Hotel Kerobokan

by Kathryn Bonella

  – Ruggiero

  The atmosphere in the blue room was tense and excited. People were standing up and looking through the windows into the room where Gabriel was being attacked. They could hear screams, thumping and whacking. It was not done covertly. When prisoners left the blue room to go back to their blocks, they walked right past the wide-open door, and could see Gabriel sprawled on the floor being bashed with short iron bars.

  It was a vicious beating. The inmates knew it might not stop until Gabriel was dead. The mob wouldn’t mean to kill him, but most were high on ice so wouldn’t know when to stop. Gabriel needed outside help fast. Foreigners had consulates and this was exactly when they called on them. Ruggiero and Mick both phoned the US Embassy for help, telling them to come quickly. Within fifteen minutes the consul arrived, marching angrily into the room. He was suddenly in the line of fire, getting punched, until they realised who he was. Schapelle convinced the Block W guards to let her go to the canteen to buy a bottle of Fanta. She took a detour to peek into the room. Gabriel was in a terrible state, unconscious and bleeding on the floor. The consul was still being pushed and shoved, arguing that Gabriel had to be taken to hospital. The guards were refusing to allow it. Schapelle raced back to Block W and phoned her sister, Mercedes, asking her to call the Red Cross and the Australian Consulate, fast.

  The US consul kept arguing with the Laskars and guards, and eventually they agreed to allow Gabriel to go to hospital. None of Gabriel’s mates knew if he would survive the night.

  His escape plan was totally fucked. He saw the wall was down and a couple of days before he went, he said to me, ‘I’m going to go, man, look, the wall is down, you can get out’. I said, ‘Okay, man, I hope you do it’. But it was 1 pm … full traffic on the roads and he jumps from the wall. He just decided to go, he was off his face.

  – Ruggiero

  Gabriel was a 42-year-old American building contractor, who had moved to Bali to enjoy surfing and partying. Every day he rode the waves, high on heroin. It was a perfect Bali life for him, until one afternoon when the police raided his villa, and found sixty grams of smack hidden in his wetsuit and a gram of cocaine in his underpants. Gabriel didn’t stop the partying lifestyle in Hotel K. He lived in an alcohol and drug fuelled haze, addicted to smack and falling into spiralling debt. Blue room drug sales earned him a bit of cash, but he mostly relied on his mum in California for handouts. But she had suddenly cut off the cash flow when she learned Gabriel was using it for drugs. Arman called in his credit; Gabriel couldn’t pay. He was being threatened. He was desperate. His mum wouldn’t send more money; his lacklustre escape attempt had been a stunt to rattle her so that she would send more cash. It worked. She did. But he hadn’t anticipated that the price he would pay would be a vicious attack, or that they would shave off the long hair he’d had for twenty-five years.

  After a few hours in hospital having his wounds stitched up, Gabriel was sent straight back to Hotel K and thrown into a tower isolation cell. On her way across the jail to church, early the next morning, Schapelle could hear Gabriel’s faint moans and calls for help. She was being escorted by guards, so could do nothing. On her way back, Gabriel was quiet. Schapelle looked at the ground, trying to be inconspicuous, as she loudly called out to him that she was trying to get help for him. Later she organised a little care package and sent it to him via a prisoner, with a small note saying that she was praying for him.

  Gabriel’s leap from the tower was costly for the other western men. In a security crackdown that lasted several months, all western men were moved into the same block, and locked in their cells all day. Their only outings were for visits, or to have a sneaky twenty minutes in the sun if they paid the right guard. Gabriel’s escape had been embarrassing for Hotel K, particularly as it had come only two months after the Taiwanese inmate, Tommy, had escaped.

  The wall also had to be fixed and the westerners were asked to pay for it, like they paid for most things, even the septic tank being emptied.

  They are crazy. They want me to pay for something that holds me in, stops me going free. The guys who came around asking had balls. They also wanted us to pay to put more barbed wire around our block. ‘You guys pay for the barbed wire.’ ‘Yeah, kiss my arse.’

