In truth, Father Daniel Patrick Brady had become obsessed with Catholicism. His religion colored his moods. On several occasions the priest would verge on losing his temper—and sometimes did—when the subjects Father Brady heard in his confessional concerned infidelity, divorce, or childbirth out of wedlock. Of these three sins, Father Brady was violently unsympathetic toward unwed mothers.

Father Brady’s attributes, even his occasional loss of composure, were admired by Cardinal Michael Ruffing. Soon Father Brady became the cardinal’s favorite priest. The cardinal admired Father Brady so much that he sacrificed having him work in the office adjacent to his and sent Father Brady to Rome to study Scriptures, canon law, and moral theology.

The word was out. Father Daniel Patrick Brady was a Golden Boy, on the Catholic Church’s fast track.

When Bobby Leventhal entered Attica to serve his sentence, he had matured appreciably since high school. He’d gone from a chubby, nerdy little kid to a chubby, nerdy little man.

In popular prison vernacular, big-eared Bobby Leventhal was “juicy.”

The first day in Attica, while Bobby was being processed, one prisoner said to another, “Man, that little fat white honky’s got hisself some bugger-grips, don’t he? An’ you know what theys good for, don’t ya? Good for blow jobs is what theys good for. You know…somethin’ to grab on to.”

“Yeah, somethin’ to grab on to,” said the prisoner’s buddy, sniggering.

Two hours after entering Attica, Bobby Ears Leventhal was incarcerated in a seven-by-ten-foot jail cell. The cell had two bunk beds, a chair and table, a toilet, one lightbulb in the ceiling that was never turned off, and a cell mate: the huge, muscular, black, anti-Semitic Muslim named Rasheed Jamal. Jamal hated a lot of things, but he hated Jews most of all. It was a grievous mistake of the prison authorities to put the Jew Leventhal in a cell with the vicious anti-Semite Jamal, but they put the harmless Leventhal into his cell anyway.

When Bobby Leventhal met Rasheed Jamal for the first time, he attempted to be light and friendly, but Bobby’s actions didn’t come across that way. They never did, never have. His nervous laughter and nerdy personality gave him a pushy rather than a funny quality. He was the old button pusher. Just like he was in high school. Poor Bobby’s personality got on everybody’s nerves since grammar school.

“So what do I call you, big guy?” he asked, giggling nervously. “Do I call you Your Holiness or Your Highness? Prime Minister? How ’bout Mr. President? Or just plain Rasheed? So what is it?”

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know the imam would look down on Bobby Ears Leventhal with disdain. Even if Leventhal weren’t a button pusher. Jamal despised the Jew on sight. And to be disliked intensely by the imam could cause a basically gentle, plump, and cowardly man like Leventhal infinite sleepless nights.