Fairytales have always frightened me and now I know why. In prison I came to understand the meaning of them. They were reality—my reality. Lampwick and the evil puppet-master from Pinocchio, the big bad wolf, selfish giants—I’ve met them all in here. Except that when I was little I was fine hearing about them because I knew there’d be a happy ending.
There’s no happy ending in here.
°
The guards arrive at six.
I already said goodbye to everyone I needed to last night.
I’m leaving, but I’m defeated. The match is over and I’ve lost.
As I walk through the prison I keep my eyes down. I don’t even want to look around. No one whistles, no one claps. I’d be happy to hear anything but I hear nothing. Maybe some of them are saying goodbye, but it’s complete silence in my head. I’m no longer here. I’ve left. I don’t belong here anymore. It makes me mad that this place has made me feel sorry to leave it. For a moment they actually managed to institutionalise me. I should be able to think: it’s best to move on to the next port of call, keep things moving. But my every thought just falls into nothingness.
The men who have come from Italy to collect me—a six-metre tall guy from Bari and his lanky offsider—put me in a car with a Spanish policeman at the wheel.
I already know that in Rome my own personal red carpet, complete with photographers, will be waiting for me. Let’s go see that guy they extradited, the gangster, the dangerous Camorrista…the newspapers label you, and that’s what you are known as when you’re on the inside, too.
I can just feel it: my life ends here, on the other side of that invisible border in the sky, between Spain and Italy. A long living death awaits me now. Who knows if I’ll get out and how?
INTERMEZZO
Let’s just hope we make it to prison. All we need now is for the plane to crash.
This plane full of people who watched me climb on board in handcuffs the way you’d watch a trained monkey at the circus. These people who don’t know anything.
They see something ugly, a man under police guard, a criminal, but they don’t know what happened, they don’t know anything about me. They don’t know that sometimes, before you can judge, you have to understand. And that it’s hard to understand, it’s the hardest thing of all.
On the streets I learned that you should always hold your head high. But sometimes, you must do the opposite. When you live a life of crime it doesn’t pay to look people in the eye—you might stare at the wrong guy. He’ll make a mental note of it and a few years later, even if you’ve turned over a new leaf, he’ll recognise you. I might run into these people from the flight in several years’ time, after I’ve been released. If I look directly at them now, if I smile and look them in the eye, maybe they’ll remember me. And I don’t want them to remember who I am just this moment.
I’m someone who lost the match. I’m defeated.
People on the outside, the ones who grassed on me, will no longer be afraid of me. I won’t even be able to make phone calls anymore. I’ll have no power at all.
I almost don’t care. I never wanted to be feared by that kind of scum. I would have liked a bit of respect. But in the end, respect is a word that floats off on the wind.
I met someone who wanted to tell me the name of an informer who was close to me. I’ve had mates who managed to keep out of prison and would say one thing to me on the phone but then go and do the opposite. And when I think that they were all people I’d helped out in one way or another—I’d fed them, cared for them, given them a place to sleep—I realise just what a piece of shit this life I’ve created for myself really is.
The giant from Bari, in the seat next to me, gives me a puzzled look.
‘What, you’re talking to yourself now, are you?’
‘Yeah. That way you won’t get bored.’
4
‘The worst is not So long as we can say “This is the worst.”’
Edgar in King Lear
Act IV, Scene I
The cell windows face the yard, so we hear them arrive a little before six in the morning. We wake up immediately—you sleep lightly in prison. Their steps are rapid and rhythmic. It’s a ministerial search. They’ve surrounded the building.
Here we go, I think. I’ve only been in Rebibbia Prison three weeks and I’m already in trouble.
We get out of bed and each hide what we need to hide: the little bit of hash your wife brought you, the coke you got from the guard. I don’t have anything to hide because I smoked my last joint the night before. In any case, this isn’t a routine inspection, one of those internal inspections they do after visiting day to check that no prohibited ‘gifts’ have slipped through. This is a search ordered by the ministry, which the Rebibbia guards weren’t even told about, to make sure we prisoners didn’t get wind of it.
