by David Mathew
Half of the bloods spouting about burglary, anyway, are in for rape. Fact as fact can be. Check the papers. Check the records. Check their sperm counts and get ready for the scum to hit the roof. I assure you. I drop one, when he first come in and me too. We arrive together. It’s got to be done for the sake of authenticity. Not that I am personally trying to be a leader or a warrior; but it’s good to have something to call your own, to call your calling card— and that something can be a matter that you know about someone else. Hence my arrangement with Ostrich. Who is watching, by the way, as we queue for our cereals. Who is trying to converse with me, but I’m staying a few lads ahead of him in the line. Whose eyes on my neck are like paper-cuts.
I collect my gruel and stamp back to my pad. I blow my nose in the sink and try my roughage with my plastic spoon. It makes me sick to the gut. There is too much static in my head. You learn indifference. And you learn the feeling of being regarded as indifferent and that every day will be indifferent—o my days!—and it’s like an Indian summer has obliterated a half-year of grey astral slime. Too much has happened too quickly in the last couple of twenty-fours for things to be natural, but it takes a bit longer—and a long chat with Dott—to convince me of the same.
The day passes like a piece of vinyl slowly melting on a dashboard. I pray and play. I watch the afternoon film—some piece of nonsense about evacuees during the Second—and I use up some of my phone privileges on a wasted phone call in time for Valentine’s Day, with Julie. What do you say when you said it all last week—and the week before that—and yada yada? You’ve said it, and saying it again doesn’t mean it gets cancelled from the memory of the one you said it too.
How’s Patrice? I ask Julie.
She’s relieved to have something else to speak about, other than ennui, regimes and the famous Dellacote ducks that strut around from pond to pond inside our compound. She’s heard it all before, after all. The ducks that hardened, so-called career criminals change their stride to avoid.
(The one bruv who ever kicked one of the ducks, about a year ago, was hospitalised within the hour. The ambulance arrived and drove him down the hill to the waiting hamlet. Taking instant umbrage, two yoots from the Bricklaying course saw it happen and it resulted in violence: four stitches to the cuz’s head. You don’t fuck with the ducks. Word went around.)
I go to the swimming pool and I don’t share a single word with Ostrich. We splash with our floats, learning front-crawl; we say nothing.
He wants to. And I know that. Then suddenly it’s time for lunch. It’s dreck in a kebab skin.
How’s Patrice? I ask.
Her back teeth are giving her the arsehole, Julie tells me. She’s had something that felt like it was turning into whooping cough but didn’t.
What are you wearing?
Is that the end of our conversation about our daughter? she asks.
No. But what are you wearing?
Jeans.
What else?
Nothing else, she replies.
Where is she?
Upstairs. With the babysitter. He’s putting her down.
He? I shout.
Screw Trover—one of the weekend brigade—turns to fight me with his eyes. I turn my back on him and cuddle up closer to the phone’s armour.
The fuck you mean he? I demand.
Alfreth! Screw Trover warns.
I lower my voice. Who is he?
She waits, and the gap in the conversation is like the time it takes for a planet to re-form after cosmic detonation, yat.
She says, Bailey.
And who’s Bailey? I persist.
Time like a gulped breath. Release, please!
Julie says, She needed help. She sounds desperate. Your mum thought it was a good idea as well, innit. She needs a father figure, Billy. Someone to look up to ain’t in jail. Someone older.
She’s made an enemy, I answer.
I hang up the phone. Deep down I’m satisfied and aggrieved at the same time, but I am pleased to have my suspicions confirmed. It’s easier.
Ten.
It’s six o’clock in the p.m. Our meals run like trains on a track. The sticky toffee pudding for a dessert is like brandy. I wait. I clean my mouth and tastebuds with wash. I wait some more. I have heard the story of the fight for first place on the pool table: the one that results in the tip of a pool cue up the nose and destroying a left eye. My approach will be more civilized. The guy wears a patch on the out. Three burn stand before me and knowing a new truth. Seems important. Seems vital.
