“The two girls were sitting in the hall one night, talking about how they didn’t have jobs or money. I felt sorry for them. I’m a sucker, I guess. So I told them if they would pass out some bumper stickers for me, I would pay them a salary. They got half of the bumper stickers passed out. I paid them.

“Four days later, they disappeared in the afternoon. They wanted to get smashed. They went over to the state liquor store and bought a bottle of rum.

“I was restricted to the unit. I could leave only if I was escorted by a staff member or by another patient who signed out for a walk, if he’d let me go with him. Okay, Gus Holston and I went outside. Katherine timed it. She said we weren’t outside more than nine or ten minutes. We went out and walked around the building. When we went out there, I was uncomfortable because I was outside. I was defused at the time.”

“Who walked out?” the writer asked.

“It was Danny. Holston was kind of apprehensive at this point—he didn’t know what to make of me. He didn’t know what my problem was. As we were walking around the building, we heard the girls back there scream out to Gus and, well, they called me ‘Billy. ’ When they got up to us, they were very, very intoxicated. One had—I think it was—a bottle of Pepsi. It looked clearer than usual, so it must have been cut. We could smell booze all over them.”

The Teacher described how one of the girls, realizing he was Danny and not Billy, leaned close to Gus and said, “Take the nuisance back up and come join us.”

Gus told them he couldn’t, but before he and Danny could pull away, one of the girls threw up all over Gus’s shirt, and some of it got on Danny’s trouser leg.

Danny jumped back, nauseated, and covered his face with his hands. Gus shouted at the girls, cursing them. He and Danny turned and headed back toward the building. The girls followed behind them a short way, giggling and cursing them, then headed up the brick road toward the cemetery.

That was all there was to it, the Teacher said. He couldn’t be sure about Holston, but he, himself, had never touched either of the girls.

The eight days in Lima had been hell, he said. “I’ll write down some of the things that happened to me here. I’ll send them to you.”

When the visit was over, the Teacher went through the metal detector to be checked for contraband or anything the visitors might have brought in. He turned to the writer and waved good-by. “I’ll see you at the end of November, at my next review hearing. But in the meantime, I’ll write to you.”

The writer tried to make an appointment to speak with Dr. Lindner, but the response on the phone was hostile: “I believe it’s not therapeutically desirable for him to have all this publicity. ”