“Sure.”
“I mean it. I know you don’t believe it, but you can trust me. You’re going to learn that, in time. You don’t trust anybody, that’s one of the reasons why you’re here….”
Danny snapped, “I’m here because I nearly killed a fat-bellied cop in a riot that some niggers started!”
“Wrong! You’re here because the staff of this Center decided there’s a chance we might be able to help you. Otherwise you’d be in a real jail.”
“What d’ya mean…?”
Joe grabbed the chair again and sat on it. “Why do you think we call this the Juvenile Health Center? Because you’re sick. All the kids here are sick, one way or another. You come from a sick city, a sick block. Maybe it’s not all your fault that you’re the way you are, but nobody’s going to be able to make you well—nobody! Only you can do that. We’re here to help, but we can’t do much unless you work to help yourself.”
Danny mumbled some street words.
“I understand that,” Joe said, his eyes narrowing. “I’m part Sicilian, you know.”
“You know everything, huh?”
“Wrong. But I know a lot more than you do. I even know more about Danny Romano than you do. I know there’s enough in you to make a solid man. You’ve got to learn how to become a whole human being, though. My job is to help you do that.”
CHAPTER SIX
It was lunchtime the next day before the doctors would let Danny go. He walked across the campus slowly. It was a warmer day, bright with sunshine, and Danny felt pretty good.
Then he remembered that he had failed to escape. He was trapped here at the Center.
“For a while,” he told himself. “Not for long, just for a while. Until I figure out how to get around those alarms… whatever they are.”
He had lunch alone in the crowded, noisy cafeteria. He sat at the smallest table he could find, in a corner by the glass wall. He saw Lacey walk by with a group of blacks, laughing and clowning around.
Danny finished eating quickly and decided to find the gym. He didn’t have to look far. Just outside the cafeteria door was a big overhead sign with an arrow: ELEVATOR TO LIBRARY, POOL, GAME ROOMS, GYM.
He walked down the hall toward the elevator. Other boys were going the same way, some of them hurrying to get into the elevator before it filled up. Danny squeezed in just as the doors slid shut.
“FLOORS PLEASE.” It was SPECS’ voice.
“Gym,” somebody said.
“Library.”
“Pool.”
“Hey Lou, you goin’ swimmin’ again?”
“It beats takin’ a bath!”
Everybody in the elevator laughed.
The gym was on the top floor. The elevator door slid open and a burst of noise and smells and action hit Danny. A basketball game was in full swing. Boys shouting, ball pounding the floorboards, referee blasting on his whistle. Overhead, on a catwalk that went completely around the huge room, other boys were jogging and sprinting, their gray gym suits turning dark with sweat.
But at the far end of the gym was the thing that struck Danny the hardest. A boxing ring. And in it, Lacey was sparring with another black boy.
Danny stood by the elevator and watched, all the sights and sounds and odors of the gym fading away into nothing as he focused every nerve in his body on Lacey.
The guy was good. He moved around the ring like he was gliding on ice skates. His left snapped hard, jerking the other guy’s head back when it landed. Then he winged a right across the other guy’s guard and knocked him over backwards onto his back.
Turning, Lacey spotted Danny and waved. His black body was gleaming with sweat. His face was one enormous smile, made toothless by the rubber protector that filled his mouth.
“Hello, Danny.”
Turning, he saw Alan Peterson standing beside him.
“Hi.”
“Watching the champ? I hear you’re scheduled to fight him the first of the month.”
“Yeah.” Danny kept his eyes on Lacey. A new sparring partner had come into the ring now. Lacey was jab-jab-jabbing him to death.