It seemed to the Intern that no one in the tour-group wished to acknowledge the wounded inmate, nor even the other inmates. The Lieutenant called out a greeting to his fellow COs who saluted him with deadpan protocol-"Sir!"

Where the COs and the inmates had come from at this time and where they were going wasn't explained. The Intern was made to feel, as the others surely felt, how easily it could happen that inmates might break loose from their captors, for there were so many more inmates than corrections officers . . .

Probably, the inmates were kitchen-workers. They were headed for the kitchen to prepare for the massive upcoming lunch.

The Lieutenant was saying, "Most people are curious about how we feed two thousand six hundred sixty-eight inmates in general population-maximum security-three times a day. Well-it ain't easy! First, a bell goes and they're marched out of their cell blocks into the dining hall and along the walls-there, and there-and through the cafeteria line, get their trays and food, return to the dining hall here, and sit. And I mean sit in their designated places, only. If they sit at some table not designated for them there's the danger of retaliation-like, their throat cut. Anybody fucks around-(excuse me, ladies)-he's stripped and tossed into solitary. Twenty minutes in and out-a bell goes-they're marched back to their cells. It's like cattle through a chute-they're going in one direction, one at a time. And the food ain't bad, either-the inmates are damn hungry, the way they eat."

Though the vast dining halls were empty it wasn't difficult to envision prisoners crammed together at the tables, and to hear their muffled, surging voices, the clatter of plates and cutlery. It wasn't difficult to imagine an intensification of smells-food, spillage, unwashed flesh, intestinal gases. It was not difficult to sense the prisoners' desperation, and the danger in that desperation.

From somewhere in the building, possibly from the kitchen area at the rear, into which the inmates and COs had disappeared, there came a sound of raised voices, a door shut hard, clanging pot-lids. The Intern felt uneasy, apprehensive; a touch of panic, that inmates would swarm into the dining room, their voices booming, echoing. Yet the Lieutenant continued his maddeningly matter-of-fact speech, a kind of harangue-making some point about "mass-food."

"Folks! Two volunteers are needed."

The Lieutenant snapped his fingers. At the signal a kitchen-worker inmate, a smiling young black man in a hairnet, long-sleeved blue T-shirt, blue pants with P R I S O N E R in white on the right leg, appeared with a tray of "sample food" on a platter: something breaded and nubby-chicken nuggets?-a small slab of grayish-fatty meat, mashed potatoes and gravy; a burrito, French fries; melted "American cheese" sandwich, a jelly-glaze donut.

"You must all be hungry," the Lieutenant said, teasing, to the tour-group. "Lunch is yet far off. So-volunteers?"

So swiftly the sample-food had appeared, obviously this was a part of the tour. Between the Lieutenant and the smiling young black man with oily-kinky hair flattened by a hairnet there passed a sidelong glance of complicity.

"Yo, Harman? You fix up a pretty-good samplin' for us, for today?"

"Yessir sure has. Yessir Loo-t'nent."

The Lieutenant spoke with excruciating comic-condescension. Yet, Harman seemed to mind not at all and fell in immediately with the banter.

No one wanted to come forward. The Intern hoped that the Investigator wouldn't glance over at her, to signal her.

At last, two of the younger visitors-both sociology students-a girl with a long swishing ponytail, a young man in a Marlins baseball cap-came forward, with apprehensive smiles.

"Good, good! Thank you! Just a few bites of each! I think you will be favorably impressed by the quality."

The Lieutenant-smirking, or sincere-seated the volunteers in front of the tray. Slowly and self-consciously they began to eat.

The girl ate chicken nuggets with her fingers, the young man speared a piece of "beef-steak" and ate. Mashed potatoes and gravy, fries-burrito . . . The volunteers bravely chewed, swallowed. "Not bad, eh? Compliments to the chef?" The Lieutenant laughed.

Like a watchful parent he stood over the volunteers seeing that they sampled a bit of everything. It seemed to the Intern that the girl-student was beginning to look sick, and the boy-student's jaws were grinding with grim tenacity.

The Intern knew enough of what kitchen-conditions might be in an institution like this, to feel a shudder of dread at the prospect of eating such food. The Investigator would know, too. Of course. She didn't dare glance in his direction. Toxic bacteria breeding, invisibly swarming as in a petri dish . . .

What a joke, those admonitions in restaurant restrooms-Employees are required to wash their hands thoroughly with soap and water before returning to work. How much more ironic, in this maximum-security prison.

The Lieutenant was answering less painfully clinical questions from visitors about food preparation at Orion. "Well, see-as you'd expect-ninety-three percent of the prison services are provided by inmates. Couldn't afford the luxury of 'incarceration' otherwise."

