By Joshua Ryan
The executive lounge is on the top floor of the Freer Building. It’s very comfortable. There’s even a deck outside where you can catch a few rays or look at the stars if you’re working late. It was a good view, but not many people stepped outside to enjoy it. Like Peter said, how much ass can you scope in an industrial park? And at breaks, everybody sort of expected you to keep with your group. There was one guy who stayed in his cube and read, and he was regarded as totally antisocial. I didn’t have enough guts to do that. But I was tired of Peter and his stupid jokes. So I started using the deck.
I knew he’d be watching out of the corner of his eye, so at first I just strolled around, glancing over the railing at this and that. But then I looked for what I really wanted to see. Down below, at the edge of Phase Two, the convicts were moving closer. Already the pile of rocks had come about a third of the way along the fence. The cons in the harnesses pulled the bin across the field, and the cons on the chain pulled out the rocks and laid them in line. Then you could see what looked like guys with hammers, going after the rocks to get them in shape.
“Making little ones out of big ones,” Peter said, on the one day when he surprised me by leaving the group and coming out on the deck. “Same thing that an old queer does when he’s naked.”
