Prison Time Page 8

My turn comes. Nervously, I disrobe next to Ken.

  ‘Who’s got the smallest dick?’ Ken yells at the onlookers, waving his arms, wiggling his hips, radiating armpit and crotch odour.

  We laugh.

  ‘Put your arms in the air. Open your mouth. Raise your balls. Turn around. Bend over. Spread ’em. Cough.’

  The mockery and jeering escalates as a guard moves down the line, inspecting our stretched-open behinds for contraband. I blush. Come on. Get it over with.

  ‘OK. Get dressed. Proceed outside.’

  Fearful of what might come next, I exit the warehouse.

  ‘Line up against the fence!’

  Guards affix hand and leg cuffs that cut my skin, restrain my movement and make me feel twice as heavy.

  ‘If you’ve got your cuffs on, get on the bus!’

  Standing at the foot of an old school bus with grid metal over the windows, a transportation guard yells ‘Number!’ so aggressively it hurts my ears.

  ‘1-8-7-1-6-0.’

  With the bus almost full, I sit behind the driver, next to Blackheart, the Lakota Indian who ate the caterpillar from my salad when I first arrived. At almost seven feet tall, he’s serving life for murder. The bus leaves.

  While the bus cruises at 80 mph, I wonder what it will be like at our destination. A kennel-style gate separating us from the two guards rattles like gunfire, raising my anxiety. The driver picks up a gallon of water and takes a swig. Staring at its Safeway label, I long to shop for groceries and to have some choice over what I eat.

  Excitement sweeps through the bus when we spot what appears to be a forest fire, giant flames dancing along the top of a mountain range.

  ‘It’s not fire. It’s the angle of the rising sun,’ a prisoner says.

  Amazed, I gaze at the vivid red and yellow lighting up the darkness.

  At Casa Grande, the bus joins the Interstate 10 to Tucson – a section of road where, at the peak of my drug intake, I once saw imaginary wolves howling for me to come out and party. Where are my wolves now? Crushed by the system or hiding inside, biding their time, hoping to run wild again?

  A transportation guard dozes off, one leg down, the other propped up by the front of the bus and a double-barrel shotgun, his face peaceful, as if he’s drifting into a pleasant dream. The bus swerves and skids and we all get thrown around. I bounce off Blackheart. The inmates lambaste the driver, waking the other guard up. Startled, he turns his head and stares back at us, his eyes widening, as if seeing hell.

  At Picacho Peak, hundreds of giant cacti appear to be marching up the mountain, attempting to join those climbing the cliff face.

  Entering Tucson, we pass the Ina Road exit – the turn-off to my former million-dollar mountainside house. Wondering if fate is trying to teach me a lesson by converging the past with the present, I get a desperate, sad urge to rewind the clock, to be in my sports car, blasting music, heading home. The signs ‘Wilmot Road Exit’ and ‘Arizona State Prison 4 Miles’ mark the journey’s end.

  At Tucson prison, the guards order us off the bus. The 10°F difference in temperature is a relief. Our chains are removed. After hours cramped in outdoor holding cages, we’re escorted to a prison consisting of four buildings – A, B, C and D – each a flat L-shape, built in a diagonal row, so that D is at the far end of the complex. Each has two storeys of cells, opening onto an outdoor area with a basketball court built on an impoverished stretch of dirt and dust. There’s no indoor day room like at Buckeye. A prairie dog pops up from nowhere and checks us out on its hind legs, amusing us. Long Island and I are assigned to D-11 at the back. Overjoyed not to be separated, we high-five and hug.

