Rikers High Read Online Free Page B

tossed my shit into the bucket, put my mattress on the frame, and got into bed. There was a CO watching our side from a desk up front. He spent most of the night reading a newspaper with his feet up, like nothing ever happens out here.
    I wasn’t convinced, and I stayed up for a few hours staring at the high ceiling. There were big fans that hung down from the top of the Sprung, and I watched the blades turning slow. I could feel the air moving all around me. And I kept the blanket away from my face so I could see anyone coming.
    There was no Plexiglas bubble for the officers to hole up in, where the phone and emergency alarm were in case the entire house went zoo. Here, the officers’ desk was right out in the open where kids could just rush it if they wanted. But the COs didn’t seem uptight about it.
    COs inside the jail don’t carry guns; only the ones patrolling outside the gates do. If they had guns on the inside, inmates would forever be scheming on how to wrestle one away. But the COs inside aren’t scared, because they stick up for each other. That uniform connects them like one big gang. Only they’re more dangerous than any gang I know, because they have badges and the courts to back them up.
    Inmates have the COs outnumbered, maybe thirty to one. But they’re all apart, fighting over every little thing, and the COs are too much together. Even if some COs don’t like each other, they hate inmates even worse.
    The only time a CO has to worry is if a bunch of inmates jump him all at once. And every CO has a personal alarm clipped to his shirt. When he hits the button, a signal goes off in a control room up at the front of the jail. The riot squad comes running on the double. And those animals will hit anything that moves, including kids with their hands up in the air.
    Two kids on the midnight suicide watch came through. I could see they were checking me out. One of them even flashed some fake-ass gang signs at me, but I looked right through him.
    Midnight suicide is a good job for an inmate, but you got to have some juice to get it. The COs have to like you and think you’re down with their program. Lots of times they’ll give their enforcers the job as a reward for helping to keep the house in line. Other times the house snitch will be on midnights. But they’re usually all down with Five-O in some way.
    The kids on midnight get to stay up all night and sleep most of the day. Besides the fifty-cents-a-night pay, you get $150 put into your account if you stop an inmate from trying to kill himself. In Mod-3, we used to talk about having a fake suicide so we could all split the money. But no one ever wanted to get turned in and have to go to Bellevue Hospital for observation in the mental ward.
    â€œYo, Forty,” whispered some kid from the next row of beds. “We need a new Maytag in the house. Wash all our clothes in the bathroom sink, and we’ll let you live around here.”
    That kid didn’t know a thing about how I carried myself around a house. He was just going by the first thing he saw—that somebody had sliced me like a Thanksgiving turkey.
    I heard a couple of them laugh when I called for the officer.
    They probably thought I was looking for protection. But I said in a voice loud enough for the whole north side to hear, “CO, I need to use the bathroom.”
    The laughing stopped.
    I was calling out anyone who wanted to follow me inside. I wanted to see the layout of the bathroom, too, before morning, when it would be full of kids. Then I couldn’t get jumped so easy.
    The bathroom is the best place for inmates to fight, away from the eyes of the COs. During the day, kids watch the door and let you know when the COs are coming. I walked through the open doorway and looked it over. It was bigger than most, maybe fifteen feet wide and fifty feet long. None of the stalls had doors, and the showers were way at the end and up a few steps.