  – Ruggiero

  For months the gaping hole in the maximum-security jail’s inner wall was covered by tacked-up sheets of metal. A murderer ran to freedom through the wall a couple of months after Gabriel’s failed escape attempt.

  A convict at Kerobokan Prison, Rudi Setyawan, who was serving an 11-year sentence for murder, escaped yesterday at around 3.30 pm through the prison’s southern wall that collapsed last year. ‘The wall was temporarily covered with sheet metal material. After he managed to sneak out of his block, he headed towards the temporary wall and ran away,’ said Prison boss Bromo. ‘We hope to find him,’ he stressed.

  – Denpost, 19 March 2005

  The locals often found ways to escape over the walls or under them, through sewerage drains. But most were recaptured within hours, often in brothels or their family villages, and were sent back to Hotel K and brutally bashed.

  A Kerobokan prisoner, Ketut Agus Suarjana, 28, was caught by prison guards yesterday after enjoying 13 hours of freedom. Agus was thought to have escaped at 5.30 am and was caught at [6.30 pm] when he was about to cross a road near a shopping complex in Denpasar. According to a source in prison, Ketut Agus Suarjana escaped after climbing a wall near the emergency gate using a rope and black cloth tied together.

  – Denpost, June 2002

  Another inmate climbed over the wall, using a bamboo pole with grooves for footholds. He was caught as soon as he landed outside, and suffered the same fate as Gabriel. He was dragged past inmates and visitors, including Schapelle and her sister, Mercedes, in the busy blue room, in soiled underpants, with bloody welts across his back and with a shattered, bleeding nose. The prospect of escape was not worth it unless the plan was foolproof. But the lure of freedom was strong.

  Escape was something every westerner daydreamed about for a while. Schapelle visualised a helicopter flying over Hotel K, dangling a swing that would scoop her up and take her home. Mick’s vision was a bit more realistic. He imagined sawing through the bars, pole-vaulting the wall, and riding on a motorbike into the Balinese sunset. He got as far as having a blade brought inside the prison in a French breadstick.

  But foreigners rarely actually tried to escape. They were aware of the brutal consequences if they didn’t make it. Local inmates, many of whom hated and were jealous of the westerners, were quick to seize on the chance to bash them if they saw them trying to escape. If westerners did escape, life afterwards would never be free. They would be fugitives, running, looking over their shoulder, unable to see their families. Most inmates longed for the day they’d walk free; anyone with money never stopped trying to do deals, to work the system to find loopholes to slide through to get out early. The quest for freedom was part of life. Many spent years convinced they were going to go free in a month or two.

  Clinging to hopes of imminent release was the way many survived. If they imagined truly being stuck in Hotel K for fifteen or twenty years, or for life, they would go crazy. But the hope wasn’t merely wild fantasy. It was often realistic. Unlike most countries, where an inmate’s sentence was set, no-one really knew how long they would serve in Indonesia. The system of twice-yearly remissions for good behaviour was erratic. For a sling of cash, an inmate could sometimes get six months slashed in a year. In Indonesia, where killers often walked free after two or three years, anything was possible.

  Sentences could be radically cut. Juri’s was reduced from life to fifteen years. Frenchman Michael’s was cut from life to twenty years. Sentencing could also mysteriously be changed in the paperwork. Englishman Steve Turner waved a $35,000 wand to magically convert his six-year sentence into three years. The judges publicly sentenced him to six years, while quietly writing three years in the official paperwork. This avoi
ded questions being raised over why he was doing three years for possession of thousands of ecstasy tablets, while poor locals routinely served four years for possession of one or two. Gabriel’s eight-year sentence was cut to two years and Argentinean Frederico’s from five years to two in their court papers before they reached Hotel K. Everyone’s sentence was potentially pliable. This gave even those on life and death sentences something to cling to – the hope that the prison doors could suddenly swing open and set them free.

  But, in the meantime, Hotel K was home and the inmates had to adapt. Using drugs and getting obliterated every day was, for many, a way to fill the endless hours. The westerners checking in and out of Hotel K were a disparate bunch, but often well-educated, wealthy and from loving families. If many were unlikely friends outside, inside they were bonded by geography, lack of choice and the shared pain of being locked in Hotel K.

