Prison Time Read online

  About the Book

  Sentenced to 9½ years for distributing Ecstasy, ‘English Shaun’ Attwood finds himself in Arizona’s state prison living amony gang members, sexual predators and drug-crazed psychopaths. After being attacked by a 20-stone Californian biker in for stabbing a girlfriend, Shaun writes about the prisoners who befriend, protect and inspire him. They include T-Bone, a massive African American ex-Marine who risks his life saving vulnerable inmates from rape, and Two Tonys, an old-school Mafia murderer who left the corpses of his rivals from Tucson to Alaska. They teach Shaun how to turn incarceration to his advantage, and to learn from his mistakes.

  Resigned to living alongside violent, mentally ill and drug-addicted inmates, Shaun immerses himself in psychology and philosophy to try to make sense of his past behaviour, and begins applying what he learns as he adapts to prison life. Encouraged by Two Tonys to explore fiction as well, Shaun reads over a thousand books, which, with support from a brilliant psychotherapist, Dr Owen, speed along his personal development. As his ability to deflect daily threats improves, Shaun begins to look forward to his release with optimism and a new love waiting for him. Yet the words of Aristotle from one of Shaun’s books will prove prophetic: ‘We cannot learn without pain.’

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Timeline of the English Shaun Trilogy

  Definitions

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Epilogue

  Picture Section

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Shaun Attwood

  Copyright

  For the prisoners whose stories made this book possible: Two Tonys, Jack, Shannon, T-Bone, Iron Man, Weird Al, Long Island, She-Ra, Gina, Mochalicious, Midnight, Max, Magpie, George, Bud, Ken, Booga, Cannonball, Hammer, Blackheart and Jim Hogg.

  For my team of proofreaders, whose eagle eyes swooped on my many errors: Barbara Attwood, Callie Meakin, Debs Warner, Claire Bishop, Jill Rawstron, Mark Coates, Ian McClary and Penny Kimber.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Prison Time is a story in its own right, but it is also the third instalment of the ‘English Shaun’ trilogy. Chronologically, the books start with Party Time, the story of everything that led to a SWAT team smashing my door down – my English upbringing, my move to Arizona as a penniless graduate, my rise as a stockbroker and millionaire day trader, and how I formed an organisation that threw raves and imported Ecstasy.

  The second book, Hard Time, charts the 26 months that followed my arrest for drug offences. It tells how I survived the Maricopa County jail, which has the highest death rate in America. It’s run by the infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio, rarely out of the headlines because of his controversial tactics for racial profiling in Arizona. In the Maricopa County jail system, gang members and even guards were murdering inmates. I witnessed people being beaten to death in the jail.

  Prison Time starts on 18 November 2004, half a year after I received a nine-and-a-half-year sentence for drug offences. It begins at Buckeye prison, 43 miles west of Phoenix, where each housing unit is named after a guard murdered by the prisoners.

  During my incarceration, the brutality continued, but I also gained an insight into the less aggressive sides of my fellow inmates, whose intimate relationships were far more complex than I could have imagined.

  Prison transsexuals find it offensive when referred to as ‘he’ or ‘him’, so throughout Prison Time I’ve used ‘she’ and ‘her’ for my transsexual friends.

  DEFINITIONS

  ADOC – Arizona Department of Corrections

  Aryan Brotherhood – white supremacist prison gang

  celly – cellmate

  cheeto – transsexual

  dawg – mate

  DOC – Department of Corrections

  dope – crystal meth or heroin

  DW – Deputy Warden

  feds – federal law-enforcement officers

  fish – new prisoner/guard

  headcount – an inventory taken by counting prisoners

  hole – a prison within the prison used for punishment

  homey – a fellow gang member or close friend

  L&R – love and respect

  lockdown – a prison within the prison used for punishment, or a security measure that requires all of the prisoners to be locked in their cells

  meds – medication

  meth – crystal methamphetamine, a strong form of speed

  shank – homemade knife

  supermax – super-maximum-security prison

  trustie – a prisoner trusted to work

  UA – urine drug test

  whack – murder

  Be like the promontory against which the waves continually break; but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.

  – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

  1

  ‘I’ve got a padlock in a sock. I can smash your brains in while you’re asleep. I can kill you whenever I want.’ My new cellmate sizes me up with no trace of human feeling in his eyes. Muscular and pot-bellied, he’s caked in prison ink, including six snakes on his skull, slithering side by side. The top of his right ear is missing in a semi-circle.

  The waves of fear are overwhelming. After being in transportation all day, I can feel my bladder hurting. ‘I’m not looking to cause any trouble. I’m the quietest cellmate you’ll ever have. All I do is read and write.’

  Scowling, he shakes his head. ‘Why’ve they put a fish in with me?’ He swaggers close enough for me to smell his cigarette breath. ‘Us convicts don’t get along with fresh fish.’

