myself bigger. Adding to the armor.
This was my third time on the Rock. First time, it was short-stay before I went Upstate. The second was that ninety-day joke. This time, it was going to be just like my first.
Except for the testing. When I was a kid, my size—and I was real big, even then—that didn’t mean anything. Plenty of big guys roll right over when they see steel.
But nobody ever really pushed that hard. I even knew a few guys I had been locked up with before. Maybe they spread the word a little, I don’t know.
So buying that shank this time, it was more about the message. The guy I bought from, he was AB, so I knew they’d know. I hadn’t dealt with coloreds; that was good. But I hadn’t asked to join up, and that could mean anything.
I knew flashing it would be all wrong. That’s a rookie move, not something a pro does. Besides, the guy I bought it from, he’d take care of letting the word get around.
My first time in happened because I made a lot of rookie mistakes. Me and a couple of older guys, we figured, how is a fence ever going to run to the cops? That was before I knew some of them stay in business by switch-hitting.
I was seventeen. I wanted to be a heist-man, not a mugger. The fence wasn’t any big-time guy. He ran a garage over by Shea Stadium, under the bridge. The way it worked, you drove your swag over to him; he’d close the doors, look over what you had, and tell you what he’d pay.
We had a little panel truck one of the other guys took right out of a parking lot. He picked us up and we threw in a bunch of empty cartons. Big ones, like the kind TVs come in. I sat next to the driver, and the third guy was in the back. While the fence was waiting for the guy in the back to open the boxes, I just stepped out and yoked him until he went limp.
When he came to, he reached for the phone.
My Legal Aid said I was being charged with strong-arm robbery. All that means is nobody showed a weapon.
He kept talking about a YO—that’s Youthful Offender—like it was the greatest thing in the world. The way he ran it down, if the judge would give me a YO, my record would be sealed. That way, it couldn’t be used against me if I ever got in trouble again.
He said “again” like it was a sure thing.
I already knew that sixteen was the cutoff. No more Family Court for me. No more rehabilitation bullshit, no more counseling, no more GED classes. Prison.
I knew I’d have to go sooner or later if I wanted the right people to see me, so I was just as glad to get it over with.
Back then, on the Rock, they’d separate the young guys from the older ones. That was supposed to keep us safe from “predators.” I wondered if anyone actually believed that stuff.
But it wasn’t bad at all. Nobody was going to be there long enough to worry about pulling me into their crew. And I had enough juvie time to send out the right signal: I’m not going to gorilla anybody into anything, and I don’t have anything you want, either. But if you come at me, it’s going to cost you something.
I was there a few weeks. It wasn’t until I got Upstate that I found out how that Legal Aid had screwed me over.
“What was the big deal about getting a YO?” the writ-writer asked me. I knew I couldn’t appeal behind my guilty plea, but I really wanted that YO, and I heard I could appeal not getting that part.
I was surprised when he said that. Everyone said he was smarter than any lawyer. He was in for double-life, but he’d gotten all kinds of other guys out, ’cause he knew the law so good. Spent every day in the law library they had up there, like it was his office. Had guys bringing him coffee, sandwiches, whatever he wanted.
He read the look on my face. “Don’t you get it, son? Far as the judge was concerned, you were a first offender, right?”
“I … guess so.”
“What I’m saying, you had a long juvenile record, but this was your first adult bust, right?”
“Right.”
“And every time you copped to one of those kiddie crimes,