by Peter Kocan
“Yep, it’s true all right,” says Ray Hoad.
The boys look at us with big eyes. Ray is giving them some friendly tips.
“See that bloke over there,” he says, pointing to our centrehalf. “Don’t let ’im get his hands anywhere near yer throat.”
The boys exchange looks.
“And that other fella,” says Ray, indicating our goalie, “don’t provoke him.”
“They call him ‘The Wild Man’,” says Bill Greene.
“He looks all right,” says one of the boys.
“Don’t be fooled,” says Ray Hoad. “He goes berserk if you annoy him.”
The whistle goes and we take our positions. Then the game is under way. The boys are passing, dribbling, feinting, dashing around us, leaving us flat footed. Only Ray Hoad and one or two others are keeping us afloat. The boys soon have two goals.
At half-time we all suck oranges. Ray is whispering to the boys’ centre-forward that our goalie is getting a mad look in his eye and might easily murder the next kid who irritates him.
The second half is like the first. The boys are too fit and fast. They score another goal. Then we make a burst. Bill Greene is making a big run downfield with the ball, towards the boys’ goal. He’s in the open with only the boy goalie to stop him. Ray Hoad is doing a sort of shrieking hiss at the boy, so the spectators won’t hear:
“Watch out! He’s a killer! Get out of his way! He’ll throttle you!”
The boy is rattled. He believes Ray. His face is terrified, but he won’t desert his post even if he has to die. He deflects Bill Greene’s shot. A moment later it’s all over and everyone’s shaking hands and saying the game was a great success.
“We’ve made the little bastards heroes,” says Ray Hoad after the boys have gone. “For years they’ll be tellin’ how they beat the cut-throats!”
“Yeah, and gettin’ into their girlfriends’ pants on the strength of it.”
5
Zurka has been very patient, waiting through the months until his transfer to the open section is only supposed to be a week or so away, and everyone joking about what he’ll do when he gets amongst the women over there. Zurka’s great interest is statistics. He can tell you the figures for German coal production or Mexican sugar crops or how many rivets in any famous bridge, stuff like that. All the years he’s been here he’s been reading up on statistics to keep his mind active and because he likes statistics better than anything. Now he isn’t able to think about them at all, because of the uncertainty of his transfer. It’s wearing his nerves down, especially since the screws are watching him so hard, and even the screws are getting embarrassed about the delay.
Today it has finally come through.
“Pack your bag, mate!” Arthur calls out to him down the verandah. “We’ve just had word. You’re to be transferred before lunch!”
Arthur is grinning and so are the other screws and all the men. Zurka’s grinning most of all. He’s getting his few things together into the dirty old bag that he came here with. The bag’s been in the storeroom for eleven years. Everyone’s slapping Zurka on the back, telling him what a lucky bastard he is and how he’ll get among the women. The screws are giving him friendly advice:
“Take it easy the first few months.”
“Keep your nose clean and your ear to the ground.”
“Watch how the wind’s blowin’.”
“You’ll get on fine.”
“You’ll be in clover.”
“We’re all pullin’ for ya.”
Zurka can’t take everything in properly, except that the screws are being very nice and want him to make a go of it. After an hour or so the excitement has calmed a little and Zurka is sitting quietly, talking to various men who want to have a last few words with him. You can see from his face that his feelings are all mixed up. He’s been dreaming so long about this moment, that now it’s here he doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He’s remembering his eleven years and how these men he’s lived with are like his brothers, even the worst of them, even the ones he’s never liked. He’s feeling an odd kind of shame and embarrassment about leaving them. Already it’s different between him and them, as if he’s won the lottery and is going away from the old friends he was poor with. The other men feel it too, but try not to show anything except how glad they are for Zurka’s sake.