  ‘Should I ask to move then?’ I say, hoping he’ll agree, if he hates new prisoners so much.

  ‘No! They’ll think
I threatened you!’

  In the eight-by-twelve-foot slab of space, I swerve around him and place my property box on the top bunk.

  He pushes me aside and grabs the box. ‘You just put that on my artwork! I ought to fucking smash you, fish!’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t see it,’ I say in a soft contrite voice, hoping to calm him down.

  ‘You need to be more aware of your fucking surroundings! What you in for anyway, fish?’

  I explain my charges – Ecstasy dealing – and how I spent 26 months fighting my case.

  ‘How come the cops were so hardcore after you?’ he asks, squinting.

  ‘It was a big case, a multimillion-dollar investigation. They raided over a hundred people and didn’t find any drugs. They were pretty pissed off. I’d stopped dealing by the time they caught up with me, but I’d done plenty over the years, so I accept my punishment.’

  ‘Throwing raves,’ he says, staring at the ceiling as if remembering something. ‘Were you partying with underage girls?’ he asks, his voice slow, coaxing.

  Being called a sex offender is the worst insult in prison. Into my third year of incarceration, I’m conditioned to react. ‘What you trying to say?’ I yell angrily, brow clenched.

  ‘Were you fucking underage girls?’ Flexing his body, he shakes both fists as if about to punch me.

  ‘Hey, I’m no child molester. And I’d prefer you didn’t say shit like that!’

  ‘My buddy next door is doing 25 to life for murdering a child molester. How do I know Ecstasy dealing ain’t your cover story?’ He inhales loudly, nostrils flaring.

  ‘You want to see my fucking paperwork?’

  A stocky prisoner walks in. Short hair. Dark eyes. Powerful neck. On one arm, a tattoo of a man in handcuffs above the word ‘omerta’ – the Mafia code of silence towards law enforcement. ‘What the fuck’s going on in here, Bud?’ asks Junior Bull – the son of ‘Sammy the Bull’ Gravano, a Mafia mass murderer who was my biggest competitor in the Ecstasy market.

  Relieved to see a familiar face, I say, ‘How’re you doing?’

  Shaking my hand, he says in a New York Italian accent, ‘I’m doing all right. I read that shit in the newspaper about you starting a blog in Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s jail.’

  ‘The blog’s been bringing media heat on the conditions,’ I say, nodding, smiling slightly, staring at Bud in the hope of gaining his acceptance.

  While in the Maricopa County jail, I documented the human-rights violations on sweat-soaked scraps of paper, using a tiny pencil sharpened on the door. Hidden in legal paperwork and the bindings of books, my writing was smuggled out of Visitation by my aunt Ann – right under the noses of armed guards – and posted on the internet as a blog, Jon’s Jail Journal. In recent months, as the result of a BBC article about me – ‘UK blogger takes on “toughest sheriff in US”’ – it had drawn international media attention.

  ‘You know him?’ Bud asks.

  ‘Yeah, from Towers jail. He’s a good dude. He’s in for dealing Ecstasy like me.’

  ‘It’s a good job you said that ’cause I was about to smash his ass,’ Bud says.

  ‘It’s a good job Wild Man ain’t here ’cause you’d a got your ass thrown off the balcony,’ Junior Bull says.

  I laugh. The presence of my best friend, Wild Man, was partly the reason I never took a beating at the county jail, but with Wild Man in a different prison I feel vulnerable. When Bud casts a death stare on me, my smile fades.

  ‘What the fuck you guys on about?’ Bud asks.

  ‘Let’s go talk downstairs.’ Junior Bull leads Bud out.

  I rush to a stainless-steel sink/toilet bolted to a cement-block wall by the front of the cell, unbutton my orange jumpsuit and crane my neck to watch the upper-tier walkway in case Bud returns. I bask in relief as my bladder deflates. After flushing, I take stock of my new home, grateful for the slight improvement in the conditions versus what I’d grown accustomed to in Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s jail. No cockroaches. No bloodstains. A working swamp cooler. Something I’ve never seen in a cell before: shelves. The steel table bolted to the wall is slightly larger, too. But how will I concentrate on writing with Bud around? There’s a mixture of smells in the room. Cleaning chemicals. Aftershave. Tobacco. A vinegar-like odour. The slit of a window at the back overlooks gravel in a no-man’s-land before the next building, with gleaming curls of razor wire around its roof.

  From the doorway, I’m facing two storeys of cells overlooking a day room, with shower cubicles at the end of both tiers. At two white plastic circular tables, prisoners are playing dominoes, cards, chess and Scrabble, some concentrating, others yelling obscenities, contributing to a brain-scraping din that I hope to block out by purchasing a Walkman. In a raised box-shaped Plexiglas control tower, two guards are monitoring the prisoners.

  Bud returns. My pulse jumps. Not wanting to feel like I’m stuck in a kennel with a rabid dog, I grab a notepad and pen and head for the day room.

