The Zombie Room

by R. D. Ronald

  After a week he was moved to a different wing and into a shared six-by-eight with a grizzled old con called Alf. He had faded tattoos that stained most of the visible skin on his hands, arms and neck a dull blue, sharp eyes and a thick beard that made his mouth look like an axe wound on a bear.

  The first two weeks few words were exchanged, which suited Decker fine. Letters arrived and lay unopened in a pile beside his clothes and toiletries. The fragments of conversation that passed between him and Alf were like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that didn’t fit together. Too much in-between was missing.

  Alf had his routine of reading, exercise and crossword puzzles that he slotted in around naps and social. As soon as the cell door opened at 6 p.m. he was out, and he never returned before exactly 7 p.m. Decker continued to keep away from the rest of the jail population.

  ‘You scared of them?’ Alf asked him one night when he returned to the cell.

  ‘I’m not scared of anyone, you or any of the fuckers out there.’

  Alf let the words drift around the cell for a while without reply.

  ‘How long you been in?’ Decker asked eventually.

  ‘Thirty-three years.’

  ‘How long have you got to go?’

  ‘I doubt I’ll ever get out now. I made a lot of mistakes on the outside, then a whole lot more in here.’

  ’Don’t think I’ll ever get out either,’ Decker stated.

  ‘Maybe not. Some don’t. I’ve had my share of parole hearings and I’m still here.’

  ‘Why didn’t they let you out?’

  ‘’Cause it took me a long time to realise that in here you need to learn through wisdom, not experience.’

  ‘What the fuck does that mean?’

  ‘It means you’re in here ’cause you fucked up, and if you keep fucking up till something in your head finally works out you need to change your ways, then a whole lot of time is likely to have passed you by. On the other hand, there’s no shortage of people in here who are gonna fuck up for you, so if you keep quiet and watch them make the mistakes, you can learn. Wisdom rather than experience.’

  ‘What’s that make you, a fuckin’ prison philosopher?’

  ‘No, just an old man who would do a lot of things different if I had my time over. You got family on the outside?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Forget about them. Make the most of where you are.’

  ‘What’s the point in forgetting the only things that matter? What will that solve?’

  ‘If your world is out there and you are in here then the only things that will gather within these walls are time and bitterness. Eventually, that bitterness will eat away at you and leave nothing behind but resentment and hate.’

  ‘That’s pretty much how I feel now, so what’s the difference?’

  ‘You might think that’s how you feel now, but hold onto it for a month, a year, see how time magnifies those feelings. You’ll end up fighting; no doubt you’ll start using drugs, which of course you’ll eventually be caught with, then there’s the abuse towards the guards. Right now you’re probably thinking none of that matters ’cause your life is over anyway, but it isn’t. One day your parole hearing will come around, and everything you’ve done in here will all be listed on pieces of paper in front of them to make a judgement on whether you deserve another chance. It’s up to you to always have that thought in the back of your head. Otherwise you’ll end up another wasted life, left in here to rot.’

  ‘You mean like you?’ Decker asked with a sneer.

  ‘Yeah,’ Alf said looking down from the top bunk. ‘That’s exactly what I mean. You have to make up for what you’ve done, and not just to get out of this place, or once you do get out you’ll end up coming right back. I can still remember what the judge said to me in court all those years ago: “If you can learn, change and atone, then maybe you still have a chance at life.”’ Alf had turned back around and stared at the ceiling of their cell. He let out a long slow sigh, before adding, ‘It just took me too long to realise that he was right.’

  Over the first few years Decker adapted better than he’d expected to life in prison. He began replying to his letters, although there had been none from Brian, John or Tony. His sister Becky still blamed herself for what happened that night, regardless of the number of times he tried to reassure her that there was nothing she could have done. The words in his mother’s letters seemed to carry some of the burden of his guilt as well.

