Hocus Pocus

by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

WHEN WE TALKED at the prison, he had a running joke that was the assumption that we came from different planets. The prison was all there was to his planet, and I had come in a flying saucer from one that was much bigger and wiser. This enabled him to comment ironically on the only sexual activities possible inside the walls. “You have little babies on your planet?” he asked. “Yes, we have little babies,” I said. “We got people here trying to have babies every which way,” he said, “but they never get babies. What do you think they’re doing wrong?” HE WAS THE first convict I heard use the expression “the PB.” He told me that sometimes he wished he had “the PB.” I thought he meant “TB,” short for “tuberculosis,” another common affliction at the prison—common enough that I have it now. It turned out that “PB” was short for “Parole Board,” which is what the convicts called AIDS.