by G. F. Newman
A family travelling along the motorway, their car overloaded with holiday luggage, stared as they overtook the prison van, the kids pointing at him. The picture made Lynn prickle with shame and think about his little Carol and Sandra, abandoned during the eight months of his remand. They thought the world of him and both would be grown women by the time he was released unless he got a result on appeal. This unjust separation was something he intended to make someone pay for.
‘You sure you don’t want a few hands, Jack?’ said one of the screws, as he paused from dealing the cards.
‘Deal the card!’ one of the others rasped at him.
‘Oh, what, you losing a few bob, Ernie?’
‘C’mon. You got more fucking rabbit than my old woman.’
Distracted for a moment, Lynn looked across at them but didn’t comment, having no wish to be further involved with them. Watching the cards slide out of the clumsy dealer’s hands, he thought about the waste of money sending him on his own with four screws and a police escort. In the Scrubs there were two other Cat A cons due for the same prison. He turned his gaze to the window again, his thoughts like molten lava.
At forty-one years of age he had always got his living from villainy, apart from a few brief periods when inside, but there was little in his appearance that identified him as a villain As a professional criminal he always accepted the odds in favour of being arrested and even of going to prison. You had a run and, depending on how lucky rather than how clever you were, you earned a nice few quid, and when trouble came you tried to have a deal with the filth, and if you couldn’t, you did your time. If you couldn’t do your time, as a cid had once said to him, you shouldn’t do the crime. He accepted that without bitterness over his previous arrests. He’d had a good run of luck, earned a nice few quid, and wouldn’t be going down but for the diabolical conspiracy on the part of the police, the prosecution, that judge. If his conviction was for robbing the Tote at Catford dogtrack he might have accepted his good run coming to an end. Now he was convinced everyone in authority was part of this conspiracy, and somehow he would find the means to do something about it, while resisting his sentence.
There were two meal stops en route to the prison. For neither of them was he allowed out of the van. Food from the Little Chef was brought to him. He was only allowed out to go to the lavatory, in handcuffs, accompanied by two screws.
The crenellated gatehouse of the prison was an anachronism, the square battlements rose like some Victorian folly built on someone’s whim, and it bore little relation to the rest of the building. More incongruous, perched high on the battlements, were the two security cameras which swung in arcs across the road in front of the huge, studded gates, picking up any movement on the screens in the security room. The prison van must have been identified for what it was long before it reached the gates, but even so one of the screws was obliged to get out and ring the bell. The wicket gate opened and his transit papers were passed in. Lynn watched the gate close before the double gates juddered and rolled open on well-oiled runners. The van moved into the security area and he shivered involuntarily.
The huge gates closed signalling the intention to incarcerate him for a period longer than he could grasp in his imagination. A growing sense of panic rose in him, causing him to shake. This was it, now inside the prison it was as though any vestige of hope was stripped away. On the outside anything might have happened, even the minibus crashing and giving him a chance to escape.
‘One on!’ a gate warder shouted, informing the rest of the gate staff, like they couldn’t see him in the van.
The screw who took the driver’s papers reappeared and handed back only two of the dockets before unlocking the heavy iron inner gates at the opposite end of the security area. After pushing open the gates one at a time, he waved the truck on.
The Ford Transit rolled out of the gate security area and across the yard towards reception. Lynn looked back as the gates slammed and he shivered again. Gates and doors being banged at every opportunity was an enduring memory of previous stays in prison.
Followed by two of the screws from the minibus, he shuffled through more security gates and into the reception wing. In the main hall where new prisoners were processed, a screw waited behind a metal table that was bolted to the floor. A trusty was close by to assist but his general demeanour was no more welcoming than that of the screw.
The room was twenty feet by thirty, with a line of six holding cells along one side. One of these windowless cubicles was where Lynn knew he would spend the night after completing reception. Ranged behind the table was a block of Dexicon shelving reaching to the ceiling holding hundreds of dusty, numbered cardboard boxes containing prisoners’ effects. On one end of the table were flat, empty boxes, along with a box of mothballs used for storing their clothes. In the personal property book the reception screw entered every kept item Lynn brought in, removing as his perks any cigarettes, tobacco or sweets. At the end of the room was a corridor which led to the bathroom, and the room where the medical officer examined reception prisoners. Next was the room where prisoners were fingerprinted and photographed, their details checked against those in the movement order. Every surface was shiny with cream and green stippled paint, apart from the white lines on the floors.
‘Stand on the line,’ the escort said, stooping and pointing to a line on the floor three feet in front of the table where he was required to stand as though he were contagious.
‘One on,’ the second warder informed the reception warder, and handed him the second and third copies of his movement order.
Pulling this clipboard forward, the reception screw said, ‘Name’. They never said please, not to cons, fellow officers, or the deputy governor, only to the chief officer and the governor. The brutalising aspects of prison affected everyone. None bore any trace of sensitivity, and any they started service with was soon lost, along with good intentions.
‘John Albert Lynn.’
All they ever wanted was the surname.
The reception warder looked up at him. ‘You forgotten something?’
Lynn looked back at him, ignoring his demand.