This time they’re looking for something. And I know what it is. And I’m afraid.
‘Out! Wake up! All out!’ The prison guards open the cell doors. They drag us out of bed and march us into the yard. From downstairs, their colleagues are keeping a close eye on the windows. That way, they’ll know which cell it’s from if something prohibited flies out, like hash or cocaine or knives.
Or mobile phones.
Standing out in the yard in a T-shirt and underpants like everybody else, it’s not the fact that it’s six in the morning that makes me feel the cold. It’s the fact that I’m at risk of Article 41b of the Prison Act, the toughest and most restrictive kind of prison regime there is.
Because, even though I don’t have a mobile phone, the four Camorristi I share a cell with do.
I knew it. I knew it would end this way.
Calm down, Sasà, I tell myself. You’ve never used that phone. They can’t do anything to you.
They can do whatever they like to me, I reply.
When I first arrived in Rebibbia, my cellmates told me straightaway that they had a prohibited phone, which they kept in the Albanians’ cell. They’d go to that cell every evening to eat and, over a glass of wine and a bowl of spaghetti, each one of them would take turns to slip into the bathroom and make his calls—to his wife, to keep on top of blackmail, threats, extortion, whatever business he conducted on the outside.
The inmates figured this would be enough to allay suspicion. Yeah, right. I told them this was not a smart move. I hardly ever visited the Albanians’ cell. Instead I would go and socialise in another cell full of Neapolitans.
But don’t you think the guards might occasionally wonder why a bunch of Italians are always going over to eat with these Albanians, invariably skint and not even our fellow countrymen? Doesn’t that look a bit odd? Won’t they start to think something fishy is going on? If I was able to spot it when I’d only been here five minutes, why wouldn’t they arrive at the same conclusion?
Well, you bet they arrived at that conclusion. The guards have devices for detecting electromagnetic waves. I’ve seen them. They use them to hunt down mobile phones.
If they find a phone with the Albanians and work out that it belongs to my cellmates, they’ll all end up on the 41b Hard Prison Regime. And I’ll join them, because I’m living in the same four walls.
Right from the beginning I said, ‘I’m not going anywhere near that thing.’ This isn’t Spain. Over here you’re in massive trouble if you get caught with a prohibited phone.
So here we are.
A feeling of despair and humiliation runs along my skin like the cool dawn air. We’ve been kept out here in the cold in our underpants, stripped of our dignity. They won’t believe me. They’ll throw me in with the guilty criminals. I won’t get to see Monica ever again. I won’t get to see anyone. That’s Hard Prison. And yet I didn’t do anything…
But it’s always been like that. That’s how it was in the Quartieri, and back when I was a kid. Even if you haven’t done anything—you’re in the game so you’ve got to play, and sooner or later you’ll lose.
One at a time, the guards s
tart calling prisoners’ names. They each drag themselves back inside and the yard gradually empties. Even the Albanians get called back in.
We five are the only ones left standing in the yard, and there’s no longer any doubt. I have very little hope that they didn’t find it.
How long has it been since they woke us up? I’m not wearing my watch but it must have been at least an hour. They call in the other four one at a time.
I’m left alone in a yard full of guards. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this frightened or powerless, not even when I found myself on the ground looking up into the barrel of a gun.
I almost feel relieved when they call me in. I’m really cold, and I was practically putting down roots in that yard. As I follow the guards I hold my head high and square my shoulders, faking a cocky swagger. My dignity is important to me.
Sitting behind the desk in the office, is a menacing-looking man I’ve never seen before.
‘Are you Salvatore Striano?’
‘Yes.’
‘We’ve found an unauthorised communication device.’
One. In the entire G12 section of Rebibbia prison they’ve found just one ‘device’. It’s ours, of course.
I’d like to reply, ‘You don’t say,’ but I bite my tongue. I try to look astonished but unconcerned.
‘What, in my cell?’
He stares at me as if to say ‘what a stupid question’.
