No, I’m not bad, juft human. As long as nobody’s looking for me.
On the percentile charts for murder, I’d put myself at about 82 per cent. Just like with gayness, there’s a spectrum, a ladder, with each rung having its own name for a murderer: accidental, impulsive, passionate, sexual, professional, and—the most glorious of all—serial killer. I aspired to be professional, and maybe even a serial killer. Sadly, the two are incompatible, since organized crime doesn’t appreciate its assassins drawing attention to themselves.
You’re still young. What do you plan on doing when you get out?
Actually, I plan on becoming the boss of your section while I’m still inside. Then big Mafia boss or serial killer. I don’t know, maybe get my welding lifenfe?
He liked that. Good idea. The world always needs welders.
Does it, my ass. All the factories are closing down one after another. I might as well become a telegraph operator or work in a bookstore!
On the threshold of my cell, just to humiliate me in front of Philippe, Jocelyn carried on being friendly to me. He even put his hand on my shoulder, the jerk. As if it wasn’t bad enough being seen talking to a guard, now he was touching me! I saw your humanity back there. That’s a big deal. You’ve given me fresh hope for you.
I wriggled away from his grasp, hoping my fellow inmates had missed our tender little scene. That’f right. Thankf.
I took shelter in my cell, in my bed, in my head, in a book. To give myself something more pleasant to think about, I took inspiration from the genuine article: Oscar Wilde. He was a real role model, a tough guy. He wasn’t a wimp or a queer.
* * *
Butterfly was proud of my success. I knew he’d give you something strong!
I beamed, happy to have carried out my soldierly duty. I’d brought some decent swag back: strong antidepressants, tranquilizers for daytime, sleeping pills at night, and some herpes cream. That was less useful for my homies, but who knows, it might come in handy one day. I took advantage of this to subtly press my case for promotion. Fee, I can do tonv of thinv for you guyv.
He was only listening to me with half an ear. Thinv?
I swallowed and tried to articulate. Thingf, I can do thingf for the organivation. You fould tell Big Dick that he can truft me.
He smiled at me, but I had to stop arguing my case just then. It’s hard to talk with your mouth full.
To the great joy of my jaw muscles, Philippe interrupted us. Normally Butterfly would have thrown him right back out of his own cell, but there was a warden with him. Fellatius interruptus for poor Butterfly. He told me to meet him by the showers after lunch. I agreed in a manly way and got up immediately.
My roommate was rummaging through his wardrobe and grumbling. Paul had told him that if Philippe couldn’t find the completed authorization form, Paul wouldn’t give him his package. In solidarity, I took the opportunity to demand my mother’s letter. If you don’t give it to me, I’ll report you!
It was still going through the approval process, they repeated to me once again. It’s the kind of bureaucratic long-windedness that only prisoners and Franz Kafka can understand. Philippe came out on top this time though. The paper in question, duly signed, was all crumpled up at the bottom of his overstuffed drawer. The warden handed him his opened package, meticulously pre-searched by the prison officials.
I eyeballed his haul as he emptied the box. Cookies, letters, aftershave, and—hidden in three tubes of toothpaste—pens! Lots of pens! I took advantage of this to get him thinking about my tattoo project again. No, I didn’t have any money and no, I didn’t want to negotiate with Colossus. I argued that since I was his cellie he should cut me a deal, or we could swap a tattoo for a favour or service. You have to understand that tattooing is the poor person’s plastic surgery.
Alright, I’ll carve you something simple, not your samurai or any of that nonsense. Just an outline tat, but you have to wash your feet three times a day—deal? Taken aback, I had to confirm what he was asking for. Waffh my feet three timev a day?
They seriously stink to high heaven, man. It’s like you’re dragging dead skunks around. It’s worse than rotting meat. I’ll finish off your awful Chinese character tattoo on your neck, I’ll put flames or something around it, but you’re gonna wash your feet morning, noon, and night. Take it or leave it.
