Happiness is Door Shaped

by Ray Deveroux

  Sitting on his bed, arms safely behind him, he started to calm down. Tears were running down his face and he was mumbling something incoherent.

  The nurse had arrived. She called me out of the cell to brief her on his behavior. I told her as much as I could, giving details of his actions. She got on the radio for one of the regular nurses to look at the wound on his head.

  Our nude man was sat on his bed now, shivering.

  All right you two, said the mental health nurse, I’ll take it from here. Stand outside the cell while I take a look at the lad.

  The nurse wanted me to remove the cuffs, and stood aside while I fumbled for the keys. Both Officers looked at me and I nodded for them to move out of the cell. I was just about to tell them to stand by the cell door and give the nurse a hand if he kicked off again, when the naked man literally flashed past me. He was over the railings, gravity taking him to the wire netting, two floors below.

  No one could have anticipated that, let alone stopped him. The nurse came out, as white as a sheet, hand over her mouth.

  What happened there, she said, rather unnecessarily.

  Well, laughed Beaver, your nutter did a flyer!

  I would have laughed myself if it hadn’t have been for the look on the nurse’s face.

  We were off down the stairs, to the cheers of the cleaners who were busy doing nothing as usual and had watched the events unfold.

  The naked man was spread eagled face down on the net, his meat and veg dangling through the netting, blood pouring out of various orifices.

  Fucking great, I say, that’s all I need, more shit to deal with.

  And, with that, he emptied his bowels, shit spreading across the landing.

  Works Department came, after their tea break of course, to put boarding on the netting so it was safe for the paramedics to walk on to retrieve the naked man. He was still mumbling something through his bloodied mouth, now and again he tried to raise himself from the netting, but his manhood was securely wedged in the net, he yelped, as he tried in vain to free himself. Not a pretty sight for a full-grown man to witness.

  The medics eventually got him free, but not after they gave him a shot of liquid cosh – a tranquilizer, to stop him wriggling and making matters worse.

  As the medics were working, we discussed among us the possibility of him producing children after that; but decided, unanimously, that it was probably for the best if he couldn’t.

  The naked man was carted off in an ambulance, never to be seen again.

  Timbo, of course was nowhere to be seen. If he could, he would spend his whole day at a desk, never showing his face on the landings. Some of the prisoners called him Squinty. Tim had a lazy eye (much like the rest of him) and peered at you through his thick lens glasses. Sometimes you wondered if he was actually looking at you or over your shoulder.

  Tim retired a few months later. He had been in the service since the dawn of time, so it meant that he could go at fifty-five. I would have said good riddance to him, but he came back as a part time Officer and became one of my Officers. The tables had turned. I was now his Line Manager.

  After a rocky start, we got on really well together. He had mellowed into a decent bloke – even managing to actually stay out on the landings for a whole shift!

  Tim once said to me, You know, you are a far better manager than I ever was. I’m really glad you ended up as my Line Manager. High praise indeed.

  Tim, like me, has now cut ties completely with the jail and we are both happy in our retirement. We still keep in touch.

  Nowadays, he does offer help when my computer goes tits up.

  Echo Wing

  It didn’t take long to put the wing right. The whole construction of the building was steel; there was very little wood or soft furnishing in the unit. So, after a good hose down, new mattresses, bedding, and a bit of flooring here and there, it was as good as new.

  Although there was still a pong in the centre stairwell behind the offices.

  We were back in business. The prisoners that voluntarily moved were on their way back, thankfully. Because most of the prisoners had either cleared their cells or put their property on the beds, there was not too much damage done for them either.

  Sadly, when any prison declares that they have a high number of spaces available to fill, local jails offload their finest prisoners.

  We soon filled up with undesirables from all over the country. The R.A.P.T course was suspended and eventually moved onto Alpha wing. We had new tenants in the form of the Mental Health In-Reach team, which, although good in itself, was like a rat run for the staff, who could never get across the wing to their patients without being mobbed by the prisoners on our wing.

  It was a mixed bag. We had basic, standard and enhanced prisoners.

  Basics were those who had refused to work or who had breached prison rules. Standard prisoners were ordinary run-of- the- mill prisoners, who did as they were told and went to work. Enhanced prisoners were well behaved, in full-time employment and had completed all Sentence Planning Targets.

  Normally the enhanced prisoners were long-term or lifers. They had been through the system and wanted a quiet, peaceful life; unlike basic prisoners who trashed everything they lay their hands on, and were nothing but a nuisance to them.

  It soon unfolded when we started seeing some of the basic prisoners with black eyes or cut lips, some with lumps on their heads. Of course, being prisoners, they never told how they come about these injuries, although we had strong suspicions that some of the older, more mature prisoners were taking matters into their own hands. Although we, as Officers, cannot condone this, sometimes it was a better and more direct solution than Officers writing out written warnings that had no value to the troublemakers.

  It took a few months, but we started to get the wing settled. I had a good crew of Officers and the quality of the prisoners now on the wing had improved. The new Governor was impressed at my handling of the wing. Now it was one of the best wings in the jail.