‘Like anyone would keep it in their own cell,’ he says sarcastically.
‘But if you didn’t find it in my cell, why are you bringing me out for a stroll at six o’clock in the morning? And why are you treating me like a criminal? I thought I was in a state of divine grace.’ Without a moment’s hesitation I match his sarcasm with my own harsh tone.
Maybe something in my voice makes him hesitate. He starts to suspect that maybe I really don’t know anything. But he doesn’t want to believe me.
‘Striano, you’d better be telling me the truth.’ Otherwise I’m gonna kick your arse, his eyes imply. ‘Take him down.’
‘Down’ means solitary confinement, and I’m sure it’s gone exactly the same way for my cellmates.
Damn them, I think. I must’ve told them a hundred times these past three weeks that it was going to end badly. And they kept saying, ‘We need to maintain our networks on the outside.’ You see, even if you’re locked up in an Italian prison, you can keep up your life of crime if you want. So much for rehabilitation.
In Spain, if someone had got me into this much trouble I’d have put him through a pretty nasty fifteen minutes or so. Sure, there are four of them and only one of me. But I managed worse when I was in the Hotheads. Ten against one, even, and all armed to the teeth.
I think back on those times as I sit in this minuscule, silent cell and they replay like scenes from an old film. Something really distant, happening to someone else, or perhaps a dream. I don’t have any other film to project onto these white walls, or on the ceiling when I’m lying back on the marble slab that is my bed. In solitary, there’s nothing to do but think, and nothing to think but bad thoughts.
Whenever the guard feels like it, he gives me a cigarette. There’s no explanation provided. Let’s just hope they’re checking the call logs and realise I’ve got nothing to do with any of this. Let’s hope those Albanian bastards didn’t say that the phone belonged to the guys in cell 12 because then we’ll all end up in here. Let’s hope I don’t end up with the bad-arse inspector who, even though he knows I’m not involved, punishes me anyway for not grassing on the others.
It’s been only three weeks and I’ve already got myself into trouble, as my mother would put it. But I just wound up in this situation. It’s not my fault. I’m answering back in my own head, thinking these thoughts both in my own voice and in my mother’s scolding voice.
Some people go crazy when they’re put in solitary. As for me, I’d actually be quite content with my own company, but my anxiety over that mobile phone is eating away at me. I can’t stop thinking about the nightmare of the 41b regime that might be looming.
Then the guards come down. They take me back to the office. Our section inspector is there along with the commander who made fun of me the last time. When was that? Maybe four days ago, but who knows. It feels like four months.
As soon as he sees me come in, the commander stands up and stretches out his hand.
‘Sorry about these last few days, Striano,’ he says. ‘But unfortunately we had to check the phone logs to see who’d used the thing. It’s a nasty business.’
‘I didn’t do anything.’ I shake his hand. I want him to acknowledge that I’m innocent. He nods.
‘It’s true. But your attitude, your omertà, this refusal to cooperate with us, is not in keeping with the policy of this penitentiary. It’s holding you back from being involved in rehabilitation treatment.’
My eyes widen. ‘You’re telling me, just three weeks in, that I need to be on good behaviour? Why? What’s happened? Can you at least tell me that?’ I’m getting hot under the collar. Do they expect us prisoners to do their work for them now?
‘You knew your cellmates had a prohibited mobile phone and you didn’t say anything.’
‘Do you really think we tell each other everything?’
‘No, I’m quite sure that you keep things from one another. But I’m also quite sure that you knew that there had to be a reason why your friends went to eat with the Albanians every night.’
‘Well okay, I suspected something, just like you suspected it. So what? That just shows that we’re all as smart as each other.’ I’m running out of patience. This is not a serious conversation, it’s like something out of a street-side puppet theatre—each one of us is just playing their part, going through the motions. I might be in prison, but I haven’t got time for this kind of farce.
‘All right, you can go back to your cell,’ the commander sighs. He got my drift pretty quickly: he’d been hoping to get some information, but he sure won’t be getting any out of me.
‘I’m not going back to my cell.’