The volunteers were eating more slowly. More slowly chewing, and swallowing. With a wink of merriment the Lieutenant said, "Not bad, eh? Compliments to Harman-yo, here-he the chef."

The black boy in the hairnet laughed showing a flash of teeth.

The ponytail girl smiled faintly. The young man in the Marlins cap wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand.

"See, if you're hungry, you eat. If you ain't eating, then you ain't hungry. Law of nature."

The Lieutenant offered the other visitors the remains of the prison-food sample. When no one accepted he picked up a chicken nugget-turned it in his fingers but with a mysterious chuckle decided not to pop it into his mouth.

"Harman-yo. You turnin' into a real pro, once you get outta here you're gonna cut some swath through South Beach, yo. Take my word for it, son."

At last, led out of the dining hall. Outside, the Intern drew a deep breath of fresh air.

How badly she wanted to detach herself from the tour-group, and escape back to the entrance. So exhausted, she could have crawled back to the entrance.

Except, the Investigator would be terribly disappointed in her.

Disapproving, disgusted with Sabbath McSwain.

A few yards away oblivious of her. Scribbling notes in his little notebook. The dining-hall episode hadn't bothered the Investigator, much. Or, he'd put it quickly out of his mind.

Next, the Lieutenant led the group on a brisk little hike.

Cell Block C in a fortified stucco building that, to enter, required passing through another checkpoint. The (invisible) ink code on the civilians' wrists was checked in ultraviolet light. The Intern's laminated driver's license issued to Sabbath McSwain was examined closely if to no particular purpose. The sociology professor asked the Lieutenant why they were going through another checkpoint, since they'd already gone through two checkpoints, and the Lieutenant retorted with none of the affability he'd been beaming on his charges for the past ninety minutes or more: "Ma'am, it's how it is. You don't wish to comply, I can find a CO to take you back to the entrance and you can take yourself home with no further ado."

The woman was rebuffed, red-faced. No more flirty exchanges with the Lieutenant, for her!

This was a crazed place, the Intern was beginning to see. You could not fully comprehend the craziness for you saw only surfaces, edges and outlines of things. You saw faces not what was beneath.

The slightest infraction upon another's sense of himself-his pride, his integrity-his power-and you felt the immediate opposition, the leap of madness.

Yet somehow, the Intern wasn't prepared for Cell Block C. After the proximity of the inmate-workers in the furniture-and-license-plate factory who'd seemed oblivious of their civilian visitors and had seemed among themselves friendly, cooperative and non-threatening. And Harman exchanging banter with the white Lieutenant.

As soon as they were ushered out of the checkpoint area and into the squat building housing Cell Block C the Intern sensed the difference. A powerful smell of men's bodies. A sensation of strain as if the very air were viscous, vibrating.

In his mock-affable tone the Lieutenant introduced the tour-group to the cell block officers who glanced at them with barely concealed contempt. Nor did these officers exchange friendly greetings with the Lieutenant who seemed in their company suddenly fatuous, foolish. There was a high din in the air as of a thrum of angry hornets-the first tier of cells seemed to stretch away for as much as a city block, and above it-overhead-a second tier, which you could barely glimpse from the ground. As the Lieutenant spoke to the group about Cell Block C-a "new-recruit cell block mainly"-"before the men are sorted out and their gang affiliations determined"-the Intern became slowly aware of a chilling sight: on a catwalk around the cell block guards were stationed at intervals, holding automatic rifles in the crooks of their arms; the nearest guard, a severe-looking black man, was standing almost directly above the Lieutenant and his gathering of civilians, one foot up on a railing, rifle grasped in his hands as if he were prepared to fire at any moment.

Behind him and prominent on the stucco wall in full view of both tiers of cells was the ominous sign NO WARNING SHOTS.

The Intern wanted to pluck at the Investigator's sleeve, to make sure he'd noticed the guard overhead. The Investigator would have wanted to take pictures of this guard, the Intern was sure.

(But maybe that wouldn't be a prudent idea, to take pictures of the armed COs. If the Investigator was caught violating prison policy, and arrested-what then?) Before they'd come to Orion, the Intern and the Investigator had done a good deal of research into the facility. The degree of "prisoner-on-prisoner" violence-"CO-on-prisoner" violence-unsatisfactorily explained "accidents" resulting in deaths-"suspicious suicides"-was high; though no higher than comparable correctional facilities in the state of Florida, and elsewhere in the United States.

But only in Cell Block C did the Intern feel-a sense of personal helplessness and dismay so powerful, it could not be named . . .