‘In case you don’t know, you’d better learn fast. When you address a member of staff, no matter what their rank, call them sir. Understood?’
It was a try on. Some prisoners might be intimidated, but Lynn had no intention of letting it happen to him. ‘You got some chance, pal,’ he replied.
There was a tense moment, the reception screw undecided about his next move. In a tone heavy with menace, he said, ‘Looks like you’re going to make a lot of trouble for yourself, John Albert Lynn.’ He nodded to himself. ‘In future you’re a number. Prisoner A4697, that’s for the next twenty years sunshine, and don’t forget it. When required to do so you identify yourself by that number, then, if further required, and only then, by your name. Understood?’
Lynn didn’t react, knowing that trying to prevent this was pointless.
They checked his particulars and he stated his occupation was cab driver. He was asked about his insurance card and P45. He didn’t have either.
With what he saw as a sneering nod, the screw said, ‘Course you haven’t. I daresay we’ll all have to keep your wife and kids, even though you’ve contributed fuck all.’
Lynn tensed, fighting his inclination to spring at the screw and kneedrop him. This was only the start of the abuse. Half the time these bastards didn’t realise what they said was abuse. ‘Old Bill fitted me,’ he responded, his hands flexing into tight fists. ‘The state’d better fucking well support my family.’
‘Don’t answer back,’ the escort warder said.
The reception warder rose from behind the table. ‘I’ll give you some advice,’ he said, stabbing the air with a thick finger, ‘and you’d better fucking well take it ’cos we got the means in here of dealing with hard cases. Stay in line or you’ll be on repo
rt faster than you know.’ He glanced at the other two warders present, who were tense and alert.
Having pressure on you in reception was standard as screws tried to establish their authority, but he wouldn’t take much of it as the way he was feeling he could go at any moment.
#
Bathing was an essential part of a prisoner’s reception, though in past prison regimes, because of both lack of staff and adequate facilities, bathing wasn’t a frequent part of the routine. He wondered if it was now any more frequent than once a week. Perhaps it was with the threat of HIV and Aids spreading in prison. The idea of a bath on reception was to check the possibility of bringing disease or infection into the closed community, though the six inches or so of water he was allowed was more a nod towards cleanliness.
The bathroom in the reception wing had six antiquated cast-iron baths set in the stone floor, each with huge, worn taps and scoured-off enamel. He came in naked past the white-coated warder, watched with interest by a trusty, who moved a mop between the baths.
‘Get a towel and soap.’ The warder indicated some small oblongs of folded towelling on a metal table, then turned away and went out of the bathroom.
‘The water’s nice and hot,’ the trusty said.
Lynn said nothing, but felt hostility towards this man. The prison authority tolerating homosexuality seemed part of the mockery of prison celibacy – this reception queen was the final insult. Letting him be there meant someone was trying to provoke him.
After washing himself Lynn noticed the trusty drag his mop across the floor in the direction of his bath, having checked that the warder was out of sight. He stopped mopping and gave him a big smile, his reddened lips and eyes darkened from the hardcovers of library books.
‘I’m getting a blue-veiner here, Ginge,’ Lynn said, glancing down at his crotch.
The trusty glanced at the door again, then stepped over to the bath and leaned forward as though he was going to oblige him. Without warning Lynn grabbed his thinning hair and yanked his head down hard. The trusty let out a hysterical shriek as he went under the water. Lynn was up and out of the bath by the time the screw reappeared.
‘What’s going on?’ he wanted to know.
‘That soapy bastard needs a bath,’ Lynn said.
‘What happened?’ the screw said to the trusty, who was on his knees, spluttering.
‘I slipped, Mr Gregory. I slipped, sir,’ he managed.
‘Get yourself dried,’ the screw said to Lynn, ‘and get your clothes sorted out.’
Lynn went out, drawing the sparse towel round himself. From what he’d heard on the outside, prisons were relaxing the rules over clothes. At one time all prisoners were dressed exactly similar, including wearing of ties. Although the full clothing kit was issued, the decision to wear it or not was for the prisoner, so perhaps the prison authorities were coming to understand that there was no advantage in forcing a man to wear a tie or shoes, especially if he had little or nothing to lose if he chose not to.
The clothing store was part of reception and run by a trusty, supervised by a screw. Lynn watched the trusty size him up with a glance ‘What are you, ’bout forty-four chest?’
‘Forty-two,’ Lynn replied. ‘Thirty-four waist – something that fits would be handy.’
The trusty looked at him. ‘Get any snout in?’ he asked.
That would determine how new or well-fitting his clothes were. Lynn knew the score – the warder copping half of what the trusty got – but he wasn’t going to play. It was bad enough having screws pull those strokes without having one of your own doing it. ‘Yeah, I got about three ounces jammed up m’ daily.’
‘Flash bastard,’ the trusty said, and grabbed an assortment of clothes and tossed them on the table.
Lynn picked up a vest that was several sizes too big. He would have taken it had it been clean. He threw it back at the tall overweight trusty. ‘Change it.’
‘You take it as it comes, pal.’
Pointing with his index finger for emphasis, Lynn said, ‘I won’t tell you again.’
