Hard Time (10 page)

‘What’re they like?’

‘Mendoza’s the Chicano with the glasses on. Stutters a lot. Seems friendly enough, but I’ve seen him slam motherfuckers to the ground. The youngster’s Noble. Some kind of cage fighter. A military reservist, too. We’ve got way more play with these than the other two.’

‘Play?’

‘Yeah, we can get away with more shit.’

Hours later, I was on my bunk reading Troll’s Spanish dictionary when Officer Mendoza announced. ‘Chow’s in the house! L . . . L . . . Line up at the slider! Fully dressed and with y . . . your IDs or you will not be s . . . s . . . served!’

Troll sprung up. ‘Come on, let’s get in line, so we don’t have to wait around.’

We dashed downstairs. The men awaiting red death had the dissatisfied look of Russians in a bread queue. The first in line presented his ID to Officer Noble and took a tray from the trusty. Noble ticked each name off his clipboard, so no one could claim a second tray.

When Troll received his, he turned to me and said, ‘I don’t eat red death. I donate it.’ He gave his tray to a gaunt man who’d been hovering to one side of us and hurried up the stairs.

A trusty handed me a large brown plastic tray. The slop – red death – looked like carroty vomit blended with blood. Meat and gristle in assorted shapes, shades and sizes were protruding from it. Gagging on the gamy smell, I placed the tray on the nearest table and sat down. Because I was one of the first to get served, the races hadn’t mobbed the tables yet, so I’d forgotten about the segregation.

Seconds later, a cannonball of a Mexican tapped me on the shoulder. ‘You can’t sit here!’ He had a shaved head, deep-set eyes and long eyelashes.

Dozens of men focused on us. I maintained eye contact.

The Mexican put his hands on his hips. Raising his voice, he said, ‘This table paisas’ table!’

Mexicans surrounded me. None smiling. I’d been a fool to think I was safe due to Billy’s introduction. Maybe I was safe from the whites, but what about the other races?
Where are all of these Mexicans coming from? I’ve got to get out of here but not in a cowardly way.

‘No problem,’ I said in a deep voice, trying to sound tough. Standing up, I looked around.

Troll flew down the stairs. ‘England, you can’t sit there!’ Turning to the Mexican who’d tapped me on the shoulder, he said, ‘Hey, Carlo, this is England, your new neighbour. England, say hello to Carlo, the head of the paisas.’

The atmosphere turned friendly as fast as it had soured.
I can’t get over this place: the Mexicans aren’t going to smash me now. We’re all going to be friends.
I bumped fists with Carlo, greeting him with the limited Spanish I knew. He seemed to appreciate my effort.

‘Come over here!’ Billy yelled.

The whites were laughing at what I saw as a potentially life-threatening situation. Had I blown it out of proportion? I thought of Rob the skinhead’s words in Tower 2:
You’ve gotta lot to learn, dawg.
It was standing room only at the whites’ table.

‘Give him some room on the corner,’ Outlaw said.

The whites were shovelling down slop, chatting, gnawing on the mystery meat. Some of them eyeballed my tray.

With my stomach cramping as if it were trying to digest its own walls, I was in a hurry to eat. I dunked my plastic Spork into the red death, fished out a chunk of potato, and scraped most of the slop off. I raised my Spork – salivating in the way Englishmen are conditioned to do at the prospect of a good spud – and was just about to devour it when I spotted the lesions. Large. Brown. Deeply engrained. My Spork stopped short of my lower lip. Devastated, I returned the potato to the slop. Eating the two slices of bread that didn’t have any mould on them dried my mouth up.

‘Any of you guys want this food?’ I asked.

All of their eyes crowded my tray at once.

‘I’ll take care of that. Not even gonna eat your donut, dawg?’ Outlaw asked with disbelief.

I slid my tray to Outlaw. ‘It’s all yours.’

‘Good lookin’ out, dawg!’ Outlaw snatched the donut, and divided the red death among the whites.

