by Rusty Young
Even though I only met many of these people once, I knew that they were real friends. You know how? I had nothing to give them. I couldn’t give them money, I couldn’t give them status, I couldn’t take them to fancy places and buy drinks for them. All I had were my stories and who I was, and that was enough for them to want to stay in contact. For the first time in my life, that was enough.
However, many of the tourists did a lot more than just remain in contact – they came back to see me a third or fourth time. Some even postponed their travel plans in order to stay with me. In fact, one group of backpackers actually seemed to get stuck in La Paz, coming into the prison to do coke with me every day for weeks on end, until their money ran out.
In my first year as a tour guide, which was my second year in prison, there were Yasheeda and her friends from Israel. But in the following years there were others, too, who hung around for months and months, sleeping in the prison and going in and out whenever they pleased. Till and Caroline, a hippie couple from Wales, were my absolute favourites, although they didn’t take cocaine because they said it had too many synthetic chemicals. They came to South America to go trekking. On their way, they collected all types of herbs and natural hallucinogens, such as the ayahuasca plant. On one trip, they hiked out into the Chilean desert in order to harvest the San Pedro cactus, which a shaman uses for spiritual healing during special ceremonies that last up to twelve hours. Till and Caroline probably could have paid for some that had been pre-prepared to save themselves the hassle, but they said it was better energy if you brewed it yourself. In between these hikes, they always came back to see me. During my time in San Pedro, those two flew back to South America three times and must have visited me on at least a hundred occasions. I lost count of how many nights they stayed and how many postcards they sent me when they were out of the country.
There was no way I could repay any of these people for what they gave me when I was in San Pedro. There was only one time when I got the chance to show someone how much it meant.
The tour business wasn’t always booming; it went up and down according to the seasons. I also discovered that the restaurant business was dependent on the outside economy. When times were tough, the inmates would cook for themselves in order to save money and my income would drop to almost zero.
Jerome was one of the tourists who came to see me many times during my more difficult times. He was a tall, blond Australian and he didn’t come for the cocaine. In fact, he was strongly against drugs. He came back because he was amazed by the way the prisoners and their families lived and survived, and he wanted to see more. He also felt sorry for me.
When I first met Jerome, he knew that I was desperate for any help that I could get. At the end of his visit, he left me his sunglasses and promised to bring food for me and presents for the San Pedro children the following day. He turned up a week later.
‘Hey, man. I thought you had left the country,’ I said, when I saw him coming through the gates the second time. He had a big smile because the guards had recognised him and let him in without paying.
‘Yeah, mate. I’m a bit late, eh?’ he said from the corner of his mouth, pointing to his watch. ‘Sorry ’bout that. Got caught in traffic.’ He winked at me and I couldn’t help smiling. Jerome kept a straight face the whole time I knew him, so I often couldn’t tell if he was joking until he winked.
‘Thanks for coming, man,’ I said, shaking his hand and then giving him a hug. ‘It means a lot to me, you know.’
‘Yeah. Look, mate. We’re in a male prison. There are people watching us. You been on that charlie again, haven’t ya?’ He shook his head at me and clicked loudly with his tongue. ‘It’ll rot your brain, Thomas.’
‘No! I’ve just woken up,’ I said, defending myself. But as always, Jerome was only joking.
‘OK, OK. I believe you. Now, don’t go getting all emotional on me again, but I brought you a few presents. These,’ he held up a big bag full of fruit, ‘and these’. He jerked his head back towards the gate and winked again. Waiting on the other side were four blond Norwegian girls. Jerome had met them at his hostel and persuaded them to come along. ‘Looks like you could use a bit of both,’ he said, reaching down to pick out a bunch of bananas that was falling out of the bag. ‘I told dem dat you was Jamaican, man. Is dat OK, man?’ he said, trying to copy the way I spoke and tapping the largest banana in the bunch with his index finger.
