He put his fingers to an itch on his chest and was confused by the buttons on his T-shirt until he looked down and saw the denim jacket. He stood before the bowl, then bent over the basin and splashed the cold water on his face and ran it through his hair and scooped it into his mouth and scooped more of it despite its taste of old pennies. When he stood again the man in the adjacent cell was watching him. The man lay on his bunk propped against the concrete wall, his white-stockinged feet crossed at the ankles and his arms crossed over his stomach. He was a skinny dark-skinned man with a skullcap of wiry silver hair. He stared at the boy and said with a graveled throat: “Is there something I can help you with?” “What?” “What?” said the man. The boy held his gaze, the glassy, red-stained eyes. “I said,” said the man, “is there something I can help you with.”