  Decker struck up friendships with a number of people inside, but heeded Alf ’s caution to choose his words wisely and his friends even more so. A lot of talk between the inmates was showman-ship, exaggeration or just downright lies, but Decker felt he was learning to recognise which was which.

  So far he’d managed to avoid being put on report for anything; something of an achievement considering the drug use and violence that was endemic among the prison population. Inevitably there had been confrontations. But so far Decker had always turned away from conflict in open areas where the prison guards would see. When anyone wronged him, or challenged the respect he’d begun to accumulate, he would wait and visit one-on-one in their cell with no witnesses. Sometimes this was enough to force his would-be opponent to back down, but regardless, the situation was always dealt with.

  As time went on, he began to take his personal fitness a lot more seriously and also gave up smoking. There was little he could do about the prison diet, but always took his share of fruit and vegetables and opted for the healthier options.

  He began a work programme training as an electrician, and was allowed the privilege of regular access to the gym. His previously lean frame and stringy muscles gained shape and began to bulk out. He also signed up to the library programme and under Alf ’s guidance began to broaden his knowledge through books.

  Decker was halfway through the seventh year of his sentence when Alf was diagnosed with cancer. They hadn’t been cell mates for almost a year, following Alf ’s transfer to a minimum security facility, but still kept in contact by letter. Despite giving up smoking at the same time as Decker, Alf had contracted lung cancer. He’d suffered from deep hacking coughs which had worsened in the last few months they had shared a cell. In one of his last letters, Alf said that the prognosis wasn’t good and he had perhaps six months to live. The letter was impersonal, and had more lines devoted to criticising the food and complaining of an inmate who had cheated him at a hand of cards.

  Decker swept a hand over his eyes and brushed away the tears, but despite the pain he felt at the news, he couldn’t help but smile at Alf ’s carefree way of dealing with it. Alf had no family, certainly none that kept in touch, and despite Decker having his mother and sister on the outside, Alf had become the most important person in his world – the father figure and role model he had never known as a child.

  Just an hour out of his cell each day for ‘social’ was fine by Mangle. The other inmates, for the most part, looked like the kind of men he’d cross the road to avoid having to walk past, let alone sit down and chat with. One problem with this was that the hour they had for recreation was also the only time they had access to the phone, and by the time his cell had been unlocked, a substantial queue had always already formed.

  For the third day of his incarceration Mangle stoically took up his place at the end of the line. No guards patrolled near the payphones. All calls were no doubt recorded so there was no need to listen to outgoing conversations from the wing. This may have created the illusion of privacy for some of the prisoners who seemed a little carefree during their calls, but it also meant that twice before, larger inmates had decided Mangle had been saving their place in line and stepped in front of him, and the hour of recreation had ended as he stood waiting for their calls to finish.

  Mangle checked the clock that hung on the whitewashed stone wall at the end of the wing. He was the last in line, with eight minutes before the bell sounded, announcing their return to cells. An irate man yelled threats into the receiver in
front of him in a Jamaican accent. Mangle glanced around but nobody was paying him any attention. The man’s volume level increased along with his displeasure at whatever it was that he’d heard, and then the Jamaican began hammering the handset against the steel outer housing of the phone. Mangle rushed forward and tried to calm him while anything remained of his first chance at outside communication.

  ‘Fuck you,’ the man spat, and pushed past Mangle, leaving the receiver dangling at the end of its armoured cable.

  Tentatively, he held the handset to his ear, pressed to terminate the connection, then listened. The sweet sound of a live line was music to his ears. Mangle fumbled some coins into the slot and again glanced at the clock. He began punching buttons.

  ‘Hello?’ He was relieved to hear Vicky’s voice answer the call.

  ‘It’s me, this is the first chance I’ve had to phone and explain.’

  ‘You don’t need to explain, Nick, I heard what happened.’

  Her tone was matter-of-fact and Mangle thought perhaps she didn’t understand the situation he was in.

