by Derek Hansen
Any reason? Grant didn’t know where to begin. Once again he was aware of the other prisoners watching him. He didn’t understand the wry half-smile on the officer’s face.
‘I should warn you that if you ask for protection you will spend the rest of your time in prison in protective custody with rockies and be regarded by other inmates as one of them.’
‘What are rockies?’
‘What are rockies? Rock spiders. Paedophiles. Do you want to be put in with them?’
‘No way.’
‘Okay, so protective custody refused.’ The officer ticked a square on his pad.
Grant wished he hadn’t been so quick with his response. What was worse? Taking his chances in the open prison, where God only knew what could happen to him, or taking protection and spending every waking and sleeping moment with child molesters? Given that he would only be there for as long as it took his legal team to get him out, protection suddenly seemed a better option than sharing a cell with one of the animals from the van.
‘Okay, now I’m going to give you an ID card which you have to keep about your person at all times, understand?’
‘Yes. Look, about protection —’
‘We’ve done that. Don’t lose your card. Lost cards cause us a lot of aggravation, which means we’ll cause you a lot of aggravation. Got that? I’m also going to give you a six-digit MIN, which is your master index number. Remember it like it’s your name because, as far as we’re concerned, your MIN is your name. You can be asked for it any time of the day or night right up until the day you’re released. Your number is 1012_ _. Got that?’
Grant nodded, even though the last two digits eluded him. His mind was still wrestling with whether or not he’d done the right thing by refusing protection. He again thought of the prisoners in the van, their tattoos, and their shoulders bulked up by doing weights.
‘Right. This your first time in gaol?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay. You’re probably feeling a bit scared and a bit angry, right? Since you’re a cleanskin I’ll give you a bit of advice. It’s okay to feel scared but put the anger away. You’ve got attitude and that’s only going to get you into trouble. Got it? Nobody comes here unless they’ve done something wrong, so button it. Just do what you’re told when you’re told and no ifs or buts. You might be a big man outside but here you’re just another piece of shit. Now, a CO is going to come and take you to be fingerprinted and photographed and then searched. After that you’ll be given a shower and your greens and then you’ll be handed over to staff whose job it is to deal with all your questions. Until then, I’d keep a lid on it if I were you. Okay?’
Grant was photographed, fingerprinted and taken into another doorless cubicle.
‘Strip.’
‘What?’
‘You heard! Take your bloody clothes off!’
‘In here?’
Grant obeyed although his sense of vulnerability escalated with each item he removed.
‘Put your clothes in the tray. You’ll get them back for your court appearance.’
Grant had changed often enough in football changing rooms but never before under such an unflinching gaze. He felt inadequate and humiliated.
‘Open your mouth.’
The officer peered into his mouth.
‘Lift your tongue.’
Grant pulled his tongue back as far as it would go.
‘Turn your head to the left.’
The officer checked behind his left ear before repeating the process with his right.
‘Lift your scrotum.’
‘What?’
‘Lift your nuts so I can see behind ’em.’
The officer crouched down in front of him and squinted between his legs.
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Grant. ‘Is this really necessary?’
‘You say something?’
Grant decided he hadn’t and shook his head.
‘I thought you did. Okay, now bend over and spread your cheeks.’
Grant turned around and did as instructed, his humiliation now absolute.
‘I am authorised to call a doctor to conduct a full-body cavity search if I feel it is warranted. Is that what you want?’
‘No.’
‘No, sir.’
‘No, sir.’
‘Then learn to keep your mouth shut. Okay, stand.’ The officer led Grant naked into a tiled cubicle alongside the one he’d just vacated. ‘Shower and be quick about it.’
Grant stumbled beneath the shower and turned on the taps. The tiles were broken and chipped and covered in a film of soap and hair. The grout between the tiles was black and a breeding ground for tinea. Soap was shared. All his anger had gone and his fear put on temporary hold. He could scarcely comprehend what had happened to him, the indignities he’d endured, the deliberate dehumanisation. Unbelievably, he felt close to tears.
He dried himself and got dressed in his greens. Underpants, T-shirt, tracksuit pants, sloppy joe, socks and Dunlop Volleys. Dunlop Volleys, for Christ’s sake. He was accustomed to two-hundred-dollar Nikes. He clutched his spare T-shirt, underpants and socks, two pairs of shorts and a toilet kit containing a toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo and disposable razor hard against his chest. The officer led him away to a room where more COs and a welfare officer waited to interview him.
‘Is there anyone we need to inform of your whereabouts? Landlord?’
Christ! His mortgage, what about his mortgage? There were so many things to think about. If his legal team didn’t get him out he’d lose his townhouse. That was something else he’d have to get his solicitor onto.
‘Is that a yes or a no?’
‘No.’
‘Employer?’
Oh God, what would happen to his business?
‘No.’
‘Any relatives who need to be informed? Wife, parents, children?’
If only. His parents had moved to Forster on the New South Wales mid-north coast and divided their time between their crappy little brick-veneer house and the RSL club. Even if they sobered up, he doubted they’d care. His daughter was another matter, but not something he or anyone else could address in one phone call.