When I was a kid, my mother used to tell me my feet smelled. But after that I didn’t have anyone to tell me. Philippe was bringing back some strange memories. When you don’t have many memories, even the bad ones seem good.
* * *
The needle pierced the skin on my neck. It burned, but I had to stay focused. We had to talk pretty loudly to hide the machine’s noise, and stay alert enough to stop everything and stash our tools if a guard came to the cell. I wondered who, in the end, surveyed each other more—warden or inmate?
Philippe and I hadn’t really talked much before, so I took the chance to get to know him a bit. Maybe I’d recruit him into my gang when I’d climbed the ladder. After six years in prison, he still maintained his innocence. On his lawyer’s advice, he’d pleaded psychosis in court but got screwed. And ruined. I’ve never been screwed like that before, man, never. Like the most expensive whore ever. But she’s gonna pay for it too. Let me tell you, man, just because someone screws you doesn’t mean you have to come! The lawyer’s plan bombed. Not only did Philippe not get a reduced sentence, but he also ended up in the crazy wing like me. I didn’t call him out on that last point.
We shouldn’t have gone anywhere near his court experiences. I already believed him, but he kept repeating over and over that he was innocent, that he was the victim of a miscarriage of justice. I felt him getting more and more aggressive, and the machine’s needle sinking deeper into my flesh, even while he was swearing to me that he would never have killed his wife, that he didn’t want that, that he still loved her. But that lawyer, man, that lawyer. If I ever get out of here…
I tried to make him laugh, to relax him a bit so he didn’t slit my throat with his needle. Lol, Philippe, everyone’v innofent here.
But no, he was really innocent. He maintained that he’d only been criminalized since being inside. He used to have a quiet life with the wife he loved, whom he’d never once hurt, well, except that one time at the cottage…but I would never have killed her!
Before prison he’d never been beaten up, never dealt, never taken any drugs. A long sentence really deflowers innocent people. With a single bad judgment, he’d gone from neat portrait painter to tattoo artist in a max-security prison. And he wasn’t a very gentle tattooist at that. I could feel blood trickling down my collarbone.
But that picture was worth a thousand swear words. Philippe the Filipino had painted beautiful blue flames around the Chinese character on my neck. A neck that was all red and painful for the moment. It hurt, but I didn’t show it. You should never show your emotions in the slammer, unless it’s anger, aggression, hatred, rage, bitterness, resentment, disgust, revulsion, exasperation, disobedience, dislike, or irritation. That was pretty easy for me, I’m hard as nails, even if I do listen to Édith Piaf in secret. We all have our Achilles heels.
Inmates actually hide less in their assholes than they do in their hearts. We don’t express our emotions but we have them well under control. It’s amazing, but hardly anyone commits suicide in prison, in proportion to our ongoing distress. It happens more among the general public, but if you put the general public in prison, there’d be a massacre. We make pretend attempts from time to time, like sending up a distress flare, or to get a trip to the hospital for a change of scenery. But we really don’t kill ourselves all that much.
* * *
I could have kissed him! If he wasn’t a guard who’d dedicated his life to controlling mine, I’d have taken him in my arms and squeezed as hard as Charles Atlas. The great Paul had gone via the office to bring my mail. I
was sweating with gratitude, trembling, struggling to open the envelope. At last I had my mother’s letter in my hands.
It wasn’t a letter from my mother. It was actually from Denise. Some unimportant woman who’d loved me once upon a time. She was bald but kind, and she’d taken care of me when I was a child and my mother was busy committing suicide and getting better. She said she was sad for me. She’d followed my trial in the news. She’d thought about it for a long time before deciding to write to me, but she felt she had to. She said that she knew me, and she knew that deep down I was a good person, that I’d been a wonderful kid. I could get in touch with her if I wanted. But I wanted my mother. I wanted to die. I wanted my mother.
I’d find my mother again before I died.
I threw the letter away without letting it get me down. It was all driving me up the wall, so I took my anger out by punching the nearest wall.
