The Weight Read Online Free PDF

out of a parking lot. He picked us up and we threw in a bunch of empty cartons. Big ones, like the kind TVs come in. I sat next to the driver, and the third guy was in the back. While the fence was waiting for the guy in the back to open the boxes, I just stepped out and yoked him until he went limp.
    When he came to, he reached for the phone.
    My Legal Aid said I was being charged with strong-arm robbery. All that means is nobody showed a weapon.
    He kept talking about a YO—that’s Youthful Offender—like it was the greatest thing in the world. The way he ran it down, if the judge would give me a YO, my record would be sealed. That way, it couldn’t be used against me if I ever got in trouble again.
    He said “again” like it was a sure thing.
    I already knew that sixteen was the cutoff. No more Family Court for me. No more rehabilitation bullshit, no more counseling, no more GED classes. Prison.
    I knew I’d have to go sooner or later if I wanted the right people to see me, so I was just as glad to get it over with.
    Back then, on the Rock, they’d separate the young guys from the older ones. That was supposed to keep us safe from “predators.” I wondered if anyone actually believed that stuff.
    But it wasn’t bad at all. Nobody was going to be there long enough to worry about pulling me into their crew. And I had enough juvie time to send out the right signal: I’m not going to gorilla anybody into anything, and I don’t have anything you want, either. But if you come at me, it’s going to cost you something.
    I was there a few weeks. It wasn’t until I got Upstate that I found out how that Legal Aid had screwed me over.

    “What was the big deal about getting a YO?” the writ-writer asked me. I knew I couldn’t appeal behind my guilty plea, but I really wanted that YO, and I heard I could appeal not getting
that
part.
    I was surprised when he said that. Everyone said he was smarter than any lawyer. He was in for double-life, but he’d gotten all kinds of other guys out, ’cause he knew the law so good. Spent every day in the law library they had up there, like it was his office. Had guys bringing him coffee, sandwiches, whatever he wanted.
    He read the look on my face. “Don’t you get it, son? Far as the judge was concerned, you were a first offender, right?”
    “I … guess so.”
    “What I’m saying, you had a long juvenile record, but this was your first adult bust, right?”
    “Right.”
    “And every time you copped to one of those kiddie crimes, didn’t your lawyer say a juvenile record doesn’t mean anything, because it all gets sealed?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Yeah? Do the math. The judge on your case, he knew all about your priors. As a juvie, I’m saying.”
    “But if they—”
    “It’s pure bullshit,” the writ-writer told me. “ ‘Sealed,’ all that means is they can’t put it in the newspapers. They even changed that law back in ’78, but that’s only for homicides. And you didn’t have …?”
    “No.”
    “Yeah. So, like I said, the public can’t see your record. But the cops can. And they can pass that along to the ADA. And the ADA can pass that along to the judge. Just
psst-psst
, see? Nothing on paper. That YO you want me to appeal for? Even if you won, it wouldn’t be worth the paper it was typed on.”
    “It’s three crates, right?”
    “I just told you—”
    “Three crates to talk to you, that’s what they said.”
    “Yeah. That’s my consultation fee.”
    “I’ll have it for you as soon as—”
    “Forget it,” the old con said.
    “I don’t take favors,” I told him.
    He looked up at me. “You’re just dumb about
some
things, huh?”
    I didn’t know what to say to that. But I paid him, just like I said I would.

    I didn’t just learn things that first time in; I
earned
some things, too. That’s when people started calling me Sugar.
    Inside, color counts, but it’s not like one race against another. I mean, it is, but there’s lots of