Read Online Rikers High by Paul Volponi - Free Book Online Page A

speak to the captain about it later.”
    I heard that out of her mouth and wondered how she could stand teaching in jail, where everybody was beat down and had been arrested for something.

CHAPTER
    20
    B esides Officer Carter, our steady COs during the day were Dawson and Arrigo. They were both white, too, but I liked their act because they told you what they wanted up front. The first time you fucked up, they’d talk to you.
    â€œTell me what you did wrong, kid,” Dawson would say, playing good cop.
    â€œNow, what do you think we should do about that?” Arrigo would follow, cracking his knuckles.
    The next time, they smacked you around. So when they hit you, they figured you had no one to blame but yourself.
    Dawson was tall and thick, and leaned off to one side when he walked. Arrigo was short, with greasy black hair and arms like steam shovels. He showed them off every chance he got and had a tattoo on his right bicep that read, TNT.
    â€œYou don’t want to get hit with dynamite,” Arrigo would tell kids.
    The Department of Corrections has signs up that say inmates are in their “care and custody.” But most COs would rather keep you near and in fear .
    Arrigo came to the classroom door during math with Miss Archer and screamed, “Forty, clinic!”
    I went into the hallway and waited at the officers’ desk for an escort.
    There were always kids in the hall that had been thrown out of class. Mr. Murray, that crooked-nosed history teacher, would toss most of them for total bullshit.
    Instead of having inmates hold up the wall, Dawson and Arrigo liked to play games. They had one called “London Bridge” for kids who wanted to fight each other. Any pair caught beefing had to lean as far forward as they could, forehead to forehead. Then they had to sing “London Bridge Is Falling Down.”
    After five minutes of that crap, kids would be begging to make up and go back to class.
    They had Barnett and Shaky out there playing patty-cake, Rikers-style.
    â€œYou act like babies, we’ll treat you like babies,” Dawson said. “Now do it again till you both get it right.”
    Barnett was pissed because Shaky kept screwing up the crossover and missing Barnett’s hand.
    I watched them do it four times and loved every one.
    Patty-cake, patty-cake, legal aid
    Get me off Rikers or don’t get paid
    Do it for my mama, do it for my girl
    I gotta make money out in the world.
    Some COs would go easy on Brick and his crew because they helped keep the house in line. But Dawson and Arrigo played them the same as everybody else. And the other kids respected that.
    The principal, Ms. Jackson, walked through the hall with her high heels tapping the floor, looking into all the classrooms. She was mad because there were kids sleeping in every class.
    â€œYou can’t allow them to sleep,” she pecked at Dawson and Arrigo. “It doesn’t look good.”
    â€œIf they’re not bothering anybody, we’re not gonna mess with them,” Arrigo snapped back.
    â€œThis isn’t some kind of prep school. These kids have problems,” Dawson piped in. “Why don’t you just tell your teachers to be more interesting? Maybe that’ll help keep them awake.”
    Only Ms. Jackson didn’t break a smile at that and snipped, “I see I’ll have to bring this issue to the captain again, maybe even higher up.”
    Then she banged on a classroom window, pointing inside.
    â€œThat one!” she screamed through the hard plastic.
    The teacher sent the kid out, and Ms. Jackson motioned him over to the officers’ desk as she stormed out of the trailer.
    The kid rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and asked the officers, “What I do?”
    â€œGo back to class and try to stay awake,” Dawson told him.
    â€œThe principal’s got her period again. That’s what you did,” Arrigo said, annoyed.
    When I got to the