Lockdown on Rikers (17 page)

21

By the fall of 1996, my Healthy Lifestyles group was doing well. Despite the risk of being publicly identified as having “the monster,” eight to twelve HIV-infected inmates regularly attended. With an emphasis on emotional support and medical education, the weekly hour sped by as the group members voiced their anxieties, fears, and even their hopes. In listening to these men, I was always struck by their range of coping skills. While a few quivered in terror every time they sneezed, fearing imminent death, there were also a surprising number for whom the disease prompted personal growth and a long-elusive feeling of peace.

The constitution of the group was Black and Hispanic, a microcosm of the larger jail. Unlike the larger jail, however, where there was chronic tension between the two ethnic factions, in our group harmony reigned. Distanced from the judgments of their peers and bound together against a deadly foe, the support group served as an oasis of goodwill, and I only wished that more of the sick took advantage of it. Once a month I brought in a medical specialist to discuss treatment and answer questions. For one presentation, I was able to get the doctor on the island who specialized in AIDS to explain the latest advances in treatment. By the late 1990s, HIV was being treated with a cocktail of drugs, and although it was exorbitantly expensive, New York City still provided this level of treatment to stricken detainees.

Following up on her initial interest in this group, Miss Edwards lent further support. If a group member failed to show up, she was quick to pick up the phone and investigate. I often overheard her yelling at the housing officers, “Where's so and so? Give him a pass and get him up here! Do your damn job!”

She spoke to her fellow officers in a way that I would never dare, and her efforts paid off nicely as the no-shows appeared within minutes of her calls. After the sessions ended and the inmates had left, Miss Edwards would share her thoughts, telling me who she thought looked well and who did not.

Based on our mutual interest in the group, Miss Edwards and I began to chat. When things quieted down for the count, she'd light up a cigarette and tell me about her life as a CO. “This is a good post,” she said. “You're not in the houses—it's better. The post I hated most was the visiting room. That was the worst, 'cause of the kids. When I had to announce that time was up, that visiting hours were over, those children would start crying. They didn't understand that Daddy was a drug dealer. To them, he was just Daddy. Sometimes I'd let the time go a little longer. I wasn't supposed to . . . and a few times, those little kids would run right after their father, and we'd have to tear after them. That's when it really gets to you.”

Miss Edwards's reflections on the visiting room and the wrenching scenes with the children were a reminder that jail doesn't only punish the incarcerated—it punishes their families too. I never forgot the tragic plight of the mules at Rose Singer, and the poor children who waited for them. And I thought of the babies in the Rose Singer nursery, whose mothers would simply vanish from their fragile new lives when their mothers went to prison, and of how baby Michael had panicked when Lucy was sent out to serve ten days in solitary. And of Antwan Williams's sons, who sobbed so during visits, and of another patient who told me his eight-year-old stole candy from the corner store in the hopes of being arrested and sent to jail where he imagined he could be with Daddy. Another inmate charged with robbery recounted a childhood of waiting
for his imprisoned father, who was serving a lengthy sentence on a drug charge, to come home. “Me and my brothers waited and waited for the day when we could be a family again. We were just kids and didn't understand how long it was going to be. By the time he was released it didn't matter anymore.”

Although these parents had committed a wrong, wasn't there also a wrong in tearing families apart? Obviously, in cases of violent or more serious crimes, society needed to be protected, regardless. But for otherwise nonviolent offenses, the criminal justice system demonstrated not only a lack of compassion, but a lack of foresight. Children raised in such heart-wrenching circumstances are far more likely to do poorly in school, often turning to drugs and increasing their own chances for arrest and incarceration. I wondered why alternatives to incarceration couldn't be utilized in an effort to protect children, keep families intact, and break the cycle of misery.