‘No.’
‘Any pressing personal or family problems?’
He could think of one, oh yes, he could think of one, but it was a problem he’d have to deal with himself.
‘I shouldn’t be here. I’m not guilty. Someone’s stuffed up.’
‘So you’ll be in good company. This place is full of people who haven’t done anything. You’ve been classified B(u): B unsentenced, bail refused. That’s pretty clear. The B classification means that, in the opinion of the Commissioner, you should be confined behind a secure physical barrier at all times. If there’s any reason you shouldn’t be here tell your solicitor not me. Now, please answer the question.’
‘I have no personal or family problems.’
‘Do you have any medical problems that require you to see a doctor?’
‘No.’
‘Right-oh. Some time over the next few days you will go through screening and induction by trained officers to help keep you safe and assess you for services and programs such as alcohol and drug dependence. They’ll want to know why you’re here and address your problems so that you don’t re-offend. A psychologist and a probation officer will prepare pre-sentencing reports to be forwarded on to the judge. It is in your best interests to cooperate at all times. Any questions?’
‘Will I have my own cell?’
‘Slot. We call them slots. You will be allocated a slot two out in the remand centre, which means you share a slot with another prisoner.’
‘Can I phone my solicitor?’
‘You’re entitled to make one phone call now and three local calls a week up until sentencing.’ The welfare officer pointed to a phone attached to the wall. ‘You’re limited to six minutes.’
Grant’s hands were shaking so much he had to concentrate hard so he didn’t hit the wrong bu
ttons, get a wrong number and blow his one chance at a call. He heard his solicitor’s receptionist answer by reciting the name of the law firm. He nearly wept at the sound of her voice, a voice from another world, a voice that could lead to his release. But then she continued. ‘The office is presently unattended. Please state your name and phone number and the name of the person you wish to contact after the beep. Thank you for calling.’
A recorded message? Grant was stunned that his solicitor hadn’t waited back for his call. What the hell was he paying him for? He wanted to rip the phone off the wall with frustration. That was what he did under normal circumstances. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d smashed handsets by hurling them to the floor or against walls.
‘It’s Grant Sinclair for Richard Challoner. Tell him I’ve wasted my one and only phone call on him,’ he said bitterly. ‘And tell him to get in touch urgently. He knows where to find me.’
He thought of the thousands of dollars he’d paid his solicitor to get him off, money he was no doubt drinking away in some watering hole, money that was supposed to buy the right verdict. His solicitor owed him big-time. It was his fault that he was in gaol. Challoner should’ve been there to take his call. He slammed the phone down, attracting immediate attention from the welfare officer and the nearby CO.
‘If you’ve broken that phone you’re going to be very unpopular,’ said the CO. He strode purposefully towards Grant who threw his hands up in apology.
‘Sorry, sorry …’
‘Do you want to lose phone privileges?’
‘I’m sorry.’
The officer checked the phone to make sure it was still working.
‘You don’t know how lucky you are. One more outburst like that and you’re going on report.’
Lucky? Grant had never felt less lucky in his life. He was in gaol and about to be locked up in a cell with someone no better than an animal. And he was scared, more scared than he’d ever been or thought he could be.
‘You’re now going to be taken to your slot in Twelve Wing. Here is a copy of the inmate handbook,’ said the CO. ‘Read it carefully and give it back tomorrow or when you finish it. You’ve missed dinner but we’ve kept you some sandwiches. Okay?’ He handed Grant two halves of a sandwich in cling-wrap.
Grant was escorted outside and across a narrow access road into a forbidding old Victorian building. He expected the interior to be dingy and threatening but it was way beyond his worst imaginings. Metal doors clanged shut behind him until he found himself standing on the ground floor of a three-storey building, surrounded on all sides by walls of cells and steel walkways reaching all the way up to the roof. There were nets strung between each of the levels and Grant guessed immediately what their purpose was. Hard men stared out at him from behind bars. Some made wisecracks but his numbed brain couldn’t take them in. His escort stopped abruptly before a cell door and unlocked it. Grant was almost too scared to look inside, frightened of who he might find in there. He was dimly aware of a man stretched out on the lower bunk watching TV. Suddenly he was inside the cell. His escort said something that didn’t register above the sound of canned laughter coming from the TV, but he heard the man on the lower bunk grunt, he thought, with irritation.
He put his bundle of clothes, toilet kit and sandwiches on his bunk but had no idea where to put himself. There was a small table and two metal chairs opposite the bunks, but occupying either of the chairs meant eyeballing his cellmate and he wasn’t yet ready for that. He hauled himself up to the top bunk and lay down, too scared to move.
‘You’re the wrong fucking way round, man.’
‘What?’ Grant froze. Yet the voice beneath didn’t seem to carry any menace.
‘The toilet, man. Bad news. You wanna keep your head as far away from that as you can.’
