the dry flick, flick as he turned the pages. Manningâs mind began to move relentlessly towards the inventory he knew he had to take, and had been putting off ever since he heard the judge intoning â... as the law prescribes.â And with those words killed Manning right there in front of his bench, executed his past and all the meaningful continuity of his life, destroyed Willard Manning and left an unknown in his place, a man whose nature and future he was afraid to guess at.
He was forty-four and it was apparent. He was soft and his wind was going. He had an incipient hernia, and definite hemorrhoids and there was no way to guess what illness and disabilities might be waiting in the gradual deterioration of his health. His upper teeth were false, and one dentist had already advised him to have the lowers extracted as well.
He didnât know how old he would be when they handed him back the right to wage economic war. But he might well be fifty. How would he survive? Who was going to hire a middle-aged, unbonded accountant with no record of previous employment? Who was going to hire a morals offender even with his excellent employment record? Yes, they would reason, but who knows what ideas he may have picked up in prison, what friends he might have made, schemes entered into. Why risk it? Heâs fifty anyway. They say you can never cure a sex offender.
What would he do? It seemed hopelessâat best the rest of his years would shiver in the shadow of his former life. But it never occurred to Manning to give up.
As he was falling asleep, he tried to remember the date. It seemed important he know what day it was, but he wasnât surprised when this simple fact eluded him. It was only by going back to the day of his arrest, when all normal time had ceased, and working forward week by week, that he was finally able to tell himself that it was November the 16th.
3
P AUL JULESON read for an hour and forty-five minutes. Then he put his book aside, sat up tailor fashion, and started to roll a cigarette. He used the state-issue tobaccoâit was free, but not exactly a bargain. There were two types availableâa fine powdery rolling tobacco, called âdustââand a pipe cut which wasnât quite inferior enough to warrant a derisive nickname. Originally the state tobacco was thought of as an important step forward in the advance of penal reforms because just previous to the first free issue two men had been killed for debtâbetween them they had owed four bags of Bull Durham. If the prison were to process tobacco and make it available to everyone, no one need die because he had borrowed a sack of Bull Durham he couldnât repay. But they had reckoned without the universal contempt for welfare of any kind, and the specifically convict resentment of anything provided by the state. The only inmates who smoked the tobacco were those who had absolutely nothing else and no way of getting anything and were still so lacking in pride they could acknowledge this publicly. It was widely held, though Juleson did not agree, that the state tobacco was deliberately spoiled, held to the lowest quality, so no one could possibly prefer it to the tailor-mades and pipe tobaccos sold on the inmate canteen at retail prices and, presumably, retail profits.
Juleson smoked the pipe cut, after first picking out the twigs and gravel and straining it through a piece of window screen. Sometimes he even washed it in an effort to eliminate the ancient musty taste that was its indelible hallmark. After that it wasnât too bad. But hard to roll. The smoke he was now finishing up bulged ominously in the middle. He frowned, studying his productâthe paper was weakened with his saliva and if he tried to smooth out the hump he would probably tear the roll in two. He shrugged and lit up. He couldnât get the damn things rolled right. Heâd been fooling with them for three years, five months, and some
He was forty-four and it was apparent. He was soft and his wind was going. He had an incipient hernia, and definite hemorrhoids and there was no way to guess what illness and disabilities might be waiting in the gradual deterioration of his health. His upper teeth were false, and one dentist had already advised him to have the lowers extracted as well.
He didnât know how old he would be when they handed him back the right to wage economic war. But he might well be fifty. How would he survive? Who was going to hire a middle-aged, unbonded accountant with no record of previous employment? Who was going to hire a morals offender even with his excellent employment record? Yes, they would reason, but who knows what ideas he may have picked up in prison, what friends he might have made, schemes entered into. Why risk it? Heâs fifty anyway. They say you can never cure a sex offender.
What would he do? It seemed hopelessâat best the rest of his years would shiver in the shadow of his former life. But it never occurred to Manning to give up.
As he was falling asleep, he tried to remember the date. It seemed important he know what day it was, but he wasnât surprised when this simple fact eluded him. It was only by going back to the day of his arrest, when all normal time had ceased, and working forward week by week, that he was finally able to tell himself that it was November the 16th.
3
P AUL JULESON read for an hour and forty-five minutes. Then he put his book aside, sat up tailor fashion, and started to roll a cigarette. He used the state-issue tobaccoâit was free, but not exactly a bargain. There were two types availableâa fine powdery rolling tobacco, called âdustââand a pipe cut which wasnât quite inferior enough to warrant a derisive nickname. Originally the state tobacco was thought of as an important step forward in the advance of penal reforms because just previous to the first free issue two men had been killed for debtâbetween them they had owed four bags of Bull Durham. If the prison were to process tobacco and make it available to everyone, no one need die because he had borrowed a sack of Bull Durham he couldnât repay. But they had reckoned without the universal contempt for welfare of any kind, and the specifically convict resentment of anything provided by the state. The only inmates who smoked the tobacco were those who had absolutely nothing else and no way of getting anything and were still so lacking in pride they could acknowledge this publicly. It was widely held, though Juleson did not agree, that the state tobacco was deliberately spoiled, held to the lowest quality, so no one could possibly prefer it to the tailor-mades and pipe tobaccos sold on the inmate canteen at retail prices and, presumably, retail profits.
Juleson smoked the pipe cut, after first picking out the twigs and gravel and straining it through a piece of window screen. Sometimes he even washed it in an effort to eliminate the ancient musty taste that was its indelible hallmark. After that it wasnât too bad. But hard to roll. The smoke he was now finishing up bulged ominously in the middle. He frowned, studying his productâthe paper was weakened with his saliva and if he tried to smooth out the hump he would probably tear the roll in two. He shrugged and lit up. He couldnât get the damn things rolled right. Heâd been fooling with them for three years, five months, and some
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