  ‘I just want you to know I did it for us ... ’

  ‘How the hell could this be for us? I phoned your parents and your mother blames me. She says I must have got you mixed up in this. I work in a fucking library, for Christ’s sake. That’s hardly a den of iniquity.’

  ‘I’ll call her and explain it was nothing to do with you.’

  ‘You’ll be lucky. She told me to pass on the message that she and your father have had enough. She’s supported your lack of character and loose morals and tried to encourage your non-existent ambition long enough, blah-blah-blah. Now you have to stand on your own.’

  ‘OK, well at least we still have each other. And I’m finished with drugs, I won’t have anything to do with anything like that ever again,’ Mangle stammered into the handset, and he meant it.

  The wiry Jamaican bellowing at the top of his lungs and attempting to demolish the phone had elicited no interest from other inmates, but the fretful tone creeping into Mangle’s voice had begun to turn heads.

  ‘We don’t have each other, Nick. I could never trust you again after what’s happened. I can’t pay the mortgage on my own and I have no way to get back the deposit I put down on our house. Dad says the only thing I can do is cut my losses and go for a quick sale at a much lower price. I’ve applied to be transferred to a library down south. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call back. I don’t want to speak to you again. It’s over.’

  Tazeem waited patiently during the rigorous pat-down preceding his prison visit. He moved along to the collection desk, where he handed over his watch and signed next to his prisoner ID for collection on the way back out. A buzzer sounded and Tazeem’s section was led forward into a long, brightly coloured, thinly carpeted room. Feeling anything other than concrete and steel under his feet was like walking barefoot across a dewy lawn.

  Rows of orange and green plastic chairs were bolted to the floor down the length of the room, with small Formica tables squatting in-between them. Tazeem sat where he was instructed to, and waited for his visitor to be shown through. Soon, conversational voices battled to be heard over the noise of shrieking children in the soft play area at the end of the room.

  Ermina headed the next clutch of visitors. Her sullen gaze swept the room before she spotted him and stalked over.

  ‘Nice to see you too,’ Tazeem said as she perched stiffly on the edge of her chair.

  Ermina placed a single cup of coffee down in front of her. Tazeem looked down the line at drinks and confectionary that had been purchased internally by family and friends for other inmates to consume during the visit.

  ‘You’ve made a real mess of things, Tazeem,’ Ermina said.

  Tazeem thought about protesting but her susceptibility to turbulent moods silenced him. ‘Didn’t you think about how me and my father, and your mother, would cope if you were locked up?’

  ‘You were the one talking about taking risks, about stepping up when a chance was presented. The reason I took the chance was to provide for the family.’

  Ermina displayed the knowing smile of someone conversing with the village idiot, and shook her head as she picked up her cup. She blew onto the hot coffee but put it back on the table without taking a drink. ‘Luckily for you, Sadiq is taking care of me.’

  Tazeem took a breath and swallowed down his bitterness before it could be verbalised.

  ‘Look, Tazeem, we can all see how you’ve failed up to this point, but that’s not to say it’s all over for you.’

  ‘What do you mean, “failed”, and who exactly is the all you’re talking of?’

  ‘Me, Sadiq, my father, your mother. I’ve spoken to Sadiq and he’ll take over your responsibilities while you’re in here. He’s working on some pretty exciting things, actually, so when you’re released you’ll come to work for him. With a more capable and dominant man leading the way we will all benefit, Tazeem.’

  He sat back in the chair, dumbfounded.

  Ermina checked her watch. ‘I have to go. I just wanted to come in and tell you not to worry, and that I’ll move into your house to look after it for you. I won’t be visiting again, though, I can’t bear this place,’ she said distastefully, and wiped her palms on the front of her skirt. She reached across to take Tazeem’s hand.

  ‘No contact, table four,’ a leather-faced guard bellowed down the row.

  Ermina abruptly withdrew her hand. ‘Goodbye Tazeem,’ she said as she stood up. ‘Try to stay out of trouble.’

