“So you don’t think it was a serious escape attempt?”

He shook his head. “No suh. Either he want to die or somebody want him dead.”

“What’s the drug and alcohol situation on the compound?”

“They’s those who have it. They’s those that would love to have it but can’t afford it. They’s those who do anything for it.”

“Lot of it on the compound?”

“No suh, not a lot. But more than you’d think. Homemade hooch, buck, pills, grass, coke, meth.”

“How does it get in?”

“Most the liquor is homemade. Inmates in Food Services or the chapel sneak juice or old fruit and sugar back down on the ’pound. Mix it up. Let it ferment.”

“You mean inmates have stolen our communion juice to make buck?”

“Oh, yes suh. Some go to church on communion night just ’cause of it. They hold it in they mouth, spit it in a pill bottle or bag they stole until they get back down to the dorm, and empty it into an old can or plastic bag. Clerk worked here before me used to steal it. Sell it down on the ’pound.”

“What about the drugs?”

“Come in during visitation or staff bring it in. Some inmate family member sneak it in and slip it to them while they visit, or leave it in the bathroom and the orderly get it when he clean up. They also officers, staff what bring it in to sell.”

“Is it expensive? Hard to get?” I asked.

He nods. “Sex, cookies, cards, smokes, favors—beat up or kill someone for it.”

“No cash involved?”

“Most everything done on trade. Inmate say ‘You do this for me or that for me and I give you my canteen.’ They pay—it just ain’t with money. If money involved it happen on the outside. Inmate family or friend pay a staff member out there to bring somethin’ in here.”

“What about sex?” I asked. “I heard Ike Johnson was a workin’ girl.”

He nods. “It just like on the street. They’s punks, pimps, sisters, and the gay and straight inmates what use they services. Punks are the real gays. They gay before they come in here. Some have pimps what look after them, hire them out. Sisters are only into each other. They got no protection, don’t hire out. They just in love, I reckon.”

We were both silent a moment.

“You said some straight inmates use the services of some of the prostitutes,” I said.

He nods. “They straight on the outside. Just can’t get none in here. So they have to . . . make do. But they only pitch. Never catch. In here they a big difference between pitchin’ and catchin’.”

We were silent again, and I mused about the equivocations of pitching and catching in the social order of Potter Correctional Institution.

“Some of the punks wears women’s stuff,” he said.

“Like what?” I asked.