It’s almost lunchtime and the car will be here for him soon. Zurka’s got his bag ready near the office and is shaking hands with someone. A screw comes out of the office and tells Zurka that Arthur wants a word with him. Zurka goes in. You’re watching through the glass partition and can see Arthur and some other screws inside the office. They have very serious faces. Arthur has a piece of paper that looks like a telegram. Arthur is saying something to Zurka and Zurka is staring at him, then he suddenly slumps down in a chair like a man who’s been hit. Then Zurka seems to be arguing and waving his hands, then he’s slumping in the chair again and holding his head in his hands. Arthur is bending over him with a hand on his shoulder, talking to him while the other screws stand back with their serious faces. One of the screws comes out and you ask him what’s happened.
“The transfer’s been forbidden!” he snaps. He’s angry.
“Forbidden? How? Why?”
“A telegram just came from Head Office, maybe from the Minister himself, saying Zurka’s not to be moved out of maximum security under any circumstances. Christ, what a fuck-up!”
“But why?” you ask.
“Don’t ask me. All I know is there’s been a bloody awful fuck-up!” You sit down on the verandah and think what this might mean for Zurka. A fuck-up like this is very bad, and the higher the fuck-up the worse it is. This one came from Head Office, maybe from the Minister himself. A fuck-up that high can kill you. Now it will be on Zurka’s file that his transfer was stopped by Head Office or the Minister, and if anyone ever thinks about a transfer again, maybe after another eleven years, they’ll remember how it was stopped from so high this time. They won’t care why it was stopped. Maybe nobody knows why it was stopped. They’ll just recall that it was stopped from so high and that there must have been a reason for it. The fact that nobody knows the exact reason will make it worse.
The really bad part is that Zurka will be able to think it through just like you’re doing. He has a statistical mind that can work things out. It would be better for Zurka if he was stupid.
Zurka stays in the office for a couple of hours, sitting in the chair, while Arthur and Electric Ned talk to him. Then he comes out and goes down the verandah. Nobody speaks to him. There’s nothing anyone can say, but they try to show how sorry they are by being quiet and not looking at him too much. He wants to go into his cell for a while. The packed bag is still outside the office. A screw unpacks it and puts it back in the storeroom where it had been for eleven years.
At afternoon tea time they bring the urn out on the verandah. The day is dark and windy now. Arthur asks you to take a cup of tea down to Zurka in the cell. You pour a cup out and select three nice biscuits from the tin. Scotch Fingers. You go down the verandah, into the corridor where the cells are.
You can see he’s dead. He’s hanging very still by a strip of blanket tied to the top of the window. His tongue and eyes are bulging out. Nobody looks like that unless they’re dead.
We’re coming in from the vegetable gardens before lunch, all dusty and hot from the work, being counted through the verandah gate in the usual way. The screw who’s counting finds one short. He doesn’t seem worried at first, thinking he’s just miscounted. He counts heads again, carefully, and his expression gets very grim. Other screws go around the ward, identifying each man individually. Ray Hoad is missing. Screws run down to check the pool area. They come back and tell Arthur that the long metal pole of the pool’s vacuum cleaner is lying bent and buckled beside the main wall. Arthur quickly orders a bunch of screws to run outside the compound and around through the scrub to the spot on the other side of the wall from the pool. These screw
s come back to say that the grass there is flattened where Ray Hoad must have jumped down. There’s no sign of him now, just thousands of acres of bush and scrub stretching away around the lake and back inland.
Arthur is in the office making phone calls. Some of the screws are pulling their ties off and rolling their shirt sleeves up, getting ready to go searching. There are sounds of cars and trucks arriving outside the main gate, and a lot of voices. The search parties are being organised. Everybody’s trying to think what Ray Hoad’s strategy will be.
“He’ll head for the highway and try to hitch a ride.”
“Nah, he won’t have time. There’ll be road blocks up within half an hour.”
“He’ll go north.”
“No, he’ll go south, to the city.”
“He’ll stay in the bush till the heat’s off.”
“He hasn’t any food.”
“He’ll live off the land.”
“He’ll take hostages and bluff his way through.”
“He’ll steal a gun from somewhere and shoot it out.”
“Maybe it’s highly organised. Maybe someone’s gonna pick him up in a helicopter or somethin’.”