  Some days we had a good time, we were a good family – not homogenous, we had some very weird species, very rare species. This day was the best. I took acid. Gabriel had a speaker [that] he put outside, and [he] put on Red Hot Chili Peppers. Aris is a fucking punk dancer, you know, full of tattoos and no shirt. The locals look at us like we’re from another planet, and guards come and think ‘Who the fuck are these guys?’, and eventually some of the Balinese start to join us. It was a comedy. It was really a comedy.

  – Ruggiero

  The afternoon parties’ food and drink were upgraded during the three months that millionaire Australian yachtsman Chris Packer spent in Hotel K, for having unregistered guns on his boat.

  He paid a guard [to] go to his boat often and bring him the stuff; bring him wine and whisky and filet mignon steak, spare ribs, lamb chops, prawns, etc … and give it away. Chris had very good taste in booze, he had some excellent wine. We had all the good stuff. He spoiled us. He is a very nice guy. If there was ever a gentleman behind bars, it was him.

  – Ruggiero

  The freedom they had within the walls of Hotel K fluctuated greatly depending on how strict or amenable the presiding jail boss was and which shift of guards was on duty. But when they had the chance, the Kerobokan crew went wild.

  One night, Swedish inmate Lars threw a birthday party for himself, providing copious bags of arak for everyone in his block. The partying started in the early afternoon sun, and continued in their cells after 5.30 pm lockup. A couple of hours later, the fun finished abruptly. English inmate Steven had fallen asleep under the table, and when Filo couldn’t wake him up, he decided to splash arak across his bare back and arms. Filo was larking around. He was high and drunk, and didn’t think. He threw a match at the Englishman’s back. It exploded. Steven leaped up, screaming. Fire was scorching up his arms and across his back. He was in agony. He ran around the room screaming, flapping his arms, trying to put the flames out. Filo stood back, gaping in shock. Two cellmates were watching in horror from the floor. Lars threw a glass of water on Steven’s back. A blood-curdling scream ripped across the cell; the water felt like razor blades slicing his back. For several more seconds, the fire burned into the inmate’s skin. Once the alcohol was burned up, the flames died and Steven collapsed, unconscious, on the floor. His badly burned arms and back were blistering before his stunned cellmates’ eyes. Guards and a tamping turned up quickly. The whole block had heard the screaming. Steven’s cell was unlocked and he was driven to Sanglah Hospital, which had a special burns unit that had been installed after the Bali bombings. For two weeks he received treatment for third-degree burns and was then returned to Hotel K, wrapped in bandages. He was angry. Filo guiltily paid the hospital bill and apologised. But Steven was left with permanent gruesome scars and a recurring nightmare of almost being burned to death. His four cellmates were sent to cell tikus for several days until they paid to get out.

  Filo is devilish. He was playing. It wasn’t intentional. They [take] smack together, get drunk together. They were friends. Shit happens. They’re off their faces on smack and alcohol, and in jail. Nobody’s too sane in jail. We’re all a bit crazy. This place is weird. Jail is jail, you know.

  – Ruggiero

  Filo is a psychopathic French guy who just wanted to see if arak burns or not. He was drunk. He didn’t expect it to burn like that.

  – Mick

  The French guy is a little bit strange. If he’s stoned, he’s out of his mind. He had loads of money; well, anyway, enough money. You could see his face was like a naughty boy’s.

  – Thomas

  The endless dramas that played out in the men’s block helped the days, weeks, months and years pass for the inmates. There was always something brewing. One night, Arman, who could sleep in any cell he liked, was staying in Vincente’s room in order to use some cocaine. The prisoners were locked up for the night, but Arman called the guards to unlock French inmate Michael from his cell, and escort him across to join their party. One of the Laskars, Asman, known for carrying a gun in his pocket, and who had total freedom to walk in and out of Hotel K, also turned up.

