Zeitoun: Part 4: Thursday September 8 Summary & Analysis

Zeitoun wakes to screams and curses, as guards are shooting the pepper spray through the fencing, so that it spreads to all the prisoners. The splinter in Zeitoun’s foot is now infected and he can’t put any weight on it. He only needs a sterile needle or even knife to remove whatever is lodged inside his foot, but no one has anything. That morning, a man in scrubs wearing a stethoscope emerges from the station; Zeitoun calls, “Doctor!” to him, but the man says he’s not a doctor, and keeps walking.

With breakfast (again with bacon) there is also a bottle of Tabasco, which Zeitoun breaks into shards on the cement. With one of them he cuts the swollen area of his foot and pries out a metal sliver, immediately feeling relief.

That afternoon the guards switch from pepper-spraying to using a beanbag gun on prisoners. Meanwhile, Jerry keeps trying to engage Zeitoun and Nasser, asking them about Syria, their careers, their visits home. Zeitoun is increasingly unsettled. Later Todd would insist that Jerry was a spy meant to glean information. Zeitoun thinks he must have been very dedicated, to eat outside and sleep in the cage with the inmates. That night Zeitoun has a new pain in his side, which prevents him from sleeping yet again.