Word: wardener
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...each inmate is branded according to his place on this ladder. Either you're a "politician," which means you've got an in with the warden's office, or you have a "rep," which means people respect you because you wouldn't blink at busting a guy's head open. Or else you're a stoolie. And that means you better be getting a lot of protection from the wardens and the "screws," because with just a moment's diversion an enemy could split your skull and spill your brains with the edge of a metal toilet seat...
...prison life. But the play is really about the exigencies of power relations inside "the joint." Homosexuality, in Herbert's imaginary cellblock, just happens to represent the medium of influence. So when Queenie, one of the cellmates, throws his head back effeminately and announces, "The General (meaning the warden) has had me all over his carpet," he means more than the physical act--he is also implying that he pulls political strings. And when Smitty, a new inmate, arrives, Rocky's way of intimidating him as a political protege is to force him to surrender in the shower...
...yards to Gilmore's right, behind a green line, were 20 people; four were the convict's invited guests: his uncle Vern Damico; his two lawyers, Robert Moody and Ronald Stanger; and Lawrence Schiller, a West Coast promoter who owns the rights to Gilmore's story. Warden Sam Smith invited them to say farewell, and then read to him the court's sentence of death for the murder of a young motel manager. Gilmore peered around the cold, harshly lit room, stared at the warden for a moment and finally said...
With that, the warden made a slight motion with his left hand, and a rifle volley shattered the silence. "Bang! Bang! Bang! Three noises," Witness Schiller reported later. Actually, four bullets tore into Gilmore's heart, twisting his body, which then turned limp. Blood slowly poured out, staining the bullet-pocked chair. Two minutes later, at 8:07 a.m. on Jan. 17, Gary Gilmore was declared dead. He was the first prisoner to be executed in the U.S. since 1967. After a series of unsuccessful appeals that lasted until the very morning of the execution, what the warden called...
Then the cavalry arrived. Through a state official, Reporter Larry Green of the Chicago Daily News (circ. 374,000) learned of the Observer's predicament and got his own paper's approval to combine forces on the story. Green, 35, and another News reporter. Rob Warden, 36, started probing this month. Local lips unbuttoned. Says Hettinger: "The Daily News had enough clout that people opened up like Niagara Falls...