The Cocaine Diaries: A Venezuelan Prison Nightmare

by Farrell, Jeff

  Now I was really up for it. It was an awful lot of money that I didn’t have, but I was all ears. ‘Put me down as interested,’ I said quickly, ‘but I wanna meet this lawyer, I’m not handing over any ten grand to someone I haven’t met.’

  ‘He’ll visit in the next couple of weeks. Play our cards right, we could be out in a few months.’

  I was really excited, but cautiously – I didn’t yet know if I could trust Bruce or this lawyer. I’d already heard stories about prisoners paying thousands to solicitors and dodgy officials on the promise of freedom only for the cash to disappear into a black hole. Bruce seemed trustworthy, though. I decided to play it all by ear. So as well as early parole, I now had a Plan B to get out of this Latin dungeon.

  Bruce was an intelligent, well-read guy. Before we parted he lent me a non-fiction book set in a jail in Britain in the late 1600s. It was all about how the inmates had to pay to survive on the inside and how the prison was overrun with death and squalor. I later read it, thinking nothing had changed in the prison world in the last few hundred years.

  * * *

  Roberto showed his cards. A pair of jacks and a pair of queens. ‘Hey, I win, my friends, I win. All is mine.’ He was sitting playing poker with myself and Eddy.

  ‘So what, mate?’ said Eddy. ‘One game. One hand. Many more to come.’ Roberto gathered up his winnings from the little blue-painted stool we were playing on in the yard: rings off Coke cans.

  New Yawk Mike walked over. ‘Paul, man, your money’s here.’

  ‘Great,’ I said, standing up. I stood up and followed him out into Cell 1 where the jefe was sitting on his bed watching his portable TV. He sat up and started counting out a big bundle of notes. Mike punched in the exchange rate of the 350 euro Western Union money my sister had sent me on a chunky calculator the bosses probably used when toting up their coke deals. There were so many zeros I had to squint to read it. The 350 euro actually turned me into a millionaire, something like 2,500,000 bolos. Out of that sum I had to pay the wing ‘entry fee’ of 200 euro, leaving me with 150 euro for myself – to last me for how long I didn’t know.

  The bosses converted the money using the bank exchange rate of euro to bolo. The thing was, though, that the euro was worth twice as much on the street rate, which is where the bosses would have changed my money. So I got my 350 euro in bolos at the bank rate and the jefe and his sidekicks pocketed the same amount. Carlos sat beside Fidel, his Colt next to him. I didn’t think complaining would get me far.

  I then rolled out the plan I had to get out of sleeping in the toilet. ‘Mike, tell Fidel I’ll pay him the whole entry fee right now if he gets me out of the toilet.’ I had to get out of there – waking up on cardboard soaked in piss was driving me mad.

  ‘All of it?’ said Mike, his eyes widening. Most lags paid it in dribs and drabs.

  ‘Every bit of it, here and now. Just get me a spot on the cell floor to sleep.’ He spoke to Fidel. I watched his eyes widen looking at the cash in the three neat bundles on the bed. A big grin broke across Fidel’s face.

  ‘Sí, no problema,’ he said. I knew he wouldn’t mind; we gringos were an endless supply of foreign-exchange reserves for the bosses. Vacas de leche, or milk cows, they called us, along with any of the lags they could get an easy flow of cash from. Crack addicts were among their biggest earners.

  Fidel handed me over the big pile of notes from the 150 euro in bolos (about the same as a month’s salary for a National Guard). Mike then pointed at all the lags in the yard. ‘Now listen,’ said Mike, ‘never give those muthafuckers money. You’ll never get it back.’ The whole wing would know the gringo had got a Western Union.

  The next day I sat in the yard writing my book and diary. It was part of my routine every day. A steady stream of Venos came up to me looking for a loan of plata. I just shouted ‘fuck off’ without taking my head up from my copybook. I was watching my cash. I didn’t want to bother my family or friends for money again unless my life or freedom depended on it. I’d make my own money here.

  * * *

  In the passageway one day I bumped into Fulvio from my Macuto days.

  ‘It’s great to see you,’ I said, shaking his hand.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, smiling.

  ‘So no luck getting out of here through the courts?’ I laughed.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘maybe.’ I remembered he spoke little English.

