CS Lewis and the Gangster

March 2, 2011

Dear Anne:

"Volunteer!" shouts the guard.
[10:30am] We stand in line for chow. Garrett forfeits his place in front of me. "That guy is hideously sick. I want to give him all the space he needs." I keep reading Screwtape Letters, raising my eyebrows about the uncle's point to Wormwood that both the avid warhawk and the arden pacifist make easy prey. The guard ejects me at the kitchen. "We're doing bottom tier" and I wander off through the tables recognizing now the inmates on the first floor. Then a guy says "What you know about that?" He has the whole series, he says, and I'm thinking Narnia, the Magician's Nephew, etc. "The Screwtape Letters is probably the best one," he says. "You a reader?" He hands me a set titled The CS Lewis Classic with Miracles, Mere Christianity, A Grief Observed, The Great Divorce, The Screwtape Letters, and The Problem of Pain. "I might look like a gangster," he says, "but I'm a smart gangster."

Chris