Politics.

Damien sat next to Whistler, his heavy frame taking the space of 2 men. Damien was not a skinny kid, but even he felt that if the bench wasn’t bolted to the floor Whistler would throw him off when he sat down. Maybe he was closer to 400lbs.

Damien looked around the large cafeteria. Inmates could largely be said to be segregated by skin color. Black inmates sat together, Hispanics sat together, and bald headed neo-nazissat together glaring at everyone else. According to Whistler, the Hispanics didn’t go out of their way to mess with the blacks, but neither did they go out of their way to help them.

“Hey there fishy!” Damien turned. The sentence had been in heavily accented English, the Latino who delivered it a medium sized guy covered in tats.

“Why don’t you come and sit with us eh? Us Latinos have to stick together.”

“I’m not Latino, sorry.”

The Latino stared at him a bit longer.

“Hah! You a goombah?”

“I’m of Italian descent, yes.”

“Hah! You a big muscle type and people call both of us greasers, so you can still hang with us.”

“I’m still getting my bearings around here. I will think about it though.”

“Offer won’t be on the table long goombah. Better make friends before people start to get too friendly eh?”

With that, the Latino walked away.

“Prolly shoulda went with him. Could be worse, the spics aren’t bad people. Well, most of ‘em aren't.