All the men are excited. We all want Ray Hoad to get away. It’s as though he’s running for us too, our representative, our champion against the screws and the whole system. And yet this escape will make it bad for us. The screws will get hard and will tighten up security in all sorts of ways. And if Ray Hoad hurts anyone while he’s free, it will be very, very bad for us. The best thing for us will be if he’s caught quickly before there’s much publicity and before he maybe has to hurt anyone. It will be bad for the screws, too, if this thing goes on too long or if anyone gets hurt. The high-ups don’t like screws who let things like this happen, and if the high-ups get savage with the screws, the screws will get even more savage with us. So we’re thinking what a bastard Ray Hoad is, making it bad for us, even though we’re very excited and want him to get away.
Arthur comes out of the office and is looking through the verandah wire at the lake and the bush stretching away into the distance.
“Hoad’s a bloody fool, you know,” he says to us, shaking his head. “He’s only making trouble for everyone.”
Arthur is terribly disappointed. You can see he feels hurt that Ray Hoad has done this. Ray Hoad was the pool man, the most trusted one. Arthur doesn’t mention that, because he doesn’t want to bring up the personal side of it, but he’s very hurt.
“Did any of you know Hoad was planning to go?” he asks us. He doesn’t really expect anyone to admit that they knew. He knows you can’t nark on your mates. Nobody answers. You don’t think that many of them knew, though you’re pretty sure Bill Greene did, and maybe a couple more.
Within the hour the radio is telling about the dangerous maniac who’s at large. The radio is warning people not to approach him, but to notify the police immediately. Then the radio is reporting sightings all over the place, some of them fifty miles away. It says this is the biggest manhunt in the area’s history, with hundreds of police and screws involved.
Arthur is staying in the office, near the phone. Every little while a screw with a walkie-talkie comes in from the main gate to tell him how the nearest searchers are going. The ward is quiet, with all the doors locked and only a few screws left to keep watch.
We have lunch.
“I’ll bet Ray’s gettin’ a bit faaarkin ’ungry by now,” says Eddie. “Probably eatin’ faaarkin witchetty grubs like a faaarkin boong.”
After lunch you sit with Bill Greene and talk about Ray Hoad’s chances.
“He’s in an awkward position,” says Bill Greene. “If he stays in the bush he won’t be able to move fast, and he’ll have hunger and probably exposure to cope with. The nights are bloody cold now. If he goes near a town he’ll be picked up sooner or later. His best chance was if he got a lift on the highway within the first hour or so, before the alert got into full swing.”
“He might be in the city by now.”
“If he’s not buggered.”
“Did he have any money?”
“Three dollars.”
“You knew he was going?”
“Yeah.”
“Why did he go, particularly?” you ask. It’s a silly question. Why does anyone go?
“Well, apart from the obvious reason, he wanted to prove he could beat the cunts. You know Ray, he’s not scared of anything.”
You understand it. Ray Hoad is like a fox who wants to show that a fox can beat the hunters if he’s clever and tough enough, and Ray is clever and tough. We’re foxes too and have the fox viewpoint.
At four o’clock in the afternoon a screw calls out from the office:
“They’ve got him!”
“Where?” someone asks.
“About seven miles away. They’re bringin’ him back now.”
After a while several vehicles, including a police car, come through the main gate and Ray Hoad is hauled out of one of them by screws. He looks terrible, all scratched and dirty and half fainting with weariness. He can’t stand up properly, and two big screws drag him inside by his arms. They drag him down the corridor past the office and along the verandah to the cells. They’re being very rough. You try to see Ray Hoad’s face as he’s dragged past. He looks worn out and there are cuts on his face, but he doesn’t look beaten, just terribly tired. You feel proud of him for making such a good run.
He’s kept locked in a cell for several weeks and nobody’s allowed to see him. The screws take his meals down on trays and the meals are very small. You can imagine how hungry he must be. He’s not allowed any blankets at night, just a single canvas covering and a sort of plank to sleep on. After six weeks he’s brought out into the grille for a few hours each day. He’s thin and starved and very pale from so long in the cell. The screws tell us we mustn’t try to talk to him in the grille. Anyone caught talking to him will be locked up themselves. We manage to talk to him out of the sides of our mouths when the screws aren’t looking.
