about Mayes, keeping in mind that I’ve already said most of it, he is still one stubborn son of a bitch. You tell him he’s walking into a straight right and he hunches up his shoulders and climbs through the ropes into the ring.”
“Where, I assume, he gets hit with a straight right hand,” Riordan said.
“Invariably,” Walker said. “The guy … look, the guy’s job was mandated by that same group of people that you always find reforming the prisons. They’ve never been in a prison in their lives, most of them. They’ve never had any contact with the poor mistreated men and women that they want to save for Jesus, or for happy, productive lives in the community. It doesn’t matter what the justification is. They are doing good, and they don’t give a good goddamn what the facts might happen to be. All a guy needs to do is make two or three speeches to those groups about how he found the Lord and was reborn while he was doing time, and they start to swoon with the joy of it all. They never even stop to think about how the guy got all that time to find his Saviour. Ahhh, it makes me sick.
“You put Mayes in front of one of those groups,” Walker said, “and he comes on like an admiral at the budget hearingsof the House Armed Services Committee. He has got charts and he has got graphs. He has got plastic overlays and sheets of statistics. He has two or three pet trusties that he brings with him and they do everything but cartwheels and handsprings for the crowd while Mayes tells about the structural dynamic of the rehabilitative environment, and how fine and inspiring the results of his programs have been. You get him in front of sixty ladies at the Acton Town Hall, the Rotary Club in Boxborough, or some legislative committee, and those folks can barely contain themselves when they see that their tax dollars are really being used to reclaim these unfortunate men, these victims of society, from a life of crime. They think he’s great.”
“Does he really believe all that shit that comes pouring out of him?” Riordan said.
“Sure,” Walker said, “That’s why he got so mad when you started needling him. And if he didn’t believe it before he started going around and wowing the innocents, the reception he’s gotten from them’d be enough to’ve convinced him by now. He’s on Channel Two and he’s a
Globe
profile and he does daytime talk shows on the radio—no night shows, though, because he got some rough handling when he started giving his spiel to the guys coming off the night shift driving cabs, or working down at the shipyard. Mayes doesn’t like disrespect. He’s not used to it. And since he’s got a statutory appointment and the Governor loves his Commissioner of Corrections that’s another dreamer, he’ll probably never have to get used to it.”
“He’ll have to stay away from me to avoid it,” Riordan said. “My God, what a shithead.”
Walker laughed. “Ah, Pete,” he said, “the guy drives
me
nuts, but that’s to be expected, because I’ve been at this line of work for twenty-five years. Naturally I get pissed off when somebody like him comes along and tells me I’ve been doingeverything all wrong. But I’m an antique. You’re not. Your age, you should be taking his side. You’re a throwback.
“See, what I have to keep remembering,” Walker said, “is that my way wasn’t very successful either. We had riots when I was just starting out and the weather got hot. We had fights with shivs in the chow line—they were over moonshine then, not pills and heroin, but the result was the same: A guy we had in our custody got killed by another guy we had in our custody. When Mayes starts preaching to me, I just sit there and listen as politely as I can, because if I start arguing with him, he can always ask me why my approach got such lousy results. And I haven’t got an answer for him. So when he starts all that goofy talk about giving the men something to look
“Where, I assume, he gets hit with a straight right hand,” Riordan said.
“Invariably,” Walker said. “The guy … look, the guy’s job was mandated by that same group of people that you always find reforming the prisons. They’ve never been in a prison in their lives, most of them. They’ve never had any contact with the poor mistreated men and women that they want to save for Jesus, or for happy, productive lives in the community. It doesn’t matter what the justification is. They are doing good, and they don’t give a good goddamn what the facts might happen to be. All a guy needs to do is make two or three speeches to those groups about how he found the Lord and was reborn while he was doing time, and they start to swoon with the joy of it all. They never even stop to think about how the guy got all that time to find his Saviour. Ahhh, it makes me sick.
“You put Mayes in front of one of those groups,” Walker said, “and he comes on like an admiral at the budget hearingsof the House Armed Services Committee. He has got charts and he has got graphs. He has got plastic overlays and sheets of statistics. He has two or three pet trusties that he brings with him and they do everything but cartwheels and handsprings for the crowd while Mayes tells about the structural dynamic of the rehabilitative environment, and how fine and inspiring the results of his programs have been. You get him in front of sixty ladies at the Acton Town Hall, the Rotary Club in Boxborough, or some legislative committee, and those folks can barely contain themselves when they see that their tax dollars are really being used to reclaim these unfortunate men, these victims of society, from a life of crime. They think he’s great.”
“Does he really believe all that shit that comes pouring out of him?” Riordan said.
“Sure,” Walker said, “That’s why he got so mad when you started needling him. And if he didn’t believe it before he started going around and wowing the innocents, the reception he’s gotten from them’d be enough to’ve convinced him by now. He’s on Channel Two and he’s a
Globe
profile and he does daytime talk shows on the radio—no night shows, though, because he got some rough handling when he started giving his spiel to the guys coming off the night shift driving cabs, or working down at the shipyard. Mayes doesn’t like disrespect. He’s not used to it. And since he’s got a statutory appointment and the Governor loves his Commissioner of Corrections that’s another dreamer, he’ll probably never have to get used to it.”
“He’ll have to stay away from me to avoid it,” Riordan said. “My God, what a shithead.”
Walker laughed. “Ah, Pete,” he said, “the guy drives
me
nuts, but that’s to be expected, because I’ve been at this line of work for twenty-five years. Naturally I get pissed off when somebody like him comes along and tells me I’ve been doingeverything all wrong. But I’m an antique. You’re not. Your age, you should be taking his side. You’re a throwback.
“See, what I have to keep remembering,” Walker said, “is that my way wasn’t very successful either. We had riots when I was just starting out and the weather got hot. We had fights with shivs in the chow line—they were over moonshine then, not pills and heroin, but the result was the same: A guy we had in our custody got killed by another guy we had in our custody. When Mayes starts preaching to me, I just sit there and listen as politely as I can, because if I start arguing with him, he can always ask me why my approach got such lousy results. And I haven’t got an answer for him. So when he starts all that goofy talk about giving the men something to look
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