Glass Cell Read Online Free PDF Page B

talks about is his wife’s cooking—apple pies, venison sauerbraten , popovers. Popovers, imagine!” Carter burst out in another laugh, his shoulders shaking, and he saw Hazel laugh, too, almost in her old way, and it transformed her face. “It’s funny because”—Carter wiped tears from his eyes—“because all the other guys talk about how they miss their wives or their girls in bed or something, and he talks about food. He spends all his spare time making ship models or making one ship he’s been on since I got here. It’s four feet long and his cellmate complains because it takes up too much room. He’s just up here.” Carter waved a hand sideways and up to the right, as if Mac’s cell were visible.
    “Time’s up,” said the guard.
    Carter half stood up, his lips apart, staring at Hazel.
    Hazel was already standing up, to leave him. “That’s the first person you’ve told me about here. Tell me more. Write me. See you next Sunday, darling.” She blew him a kiss, turned and went.
    He began the long walk back down the cell block. He had to have another shot before he could sit through twenty minutes with Magran. Near the end of the cell block, he looked left, and at last he came to Mac’s cell. The door was open and Mac sat there on his straight chair, so absorbed in the delicate sanding of his ship’s hull that he did not notice Carter looking at him. The ship was not yet painted, but Mac had made great progress since Carter had last seen it. The rigging looked finished.
    “Hello, Mac,” Carter said. “My name’s Carter.”
    “Oh, hello, hello,” Mac said, cordially but not recognizing him, and turned back to his work. “Got time for a visit?”
    “No. Sorry, I haven’t. Some other time.” Carter walked on. Mac had made some kind of peace with himself, and for that Carter envied him. Mac hadn’t even noticed his bandaged hands, and that was somehow comforting to Carter, too. Mac hadn’t even seen him, Carter thought, only heard his voice.

4
    C arter got his shot from Pete, then sat on one of the wicker chairs at the end of the ward. He was so tense, he could not keep his heels from jittering on the gray linoleum floor. The visit from Hazel had made him realize something terrible, that he had been enduring the past three months in a deliberate fog, in a kind of mental armor that was not after all strong enough. Among the inmates and with Dr. Cassini, he could keep it up. With Hazel, he had been himself for a few minutes. The pain in his thumbs had been the coup de grâce to his morale. He had whined to her, he had shown bitterness and ingratitude. He had been everything a man should not be with his wife.
    He sat back and let the morphine work its miracle. The morphine was attacking the pain, and as usual the morphine was winning the battle—would win for nearly two hours. Then the pain would rally its forces and counterattack the morphine, and it would be the pain’s turn to win. It was another game, futile and unreal, like the prison game. Carter saw it as a series of shocks and a series of efforts at adjusting. The first shock had been stripping naked with a dozen other men who were being admitted to the prison the same day, one with red sores on his back, another with a head wound, still drunk and belligerent, one a scared-faced kid of nineteen or twenty with a shapely, small mouth like a girl’s, a face Carter had puzzled over for an instant, wondering if that was the kind of innocent face that could mask the worst criminal of the lot of them. Then the first meals, the first dreary lights-out and the broken sleep until it was time to get up before dawn, the first nights of cold in December, the night he had stripped off his clothing and pajamas, wet them in the basin, and, while Hanky held a match so he could see, stuffed the clothes into the cracks between the stones at the back of the cell. Hanky had thought it very clever of him to wet the clothes so they would freeze tight, but