* * *
The next day was Saint-Jean Baptiste. All the inmates would celebrate Quebec’s triumph on the Plains of Abraham. Ha, just kidding. We were just going to get drunk with Gilbert’s hooch. The only times we discussed politics, it was just a pretext to provoke the immigrants. Just like Jacques Parizeau said the night of that rigged referendum, If we have lost our country, it’s because of all that ethnic money and those stolen votes! That always sets the scene for a good debate.
We were allowed a second helping of dessert, blue Jell-O, and a special evening activity. It was never anything special, but the inmates’ committee lobbied the prison to put on some entertainment four or five times a year. Let them have bread, Jell-O, and circuses! All they needed to ensure social peace was to let us feast our eyes and our mouths, and our bellies.
That year, to celebrate our beloved country that will never exist, they coughed up some cash to bring us a storyteller. We’re not talking Stuart McLean obviously. He’d have cost an arm and a leg, and they’d probably have been afraid of us taking him hostage. He was all about the coast-to-coast Canadianness. But the guy who showed up was just a plain old storyteller: unknown, paunchy, and full of goodwill. It was a long evening for him.
He was already in rough shape when he arrived in our section. He didn’t stand a chance. He was ending his tour and his evening with us. The guys in the other sections had already ground him down. We were watching the TV news when he turned up. The bottles of rotgut had been going around for a few hours too long. Everyone in the section was wrecked. Except for Big Dick, Pedo, and me. Big Dick hadn’t touched a drop. Sadly for me, my turn was often skipped, and it didn’t come round all that often in the first place. And Pedo was permanently on a different planet, so nobody had even thought of offering him a swig.
Our Sunday storyteller must have been practising all week. He put on an earnest performance of “Little Red Riding Hood and the Seven Dwarves,” as if he hadn’t told it six times already in the other wings. Only his tense features and his distressed face betrayed him. To be fair, he did manage to make the guards—the many guards—laugh. It was an unusual evening: swigging hooch was more or less tolerated, but we had four guards watching us.
Edith was there, my very own Edith; I didn’t take my eyes off her. Or barely. Only to give Tony the evil eye. Tony the bastard corrupt guard, who wasn’t doing his job properly since he was too busy holding Edith close and whispering sweet nothings in her ear. I took note of his lecherous ogling, his nonchalant predator look, just like shopping-mall sleazebags the world over. Tony wanted my betrothed. There was no longer any shadow of a doubt under the sun of my hatred.
Good old Tony, the man of the moment, pumped up on protein shakes, wearing his groomed little beard styled to look like scruffy regrowth. It was just a shitty neat-and-tidy style designed to show off his handsome square jaw. And my beloved was laughing at his pathetic little chit-chat!
And at that precise moment I realized I loved Edith, because I wanted to slaughter Tony. Jealousy is the only real proof of love, this is well documented.
* * *
Even when you’re expecting it, violence takes you by surprise. While I was fantasizing about what I was going to do to Edith—and what I was going to do to Tony—the storyteller yelled in fright. Two good hollers. Aaaaaaaahhhaaaaah! And it was nothing to do with his tale of “Little Red Riding Hood and the Seven Dwarves.” Timoune had jumped up on a table and was ripping Giuseppe’s face to shreds. His beautiful white teeth were shattering under the deluge of blows. In the time it took the guards to call for reinforcements and get out their pepper spray, all the prisoners were on their feet circling round the fight, encouraging the Haitian to kick the Italian’s head in. International relations at their best. All round the room, the black guys were nervously watching the little crowd, afraid that a third crook would jump in to the fray or take advantage of the chaos to stab one of them.
It was a great fight under the rules—prison rules—treacherous and savage. All the inmates were enjoying the drama; usually we hardly ever got to see any action inside. Blood, dull thuds of punches, shouts. Bam crash, pfff! Timoune was paying homage to his voodoo ancestors, who were thirsty for some blood.