Now they’d classified me as a food source, they were slightly warmer towards me. I took advantage of the tiny elevation in their mood to excuse myself from the table. Depressed by hunger, I trudged home and found Troll munching commissary.

‘A month from now, you’ll be eating red death just like the rest of them.’

‘I wouldn’t eat red death if it was the last meal on earth, and I don’t see you eating it either!’

Troll must have been a mind reader. ‘I can give you another Snickers, dawg, but you’re gonna have to get me back on store day.’

‘No problema.’

I played chess with Troll until 10.30 when Officer Mendoza announced, ‘Lockdown! Lockdown! Ki . . . Ki . . . Kiss each other good night and return to your cells!’

Whooping and yelling erupted in the day room.

‘We ain’t locking down!’

‘Fuck you!’

‘Come make us lockdown!’

Some of the prisoners pelted the Plexiglas with rotten grapefruits. The more hyperactive chased each other around, cackling like children on a playground. Reluctantly, they drifted back to their cells and slammed their doors. They taunted young Officer Noble, walking cell to cell with a headcount clipboard. When Noble left, the obscene banter grew louder. Mexicans sang in Spanish. Men chatted through the vent system. Others exchanged threats and swore they would fight when the doors reopened. Every now and then everyone hushed to listen to a dirty joke. It was hours before the only sounds left were snoring, the fan rattling on the day-room wall and water dripping from the shower as steadily as my life leaking away.

I was sitting on the toilet watching
Jerry Springer
through my doorway – cell D10 had one of the best views of the day-room TV – when the announcement came: ‘D10, Attwood, you have a regular visit!’

I jumped up, giddy and excited, grabbed my anti-shank toothbrush, smeared it with AmerFresh and leaned over the sink – a steel basin above the toilet caked in toothpaste spit and chin shavings. Pushing a metal button made water dribble from the tiny faucet. Attempting to get rid of the foul breath caused by the vapours rising from my constantly empty stomach, I brushed until my gums bled.

‘D10, Attwood, turn out for your visit!’

Prisoners in the day room parroted the announcement. Some came to my door.

‘C’mon, dawg! You’ve gotta visit!’

‘Get your ass out there, dawg!’

‘I’m coming! I’m coming!’ I yelled, applying state deodorant to my armpits. The previous layer had gone the way of my sweat. The deodorant bubbled and fizzed and settled into a foam with a cleaning-products smell. I didn’t know the prisoners shunned the state deodorant, that most of them used the ladies’ stick deodorant from the commissary. I threw my shirt on, attached my ID to the upper left side and rushed from the cell. I came bounding down the metal-grid stairs as joyful as a dog fetching its first stick of the day, harangued from both flanks by men yelling, ‘Who’s coming to see ya, dawg?’

‘The missus!’ I said proudly, and waved at the guard.

The control guard saw me right away and hit the button to open the sliding door. ‘Do you know where the visitation room is?’ he asked over the speaker system.

Looking up at him in the Plexiglas bubble, I shook my head.

‘You!’ He pointed at another prisoner in the corridor. ‘Show him where the visitation room is!’

‘Wassup, dawg!’ the youngster said.

Beaming at the prospect of seeing Claudia, I said. ‘All right, dawg!’ Starting with dawg, I’d been adding jail slang to my vocabulary in the hope of fitting in.

Smiling back, he said, ‘Follow me, dawg.’

We exited the building. The sun blinded me for a few seconds. We took the short path down the breezeway and turned right into Visitation.

‘Stay in there until the visitors are all seated.’ Officer Green – the most obese guard I’d seen so far – pointed at a Plexiglas holding tank overlooking the visitation room. Behind rectangular spectacles, his beady eyes were full of suspicion. He was struggling to keep an eye on everything going on around him. Prisoners arriving. Prisoners in the holding tank. Electronically activated doors opening and closing to allow guards in and out.

The visitation room was the size of a small warehouse. It consisted of a guard station – two officers sat at a raised desk – overlooking rows of small wooden tables and blue plastic chairs bolted to the floor. In the corners of the room were old security cameras that creaked as they rotated. There were no vending machines or toilets. The visitors had to wait outside, sometimes for hours, while all of the prisoners summoned for visits were packed into the holding tank.