Grant peered over the end of the bunk. There beneath him, jammed in the corner against the wall, was a filthy stained toilet with no seat. The only concession to privacy was a brick wall less than a metre high. A toilet roll sat on the wall. Grant instantly recalled his noisy humiliating defecation on admittance. He’d thought it would be a one-off experience that he’d get over, never imagining for a second it would become the norm for the duration of his stay. In the corner opposite was a handbasin no more appealing than the toilet. This was where he had to wash his face and clean his teeth? How were people expected to live like this?
‘You got a name?’
‘Grant.’
‘I’m Dave. Some people call me Dopey but that’s got nuthin’ to do with my IQ. You’re a cleanskin, right?’
‘Cleanskin?’
‘First-timer.’
Grant swung his legs hesitantly over the bunk and dropped down to the floor. He’d expected his cellmate to be a tattooed, hairy Neanderthal with a penchant for sodomy, but his preconceptions went straight out the narrow barred window. His cellmate was thin and pale-skinned, with a weedy moustache and goatee he was wasting his time trying to cultivate. He looked exactly like the sort of loser Grant had always done his best to ignore and categorised as a waste of both oxygen and food. Yet he almost smiled with relief. The man was a dope fiend and no threat. No threat! He shook hands and slumped down into one of the metal chairs.
‘I shouldn’t be here.’
‘Oh, man, there’s one hundred and eighty other guys in Twelve Wing who think that. Including me.’
‘What are you in for?’
Dave shook his head.
‘Man, there’s some things you gotta learn. You don’t ask questions. Nobody tells no one nothin’ in here. And don’t tell no one nothin’ about yourself. Got any smokes?’
‘Don’t smoke.’
‘Shit, man.’ Dave seemed to take the absence of cigarettes as a personal affront. ‘What kinda sandwiches they give ya?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Take a look.’
Grant reached up onto his bunk for his sandwiches and unwrapped them. There was something sodden, brown and disgusting between two thin pieces of white bread. Whatever the filling was he couldn’t face it and handed the sandwiches to his cellmate.
‘Baked beans,’ said Dave. His face brightened. ‘Hey, good one, man.’
Over the next few days Grant’s anger and depression grew as the hopelessness of his situation became increasingly apparent. While he had all the attachments of the young and successful, he had no money. The townhouse, the Porsche and the lavish lifestyle were all dependent on cash flow, on paying leases and mortgages. Even his production company operated on an overdraft. For fifteen months his lawyers had applied successfully for a series of postponements contrived to delay his trial and the cost had been a serious drain on his funds. The trial had exhausted what remained and strained the viability of his company. Even though his solicitor urged him to appeal his conviction and denial of bail, Grant decided to wait until after sentencing in the hope that an appeal would not be necessary. Besides, appeals to the Supreme Court did not come cheaply and he no longer had the means to pay. His parole officer suggested legal aid, but Grant couldn’t see how legal aid could get him off where his expensive silks had failed. He needed cash and needed to be on the outside, running his company, to generate it. His frustration fuelled his anger.
Despite the horrors of his daily existence and the suffocating fear he experienced every time the prisoners in Twelve Block were released into the yard or out onto the ‘killing fields’ for sport, he decided to concentrate his few remaining resources on presenting the best possible case when he appeared in court for sentencing. He’d learned that there were three options the judge could consider as an alternative to a custodial sentence: supervision in the community, a community service order and periodic detention. These options gave him hope.
His solicitor suggested preparing a psychologist’s report of their own to counter any negative comments from the prison psychologist and Grant agreed. He provided a list of people who could testify to his good character. Once again he put his faith in hi
s high-powered silks to make the judge see reason. He treated the tests and reviews he was obliged to undergo in prison with barely concealed contempt.
Both his parole officer and the prison psychologist tried to make him show remorse for the victim and sympathy for the victim’s family but Grant refused. He interpreted their intentions as a way of tricking him into accepting his guilt. How could he accept guilt when he was not guilty, despite the jury’s findings? He was not guilty and, as far as Grant was concerned, that was the end of it. He believed that the fact that he stuck to his protestations of innocence would stand him in good stead with the judge. By the time he went to court for sentencing, he’d convinced himself that the judge would realise that the jury had stuffed up and that he’d be released with no more than the judicial equivalent of a slap on the wrist. He thought a community service order or, at worst, periodic detention was a mere formality.
The moment the judge opened his mouth, Grant began to suspect that things might not go quite the way he’d hoped. The judge reviewed his case and, from time to time, looked up from his reading to peer down at him like a stern father to a wayward child. He noted that Grant had not been in trouble before and had no prior offences, but also noted his lack of remorse and unwillingness to accept responsibility for the crime of which he had been convicted. He cited precedents as a basis for his decision. Grant listened in dismay. The precedents seemed to have little in common with his situation. They involved serious offences by violent men, while he was just guilty of being party to an unfortunate accident.
It slowly dawned on Grant that there was a very real possibility that he’d be sent back to gaol and that there was absolutely nothing he or his legal team could do to prevent it. He began to speculate on worst-case scenarios. What would he get? Twelve months with nine months non-parole? At worst, eighteen months? The thought almost made him sick. Eighteen months! He’d lose his townhouse, lose his business, in fact lose everything that defined who he was. Eighteen months! No! It couldn’t happen. It couldn’t.