the Governor.”
“So you see, Doctor Riordan,” Mayes said, “the best we can do is try to encourage them to rehabilitate themselves by making them see that exemplary behavior, no fights and no attacks on guards, can have some effect on what happens to them, within a time frame that means something to them, one with sufficiently limited, foreshortened parameters within their conceptual grasp.”
“Does he always talk like this, Ken?” Riordan said to Walker. “Do you have to sit through this kind of a performance every time you guys have a conference?”
“Doctor Riordan …” Mayes said.
“No,” Riordan said, “I’m gonna talk for a while now before we all gag on our circumcised parameters and lose our own conceptual grasp. In the first place, I thought this rehabilitation giddiness for maximum security prisoners was something that went out with the Hudson Superjet and the Studebaker. If you think you can rehabilitate a contract killer, he is more than likely smart enough to figure it out. And if he isn’t, his hearing is probably good enough so that when one of his buddies clues him in, he will see that you’ve got light cream in your veins and Cool Whip in your head, mush in your bellyand stars in your eyes. And he will go back and lie down on his bunk, and instead of trying to figure out how he’s gonna get his horn up the ass of that cute little eighteen-year-old bank robber that just got processed in, he is going to start thinking about how he can blow smoke up your ass instead.”
“You concede my point, I take it, Doctor Riordan,” Mayes said, smiling. “Homosexual rape is one of our biggest concerns in this institution. Of course we want to reduce it. This program isn’t intended to prevent it entirely. Nothing can do that. But it’s an ameliorative palliative for a very problematical situation, and to the extent that it does that, it is at least a qualified success. That’s why we implemented it, and we are very encouraged by that result as well as a good many others. It is rehabilitative.”
“It’s bribery,” Riordan said. “Call things by their right names, will you, for Christ sake? You’re telling these lifers that they’ll do at least fifteen unless they kiss your ass. But, if they’ll be good little boys, with good table manners, eat all their porridge, and promise never, never, to do anything naughty again, you will let them go out and play in seven years or so. You think these guys with long bits to do’re calling this little song and dance ‘rehabilitation’? Is that really what you think? They’re calling you a pushover, which you are, and they are losing any respect they might’ve had for authority. Which was damned little to start with or they wouldn’t be in here, and you’re waltzing around in the parameters of your little dream world, pretending you’re converting sinners. Hogwash.”
Mayes stood up, his face red and his jaw muscles working. Dietz, hurriedly taking the bulldog pipe out of the ashtray as Riordan stubbed his butt into it, stood up a split second later. “I don’t have to tolerate this, Kenneth,” he said to Walker. “If this is the sort of cooperation we can expect from the federal authorities, I for one am going to recommend that we terminate their privileges.”
“What’re you going to do to me, Doctor Mayes,” Riordan said in a whining voice, “put me back doing hard labor? Or is it that I can’t have any pudding for the next week and my allowance is cut off? Please sir, please, I didn’t mean no harm.”
“Okay, okay,” Walker said, “I’ll talk to you and Oscar later. Now just let’s everybody calm down.”
“Kenneth …” Dietz said.
Walker held up his left hand. “Later, Oscar,” he said, “later.” Mayes and Dietz left the room. “Well,” Walker said, leaning forward, “I can’t say I didn’t expect it, and after Oscar, I assume, warned him, I told him what’d probably happen. But you say what you want
“So you see, Doctor Riordan,” Mayes said, “the best we can do is try to encourage them to rehabilitate themselves by making them see that exemplary behavior, no fights and no attacks on guards, can have some effect on what happens to them, within a time frame that means something to them, one with sufficiently limited, foreshortened parameters within their conceptual grasp.”
“Does he always talk like this, Ken?” Riordan said to Walker. “Do you have to sit through this kind of a performance every time you guys have a conference?”
“Doctor Riordan …” Mayes said.
“No,” Riordan said, “I’m gonna talk for a while now before we all gag on our circumcised parameters and lose our own conceptual grasp. In the first place, I thought this rehabilitation giddiness for maximum security prisoners was something that went out with the Hudson Superjet and the Studebaker. If you think you can rehabilitate a contract killer, he is more than likely smart enough to figure it out. And if he isn’t, his hearing is probably good enough so that when one of his buddies clues him in, he will see that you’ve got light cream in your veins and Cool Whip in your head, mush in your bellyand stars in your eyes. And he will go back and lie down on his bunk, and instead of trying to figure out how he’s gonna get his horn up the ass of that cute little eighteen-year-old bank robber that just got processed in, he is going to start thinking about how he can blow smoke up your ass instead.”
“You concede my point, I take it, Doctor Riordan,” Mayes said, smiling. “Homosexual rape is one of our biggest concerns in this institution. Of course we want to reduce it. This program isn’t intended to prevent it entirely. Nothing can do that. But it’s an ameliorative palliative for a very problematical situation, and to the extent that it does that, it is at least a qualified success. That’s why we implemented it, and we are very encouraged by that result as well as a good many others. It is rehabilitative.”
“It’s bribery,” Riordan said. “Call things by their right names, will you, for Christ sake? You’re telling these lifers that they’ll do at least fifteen unless they kiss your ass. But, if they’ll be good little boys, with good table manners, eat all their porridge, and promise never, never, to do anything naughty again, you will let them go out and play in seven years or so. You think these guys with long bits to do’re calling this little song and dance ‘rehabilitation’? Is that really what you think? They’re calling you a pushover, which you are, and they are losing any respect they might’ve had for authority. Which was damned little to start with or they wouldn’t be in here, and you’re waltzing around in the parameters of your little dream world, pretending you’re converting sinners. Hogwash.”
Mayes stood up, his face red and his jaw muscles working. Dietz, hurriedly taking the bulldog pipe out of the ashtray as Riordan stubbed his butt into it, stood up a split second later. “I don’t have to tolerate this, Kenneth,” he said to Walker. “If this is the sort of cooperation we can expect from the federal authorities, I for one am going to recommend that we terminate their privileges.”
“What’re you going to do to me, Doctor Mayes,” Riordan said in a whining voice, “put me back doing hard labor? Or is it that I can’t have any pudding for the next week and my allowance is cut off? Please sir, please, I didn’t mean no harm.”
“Okay, okay,” Walker said, “I’ll talk to you and Oscar later. Now just let’s everybody calm down.”
“Kenneth …” Dietz said.
Walker held up his left hand. “Later, Oscar,” he said, “later.” Mayes and Dietz left the room. “Well,” Walker said, leaning forward, “I can’t say I didn’t expect it, and after Oscar, I assume, warned him, I told him what’d probably happen. But you say what you want
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