The Outlaws of Sherwood Street: Giving to the Poor Read Online Free PDF Page B

the same paragraph?” He laughed. We didn’t join in. That didn’t stop him. Finally he wiped away one of those laughter tears and said, “Bottom line, we have all these problems. Priority question—which one is the most important?”
    â€œTut-Tut,” I said.
    â€œPrize for the little lady,” said Silas.
    â€œSilas?” said Ashanti, in a way she had—not necessarily loud but plenty forceful—of commanding everyone’s attention.
    â€œOops,” said Silas.
    â€œWe have to get Tut-Tut out of there,” I said.
    â€œSpring him,” Silas said.
    â€œSpring him?” said Ashanti.
    â€œThat’s the expression for busting dudes out of jail,” Silas explained.
    â€œBut how?” I said.
    We sat in silence. I gazed at Tut-Tut’s spray-painted self-portrait on the wall. He seemed to be gazing right back at me. There was so much inside him, including lots of pain he’d suffered, although he didn’t want anybody’s sympathy; I thought I could see all that in the picture.
    Silas snapped his fingers. Not one of his talents: he tried it a few more times, barely making a sound. “Anyway,” he said, giving up, “I’ve got it. We’ll make him a green card.”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œNothing to it,” Silas said. “There’s a bunch of good programs for that kind of thing. All we need is some green paper and—”
    â€œGreen cards aren’t green,” I said.
    â€œNo?”
    â€œAnd even if we had a green card, how do we get it to him?” I said.
    â€œAnd even if we get it to him, then what?” says Ashanti. “He flashes it to a guard or something and the doors open, just like that?”
    â€œWhy not?” said Silas.
    I didn’t know the answer, but I did know that in the adult world, doors never seemed to open just like that.
    We did more sitting in silence. The getting-nowhere feeling pressed down on me like a heavy cloud.
Do something, Robbie!
That was a voice inside me I sometimes heard, my own voice, often inclined to panic: the voice I thought of as the innermost Robbie.
    I rose. “Let’s go take a look at the Flatbush Family Detention Center.”
    â€œSounds like a plan,” Ashanti said.
    â€œWe’re going outside?” said Silas.
    We gave him a look. He got ready, meaning he buttoned up his cardigan—I’d never seen another human being in a cardigan—wrapped a scarf around his neck, struggled into his Michelin-Man-type jacket, and pulled on an Arctic-explorer-type hat with fur flaps and a pair of mittens. Yes, mittens.
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    The Flatbush Family Detention Center wasn’t actually on Flatbush Avenue, the most important street in the borough, but a few blocks north, so we had to walk from the subway station, a slow walk, on account of a wind springing up right in our faces and the fact of Silas being too bundled up to move well. We passed a few old office low-rises and a fire station, and came to a massive brick building on a corner. It looked something like a school except that the windows were barred, the brick walls were grimier than any school walls I’d ever seen, and two cops stood by the front door. There was no sign out front.
    â€œThis is it,” Ashanti said.
    The cops looked at us. We looked at them.
    â€œHelp you kids?” one of them said.
    Ashanti stepped forward. “We’ve got a friend in there.”
    â€œYeah?” said the other cop.
    â€œYeah,” said Ashanti.
    I stepped forward too, at the same time sensing Silas backing away. “We want to see him.”
    â€œGotta make arrangements,” the second cop said.
    â€œHow?” I said.
    â€œGo online,” said the first cop. “Click on visitation.”
    â€œOkay,” said Silas, behind us. “Thanks.”
    We walked away, not in the direction we’d come from; I had some vague feeling about going