two years. It made him eligible for parole in four more months.
The contingency that he might not receive parole was one he did not dare consider. The implications were too awful. He did not believe he could go through two years of prison and fail to emerge totally, irreparably, debased in brain and body.
Hold on! he told himself each day and in the nights Hold on for the hope, the deliverance, of parole!
At first, after arrest and detention while awaiting trial, he had thought that being locked into a cage would send him mad. He remembered reading once that freedom, until lost, was seldom valued. And it was true that no one realized how much their physical freedom of movement meant even going from one room to another or briefly out of doors until such choices were denied them totally.
Just the same, compared with conditions in this penitentiary, the pre-trial period was a luxury.
The cage at Drummonburg in which he was confined was a six-by eight foot cell, part of a four-tiered, X shaped cell house. When the prison was built more than half a century ago, each cell was intended for one person; today, because of prison overpopulation, most cells, including Miles's, housed four. On most days prisoners were locked into the tiny spaces for eighteen hours out of twenty-four.
Soon after Miles had come here, and because of trouble elsewhere in the prison, they had remained locked in 'lock-in, feed-in,' the authorities called it for seventeen whole days and nights. After the first week, the desperate cries of twelve hundred near-demented men made one more agony piled upon the others.
The cell to which Miles Eastin was allotted had four bunks clamped to walls, one sink and a single, seatless toilet which all four inmates shared. Because water pressure through ancient, corroded pipes was poor, water supply cold only to the sink was usually a trickle; occasionally it stopped entirely. For the same reason, the toilet often wouldn't flush It was bad enough to be confined in the same dose quarters where four men defecated with a total lack of privacy, but staying with the stench long after, while waiting for sufficient water to remove it, was a disgusting, stomach-heaving horror.
Toilet paper and soap, even when used sparingly, were never enough.
A brief shower was allowed once weekly; in between showers, bodies grew rancid, adding to close quarters misery.
It was in the showers, during his second week in prison, that Miles was gang raped. Bad as other experiences were, this had been the worst.
He had become aware, soon after his arrival, that other prisoners were attracted to him sexually. His good looks and youthfulness, he soon found out, were to be a liability. Marching to meals or at exercise in the yard, the more aggressive homosexuals managed to crowd around and rub against him. Some reached out to fondle him; others, from a distance, pursed their lips and blew him kisses. The first he squirmed away from, the second he ignored, but as both became more difficult his nervousness, then fear, increased. It became plain that inmates not involved would never help him. He sensed that guards who looked his way knew what was happening. They merely seemed amused.
Though the inmate population was predominantly black, the approaches came equally from blacks and whites.
He was in the shower house, a single-story corrugated structure to which prisoners were marched in groups of fifty, escorted by guards. The prisoners undressed, leaving their clothing in wire baskets, then trooped naked and shivering through the unheated building. They stood under shower heads, waiting for a guard to turn on the water.
The shower-room guard was high above them on a platform, and control of the showers and water temperature was under the guard's whim. If the prisoners were slow in moving, or seemed noisy, the guard could send down an icy blast of water, raising screams of rage and protest while prisoners jumped around like wild men, trying to escape. Because of the shower-house design, they couldn't. Or sometimes the guard would maliciously bang the hot water dose to scalding, to the same effect.
On a morning when a group of fifty which included Miles was emerging from the showers, and another fifty, already undressed, were waiting to go in, Miles felt himself surrounded closely by several bodies. Suddenly his arms were gripped tightly by a half dozen hands and he was being hustled forward. A voice behind him urged, 'Move your ass, pretty boy. We ain't got long.' Several others laughed.
Miles looked up toward the elevated platform. Seeking to draw the guard's attention, he shouted, 'Sir! sir!'
The guard, who was picking his nose and looking elsewhere, appeared not to hear.
A fist slammed hard into Miles's Abs. A voice behind him snarled, 'Shaddup!'
He cried out again from pain and fear and either the same fist or another thudded home once more. The breath went out of him. A fiery hurt shot through his side. His arms were being twisted savagely. Whimpering now, his feet barely touching the floor, he was hustled along.
The guard still took no notice. Afterward, Miles guessed the man had been tipped off in advance and bribed. Since guards were abysmally underpaid, bribery in the prison was a way of life.
Near the exit from the showers, where others were begining to dress, was a narrow open doorway. Still surrounded, Miles was shoved through. He was conscious of black and white bodies. Behind them, the door slammed shut.
The room inside was small and used for storage. Brooms, mops, cleaning materials were in screened and padlocked cupboards. Near the room's center was a trestle table. Miles was slammed face downward on it; his mouth and nose hit the wooden surface hard. He felt teeth loosen. His eyes filled with tears. His nose began to bleed.
While his feet stayed on the floor, his legs were roughly pulled apart. He fought desperately, despairingly, trying to move. The many hands restrained him.
'Hold still, pretty boy.' Miles heard grunting and felt a thrust. A second later he screamed in pain, disgust, and horror. Whoever was holding his head seized it by the hair, raised and slammed it down. 'Shaddupl' Now pain, in waves, was everywhere.
'Ain't she lovely?' The voice seemed in the distance, echoing and dreamlike.
The penetration ended. Before his body could know relief, another began. Despite himself, knowing the consequences, he screamed again. Once more his head was banged.
During the next few minutes and the monstrous repetition, Miles's mind began to drift, his awareness waned. As strength left him, his struggles lessened. But the physical agony intensified a searing of membrane, the fiery abrasion of a thousand sensory nerve ends.
Consciousness must have left him totally, then returned. From outside he heard a guard's whistle being blown. It was a signal to hurry with the dressing and assemble in the yard. He was aware of restraining hands withdrawn. Behind him a door opened. The others in the room were running out.
Bleeding, bruised, and barely conscious, Miles staggered out. The merest movement of his body caused him suffering.
'Hey, you!' the guard bawled from the platform. 'Move ass, you goddam pansyl'
Groping, only half aware of what he was doing, Miles took the wire basket with his clothes and began to pull them on. Most of the others in his group of fifty were already outside in the yard. Another fifty men who had been under the showers were ready to transfer to the dressing area.
The guard shouted fiercely for the second time, 'Shithead! I said move!'
Stepping into his rough drill prison pants, Miles stumbled and would have fallen, but for an arm which reached out, holding him.
'make it easy, kid,' a deep voice said. 'Here, I’ll help.. The first hand continued to hold him steady while a second aided in putting the pants on.
The guard's whistle blasted shrilly. 'Nigger, you hear met You an' that pansy get the hell outside, or be on report.' 'Yassir, yassir, big boss. Right away, now. Let's go, kid.'
Miles was aware, hazily, that the man beside him was huge and black. Later, he would learn the other's name was Karl and that he was serving a life sentence for murder. Miles would wonder, too, if Karl had been among the gang which raped him. He suspected that he was, but never asked, and never knew for sure.
What Miles did discover was that the black giant, despite his size and uncouthness, had a gentleness of manner and a sensitive consideration almost feminine.
From the shower house, supported by KarL Miles walked unsteadily outdoors.
