The companionship between Perry Smith and Red

The companionship between Perry Smith and Red is a small, sustained bond formed inside the Finney County jail. Perry draws a squirrel into his cell, names him Red, and makes a companion of him; their daily routine gives shape to hours otherwise marked by confinement and boredom.

How Red Entered the Cell

During a snowy month, the branches of an elm brushed the window of the ladies’ cell, where Perry was being held. Squirrels lived in the tree, and for weeks Perry tempted them with leftover breakfast scraps. Eventually he persuaded one to leave a branch, cross the window sill, and pass through the bars into the cell. The squirrel was male, with auburn fur. Perry named him Red, and Red soon settled into the life of the cell, apparently content to share Perry’s captivity.

The companionship began through patient, repeated acts rather than a single dramatic encounter: Perry supplied food, and the squirrel gradually came close enough to enter the barred space. Once inside, Red became a familiar presence in a setting that limited Perry’s movement and access to ordinary distractions.

A Routine Against Confinement

Perry taught Red to play with a paper ball, beg, and perch on his shoulder. The tricks helped pass the time, though they could not fill all the long hours of imprisonment. Perry was not allowed to read newspapers, and he found the old magazines Josephine Meier lent him dull. Red’s company therefore belonged to a broader effort to make the confined day bearable, not a cure for its monotony.

The cell’s routines also show how Perry cared for his surroundings and appearance. He filed and buffed his nails, combed his lotion-soaked hair, and brushed his teeth and shaved frequently; he kept the cell’s toilet, shower stall, cot, chair, and table neat. At the table he ate, drew portraits of Red, sketched flowers and imagined figures, and made diary-like notes on ruled paper. Red was thus not only a companion but also a subject of Perry’s drawings, incorporated into the activities that gave his days structure.

Red in Perry’s Social World

Red remained present when Perry received Don Cullivan for Sunday dinner during a recess in the trial. As Perry prepared the cell for his guest, the squirrel chased the shifting leaf shadows near the barred window. The scene places Red within Perry’s carefully arranged domestic performance: Perry swept and dusted, scrubbed the floor and toilet, cleared the desk to serve as a dining table, and set it with a tablecloth, napkins, china, and silver supplied by Josephine Meier.

Red’s presence makes the cell’s competing realities visible without dissolving them. Perry could offer hospitality and tend a companion in the same confined room where he awaited trial. Elsewhere, watching two cats search parked cars for dead birds, he recognized a resemblance to his own life of searching and getting by. Against that bleak comparison, his patient care for Red offers a modest, concrete routine of companionship; the account shows its value in Perry’s daily life without suggesting that it changed the conditions of his imprisonment.