CHAPTER

2

We got to the yard, and I was shackled to another inmate by my foot and wrist, so it would be that much harder for either of us to run. They loaded us onto a blue and white bus with the word CORRECTION painted on the side. Like people on the streets wouldn’t figure it out from the metal bars and plates on the windows. Then the bus started up, and we passed through the big gates and over the bridge that separates Rikers Island from the world.

There were fourteen pairs of inmates shackled together and two officers along for the ride. One CO stays with the inmates, and the driver sits on the other side of the bars so no one can take control of the bus. There’s even a cage that the CO can lock you up in if you start trouble or need protection. The mood on the way to court is usually pretty good. But the ride back can be long and hard if enough dudes get smacked down by the judges.

We crossed the bridge and were on the streets of East Elmhurst. It felt good to see people walking in any direction they wanted, without a CO to stop them. And I wanted to be that way again, too.

I saw a man picking up after his dog on a corner, and I thought about my first trip to the Island. Maybe I was ten years old then. Mom took me on a visit with her to see Pops on Rikers. But we got off some city bus and couldn’t find the jail.

She stopped a white man walking a black Rottweiler and asked, “How do you get to Rikers Island?”

The man just laughed and said, “Rob a bank, lady. Rob a bank.”

I know where the Island is now. I know the bus route from the jail to the Queens Criminal Courthouse and back. I’ve taken that ride so many times on this one case, I could close my eyes and tell you where the bus is by the bumps and turns. From the streets to the Grand Central Parkway, through the exit ramp and the turn onto Queens Boulevard, I could feel it in my bones.

At the courthouse, we were put into the pens. You pick up a lot of skills in jail, and in the pens you need them all. The pens are big cells, with maybe fifty inmates inside of each one. That’s where everybody waits until their case gets called. There’s an open toilet, a sink, and benches bolted to the floor so nobody throws them. The COs in charge aren’t interested in what you do because they don’t have to live with you for long. They don’t really want to come inside and stop anything, either. It’s up to you to take care of yourself. As long as you come out in one piece to see the judge, they did their job.

Adolescents are mixed with adults in the pens, and guys that fly the same colors stay together and act tight. By eleven o’clock, the COs serve you a slice of bologna between two pieces of bread for lunch. Inmates call them “cop-out sandwiches” because you’d be willing to confess to anything just to not eat that crap. After a while, the floor of the pen gets covered with bologna and stale bread.

I tried to look hard, with my chest puffed out and eyes squinting. I was as worried about the next few hours as I was about my case.

Some guys had bullied a weak kid over in the corner into doing the pogo—jumping up and down in the toilet on one foot in his shoes and socks. It’s mostly the adolescents who do stuff like that because they want to show other kids how tough they are. The only time an adult will step to an adolescent is if the kid is acting real stupid. And when adults fight, there’s no playing around. They’ll pull burners quick and try to stab each other to death.

The dude standing next to me was practicing hand signs, and I thought he was down with one of the gangs. He saw me watching him and said, “This is what’s gonna help me beat my case.”

Then he ran down the whole show for me.

“All the judges are Masons,” he said. “If they see you throwing up the right signs, they won’t find you guilty. That’s why you don’t see white people going through the system. Most of them are Masons, and they know the signs. But there are black Masons, too. Even a white judge knows that.”

I just nodded. You never want to argue with a dude when he has his hopes riding on something crazy like that. Not while he’s waiting to see the judge and is all uptight.

There were two kids starting to jaw in the corner of the pen. They were fighting over which outfit ran their neighborhood, and it was starting to get heavy. They both had on their best ice grills, and one of them had backup.

“You’re talkin’ to me like I’m some sort of punk,” said the one standing alone.

He put his fists up and stood with his back to the bars, so no one could yoke him from behind. But that crew had him surrounded and other inmates in that part of the pen started to move away.

It was about to be high drama when an officer came up to the bars and shouted, “All right boys and girls, listen up! Fuller, Douglas, Stokes, and Wallace, let’s go!”

“That’s me, Martin Stokes,” I told the officer, as his key rattled the lock on the door.