* * *

The arrival of the holidays in 1996 brought the usual air of festiveness to New York City: the tree lighting at Rockefeller Center, the gaily decorated department store windows, and the hordes of tourists who flock to the city to enjoy the season's beauty. But the cheer was not felt on Rikers Island. Unlike the Christmas party at Rose Singer, there were no festivities for the mentally ill at GMDC. With little fanfare the holidays came and went, but not without a surprise New Year's Day visit from Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Since Giuliani had taken charge, the city was enjoying an unprecedented drop in crime. Even Charlie, my fireman brother, saw the changes. “There's no more gunfire at night, nothing! He did it—Giuliani did it!”

Along with Correction Commissioner Michael Jacobson and Deputy Commissioner Bernard Kerik, the mayor came out to Rikers to personally commend the Department of Correction for its role in the city's crime reduction. Making the rounds and shaking hands with the rank-and-file, he stopped off at various jails, paid
a visit to the Central Punitive Segregation Unit, and met with the Emergency Services Response Unit. The two-hour visit was capped off with a message to the troops: “As we begin the new year, the city's crime rate is at its lowest level since the 1960s. Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers have not been victimized and are living healthier and happier lives because of the fine work by you and your co-workers in the Police Department, the courts, and prosecutors' offices.”

But while the city celebrated and police and prosecutors congratulated themselves, I had mixed feelings. While it was hard to argue with my brother's enthusiasm, and harder still to argue against safer streets, I believed that the same results could have been achieved without traumatizing society's most vulnerable citizens and loading up the jails with people whose needs could have been humanely addressed on the outside. Giuliani's policy of aggressive policing cast a wide net, picking up not only dangerous criminals, but trespassers, loiterers, the homeless, the hapless, and the mentally ill. Hardly the villains that most people imagine. Most Americans believe the incarcerated are all the heinous demons sensationalized on newspaper covers, getting exactly what they deserve. Most would be surprised to learn that the multitudes are low-level, nonviolent offenders. And even for serious offenders, it is assumed that the punishment, while harsh, is still humane. The public might be surprised to know that life behind bars is a grim exercise in psychological survival, and shocked to discover that many inmates must literally fight for their lives.

This I learned through Alex Lugo. He was newly diagnosed with HIV, and my immediate impression of Lugo was that he was a
real
criminal. In his early thirties, he was strongly built, with a tough, carefree swagger. An elaborate crown, identifying him as a high-ranking member of the Latin Kings gang, decorated his right forearm. But this tattoo was less striking than the three inked teardrops that streamed down from his right eye. Supposedly, a solid teardrop represents a body—a murder—whereas a hollow or empty teardrop is more benign, symbolizing grief.

All three of Alex's teardrops were solid, and the moment we shook hands, I knew he had killed.

“So—what am I being called to Mental Health for?” he demanded.

“According to this referral, you've just been diagnosed with HIV.”

He propped his heavy boots on the trash pail, folded his arms, and looked at me squarely. “So what?”

“So what? This is a life-threatening illness.”

“Hey, we all gotta go sometime. What's the big deal? Listen, why don't I just sign the refusal. I never talked to anyone in Mental Health before and I'm not gonna start now.”

On my desk was a stack of refusal forms. I could have handed him one, but for some reason I didn't. “Maybe you never had a reason before, but talking about this might help you.”

He thought about it, pulled his legs down, and said, “What can I say? How did I get HIV? Is that what you want to know? A dirty needle, probably.”

“You're a heroin user?”

“You bet! If I could stay high till the day I died, I'd be the happiest guy in the world.”

“No wish to recover from your addiction?”

“None whatsoever.”

This guy was a tough customer, and I wasn't quite sure what to say next. But, like most people, when Alex was offered an opportunity to be heard, he took it. “I dealt heroin for so long before I tried it; I guess I wondered what was so great about it. I sold a ton of the shit.”

“So, you were also a drug dealer.”

“Yes, ma'am! Made a lot of money. Of course I got locked up a lot, but hey, you take the bad with the good. I've lived in the fast lane, as they say, but I got no regrets.”

“None at all?”