‘What do you mean you’re not going back to your cell? What do you want? Do you think we’re going to release you on good behaviour?’
‘No.’ You’re really not funny, commander, I think. You’re not the one who has to do eleven years in here without falling into any more traps like the one I’ve just managed to make my way out of. ‘You have to do me a favour and take me back down into solitary confinement.’
He exchanges a glance with the inspector as if to say, ‘Oh boy, we left him down there too long and he’s gone nuts.’
‘Why? Do you like it there?’
‘I do,’ I reply. ‘There I’m alone. I can only get into trouble if I choose to, and I pay the consequences for my own behaviour and nobody else’s. I’d like to be able to rest easy, thank you very much.’
I say all this pretty bluntly, maybe too bluntly, because the commander’s face turns hard.
‘Now you’re going overboard,’ he warns me.
But I stick to my guns: ‘No, I’m not going overboard. You put me back in solitary confinement, and then when a private cell becomes available you put me in there. Otherwise, I’ll serve my whole sentence down in solitary. It’s all the same to me. The food trolley comes by either way, and that’s all I need.’
He looks me in the eye. It’s a proper staring contest.
‘Take him back down,’ he says in the end.
A couple of days later the brigadier comes and lets me out.
‘One of the workers has been released,’ he says. The workers, the ones who take care of cleaning and other services within the prison, get private cells because they have to wake up at five in the morning. ‘You’re going into number 16.’
I go into my private cell feeling like I’ve won a little war. I don’t want to have to rely on others. I never have—not even on the streets of the Quartieri—and I never will.
Having a cell to myself means I’m automatic
ally able to avoid a lot of risks. But I can’t avoid them all. There’s one small problem: I’m Sasà from the Hotheads, and here, they all know it. My return was in the newspapers the day after I arrived from Spain. Salvatore Striano, member of the Neapolitan gang the Hotheads, who set up a dangerous drug trafficking ring in Spain…I’ve been branded.
But someone like me is a bit of a foreign body in a prison like this, which is crawling with members of the Neapolitan Camorra. See, although I was also a criminal, I spent years fighting against the Camorra. All the inmates know who I am. Some show me respect, because no one has ever been sure whether the Hotheads, that invincible brotherhood, was made up of ten, a thousand, or five hundred thousand men, so who knows how many there might be in this prison, ready to leap to my defence. But of course there are others who want to challenge me: I took on the Camorra clans of Naples, and now they want to take me on.
I need a guard.
Not to bring me hash: Monica does that when she comes to visit—she passes it to me with her tongue when she kisses me. What I need now is different: protection, information. I need to work out where I stand, and find out who the traitorous infami are. I’m not part of the Camorra loop and I’m very isolated in here. But it’s not easy with the guards. If you talk too much you’re dangerous, because you might talk. If you say nothing you’re dangerous, too, because that’s omertà—you must be covering for someone. You can’t win.
Luckily, I’ve never been in a place where I haven’t been able to win over a guard in a few hours. It just takes a few more days in Rebibbia than it did in Spain. They start to soften up when they learn that I can speak Spanish and they can call on me to translate when a South American prisoner comes in. Then they learn that I’m a no-nonsense guy who minds his own business. They’re real psychologists, these guys. They spend more time with us than with their wives and they end up tuning in to the way we think, the way we feel.
In Rebibbia my guard is called Gaetano. He approached me one afternoon in the yard and struck up a conversation. He’s from Naples, like me, and he does me the favour of calling my family to see if everything is okay, because I’m only allowed to use the phone every so often and that’s not enough. Once in a while he brings in a bottle of wine for me, something I need, and he keeps me up to date with what’s going on. He’s a lot cheaper than don Juan. On the other hand, he talks a whole lot more—he’s developed the habit of telling me his whole life story, one episode after another. He’s got problems with his brother, who has got mixed up with the wrong crowd, so from time to time he asks me for advice. It’s pretty funny to think I’ve become a kind of special consultant on the criminal underworld.
Set Me Free Page 4