Jostling my way through the crowd, I made my way to the north wing and found a line of people that stretched the length of the building. I went to the end of the line and stood, wondering why I was there.
I asked the person in front of me, but he had no idea. Five minutes later the line had not budged, but another person or two had come to stand behind me. None of us understood why we were here. Growing impatient, I made my way to the front of the line.
As I asked further up, someone said, “Toys.”
Craning my neck, I could see a counselor listlessly sitting in an office with a great pile of packages behind him. Inside the office, a person from the line stood rubbing his chin as he surveyed the stack of packages.
“Donations,” I heard someone else say.
Donated toys. We were standing in line to select a donated Christmas toy for our kids. I could feel something terrible rising in my chest. As I walked back to my place at the end of the line, I felt myself growing agitated and irritable.
I wasn’t sure where my son lived. It had been months since I’d seen him. He would be four years old the month after Christmas. I knew his mother had recently moved, from Shamokin back to Steelton, but I wasn’t sure if she was staying with her mother now, or on her own. Last I heard she was seeing Jack Driscoll, who owned a house across the street from my mother’s house.
Standing in line, I began to feel distressed. I sighed heavily and ran my fingers through my hair. I wasn’t particularly concerned with getting a toy, but I complained aloud about the length of the line and fidgeted.
“This is so stupid,” I said to no one in particular.
“You too good for our toys?” Rick, a lanky counselor with a bald head, had come out of one of the nearby offices. His presence surprised me; his sharp tone put me on guard. I hadn’t meant to draw attention to myself.
“No,” I stammered. “No. . .”
“What’s up?” he asked.
“I just feel. . .” I had to think for a minute.
Groping for the right word, I finally said: “Bad.” I winced at my inability to convey what I was feeling. Suddenly I felt my eyes well with tears. The intensity and speed of my emotions shocked me. “Really bad,” I added.
He looked me directly in the eye. He didn’t smile, but something in his manner softened. “You feel bad because you’re in treatment and have to get your kid a donated toy for Christmas,” he said.
I shrugged. “I don’t even know where to send it,” I admitted.
With these words, my irritability disappeared and despair took its place. I felt limp and useless, like a wet towel on a clothesline in the middle of a downpour.
Immediately after the holiday lull, Rockford went into an uproar. The entire community filed into the auditorium for Morning Focus, a meeting typically only attended by the facility’s newest members. Vans had been halted, the laundry shuttered, and the administrative wing locked down. The kitchen remained open for breakfast, but only a skeleton crew remained to clean up and prepare a simple lunch. Something was going on.
As the auditorium filled, I took a seat in the right wing, close to the stage. There were at least five hundred people seated and still more passing through the double doors. The quiet roar of confusion filled the great space. I could hear senior members complain about the vans being stopped: They were missing work, trade programs, or appointments at clinics or social service offices. The gang of women I had seen in the lobby on my first day was led into the great hall in a group. A wiry woman, evidently in authority, fluttered about them, chirping directions in a Hispanic accent and watching carefully as they made their way toward the rows of seats reserved for them. A hush seemed to fall across the crowd in the vicinity of the women as they passed, as if the wiry woman’s scrutiny alone were enough to suppress noise.
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
