A Prison in the Sun

by Isobel Blackthorn

  After a brief recovery, I headed to the bike for the cool down. As I pedalled, I wondered if zoning out had made the reps easier. Did focussing on the counting somehow make the exercise more difficult? Somewhere along the way, I had to meet my resistance, that point at which the body and mind no longer wanted to continue and screamed out to the conscious entity within who was determined to press on.

  My thoughts drifted up to Tefía. Did those prisoners at the hostel who had been doomed to break rocks and then carry rocks all day long in the searing heat and wind, did they count? Did they count the rocks they were forced to carry? Did they take a daily tally, compete with themselves or each other over how many rocks they had or hadn't broken and carried? No. I could not imagine they had done that. It would have been ludicrous. They would have zoned out. They would have slipped into a sort of trance to block out the reality of their situation.

  After a quick round of stretches, I carried that thought with me all the way back to Tiscamanita. It was easier to think about counting reps and rocks than it was to contemplate my startling reaction to Mr Adonis entering the gym.

  Back in the apartment, I went upstairs and checked under the bed to make sure the rucksack was still in the suitcase. It was. I started to believe the heat had finally passed. If Paco and Claire had had any notion of me having kept the rucksack, they would have confronted me by now, especially when they had easy access to my apartment and could conduct a thorough search while I was out. And it seemed clear to me that Juan's uncle was no threat.

  Downstairs, in the brightly lit kitchen, I recalled the macaroni cheese I had left in the fridge in Tefía. It would still be edible, and I really ought to head back there and finish it. More's the point, I really ought to head back there, full stop, and put an end to this interlude. I had rented that farmhouse for three whole months, and with no apparent threat in sight, there was no justifiable reason for my not being there; I considered the rent I had paid in advance a waste should I remain at Paco and Claire's.

  Here, in Tiscamanita, I was alone and not alone. There was always the threat of Paco or Claire knocking on my door and disturbing my peace. I wanted tranquillity, not awkward dinners and crowds of visitors I was required to interact with.

  I cobbled together a simple salad and munched my way through it as I continued to mull over my dilemma. I was in two minds where I wanted to be; there were benefits to both. Tefía was lonely and grim, yet the isolation suited me, and it was close to the action in my new literary work. I could press on uninterrupted. Then again, the set up at Paco and Claire's was sheltered and homely. I felt more in the centre of things. I hesitated. The atmosphere here might have been convivial if my hosts were not so dour. Claire was pleasant enough, but Paco was strange, although he had relaxed somewhat when I exchanged a few words with him during the wake. But I had the strong impression I was not that welcome here. It occurred to me if I did choose to stay here, I would need to offer them rent. I would not freeload, no matter how much Claire might protest. Which pretty much sealed it; I was not about to pay double rent. I would return to Tefía.

  That left the problem of the rats. I did not want to arouse suspicion. Leaving too soon after claiming a rat infestation would do just that. I needed to allow a reasonable amount of time to pass, enough to allow for a response to my complaint and for pest control to come in and take action. Two days was not a reasonable amount of time by any measure, not even in this instant-fix, express-service world we lived in. I would imagine two weeks to be more likely, especially on this island backwater. Then again, the farmhouse was a holiday let and the owner would be concerned I would leave a negative review and act swiftly to avoid that. Surely there was an instant pest control service on the island. I did a quick search and discovered the first visit was an assessment, and then they would return to take the necessary treatment. In the case of rats, that meant blocking access and setting traps. Possibly also laying poison.

  In the meantime, I could hardly pretend to take off somewhere else, since there was no choice but to park my car in the farmhouse drive, visible to all passers-by.

  I cursed my own impulsive nature that day the behemoth had followed me. I should have waited. Bade my time. I should come up with a better reason for needing to leave the farmhouse straight away. Rats! Of all the lies I could have come up with! I had trapped myself in this situation, and I only had myself to blame. To make matters worse, thanks to blabbermouth me, Paco and Claire knew too much. But at least they also believed I had handed the rucksack in to the police.

  Another thought occurred to me. Paco and Claire might be distant and unforthcoming, but they would protect me if it came to it. Alone, I was vulnerable. I still had the rucksack and the cash, and someone knew about Juan's phone and had rung his number. Twice. So I might not be completely out of danger.