  We take our property to an upper-tier cell with hot walls. Inside smells of sewage and old metal. The doorway overlooks an outdoor area with reverse-charge phones, workout stations, a chow hall and in the distance – as if to rub in how much I have lost – the mountains where I used to live. Through the narrow back window is a view of the perimeter fence, desert cleared so escapees can be shot, and brushland. Long Island takes the bottom bunk, which runs along a side wall. I take the top bunk, bolted to the back wall above a table I aim to turn into an office/blogging command post. The cement floor space is 10 x 3 feet, sufficient to do push-ups on. Our mattresses have their charcoal-grey foam fillings bulging out, as if disembowelled. Under mine, I discover an old razor blade, syringe parts and a small transparent scorpion, which I secure in a plastic cup and discard through the few inches the window opens. We despair that the swamp-cooler vent is not blowing. We can’t plug our fans in because one electric socket isn’t working and the other is hanging off the wall. We spend the rest of the day locked-down, sweating in the concrete oven, wearing only boxers. At night, exhausted, I collapse onto the mattress without any bedding and start to drift off, but a noise rattles the building – crrrrrrkkkkkksshhhhh – jolting my eyes open. Tucson prison is between the Davis-Monthan air base and Tucson international airport, used by the Arizona Air National Guard. Every so often, a commercial or military plane thunders over, shaking the building. I try to raise my head, but my sweaty cheek is stuck to the vinyl. I detach my cheek, then bang my head on the ceiling as I climb off the bunk to use the toilet. The flush button requires two thumbs and all of my strength. I make earplugs by sealing wet toilet paper inside pieces of plastic bag, climb on the bunk and pass out.

  19

  Early next morning, the yard comes alive. Trusties hand out bedding and towels. Electricians fix sockets. A plumber, a friendly murderer with a hillbilly twang, unblocks drains. Long Island joins a long line for a shower.

  I’m glad when George arrives with cleaning supplies. He rests the mop against the wall and salutes. ‘Jeeves here to report for cleaning duty, governor.’

  ‘You didn’t waste any time tracking my cell down,’ I say, sitting on a plastic chair at the desk bolted to the back wall.

  ‘Of course not, governor. We wouldn’t want the royal willy to go unwashed now.’

  I rotate my chair to face him. ‘You’re not coming near my willy.’

  ‘That’s a damn shame because you have so much foreskin to offer,’ George says, leaning against the wall. ‘You act prim and proper, but you were a rave king. I know that a lot of ravers are bisexual, so you were the head kink because you ran them. I’m surprised you didn’t have glory holes at your raves.’

  ‘We did have some kinky after-parties,’ I say, regretting it immediately.

  George’s eyes expand to the limits of their sockets. He steps towards me and leans forward.

  Oh shit!

  ‘I bet when you were hyped up on Ecstasy and in mood-enhanced deliriums you probably licked a penis or two.’

  ‘Never!’

  ‘Don’t be ashamed. You should be proud of these things; you should flaunt your penis to those who want to see it.’

  ‘Including you?’

  ‘I would like to see him erect, saluting Queen Elizabeth or anyone who wants to look at him,’ he says, tilting as if about to dive between my legs.

  ‘I’d starve to death before I’d let you suck my dick,’ I say, pointing at him threateningly.

  ‘OK, governor.’ He stands to attention and salutes.

  Walking from the cell onto the balcony, I hear yelling.

  ‘Where’s my fucking chair?’ Standing outside of the rec room – at the end of the run on the bottom tier where inmates play cards and gamble – Ken swivels his head, scanning the yard.

  Someone points at a chair with wet orange trousers draped on it, drying in the sun. Ken grabs the trousers just as a well-built prisoner emerges from a cell.

  ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing with my chair?’ Ken roars.

  ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing with my pants?’

  ‘I’m taking my chair, motherfucker!’

  The man marches towards Ken. There follows a tug-of-war, both gripping the chair and the trousers.

  Ken finally rips the chair from the man and throws it into the re
c room. ‘Don’t ever take my fucking chair!’ Ken leaves for his cell. By the time he returns, the chair is back outside, the man about to put his trousers on it. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Ken yells, scowling.

  ‘You don’t own this chair! Fuck you!’

  Ken marches to the man and drops his forearms on the crotch of the trousers, forcing the man’s arms to twist and cross. He punches the man under the jaw, launching him into a wall. With blood gushing from his tongue, and struggling to stand, the man sways like a drunk. Ken slams him against the wall and he falls.

  ‘What you gonna do now, motherfucker?’ Ken yells.

  The man tries to get up.

  Ken kicks him in the head. ‘Let’s see your punk ass do something now!’

  Again, he tries to stand. Slam. Fall.

  ‘I’ll beat your bitch ass, motherfucker!’

  Slam. Fall. Ken stomps. The man writhes, blood pouring from his nose.

