The prison they approached reminded Larry, in its fearsomely forbidding Victorian solidity and turreted guard towers of the equally grim New York State prison in Dannemora that he had passed on a camping trip years before. Gates clanged behind them with an unearthly echo as they were ushered into a large hall in which inmates, mostly young and sullen, were placing rows of chairs. A correctional officer motioned for the two visitors to ascend the improvised dais at the front, until the pajandrum put him straight. “He’s just my driver. He can sit down there.” And so it was that Larry sat among the graduates, between a brawny tattooed older man who returned his nod but said nothing, and a nervous fellow his own age who asked him what he was in for. “Insubordination,” he replied, and in clarification, “I didn’t know my place.”
Silence fell as the official fiddled with the microphone, adjusted his glasses, cleared his throat, and surveyed his audience with the lofty condescension meant to be the product of the Olympian heights to which he had now deservingly risen. “I was once like you,” he began. He had their attention. “I once committed a crime.” The hall went deadly silent, awaiting explanation. An axe murder? Extortion? Assault and battery? The pause was theatrical; the audience prepared for a confession. “I forgot to fill in my tax return correctly.” There was a low murmur of disappointed disapproval, but it did not faze the speaker. “I didn’t go to jail for it, but I forgot to include the sixty-thousand-dollar profit I made on the sale of my house-boat.” There was no laughter, no sharp intake of breath. Perhaps this wasn’t a joke, or if so, it was an unappreciated one. “My lawyer got me out of it, but it was touch-and-go. Now I know not to make mistakes. They can cost you. As you now know, or you wouldn’t be here.” The murmur rose to a disapproving rumble among his audience, but he seemed oblivious to it. He continued. “Now, fellas, I have learned from my mistake. That is what education is. Learn from your mistakes. You have been given the chance to learn from yours, by taking advantage of the educational opportunities given to you by our prison system.” His voice rose as he raised his hands as if in an evangelical church. “Education is a valuable commodity. It makes all the difference between a life badly lived and a life lived well! As the famous German thinker Voltaire said, ‘An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.’ The burly man beside Larry leaned over to him. “Nope. That was Ben Franklin. He wasn’t German.” The mandarin continued. “‘The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.’ That was the medieval thinker Thomas Aquinas. It’s hard work, but it’s worth it in the long run. You too can use your education to improve yourselves, as I did.” Arms folded over his big belly, his neighbour muttered to Larry once more. “Wrong again. It was Aristotle said that.” Larry nodded, impressed. Mr. Tattoo was correct. The speech went on for another five minutes or so, but Mr. Evangelist had lost his audience by then. They shifted and murmured until, at last, he stopped and looked at them in triumph, waiting for the obligatory thanks from the prison warden. As the prisoners began to troop out, his tattooed neighbour confided to Larry. “Know what his type is? An ignor-anus! Know what that is? Someone who is both stupid and an asshole. Get it?” Larry smiled his approval.