Come on then, Alfreth. I’ll bust you open. I’ll show you what time it is.
Fat chance, I tell him while I’m chalking my cue.
I start the game with Shelley, knowing that he knows nothing of where his booty—should I win—will be headed; and caring little more either. Roller and Meaney are still down block, but the screws in question, the rumour in the wind has it blown, are coming back on Monday. I know what I saw. Now I need to know why I saw it. First off, I have a game of pool to win. I need to know.
Part Two:
Chicken Escalations
One.
Boxing mags are forbidden, but God knows why. Miss Patterson won’t tell me and neither will anyone else. Maybe I should drop the question on Miss Thistle. I can explain that they’ll expand my learning pathway and that no one ever became the world heavyweight champion by scanning a piece of paper. The works of principle-level, high-security Man Jail prisoners are also forbidden, but those of lesser-known criminals are hunky-dory. What up? I’m doing my rounds in the rain, as per the norm. Papa Alpha-ing from one warm Wing to the next with my invisible chaperone and a trail-blaze known only to a swarm of rotating cameras. I’m doing my job, rudeboy.
Then I get to the Puppydog Wing. I’m admitted in. I enter the Main Office and chat with some guy called Walsh, who wears the pips on his shoulder of a Senior Officer, and who informs me that I’m late and that the Puppydogs will one day have their way. I’ve done nothing wrong. So I tell the O.G.—the old guy—I inform that old bastard peculiar—that it’s none of my responsibility as to when I’m freed from the Library to distribute. It’s obvious. I fear a decent twisting-up after that, but the cunt is just busting chuckles. I feel like a total cheese. Want to bend him over.
Can I get on, sir? I ask.
Hold your horses, son. You know the drill. What you got?
I go through the inventory of what and for whom.
That’s quite a lot, Walsh acknowledges. You’d better get wriggling. But before you go, Alfreth.
Internally I give a sigh. I’m waiting for the so-called joke he always tells. It makes him smile; it gives him something to think about all morning, no doubt. But hey. It’s all part of my sentence. It’s probably on my tariff sheet: along with all the training courses that I have had to go on—the Better Father courses (as far as I know, I’m a good enough father), the Being Assertive courses (I’m assertive enough, rudeboy, I’ve got an off-switch, sure, but I know when to get loud and deep when the time is right), and the Money Management courses (I’ve got eighty-five grand in the bank, cuz, for when I’m on the out; I’ve got bare peas and I don’t need any advice about money management)—I’m sure it’s written in small print somewhere that I have to take madness from screws.
Is it? I give him grudgingly.
How is Treat lifeing you? he asks again, one more time, thinking he’s the belle of the ball, no doubt. But as usual, I’m ready for it. Been here for bare time, right, and it’s easy as pie now.
I’m not a lifer, I answer.
I ignore the reference to Screw Treat. A more mis-nomered piece of skin-waste I’ve never seen still or had the disadvantage to engage in conversation.
Allow it, sir, taking the piss, I tell Walsh.
I’ll allow it when you’re dead. Start your rounds.
Some
times, to be fair, he’s okay, just sarcastic, but this must be his time of the month; he’s a shade more hostile than I’m comfortable with. I sense a sudden wave of anger towards me. I don’t like it. It’s similar to the feeling that I sometimes get when I’m on the out and I’ve had a busy night—jacking cars, maybe—and I’ve wound down with hooch and a few nooses of badly-cut sniff. The sense of guilt I feel when I wake up the next day. Because I know I’ve got my faults, and most of them I can live with; but I’ve never got used to a sense of guilt. I hate it. Especially when I’ve done nothing wrong. Seeing Mum in her dressing-gown and pink slippers, knowing she knows I know she knows that I’ve been up to no good in the small hours, but she doesn’t know what. Knowing she’s waiting for a phone call or a visit from the feds. Knowing she loves me but would rather I moved out. Knowing that her attempts at getting me ready for school are a way of shielding herself from the reality that her son—her only son—is a tearaway tyke and wondering where she went right with her two daughters, who eat their toast in their uniforms and proffer no backchat, and where she went wrong with me.