  Focused on my body language, not wanting to signal any weakness, I’m striding along the upper tier, head and chest elevated, when two hands appear from a doorway and grab me. I drop the pad. The pen clinks against grid-metal and tumbles to the day room as I’m pulled into a cell reeking of backside sweat and masturbation, a cheese-tinted funk.

  ‘I’m Booga. Let’s fuck,’ says a squat man in urine-stained boxers, with WHITE TRASH tattooed on his torso below a mobile home, and an arm sleeved with the Virgin Mary.

  Shocked, I brace to flee or fight to preserve my anal virginity. I can’t believe my eyes when he drops his boxers and waggles his penis.

  Dancing to music playing through a speaker he has rigged up, Booga smiles in a sexy way. ‘Come on,’ he says in a husky voice. ‘Drop your pants. Let’s fuck.’ He pulls pornography faces. I question his sanity. He moves closer. ‘If I let you fart in my mouth, can I fart in yours?’

  ‘You can fuck off,’ I say, springing towards the doorway.

  He grabs me. We scuffle. Every time I make progress towards the doorway, he clings to my clothes, dragging me back in. When I feel his penis rub against my leg, my adrenalin kicks in so forcefully I experience a burst of strength and wriggle free. I bolt out as fast as my shower sandals will allow and snatch my pad. Looking over my shoulder, I see him standing calmly in the doorway, smiling. He points at me. ‘You have to walk past my door every day. We’re gonna get together. I’ll lick your ass, and you can fart in my mouth.’ Booga blows a kiss and disappears.

  I rush downstairs. With my back to a wall, I pause to steady my thoughts and breathing. In survival mode, I think, What’s going to come at me next? In the hope of reducing my tension, I borrow a pen to do what helps me stay sane: write. With the details fresh in my mind, I document my journey to the prison for my blog readers, keeping an eye out in case anyone else wants to test the new prisoner. The more I write, the more I fill with a sense of purpose. Jon’s Jail Journal is a connection to the outside world that I cherish.

  Someone yells, ‘One time!’ The din lowers. A door rumbles open. A guard does a security walk, his every move scrutinised by dozens of scornful eyes staring from cells. When he exits, the din resumes. The prisoners return to injecting drugs to escape from reality and the stress associated with the length of their sentences. This continues all day, with ‘Two times!’ signifying two approaching guards, then ‘Three times!’ three and so on. Every now and then, an announcement by a guard over the speakers briefly lowers the din.

  Before lockdown, I join the line for a shower, holding bars of soap in a towel that I aim to swing at the head of the next person to try me. With boisterous inmates a few feet away, yelling at the men in the showers to ‘Stop jerking off!’ and ‘Hurry the fuck up!’ I go inside a cubicle that reeks of bleach and mildew. With every nerve strained, I undress and rinse fast.

  At night, despite the desert heat, I cocoon myself in a blanket from head to toe and turn towards the wall, making my face more difficult to strike. I leave a hole for air, but t
he warm cement block inches from my mouth returns each exhalation onto my face as if it’s breathing on me, creating a feeling of suffocation. For hours, my heart drums so hard against the thin mattress I feel as if I’m moving even though I’m still. I try to sleep, but my eyes keep springing open and my head turning towards the cell as I try to penetrate the darkness, searching for Bud swinging a padlock in a sock at my head.

  2

  With Bud and his coterie of clones constantly in the cell, cracking jokes about raping me and boasting about former rapes, smoking, gambling, tattooing, and injecting heroin and crystal meth, I spend as much time in the day room as possible. After getting grabbed a few more times by Booga, I learn to creep or dash past his cell. He seems to genuinely believe that we’re destined to have sex.

  During the second day, I take breaks from writing to challenge the chess and Scrabble champions, holding my own with the former but getting smashed by the latter, who own Scrabble dictionaries and have memorised every two-letter word. I contest the word ‘ai’, delighted to have trumped my opponent, but he snatches up a dictionary and, with an expanding smile, reveals that ‘ai’ is a three-toed sloth from South America.

  As using the toilet requires that I return to the cell and ask Bud and company to leave, I fight the urge until I’m on the verge of an accident. When I enter the cell, my request for privacy is met with mockery, threats and chastisement. When the subject turns to ‘tapping my ass’, I decide to outdo them in shock value. In prison, acting crazy can be a useful strategy. The last thing they expect me to do is moon them. I doubt they’ll try to knock me down to rape me. If that happens, I’ll go one step further: I’ll smear their faces with my own faeces. I’m neither big enough nor possess the skills to fight them all, but I will go to any length to avoid getting raped. I doubt it’ll come to that. I hope to take them by surprise.

  Dropping my jumpsuit and boxers, I say, ‘Who’d want to rape this pale hairy English arse?’

  ‘Goddamn, England!’