Train Go Sorry Read online

  Sofia rose and gazed at her mother. “That’s the first time I ever saw you sign!” she marveled. “You did that so beautifully—where did you learn?”

  Her mother, pleased and embarrassed by all this fuss, smiled over Irina’s head at the older girl. “From you.”

  12

  Train Go Sorry

  James has been here before. Twice he has stood on this curb, faced the steep, brambly embankment across the street, and waited for the bus to jail. Visitors are not allowed to drive onto Rikers Island. They must wait for the city bus, pay full fare, and ride for three minutes over to the island, which lies just across the bridge. James can’t see it, because of the way the road dips out of sight, but he can see the gulls circling in the dull greenish sky, and he knows that not far beneath them lies the Rikers Island Channel and just beyond that the prison where his brother has been incarcerated for almost a year.

  He remembers the exact day it happened, the second Saturday in June. It was Great Adventure’s seventh annual Deaf Awareness Day. James made the pilgrimage to New Jersey with some Lexington friends and spent the day downing hot dogs and Mountain Dews, winning cheap, lumpy stuffed animals, looping the loop, flirting with danger, letting the rides spin him upside down. He was swallowed up in the amusement park, so bright and improbable, with its neon-colored slush in paper cups and girls in skimpy halter tops streaking by, everything wild and safe at the same time. When James and his friends fired water guns across the baked asphalt of the parking lot, it was only in play, nothing but sweet relief from the heat.

  At home in the Bronx, his kid brother Joseph was also hanging out with a group of friends. They had a gun too. Theirs was a real one. They used it to stick up a woman in the elevator of their own apartment building.

  That night, after James got home, he saw his brother for the last time. The walls of their apartment, slick with humidity, seemed to harbor the residue of recent quarrels. James felt the tension but couldn’t piece the story together, and no one took the time to explain it to him directly. When he awoke the next morning, Joseph had already gone to hide at the apartment where their father was staying. Mr. Taylor made him turn himself in to the police a few days later. By the time someone bothered to look James full in the face and explain the whole story with clear, steady lips, his brother was gone.

  James keeps a picture taped inside the door of his locker at school. Snapped on Easter Sunday last year, it shows the two brothers against the wan yellow exterior of their building, each in a tough homeboy squat, elbows braced on knees, hands open, prepared. They wear sweatshirts and baseball caps. James, on the right, meets the camera with his impervious gaze, devoid of feeling. Joseph, on the left, smaller, stockier, poses with a deep scowl, half hidden by the shadow of his cap. Their bodies are angled slightly toward each other.

  In their neighborhood, Joseph is feared and respected. He has been in and out of school, family court, group homes. He is lighter than James, his skin the color of cinnamon; his eyes are flat and narrow, his body taut with muscle. Girls are drawn to him like iron filings to a magnet. He has a baby son by one of them, a friend of his sisters’. He is seventeen.

  James says he thinks Joseph is funny. Funny and crazy. When he speaks of his brother, he shifts into a childlike character, becoming increasingly animated. His eyes grow round and shiny, his grin somewhat forced. He speaks as though describing a fictional outlaw, a figure both revered and remote, whose actions can be interpreted only within the context of the strange and separate world he inhabits.

  James once seemed destined for a place in his brother’s world. One summer when they were kids, fourteen and twelve, James helped Joseph set a car on fire. It had been a tedious afternoon, glaring, bone-white. When Joseph found the can of gasoline, what came next seemed natural. Joseph egged his older brother on to douse the car, but it was Joseph himself who dared to light the match. The second the thing caught, a cop car came cruising down the avenue, and both boys tore off, slamming along the soft pavement, their lungs aching from the chase. James leaped over the wall by the commuter rail tracks, shinnied down a tree, and hid. Joseph ran slower and got caught. That was his first arrest; there were two more, for a joy ride and a fight on the subway, before he landed in Rikers.