Before the agents managed to separate them, Timoune started trying to rip off Giuseppe’s face. Whistles, a harsh alarm, and tear gas signalled the end of the round. We were forced to get down onto the ground while they got control of the situation and handcuffed the attacker. Two agents managed to haul up Giuseppe, who was still conscious, thanks to all the adrenaline. He fainted in the corridor. But before he went through the door, in the reflection of the sentry-box mirror, he threw us a look that was full of vengeful promises. His red eye, shot with humiliated Italian blood, was screaming I’ll be back!—just like Rocky in Terminator 2.
It took four of them to carry Timoune out, one warden per limb. Louis-Honoré celebrated in Creole while Jocelyn ordered him to shut his mouth in Québécois. He’d be doing at least two weeks in the hole. Real hard time. Once the hero of the hour had been taken out of the section, things calmed down. The guys were laughing, already reminiscing about Timoune’s battle feats, exaggerating a detail here and playing one down there.
When they announced we were all going to be confined to quarters for the next twenty-four hours, we heard someone sobbing. All the guys, lying on their stomachs, turned to look in shock at the communal area. Pressed up against the garbage can underneath the wall-mounted television, trembling like a pansy in the wind, our great storyteller was weeping big fat tears. That got his last laugh of the evening out of us. We were cheering the sobbing man so enthusiastically that Jocelyn had to bang on the table with his nightstick and threaten us with a second day of being locked up.
Our Sunday Saltimbanco would always remember his trip to prison. He’d never forget that the best intentions can never triumph over the worst individuals. His age-old tale of “Red Riding Hood and the Seven Dwarves” was granny’s home-baked tart facing off against a slice of reality pie.
In the school of life, truth doesn’t come from books.
5
Ambition
The national holiday wound up with a flagpole-polishing session, every man for himself. A whole day in our cells. For those like me with no money to buy a cellphone or to save anything for personal consumption, all we had left was dreaming or self-love. Masturbation is less vigorous in prison. You stretch everything out for as long as you can. Even for a bunch of killers, killing time isn’t easy.
At least it gave me a break from Butterfly. It was welcome—it gave me a chance for a bit of self-care. But I had to ration my own amusement since I didn’t have any zinc cream. I changed hands, soaped them up, or practised tantrism. Tantrism is transcendent. Getting turned on without touching yourself is the equivalent of cooking for other people—you need to be a chef to appreciate it. I’m the Gordon Ramsay of the hands-free wank. I kept my erection up for more than an hour just by thinking about Edith over and over again.
The morning was dragging
on. I was daydreaming about my career, coming up with ways to get into the highest levels of organized crime. First of all, here in prison, and then, once I got out, in the country. And why not go international? My English is pretty good. Nothing is impossible, but if you dream small you’ll stay small. On the other hand, you have to match the action to your dreams. Dreaming just for the sake of dreaming is like jerking off and then crossing your fingers for a baby.
I had to make a name for myself, get on TV. I could ice all the inmates in my section, with a bunch of guards as a bonus, and go down in history. Or escape and kill a ton of people on the outside. People would take me seriously. My face would be on a loop on every channel, my name would be on the radio, and all the journalists would be constantly promoting me. I got drunk on these glorious dreams and compared myself to the greatest criminals of all time.
All geniuses, misunderstood by definition, have to go through a period of being held against their will at some point in their career. Al Capone, Nelson Mandela, and Amy Whitehouse are excellent examples. This downtime was temporary: I’d soon find a way out of my position as underling and start shining in the galaxy with the big guys. You just have to believe it, believe in yourself. From serial killer to gang superstar, success depends less on strength or courage than on ego. You have to be able to think abstractly about everything and everyone so there’s only yourself left, and this self must be more important than the entire planet. That’s the key, better not lose it.
* * *
Why did Colossus have Giuseppe beaten up? I jumped, yanked out of my reverie. Hours had gone by without Philippe saying a word to me, since he too was occupied with jerking off.
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