246
JOHN HOLLANDER
unsucculent chip of grayish pickle, a boring apple and a container
of milk. A small group had gathered near the lunch bench, eating
grimly and staring with disdain at the vocal gripers.
"Yummers
!"
"You could eat better in any shiddy liddle coun'y can."
"If
you don't want it, could 1 ...."
1 joined the little community, grateful for their silence. Every–
one seemed to be sharing the effort of chewing; all five men were the
other side of fifty and dressed pretty much alike, in faded and stained
suntans and fairly clean white shirts, open at the neck. But that, and
what struck me as the salutary tone of their morale, was
all
they
seemed to have in common. Maybe it was only for me, or maybe only,
because of what happened, for me now, that Hagestolz dominated
the group. He was certainly bigger, older, sadder-eyed and more
heavily bearded than any of the others; he alone wore his shirt sleeves
unrolled, the cuffs neatly buttoned. And awkward, stooping a little,
he was the last to speak.
"You new here?" He barely seemed to have looked me over.
"Yes. 1 came in today."
"Then move over toward the other corner after you put your
lunch tray back. You're being studied." He said this with a kind of
nonchalance that puzzled me. 1 had heard of the tight politico-sexual
organizations inside prisons, and was a little chilled by what looked
like their lack of ceremony. But 1 decided to be innocent.
"Who by?" 1 inquired, inquiringly.
"What say?" said Hagestolz, who had turned to a muttered con–
versation with the others.
"Who am 1 being studied by?"
"Psychology students from UCLA. Those skylights are one-way
glass." This was before the days of closed-circuit television.
"Why?"
"Modem police methods" - Hagestolz started imitating the tone
of the scholarly cop who had arrested me. The others sniggered.
He gave them a look of disgust and resumed his own manner. "They
keep bringing Spalding back in for a few days every month so a new
batch of students can hear him whistle. They don't even bother to
cook up a charge any more. Just 'habitual offender.' What are you
in for?"
1 considered this; after all, 1 was in the creep block. "1 got
caught watching my landlord giving it to the
girl
who lives upstairs
