Indigo by Richard Wiley

“What about some kind of bail?”
    But the captain made Jerry step far enough into the cell so that he could close the door. And then everything remained quiet until he went back out of the room again.
    These cells were freestanding, unattached, like cages. Jerry had been placed in the smallest one, but one that contained seven or eight others, all of whom looked at him as if his presence among them were some kind of trick.
    Jerry turned around and put his hands up on the bars, but with his back to the other men he began to feel a little cold. This wasn’t funny. So far as he knew everyone at the school still thought he was at the ministry, negotiating proper visas for the teachers. He turned back around quickly, startling some of his cell mates. This room was darker than the one he’d been in earlier, but now that his eyes were adjusting he could see that the floor ran wet with urine and that in one corner there were even piles of feces, like ant hills. He turned around to face the bars, then back to face the men, then back to face the bars. He had no idea what to do.
    By the time he had been in the holding cell for about five minutes his cell mates began to move. Jerry slid down the bars into a sitting position but as soon as he was seated a hand came to him, touching the edge of his leg.
    â€œOga,” said the man connected to the hand. “What you bring us dis day?”
    Jerry jerked away, frightened, but trying desperately not to show it. He pulled the pockets of his pants out and let them hang, like deflated balloons. “Nothing,” he said. “I have nothing to give.”
    As time went by he understood that each man in the small cell was trying to claim as much space as he could, though nearly all the space had been soiled. There was no camaraderie among these men, and little conversation. An hour passed but Jerry seemed unable to concentrate or think about anything but staying where he was. When six o’clock came the outside door opened and several policemen came in carrying water. Jerry was thirsty, but when a bucket was placed in the center of his cell he stayed away from it, not claiming any of it as his own. He was hungry too but no food came and when the sun went down and the cell grew dark he pulled his legs up under his chin, holding them tight and forcing himself to be still. After more time passed he put his hands against the bars and pushed his crumpled legs out and tried to lie flat, hoping he knew where the dry places were, his feet stretching among the others until they moved, giving him room. He put his hands behind his head and stared up into the darkness.
    Jerry Neal had been in World War II. As an eighteen-year-old he had been on Guam, sleeping with his buddies in the tall grass, terribly worried about the Japanese. There really had been snipers then and he had heard gunfire, so he listened to see what he could hear now. There were thirty men in these three cells and he could hear them breathing and alive. He was too exhausted to worry anymore or to think about what tomorrow might bring and in a while he felt as though he were floating, and he would have slept, as deeply, at least, as he had in the deep grass on Guam, but he was awakened by the sound of movement near him and then by the feeling of that hand again, pushed out and touching him from another world.
    â€œOga, do not fret,” said the hand. “I myself sleep small and will stay nearby. I can warn you should trouble be coming your way.”

    But however long the night, Lawrence Biko, the school’s attorney, was in court the next morning at ten, and by dinnertime Jerry Neal was out of jail and on his way back home. He had been charged with arson in the first degree, but he was free on his own recognizance, a move that got the presiding judge criticized in the press and on the evening television news. Never before had a foreigner been charged with such a public and politically important crime,