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May 2008
The Internship Program Suffers a Major Defeat
by John Cannizzo
Hazen Street goes right to the entrance. On the left the billboard says, “NYC’s Boldest” Department of Correction, Rikers Island. In the parking lot is a wooden shed – not built too well. There are two windows, on the right a sign says, “NYC Department of Correction, Rikers Island." I call Ross on the mobile phone, “I’m here and I have all the stuff.”
“Yea?” she wheezes.
“Did you bring the stuff? Did the women get out O.K.?”
“Yea.” She could loose a few pounds
She doesn’t waste words.
Across the bridge over the filthy water surrounding LaGuardia Airport is what looks like a customs crossing. On the kiosk is a sign, “Department of Corrections, Rikers Island Show I.D.” They want you to remember where you are.
Across a razor wire barricade, then another and another, a fence surrounds the Greenhouse. Erin comes out with Ross to meet me. Ross unlocks the gate.
In there is an apple tree. James cautioned me not to discuss the apple tree when the inmates are around. We had never really recovered from the humiliation of having an apple tree that was totally nude of apples. “I don’t want the students to get a lot of notions in their heads,” James said, “that apple trees don’t give apples. It’s the kind of thing that makes people afraid to garden.”
Somehow this year the tree is covered with beautiful big, red, sweet apples. In the classroom, a wooden cupboard hides an electric stove. Next to it, a book case; next to that another cupboard that is just a cupboard. In the oven is an apple pie. Others line up on the desk waiting, like a holiday. It is September 11, 2001. Officer Perera is watching TV. We are outside picking the last of the apples. In the classroom everyone is crowded around the TV. Perera says, “A plane just crashed into the Twin Towers. Your wife called, go home.”
Then another crashes.
Later at West 58th Street James looks nervous. He comes out of a development meeting. The internship runs on foundation money.
“What do you think will happen to the program?”
“There isn’t going to be one”
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