OUT OF JAIL, INTO TEMPTATION: A DAY IN A LIFE

Nando came home from jail to a small apartment in the Bronx that
stank like a backed-up toilet.

He had been gone eight months, behind bars for selling crack, and as
he came through the door from Rikers Island, he wrinkled his nose at
the smell. His spider plant was dead. Its blackened leaves crumpled
under his touch. His telephone was dead. He blew in the receiver, but
the line was out.

The bathroom faucet spewed brown water. A bag of chips in the kitchen
was covered in dust.

"It's like a garbage dump," he said. "I've got a lot of work to do."

The work would not be easy. What lay ahead for Nando, a 20- year-old
man who agreed to spend his first day out of jail with a reporter and
photographer as long as his last name did not appear in print, would
prove to be a veil of dark temptation, a toxic mix of the traps and
troubles that sent him off to prison to begin with.

Each year, more than 20,000 inmates are released from the C-76 jail
on Rikers Island, which houses those serving terms of a year or less.
Unlike state prisoners, these city convicts have no probation or
parole officers to report to once they are released. They are free to
find jobs, or buy drugs, without the authorities watching.

Nando was released at 5 a.m. on Feb. 4. By 7 a.m., he had learned
that his best friend had just been arrested on a crack charge. By 9
a.m., he was languishing in a welfare office. By 10, he had been
offered a joint. By 10:15, he had been offered his old job back,
selling crack and marijuana.

By the end of the day, he had watched an old friend try to hide her
drug habit from her curious toddler son. He had stood at the hospital
bed of his catatonic mother. He had sorted through the mail that had
piled up for months. The electric company was threatening to shut his
power off.

He chose to return to his fifth-floor walk-up in the Morrisania
section of the Bronx. His girlfriend and his old pals were still in
the neighborhood; so was his past as an addict and a dealer. Though
home seemed the natural place to go, it was also where his problems
had started. Nando knew that in advance. He knew it the moment he
stepped off the Rikers Island bus in northern Queens at 5:16 a.m.

It was still dark and the other men ran for the subway. Nando sniffed
the air and smiled. "It's good to be out," he said.

Nando, short for Fernando, is a skinny man with scruff on his chin
and Chinese characters tattooed along his neck. He started peddling
drugs at 14, started using them at 15. He was jailed last June for
selling 200 grams of crack to an undercover officer.

The city releases Rikers Island inmates on a squalid street corner in
Queens Plaza every day between 3 and 5:30 a.m. Each one carries a $3
MetroCard provided by the prison and his jailhouse chattel in a paper
bag. Nando got off the bus with a Hermann Hesse novel in his bag and
an ambitious to-do list in his head: Reconnect with family. Stay off
drugs. Enroll in college. Find a job.

His first stop was his father's apartment in Co-op City. He arrived
about 6. His younger brother, David, hugged him in the kitchen, still
wearing his pajamas. His father, Fernando Sr., handed him a winter
coat, a videotape of the Super Bowl and a couple of $20 bills.

"I never expected any kid of mine to wind up where he wound up," the
father said. "I ain't never going back, not even on a visit. Don't
know about him, but I ain't never going back."

It was a brief reunion. Nando's father was due at the factory where
he works and his brother was due at school. His father gave Nando
keys to the apartment. Nando mused that he might just buy a dog.

It was a terrible idea, his father said. "No dogs," he ordered.
"Right now, you can't afford to feed yourself."

East Tremont Avenue cuts through the Bronx like a swollen femoral
artery. It is a wide urban boulevard of barber shops and Spanish
greasy spoons. But to Nando, it might as well have been the only road
in a tiny town.

He knew everyone. The woman walking by was the manager of a grocery
store, he said. The crumpled man on the corner was a crackhead. An
unmarked Chevrolet rolled by and, out of instinct, Nando ducked; it
was a prowling team of undercover cops.

"I don't want to be here, but there's nowhere else to go," he
muttered as the car drove by. "Lots of us end up right back in the
same damn place. It makes me want to blow up the 'hood."

Bad News About a Friend

He turned down Boston Road until he came to a dim apartment house on
Crotona Park East. Nando put his hands to his mouth and hooted like
an owl. "Hey yo, Chuckie!" he yelled. "Hey yo, where's Chuck?"

A woman appeared in a fourth-floor window and shouted for him to come
inside. The lobby smelled like feces. Its ceiling light was smashed.
The walls looked like a notebook, covered in graffiti. The scrawl
praised murder and masturbation.

The woman in the window was Nando's former girlfriend, Jackie, who
quickly gave him the news: Chuckie =F3 her brother and Nando's friend =F3
had been arrested the day before.

Nando was crushed. He had just left Rikers Island, and now Chuckie
might be headed there himself.

=46ive minutes later, Nando left. "The ghetto of all ghettos," he said
as he walked toward home.

At his old apartment, the stench got up to meet him. It smelled like
a stadium men's room on a hot summer's day. Dirty dishes were piled
in the sink; a box of Cheerios stood open on the table. He turned on
the television, and the screen looked like a finger-painting. The
picture tube was blown.

It was starting to dawn on him, he said: he was out of jail,
responsible for himself, alone. He popped a compact disc in the
player and sat down on his rocking chair. "I used to sit here for
hours getting high," he said, rocking slowly, staring at his hands.
"I can feel the whole thing pulling at me. What am I going to do?"

On the walk home from Jackie's, he had called his girlfriend, Mery,
and set a date for 9 a.m. He needed to clean himself, but first he
had to clean the shower. A thick layer of scum had settled in the tub.

