Dad still only came to camp on weekends, and most of that time was spent sleeping. At night, he sat around the campfires with my aunts and uncles laughing and drinking. "You kids go off and play," they'd say. They didn't like us hanging around when there was so much for us to do there. The camp was ideal for them, because they didn't need a babysitter. There were now twenty-eight of us kids, counting Bobby and Billy and my variOUS Cousins.
At the paddleboat lake, there were all types of boats you could rent for a quarter, and each family got two free for every week they stayed in the park. I loved the ones that were shaped like a bicycle. It straddled two pontoons and was faster than all of the others. I used to get on it and pedal as hard as I could, pretending that my hat would catch wind, like in the Flying Nun, and carry me away from there.
I just wanted to be back home with my mom.
5
Chain Reactions
On Saturday nights, the camp held teenage dances on the tennis courts next to the canteen. Only a few of my cousins were old enough to go, but that didn't stop the rest of us. We hid on the hill and watched from the shadows.
They looked pretty silly there, especially when they slow-danced, the way they hugged each other and pivoted like they were wind-up toy soldiers. When the beat of the records picked up, they looked even sillier, thrashing their arms about with their thumbs extended, like they didn't know which side of the road they wanted to hitchhike down.
Diana Ross and the Supremes, Petula Clark, and Simon e?' Garfunkle filled the hot summer air with music that was cool andgroovy and spoiled only by the sounds of the electric bug zappers that surrounded the canteen.
We threw small pebbles at the electrified metalgrid andgiggled as it buzzed. No one could see us hiding unless it was a full moon, and even then it took the glow from the bug zapper's ultraviolent lights to be seen.
Ricky said they were called "ultraviolent" because of the way they vaporized flying insects.
When I arrived at the County Jail, it was just after 6:30. There were twentythree of us who were transferred downtown. We entered the receiving area joined together by a chain. Our wrists were affixed, every few feet, by handcuffs that were welded to the shackles. We were placed in the first of four holding cells along the right wall. There was a control booth in the center area and a matching set of bullpens on the opposite side of the room. The deputies sorted prisoners based on whether we were sentenced to prison or to county jail time. Sentences of a year or more went to the state prison, and sentences of less than a year either stayed in the county jail or were sent to The Detroit House of Corrections.
The holding cell was dark and crowded. There were over thirty of us, in a space that was large enough for maybe fifteen or twenty men. It reeked of urine. There was a sink and toilet attached to the back wall and an open partition that provided little privacy. There was no toilet paper in sight. Some of the inmates where yelling to the holding cells across the room and others where just yelling. I prayed it wouldn't take long to get us through intake and into our own cells. I was hungry and regretted not eating the stale bologna sandwich they gave us earlier at the Hospital/Courthouse.
As soon as the bars slid shut on our cell, the metal gates to the loading dock opened, and another group was led in on chains. There must have been thirty of us in the pen, but only four of us were white. I sat on the floor, with my back against the wall, avoiding eye contact with anyone. I absently chewed my nails as I tried to pretend it was all routine, like I'd been through before and wasn't fazed, but I was too afraid to look up and see if anyone noticed. It was hard to think with all the noise. The large metal gate opening, inmates yelling, electric cell doors opening and closing, and the sounds of heavy chains crashing to the floor. An inmate kicked the metal tab on the wall, and the toilet made a whoosh as it flushed the rust-colored water down the filthy suck-hole at the bottom of the stainless steel bowl. It continued sucking air long after the water receded and then spit back, noisily, water that was just as filthy.
A deputy came to the front of the cell, "OK, Listen up. When I call out your name, step to the front of the cell."
"Hey Dep! Can I ask you somethin'?" a stocky black inmate pleaded.
"Williams, Johnson, Taylor," the deputy read from a clipboard, holding a pen in his right hand as he went down his list. "Miller, Hughes, Jackson."
"Yo, Dep!" the black man persisted, "Please! I have a quick question."
"Walters, Parsell, Pierce." He looked to his right and yelled, "Open Five!" Two deputies came over and joined him. All three of them were white.
I followed as each man stepped from the cell. The deputy with the clipboard checked off our names. The other two deputies motioned us to the right and ordered us to line up, turn in and face the holding cell with our backs to them.
"Officer! Please, just one quick question."
"Close five!" the deputy yelled, not looking up. The gate jolted forward and closed on Holding Cell Five. "OK Maggots, let's go."
They led us past the other cells and into an open area. There was a counter to the right with stacks of blue plastic bins and
