Promptly at 6 a.m., long before Southern California's chill and brooding morning fog begins to lift, a deputy sheriff unbolts the face-high shutter in the solid steel door of the cell and calls to prisoner 4013970. O.J. Simpson arises and is led across the hall for his daily shower. Returning to his cell, he shaves at the stainless-steel sink. A heated kitchen cart is wheeled down the corridor, and through a slot in the door Simpson is handed a breakfast of scrambled eggs, potatoes, two slices of wheat bread and coffee brewed in a stainless-steel kitchen vat so wide it uses a bed sheet for a filter. His only utensil is a plastic spoon.
Soon, Lieut. John Dewyer, head of the legal unit charged with ensuring that the jail observes all lawful provisions, pays a brief visit. "Any problems? Been receiving your mail O.K.?" In a tone more correct than friendly, Simpson says he has no complaints. "And is the bike O.K.?" Dewyer asks, referring to an Exercycle that has been made available to his prisoner. "Yeah, it's great," says Simpson with some animation. As on all such occasions, "the case" remains scrupulously unmentioned.
During the past two weeks, while his preliminary hearing was in progress, Simpson left the jail at 8:15 on most mornings. After exchanging his dark blue, loose-fitting inmate outfit with LA COUNTY JAIL stenciled on the back for his street clothes, he was escorted into the back seat of a black-and- white sheriff's van with tinted windows, bound for the criminal-courts building three-quarters of a mile away. Following close behind was an unmarked Chevy Caprice chase car with two armed plainclothesmen.
Now, however, as Simpson awaits his arraignment, he faces long, tedious days in his cell, a beige, windowless room measuring 9 ft. by 7 ft. and furnished only with an iron bunk and a stainless-steel toilet next to a sink. A cardboard box on the floor, containing papers and letters, and the odd apple or orange complete the decor. As a protective-custody inmate, Simpson is denied access to mess halls, rooftop exercise areas or even the chapel. His only breaks are two hour-long periods of activity in the "freeway" of the corridor. There he can use the public phone, watch TV on a mobile stand and exercise on the bike. Sometimes he talks on the phone and pedals the bike at the same time.
"Over the years we've housed Sirhan-Sirhan, the Manson family, major organized-crime figures, the individuals involved in the Reginald Denny case and numerous other people with celebrity status," says Sheriff Sherman Block, Simpson's chief jailer, "but I've never seen anything like this. Behind the courthouse this morning I couldn't believe what I saw in the way of electronic-media equipment. You could probably cook a huge steak with all the microwaves there -- or become sterile."