  Asman phoned Ruggiero, asking him to teach him to make freebase cocaine – a procedure that involved mixing the drug with water and baking soda, and cooking it on a spoon to turn it into crack. Ruggiero wasn’t too keen, as he was watching the US Open on TV. He was also tired of joining in the same inane drug-induced conversations. But he turned off the TV and went anyway. By the time he arrived, the others had smoked a lot of shabu, and Vincente was freebasing.

  We’re drinking beer and Arman doesn’t drink anything. I say, ‘Arman, take care, man; you don’t do sports, you’re not fit and you are going to smoke this shit’. Then he smoked the thing. Boom! When I went to the toilet, he was standing against the wall; pale, grey, one step from overdosing. I got some salt to put on his tongue. I undress him, put him in the shower; he almost overdosed. He used shabu, but this day he smoked shabu and freebase cocaine. Makes you stoned. Like, boom! He doesn’t drink. When you do a line of coke, you drink beer or whisky, and he didn’t even drink a sip of a beer, so he was very dry … crazy.

  – Ruggiero

  Tall, lean and muscular Dutchman Aris was one of the stranger inmates, usually walking around hallucinating on LSD, and notorious for changing his look. He’d turn up with different hairstyles, from punk to being bald, or shaving his facial hair in a lopsided style – taking off his right eyebrow and the left side of his moustache – just for the hell of it.

  Aris was an LSD freak from Amsterdam.

  – Thomas

  Scottish sailor Robert – father of Black Monster’s baby – was often seen having sex behind Iwan’s workshop or in the back of the church, with a girl straddling his lap.

  He was horny like a goat. He sees any hole, he wants to go in.

  – Mick

  Most days, Robert was drunk by lunchtime, stumbling around and abusing people, drinking arak from a plastic cup, a cigarette dangling from his lips. The front of his trousers was often dripping wet from where he had pissed himself. He was an aggressive drunk, indiscriminately screaming, ‘Fucking idiots!’ and provoking anyone walking past, including the Laskars, who would bash him senseless. By the time the afternoon lockup bells were ringing, he was usually sleeping on a concrete bench, or on the grass, with a cigarette between his fingers and had to be carried back to his cell.

  Once he was drunk in the grass, and we put frangipani on his neck and took photo. He didn’t move much … he was like a statue.

  – Mick

  Robert’s very nice, but when he gets drunk he’s a pain in the arse. He was always drunk, giving shit. Kind of Scottish … he doesn’t give a fuck. He’s a wild man. Extremely strong, he just grabs you. He drives everyone absolutely nuts. He’s crazy. He got beaten up many times. They punch him and he screams, ‘You fucking faggot – you don’t hurt me!’ Fuck. To make it worse, he says, ‘Listen, you punch me, but your cock is still small; I have a big cock,’ and pulls down his pants. Fuck. He’s one of a kind.

  – Ruggiero

  American
Gabriel was also a bad drunk, recklessly taunting a killer one afternoon just for the sake of it. He was drunk. It was a bit of fun. It was also a mistake. You could never forget where you were. The inmate pulled out a knife and slashed Gabriel across the chest and arm, cutting a tendon and temporarily paralysing his right arm. The killer complained to the jail’s security chief about Gabriel’s taunts, and it was Gabriel who was sent to cell tikus for punishment.

  Frenchman Michael and English Steve were called ‘the veggies’, always sleeping in their cells after shooting up. Italian Juri was well-liked, and seemingly was always happy and smiling and high on heroin. Mexican Vincente was considered to be aloof, rarely mixing with the group, and known for psychotically going from casual laughter to a screaming tirade in a split second. Dropping cigarette ash in his cell or placing your sandals in the wrong spot could set him off.

  He was an angry man. Like a psychopath, he would flip out over little things. People didn’t like to get close to him.

  – Mick, former cellmate

  Australian Mick swung between bursts of hot anger and quietly reading his metaphysical books, painting pictures and practising yoga. He was seething at being locked up for fifteen years for hashish possession, swearing the basket of almost three kilograms of stuff that police found in his half-built Bali holiday house was a herbal medicine. But the courts had refused to permit it to be tested independently.