Walking the wheel
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Midnight Express
gkn_88 — 12 years ago(March 19, 2014 09:15 AM)
When Billy was at the at the prison's ward for the criminally insane, what was the deal with walking around that pillar or "walking the wheel" as they called it?
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catch_the_spindrift — 10 years ago(June 01, 2015 11:49 AM)
The real life Billy Hayes answered this question a few years ago. Here is the question and his response:
Q:
Did you really walk the wheel? Why do people walk the wheel? What is meant by walking it in the opposite direction?
A: "Yes I did walk it. This is a house for criminally insane, people that are totally out of their mind. They were all in there for hideous crimes. It was just something to do. In prison everybody walks. You either walk up and back or around and around, this was a natural place to walk. There is something political about it. All good turks walk to the right because the left is communist. Turkey is a very anti-communist country, so all turks walked in one direction. One morning I got down there so early nobody was there and I just was feeling a little obstinate and getting a little crazy myself and started walking the other way, which created such a furor of all the people trying to get me to walk the right way. I kept fighting to go in the opposite direction which shows that I was probably getting pretty crazy myself at that point."
I hope this helps.
Drifting through lost latitudes with no compass and no chart
