Rikers High

Rikers High by Paul Volponi is a story about a teen who was arrested and sent to Rikers Island. Martin, the main character, had to put up with lots of things growing up in his tough neighborhood, but it is nothing compared to what he has to deal with at Rikers. One incident affected him physically and mentally, but he had to do what it took to get past it. While getting off of a bus in front of their courtroom, some inmates got into a fight. Martin was chained to the person in the fight, and he got tangled up in it. Martin tried to swing back but the person attacking cut him across the cheek.

An example of physical harm done to him was some inner monologue. After he was sliced, he said, "Suddenly, I was paralyzed with fear, and I was too shook to even cry." It shows that this incident affected him too much to even feel or think about what was going on. Also, he had a big cut across his cheek, and had to live for weeks with a huge bandage across his face. After it healed, he had a big scar on his face, and it seemed to make him a little less confident when it came to fighting or being physical, though it gave him some respect from other inmates. Another thing that bothered him was telling the CO who did it. He even said, "Snitches get stitches." That means that if he snitched on the guy who cut him, there would be more scars to come.

I feel that mentally the incident had more of an affect on him. While in the hospital, he was thinking about his cut all night. He says, "I couldn't keep track of all the fears running through my brain--about what I was going to look like, how nasty a scar I would have, if the cut would ever heal." His mind was racing and he couldn't do anything but let time pass. It also made him feel violent. He told himself that he would cut that kid back instead of snitching and wouldn't care about how much time he got for it. His thoughts kept getting to him and in the hospital he wondered a lot about the cut. I think he also became a little bit more wiser in his actions and he thought about things more before making decisions. One inmate named Brick had a business going on in the jail. He asked Martin to join him, but he declined. It was a wise decision because he might have debts or other things owed to Brick once he got out of jail. Being cut had a mental affect on him, but it might of made him wiser in some ways.

One thing I've noticed in the story is that after being cut, Martin doesn't really talk about himself anymore, he only talks about what he observes and what's happening in jail. The story doesn't include his actions or thoughts as much as it did in the beginning of the story. I think it might be like that because he isn't ready to put himself out there and let people know how he feels or what he wants. Now he just goes with the flow, instead of doing what he feels like. I also think he didn't want to take part in fights or taunting because he really didn't want another scar covering his face.

In conclusion, Martin's cut had a physical and mental affect on him throughout the story. In some ways it made him smarter, and in other ways it made him more cautious, but I could tell that he was affected no matter what.