  4

  For two months Tatiana lived with Sasha, the girl she’d run into after her encounter with the man at the fried chicken booth, her little sister Polina, and Natalia, whose small rented apartment they all stayed in. Sasha and Polina had been made homeless after their mother was killed during a brutal robbery. No one was caught for the crime, so their father sought his own vengeance. He beat the name of a man from a drunk in a bar, hunted him down and murdered him. Whether his act of retaliation was in fact directed at the perpetrator of the atrocity, Sasha and her sister didn’t know. After their father was arrested, they took what money they could find and what belongings they could carry, and fled, fearing if they were put into social care they may be separated forever.

  Polina had been friends with a deaf girl at school and understood sign language. Tatiana picked it up quickly and eventually, through Polina’s patience and dedication, was able to read the girl’s lips as she spoke the words she was signing.

  Tatiana felt a sudden vibration through the arm of the couch, and Polina sprang up from the seat beside her and rushed from the room. Tatiana followed her. In the tiny bathroom, they saw Natalia crouched in the shower cubicle with her face in her hands. Polina swept aside the ragged shower curtain, sat in front of her and tried to ease Natalia’s hands away to see what was wrong. Finally she relented. The left side of her face was swollen and scraped. Her make-up was smeared and streaked from the tears that ran down her cheeks, and her chest rose and fell rapidly as she tried to catch her breath.

  Tatiana knelt down and took her hand as Polina ran to fetch Natalia’s asthma inhaler. They knew what had happened. Natalia had suffered in this way before. Tatiana led her through to the sitting-room and they sat down on the couch. Polina came in and handed her the inhaler. Natalia shook it and took two blasts. Her breathing levelled out and she eased back against a cushion. She would talk about it when she felt ready.

  ‘At first he was nice man,’ Natalia said eventually, after wiping her face with a cloth Polina brought her from the bathroom. ‘He even took me for meal first, they never do that, then to hotel room where we start to do it. He was struggling to … perform.’

  ‘He was a limp dick,’ Polina said and giggled.

  ‘Don’t talk like that. If Sasha was here she would make you eat soap,’ Tatiana scolded. She took a breath and then more softly she said, ‘Polina, why don’t you go to your room and try to get some sleep. Your sister will be back soon,
she will come sit with you.’

  Obediently she left the room so that the older girls could talk.

  ‘She’s too young to understand how dangerous it is,’ Tatiana said. Natalia nodded. ‘You can’t go on like this, Talia. Who knows what might happen next time.’

  ‘I know. Have you thought about coming away with me?’

  ‘To buy visa is so expensive. You’ve been so kind to me already, I would never be able to repay you.’

  ‘We won’t have enough for full visas, but we can get working deal. In this country men only pay women for sex, but overseas women get paid good money just for dancing. I have enough for down payment, and we can go to a place I hear of, Garden Heights. We can work in club as dancers to pay what we owe, then afterwards we are free to do what we want.’

  Tatiana nodded her agreement to Natalia. The prospect of leaving both scared and excited her, but she knew there was now nothing left for her in her homeland but grief, and memories of what she had lost.

  The inmates were led out to wait in reception for the transport to arrive. Mangle was the only one from his unit and the last to congregate with the other prisoners. He was uncuffed from the accompanying guard, who was around 30, with a round face and plump wrists like those of a baby or an old woman. The handcuffs left indents where they had nestled between the folds of flesh. The other prisoners were already shackled together in pairs, except for one, and Mangle was attached to him.

  ‘Evening,’ the inmate said, as they were handcuffed together.

  It was morning, but Mangle still nodded, acknowledging the ice-breaker. His travelling companion was burly but not brutish, and had no visible tattoos on his hands and arms which seemed at odds with his powerful prison physique, although there were two words on the back of his neck: ‘Carpe Diem’.

  Their belongings were sealed and tagged in clear plastic bags and taken down onto the bus. A register was called, which seemed a little pointless at this stage, but they answered to their names anyway and then filed down one pair at a time. His companion was called Derek Rankin.