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Clampdown Not close friends, we’ve shot pool and argued politics across a nacho plate, abstractly. Now the state is making him a quick example: out of school and into prison. Soon. The sentences come down in mandatory order and he is just the sort of guy who stays to be found guilty. “How ya doin’?” sounds dumb in such dim light: the nicotine-hazed gleam of lightbulbs, pitchers, beer, wiped glasses. One fact clear. Not even the judge can free him. Still, trying to be polite, I ask him how he is. Our handshake doesn’t fall. His fingers finger mine— each knuckle, nailbed, line— as if he might recall a girl’s hand feels like this. 14 HadawayRevisedPages 8/15/06 3:09 PM Page 14 ...

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