The area in which the civilians were standing ill at ease and self-conscious was cramped. There was no space here for a tour-group. You could see that the Lieutenant was barely tolerated in Cell Block C and his questions, put to his fellow COs for the benefit of the civilians, were met with sullen mumbles. Like several young-woman sociology students the Intern found herself standing only a few yards from three inmates in blue uniforms who were, for some reason, not in their cells but in the aisle, and not handcuffed or shackled together. Two of the inmates were dark-skinned Hispanics and the third, the tallest, had a Caucasian-demon face threaded with broken capillaries and a blunt bald head covered in tattoos; on his bulging biceps, swastika-tattoos, a green-snake tattoo, a bloody little heart impaled upon a dagger. Seeing such a figure you would want to smile-can this be real? The men were staring at the Intern, and past the Intern at the uneasy university students, their faces blank as faces stitched out of leather.

What were these men doing out of their cells? No one thought to explain. The Lieutenant seemed oblivious of them.

Next, the Lieutenant herded his tour-group onto a walkway that spanned the full length of the first-tier block of cells. It seemed to be the Lieutenant's intention to march them, single-file, around the cell block-past the cells, within a very few inches of the cell bars, and the men huddled inside.

"A word of caution, folks! Not just the ladies but gents, too. Try to stay as far to the left as you can, by this railing-do not walk too close to the cells. If one of the inmates reaches out to grab you-could be hard to extricate you from his grip. Got it?"

The Lieutenant chuckled meanly. The Intern was shocked: did the tour-guide think this was amusing? A joke? Was marching his civilian tour-group around the cell block a good idea? The young women students were looking terrified. Their professor was looking terrified. Even the several men who'd tried to affect an air of reasonable calm in the dining hall were looking concerned.

Only the Investigator was unperturbed. Stately-tall, courtly-mannered, with airy-floating white hair and an expression of just-perceptible disapproval, the oldest member of the tour-group took the Lieutenant aside to say: "Don't you think this is a little risky, Lieutenant? Provocative? That the prisoners might get over-aroused? And your visitors endangered?"

"No one is 'endangered'-that's ridiculous. The men are secured in their cells. They can't possibly break out. Don't linger looking into the cells, and don't linger making conversation with them. This is one of the concluding features of our tour through Orion. Everybody agrees afterward, you won't know the 'feel' of a maximum-security prison without the 'march around the block.' "

But the Investigator had nettled the Lieutenant, who felt his authority challenged.

The Intern had sized up the situation with the three inmates outside their cells: they were being marched off, taken away to another part of the prison; though looking like parodies of maximum-security prisoners, it seemed likely that they were being escorted to parole hearings, or had even been granted parole, or had "maxed-out"-for they weren't handcuffed or secured in any way. This was a relief-was it? The Intern had never seen close-up anyone quite like the tattooed Nazi: a member of the notorious Aryan Brotherhood.

When they'd researched the Death Row prisons, the Intern had also looked into the Death Row prisoners and the crimes they'd been convicted of committing.

The Intern had come to realize, as the Investigator had suggested, that, if you were a foe of capital punishment, it was a good idea not to know what condemned prisoners had been convicted of doing to their victims. Good not to temper mercy with too much information.

Despite her anxiety the Intern was clear-minded enough to position herself at the very head of the line. She was small, agile, quick on her feet-no problem to her, to slip past slow-moving others.

Her instinct was to save herself. It was immediate, and primitive. It had nothing to do with conscience, duty, or "good." She knew what was coming now and hoped to escape the worst of the punishment.

The Lieutenant was taking up the rear-he would drive the tour-group forward. But the Intern would walk first, and fast; she would press to the left, against the railing, and would not glance into any of the cells, if she could prevent herself; she didn't wish to provoke any of the inmates, particularly she didn't wish any of the inmates to grasp that she wasn't a slight-bodied young man but a young woman in boy's clothing.

Several of the young-woman sociology students were asking the Lieutenant if they could stay behind but the Lieutenant told them no, absolutely not.

"This is the full-tour of Orion! You signed up for the full-tour! You will not leave Orion without completing the full-tour, girls! Let's begin."

A cruel merriment shone in the pebbly eyes. The Intern thought He hates us. As much as the inmates hate him.

The march began. The Intern, at the head of the line, managed to pass by most of the cells before the inhabitants, crowded inside, realized what the situation was-a tour-group being marched around the cell block by the Lieutenant-and let out howls of excitement and derision particularly directed toward the females.

The Intern strode forward, swiftly. The Intern bit her lower lip.

The Intern thought I am not "female"-not as the others are. These men have no interest in me.

Yet the Intern felt the men lunging at her. The Intern felt the air agitated by their arms thrust through the bars, their outstretched fingers grabbing at her. The Intern could not but hear the obscenities spat from their lips, as more and more inmates caught on that a tour-group was being led past the cells, a phenomenon that must have been familiar to them, and maddening.

Not all the inmates behaved like enraged beasts. The Intern would realize later. Probably less than one-half. Less than one-third. But these others, who held back, or simply stared at the swift-passing procession of frightened civilians, went unremarked.