  At the beginning of my incarceration, violence shocked me. But I’ve seen so much, I’m desensitised – just like everyone else in here. Comparing this to what Ken did to me, I count my blessings.

  Prisoners pull Ken off. Ken grabs the chair, places it in the rec room and sits proudly, ready to play a popular card game called Pinochle.

  20

  In prison, mail is gold. Long before mail call, prisoners hover around the guard station, gazing through the Plexiglas at the stack of envelopes on the desk, hoping to spot their names as the guards sort through them. Some even identify the handwriting, so they know who a letter is from hours before it is distributed. When large Manila envelopes arrive, bearing stamps with Queen Elizabeth, I’m informed by those prisoners anxious to read the printouts of my blogs. Between my blog readers and my story occasionally being reported in the news, I receive regular mail. The letters raise my spirits and make me feel connected with the outside.

  Of the three letters I receive today, I don’t recognise the return address on one. To solve the mystery, I rip it open:

  I am writing you because your story has touched my heart. I want to get to know you, no matter what you done in the past. I am a 6 feet 1 inch tall single 26-year-old blonde from Nevada, and an attractive mom of two boys. If you want a good girl in public and a whore in the bedroom, I’m her. I am looking for a long-term thing and I hope you like kids … I want more.

  Touched, I smile and put it down. I reply to everyone, so I’m thinking of telling her that I do like kids, but we won’t be running off to Las Vegas to get married any time soon, as I’m banned for life from America by the Department of Homeland Security.

  The next letter is from Jade, an American I met in 1999 in Tucson who’s been studying criminology in England for three years. She loves fantasy art by Luis Royo and her letters often include his calendar pages. Although we get along great, neither of us was single over the course of our friendship, so no romance developed. She’s been writing since my arrest. Earlier on, she was upset that I’d been incarcerated just when I’d stopped dealing Ecstasy and was getting my life sorted out. In our correspondence, we often bare our souls. Although she has a boyfriend of three years, since my break-up with Claudia, her letters have contained a stronger undertone of feeling and attachment. Opening the letter fills the cell with a sweet perfume. I close my eyes and inhale deeply. She says she’s going to visit me for the first time. I grin at the cement-block wall. Still smiling, I’m reading the third letter when Two Tonys walks in.

  ‘Just got a letter from my sis in London,’ I tell him. ‘She says I fall in love too easily, that I need to stay single for at least a year when I get out and date various women. What’s your take on love?’ I sit down on the plastic chair.

  ‘I’m almost 66 years old,’ he says, sitting on the bottom bunk, ‘and as a sailor I had a girl in every port. The only thing that cliché missed was that the girls want gratuities on the way out – and sometimes on the way in. Love is an entirely different animal. I can’t compare love with running around full of testosterone, with my pecker hanging out, trying to bang everything in sight. If you wanna talk about love – I think I’ve been in love … but if I was, wouldn’t I still be in love?’

  ‘I think love is something you go in and out of.’

  ‘Who says?’

  ‘I’m speaking from my own experiences,’ I say.

  ‘Were you ever in love?’

  ‘I thought I was,’ I say.

  ‘Therein lies the problem,’ he says. ‘You thought you was. You’re not in love now, are you?’

  I think of Claudia. It’s been several months since she ended things and my pain is fading. ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘I’m saying when you feel true love, you never fall out of it. It overcomes sickness, desertion, death, separation. You don’t quit loving her just ’cause she left you.’

  ‘But it fades,’ I say.

  ‘Now we’re going into the realm of time, which heals all wounds, or so the poets say. But does it?’

  Not wanting to reignite my feelings for Claudia, I decide to cite my ex-wife. ‘In my case, it did,’ I say, relishing the opportunity to share my feelings with Two Tonys. ‘I was deeply in love with my ex-wife, Amy, but those feelings are long gone. It’s the same for most of my girlfriends, going all the way back to high school. Although, saying that, I still do have a certain level of affection for them all.’

  ‘And mine too. But when you were in love and the separation came, I bet nothing felt worse.’