  The story was funny, made a good anecdote. James relates it today with a kind of rote mirth mixed with something else: the uneasy luxury of distance. Both brothers have traveled a long way from home. Now, with James at Lexington and Joseph at Rikers, as the crow flies they live less than a mile from each other. But one mile doesn’t begin to cover the distance between them.

  Rikers Island is only a five-minute drive from Lexington, but it is Valentine’s Day—more than seven months after Joseph’s arrest—before James ventures out on his first attempt to visit his brother in prison. He stands outside the concrete bus shelter, eyes watering in the wind. Thin snow trims the embankment across the street. At least a dozen others wait with him, though it is still early, eight A.M. The parking lot behind their backs is already jammed, cars slung in at awkward angles.

  James stands frozen like a sentry, his handicapped rider card (which entitles him to half-fare) and sixty cents in his fist. He notices that the other people waiting are virtually all women, mostly black and Latina. Some hold infants so swaddled they might be sacks of flour. Others hold shopping bags bulging with food packages wrapped in foil. Some look straight ahead, with cloudy eyes and nappy hair and drawn, ashy faces. Others tap out little keep-warm dances in their spike heels, checking frequently to see whether the bus is coming; these wear party dresses, tight and sequined, and mulberry lipstick and door-knocker earrings. James can smell their perfume.

  Beside him, a small girl grabs at her mother’s stiff, chapped fingers and tries to rub them warm between her own bare hands. She chatters cajolingly, all baby teeth and darting eyes. Her mother does not look down but snaps a reprimand in a harsh plume of frosty breath and yanks herself free. James shifts a pace away.

  When the bus comes they all cram on, choking the aisle with bodies right up to the white line. As they are waved through the checkpoint and across the bridge, past a sign advising YOU ARE NOW ENTERING RIKERS ISLAND PRISON COMPLEX and over the sun-jeweled channel, James can see the tip of La Guardia Airport and great silver jets ascending from the city. The bus deposits its load on the other side, and James follows the other passengers into a long, low building divided into glassed-in waiting areas, each corresponding to a different section of the complex. James has his brother’s location, C-74, written on a scrap of paper. He finds the matching waiting area, takes a seat in the last vacant chair, and glances at the television mounted on the wall. He recognizes the show: The People’s Court. There are no closed captions; he rubs his eyes and looks away.

  A huge corrections officer wearing mirrored sunglasses and a hat with earflaps makes the rounds, checking picture IDs and handing out stiff white cards. James studies the procedure, eyeing his fellow visitors with a control that could easily be mistaken for aloofness. He always takes care not to look too affable, for this could be construed as a sign of weakness. Neither, however, does he want to appear overly tough, which could be read as a challenge. Both invite trouble. He has perfected a safer, amorphous expression. From behind this mask he searches for clues.

  The guard comes to him last. James turns over his handicapped rider card and his student ID. After a brief inspection, the guard hands them back with a separate white card on which is printed “Inmate name,” “Inmate number,” “Dormitory name.” James skips to the bottom, where he finds a space for “Visitor.” After filling in his own name there, he deduces that Joseph must be the inmate. The rest of the information he copies from the scrap of paper in his pocket; although his mother gave him Joseph’s address months ago, this is the first time he has used it. Not one person from his household has yet made the trip down from the Bronx to visit Joseph in jail.

  Forty minutes later, the people in C-74 begin shuffling to their feet, respondi
ng to some invisible summons. James follows suit, lining up to have his hand stamped, passing through a metal detector, and then going through the rear door into a parking lot, where they are all herded onto an orange bus and driven to another building, fifty yards away. The bus stops and the door folds open. Once again James follows the rest as they corral themselves between a set of metal railings outside the door. From here he can see other buildings, all of them dull brick and gray cement, squat and regular, their roofs fenced with rolls of barbed wire.

  Another corrections officer opens the doors and lets the visitors inside, packing them into a wide vestibule, where they are held for a second check-in. This guard walks through the crowd with a jaunty step, making an announcement; James detects a bit of showmanship. The other visitors laugh as the guard gives his spiel, and James reads the lips of the woman in front of him: “Uh! A comedian!” She chuckles, her lip curling back to reveal a gold vanity cap, and her companion nods her head in agreement. James, not privy to the content of the man’s speech, retains his placid mask throughout.

