Three Balconies Read Online Free PDF Page A

having trouble at their hard-core unit, Kahn thought. That’s what hard-core meant, didn’t it. But Kahn
liked the Warden’s frankness. On his own, there was little chance Kahn would have found out about the recalcitrant unit.
    â€œI guess you have to be on your toes every second in a job like this.”
    The Warden snickered. He didn’t spend any time being ingratiating, which Kahn appreciated. He led Kahn to a “transfer station” where prisoners were held temporarily before being shifted to other units. To take one step, you had to wait until a gate slammed shut behind you. Then another one opened. Kahn couldn’t imagine the actual prison being any more secure than the transfer facility.
    â€œI guess that’s when they’re the most dangerous,” he said. “When they’re being shoved around.”
    â€œSomething like that,” said the Warden.
    From his wallet, he took an old folded-up picture of prisoners in a van with iron collars around their necks, one collar linked to the next. “That’s how they used to get moved,” he said, “in Black Nellies.”
    He shook his head in vague amusement at the good old days, then put the picture back in his wallet. It took them awhile to weave their way through the steel puzzle. When the last gate shut behind them, they broke free into the Prison Yard, an immaculately appointed space the size of a football field. In the center stood a dazzling modernistic sculpture, a mythical creature stretching its wings to the sky, hooves struggling in tropical shrubbery, all of it exploding with concrete beauty. Kahn thought he recognized the work as that of Barnet Mandel, a sculptor who had been jailed in his lifetime for his support of extreme left-wing causes. Was Mandel showing his solidarity with the prisoners? Or perhaps with the prison, for being so forward-looking? Either way, it was amazing that Southern board members had allowed it to be there. A hundred or so prisoners stood about in shy clusters of three and four, trying not to look at Kahn and the Warden. They wore almost surgically white uniforms and might have been hospital employees. Kahn was unprepared for such cleanliness. He had assumed
that a prison would have a kind of prison smell, in the way of all public facilities, but this one didn’t.
    â€œDo they wear the same uniforms at Pardee?” he asked.
    â€œThe exact same,” said the Warden.
    In one section of the Yard black inmate wrestlers, naked to the waist, pawed at each other in the dirt like lion cubs. The Warden said they were members of a crack wrestling team that would compete in another part of the state, all proceeds going to recreational facilities for the prison. They had an inordinate number of scars on them – still, Kahn marveled at the shape they were in, also the terrific physical condition of the other inmates. He was in decent shape himself, but for all his efforts, still a little slack around the middle. He saw a few teams of older fellows in great blacksocketed sunglasses go limping by on crutches.
    â€œWhat about them?” he asked.
    The sun tipped against the glassed-off section of the Warden’s face. He said something about threshing machines, but his voice was barely audible.
    â€œIt’s funny,” said Kahn, after inhaling in vain to try to pick up some kind of prison smell, “you can imagine what a prison yard would look like, but you can’t actually get the feel of it till you’re in one.”
    The Warden said nothing. Kahn decided to make no further comments along that line.
    Discreetly salted among the prisoners were almost absurdly young guards. They carried no guns, giving their empty holsters an open-snouted look, like fish gasping for air. The Warden led Kahn up a street ramp to the Prison dining room. It was empty, but the tables were neatly set and covered with cloths so blindingly white that Kahn almost felt he had to turn