  I still did foreign nationals and taught staff about the A.C.C.T, document. I was now in my twentieth year of the Prison Service. My new Line Manager, a lovely Swedish woman called Hannah, was supporting me all the way. She had put me forward for the British Empire Medal for my work with vulnerable and suicidal prisoners, and in 2012, the Queens Diamond Jubilee Year, I was presented with the medal. One of the proudest days of my life. I now had the initials B.E.M. after my name.

  The wing got a good name for itself. The Number One Governor wanted some ideas from me and my team on how to make it go forward into a rehabilitation unit, only housing enhanced prisoners in full time employment.

  We all worked on a new regime, which would set it apart from the other wings. The Governor was keen to spend some money to turn the enhanced wing into a modern comfortable residential unit. A wing, in which only those offenders who had worked hard and shown respect throughout their sentence would be allowed. It was also a stepping-stone for prisoners to work outside as category D status offenders.

  A mini gym, T.V. room with digital channels (it’s a complete nonsense that all prisoners get Sky T.V.) and kitchen was all installed, as were dining table and chairs. It was a nice place to be. Prisoners were let out of their cells longer, had more privileges and better access to phones, library and the main gym. They were also given extra visits.

  Echo wing now became the place to be for all the prisoners that thought they’d deserved it. But there was a strict vetting system. Cells on the enhanced wing were hard to come by. There were always piles of applications to reside on the wing.

  Disaster struck in the months after we had got all the new services in place. The mini gym and kitchen had just been installed; the T.V. room had just been finished off, when the dreaded drains started to back up again. It was a repeat of what had happened nearly a year before. This time, the prisoners were far more cooperative. To stop any foul substance coming into the cells, they had covered the toilets with cling film. Ever
y single cell had been covered; all one hundred and twenty were sealed as best as possible. We handed out old towels to put around the base of the toilets and not one of the prisoners dared flush their loo.

  The new wing Governor was on it like a flash. Hannah was standing by me, supporting the staff and I in dealing with the incident.

  Works Officers and outside contractors were on site within minutes. All of our prisoner cleaners were standing by with mops buckets and overalls, ready to clear up the slightest spillage. They did not want their new and comfortable wing to be ruined.

  In less than two hours, the drains had been sorted, all the prisoners were unlocked from their cells and all got hold of some form of cleaning implement to bring the wing back to its former state. The wing was back to its former glory in no time.

  It was a pleasure to work on Echo wing, after all the residential units I had been on. It was nice to work on a decent wing with decent prisoners for a change.

  As the months rolled on, we were enjoying the peace and tranquility. Staff from other wings was jealous of the haven we had created for ourselves. I’m not sure if it was the whinging of the staff on the other wings, or whether it was time for staff to have a change, that I had now lost some of my best key Officers to other wings. They were replaced by Officers, who, to my mind, couldn’t cope with mainstream prisoners, or those who had poor sick records or were just plain useless. It seemed as if the enhanced wing was a dumping ground staff with issues.

  It felt like I was getting dumped on so that the other wings could get the decent Officers and Echo wing had the crap ones. It didn’t stop there. The criteria for the wing had been changed to accept vulnerable prisoners with mental health issues. The Mental Health In-Reach Team had their offices there, so the Residential Governor thought it a good idea to put all their patients on Echo wing. Not only had I lost some good Officers, I had to manage some mental health patients that ought not to have been in prison in the first place.

  One of the new Officers I had inherited was, like Tim, a retired Officer who was now on part-time hours. Colin had been in the service about twenty-five years. At fifty-nine, he had a sharp mind and good knowledge of vulnerable prisoners. The only issue with Colin was that he was so slow. He had, rightly came with a nickname of Morph, short for morphine. A slow moving dope, which fitted our Colin to a tee.

  The advantage with Colin though, was that he was one of the lead negotiators in the jail. It would come in handy, and soon.

  Mad House

  It was one of those days; started off well, and then quickly descended, like getting caught in a rain shower without a coat.

  I had been to a meeting with Bob. He was an Immigration Officer from Leeds who made regular visits to the jails to help sort out some of the immigration issues. We had been interviewing a prisoner who had just been given his papers for deportation to Egypt. The interviews took place in the rooms dedicated to official visitors in the visits hall. The prisoner had been in jail several times and had got away with an extended stay in the U.K.

  He wasn’t expecting deportation, having a wife and seven kids to support, maintaining it was a breach of his human rights. However, the courts took a dim view of his criminal record. His latest and most serious offence was robbery using a crowbar to bash a store manager on the head with. He went a bit too far and, quite rightly, he was being bundled back to Egypt.

  The man in question was on my wing. He had always been polite and attended work on a regular basis. Although he was a bit of a pain in the arse sometimes, he was one of the better-behaved prisoners and deserved to be on the enhanced wing.

  I sent him back to the wing when we finished with him. We had half a dozen foreign nationals to interview that morning. I knew that the Egyptian man could be trusted to make his way back to the wing, as he had many times before.