Savage animals. What would they do, if they could get at us.

At the females, particularly.

God let me get through it. Just a little farther!

It was a cruel lesson. The Lieutenant wanted them to know: the value of prisons, cell-bars. The value of incarceration, punishment.

Putting human beings against human beings. Rousing human beings to a fever-pitch of resentment, fury. Terror.

Particularly, there was sex-hatred here. The women were made to feel how precarious their well-being was, how dependent they were upon the protection of other men, against these beast-men.

It was a crude, cruel and simplistic ruse. The Intern understood, intellectually. Yet the Intern was deeply shaken, and would not soon forget.

(Wondering: where was the Investigator? Was he thinking these same things? Or, being a man, was he less shaken, less terrified? Probably he'd positioned himself at the very rear of the line, just in front of the Lieutenant. Here were the most vulnerable positions, for every inmate in the first-tier of the cell block would be aroused and alerted by the time the Investigator walked past his cell; every inmate was prepared, if he wanted to lunge against the bars, and grab at the civilian.) (The Intern would learn that the Investigator, far from being frightened of the march, had not walked fast passing the cells, but had actually lingered, in front of certain cells, in which there were men who weren't so frantic and furious; older men, in several cases, who'd greeted him as he'd greeted them, cordially. H'lo! How's it going. The Investigator was one to exude calm. Very likely, the Investigator was taking pictures of the cell block, from start to finish. In the noise and commotion, no one would have noticed. No one among the COs would so much have glanced at the white-haired gentleman when so many of the inmates were so wrought-up, so furious with sexual longing and rage, they were throwing themselves against the bars of their cells, thrusting their arms through, stretching out their fingers as if they wanted to grasp, grip, shake and throttle, tear into pieces.) How utterly silent the tour-group civilians were, on their horrible forced march! Holding their breaths, waiting for the ordeal to end.

It was a protracted ordeal: the Lieutenant forced them to march all the way around the cell block, back to where they'd begun. The march could not have lasted more than a few minutes but felt like much longer.

The Intern, eyes lowered. The Intern, breathing through her mouth. The Intern, thinking of Zeno's Paradox: infinity within the finite.

For each step is but a fraction of the total distance. The total distance is somewhere beyond experience.

In Zeno's Paradox you never reach your goal.

In Zeno's Paradox you are in a state of perpetual yearning.

"WELL, FRIENDS! Now you know-the feel of a maximum-security prison."

In the glowering-white March sun they staggered with exhaustion.

Even the Investigator was looking fatigued. Even the Lieutenant, glimpsed in an unguarded moment.

"Time inside is not equivalent to time outside. When a CO comes home to his family after just one day, or night-he's been away a time they can't measure."

The Lieutenant chuckled, grimly.

In gratitude that they could breathe again, the visitors drew deep breaths filling their lungs. The Intern averted a wave of vertigo, shutting her eyes and biting her lower lip.

Yet she was tough, resilient. The Investigator would be impressed with his girl-assistant who hadn't panicked as several of the other young women had panicked, begging to be excluded from the march.

Though crudely treated by the Lieutenant, who'd subjected them not only to a physical ordeal but to a considerable humiliation, the individuals of the tour-group did not seem to resent him. The Intern took note.

Now that they'd left the dreaded Cell Block C they were saying, marveling-what a good idea it is, how worth tax-money, you could not have civilization without it, prisons, punishment, guards with guns to protect you.

"In this direction, my friends, if you've caught your breaths-Death Row."

The Lieutenant led them briskly along one of the coarse-graveled paths. The execution chamber attached to Death Row was the last of the stops of the prison tour.

Another half-hour, maybe. Then freedom!

The college girls were clutching at one another, breathless and laughing. The experience of the cell block had left them dazed, shaken and giddy. One of the girls had been crying and another had comforted her and another was saying O God! Was that-was that horrible . . .

Nightmare . . .

. . . never forget.

But they were out of Cell Block C now. Laughing and gasping for breath like one who has been part-strangled, released and then part-strangled and then released and now grateful simply to breathe, to be alive.

Cynically the Intern thought: they would recall the experience, in the shared giddiness of girls who'd come through a crisis together, as a particular sort of sexual frisson.

In the wake of the Lieutenant they were walking. In the direction of a particularly ugly cinder block building at the farther edge of a compound of buildings beyond which there was open, scrubby land and in the near distance the high electrified fence, the guard-tower stations.

"Don't worry, my friends-we don't visit Death Row. We will visit the execution chamber but not 'Death Row'-you will not come face-to-face with the most evil." The Lieutenant paused as if choosing his words with care though they were surely familiar words many times recited at this point in the tour.

One of the visitors asked why wasn't Death Row part of the tour.