Lockdown by Walter Dean Myers Page B

girl, and Mr. Wilson laid out his serious lines as usual. I was just thinking that I had to sit and watch this crap because I didn’t have anything else to do in Progress but watch the time go by. My life wasn’t any more real than those clowns on television.
    My lights were still going out at eight thirty, and I was lying on my bed when Diego came to my door.
    “You hear the news?” he asked. “Deepak is going to fight Sanders this weekend. It’s all arranged. That little Indian is going to be killed.”
    They were setting me up. Diego knew I had defended Toon before when Cobo got on him. Now he was fixing it up between me and King Kong.
    I told myself I didn’t care. If Toon couldn’t handle his business, that was on him.
    I thought about telling Play to see what he would do, but in my heart I knew Play had to be pushed too hard to make a move. I couldn’t get to her, but Kat was the person I really needed.
    Really, Toon needed Kat.

CHAPTER 18
    When I got to Evergreen Mr. Hooft was sitting in his room. A mask covered his nose and mouth. He looked at me and didn’t say nothing and I didn’t say nothing. Something had happened and I guessed he needed help breathing. The mask was attached by a tube to a little machine sitting on the table next to his bed. The machine made a low hissing noise that was louder when Mr. Hooft was breathing. Sounded like Darth Vader.
    I sat in the corner and didn’t stare at him or anything.
    There were some magazines on the end of his bed and I wished I had one, but I didn’t want to just ignore Mr. Hooft or act like I didn’t care whatwas happening to him. I also had a letter that Mr. Cintron gave me in the morning just before I left for Evergreen. The letter was from K-Man. I had had time to read it before I left, but then I got worried that K-Man was going to say he wasn’t my friend anymore and just put the letter in my pocket.
    After twenty minutes or so Nancy Opara came into the room and took the mask off Mr. Hooft and asked him how he was feeling.
    “I don’t like that thing!” he said.
    “The doctor said you had to wear it to assist with your breathing,” Nancy said. “You don’t want to put a strain on your heart, do you?”
    “That machine puts a strain on my brain!” Mr. Hooft answered.
    I liked that.
    Nancy took Mr. Hooft’s temperature and blood pressure and wrote them down on his chart. Before she left, she told me that I looked like I was Hausa.
    “Do you know the Hausa people in Africa?” she asked.
    “Tell her you’re an American!” Mr. Hooft said.
    Me and Nancy laughed, and she left.
    “So, Mr. Big-Time Criminal, who did you shoottoday?” Mr. Hooft asked me.
    “You know I didn’t shoot anybody,” I said. “Why you on my case, anyway?”
    “I’m just interested in knowing how the criminal mind works,” Mr. Hooft said.
    “My mind works just like yours,” I said.
    “How can your mind work like mine?” Mr. Hooft leaned back in his chair. “I’m not a criminal. You are the one in jail. Keep that in mind.”
    “Yeah, well, you were in jail once,” I said.
    “It was not a jail,” Mr. Hooft said. “It was a children’s camp and it was during the war. Entirely different. With you there’s no war on, and you people like to shoot each other and fight. That’s what you do, right?”
    I shrugged and thought about King Kong. “Sometimes you can’t help it,” I said. “If somebody wants to fight you then you get stuck in it.”
    “Why do they want to fight you?”
    “Didn’t you tell me that this guy in your camp wanted to fight you?” I said. “Why did he want to fight you?”
    “I don’t know,” Mr. Hooft said. “Maybe he lost himself. Sometimes people lose themselves andthen they do funny things. It happened in the camp. Sometimes they would stand up and scream. Maybe they would run around naked. I don’t know. He was in the camp and as lost as the rest of us. We stopped knowing who we were.”
    “How you stop knowing who