Lockdown

by Drauzio Varella

  Abrão – the stocky former owner of a sleazy bar in the port of Santos, doing twenty-five years for killing a client who had beaten one of the prostitutes in his harem – told me the qualities that a pavilion leader had to possess:

  He’s got to have clout, express himself well, listen lots and say little, to keep people at arm’s length. He’s got to have a balanced view of things so he can say, ‘That’s right,’ ‘That’s wrong,’ or ‘Pack up your things and head on over to Five.’ In here, it’s not like on the outside, where a lunatic can be a head of department, a business manager, or even make it to president like you-know-who, who they say used to snort coke and certainly looks like it. In here, the leader is a man who knows how to listen to reason, debate with his fellow cons and join forces with others to gain strength.

  A pavilion leader’s daily routine was arduous. From the moment the cells were unlocked until lock-up, he had to stay alert. To step away from the pavilion for even five minutes, he had to leave an assistant in his place. This precaution was justified: ‘A lot of bad things can happen in a prison in five minutes.’

  The leaders were always busy. In the infirmary, I treated two of them with visible symptoms of stress, as if they were high-ranking executives in a multinational corporation or, as Moonface preferred to put it, judges. ‘I wake up to a pile of problems: one guy wants to get even for something that happened on the outside, another wants to kill some low-life, dig a tunnel, collect a debt, someone else heard someone say somethin’ he didn’t like, and so on until lock-up. I have to put out so many fires, Doctor, it’s as if I’m a father of ten. Things only calm down for me at night, after they’re all in bed.’ During some of the pavilion’s most agitated phases, Moonface didn’t even find peace in bed: ‘In the silence of the night, my mind carries on working regardless ‘cause the final decision is mine and a man’s fate depends on it. I’m the judge of the pavilion. Except that a judge on the outside puts in his hours and his driver takes him home; I work forty-eight hours a day. He only has to decide if the accused goes to jail or give him a longer sentence at the most. I sign death sentences.’

  The Warders

  At first, I had the impression that the warders didn’t trust me. Then I was sure of it. They were aloof, they told me later, because they thought I might be involved with human rights associations or have political interests.

  During the first few years, with the exception of Waldemar Gonçalves who became a close friend and two or three others, they would change the subject whenever I arrived. If, out of curiosity, I asked a question about the most mundane occurrence, they would answer evasively.

  After a talk in the cinema of Pavilion Six, I passed a young man covered in blood heading for the infirmary and asked the warder escorting him what had happened. ‘A roof tile fell on his head,’ was his reply.

  On another occasion, I found a commotion in Divinéia. People were entering and leaving the packed body search room, all looking worked-up. Someone had no doubt been caught trying to smuggle in something prohibited. When I asked the short warder who guarded the gate to Divinéia – where he later met his death, crushed by a dump truck in a cinematographic attempted escape – what was happening, he answered in all seriousness, ‘Someone took a bad turn due to the heat.’

  Their mistrust wasn’t personal. I hadn’t said or done anything that could justify it. The truth is, warders don’t like strangers in their working environment. Reality is disconcerting in a prison; what seems right is often wrong, and apparently absurd things have a logic that stems from their circumstances. Naïve visitors can jump to conclusions without knowing the facts and make indiscreet comments that eventually make it to the ears of the Inspector General, who investigates cases of abuse of authority, or to reporters.

  Members of human rights associations and Catholic Prison Pastoral Care are generally ill regarded. According to the warders, they are only concerned with the rights of the criminals.

  ‘Doctor, in the time you’ve been here,’ one of them once said to me, ‘you’ve lost count of the number of times a colleague of ours was taken hostage at knifepoint. There is no greater humiliation for the head of a family. Only those who have been through it can say. Have you ever seen someone from human rights or one of those Pastoral Care priests come offer a warder their support?’

  It was true, I hadn’t, I told him.