“Well—maybe one. I have twin girls. They're only four. I really love those little kids, and I never expected that. I don't care much
about anybody, but them, well, that's when I think maybe I could have done things differently—you know, been a father and stuff. I haven't seen them in a year. I have to admit that I'd love to see them, but not in here.”

“Where are they?”

“Florida. With their mother.”

Since Alex seemed more inclined to talk than he realized, I used the remainder of the session to complete my evaluation. When I asked how many times he'd been arrested, he said he'd lost count. When I asked him to estimate, he shrugged and grinned. “Forty, fifty times. Who keeps track?”

We talked about his earlier life. One of six children, he grew up in Florida, where his mother worked double shifts at a convenience store. “She worked so hard to make this little nothing money. Made me sick!”

When our session ended, he said he felt comfortable talking to me. “Maybe I'll come back next week and we can talk more about this HIV thing.”

The following week he arrived promptly. Apparently, our meeting had churned some things up in him. Although he started off talking about his illness, the conversation quickly turned to more troubling matters. He spoke about his life as a drug dealer. “It's a tough business. I ran a couple of crews. Keeping people in line is a lot harder than sellin' the shit.”

“How so?”

“You know—you have to enforce things. You gotta be able to send out a message when somebody fucks up.”

“Did the messages have anything to do with the tears on your face?”

He looked at me for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah—two of them. Hey, it's business, you know. It's not like you're hurting some innocent person. Everybody knows what they're in for when they get into drugs. It's rough, but no worse than the so-called straight life.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that. I'm no worse than this system is. This criminal justice system—what a fuckin' joke! Do you know that for the fifty or whatever times I've been arrested—and this has been on the East Coast, West Coast, you name it—not one of those lawyers, not even one, ever said to me,
Did you do it?
And that's paid lawyers
and
court lawyers. It's all a game. All they ever say to you is, ‘Take the cop-out!' It sure ain't what everybody watches on TV, these trials that get at the truth . . . that's all a crock. And then they put you in these cesspool jails where you're supposed to learn your lesson and go out and be a productive member of society. Gimme a break! I've been in a lot of jails, and I've seen a lot, but the California prisons, they're the worst. The guards out there, they're in gangs themselves. They have gang tattoos on the inside of their wrists and what they do is, they take their wristwatches and turn them in so that the watch part covers the tattoo.” He twisted his own watch around to demonstrate. “Gangs are very big out there, and these guards, they got their entertainment from us . . . I want to get this third tear scraped off,” he said, tapping his finger to his face.

“Why?”

“The others, they were business, but this one . . . no. In that California prison, we were human pit bulls. That's how the guards got their kicks. They made us fight each other—to the end. And this one day, they picked me and this other guy to fight. I had nothing against this guy—he was just another mate trying to survive. But I had no choice. So when we get out to the yard, I'm scared, scared to death, and I can see that the other guy's scared to death too. I had nothing against him,” he repeated softly. “Nothing at all. He wasn't a bad guy.”

Alex stopped talking and ran his hands through his short hair. “And the thing is that—
oh, Jesus
—the thing is that . . . he . . . this other guy, he thought it was gonna be a fair fight, you know. He actually believed we were gonna fight fair. And then when he saw my shank—I'll never forget the look on that kid's face. I'll never forget . . . As soon as he saw it, he knew it was over. I was scared,
I was so scared, and the guards were all around us, yelling ‘Go, go, go!' I was never so scared in my whole life.”

Alex put his face in his hands, before slowly raising his head, real tears flowing over the tattooed drops. “And then I killed him.”

I never saw Alex Lugo after that second session. On the day we were scheduled to meet again, I didn't make it to work due to a snowstorm. When I returned, he was gone, having been extradited to another state.

His story was chilling, but I believed every word of it. Coincidentally, in 1997 televised news stories reported that in certain California prisons inmates were being forced into fights to the death, with guards sometimes wagering on the outcome. But even if I hadn't seen this, I still would have believed him. Very little surprised me anymore.