our session ended and Antwan left, my mind was swirling. I don’t know what troubled me more: the judge or the housing search. I thought judges were supposed to be the impartial referees of the legal system. Instilling terror in the courtroom was not our legal system as I understood it. And when it came to the search, I just hoped Antwan was exaggerating. It couldn’t have been that bad.
At least, I hoped not.