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This Prison Where I Live

When the door has been slammed behind him for the first time, the prisoner stands in the middle of the cell and looks round. I fancy that everyone must behave in more or less the same way.

Tree-Jumper

He told me about his own first “transgression”: fondling a seven-year-old girl; how one thing led to another (he was mostly vague about his crimes) until he finally got caught. How his greatest fear was that he would someday molest his own children, though he didn’t have any yet. The other inmates at Coxsackie had pinned a label on him: “tree-jumper,” a guy who stalks children and hides in bushes or behind trees.

Nudity

Randy’s sky room, nudist camps, a sparkling circle of mist

St. Petersburg

Solitaire

He would look into the pits the SS left behind and see the grabbing hands and slippered feet, the bloodstained clothes and pale limbs, the wide and frightened eyes covered with a film of dirt.

Keys

Reading the rosary, giving a milagro to celebrate, dipping boxer shorts in a freezing lake

Just Wind, And A Creek

Thanks to prison, he settled for sitting, munching applesauce doughnuts, and watching his candle burn. No bleeding-heart bullshit, no prayerlike mutterings, no beseechings or lamentations from Everett. He’d come a long way, after a long wait, to do a simple thing, so he shut up, sat down, and did it.

The Break

I don’t sleep. My head’s a bunch of clacking pool balls, worrying around about things. That’s why I hear Mrs. Patterson tiptoe into my room. I can see from the hall light it’s her: she’s wearing her hospital gown, her red high heels, red kid gloves, and matching purse.

The Big Red Book

As Isaac Thomas walked jauntily down the bright, wide sidewalk at midday, he felt the weight of the book against his thigh, his wrist, the palm of his hand.

Law And Order

The most-feared policeman in the county, three-strikes defendants, an unforgettable Marshall