A group of counselors took the stage. Juan, a short Latino, pleaded for quiet over the microphone. Ramon, stocky and balding, used his hands like a traffic cop. But the noise kept rising. Then, Terrance Tyson, a counselor from East New York, one of the toughest, most desperate crack-torn neighborhoods in all of Brooklyn, took the microphone from Juan and barked, “Shut the fuck up!”
The sudden silence was followed almost immediately by a ripple of laughter. All of the counselors reacted quickly to the laughter, swearing and berating the entire community until there was utter stillness. This was meant to be a somber occasion.
Taking the stage next was James, the director of the program, an athleticlooking man whose youthful countenance was belied by his gray temples. As the director paced, the auditorium grew tense. He spoke in a low tone that felt menacing. Gold Teeth and two of his peers were led onstage. The three of them stood, stoop-shouldered, staring at their shoes, like sinners in church. Of all the client jobs, these men’s had been the highest positions of authority. I was shocked to see them singled out like this.
James went on about clients breaking the rules. He was coy about specifics. It became clear he wanted the specifics from us. Looking across the seats, I saw mostly teenagers and young men, crackheads from some of the worst neighborhoods in New York City.
Good luck, I thought.
Next James called a young man in baggy jeans and hooded jacket on stage. This boy had been remanded to treatment by the courts with a significant amount of jail time hanging in the balance. He seemed oddly pleased by this fact, as if it lent him a stature he might not otherwise have been able to attain. In group, he liked to refer to himself—proudly and with no irony— as a predicate felon. “Yo, I’m a predicate felon.”
I found him arrogant and disagreeable but could see the fear in his eyes and felt bad for him now. He was shaking his head, denying any wrongdoing.
“Get your shit,” James told him, “and get the fuck out.”
“What that mean?” Predicate Felon’s voice filled with emotion. “I don’t understand.”
“You don’t understand?” James snorted. “Well, okay. Let’s break it down. ‘Get your shit’ mean, go upstairs and get your stuff.” James paused. Speaking directly into the microphone, he said: “‘Get the fuck out,’ mean ‘Get the fuck out.’”
His amplified voice echoed from the walls.
Predicate Felon’s shoulders slumped.
Turning his attention from the boy, James addressed the crowd. He wanted us to tell on ourselves, tell on our friends, and tell on one another. James wanted this information now.
For the rest of the day a parade of counselors appeared on stage, alone or sometimes in pairs. They alternated between cursing and berating us, or making impassioned pleas for us to discuss any rule infractions we might know of. I didn’t mind the cursing, but by the time evening came, the pleas were taking their toll. Something about the soothing promise of redemption and the measured cadence of the counselor’s arguments put me on edge.
People were beginning to crack.
One by one they raised their hands, like churchgoers making an altar call, and were led out by counselors to the administrative wing. I saw Mike briefly at dinner, but we weren’t allowed to talk.
Gold Teeth split, storming off the stage late evening on day two. Others slipped out during the night. A quiet desperation seemed to settle over everyone, even the counselors whose curses and taunts now rang softly in our ears. Sometimes they let us sit in the auditorium for hours in silence.
After dinner the third day, Ramon led me and half a dozen other new people to the administrative wing. Ramon started in on his plea for information. Halfway through his spiel, Ramon began pacing the hall in front of us as he spoke. He seemed exasperated. I decided I couldn’t take it anymore. I would tell about the porn magazine.
I raised my hand.
“You fucking guys are all brand new—,” Ramon said.
I waved my hand.
“You haven’t been here long enough to know shit.” He ran his hand over the shiny skin of his head.
Ramon looked at me with bloodshot eyes. He chuckled with a derisive snort. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
I lowered my hand.
“What the fuck?” He hiked his pants. “What do you want?”
Tongue-tied, I shrugged my shoulders and said nothing. Rockford was a madhouse—of this much I was certain. In my desperation to avoid jail and get into treatment, I had signed on at an asylum.
Days after the lockdown ended, I piled into a van with Mike and a few others to go downtown to a public clinic for physicals and blood tests, a standard procedure for all new clients.
We drove into Manhattan and were dropped off in a public park nearby the clinic to wait for it to open. Homeless people wandered the park in the early morning light: some rooted through trash, while others pushed carts, or rested on sodden sheets of cardboard laid on the bare, wet ground.
“What’s up with all these hobos?” I asked. “They’re all over the place.”
Mike cut his eyes at me and scowled.
“No seriously,” I asked. “Why does New York have so many hobos?”
“Stop saying hobo, motherfucker,” Mike said. He was sitting on the back of a park bench, with his feet on the seat. He blew into his cupped hands for warmth and then looked at me pointedly. “Wasn’t you in the homeless shelter?”
“Yep,” I grinned. “I was a hobo my damn self.”
Mike snorted and shook his head.
“They ain’t hobos, man. They homeless people,” he said. He sounded irritated. He looked wistfully at the locked door of the clinic. “They got homeless people in Pennsylvania, too,” he added. “They all over.”
A pigeon fluttered down, landing on the concrete sidewalk. I watched it peck for crumbs as I shifted my weight from foot to foot. Hugging my crossed arms to my chest, I watched my breath turn to steam.
For a while, no one said anything. The pigeons cooed.
“If I got thrown out of the house,” I said, almost in a whisper. “I just slept on the couch over at Bud’s, or sometimes up at Mary and Frank’s. . .”
In late February, I took the train back to Pennsylvania alone, to appear in court. Arriving in Harrisburg on Sunday afternoon, I phoned my motherin-law from the train station. She listened as I asked to speak to her daughter, and then without saying a word to me, she cupped the receiver with her hand. I heard muffled voices and seconds later Maryanne answered.
“Can I see Joey?” I asked. “I’m only in town for the night.”
She told me she was staying with Jack now, and that I was welcome to come and see Joey, but that there could be no trouble. She stressed the word trouble.
I took the bus to Jack’s. The sky had gone dark purple, bringing the street lights up. The moon shone. To avoid walking past my mother’s house, I climbed the concrete steps on Fourth and Swatara. Bethlehem Steel’s dark stacks loomed even darker in silhouette against the night sky—straight and hard, like the cold iron bars of a prison cell. From Jack’s front porch, I could see my mother’s house and her car parked in the vacant lot up the street.
I