The Norwegians were too afraid to come through the gates. The lieutenant didn’t help matters by telling them that tourists were banned from entering. It took me a few minutes to convince the lieutenant to let them in and then a few minutes more to convince the girls that it was safe to leave their passports with him.
‘So, welcome to San Pedro prison,’ I said, when they were finally inside. ‘I’m Thomas the tour guide.’ But my usual joke didn’t work; the four girls looked at me nervously, shifting awkwardly on the spot. I tried a different approach. ‘We had a lot of fun last week, didn’t we Jerome?’ But when I turned to Jerome for support, his face had gone completely pale and he was staring at the ground.
‘What’s wrong, man?’ I asked, thinking he was about to be sick.
‘My wallet. They’ve taken my wallet,’ he said quietly, shuffling his feet in case he was standing on top of it.
‘Who has? Are you sure? Check your pockets.’
‘I have. Three times.’
‘Who took it?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t see. It happened just a second ago when you were getting the girls in. They were all knocking against me. It was in this pocket right here.’ He pointed to his grey cargo pants, the same type that all the tourists were wearing at the time. The zipper on one of the pockets was undone.
The wallet was definitely gone. It was the first time anyone had been robbed in all my time as a tour guide. I looked around at the inmates in the courtyard, trying to spot a guilty face. It could have been any one of them.
‘Do you think there’s any chance?’ asked Jerome, seeing that I was looking around.
‘I don’t know. I’ll do my best.’ I was searching for two or three known pickpockets who had targeted Bolivian visitors before. I saw one of them, Camacho, sitting on the garden’s edge deeply involved in a conversation. He must have sensed me staring at him, but he didn’t look up.
‘They can keep the money,’ said Jerome. ‘I don’t care about the money. I just need my credit cards back. I’m stuffed without them.’
‘How much money did you have?’ I asked, still watching Camacho. ‘And what colour is the wallet?’
‘It’s green. There were exactly one thousand bolivianos in it. I withdrew it this morning from the ATM.’
One thousand bolivianos! I had expected him to say fifty or maybe one hundred. San Pedro was safe, but it was still a prison. Jerome already felt stupid enough so I didn’t say anything. Instead, I waved to my bodyguards, who were standing by, waiting to start the tour.
‘Lucho. Cartagena. Come with me.’ We left Jerome and the girls with the head taxista, and marched straight over to Camacho to demand the wallet back.
‘Thomas, my brother,’ he said, looking up innocently. ‘What’s with you?’ He was a good actor, but there was something in the way he moved his eyes that told me he was lying.
‘You’ve got three seconds,’ I growled, putting my hands on his shoulder so that he couldn’t get up. Lucho and Cartagena moved in closer to block the guards’ view. The inmate Camacho had been talking with stood up and left.
‘What are you talking about?’ Camacho protested weakly.
‘I think you and I need to have a little chat,’ I said, nodding for my men to take him to my room. ‘In private.’
Lucho took one elbow and Cartagena took the other. They led Camacho through the courtyard and up to my room. Camacho knew better than to make a scene. Once we reached my room, he realised that he was completely on his own. He kept his cool, though. After we searched his pockets and found nothing,
I began to doubt whether he had done it. I might have been wrong, but I couldn’t afford to show any weakness, especially not in front of my men. I punched him in the stomach and he cried out, struggling to get free of Lucho and Cartagena.
‘You’re making a big mistake, inglés,’ he said.
I hit him again.
‘You’ll pay for this, you black cunt.’
I punched him in the stomach again.
When he recovered his breath, he spat on me and swore loudly.
‘Listen!’ I cupped my hand to my ear. ‘No one can hear you up here.’ Then I slapped it across his face. We placed him on the metal chair and strapped him to it with electrical tape. Camacho still refused to confess.
‘You can’t kill me,’ he said, gritting his teeth. ‘People know where I am. You’re going to pay for this, black cunt.’
Camacho was tough. Even with his mouth taped up, he managed to scare Lucho and Cartagena with his eyes. He looked at them as if to say, ‘And that goes for you two as well.’ It worked. Lucho and Cartagena called me into the kitchen where he couldn’t hear us.