  ‘No worries,’ I said, ‘see you around.’

  He walked off.

  In the wing I tracked down Silvio to see what Fulvio’s story was. He knew about all the Italians. ‘Fulvio, yeah, he’s back from Macuto,’ said Silvio. He knew he’d been fighting his conviction through the courts.

  ‘What happened to his case?’ I said.

  ‘It went nowhere,’ he shrugged. ‘Never does, but it gave him something to do.’

  * * *

  Father Pat was in every two weeks. Myself and Billy looked forward to his visits. It was a break from the day-to-day monotony and a chance to have contact with someone normal. He usually came unannounced, knowing we were likely to be there. One afternoon we were called out for the visita with him and filed out to the passageway.

  ‘Hallo Billy, hallo Paul. It’s good to see you two boys found each other,’ he said, smiling. The padre was always on good form, and I knew it took him an entire day to make the trip out to us on the outskirts of Caracas and back to his barrio.

  ‘Father Pat, great to see you. And Billy, he moved into the wing with me. In Maxima.’ We chatted through the usual stuff. We said we were doing all right and keeping our heads down.

  ‘And are you staying away from the drugs?’ He looked at both of us, but the question was really for Billy. He knew I didn’t do the garden bugs.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Billy, ‘all of them.’

  The padre said nothing, just looked Billy in the eyes. There was a pause and then Father Pat replied, ‘OK.’

  I took the chance to lighten the moment and asked Father Pat if he could get me the key ingredient for my home brew: yeast. ‘We’d like to make a bit of bread, Father.’

  ‘Bread?’ he said.

  I looked at Billy fighting back a grin.

  ‘Yeah, for the Christmas, we’re tired of the stale stuff they have here. We just need a bit of yeast to make it. Can’t get it here.’

  ‘I could certainly get my hands on that, yes, very good.’ He seemed pleased we were being ‘productive’ with our time. ‘I’ll bring that in on the next visit.’ With the chat over, Father Pat got down to do the business he came to do: say Mass. He pulled out his trusty Bible and said a few words. I was hoping he wouldn’t ask us for a confession to repent any porky pies.

  * * *

  Inmates who had jobs in the jail signed a special book logging the hours and type of work they did. Just like my Spanish classes did, each working day counted towards time off your sentence. I wanted a job as well to pick up the pace on time that could be chopped off my sentence.

  What I would work at, though? I didn’t speak enough Spanish to get a job in the kitchen. The same for work such as collecting rubbish, like Macedonia did. Everyone else in Maxima signed on as a cleaner. Tradesmen could sign on as an electrician or plumber if they were doing building work in the wing. I never said I was a plumber; I didn’t want to help the bosses with anything. I hated them. I suddenly had a brainwave. I was a writer. To me, that was a job. I just had to convince the director.

  I saw Silvio. He was talking in Italian on his mobile phone. He often spoke to his daughter, who lived with her mother, Silvio’s ex, in Madrid. He hung up as I walked over to him in the yard. I saw him breathe out a sigh as I got closer. He was emotional, like many were after talking to their family. I should have given him some space and time. I kept going, though.

  ‘Silvio, I want to sign the work book.’

  ‘You need a job first.’ He rubbed his hand across his face. He seemed fragile.

  ‘I have one – I’m a writer. My diaries, an
d I’m writing a book.’

  He laughed out loud. ‘Paul, that will never work,’ said Silvio.

  The next day I hounded him again in the yard. ‘OK, we’ll go up and ask the director. She will probably laugh.’

  Fabio, a gay Venezuelan prisoner who did the director’s nails, agreed to come with us. We thought he might be a good inroad into getting her to agree. Fabio babbled in Spanish to Silvio in the passageway leading to the director’s office. ‘He says he thinks she will agree. It’s writing, and it’s creative. Let’s see.’

  The director was seated behind her desk. She was well made-up with glossy red lips. Silvio and Fabio explained I wanted to sign the work book, but there were no jobs if you didn’t speak Spanish. ‘Show her your work, Paul,’ said Silvio. I had the few copybooks I’d filled in with diaries and stories and fanned out the pages in front of her.

  The director spoke to Silvio, her blonde curls bouncing about. ‘What’s your story about?’ said Silvio.

  ‘About life in Ireland.’ I didn’t say I was keeping a diary of life in this hellhole.

