But it’s something, when you think about it, how many babies were brought into those places, with rats as big as cats, roaches the size of mice, splinters the size of a man’s finger, and somehow survived it. You don’t want to think about those who didn’t; and, to tell the truth, there’s always something very sad in those who did, or do.

‘Man, I know what you’re saying. And I appreciate it. But you don’t know – the worst thing, man, the worst thing – is that they can make you so fucking scared. Scared, man. Scared.’

‘I don’t know if I was ever any kind of father to him – any kind of real father – and now he’s in jail and it ain’t his fault and I don’t even know how I’m going to get him out. I’m sure one hell of a man.’

They don’t tell us because, if things go wrong, we can’t be accused of being accomplices. We cannot penetrate their silence, we must not try. Each of these men (and these men multiply with every hour) would gladly go to jail, blow away a pig, or blow up a city, to save their progeny from the jaws of this democratic hell.

He is young, very, very young, but also very old; but not old in the way that she had expected him to be. She had expected the age of corruption.