‘You’d better be sure about this, Thomas,’ said Cartagena. Falsely accusing someone was an extremely serious offence in San Pedro.
‘The gringo said the money doesn’t matter,’ I explained to them. ‘He just wants his credit cards back.’
‘How much?’ asked Lucho. I told him the amount and he nodded thoughtfully. I could see him trying to divide one thousand by three evenly. However, Cartagena wasn’t convinced, even with the money.
‘Fine,’ I said, shrugging my shoulders. ‘We’ll let him go, then. But as soon as the guards hear about this, no more tourists will be allowed in.’ I paused to let this information sink in. ‘And when other tourists hear that San Pedro is dangerous, they won’t want to come in anyway. It’s simple. No wallet means no more tours. No more tours means no more money.’
After that, I stood back and let my bodyguards do the work. They pounded Camacho until he nodded his head frantically to tell us he wanted to give in. Lucho ripped the tape from around his mouth, taking hundreds of hairs with it.
‘OK, OK. I’ll show you where it is,’ he said, spitting blood onto his chin. Just as he confessed, there was a knock at the door. Cartagena and Lucho covered Camacho’s mouth again and dragged him into the kitchen.
‘Who is it?’ I asked, trying to sound relaxed.
It was only Jerome. I had told him I’d be five minutes, but he had become impatient and brought the girls to my room. I let them in.
‘Hey, man. Good news,’ I said to Jerome as he came in. ‘We’re going to get your wallet back.’ Jerome didn’t say anything. He stopped in the middle of the room and the Norwegian girl following him knocked into his back.
‘Oh, my God!’ she exclaimed, when she saw what Jerome was looking at. ‘Quick. This man is hurt.’ She rushed forward to attend to Camacho.
One of the other Norwegians turned to me and said coldly, ‘Do you have any ice, please?’
I pointed to the refrigerator. Jerome looked at me and shook his head, pretending he was disappointed with me for the benefit of the girls.
‘Hey, man. This is a prison, understand?’ I said, not wanting to look bad myself. ‘I thought you said you needed your credit cards back.’
‘I did, Thomas. But I didn’t say you had to torture someone to get them.’ I smiled and waited for Jerome to wink, but he didn’t. He shook his head again. ‘You just don’t get it, do you, Thomas?’
While the Norwegians made a fuss over Camacho, Lucho and Cartagena cut the electrical tape from around his arms and legs. We left Lucho with Jerome and the girls in my room and went to collect the wallet from Camacho’s friend in Prefectura. Camacho complained the whole way, calling me a gringo lover and a traitor. He said I wasn’t a tour guide but a zookeeper.
When we reached his section, he insisted that Cartagena wait at the entrance because there were lookouts. Three of us entering together would look suspicious. Before we reached his friend’s room where the wallet was being kept, Camacho made me an offer: ‘Let’s split the money, fifty–fifty. I won’t say anything to Lucho or Cartagena. Tell them the money wasn’t there.’ I didn’t answer him. I tightened my grip on his elbow and we kept walking.
On the way back, Cartagena made me the same offer. ‘Is it all there?’ he asked. ‘Let me count it.’
I nodded and held up the wallet, then put it back in my pocket. I had already counted it. Ten notes of one hundred bolivianos with the ATM receipt still wrapped around them.
‘Well?’
‘Well, what?’ I snapped back at him. When he realised what I was thinking, he started to protest.
‘You’re not going to …?’ But he couldn’t finish his question. And he knew the answer by my silence.
‘But why?’ was all he could say as he chased after me up the stairs, putting his hand on my shoulder to slow me down. The money that Jerome and his girlfriends spent in one night out drinking could feed an entire family in San Pedro for a month. I could have used the money myself. I tried to think of how I could answer him, but all I could hear were Jerome’s words and sarcastic voice playing over and over in my mind: ‘You just don’t get it, do you, Thomas?’
