Alan, the Champion — Chapter 4 — The Reformatory
Three years locked in juvenile detention. Alan comes out someone else.
Before he was King, he was cannon fodder, a convict, a killer. At thirteen, he ran grown men.
I stayed three years.
Everybody talks about the reformatory like it's punishment. For me it was the first time I had a roof, food on schedule, and nothing to do all day.
Nothing to do is dangerous. Nothing to do forces you to think.
And thinking, in there, I found out my father was wrong.
He always said the same thing. The world belongs to the strongest. Wanna survive, be strong. And I believed it my whole life, because he was the strongest man I knew — and you already know how he ended up.
In the reformatory there was a kid named Toninho. Sixteen, built like a door, hands that could close around your whole head. Everybody dropped their eyes when Toninho walked by.
And Toninho took orders from a skinny thirteen-year-old called Escrivão. Escrivão didn't hit anybody. Didn't have to. He knew who owed what to who, knew every kid's visiting day, knew which counselor looked the other way for cigarettes and which one for cash. Escrivão thought, and Toninho broke whatever Escrivão pointed at.
That's where, watching those two, it clicked.
Strength takes you up to a certain point on the Hill. Always up to a certain point. After that, whoever climbs is whoever thinks. The brutes are the hands. The hands never own anything.
The problem was I was Toninho. I wasn't Escrivão.