He went to the bathroom with a toilet brush. There, on the sink, were
his mother's false teeth.

A Reminder of His Mother

Six months ago, a guard woke him to say, "Your mother's had a heart
attack. She's in the hospital in Brooklyn." The jail allowed him a
visit. He went and stared at his mother. All she could do was twitch
her head.

Nando ignored the teeth. He cleaned the tub and showered. Then he
looked for clothes in the bedroom his mother had used before she had
fallen ill. The bed was stripped of sheets and gave the impression of
a vacant lot. Nando ignored that, too.

Three hours earlier, after getting off the prison bus, Nando had
laughed at a movie billboard with the slogan, "Behind every good man,
there is a woman kicking his butt." At 9 a.m., Mery was waiting for
him on the corner of Suburban Place and Boston Road. Her smile lit up
the sidewalk two full blocks away.

They hugged. They kissed. She touched his hair, grown long on Rikers
Island. They kissed again and didn't care who watched.

Mery is going to college while living in a homeless shelter. She is
Nando's one good thing, and Nando freely admits it. Still, he
sometimes finds her loving attention hard to take.

They walked down Boston Road to the subway station so Mery could head
to school. She scooted up the stairs, then turned around. "Yo,
behave!" was all she said.

At the welfare office across the street, Nando filled out forms for
Medicaid. It was 9:15, and the room was already packed. Telephones
rang. Babies cried. Nando put his name on the list. He was 21st in
line.

The form asked, "Do you have any of these problems?" Nando checked
the boxes next to "Urgent Personal or Family Problems" and "No Food."

Thirty minutes later a clerk informed him that he had come to the
wrong place. The office he needed was on 138th Street, 40 blocks away.

He was mad at the clerk. He was mad at himself. He stormed outside to
a pay phone and punched in a number. "Yeah," he said. "What up? I'm
on the block. I'm home."

Minutes later, a bony man in a baggy sweatshirt came walking down the
block. His name was Rob, and he was a member of Nando's former drug
crew. On Boston Road, the two old friends bumped chests. Rob made fun
of Nando's hair.

"What you up to, son?" Nando asked.

Rob did not waste time. "I'm smoking a blunt with you."

Everywhere, Temptation

Suddenly, a choice: Go to the welfare office or get high with Rob.
The choice got harder when Rob's cellphone began to ring. The call
was for Nando. It was his old crack boss, asking if he wanted to go
back to work.

According to city officials, 80 percent of Rikers Island's inmates
test positive for drug use, and drugs are why most end up on the
island to begin with. In the past, Nando had taken drugs and sold
drugs. Now, within 60 seconds, he'd had offers to do both again.

"No, I'm straight," he told the boss, "but I'll let you know." Then
he turned down Rob's joint. But as he stood there talking, his old
crack customers walked by. They waved and nodded. It was as if he'd
never left.

With Rob in tow, Nando went back to Jackie's place. He wanted
someplace quiet to use the phone. He wanted the address of his
mother's hospital in Brooklyn. It had been six months; he wanted to
see her face.

When Jackie opened the door, the marijuana smoke enveloped him like a
blanket. He called information for the hospital's address, trying to
ignore the smell. Jackie ran through the rooms, opening windows,
spraying a can of air freshener. Her little boy, Aaron, came down the
hallway. Aaron is 3. Jackie is 18.

Nando headed for the door and as he went out, Rob came in. He had
bought a cheap cigar and stuffed it full of dope.

Nando unloaded on him on the street.

"Keep doing that and you'll wind up on Rikers Island," he said. Rob
brushed him off. Nando let out a cold laugh at his buddy. "You best
make sure you don't wind up in jail," he said.

The trip to the hospital took an hour. As Nando approached his
mother's room, an orderly stopped him in the hall.

"Who are you?" she asked. She was baffled by the answer. "Her son?"
the woman said. "Why don't you ever visit? Where have you been the
last six months?"

His mother's limbs were frozen, her eyes so empty of emotion they
looked like dirty glass. Her face twitched uncontrollably, and Nando
stood there, wordless. The orderly told him if he pinched her fingers
she would feel it. But other than that, she would not respond.

Nando stared at his mother for 30 minutes, trying to fight back
tears. On the nightstand was the fake red rose he had bought on the
way to see her.

"A day in my life," he said on the street again, his voice gone soft.
"Anyone want it?" It was 2:15 p.m.

A Reminder in the Mail

Back at home, he planned his week. Hit the job center. Hit the right
welfare office.

Then he went downstairs to get his mail.

On Rikers, he had taken a writing class, and his last assignment was
to write a letter to himself as a happy 70-year-old man. He was to
describe that happy life, writing from the future, to himself as he
was now, at 20. He had to describe the choices he had made.

The letter was in his mailbox.

Dear Nando,

I remember those days we spent on Rikers Island. Pretty rough, huhh!
Well, as for me, I made the best of it. I chose to change a couple of
things about myself in order to get where I'm at now. Let's just say
I'm at a place where it's always sunny and hot and when it rains, it
really rains. I got a few kids now and a beautiful wife with a
handful of grandchildren. What I chose to do was leave all the drugs
and negative things alone. It was really rough at first, but I never
gave up. I always knew I could do more.

Sincerely,

Nando

He sat on the rocking chair and read the letter, twice. Then he lay
down on his mother's bed.

It was 4 p.m. and he wasn't sleepy. Tomorrow was only eight hours away.