The grandson is back in prison. His name does not follow him around as much as it runs ahead, shouting down the cellblocks each time he is transferred to a new place, until soon enough, the other inmates come around, asking if it is true.

''I say, 'Yeah,' '' Malcolm Shabazz said. ''Then they ask me questions: 'Do you need anything? If so, let me know.' They hang around a lot. I just kind of distance myself a little bit, because that gets annoying sometimes. They come with cartons of cigarettes and all this food. I appreciate it, but I don't need it.''

Malcolm Shabazz is the grandson of Malcolm X, whose autobiography is practically required reading among prisoners. He is also the grandson of Malcolm X's widow, Dr. Betty Shabazz, who died in 1997 after she was severely burned in a fire in her Yonkers apartment.

Young Malcolm was the 12-year-old in shackles in the news photos, looking bewildered as he pleaded guilty to setting the blaze. He remembers sitting on the cot in his cell and talking to his dead grandmother, asking for a sign that she forgave him. ''I just wanted her to know I was sorry and I wanted to know she accepted my apology, that I didn't mean it,'' he recalled. ''But I would get no response, and I really wanted that response.''