Boss asked if my name was John Coffey.I confirmed that my name was like the drink only not spelled the same way.Boss asked me if I could spell, read and write.I said serenely that I could read just my name.I sighed, then gave him a short version of my set speech. I'd already decided he wasn't going to be any trouble. In that I was both right and wrong.Boss said that my name was Paul Edgecombe. Boss said that I was the E Block super — the head screw. Boss said that if I wanted something from him, I had to ask for him by name and If he was not there, I had to ask that other, man — his name was Harry Terwilliger, or I had to ask for Mr. Stanton or Mr. Howell. Boss asked me if I understood that.Coffey nodded.Boss said that I didn't expect to get what I wanted unless they decided it was what I needed. He said that was not a hotel. He asked me if I understood that.I nodded again.Boss said that it was a quiet place — not like the rest of the prison. It was just me and Delacroix over there. He said that I wouldn’t work; mostly I would just sit. He said that they gave me a chance to think things over. I thought that it was too much time for most of us, but I didn't say that.Boss said that Sometimes they played the radio, if all was in order. He asked me if I liked the radio.He nodded, but doubtfully, as if he wasn't sure what the radio was. I later found out that was true, in a way; Coffey knew things when he encountered them again, but in between he forgot. He knew the characters on Our Gal Sunday, but had only the haziest memory of what they'd been up to the last time.Boss said that if he behaved well, he would eat on time, you would never see the solitary cell down at the far end, or had to wear one of those canvas coats that buttoned up the back. Boss said that he would have two hours in the yard afternoons from four until six, except on Saturdays when the rest of the prison population had their flag football games. He said that he would have his visitors on Sunday afternoons, if he had someone who wanted to visit you. He asked hem If he had someone to visit him.He shook his head. He said that he had not.Boss said that his lawyer would visit him.he said that he believed I had not seen the back end of him and that he had been given to him on loan. He asked not to believe that he could find his way up there in the mountains.
