The Imam Rasheed Jamal was a student not only of Islam but also of every illegal activity from bank robbery to big-time dope peddling to murder. His professors were his fellow Attica inmates. He was a quick learner and became if not a hardened criminal, then certainly a cunning and dangerous one. He served his ten years in Attica carefully avoiding any major incidents.

Bobby “Ears” Leventhal was born in South Philadelphia on Fourth and Shunk streets. (Is there a more revolting street name than Shunk?) Bobby’s father was a bookie. His mother an ex–heroin addict. His older brother Noah ran away from home when he was seventeen and was never seen or heard from again. Relatives could only guess where he was and what horrors he would cause. They were all secretly pleased he was gone. Bobby’s fourteen-year-old sister Rachel had a face full of zits and was already an easy lay. But it was Bobby, the youngest of the Leventhal children, who was considered the one most likely to become the biggest shandeh of all.

Bobby Leventhal got his nickname Ears in high school. Aside from having ears that were two sizes too big for his head, Bobby Leventhal was able to manipulate the lobe or the outer cartilage or something of his left ear so that it made a loud clacking sound. The clack Leventhal’s ear produced was not unlike the click-clack of those store-bought metal things that look like frogs, the things little kids click endlessly with their thumbs and forefingers, annoying the hell out of adults. Young Bobby was someone who, no matter how hard he tried not to, always got on your nerves. Big-time.

One afternoon, during an excruciatingly boring high school English class taught by a strict disciplinarian named Miss Nellie Hiss, Bobby Leventhal clicked his earlobe, or whatever the hell he clicked, several times. That day Bobby’s ear made the click-clack sound louder than usual. Miss Nellie, which she preferred rather than Miss Hiss, asked who had brought the heinous frog clicker into class. Practically everyone pointed a finger to the back of the room where Leventhal sat. He was summoned to Miss Nellie’s desk.

“Give me that heinous clicker right now, Robert,” demanded the English teacher.

“I ain’t got a clicker,” replied sixteen-year-old Leventhal.

“Don’t you ever use the word ‘ain’t’ again in my classroom, Robert, do you hear? This is an English class. Speak English, for God’s sake. And give me that clicker immediately or it’s off to the principal’s office with you.”

“I ain’t…I don’t have a clicker, Miss Nellie,” he repeated. “It’s my ear.”

“Do not lie, Robert. Do not compound the felony you’ve already committed with lies,” said Miss Nellie, who came from a family of New York cops. “Give me the clicker and you will be sent to the principal’s office for only one felony: simple disobedience. If you don’t give me the clicker I will send you to the principal for three felonies: disobedience, lying, and ungentlemanly deportment. Now give me the clicker.”