“Did he ever show up out here for work?” I asked.

“When he was first assigned here. Came out about three times. Didn’t do a damn thing. Worried about his fingernails and hair too much.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Inmates called him Go-down ’cause he a go down on anybody.”

I nodded, thinking about the picture developing of little Ike Johnson.

“You tell me anything about Hardy? CO who works nights in the infirmary.”

“Ex-military,” he said. “Still in the reserves. Hell of a good officer. Smart. Tough. Fair. He not as good as me, but . . . he’s good.”

“Pretty confident for a black man named after a dead white woman.”

He ran his hand across his short hair and then started patting it. “With good reason.”

“Anything else about Johnson you can think of?”

“Didn’t know him that well, But I’ll tell you who did. Inmate named Willie Baker. Probably the oldest homosexual on the compound. Hell, maybe even in the world.”

“The one they call Grandma?” I asked.

He smiled. “Yeah,” he said with surprise and amusement. “Chaplain got the 4-1-1.”

“That’s me, Mr. Information. But it’s not the 4-1-1, but the 9-1-1 that concerns me. You ever get a request from Johnson? Was it typed?”

He shook his head. “Nigga couldn’t read or write.”

14

Blue movement everywhere.

The compound pulsing with energy.

Inmates laughing, yelling, talking, walking, playing, lining up, gathering in small groups, moving. Always moving.

Inmates on the compound were in perpetual motion.

Above it all the hot July sun was unrelenting, unforgiving. The only shade was provided by four pavilions. But even if they blocked the sun, they were impotent against the heat.

The heat was stifling, thick and difficult to breathe.

As I walked through the open population, I was again reminded that I was a stranger in a strange land. This was their world. Most of the inmates treated me like a servant at a dinner party.

Passing through the lower compound, I made my way down to the rec yard where inmates were playing basketball, softball, lifting weights, and walking around the track—all beneath the clear, blue sky.

I found Willie at the far end of the field, sitting on the ground leaning up against the back of the softball fence.

He looked about a hundred and fifty. His gray hair, what little there was, made a nearly complete circle around the crown of his head. His eyes were hollow. His stubbly gray beard sporadically covered his gaunt face, dipping down in the recesses of his cheeks because he had no teeth.

If he was in any way effeminate, you couldn’t tell just by looking at him. Of course, if he was alive, you couldn’t tell it just by looking at him either.

He sat with two other men, both in their twenties, both as feminine as most females I’d ever seen, more so than many.