Almost an hour into my wait, the visitation-room security door opened with a tremendous grinding sound. Seeing the first batch of our visitors, we scrambled to our feet. Fights almost broke out when the biggest inmates shoulder-barged their way to the front of the holding tank. We must have looked like a display of wild animals. The attention from our visitors soon changed the mood back to friendly. There was much waving of hands and blowing of kisses. In the next batch of visitors, I saw Claudia’s long golden hair, pale narrow face and big eyes. My heart fluttered. She spotted me and waved. Smiling, I longed to hug her. I hoped Officer Green would let us out of the tank soon. Everything in my life had been taken away, and I was grateful to have something so precious back, even if only for a short while. On the tips of my toes, I continued to smile and wave as she sat down. She looked nervous until she flashed her long-toothed smile.

Officer Green manned the guard station as if stood on a stage, a no-nonsense look on his face. ‘In a moment, I’m going to allow the inmates in.’ He spoke slowly and precisely. ‘I do expect you to obey the rules at all times. Posted on the wall are the rules.’ Everyone’s heads swivelled, and he paused for a few seconds. ‘If you do not follow the rules, your visit will be ended. You will not get a second chance! There will be no passing items. Anyone that gets caught passing items will have their future visits cancelled and may possibly be charged with promoting prison contraband. There will be no hanky-panky.’ He puckered his face at the few visitors snickering. ‘Anyone caught kissing will lose their visit. You may hold hands. If your hands slip below the table at any time, you will lose your visit. Do you understand me, ladies and gentlemen?’

The crowd murmured acknowledgement.

‘Enjoy your visits then. Officer Gonzales, please let the inmates in.’

Officer Gonzales was a slim fellow in his early 20s. A new recruit. He opened the door that allowed us into the visitation room. ‘Form a straight line. Roll down your pants’ cuffs. Have your IDs ready as you enter the room.’

We showed him our IDs and then formed a line at the guard station. Officer Green ticked our names off his list and instructed us to specific tables. ‘Attwood, table 9.’

Rushing to Claudia, I yelled, ‘I’m so glad you’re here!’ I noticed she was crying. ‘I know. It’s crazy, isn’t it? I think I’m still in shock, too.’ I sat down, picked up her thin hands and leaned into the musky floral scent of her perfume, filling myself with as much of her smell as I could in one loud inhalation.

‘I love you,’ she said, her hands trembling within mine.

‘I love you, too. I wish I could show you my pink boxer shorts.’

She managed a chuckle. ‘Pink’s my favourite colour.’

‘I know,’ I said, smiling. ‘So you all right or what?’

‘I’m OK if you’re OK,’ she said, brightening up.

‘I’m doing fine. It was a bit rough at first, but so far I’m not having problems. It’s just the conditions suck, though.’

‘Like what?’

‘The A/C barely works. There’s mosquitoes everywhere. The heat’s the worst, though. I can barely sleep. I’m basically lying in a pool of sweat all day.’

‘The food must be terrible,’ she said, shaking her head.

‘Red death! That’s what these guys call it. Slop on rotten potatoes that have white hairs in them. It’s the only cooked meal we get once a day. Breakfast’s raw green baloney and mouldy bread. I’ve barely eaten anything since I got here.’

‘Well, I’ve put some money on your books.’

‘Thanks! Thanks so much!’ I said, gently squeezing her hands. ‘Now I can buy some peanuts or something to stop my hunger pains. Some of the inmates spend the day rummaging for food. I see them going through the trash. I got lucky: my celly, Troll, gets store, so he’s hooked me up with Snickers. Most people are begging him for store. Thanks for the money. It’ll go a long way in here.’

‘What’s the people you live with like?’

‘My cellmates are nice, but they’ve got three of us squeezed into a tiny cell. I was in Tower 2 at first. I didn’t like it there. I didn’t know anyone, and the skinheads were running wild. I was so nervous. But now I’m in Tower 6, it’s better.’