I hoist up the sack of publications. It’s as heavy as lead and it keeps me fit. Delivering is better than a class at the Gym. Outside Cell 3 on the twos I plonk a copy of New Scientist. I slap the metal flap, either to wake the brother up or to interrupt him doing something I don’t want to see. There is his laminated I.D. card of name, prison number, and the photograph that must be replaced by the screws, within twenty-four hours, in the event of a cuz changing his hairstyle, or shaving off a beard, or getting a tattoo on his scalp. It’s Schyler; I don’t know the yoot. But he’s one of the yoots on Puppydog that are not there because of their sex crimes. It’s something petty like serial robbery but if I scratch my brain cells I can recall something about there being some beef on road with a bruv named Pewter, on B Wing. Schyler’s a Puppy for his own protection.
Still on the twos landing I take the opportunity to peek through the window into the common room. The sight of the common room on the twos always soothes me. Beyond the barred gate and metal door, inside, they’ve got a trio of metre-high cages, each containing a tropical bird of some description: a noisy car crash of colour in an atmosphere of grey and beige. God knows I wouldn’t want to have my pad on this landing, but I like to watch the birds for a few seconds—even to hear them squawk and holler. It probably smells like a zoo in there—and I hate that smell—but I like seeing the birds move from perch to perch, wishing that something equivalent could be introduced to some of the other Wings. Or at least mine. The cages are cleaned out and the birds are looked after by the prisoners. I wouldn’t want that responsibility, but it would be nice to have birds around. I lobbied the Governor once for such a privilege—before I understood that he doesn’t give a fuck about what I want and that I should silence my pen. I’m nearly at the stairs, about to ascend, when I hear:
Hey, Library!
Shamefully I take my time—it’s a rare and gravy moment of power; I’m walking, they’re banged up—but I go to the cell that has called out to me. Open the flap and say, Wogwun, cuz.
You finished on the twos?
Yeah, bruv.
Where’s me TV guide innit?
Not in me sack, rudeboy.
Fuck that. I paid innit, he protests, reasonably enough.
I don’t know what to say, man; I’m just the paperboy. Make a complaint, is all I can think of to advise him—in the sense that it’s what I would do in a similar situation.
Elevate the motherfucker innit, I add.
Yeah, right, he says, turns his back on me and returns to his bed.
Sorry, man, I tell him. I’ll ask when I get back.
Safe, Library.
I close the flap.
As I move up the stairs to the threes my heart starts beating a little bit faster. The new boy, Dott, is on the threes, and I have something to push under his cell door. It occurs to me to wonder how he’s placed his order so fast but it’s on my list and I will honour my duty to dispatch. I take a good hard look at Dott’s photograph: at the mugshot of Ronald Dott. He’s got the sort of baby face that you have to learn to respect—even to fear. You get to our age with no wrinkles, no lines, it’s not down to genetics. It’s down to you don’t give a fuck. Nothing’s scarred you, blood. Nothing’s guilted you out. You’re capable of anything. Bust into the equation the fact that man’s been convicted of raping fourteen women and mutilating half of the same, and you’re looking at one deep rudeboy. I bang on his flap. I open it up.
TV guide, innit.
Safe, cuz, he calls from the sink.
I’ve interrupted him shaving his chest. Feeling somewhat disappointed, I push the publication under his pad door. I’d expected something different. I’m just about to close the flap when he turns to me. He has eyes like the Indian Ocean, blood, even through the reinforced glass. Piercing, is it.
What happened to the two screws in the Cookery Room? he asks.
How do you mean? I reply, thinking: News moves swift.
Suspended. Compassionate. Fired, he elaborates.
