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.

That same passion which saved Fonny got him into trouble, and put him in jail. For, you see, he had found his centre, his own centre, inside him: and it showed. He wasn’t anybody’s nigger. And that’s a crime, in this fucking free country. You’re supposed to be somebody’s nigger. And if you’re nobody’s nigger, you’re a bad nigger: and that’s what the cops decided when Fonny moved downtown.

‘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.’

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.

college boys carrying attaché cases, busy, busy, busy, doing much. Torturers, doing much. Bishops, priests, and preachers, doing much. Statesmen, doing more. These captive men are the hidden price for a hidden and dreadful terror: the righteous must be able to locate the damned. To do much is to have the power and the necessity to dictate to the damned. But that, thinks Fonny, works both ways. You’re in or you’re out. Okay. I see. Motherfuckers. You won’t hang me.