  One at a time, the visitors are permitted out of the vestibule. After several minutes, James gets near enough to the front to examine the procedure through the doorway. When his turn comes, he has the information card ready to turn over to the guard behind the counter, and he knows to empty his pockets: a keychain, coins, his lean black wallet. The guard punches the card in a kind of time clock. Then he reads James’s Lexington School for the Deaf student ID.

  “What are you doing here?” he quizzes.

  James peers at him. The guard has a mustache and an odd way of pursing his lips when he speaks; James does not get all the words. He draws upon context and instinct to hazard a guess, compensating for the vague generality of his reply with the clarity of his speech: “My brother.”

  “How old are you?” continues the guard, apparently satisfied with that answer.

  James hesitates, thrown by the non sequitur.

  “How old, how old are you?” the guard repeats, pressing a hand against his own chest as if that will somehow provide elucidation.

  “Nineteen—nineteen!” James, comprehending the question after the tiniest delay, rushes in obediently with his answer, speaking at the same time as the guard, who now treats him like an imbecile, using broad gestures to instruct him to pull up his pants legs and the stomach of his sweatshirt. Doing so reveals a band of red long johns at the ankles, an undershirt tucked into jeans. The guard tersely informs James that he may wear only one shirt, only one pair of pants, and he points toward the bathroom.

  When James emerges several minutes later, stripped to his Air Jordan T-shirt and jeans, with his jersey, sweatshirt, jacket, and long johns rolled into a bundle and hugged to his chest, there is more waiting to do. Many of the visitors have already been assigned lockers for their loose possessions, and these people line up in their stocking feet, waiting to pass through yet another metal detector and beyond, where their husbands and sons, their boyfriends and brothers, must be. The rest sit in hard plastic chairs bolted in rows to the floor. They watch a snowy television, mounted and caged high on the wall. They feed their babies from bottles, or slap them for whining, or just hold them, the sleeping ones, like warm, heavy loaves of bread. They are all waiting for their names to be called.

  Three hours after leaving Lexington, James is finally sent by one of the guards to the big counter beneath the television set. The peeling Formica comes up to his collarbone; he stands tall and waits for further instructions. He is so numb from the morning of waiting and lining up and not asking questions, from the rules and submission, that he is scarcely nervous.

  The guard who finally addresses him does so without making eye contact. James has to focus with all his might to receive the message, which, in contrast to all the hours of waiting, is delivered with marvelous economy. “Joseph Taylor? He’s in court today. You can wait for the bus back to the reception building; they come every half-hour.”

  James understands what has happened in a single phrase: train go sorry. This is what deaf people say about missed connections, lost opportunities. Sometimes people gloss the expression as train gone sorry or train go zoom; in any case, it is the ASL equivalent of “you missed the boat.” The story of James’s life has been the story of the missed connection, the train that has left the station, the boat that has set sail without him.

  A hand extends briefly over the counter, gesturing back toward the bolted seats. James knew which days of the week (Thursday, Friday, and Sunday) and which hours (seven to noon) he could visit Joseph, but he didn’t know about the arbitrary nature of last-minute court dates. Yet no disappointment or frustration registers on his face. He does what the man said and takes a seat.

  Next to him, a young woman uses a toothbrush to comb her child’s wispy side curls, smoothing them with her finger and a dab of Vaseline. A young white girl using the pay phone wipes her tears delicately, mindful of her black eyeliner. Up at the counter, a gray-haired woman argues with the guard, who is sending her away because her son has already reached his two-visitor limit for the day.

  James pays none of them any attention. He slouches in his seat, hugging the bundle of garments to his chest, smothering yawn after yawn. From the way he sits, no one would ever guess that this is his first time at prison.

