making words.
Big John grunted. Suddenly I was sweating like a horse, all up in my hair and underneath my eyes and back of my neck and in the palms of my hands. I could feel it on my legs, turning icy cold as it seeped from my skin.
We saw Warren and Donald Duck coming toward us. We went to the back and sat down. They brought the deputy and Gout with them. Gout was a short, pot-bellied man with turned-in toes and a swagger, if you can imagine a pigeon-toed, pot-bellied, wrinkled squeezed-in face without teeth, owlish-looking under the pulled-down visor, with a swaggering walk. He had evil, dirty-gray eyes behind gold-rimmed spectacles. The other convicts called him Froggy Hitler. But I always called him Gout. I couldn’t improve on that.
His cap bore the legend: Personnel Officer . But his duties were those of a transfer clerk. Most of the transferring of the convicts from one company to another was left to him, although the deputy could overrule his decisions. During the court sessions he acted as prosecutor. Between transfer officer and court prosecutor he had built up the reputation of the dirtiest, meanest, lousiest, lowest, rotten-est officer in prison. It was also said that he was a stool pigeon for the warden, who did not get along with the deputy warden, and that he told the warden everything that went on inside the walls. The warden seldom came inside the walls. Before taking that job Gout had been captain of an ore freighter. That had been years before. I never learned why he gave up a good job like that to become a prison guard. But I always wondered. I could never see him as anything but a little old man with a big warped belly.
He gave me one look and reared back, his bloated, froglike body pulling his uniform askew, and put his hands on his hips. “I’ll put this one in the soup company,” he said, referring to me, “and this one in 1-11.” He turned to the deputy. “Give them a taste of the hole first.”
“Wait a minute,” I began. “I haven’t even had a trial.”
The deputy ignored us both. He had a sardonic hipped look that morning, aloof and amused and indifferent. I’d heard that what he didn’t know about convicts wasn’t in the book; that he had a perfect espionage system. He had been deputy warden for seventeen years.
Before he’d come after us Warren had gone over to our dormitory and searched our bunks for cards and chips. He hadn’t found any. I kept them at another convict’s bunk who had a locked box. But he had found a slice of bread underneath Big John’s mattress.
He showed the deputy the note I’d written to Hunky and the slice of bread he had found. The deputy put Big John in the hole. He told me to sit there. They went outside, the deputy walking straight with short, fast steps and Gout rearing back and trying to swagger, and Warren walking stooped over like an old man, looking out the sides of his eyes at the deputy while he talked, and Donald Duck bringing up the rear, placing his tender feet down on the pavement as cautiously as a man playing chess.
From where I sat I could see across the yard. After a time the companies began emptying from the dining room, the short leaders setting the pace, the tall men tapering off behind them, two by two, stepping out as the line closed up. White men in front, colored men behind. One line and then another until they strung out in four solid lines from the dining room to the four cell houses. And still they came, like an unending story, like the locusts out of the rock. Then suddenly without a trace they were gone. They were gone without a sign that they’d ever been there, without their footprints in the slush. It was startling.
After the guards had eaten, Gout transferred me to the coal company. The first person I saw was Hunky.
“What the hell did you put all those names on that note for?” he greeted me.
“I wasn’t thinking.”
“Did they hurt Book-me bad?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“What’d they do
Big John grunted. Suddenly I was sweating like a horse, all up in my hair and underneath my eyes and back of my neck and in the palms of my hands. I could feel it on my legs, turning icy cold as it seeped from my skin.
We saw Warren and Donald Duck coming toward us. We went to the back and sat down. They brought the deputy and Gout with them. Gout was a short, pot-bellied man with turned-in toes and a swagger, if you can imagine a pigeon-toed, pot-bellied, wrinkled squeezed-in face without teeth, owlish-looking under the pulled-down visor, with a swaggering walk. He had evil, dirty-gray eyes behind gold-rimmed spectacles. The other convicts called him Froggy Hitler. But I always called him Gout. I couldn’t improve on that.
His cap bore the legend: Personnel Officer . But his duties were those of a transfer clerk. Most of the transferring of the convicts from one company to another was left to him, although the deputy could overrule his decisions. During the court sessions he acted as prosecutor. Between transfer officer and court prosecutor he had built up the reputation of the dirtiest, meanest, lousiest, lowest, rotten-est officer in prison. It was also said that he was a stool pigeon for the warden, who did not get along with the deputy warden, and that he told the warden everything that went on inside the walls. The warden seldom came inside the walls. Before taking that job Gout had been captain of an ore freighter. That had been years before. I never learned why he gave up a good job like that to become a prison guard. But I always wondered. I could never see him as anything but a little old man with a big warped belly.
He gave me one look and reared back, his bloated, froglike body pulling his uniform askew, and put his hands on his hips. “I’ll put this one in the soup company,” he said, referring to me, “and this one in 1-11.” He turned to the deputy. “Give them a taste of the hole first.”
“Wait a minute,” I began. “I haven’t even had a trial.”
The deputy ignored us both. He had a sardonic hipped look that morning, aloof and amused and indifferent. I’d heard that what he didn’t know about convicts wasn’t in the book; that he had a perfect espionage system. He had been deputy warden for seventeen years.
Before he’d come after us Warren had gone over to our dormitory and searched our bunks for cards and chips. He hadn’t found any. I kept them at another convict’s bunk who had a locked box. But he had found a slice of bread underneath Big John’s mattress.
He showed the deputy the note I’d written to Hunky and the slice of bread he had found. The deputy put Big John in the hole. He told me to sit there. They went outside, the deputy walking straight with short, fast steps and Gout rearing back and trying to swagger, and Warren walking stooped over like an old man, looking out the sides of his eyes at the deputy while he talked, and Donald Duck bringing up the rear, placing his tender feet down on the pavement as cautiously as a man playing chess.
From where I sat I could see across the yard. After a time the companies began emptying from the dining room, the short leaders setting the pace, the tall men tapering off behind them, two by two, stepping out as the line closed up. White men in front, colored men behind. One line and then another until they strung out in four solid lines from the dining room to the four cell houses. And still they came, like an unending story, like the locusts out of the rock. Then suddenly without a trace they were gone. They were gone without a sign that they’d ever been there, without their footprints in the slush. It was startling.
After the guards had eaten, Gout transferred me to the coal company. The first person I saw was Hunky.
“What the hell did you put all those names on that note for?” he greeted me.
“I wasn’t thinking.”
“Did they hurt Book-me bad?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“What’d they do
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