  ‘A man who’d never hurt a fly, like João,’ he continued, ‘died under a dump truck at the gate to Divinéia in that attempted escape. Did anyone go offer his widow words of comfort? Now, go slap a bloody con and you’ll see the lawsuit they’ll spring on us!’

  Journalists, in turn, are masters of misfortune, and can find enemies anywhere. Fearing that a former victim might recognise them and that new suits will increase their sentences, prisoners avoid camera lenses like the devil flees the cross. Point a camera at them and they will cover their faces and disappear faster than they would from a military police officer’s machine gun. Warders also avoid the press, saying that it only serves to criticise and distort what is said.

  Once, six inmates took a group of warders hostage in the laundry, next to Pavilion Six, to demand a transfer to another prison, which had become routine after the massacre in Nine (which I will discuss later). When I arrived at the prison, there were cameras, microphones and TV crew cars everywhere. When I went inside, I asked one of the directors who was participating in the negotiations what all the commotion was about.

  ‘They’re vultures, Doctor,’ he replied. ‘They land here when they sense something sordid that might help sell their newspaper.’

  Time eventually broke down the warders’ resistance to me. Aparecido Fidélis, an experienced warder, told me over a beer at a bar next door to the prison: ‘As the years went by, we realised you’d come to help.’

  From that point on, I was free to come and go as I pleased. I was even able to circulate in the high security areas, such as Yellow and the Dungeon. Walking alone amid the inmates gave me a sense of self-confidence that wasn’t limited to the hours I spent inside the prison.

  There were warders who acted as pleased to see me as I felt when I ran into them. We would talk about work, health problems, financial hardships (of which they had their fair share), family difficulties and misunderstandings with women. Our mutual respect reinforced the ties that held me at the Casa de Detenção.

  The life they lead was tough. Their salaries weren’t enough to get by on. Those who didn’t succumb to corruption had to hold second jobs as security guards in banks, supermarkets, shops, nightclubs and brothels.

  Much of this work was on the side, without worker’s rights. They weren’t even given weapons and had to use their own revolvers, generally unlicensed, since the job didn’t afford them the right to bear weapons. In a robbery, if they were wounded or killed a robber, the company could shirk responsibility. They did not have formal work contracts. If they were killed, their families would have to make do with a state pension.

  Their shifts were interminable. Those who did night duty headed straight to their day jobs at seven a.m. They would only sleep the following night, while on break at the prison. Those who worked during the day did the opposite. The ones who worked every day from eight to six were worse off: they would catch a few hours of sleep while on the job and that was it. The only time they would actually lie down in a bed was when they had the weekend off. Their absence from home complicated family routines, destroyed marriages and paved the way to double lives, in which they divided their time between their wives and other women. To bear the tension inherent to their work and the tiring nights, many overindulged in alcohol. Alcoholism and obesity were prevalent among the warders. They drank heavily; it wasn’t easy to keep up with them.

  One night, after distributing the fourth edition of Vira Lata, the erotic AIDS-prevention comic book, I called together the team who had participated in the project and we went to a bar across the street from the Casa, called Alcatraz.

  When
we arrived, at around eleven p.m., we found a group of warders from the day shift who had been drinking since they clocked off, at seven. It was a typical bar setting: the counter cluttered with beer bottles and plates of food, jukebox music, people talking and cigarette smoke. When he saw me, one of the warders shook my hand and, speaking as if with a plum in his mouth, made a small speech:

  ‘Doctor Varella, what an honour to find you here, with this humble warder, who is, nonetheless, a human being with as much dignity in his heart as your scientific self and who, in this informal setting, insists on offering you a glass of cachaça, which you will be so noble as to accept.’

  In spite of the persuasive vernacular, I hesitated; I had been so busy with the distribution of the comic book that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Hard liquor on an empty stomach wasn’t going to do me any good. Seeing me pause, one of the warder’s more sober co-workers came to my rescue:

  ‘Leave him. The doctor isn’t the sort to drink cachaça at a bar.’

