But stopped reading it.

“Come on, stop foolin’ around, Beastie. I can understand your not recognizin’ me, my face like it is. Or maybe it’s been a long time. Is that why you don’t recognize me? It’s been too long a time, right? Or maybe you don’t want to remember my name. Which is it, Beastie?”

Retta Mae Wagons continued holding her magazine to her face.

The Imam Rasheed Jamal made a halfhearted attempt to rise up off the couch.

The man’s voice turned into a growl when he said, “I wouldn’t do that, Cleveland Stevie.”

The imam sat down.

“Damn,” said the man, still in that stage whisper voice of his, “I coulda sworn you were the guy who ordered my teeth kicked out so I could suck off most of the Attica prison population with a smooth set of gums. Hold on to my big ears while they got themselves some smooth suckin’. What they call my ears, Cleveland Stevie? Bugger-grips. That was it. Bugger-grips. Ruined my face is what your prison friends did. Blinded my right eye. Gave me dizzy spells for life. Made me deaf in one ear. Naw, they didn’t ruin my eye or my ear. Those convict buddies of yours ruined my life is what they did. An’ you were the one who turned me over to the entire Attica prison population to do whatever they wanted to do to me, weren’t you? You told them to keep me outta your jail cell, to keep me in the infirmary, didn’t you, you fuckhead? You made me have to live with this face and those memories every day of my life since I had the miserable luck to be put in the same cell with you, you cocksucking bastard. Isn’t that so? Still don’t remember any a that, pissface?”

“No.”

“You lie like a fuckin’ rug.”

“I’m telling you I haven’t the faintest idea who you are. And if you don’t lea—”

“You thought I died, didn’t you? Mr. Reverend or whatever the fuck you are. But as any fool can plainly see, even a stoop like you, I didn’t die, did I? Fooled everyone, including you, isn’t that right? You see, Cleveland Stevie, the fact that I didn’t die back in Attica some sixteen years ago worried that anti-Semitic psycho warden we had. He figured maybe he pushed it a little too far for his own good, having me beaten almost to death like I was, thanks to you. Wanted to keep the incident as quiet as possible. So he announced to the prison population that I was dead. Then in the middle of the night in 1996, the middle of the night so no one would know, the warden had me transferred from the Attica hospital to the Ohio State Penitentiary in Columbus. Our motherfuckin’ warden told the Ohio motherfuckin’ warden another prison might just straighten me out, seein’ how I was a troublemaker. I was some troublemaker, wasn’t I, Stevie. An’ you really believed I died, didn’t you, asshole? But you were wrong because voilà, here I am! Aren’t you happy about that, Cleveland Stevie? If you are, you don’t look it. I don’t think you are.”