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tell you last time was that I didn’t do anything they say. None of it is true. One of the cops said I was the kind who hangs around school yards, so that part’s true. I did. Sit down on the other bunk and I’ll explain.
    It isn’t that I want to make love with little girls like they say. I never, ever wanted that. I will tell you the truth, and if you want me to swear on that prayer book I’ll do it. I have never wanted sex with anybody I’ve ever seen. Not little girls, or boys either. And not women, or not very much. Not with men. Just thinking about it makes me sick.
    I was sick a lot when I was a kid. I had a delicate stomach is what the doctor and everybody said. Everything I ate made me sick. It tasted awful, too. There was this nice girl next door. Her name was Nancy. She felt sorry for me, so she gave me a little piece of her chocolate bar one time. She said how good it was and how much I’d like it.
    Well, I wanted to make her happy, so I made myself eat it. It smelled horrible and tasted the same way, and you know what chocolate looks like. But I got it down just the same and told her how good it was. I was still puking that night a long time after Bradley went to bed.
    Him? Oh, he was my foster father back then. I grew up in foster homes. There were three or four, maybe five, because nobody really wanted me ever, and I guess I ought to have told you.
    No, I never knew my real mom, or my dad either. Some garbage man found me in a trash can-
    Sorry my laugh bothers you, Father, but I can’t help laughing every time I think about it. It is just so funny. I’ve seen the old TV news. The library helped me look them up. They are nice like that.
    No, not even that old. I was premature, and my mother just threw me away, whoever she was. They never did find her, only a policeman-this was another policeman, an old guy-told me one time that they thought it was this one girl who’d hung herself a couple days before they found me. That’s what they thought because her body looked like she’d just had a kid, only the doctors said I couldn’t have lived that long without being fed and kept warm.
    Only I’m never cold. Are you, Father? How does it feel?
    I’ve picked up pieces of ice and even put them in my shirt in the winter. It doesn’t bother me. You know what does, Father? Wearing a shirt. Wearing anything. Can I take mine off?
    Thanks. Yes, I’m hairy, and I suppose that helps.
    Oh, yes. I hate hot weather. You know what I really like? I like winter nights, those cold, clear nights when the stars shine and shine, and there’s frost everywhere.
    Or snow. Snow is good. That’s when I pray.
    Sure I believe in God, Father. For me, God is the moon.
    Wait!
    I know all that. He’s not really the moon, and it’s just a sort of island up in the sky. People have been up there. You know that crucifix you’re holding up is just wood and metal, but it
means
God to you. That’s how the moon is to me. God hung the moon, and since I can’t see Him I pray to Him there.
    Sure. Ask me anything you want. What do you want to ask me about?
    Here? In jail? Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t eat anything much, which I guess is why they told you I was on a hunger strike.
    No way! I am not. Give me something that won’t make me sick and just watch me eat! Only the food in here is like what they had in the cafeteria at school. It’s just garbage. Some of it might have been good meat when they got it, but they ruin it on purpose.
    So what I would do back then was go to a little café I knew about where they’d bring me what I asked for. It was pretty bad, sure, but I could eat it and not puke it up. That way I did not starve. When I was older and had more money, I would just buy meat at the butcher’s and eat it. Sometimes I was so hungry I would open the package there in the store. He didn’t like it, but I was a good customer. Later I used to snack on the job. You get a nibble here and a nibble there, and if you keep