“Not all the time. They were just trying to let you know that you all right with them. Dudes don’t extend themselves too often. But when they do, they don’t dig feeling they been chumped off.”

“How come I’m the only one that’s got to be careful about hurting people’s feelings? What about my feelings?”

“What you feel don’t fit into the scheme of this place. And if anybody’s gotta make an adjustment, it’ll have to be you.”

I started hanging out a little bit more. Playing a game of Ping-Pong now and then or watching television. I still kept pretty much to myself, except when I talked to Hardknocks and two other dudes named Cadillac and Shoobbee Doobbee.

Cadillac probably got his name because everything was a big thing with him, especially when he was involved. He had a well-stocked torso with arms and legs for days. When he walked he was a V.I.P. brougham limousine Bogarting its way into two lanes. When negotiating a corner he would slink into a Cleveland lowride going into a wide-ass turn while grinning like the grill on a Fleetwood.

“What you reading?” he asked one day while doubleparked next to my bunk.

“War and Peace.”

“What’s it about?”

“Just about everything.”

“Who wrote it?”

“Tolstoy.”

“He got anything on the ball?”

“A whole lot.”

“What did he do with it?”

“He wrote more books.”

“He was one sad muthafucka then. What about you? Is that what you wanna do, too?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Then you just as sad as he was… You know what happens to cats like that who don’t want no more out a life than understanding? They get an ass-whipping every day of their lives cause that’s where their smarts is at… That’s the sad part cause most people don’t have no understanding at all…

“You know what the trouble with most niggers is? They wanna own a Cadillac instead a bein one! But I want what the Caddy stands for. That’s why I’m in the joint now… I bet with all your understanding, you don’t even know what you want.”

“You’re right. I don’t. But I’d like to find out without being forced into something I don’t want.”

“What’s there to find out? There’s only two kinds of people in the world. Those who do the telling. And those who get told. All you got to do is decide which one you wanna be. And with what you in here for, I figure you should a made up your mind by now. If you don’t speed on people, you the one gonna end up getting peed on.”

“Don’t pay him no mind,” Hardknocks said.

“He’d do better payin me some mind than you with your fair-play bullshit.”

“You run a Coupe de Ville game, Cadillac, but your mind is strictly Pinto material.”