Chapter Five
On his second day at Nickel, Elwood meets Turner, who warns him about the short lives of inmates and urges him to stop being eager. The boys rise to a bugle call, endure a two‑minute communal shower with frigid, sulphur‑smelling water, and line up for attendance. Elwood hides his horror while acting indifferent. Desmond, Elwood’s bunk‑mate, explains the Grub points system and walks him to the dining hall, where Elwood is rebuffed by older boys and then a younger table that refuses him a seat. He sits at a separate table and is mocked by a boy with a notched ear, who introduces himself as Turner. Turner’s three cronies—Griff, a hulking “brown bear” whose father is on a chain gang, Lonnie with a bulldog face and a shaved scalp, and Black Mike, a wiry youth—dominate the mess hall table, teasing Elwood.
After breakfast, Desmond escorts Elwood to the colored schoolhouse, explaining that academic grades are irrelevant; merits, work, and compliance determine advancement toward Pioneer status. The schoolhouse is cramped, with elementary‑level posters, and the teacher, Mr. Goodall, is a pink‑skinned, distracted man who barely teaches. The class is rowdy; Griff’s gang plays cards, and boys read childish comics. Elwood politely asks Goodall about advanced classes, receiving a vague promise to speak to the director.
Later, house father Blakeley pulls Elwood into the yard crew. Elwood joins five other boys, led by Jaimie—a thin, mixed‑race boy who is repeatedly shifted between the white and colored camps. While working, they see the campus layout: colored dorms, a laundry building, and the white facilities across the hill, including the director’s red building with an American flag. Their route passes Boot Hill, the historic graveyard enclosed by rough stones, which the boys avoid. They pass a dilapidated storage shed and a lone tractor pulling a trailer of students.
Back in the dorm, Elwood spends time in the rec room, browsing cards, games, and moldy comics. Blakeley introduces him to Carter, a strict black houseman. Half the housemen are black, half white; Desmond explains that discipline is a coin toss. The colored floor’s captain, Birdy—a light‑skinned boy with gold curls—patrols with a clipboard. An air horn sounds from the hill. That night, Elwood is knocked unconscious in the bathroom by Black Mike after intervening in a bullying of a younger boy named Corey. A white houseman, Phil, arrives, questions the commotion, and tells the boys that Mr. Spencer will handle it, then orders them to dinner.