The trusty recognised he had trouble on his hands and reached down another vest, while Lynn stepped into the pants. They hung down his legs like a curtain. He decided to let them go, but not the trousers he stepped into. He removed them, his eyes not leaving the trusty. ‘I told you waist thirty-four,’ and threw them at the trusty as the warder stepped through the door.
‘What the fuck do you think this is,’ he demanded, ‘Savile Row? Pick those clothes up and get them on, ’fore I fetch the principal officer.’
‘Tell this ponce to get me down something that fits.’
That wasn’t the answer the screw was expecting. ‘Right!’ he said, panicking. ‘Stay where you are, don’t move.’ He backed away, and then turned and ran.
‘You picked a right wrong ’un there, pal,’ the trusty said, as if mitigating his own position.
The screw came hurrying back with the principal officer in charge of the reception wing. He was Gordon Walters, who was older, heavier and shorter with a large red nose. He looked like someone who was long in the service and knew most of the dodges and fiddles both by prisoners and screws. ‘This officer reported you for threatening behaviour,’ he said.
‘I just want some clothes that are clean and what fit,’ Lynn said.
‘This ain’t a fucking West End tailor’s. We make the rules,’ the po said. ‘Rule 20 states: A convicted prisoner shall be provided with clothing adequate for warmth and health in accordance with a scale approved by the Secretary of State. It doesn’t say anything about it having to fit you or be clean. It’s adequate for your needs. If you wanted fancy clothes you should have thought of that before getting yourself convicted.’
‘I was fitted by the fucking filth,’ Lynn protested.
‘Yeah, yeah, we’ve heard it all before. You’re doing time, son. You’ll do it our way.’
‘Fuck it! Either I get clean clothes or bang me up like this.’ Having made his stand, Lynn couldn’t back down. If he did word would go round on him that he had no knuckle.
‘You’re going to come to grief in here, you persist in this attitude,’ the po said, ‘a lot of grief.’ Then for no reason Lynn could understand, he wiped his mouth and turned on the trusty. ‘Why haven’t these clothes been laundered? They’re disgusting. Get them down to the laundry, and give the prisoner some decent clothes.’
With that he departed, leaving the warder as disappointed as the trusty. ‘You pulled a right stroke there,’ one of the warders said as he took Lynn along to the MO’s office.
Lynn didn’t reply. His navy-blue battledress-type uniform fitted him well enough, as did his striped shirt. His shoes were new – a minor victory.
The medical examination, an essential part of reception, was so perfunctory it could have been conducted by a screw. The MO’s office was sparse; a table, a chair, a cupboard and an examination couch were all it held. The stooped Dr Eynshaw wore nicotine-stained fingers and dandruff on his shoulders, a worried-looking middle-aged man who sat reading a newspaper, ignoring Lynn as he dropped his trousers and pants at the line in front of the table. When he finished marking some horses in the racing page he put the paper to one side and found a reception medical form.
‘Number, name and initial,’ he said, without looking up.
‘Lynn, Jack Lynn.’
The MO stopped writing and looked up at him for the first time. ‘Don’t you understand plain English?’
‘A4697,’ Lynn said.
‘Take your top off. Raise your arms.’ The doctor shone a torch on his armpits, without getting out of his chair, and then on his pubic hair, this examination being interrupted by a coughing fit. Phlegm shot from his mouth and landed on the form and the doctor wiped it away with the side of his hand. ‘Turn round and bend over,’ the MO continued, and when Lynn did so he pointed the
torch at his arse. ‘Any VD, crabs or lice?’ He didn’t await an answer. ‘Are you HIV? Ever visited a doctor or hospital to be examined for Aids?’ He seemed satisfied to accept Lynn’s negative answers. ‘Ever had homosexual relations?’
‘Leave off.’
The doctor went .on writing. ‘You’re fit to work.’ That was the end of the examination.
Nothing much had changed since his last medical in prison. Lynn remained unmoving with his trousers and pants around his ankles, feeling angry and frustrated. This was the familiar humiliating routine all cons were subjected to and treated like dog shit. People who did this were no better than shit themselves, Lynn decided; they gave prisoners no dignity or respect and so deserved none in return. As if to fulfil some role expected of him he raised his dick and pissed on the table.
‘What are you doing?’ the doctor shouted, leaping out of his chair. ‘You fucking maniac.’
‘What, this is a piss-hole, innit?’ Lynn said. ‘You look like someone who cleans piss-holes.’
‘You’re on report!’ the warder bellowed at him.
No sweat. Lynn continued urinating until he was finished.
41
WITHOUT COMPLETING RECEPTION, WHICH WOULD have meant being interviewed by the chaplain, the chief officer and a welfare worker, Lynn was escorted to the punishment block to be taken the following morning before the governor.
Prior to that visit he was put in a cell adjacent to the adjudication room and a copy of the report was pushed under his door. On the back of the form he could answer any or all of the charges in writing. He chose not to, knowing it would make no difference to anything. He tried to remain detached as he was searched, then told to remove his shoes and put on a pair of carpet slippers, several sizes too big, to prevent damage to the governor if he tried to kick him.