under the big black sun: a fable
At last in this time toward the end of things Mac is able to view the restricted inner workings of the Police Station. He receives gratification from the general alert which has brought many faces into the deep interior office quarters of the Chief, most he doesn't know because they are suits, but he does recognize from television an associate pastor of the Reverend Sarah's church.
"Hi," he says, in the center of a glaring circle.
Pat had passed briefly in the corridor and nodded as if it were the old days, but he is not in the room now. Mac is asked a few general questions, particulars of his identity. One of the suits is his lawyer he thinks, but they all look kind of the same.
"I'm fine, thanks. How y'all doing?" One of the unknown faces explodes, lunging for Mac, and has to be forcibly restrained by lieutenants. Chairs are picked up and the table straightened. Mac is totally surprised, shaky. What did he do?
The interview is halted and Mac finds himself in another, smaller room. They are friendlier there, fewer in number, uniformed men, including Tim, and they ask if Mac minds being tape recorded. Of course he can refuse to answer questions, if he really wants to. But he doesn't, does he?
The city meanwhile has renamed for the Reverend Sarah the Civic Center expressway, the Louisville-Trenton drawbridge, and a wing of the public hospital. A statue, to face southerly, has been commissioned for the riverwalk. The Reverend's church itself will bear her rubric as well.
Mac is led handcuffed through lime green corridors that are lit the same all hours of the day and night. He notices a distinct line along the walls at waist level, beneath which lies a queasy change in coloration. Most of the cells are open, unlocked, bound by gates at the ends of halls where he must stop, wait, and pass through. He nods, intensely malleable, "Hey, how y'all," but is little remarked. One man lies not in his bunk but in the middle of the corridor, hands over eyes, and they are forced to step around him.
Mac is amazed at the uncanny low twisting of the corridors that allow no overall schematic for the mind's eye. The first thing he will do here is construct a map of his environs from where he has walked, been led—what hall turns where. He will give them each a name. Like streets.
