Character Analysis
King Kong is a new inmate at Progress, and Reese doesn't like him on sight. Eventually, they come to blows—once during a basketball game, and then again in the rec room. Reese understands that King Kong is a career criminal incapable of turning himself around:
If they let us loose after breakfast […] King Kong, he would go back to swinging on trees and climbing up buildings and being stupid, because sometimes settling for stupid was easier than reaching for anything better. If you gave him a free bus pass, he couldn't get nowhere because there wasn't anyplace for him to get to. (21.11)
He's going nowhere in life, and he doesn't want Reese to go anywhere, either.