  Silvio interpreted to her. ‘Sí,’ she said quickly. No deliberation. Fantastic. Credit to her.

  ‘You can start signing the book,’ said Silvio, his eyes wide open.

  We stepped out of the office. ‘I didn’t think you’d get that, Paul,’ said Silvio. From then on I signed the black work book in the office opposite the director’s. ‘Paul Keany – escritor [writer].’

  * * *

  Soon after, I got the brew going with all the ingredients – sugar, rice, water and the yeast from Father Pat – mixed up in the empty ten-litre water bottle. After about a week or so I inspected it and it looked like it had matured. I was sure it had turned into a decent home brew, like rice wine.

  ‘Let’s give it a twirl, Billy. See what it tastes like.’

  Silvio and Ricardo gathered around. We all had our cups ready, which we usually used for coffee. I opened the lid. A hiss like a pressure pot boiling eased out of the bottle. A foul smell like methane gas sifted out. Silvio turned his nose away.

  ‘Is it ready?’ said Billy, excited.

  ‘Looks done to me.’

  ‘When can we try it?’

  ‘No time like the present.’ I hoisted up the ten-litre bottle and poured it into Ricardo’s coffee mug. The liquid was dark yellow and cloudy, but it settled and cleared a bit. Ricardo lifted up the mug. We all stood watching him. A few of the Veno lags were looking over too. Ricardo took a sip. We were all waiting to hear what he’d say.

  ‘That’s fucking sweet,’ he said, licking his lips. We all grinned, and I filled up the rest of the coffee mugs and we all had a drop.

  ‘Lovely jubbly,’ I said after a mouthful.

  ‘Tasty,’ said Billy.

  But now I had to go in to Vampy to give him a bit. He’d also helped us out getting some yeast. He was a pest at times but a decent sort. I went into his cell, where he was sitting on the side of his bed. Billy was with me to interpret. I handed Vampy a cup. He took a drink. ‘Muy bueno!’ he said, grinning. ‘Muy bueno, gringo.’ I offered the jefe a drink, but he waved me off; he wasn’t a big boozer. The Chief, though, took a drop and stuck his thumb up in the air. Word got around the wing that the brew was good and I started selling it at five thousand bolos, or one euro, for a litre bottle of the fortified wine. The lags called it jugo loco, or crazy juice. Now I had another source of income to get by on. I was determined not to bother my family for money again.

  * * *

  It was night. I lay down my cardboard on the floor in Cell 1, crammed in with about fifty people on colchonetas on the floor, spread seven across the tight cell. The air was dead and putrid, a thick soup of the body odours of men squashed onto the floor: feet, sweat, bad breath and farts. I rarely had problems sleeping, only there was a Spanish twat squashed up next to me, his leg moving nineteen to the dozen in his sleep. My little spot on the floor wasn’t far from the door to the squat toilet. There was no path to it; you had to walk through a sea of bodies in faint light to get there. ‘Agh, agh,’ you could hear all night, the sounds of men whining after an inmate had stepped on their head or their legs. The garitas, or sentries, at the wing door would hop over us with the finesse of a ballet dancer. They were sharp and wide awake; it was the crackheads who stayed up all night smoking stones in the hallway who were the problem – stumbling over us to the toilet, or stomping on your head or your arm. I was actually regretting I’d left the toilet. At least there was a small window there. Cool air blew in at night, better than the stink here. You know things are bad when you miss sleeping on a toilet floor. Billy was in there now in my spot, waiting for a sleeping space to come up on the cell floor.

  The next morning in the yard he came out rubbing his head through his mop of mousey-brown hair. I was sitting down on my bucket getting ready for the headcount.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘Fidel hit me over the head with his knife.’ He took a seat on a paint tin.

  ‘For what?’ Billy was a laid-back guy and I couldn’t see him upsetting anyone.

  ‘He came into the jacks at night and I was having a go at myself.’

  ‘Ha,’ I buckled over laughing. Billy just gave a sheepish shrug. He broke one of the rules in the wing: you don’t play with yourself. It made sense. A hundred-odd men having a go at themselves on the cell floor at night wouldn’t work.