“How ya goin’ mate?”
“Fuckin’ hungry,” Ray Hoad says.
“Have the screws been biffin’ ya?”
“They haven’t got the fuckin’ guts. They just starve a bloke.”
“Yeah, the cunts,” you agree.
“Listen,” Ray Hoad whispers, “can ya get me somethin’ to eat? A bit of bread or somethin’?”
That’s awkward. It’s putting you right on the spot. If the screws see you giving Ray Hoad food they’ll probably lock you up. You don’t want to take the risk, except that you’ll feel like a weak cunt if you don’t. You think how Ray Hoad wasn’t afraid to take on the screws and the whole police force too, and all he’s asking you to do is slip a crust through the wire.
“I’ll try, mate,” you whisper back.
You go back later with two slices of bread you’ve saved from lunch and you saunter along beside the wire of the grille. You stand side-on against the wire and swivel your eyes around to see where the screws are. Then you try to finger the two pieces of bread from your pocket through the wire and into Ray Hoad’s hand. The bread is crumpled from your pocket and bits of it break off against the wire and fall on the ground.
“Shit, mate, don’t waste it!” Ray Hoad whispers.
You get most of it through into his hand that he’s holding down at his side, but the other pieces are still on the ground.
“Screw comin’,” Ray Hoad warns you.
The screw called Smiler is walking slowly towards you. He’s probably coming to warn you away from the grille. He’s fifteen yards away. If you just saunter off now, as if you haven’t noticed him, he might be satisfied and stop. He’s far enough away that maybe he won’t notice the bread on the ground if he stops where he is, but if he comes right up to the grille he’ll see it for sure, and if you try to pick the bread up quickly he’ll get suspicious of your sudden movement. So you start moving away from the grille very innocently, leaving the bread lying there. It
works. Smiler stops and strolls back the other way. You watch from the corner of your eye, then saunter back to the grille and bend down as if you’re tying your shoelace, then pick up the bits of bread and shove them quickly through to Ray. You scatter the last few crumbs with your feet. Your heart’s thumping.
“Thanks, mate,” Ray Hoad says. He’s eating the bread by pretending to be wiping his nose with his hand.
You and Ray are pleased at how you managed it so well.
After Ray’s been in the grille for a couple of weeks the screws start to relax the rule about talking to him. He’s able to tell us about the escape.
“I almost didn’t get over the wall. The pole was only light alloy and it was bendin’ under me weight. I just got a finger grip on the top of the wall before it buckled. I was hangin’ there, trying to lift meself, and thinkin’ the screws ’ud see me any second. Then I managed ter shin over and dropped down on the other side. I landed off balance and I thought I’d broken me ankle. I waited a minute ter ease the pain of it, then I started through the scrub. My idea was to get to the highway pretty quick and hitch a lift out of the area before they could get organised. I skirted the lake for a coupla miles, keepin’ in the scrub, knowin’ I’d reach the highway sooner or later. My ankle was slowin’ me up though and when I finally reached the highway, there was fuckin’ cop cars goin’ up and down. I knew there’d be no chance of hitchin’ so I kept in the scrub, skirtin’ the lake, thinkin’ I might come on the railway line and maybe hop on a freight train or somethin’ if one was goin’ slow enough. The line must’ve been further than I thought. I couldn’t come to it. The scrub was pretty thick and I was gettin’ tired. I saw screws twice in the distance. Another time I came on two blokes choppin’ wood and had to drop down quick into a blackberry bush. I felt like a friggin’ pin cushion. The blokes had an old truck and I thought about tryin’ ter pinch it, but it would have been tricky. They were tough lookin’ cunts and might’ve tried to use their axes on me. I dunno whether they’d heard about the escaped maniac or not. So I went round ’em and kept goin’ and got to the edge of this little town. I was gettin’ sick of the scrub and I thought I’d risk goin’ into the town to get some food with the coupla dollars I had. I walked up the street, hopin’ I didn’t look too wild with the cuts and dirt on me.