I almost gave in. Then I saw a little girl sitting by herself on the steps carefully peeling the skin from a piece of fruit. I looked at Cartagena.
‘I don’t know. He brought me some bananas, man,’ I said. ‘They looked like nice bananas.’
38
PRISON ELECTIONS
At the time, it was very difficult to give Jerome back his wallet with all that money in it. A few years earlier, I wouldn’t have thought twice about keeping a wallet I found in the street. In prison, it was even harder. Not only because of the other inmates pressuring me, but because I had very little money myself to survive on. But afterwards, I felt really proud of myself.
I can’t claim to have been an honest person my whole life. I had done many things that were against the law. I was a drug trafficker. I did it for the money and because I was addicted to the excitement. If I said now that I was sorry and that I realised it was wrong, I’d be lying. But being friends with the tourists showed me that there were more important things than being rich and having adventures. I realised that the most important thing anyone has is their freedom, but it wasn’t going to jail that taught me that lesson. It was the people I met in there. They made me want to be honest. I didn’t even care anymore about getting my revenge on Colonel Lanza. I just wanted to finish my prison term and lead a normal life once I got out. It was going to be hard, but I was determined to try.
The money I returned to Jerome came back to me in other ways. He told everyone he met outside about what had happened. Many people couldn’t believe that San Pedro prison was a safe place to visit and that some of the prisoners were honest – they wanted to see it for themselves. After that, more and more tourists came in to see me and with each person that paid to come through the gates, more money was injected into the prison economy, and my influence with the police and other inmates increased. In those days I could get away with anything. I was still friends with the governor. I had regular dealings with the guards at the gate. I bought merchandise from all the drug dealers. And because I moved about the prison so often with the tourists, every inmate knew who I was.
In the quiet times when no tourists were around, prison life was quite boring, so I made an effort to be friendly with everyone. Sometimes that was hard, because you can’t force yourself always to be in a good mood. However, I at least said hello to everyone I passed on my way around the various sections.
One thing I learned from coming into contact with so many people each day was how to make people smile just by always being happy myself, or ready with a quick comment. Despite their poverty, the Bolivians are basically a very happy people, and they like it when you make them laugh. I’d say to the inmates, ‘When are you going to introduce me to your sister? You promised.’ Once they lau
ghed, it was hard for anyone to get angry with me.
The other thing was to make each person feel important. Many of the inmates were curious about foreigners, and some secretly looked up to them, so they loved it when I introduced them as someone special, especially to the girls.
‘This is Chapako,’ I’d say. ‘He’s the champion striker in the Pre-fectura football team, aren’t you?’ Chapako would laugh, and then I would take it a step further by making the others around him laugh: ‘He used to play for the Bolivian national team, but then he got too fat. That’s why they put him in prison.’ Once you made people laugh, you could get away with anything.
My influence extended all the way around the prison, but it was especially strong in Alamos, where I lived. One day, Julián and Uruguayo, two of the inmates from the section who were respected by everyone, approached me.
‘We need your help,’ they said.
They had a proposition: they wanted me to help them get voted in during the next prison elections.
‘You know the people, Thomas. We need you to get them on our side.’
Annual election time in the prison was fun, especially when a candidate was trying to get re-elected. This meant there were several campaigning celebrations in the lead-up to the actual voting, paid for out of the section funds. Unfortunately, these re-election campaigns only happened every second period, since there was a rule that people could stay in power for a maximum of two political terms.
The two most important positions to be voted for were the delegate and treasurer of each section. The delegate was the prisoners’ representative to the authorities and he also had power over everyone in the section, including the ability to send inmates to the isolation cells. The treasurer controlled the section’s finances and made the spending decisions. Anyone who had been a resident in the section for more than six months could run for election. The only requirements were that you had no outstanding debts and that you owned an unmortgaged cell; otherwise, you had to put down a bond of four hundred US dollars, as insurance against embezzling the funds.