  It was all too much to consider. I slugged a cold beer and then downed most of a bottle of a local red as I whiled away the evening watching Netflix on my laptop, trying to keep my thoughts from drifting towards all the uncomfortable topics filling my brain.

  The room was warm and stuffy. Music played softly in the background. I found I was walking. A bed appeared. It was large and circular and covered in fake astrakhan. There were people populating the room. I heard murmurs and groans, bodies in dim corners. My attention was drawn back to the bed. A man lay flat on his back with his manhood, hard and glistening, listing to one side of his abdomen. There were other bodies on the bed, limbs and butts all knotted together, moving rhythmically. I saw faces, faces filled with desire. As I stared, the heat in my own loins blazed, and I felt swollen, needy, urgent and then, after a glorious few seconds of euphoria, I was spent.

  I opened my eyes on the thick black of the room in a state of complete confusion. Disoriented, I reached out for the bedside lamp and grabbed at nothing but air. It slowly entered my awareness that I was not in Tefía as I had thought, but in the bed of Paco and Claire's apartment, the top sheet wrapped around my thigh, soaking up the discharged juices of my manhood. A twin horror engulfed me. I had had another wet dream. A dream I dimly recalled and only in fragments. It came as a sickening realisation that there had not been a single woman on that bed or in any of the dim corners of my dream. The absence of women and my surging erotic desire could only mean one thing. My subconscious was telling me a simple message. I was gay, or at the very least bisexual. Angela had been right about me all along. I felt conspired against, as though I, the me I live with every day, had been hoodwinked by the complicity of my subconscious and a perceptive Angela into facing the reality of me, a reality I had been incapable of facing all my adult life.

  For my sins, the sins of my repressed sexuality, I had soiled the sheets. But not my own sheets – oh no, nothing so simple as a walk down my own hall to my own washing machine – but the sheets of my hosts, who had their own washing machine I knew not where. And for the life of me I could not figure out how I would conjure a reason to use their washing machine on the third day of my stay and, under the watchful eye of an intensely observant Claire, somehow surreptitiously toss into the tub the cotton sheet all damp and crusty with my semen, and then whip it out again without her knowledge and dry it up here, on the patio, out of view. I had no idea how I would manage any of that, but I had to. The embarrassment otherwise would be unconscionable, and I was not about to sleep in filthy sheets.

  Was I really bisexual? Or was I simply suffering from chronic sexual frustration? I jumped online and researched the topic of wet dreams in older men. One website reassured me there was no underlying medical condition associated with wet dreams. It was simply a natural response in men who reached orgasm in their sleep. Masturbate more, the websites said, and see if it made a difference.

  At least, I was not abnormal.

  Although, the bottom line this time was not that I had had another wet dream, but that I had orgasmed in my sleep while having an erotic interlude involving men. And straight guys did not do that. Ever. A man cannot be straig
ht and have a gay subconscious. Face it.

  I couldn't. It was all too much. Before the sun made its appearance, I packed up all my things and stuffed the sheets into a plastic bag to take with me. Then I heaved the suitcase and my bags down the stairs and, making as little noise as I could, I tiptoed across the patio, slid the bolt on the gate and loaded the car.

  The dog did not make an appearance. They must keep it inside with them. Knowing Claire, the mutt probably slumbered on the end of the couple's bed. Even so, on my way back across the patio, I kept an eye out.

  In the apartment, I retrieved my kitchen supplies and left a note on the bench, thanking Paco and Claire for their hospitality. Bugger the rats. I would come up with a plausible story if I needed to.

  Back in the comfort and the ample space of the Tefía farmhouse, I started to relax. I put the sheets in the wash and then unpacked my things, leaving the rucksack in the suitcase, which I slid under my bed. In the bathroom, as I replaced my toothbrush and toothpaste in the ceramic cup provided, I thought perhaps the atmosphere at Tiscamanita had been having an adverse effect on my psyche. Maybe now, my inner turmoil would settle and I could pursue my new book project with vitality and poise.