  All Wing Managers carry, amongst other things, radios. Generally, when I’m in a meeting, I turn down the volume so it does not disturb the process. The only time it made a significant noise was when an alarm bell was activated, meaning that there was trouble somewhere in the prison. It was a regular occurrence on the induction wing where I had worked previously, but not so much on the smaller wings and rarely on Echo wing, which I was currently managing.

  I could hear the bell in the distance, and the radio squawking about alarm bell on Echo wing, but it didn’t register at first. I was sitting in the office with Bob and one of our foreign nationals, going through the appeals procedures at great length, totally absorbed in trying to get across to this individual that he had exhausted all possible avenues.

  It was the prisoner we were interviewing, who eventually said, Mr. D; they are calling for you on the radio.

  It was only then that it dawned on me that the alarm bell was on my wing.

  The Egyptian man had indeed returned to Echo wing with no issues. However, he had sought out another prisoner who had, apparently, told him that if he told the immigration authorities a story which he made up to avoid deportation, and which had worked for someone else, he would be allowed to stay in the U.K.

  It was a typical situation, one that myself and Bob had heard many times before. And it almost always never worked

  The trouble is, when you mix together a bunch of foreign nationals with prisoners with mental health issues and prisoners on life sentences who want a quiet life, it becomes a mad house.

  As usual, all the foreign nationals were talking ten to the dozen at the tops of their voices, all in different languages. The poor prisoners with mental health issues couldn’t understand what was going on, but joined in anyway.

  There were around ten foreign nationals all shouting at each other, each blaming one another, some taking the side of the Egyptian man, while others took the side of the prisoner who had given him wrong advice.

  Inevitably, the shouting led to pushing and shoving. The prisoners with mental health issues were joining in because it was a way for them to let off steam, each picking a side.

  The older lifers were getting fed up with all the commotion. They wanted a peaceful life. So they decided to mediate between the arguing factions. One or two of them were trying to calm down the situation between the foreign nationals and the prisoners with mental issues, but without much success.

  There were one hundred and twenty prisoners on Echo wing, all of whom were supposed to be the best of the cream of the crop in the jail. They all had to prove this before gaining a place on the wing.

  There were only three Officers.

  By the time I got there, it was a mass brawl; chairs and tables were flying everywhere. The three Officers had sensibly locked off the T.V. room, the kitchens, the mini gym and the laundry, but there was little they could do against all the prisoners bundled together in a massive tangle of bodies.

  Staff were quickly on the scene. Most screeched to halt at the door before entering the wing. They, like me, had never witness this many prisoners fighting at once. I don’t recall any prisoner that wasn’t involved in some way. They were all at it.

  As soon as we pulled two apart, they would turn round and fight with someone else. It was bedlam. Thankfully, no weapons were involved; it was fisticuffs all the way.

  By this time the duty Governor had arrived. He couldn’t believe his eyes; Officers, lifers, mental health prisoners and foreign nationals were all jumbled together. We were trying our best to break up fights and the prisoners were doing their best to continue.

  I had had enough; you couldn’t be heard above the noise that was coming from the mass, so I hit the fire alarm.

  The fire alarm, like all warning devices, was very, very loud. And because Echo wing being a steel structure, everything echoed.

  The noise was deafening. Everyone – and I mean everyone – needed their hands to put over their ears, the noise was that bad. Just like a freeze-frame in the movies, everyone stopped. All you could hear was the screeching of the sirens.

  Prisoners started to run to their own cells to get away from
the noise. Me and the rest of the staff just stood there in amazement, fingers in our ears, watching them – a mad rush to get back to their cells, to get away from the noise.

  Cancel the bloody alarm bell, came the shout from the duty Governor, who was nearly hoarse with yelling. I pretended not to hear him. I wanted as many bodies behind doors as possible. I was not going to cancel the bell until they were all locked up. My Officers, one hand over one ear and the other trying to lock doors behind the fleeing prisoners, were busy banging doors shut.

  It didn’t take long. Within fifteen minutes all one hundred and twenty prisoners were locked in their cells.

  I pressed the silence button on the alarm just as the fire brigade arrived. Having negotiated the full length of the prison to get to Echo wing, some in full equipment were standing at the door puffing and trying to catch their breaths.

  The duty Governor went to greet them.

  No, we don’t know how the alarm was raised; it must have been accidentally pushed during the mêlée.

  At least, that’s what I heard him say. I couldn’t be sure, my ears were still ringing.

  Surprisingly, there were no serious injuries as we went from door to door with nurses in tow. None of the staff was seriously hurt, aside from cuts and bruises from the fighting. Everyone was fine. No one needed medical attention. However, all the prisoners thought it was a great bundle.

  We, on the other hand, did not. But we laughed about it later.

  Not one prisoner harbored bad feelings against another, it was as though nothing had happened, and all was back to normal – if you could describe working in an environment like this as normal.

  Some of the prisoners even took the broken furniture to the workshops and repaired it themselves.

  The Governor, wanted to know who started it, how it started, how it escalated into a mass brawl and who set the fire alarm off. He wanted a written report on his desk by the end of the week. He wanted someone to blame.