  The second time James attempts to visit Joseph is in early March. It is the same day as the Honors Breakfast at Lexington. James made honor roll again this quarter, as he has done consistently ever since taking up residence in the dorm a year and a half ago. This good news is compounded by the recent posting of RCT results, sent down from Albany: James passed his last two tests, reading and U.S. history, thus clearing his path to an academic diploma. He postpones his departure for Rikers Island until after the ceremony; he would deign to miss today’s classes, but not the Honors Breakfast.

  At half past eight, students begin collecting outside the small dining room—a basement room, windowless and close, its walls painted cream and liver brown and hung with only a framed print demonstrating the Heimlich maneuver. But the students’ mood amply compensates for the unfestive decor, and the food, an extensive buffet of bacon and eggs, waffles and syrup, bagels and cream cheese, jelly, juice, hot chocolate, coffee, and tea, arranged in serving trays heated by violet flames, and the paper tablecloths spread neatly across the everyday tables—all of this evokes such pride and delight that the room is transformed. These are the top high school students, and James sits among them.

  He is one of the first to arrive, but rather than claiming a spot in the buffet line, he chooses a seat at a table near the door, where he can watch the others take up paper plates and royal blue napkins and help themselves to food. A pretty girl with egg on her lip passes by James’s table and asks why he isn’t eating. He shrugs mildly and assures her that he will. Another girl, standing far back in the line, waves for his attention and cries a chipper “Yo, James!” with excellent speech. He flashes her his chipped-tooth grin, tips his head a notch, and stays where he is. A guidance counselor greets him, urges him to join the line. He nods compliantly; still he remains content to sit.

  He was up late last night, talking with members of the dorm staff about his oldest deaf friend, Paul Escobar. They are still together—both seniors at Lexington, both living in the dorm—but now they are also apart. In the dorm, James is the recognized leader; Paul regularly gets suspended for breaking curfew or fighting. James will graduate with an academic diploma; Paul will stay behind and repeat his senior year. And James has earned a spot at the Honors Breakfast this morning, sitting among the top students, the ones shiny with potential. Paul is absent. So are most of James’s other black male friends.

  In some ways Paul is like James’s younger brother, with his rigid jaw, his short fuse, and his jailhouse chic (he favors a style of pants on the cutting edge of street fashion: barrellegged and sagging off the hip, in homage to inmates, who are not permitted belts). James willingly stayed up late last night, confer
ring with staffers who thought he might be able to talk to Paul, get through to him. But in truth, the link between James and Paul has eroded. James has traveled far to gain a place at this breakfast, in this room of promise. The relationship he can now afford to share with Paul resembles that which he has with his brother Joseph, based mostly on a fondly remembered but distant past.

  James has not shed all trappings of that past. He claims vestiges still, in gait and adornment; they are important for survival on the streets of his neighborhood. But survival in the classroom calls for a different set of behaviors and appearances. James’s greatest contribution to his own survival may be his instinct for adapting himself to different cultures.

  Last year he penned a rap song for his English class and staged it, complete with dance posse, in the auditorium for the entire school. The audience adored it, demanding encore after encore. “Deaf can do it / Have no fear / Deaf can do it / Except hear!” went the chorus, whose phrasing, if slightly awkward in the English gloss, flowed beautifully in sign. The performance scored with teachers and students alike; it blended palatable, nonthreatening amounts of black culture and deaf pride.

  But quips from teachers and counselors remind James that his past remains fresh in their minds. He gets flak for not wearing a hearing aid and suspicious inquiries for wearing a beeper. His current status as an honor roll, college-bound senior still seems tenuous, largely conferred on him by those who are hearing and white. They will recognize his intelligence and groom him for a place in their world as long as he will reciprocate by conforming to their social needs.

  James has accepted the conditions of this arrangement without complaint. But inside he has begun to wonder, to chafe. This spring, after taking part in a cultural awareness workshop at Lexington, he tapped into his frustration and resentment to write an essay articulating the feeling that he is being held hostage to a set of biased expectations.