Sleepers Page #7

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But a game I wish we had never played.

Guards against inmates. The guards practiced four times a week.

Our team was picked the Monday before the game.

We had a hour practice.

It didn't matter much.

We weren't supposed to win. We were just supposed to show up.

Who's the toughest guy here?

How do you mean, tough?

Who can talk and have everyone listening?

Rizzo. Black kid over there.

Michael saw an opening...a chance to bring the game to our level.

Even out the field. But he needed help. He needed Rizzo.

Black kid with an Italian name. With him on our side, we had a chance.

Look, white boy, I don't know what you play in the streets.

I don't care. But in here, the guards call the play...

...and the play calls for them to win the game.

Why?

Look man...

...guards stay clear of me, all right?

They stay back and let me do my time.

If I play that game and I put a hurt on one of them...

...they just might change my cushion.

I'm not saying we gotta win. I just don't want to take a beating.

You do every day.

-Why is Saturday special? -'Cause on Saturday, we can hit back.

They don't f*** with you like they do us, but they f*** with you another way!

You're just an animal to them.

-I don't give a f***! -Yeah, you do.

And beating them on Saturday is not gonna change a thing.

Then why, white boy, why?

To make them feel what we feel ...just for a couple of hours.

Now, don't try anything funny, Sambo.

Nobody will get hurt. You know what I'm saying?

I call heads.

He called heads. It is a head.

Let's go.

You're gonna die, mother f***er! You're gonna f***ing die!

None of you motherfuckers can cover me!

We got ourselves a game! I'm feeling good today.

This sh*t feels good.

F***!

Get the f*** off me!

Yeah, keep smiling, you little piss ant.

For minutes, we took the game out of the prison...

...moved it miles beyond the locked gates...

...and the sloping hills of the surrounding countryside...

...and brought it back down to the streets of the neighborhoods we'd come from.

For those minutes, we were once again free!

Rizzo! Rizzo!

Rizzo...Rizzo.

Hey, Nokes. Good game.

For once, we had a victory. But it didn't last.

It couldn't last... and all I wanted to do was die.

I was not alone in the hole. I knew my friends were down in the depths with me.

Each in his own cell, each in his own pain...suffering his own demons.

Rizzo was there, too.

I had lost any sense of time.

I thought you'd never wake up.

I thought I'd never want to.

John and Tommy, they're on the other side there.

How are they? They're alive.

Who isn't?

Rizzo.

They killed him?

They took turns beating him until there was nothing of that kid to beat.

Rizzo was dead because of us.

We made him think that going up against the guards...

...in a meaningless football game...

...had some value...that it would give us a reason to go on.

Once again, we were wrong.

Did they give you your release date yet?

Nokes had a letter from the warden.

Waved it in front of me, then tore it up....

When do you figure?

End of spring, early summer or something.

I wish we were coming with you.

It would've been nice for all of us to walk out together.

No use thinking about that. We're gonna do a full year, not an hour less.

When I get out, I could get Father Bobby to make a couple of phone calls.

Shave a month or two off.

-There's nothing to talk about! -There's a lot to talk about.

Maybe, if people knew what was going on in here, they'd make a move.

I don't want anybody to know.

Not Father Bobby, King Benny, Fat Mancho...

...not my mother. Nobody.

I don't either.

I mean, I wouldn't know what to say to anyone who did know.

I can't think of anybody who needs to hear about it.

Either they won't believe it, or they won't give a sh*t.

Yeah, I don't even think we should talk about it once it's over.

We got no choice but to live with it. And talking makes living it harder.

So, we might as well not even talk about it.

The truth stays with us.

I want to be able to sleep one night...

...and not have to worry who's coming in my room, what's gonna happen to me.

If I can get that, then I'll be happy.

Someday, John, I promise.

I was in my last hours as an inmate at the Wilkinson Home for boys.

I was given four copies of my release form.

The final reminder of my time at Wilkinson.

I never heard the key turn in the lock...

...and I never heard the snap of the bolt.

You should be asleep.

I just wanted to say goodbye. We all do.

I told him. I told him right to his face. I said,

I don't care if you're paying me overtime or not.

I'm not working those kind of hours.

Yeah, did you put in for it?

I put in for it!

Because I put in for it. They don't give it to me.

I come in early for three days. Do they give me overtime? No!

A part of all of us was left there that night.

That night will never be removed from my mind.

The night of June -- the Summer of Love.

My last night at the Wilkinson Home for boys.

At :
p.m. two men walked through the doors.

The bartender knew their faces as most of the neighborhood knew their names.

They were two of the founding members of the West Side Boys.

They were also its deadliest.

The blond-haired man had been in and out of jail since he was a teenager.

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