‘That’s good.’

‘I sat at the wrong dining table, though.’

‘What do you mean?’

I explained the racial segregation to Claudia, about the heads of each race and their torpedoes.

‘It sounds creepy to me.’

‘Yeah, the heads decide who gets smashed and who gets to smoke and get high.’

‘Cigarettes and drugs in here! How?’

‘They keyster them in. That means they stick them in their behinds. The visitors bring them in in balloons and condoms. When the guards aren’t looking, they pass them, and the inmates stick them in their behinds.’

‘That’s disgusting!’

‘They put all kinds of things in there. Lighters. Needles. Knives. Nearly everyone’s getting high.’

We’d just finished avowing our eternal love when Officer Green announced, ‘Visits are over! Visitors, please say your goodbyes. Inmates remain seated.’ Our 30 minutes were up.

It was hard to let go of her hands and watch her slip away. The feeling of being miserably alone again overwhelmed me. Most of the visitors, including Claudia, grouped by the security door. A few remained, crying, staring tenderly at the prisoners they were visiting. Claudia kept waving and blowing kisses. I struggled to put on a brave face.

‘Visits are over! Did you not hear me? You all need to leave the room or else I will suspend your visitation privileges. Do you hear me, table 21? Leave now!’

When all of the visitors were clustered in front of the security door, it groaned open. They walked out, waving sadly, some, including Claudia now, were crying. They left behind an atmosphere redolent of over-perfumed women and soiled nappies.

‘Inmates, stand up and enter that room over there.’ Officer Green pointed at the door of the strip-search room. It was tiny and windowless. We crammed in. He locked the door and abandoned us.

There was barely any air flowing into the room. By the end of the first hour, my clothes were soaked. I felt increasingly dizzy and feared I’d suffocate. Most of us had showered before our visits, but now we were all beginning to stink again. Every time we heard the jingle of keys, we stopped panting and focused on the doors. When the jingling faded, we cursed Officer Green and returned to wallowing in our claustrophobia. He left us in there for about two hours. By the time he opened the door, I was dazed from a heat headache. I suspected it was a unique form of torture he’d devised for those of us lucky enough to have visits. It was effective: as much as I looked forward to seeing Claudia again, I was dreading spending hours in that room.

‘Strip down to your boxers, gentlemen. I’m going to let you out one at a time.’ His slow steady voice contained a trace of delight in what he’d done to us. ‘As you exit the room, hand me your clothes. While I search your clothes, I want you to drop your boxers, lift up your ball sack, spin around, bend over and spread your cheeks.’

The stench was bad enough before the liberation of our crotch odour. In a hurry to escape the room, the men who’d disrobed the fastest were ploughing their way towards Officer Green. I didn’t fancy my chances against the mass of big tattooed men, so I hung near the back. I noticed how everyone’s boxers were patterned with sweat like mine.

‘Drop and spin,’ Officer Green said to each inmate.

Eventually, I stepped forward and handed him my stripes.

He felt my stripes for contraband. ‘Drop and spin.’

I dropped my boxers to my ankles, grabbed my scrotum and raised it.

‘Good. Spin around.’

I turned, bent over and spread my buttocks.

‘OK. Get dressed.’ He returned my clothes, and I joined the men getting dressed in the corridor. When everyone was done and grouped in the corridor, he said, ‘Go back to your houses.’

I was permitted three regular visits per week. Claudia visited twice on the weekdays, and my aunt Ann joined her on the weekends. As much as I hated waiting in the strip-search room, it was a small price to pay for the visits. Claudia did everything she possibly could for me under the circumstances. Her devotion was my lifeline. She sent letters daily, and I replied with equal frequency. Outside of visits, mail call was the most exciting time of the day. The guard would place the letters on a table in the day room, and we’d mob around him. He’d yell the name on every letter, and the prisoners would be happy or sad depending on whether they received any.

May – June 2002