  His remark piqued my pride. I replied that I was the one who would be honoured to drink in such distinguished company.

  A glass brimming with a generous dose of firewater appeared before me. With all eyes on me, I took a man’s gulp like the rest of them. The liquid blazed through my oesophagus, hit the mouth of my stomach with a jolt and instantly made my head spin. I felt a shiver run through me.

  Then Waldemar suggested a serving of frango a passarinho – fried chunks of garlic chicken, the house speciality, accompanied by beer and the melodious voice of Alcione singing ‘Nem morta’ (‘Not Even Dead’). When the song was over, someone would put another coin in the jukebox and ‘Nem morta’ would play again. It was as if Alcione and the full glass were on a loop.

  I arrived home and got into the shower with the taste of the Alcatraz’s oily chicken in my mouth and images of the prison in my mind. In the middle of my shower, I was surprised by my wife’s voice.

  ‘Is this the hour to be listening to samba at that volume?’

  ‘The radio isn’t even on!’

  ‘Of course it isn’t, I just turned it off. Didn’t you even notice?’

  It isn’t my intention to paint a romantic portrait of these men, not least because some don’t deserve it. They became involved with the criminals, took bribes in cell transfers, charged tolls at the doors of the pavilions, went along with trafficking and sold knives for self-defence. Petty corruption is universal in prisons and impossible to eradicate. They probably also took part in more serious infractions, such as facilitating escapes (one director general who took over shortly after the massacre in Nine ended up doing time in the Criminal Observation Centre for involvement in several) or allowing firearms in, a risky practice that prompted aggressive reactions from co-workers, whose lives were placed at risk as a result.

  Those who did such things became indistinguishable from the criminals. As their more honourable colleagues would say: ‘He who keeps company with pigs eats slops.’

  Long-term contact with criminals, a chronic lack of money and the bureaucracy of the Brazilian justice system encouraged corruption.

  A former director once received a tip-off that the employee responsible for ensuring that the inmates’ paperwork was duly processed at the central court was charging under the counter for his services. If an inmate didn’t give him money, he could rot in jail. The director gave him a dressing-down, transferred him to Pavilion Nine to guard the gate and appointed someone he trusted to the strategic function, because when transfers to semi-open prisons and releases ground to a halt, the prison atmosphere would get heavy, ready to explode.

  Weeks later, amid the prisoners’ mounting discontent, and unable to get any paperwork processed at the central court, the honest employee came back to the director and said, ‘Sir, can I give you a word of advice? Put so-and-so back on the job. Only he knows how to get things moving down there. If you don’t grease palms, things just sit there gathering dust.’

  The director, a practical man who had started out in life as a policeman dealing with troublemaking drunks in the port of Santos, decided not to beat his head against a wall and summoned the conniving employee.

  ‘Look here. You’ve been opening and closing the gate for cons for a month now. You’ve had time to learn your lesson. Now go back to the court and do whatever it takes to get the men’s papers moving, before the situation here gets any worse.’

  To be fair, however, there were many honest prison guards, despite the bad rap they got in the press, the ridiculous salaries, the risk of contracting tuberculosis, being taken hostage or getting killed. If it weren’t for them, it would have been impossible to run the prison.

  According to the tradition of the Brazilian public service, in the Casa de Detenção there were many ineffective employees and very few productive ones. Additionally, low salaries had caused many experienced men to leave the profession, forcing administration to hire younger recruits without adequate training.

  Once, next to the gate between Six and Two, Chico Butt, an inmate who had been in and out of the prison several times and was an inveterate joker, called my attention to the new guard in a low voice.

  ‘Doctor, it isn’t right to put a boy like that to look after us. He’s yellow with fear.’

  These factors, along with absenteeism, created surreal situations. During the day, for example, a mere ten to twelve warders would watch over a pavilion like Eight, with over 1500 repeat offenders; at night, the number would drop to six or seven. Overseeing the 1600 inmates in Five, it was the same.