  After breaking my fast on toast and jam, I wasted no time translating the next passages of text. Seeing the sentences emerging in English, I was relieved to find the author at last striking at the heart of the story with scenes of his arrest and then scenes, dismal scenes set in a Tenerife prison cell. The washing machine beeped the end of its cycle, and I dashed to the laundry to deal with the sheets. After that, I didn't stop until I had another thousand words to play with. Reading them over, I knew I had reached that point where I needed to dig deeper into the real story of the prison. I couldn't rely on the handwritten manuscript alone. Besides, I wanted to know more. I felt a sense of urgency about it. I took a Clen, planning on working through the entire day without a break.

  I forgot about the money in the rucksack in the wardrobe. I forgot Juan and his uncle. I was oblivious to Paco and Claire back in Tiscamanita, who had possibly already found my note and were wondering what they had done to upset me. I lost myself completely to the Spanish script. When I had translated another page, I could do no more. Instead, I began researching the Canary Islands in the period between the 1930s and the 1950s. Not only did the English version need my touch – for the original was thin on detail and heavy on reflection and far too angst-laden for my taste – but to write with any authenticity, I needed to know my subject.

  The only break I took from my labours was to retrieve the sheets from the washing line and grab the occasional glass of water. I read up on what it was like to be gay in Spain under Franco. I re-visited the blog posts I had found about the prison. I took notes and started embellishing the draft.

  At sunset, I was a wreck. My head ached, and I needed to unwind, but it would be a waste of an evening. Instead, I focussed on the section of writing leading up to when José found himself in the prison in Fuerteventura.

  Guilty as Charged

  He was an explosion of pain. So many thoughts and feelings vied with each other, hitting the forefront of his mind like photographic stills from a newsreel. The moment was incomprehensible. All he could do was bow his head and walk in a straight line from the café to the awaiting van. On each side of him, shoving him on, was an officer of the Guardia Civil.

  His feet trod the pavement. He wasn't seeing the dark sky, the buildings, the onlookers, yet he felt others there watching the horror of the moment, his fate.

  Was one of them his father? Was one of them Juan Ramos, prized lawyer, come to watch his son as he was taken away, come to spit in his face? No, his father was tucked up in bed with his wife.

  He trudged on, head hanging low, eyes to the pavement. He had no clear idea what was about to happen to him. He had been singled out, that was all he knew, singled out by a thin, weasel of a boy who had taken it upon himself to identify the guilty parties.

  José was shoved in the van to sit with the others. He was gripped by disbelief and choking fear. The van bounced along on the cobbled streets. It was not long and José was manhandled by the burly policemen and locked in a cell. A cell with metal bars floor to ceiling facing a corridor. A cell with a very high window. A cell of cold brick with low wooden benches. Two other young men sat on those benches. José didn't want to be near either of them.

  He recognised one of the men he was forced to spend the night with. A prostitute who called himself Violeta, but whose real name was Manuel. José had never spoken to Manuel. When the young man tried to catch his eye, José looked down at his feet.

  'I have done nothing. Nothing,' he said.

  'You can be arrested for looking at another man for too long. Maybe you did that.'

  'They have spies everywhere.'

  'But it was Antonio who identified me to the police. Why would he do that?'

  'To save his own skin.'

  The following morning, he was told he was to be cross-examined, but the two policemen glaring at him from across the wooden table had no ears for his pleas. The sternest, meanest of the pair told him he was to be condemned to prison under the “Ley de Vagos y Maleantes” – the Vagrancy Act. That law! He knew about that law. It was created in 1933 under the Second Republic, ostensibly meant to deal with vagrants, the homeless, pimps and other low lives, anyone society deemed antisocial. Later, Franco used the law to persecute the Republicans. Then he had the idea to include homosexuals. Every gay man in Spain knew the risks. José knew the risks. It was why he would never, despite the desires filling his heart, break his virginity. He would rather condemn himself to celibacy than jail. He had fought his whole life against himself, against those longings in his heart and his loins. He existed in a state of perpetual anguish and guilt. His only sin was in choosing to socialise in the one café known to attract homosexuals. And now the law was brought down to bear on him.

  José Ramos, just eighteen and due to be conscripted for his year of military service, and one of the first to be convicted.

  There was no trial. Not in the sense of a fair hearing. Instead, he was assumed guilty and sentenced. The police commissioner seemed to relish in the sentencing. A triumph. There were no sympathisers in the room. His mother, his sister and brother were not there. Only his father came to watch his eldest son bring disgrace to the family name. His father, who stayed long enough to look José in the eye, scowl and leave, a public condemnation so absolute and final.

