By Hunter Perez
The next three weeks swirled into a prolonged magic show, with yours truly as the unlikely Pygmalion and Merrifield as an even more unlikely Galatea. Patterson brought us a huge box full of goodies that he purchased in Monroeville: books, newspapers, magazines, a black-and-white board for chess and checkers, a pack of playing cards, and several notebooks and pencils. Everything I requested was included except for the requested harmonicas, which Holmgren nixed. But even without the opportunity for harmonica interludes, each day was filled with so much activity that there rarely a wasted minute.
We started the morning with exercising. I tried to vary the exercises to prevent the boredom and a repetition of routines. Merrifield took it upon himself to invent a new exercise by lifting and lowering the bed. Unfortunately, he was caught doing that when Patterson arrived one morning with our breakfast – the guard scolded him gently for mishandling prison property and scolded me more harshly for encouraging such shenanigans.