  How such a small group of unarmed men were able to control a prison of that size was one of the mysteries of the place. Perhaps the biggest. The structure was so fragile that the only possible reason why there weren’t spectacular escapes, the sort that empty out entire pavilions, was explained by Reinaldo, who worked at the front gate: ‘We’re lucky the cons don’t see eye to eye.’

  Reduced to its essence, the warders’ job was to divide up the convicts in a Machiavellian manner. As Bonilha, the former director of Five, who once paid out of his own pocket for a packet of cigarettes that one inmate owed another, just to avoid another homicide in his pavilion, used to say: ‘I spend the day throwing sand on them.’

  Fidélis, with many years as a warder under his belt, said that the secret of the job was to take advantage of conflicts of interests among the prisoners: ‘Doctor, crime is a profession. A real villain comes here to do his time in peace, get out as quickly as possible and go back to thieving, ‘cause that’s his life. He keeps his companions calm, doesn’t get involved in escape plans, drugs or knifings, so as not to jeopardise his objective of leaving. Without realising it, the biggest villains end up being our allies.’

  The ability to forge alliances with the right people, the leaders of the prison population, was essential to the smooth functioning of the prison and the physical safety of the employees.

  Daily contact with the prisoners gave rise to solid friendships. For the incarcerated men, the warders represented contact with the outside world – the only contact, in the case of those who didn’t have any visitors. An inmate could come to feel great regard for a warder who had done him a small favour, given him support at a difficult time or had the patience to listen while he let off steam. Mutual respect was a part of the balance of forces that was established in the prison and was decisive in preserving lives in moments of irrational violence.

  In the tumultuous days following the 1992 massacre, convicts who were well respected by the other prisoners went as far as to escort warders to the exit, to avoid possible reprisals from the prison population.

  As well as having the right friends, a good team of informers was fundamental to internal peace. Grasses are as old as prisons themselves. They informed for personal gain: a transfer, the payment of a debt, revenge, envy, a dispute over a woman or to take out a competing dealer, according to Florisval, who started out as a warder and made it to director: ‘When a grass appears, I try to see if the
information he brings is worth what he wants in exchange.’

  Luisão, a legendary former director of the Casa, swore he was able to identify those in whom grassing was an innate quality. ‘There are born grasses, Doctor,’ he once told me.

  Grassing was a high-risk activity, punishable by summary execution. Nevertheless, to the despair of the prisoners, as Not-a-Hope ruefully admitted, ‘There’s always a grass hanging around, Doctor.’

  In the prison, because each narrator gave his version of events, no one ever knew where the truth resided. If you listened to ten people, you would hear ten different stories, and separating truth from fiction was a puzzle that required intellectual training. Experienced warders would notice everything that went on in the prison environment, even insignificant details. When a problem arose, they would listen to the well-informed, talk to the head cleaners, debate it with their colleagues and summon their informers. Until they made their final decision, they were walking on thin ice: ‘The smallest slip-up can lead to a death.’

  When he wanted to discover who was guilty of something, Jesus, the director of security, said he avoided making brusque movements. ‘I would poke around a little, then wait to see what came out in the wash.’

  They were shrewd, artfully confusing the inmates, who were not a united front.

  Pavilion Eight once spent the whole day locked up because of a rumour that a tunnel was being built. On such occasions, no food was served and bad moods grew as the day went on. Late that afternoon, when 120-kilo Jesus crossed the pavilion courtyard, he heard someone shout from a window:

  ‘You’re going to die, Jesus!’

  ‘And you’re not, scumbag?’ he shot back.

  Alongside those who believed in more civilised techniques, however, there were more radical warders: ‘Clubs and transfers are what keep a jail in order, Doctor, the rest is crap. Find your man and transfer him to the penitentiary in Presidente Wenceslau, almost on the border of Mato Grosso. Then see if he doesn’t come back with his tail between his legs.’