  'Why, in God's name did you have to get caught?' Those were his words to José in a private moment. Words from a lawyer who defended real criminals.

  'I did nothing wrong, I swear it.'

  'You must have done. You were arrested. You were charged.'

  'For looking someone in the eye!'

  From blissful ignorance to full awareness through one lingering gaze. What do you make of that, raven dear, you who cares to settle by my side? Could you have seen that coming? Are you sitting by me now as messenger or harbinger? Tell me which, my all-seeing friend. Perhaps neither. For I am fearless in your presence, that is all I know. With you by my side, I can face my assured future with the courage I need.

  I suppose the authorities wanted to make an example of someone, get the ball rolling, put the fear of God into all the other homosexual men in Tenerife. The irony is the punishment has turned me into the very antisocial person for which the original law was created. Before my conviction, I was the most sociable young man. I wore a smile on my face, and I had a suit on my back. I mixed with the best in society, and I had a paid job. I was even prepared to endure military service despite every cell in my body wanting to bolt to Africa to avoid it.

  I was a dutiful son too, and I made every effort to get along with my siblings despite their adolescent rejection of me. For I saw no good in returning hatred for hatred. Above all, I wanted to prove my worth, and I had decided I would do that through hard work and dedication.

  I was a good boy. I had done no wr
ong. I would stare at my reflection of my flesh in the bathroom mirror and wonder at what lurked on the inside of me, the pestilence that coursed through me, filtered into every atom, taking control of my desire.

  When I reached eighteen, I left school with good grades, excelling in Spanish literature and history, and secured a position in the centre of Santa Cruz as a copy boy for a local newspaper. I had high aspirations. I wanted to be a journalist or an editor. I craved a position of importance. I wanted to be significant, to contribute, to be respected, even feared.

  My regular haunt before, during and after work was Café El Aguila down Calle del Castillo, a side street off Plaza del Principe in the city's cultural heart. I enjoyed that part of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the narrow streets flanked by old buildings with their arched windows and Juliet balconies. I could walk to work from my uncle's house where I had lodgings, and I would stride along, owning the town, confident, proud, eager. I was no longer tormented by the jibes and taunts and the threat of violence from my peers at school. I was an adult stepping out into the world and making friends with my new work colleagues, and none of them eyed me with suspicion, none of them whispered names as I went by, none of them bumped into me on purpose in the corridors with the intent of knocking me flying. I wasn't judged. I was accepted, for the first time in my whole life. I worked hard and that was all that mattered to the other staff and the bosses at the newspaper.

  The café was a meeting place for writers, artists, journalists and musicians. Business people and ordinary working people came too, and the place was full and vibrant day and night. Later, in the early hours when men were loose and their pockets more so, prostitutes would wander in or hover outside, but I was rarely if ever around to see them.

  Anyone who was anyone went to El Aguila. I met many great artists, my raven friend, although you may not have heard of any of them, you being a Gran Canaria bird. But these were the giants of Tenerife, of the Canary Islands and therefore of Spain. Why should I not name them, since I am so proud to have been among them. Like artists Enrique Lite and García Miguel Tarquis and Antonio Vizcaya Carpenter and Pedro Gonzalez. I rubbed shoulders with Pedro García Cabrera and Emeterio Gutiŕrez Albeto, who were the avant garde poets of the “Generation of 27” and worked on the prestigious Gaceta de Arte magazine. I spoke to Felix Casanova de Ayala and Agustín Millares Sall and Isaac de Vega. And Rafael Arozarena and Francisco Pimentel and Antonio Bermejo and José Antonio Padrón – those members of the Fetasiano movement who opposed post-war social realism in literature in favour of introspective, interior works, something I can only agree with as to me, the interior space is where real truth, repressed truth lives. These were great men, all of them. All the artistic giants of Tenerife and beyond came to El Aguila, or so it appeared to me. How could I not know these men, even if they did not really know me? To them, I was a boy, a pretty boy who worked for El Día, a cute boy with entertaining banter and big dreams. A boy who turned heads. And they didn't mind me standing at the bar, listening to their bluster.