Page 37 of The Reformatory

Next, separated by a wall from the bathroom, the large sleeping quarters: rows of dozens of iron-frame beds made up with white sheets and thin folded blankets pushed too close together. Each bed had a tiny Bible on top of the blankets. The beds were so close, it would be easier to jump from one to the next than find a path between them. Miz Lottie used to let him sleep with his bedroom door closed because her snoring across the hall kept him awake. Quickly, he counted the rows and calculated: twelve beds times four rows. Forty-eight boys in one room! He would hear boys breathing and snoring on all sides. Would this dormitory also be crowded with ghosts like the kitchen and the field? Robert hadn’t spied any yet or smelled any smoke, but his stomach pinched with dread at the sight of so many empty beds.

“This is the bunk room. Lights out means lights out—no talking, laughing, playing, fighting. You mess up in the bunk room, you’ll see Warden Haddock. He likes to work late, and he walks these halls. You’ll be dealing cards one minute, staring him in the face the next. And then you’ll wish he took you to the Funhouse. The Funhouse ain’t the worst we got.”

Boone’s low, tired voice was worse than his shouting, which had seemed for show. Now he sounded like he’d just set him and the other boys off on an island with no food or water, and monsters were hiding in the thickets.

I can’t do this, Robert thought. He squeezed back tears just as laughter exploded from somewhere nearby. Dozens of boys seemed to be mocking him.

Boone tapped Robert’s shoulder. “I’ll leave you in the rec room ’til eight. Lights out eight thirty. That means you’re in and out of the shower and in the bed. Hear?”

“Yessir.”

The source of the laughter was the Lincoln wing’s rec room next to the bunk room. Now Robert knew where all the others had vanished: they were crammed in the rec room, the boys his age in folding chairs, the younger boys sitting on the floor with their knees pulled to their chests, squeezed tightly against the others. Their attention was turned to the radio cabinet at the far end of the room, and no one was squirming or talking. The radio volume was up high enough to hear from the doorway. Heads turned when he first stood in the doorway, but nobody watched him long. Robert was so careful not to look anyone in the eye that he didn’t see Blue or Redbone, his gaze skating away from any faces. Instead, he looked at the painted Indian shields on the wall.

One red, one blue. He studied the lines of paint to avoid anyone’s eyes.

“Tell him she’s the Jack the Ripper of canasta,” the radio actor said, and the boys laughed with the radio audience. Robert knew the show right away: Amos ’n’ Andy. He used to listen to the show until Papa snapped it off and told him those were white men playing Negroes, making Negroes look lazy and silly so white folks could laugh at them. In truth, Robert had always liked the show; he just couldn’t tell Papa.

“I ain’t never seen him befo’ in my life, is I, Andy?” Kingfish said. Lying, no doubt. There: with a quick glance, Robert finally saw Blue on the floor by the far window, and Redbone near him. Neither of them smiled, but Redbone raised his chin slightly. Robert’s stomach relaxed. Robert turned to glance at the hallway behind him: Boone and the other boys were gone, making their way to the other end of the long building. Boone had left him alone in the doorway. No eyes on him. Robert wanted to run outside into the overgrown grass so badly that his legs twitched. Not running made his eyes sting.

But he squeezed himself inside the doorway, careful not to jostle or touch anyone. He had just enough room to cross his legs, his back pressed to the wall. The floor was hard and cold through his thin dungarees. The boys who had worked in the sun hadn’t showered yet, and a musk floated through the hot, crowded room. Robert could smell his own armpits too after sweating in the kitchen. They all breathed air hot from one another’s sweat and lungs.

On the radio, Kingfish and Andy were pretending to be doctors, examining the mouth of Kingfish’s aunt after Andy accidentally dropped his flashlight down her throat. Robert remembered why he’d liked the show so much: he could see them bumbling.

“I’ve got to put some antiseptic on my arm before I go in there,” Kingfish said. “Ain’t no use for her to catch what we got mixed up with what she got.”

Robert’s chest jumped with a chuckle. He didn’t want to—didn’t know how he could—but he laughed. His laugh brought tears to his eyes. Andy’s voice was like a friend’s, and he made Robert laugh again from old jokes, even when he remembered Mama saying, We told you not to listen to that nonsense, and it hurt like fire to remember her scolding. But he looked over at Blue and Redbone, and they were laughing too, and so was nearly every boy in the room.

Robert couldn’t tell if his belly was cramping from laughter or sorrow.

The locker room bustled as boys rushed to undress and shower. Luckily, most of them paid Robert no mind, but several stared as they passed him, especially the bigger ones, probably trying to decide if they could whup him or if Robert could whup them. Robert could imagine how a careless gaze in the locker room could turn into a beating in the shower, so he looked at no one except Blue and Redbone, listening as they pointed out an empty locker across from theirs, probably still unclaimed because the wooden door swung unevenly on its hinge. The door closed, but barely. It was just enough for Robert to finally feel at ease about where to lay his tie to rest on the waiting hook. He found a nub of chalk on the floor and scribbled his name on the panel, over the names that had been rubbed away: Stephens, R.

“I leave all my clothes in here?” Robert asked.

“No, you flush them down the toilet,” Blue said, sneering. “You ask dumb shit.”

Robert cut a look at him; at his school, a boy who spoke to him that way would have to answer for it. But Blue was obviously trying to sound funny, so Robert let it go. Robert was just glad he wasn’t as tiny as Blue, who barely reached his shoulder, like he was seven or eight instead of twelve. He seemed younger to Robert all the time.

Redbone pointed to a folded stack of towels rapidly dwindling by the door as boys took them. “Grab a towel, take it to the shower, come back with the towel, put on your white pajamas. That’s what you sleep in. Drop your towel in the bin—not on the floor. Get in bed. And do it ’fore eight thirty. Watch the clock.”

“How will I know which bed?”

“He don’t know nothing,” Blue complained.

“I’ll point at an empty one,” Redbone said. “Don’t take nobody’s bed.”

“Anybody knows that,” Blue said. Then Blue’s eyelid slid down in a lazy wink to Robert, his signal that he was playing a part. Nothing personal. The wink made Robert’s stomach burn less, but he was still mad. His face was tight. He remembered Blue locking them in the freezer and wished he’d smacked him at least once.

“Don’t let nobody see they makin’ you mad—even Blue,” Redbone whispered.

That was all anyone said: Don’t let anyone know or see anything about you. Don’t be.

Redbone grabbed a towel, so Robert took one too. When they stood in front of their lockers and began undressing, Robert did too. He imagined everyone’s eyes on his “chicken legs,” as Gloria called them, so his hands were unsteady as he undressed. He wrapped himself with the towel before he took off his jeans. Then he slid his feet out of his boots.

The boots were slightly muddied from the field, but they obviously were brand-new.

Even the laces were bright in the dim colors of the locker room. Why hadn’t he appreciated such fine boots when he first opened the box from Papa? He shoved the boots into the locker as fast as he could, but this time he was sure other boys were watching. Papa’s new boots would get stolen and there was nothing he could do.

A white slip of paper was stuck to the sole of his foot, damp from sweat. He peeled it off and saw that it was the business card from David R. Loehmann, State of Florida Children’s Services.