Free Kindness for Weakness by Shawn Goodman Page A

many albino ferret mascots you ever seen?”
    “None.” I laugh a little, just to be polite. “I gotta get some sleep, Freddie.”
    “Okay.”
    But when I get into bed, he says, “Hey, man. Did Tony say anything else? Anything ’bout me?”
    I remember Tony’s words exactly and decide to listen to them. I’m going to worry about myself and do my placement as quickly as I can. If things go bad for Freddie like Tony predicted, he will have to be on his own.
    “Did he tell you
what
I am?”
    Damn
, I say to myself. I get up from my bed and go back to sitting next to the heater panel. “Yeah, he told me.”
    “Well, it’s true. I’m gay.”
    Time passes. I sit on my side of the wall waiting. For what? Am I supposed to say I don’t care that he’s gay? But I just don’t have it in me to worry about someone else’s problems. I want to worry about myself. Why can’t I do that? Why can’t he leave me alone?
    “But so fucking what?” he says. “Freddie Peach don’t need nothing from nobody. So fuck all y’all!”
    I still don’t want to talk, but my mouth opens. “I don’t care if you’re gay,” I say. “But I’ve never been locked up, and I haven’t had many friends. So cut me some slack, okay?”
    The clock ticks away outside my room; it must be mounted on the wall next to my door, to be so loud.
    “No friends?” says Freddie.
    “Nah.”
    “Damn!
Sorry-ass
white boy. You worse off than my gay Negro self.”
    “Good night, Freddie.”
    “Good night, James. And hey …”
    “What?”
    “Thanks for … you know, for being my friend.”

22
    I’m trying to remember the daily schedule, which is posted on the wall outside the staff office. It never changes except for on weekends when we have leisure and rec in place of school. Here’s what our days look like:
6:30 a.m.

WAKE UP/ROOM COUNT
6:45 a.m.

HYGIENE
7:15 a.m.

BREAKFAST/COUNT
8:00 a.m.

CHORES
8:30 a.m.

SCHOOL
11:30 a.m.

LUNCH/COUNT
12:30 p.m.

SCHOOL
3:00 p.m.

GROUP
4:00 p.m.

HOMEWORK/LEISURE
5:00 p.m.

DINNER/COUNT
6:00 p.m.

CLEANUP/CHORES
6:30 p.m.

LEISURE
8:30 p.m.

WASHUP
9:00 p.m.

LIGHTS-OUT/COUNT
    Every time we change activities, we have to line up by the door and get counted. It seems like we’re always waiting to be counted, which makes no sense to me, since all the doors are locked and there are guards everywhere. We must spend two hours per day just standing in line getting counted. The guards will call in our number on their radios:
    “Two staff and eighteen residents going from Bravo to the cafeteria. Over.”
    Central Services, which is kind of like a control booth where they keep track of each unit’s movement, will check the count and give us the green light.
    “Bravo, this is Central. You have permission to move.”
    Like that. It takes forever, and several of the kids get screamed at because they can’t stand still or keep quiet.
    As far as school goes, it sucks and is insanely boring. The actual work has got to be on a fifth- or sixth-grade level, but only Tony, Freddie, and I are able to keep up. The rest tap on their desks and fidget, or else sleep. We aren’t allowed to look at each other, either, which means that the guards have to sit with us and constantly yell.
    “Eyes ahead, Antwon,” they say. And, “Stop drumming on the table, Bobby. This ain’t music class.”
    Weasel scowls and puts his head down.
    The English teacher, Ms. Bonetta, is this very pretty dark-haired woman who dresses like she’s going to work in a fancy office or something. I’m talking pearls, heels, the works. She’s nice, too. We spend the class doing a writing assignment about the last book we read. I pick
Rule of the Bone
, by Russell Banks, which is one of my favorites andwas given to me by Mr. Pfeffer. I write about how the main character, Chappie Dorset, is a lot like me. Because even though Chappie gets in trouble, drops out of school, and sells drugs, he is still basically a good person. At least, that’s the