  ‘That’s so true,’ I say. ‘There were times when I couldn’t eat or think straight, I lay in bed, depressed, day after day. There were times when the pain was so unbearable I tried to deal with it by going on a drugs rampage. I didn’t care if I lived or died. I overdosed on GHB, put my head through walls, just missing a nail below the plasterboard one time, and woke up caked in vomit, wondering how I’d got there and what I’d done. I was lucky my friends took care of me. Anything could have happened. I look back now and wonder why I behaved so insanely.’

  ‘I’ve been shot, stabbed, had my ass beat numerous times,’ Two Tonys says. ‘My parents have died, my siblings have died and I’ve never felt any sense of complete aloneness or excruciating mental pain as when someone I loved left me. But love is strictly a remedy for loneliness.’

  ‘I disagree,’ I say. ‘I think it’s about the joy of sharing your life with another person.’

  ‘Why?’ Two Tonys asks.

  ‘If the chemistry’s right, it feels great to get to know and care about someone, to share the adventure of life. Over time you grow closer and the love gets stronger. Waking up next to her, that certain look in her eyes, that smile she has for you, even her smell. You get a feeling of your life being complete when you’re with the right woman.’

  ‘But you can’t do any of that alone!’ he says. ‘You do it ’cause you’re lonely. You don’t wanna look at the Grand Canyon by yourself. You don’t wanna go to Niagara Falls and ride the Maid of the Mist by yourself. So you fall in love, and you have to pay a price. It’s not free. It’s expensive – in terms of emotions. Your mom and dad are in love, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘They fell in love when they were in their late teens and have been together ever since.’

  ‘Sooner or later one is gonna have to pay one hell of a price when the other moves on. I’m talking about death. I saw my ol’ man pay the price. It was pitiful. We’ve come to the age old question: is it better to have loved and lost or not to have loved at all?’

  ‘It’s better to love, to take chances, to experience life to the fullest, including the ups and downs. Even though I went through some rough break-ups, I was also the happiest I’ve ever been in my life when I was in love. But I also attracted women who were materialistic like myself and I got my just deserts.’

  ‘Were you doing drugs with them?’ he asks.

  ‘Most of them.’

  ‘You need to stay away from that, but what does your sis expect you to do? Go to St Paul’s and find some cathedral chick? G
et on the computer and fill out some internet dating application? Mr Matchmaker, I like my coffee with two lumps of sugar. I like to wear argyle socks. I like soccer. I only pick my nose when nobody’s home. Are you gonna rely on some devious teenage whizz-kid entrepreneur sending you an email saying he’s found you some chick who likes soccer and Argyle socks? Of course not. I don’t think you can fall in love like that. I think you become in love. In the movies, a guy sees a woman across a table and they fall in love. You meet a woman at a lonely point in your life and you become in love. Before you were arrested, were you ever on your own?’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I’ve been in back-to-back relationships since I was a teenager, none of which lasted longer than three years.’

  ‘Then you don’t know what being lonely means.’

  Not wanting to hold anything back from Two Tonys, I decide to put my feelings about Claudia on the table. ‘I do now. Claudia not visiting hurts. When she finished our relationship at the jail, it was one of the loneliest times in my life. The sheer helplessness of being behind bars and unable to see her made it worse.’

  ‘When I was a fugitive on the run in Waikiki and Maui, living in a beautiful house on the slopes of an extinct volcano by myself, I was lonely. Even in here, it’s nice to have a friend like you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say, touched that he’s taken such a liking to me. ‘It’s great to have you to speak to, too.’

  He smiles. ‘To be alone is a brutal thing.’

  ‘I hope love lasted longer for you than it did for me,’ I say.

  ‘I don’t think I ever loved any of my wives! I remember being in Vegas with my wife and newborn baby, looking at townhouses. And a red light was going on. I knew in my heart and soul: Look, motherfucker, if you buy this townhouse, you’re gonna end up sleeping in the back of your car, paying the mortgage, while she’s in there with her next husband. I saw a gangster one time in the Walls [Florence prison, Arizona] who’d stand on a mound for hours on end, for six or seven Saturday Visitation days in a row, looking for his old lady’s yellow Caddy to show up in the prison parking lot. And you know what? She never turned up. She gutted him while he was in the joint and he never regrouped. He was always a shell of a man after that.’