  After morning Spanish classes I went to Maxima and sat in the pantry, watching TV with Billy. It was the usual fare: an action flick, Steven Seagal, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Rambo, guns and bombs. All of a sudden Carlos stood in front of me. At 6 ft 2 in., he was towering over me. He started babbling in Spanish. ‘Irlandés, cómo te llamas?’

  ‘What’s your name?’ said Billy, interpreting.

  ‘Paul,’ I said. It was unusual for Carlos to go to talk to a gringo directly but in itself not enough to be alarming. Carlos babbled again.

  ‘Get your tobo and follow him,’ said Billy, looking a bit worried for me. It was dawning on me what was going on, but I wasn’t sure. Carlos and a lucero followed me into the yard and I grabbed the cooking-oil drum that was my tobo. They then took me by the arm and marched me into Cell 1, past two luceros who stood sentry outside. All the bosses were there: the jefe, Fidel; his two underbosses; and Carlos beside me. I could see three guns: a revolver on top of a bed and two automatics on a table – the kind of things you notice when marched into a closed room. Carlos called out to New Yawk Mike and he came into the cell. Fidel closed the door. My heart raced. Shit. I was in for it.

  Carlos started talking. ‘He says he has reason to believe you have been selling coke in Maxima,’ said Mike, interpreting, ‘and to other wings in the prison.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, casually, deciding to play it cool and dumb. Mike’s face dropped. He looked at me like I’d just signed my death warrant. He interpreted back to Carlos. They all looked at each other in disbelief, shaking their heads. Carlos spoke again.

  ‘This is one of the most serious things you can do in the prison,’ said Mike. ‘You’re not allowed to sell drugs anywhere, that’s the job of bosses.’

  I kept up my dumb and innocent act. ‘Mike, when I came in here you gave me a list of dos and don’ts – do this, do that – but you never told me I couldn’t do that.’ Jimmy’s face dropped again. Probably thought I was landing him in it now. And I was taking a chance with my defiance. It mightn’t go down well.

  Carlos and another boss then started rifling through my tobo, turning the cooking-oil drum upside down. My towel, T-shirts and wash bag all tumbled onto the floor. ‘I presume they’re looking for the drugs, Mike,’ I said. ‘They won’t find them there.’

  ‘Well, where the fuck are they, man?’ he shouted.

  ‘They’re in my other tobo.’

  ‘You have two tobos?’ he said, his eyebrows raised. It was rare for anyone to have more than one, but I’d been gathering a few possessions after I’d come into a few quid from sell
ing the coke and booze, and I needed more than one bucket.

  ‘Yeah.’

  Mike spoke quickly to Carlos. Suddenly the Chief stepped forward, his lips pursed, grabbed me by the arm and marched me into the hall. There was a crackhead sitting on my other tobo, watching Steven Seagal dressed as a chef battling mercenaries with a frying pan.

  I tapped the stoner on the shoulder. ‘Tobo, tobo mío.’ (‘Bucket, my bucket.’) I was a bit less panicky as it didn’t look like I’d get a bullet, maybe just a beating.

  ‘No,’ he said, waving me off, not taking his eyes off the TV. The Chief’s fist came out of nowhere and punched him in the side of the head. The stoner went crashing onto the floor. He looked up in shock and rubbed his cheek. The others watching the Seagal flick suddenly turned around. There was better action closer to home. But they looked nervous. On edge. The Chief marched me back into the cell past the sentries holding pipe guns. I was carrying my bucket. The door closed. Carlos grabbed the tobo and they all started rifling through it; my shampoo and toothbrush and everything was getting wrecked. I also had two million bolos in the wash bag, which I didn’t want them to find.

  ‘Mike, I can tell them where the coke is.’

  ‘Well, where is it, man?’ He interpreted to Carlos, who called me forward. I bent down, picked up the talc bottle at the bottom of the tobo and held it up. They all laughed at the irony of it. It was a well-known Venezuelan brand of talc. Fidel went and ripped a piece of paper off a notebook. He got the talc bottle, opened it and upended it onto the paper. It poured into a nice little mound. Carlos put his finger in it and dabbed a bit on his tongue, while the others watched. A grin broke out on his face. ‘Increíble.’ (‘Incredible.’) The others then dipped their fingers in for a try. It was so pure. Straight away they knew it was top-quality coke I had smuggled in before getting into the prison system.