I’m not willing to give too much away. When you do it’s like one of them anorexic chicks must feel while throwing up: you’ve lost your nourishment. You feel weak. I tell him that I don’t even know and he returns his attention to the mirror behind the mesh that is supposed to stop the suicides breaking it to use as a vein-slitter but doesn’t.
He says to me, offhandedly, Would you keep me posted?
It’s like I’ve been on an alcoholic bender and I’m sweating out all of the poison.
What’s in it for me? I demand.
He returns his gaze to the window that he’s not supposed to see much through. But I get the impression he sees me wide-screen plasma.
I can treat you in so many ways, Alfreth, he answers.
I’m chilled to my fucking atoms. Guy creeps me.
Is that a perv threat, Dott? I shout, aware that I’ve got about two more seconds before the cameras pick this up—that I’ve been at Dott’s cell for too long and that we’re doing more than chatting shit—but I’m all but trembling.
It’s not a perv threat, Billy. It’s a promise. A good one.
I slam shut the flap. Rattled. Continue to make my way to the stairs.
Hey, Library!
The address is very welcome. I want something to do that’s routine, even if it’s a complaint about a paper that hasn’t been delivered.
Jesus Christ. It’s Downe. Downe and Dirty, as he’s known to his enemies. Maybe to his friends as well, if he has any.
Wogwun.
Open the flap, cuz. Thanks. That Dott, yeah? he whispers.
Yeah, man, I say.
Maybe you could arrange for someone to bang him up regular.
My eyebrows pinch together.
What makes you think I have those resources? I ask him, genuinely confused.
I don’t know. It’s the word.
Mildly flattered that my reputation for organisation— albeit long since relinquished now that I’ve earned my Redband—has rippled the waters.
I ask him, And why would I want to do that anyway?
Downe’s reply is unequivocal and non-confusing. He freaks us all out.
This from a yoot who used a cocktail of shampoo and lighter fuel to toast a baby within an inch of its life, just because it had the wrong eye colour.
A pouch of burn, man, Downe continues in a whisper that only just penetrates the glass. His words shock me.
A pinch ain’t much, man, I seek to clarify.
A pouch, cuz. A packet.
In all my time inside I have never known of a stake so high. Remarking that I’ll think about it, I close his flap—there are footfalls on the stairs below me, screws approaching—and I’m marshalling my reasons for dawdling. I’m badly shaken by the wager’s proposal. I’m badly shake
n by the fact that Dott knows not only my surname—impressive enough after a few days of incarceration—but my first name as well. But I’m shaken much more by the following interaction. My feet on the stairs, the bag on my back.
Yo, Billy! calls Dott.
Fuck you! I call over my shoulder.
I heard your whispers, Billy! he shouts. Give my love to Kate!
Two.
I been looking at me penis for the best part of three hours, says Ostrich.
Tell me more, I say. It’s Sosh Time: therefore we’re chatting shit.
And I can’t understand the conundrum of the egg and the chicken.
There’s a beat of silence. Until Carewith—a quite new yoot in from Chelmsford for bad behaviour—says what we’ve all been feeling.
The fuck that got to do with your dick, dude?
Ostrich says, Nothing. Just two ting happen same time. Me multi-tasking innit. Man looking at the chap and thinking about life, yat.
And what conclusions did you draw, Ostrich-man? I ask.
Ostrich stretches his neck and rotates his head: clearing the clicks. Man don’t know innit. The fucking chicken lay the egg, right? But what made the fucking chicken, right? Y’nar. It’s a fucking astronaut shit situation.
Roper is a div kid with learning difficulties, and he’s slow to catch on to The Teletubbies, let alone psychological rah.
And how your dick figure?
There no dick, man! Ostrich shouts. Just a piece- together, innit.
To which Carewith adds, Man know all about fucking chicken, yat.
As we’ve got another twenty minutes, and the pool tables are already and always occupied, I bite the bullet and ride the noise and say:
Chicken wogwun?
But Roper isn’t finished—it’s his way. He still wants to talk about the notification he’s received about a Sunday visit.