by Gary Mulgrew
Mum was allowed to visit us once a month, on a Saturday, and would walk the three miles from Bridge of Weir to Quarriers in all weathers just to see us for an hour or so. She would write to us every week, always including three sixpences Sellotaped into the letter. The Cottage Mother – reasonably enough – would take the sixpences for the ‘kitty’ for all the children, most of whom had no parents. Mum’s letters always spoke of when we would be home, a dream we all three held on to. But the weeks became months, and months became years, and we stayed in Quarriers Homes, never even leaving the grounds of the Home. My life consisting of either being in our cottage, number 21, with thirty other children, or walking the short distance to school each day. Still, the letters and visits from my mother and the fact I had my brothers with me made me feel lucky – I was, after all, surrounded by orphans.
I was quite bright at school and by six years old I’d figured out it was exactly 157 steps to walk to school, although I could make it as much as 212, and once as few as 124. Counting the steps was an enduring memory for me. On Sundays we would march down holding hands in twos in our second-hand Sunday ‘best’ to the church for Sunday Service (between 265 and 322 steps, depending upon who was my partner), then all the way back again to the cottage where I would spend the rest of the day either in the garden or in the house. We were set chores for each day, and with only one Cottage Mother for each cottage, the discipline was severe – the lady in charge of our house preferring to lock you in the garage for an unspecified period if you’d done something to offend her. There were hundreds of kids, but it was a lonely existence. We had no visitors other than Mum, and sometimes long periods would pass without seeing anyone from the outside world at all.
In those days a single mother would be near the bottom of a council list, not the top. So Mum worked and saved, worked and saved, and eventually we got a flat in Dormanside Road in Pollok. A row of tenements that stretched for as far as I could imagine, Dormanside Road was pretty bad, even by Glasgow standards. Gangs, muggings, stabbings, ‘chibbings’ (permanently marking someone’s face with a razor, knife or screwdriver) were commonplace. But I was overjoyed when we left Quarriers and moved there. There were no real gardens so we played on the street all day. There were no shops, so you would get your ‘messages’ (shopping) from a double-decker bus that parked halfway down the road. The guy that ran it was friendly, a large ginger fellow called Alex, with two front teeth missing. He sold the usual staples of working-class life then – lard by the ton, potatoes by the hundredweight, sugar, bread, tea, sausages, eggs and, when you were feeling exotic, fish fingers or long spaghetti. Mark used to joke that he was eighteen before he discovered that spaghetti bolognaise had meat in it. To us this ‘exotic’ meal was served with a knob of butter and lashings of tomato ketchup.
Usually I played football with Mark and Michael and up to ten other kids from the street, including my best friend Joe. Joe was a great player then, a standout, and went on to play for Clydebank in the old Scottish First Division, but chucked it in at twenty-three to concentrate on plumbing, where he could make much more money with overtime. Changed days indeed. Joe and I had a number of part-time jobs together, including selling bread rolls through the ‘closes’ (the entrance to the tenements), selling football coupons and a paper run. Like me, Joe had to earn money for the household, so we always worked. His mum would make us ‘pieces and jam’ to eat as we worked our way through our round, which would usually take about an hour and a half and stretched the length of Dormanside. Other than Fridays, when we collected the money, we would do alternate nights for the paper run, but quickly got that mixed up so people were getting two papers one night and none the next. This didn’t bode well for our future careers together.
Our biggest challenge was collecting the cash and keeping it, which always made Fridays our toughest night. Joe was always strong and well built – I was tall, scrawny and geeky looking. We would cut through the back gardens collecting the money, one ‘keeping the edgy’ at the front of the close in case someone tried to take our weekly takings, while the other, usually Joe, tried to charm his way to a decent tip. It was noticeable that Joe always got more tips than me and although this had remained unspoken between us, I eventually broached the subject with him.
‘Why do you think you get all the tips?’ I asked him tentatively.
‘Huv ye seen yerself recently?’ Joe responded, laughing.
I instinctively touched my bushy, curly hair. I had lots of hair. I thought I looked like Starsky out of Starsky and Hutch. I even had the big cardigan.
‘You look like a big, skinny drip,’ Joe went on. I was regretting asking. ‘Your heid’s huge, wi’ that big mop on top and you’re pasty white as a sheet and skinny as a pole. You stand in front of them saying nuthin’ and lookin’ like a big struck match, wi’ that huge heid of hair of yours. They don’t know whether to pay you or feed you.’ With that he jumped over the fence, on to the next customer.
The main danger for us was avoiding Finn. He was the ‘leader-off’ of the 50 Krew, and he was a nutter, pure and simple. A grown man when Joe and I were twelve, he was a flaming ginger with a big ginger beard, which often contained remnants of the latest live pig or chicken he had just devoured (or at least that’s what I always thought). A truly fearsome character, he had been ‘chibbed’ a couple of times, with the larger scar running from his right eye to somewhere in the nether reaches of that big, hairy, ginger beard. Rumour had it that Finn had killed three people, including the two who had been foolish enough to chib him. I had nightmares about him.
Unfortunately, those nightmares were about to have added resonance as I stood keeping guard at the front of the tenement while Joe charmed his way to a bigger tip upstairs. I think I shrieked like a girl when a hand was placed on my shoulder. I know I screamed when I turned round and, even though it was dark, the moonlight illuminated the ginger beard and the hair. Finn towered above me.
‘Where’s the money, ya prick?’ Never one for introductions was Finn.
‘I . . . I . . . er,’ I stammered. By now he had a firm hold of my shoulder, his hands twisting my clothes around.
‘Why you wearing a cardigan, by the way?’ he asked, throwing me completely. It didn’t seem a good time to point out my uncanny resemblance to the curly haired Detective Starsky, so I did what I normally did – I said nothing.
‘Where’s the money, ya prick?’ Finn repeated, his voice more sinister this time. I could smell alcohol, or perhaps boot polish, on his breath. ‘Do you want chibbed?’ he asked menacingly, moving close enough that I could feel his ginger bristle against my face. I definitely did not want chibbed and would have gladly given him the money, except I didn’t have it. Joe did.
‘You gonna answer me? Geez the money or get chibbed!’ he said emphatically as he produced something sharp from his pocket – probably not a skean dhu, but I wasn’t looking closely.
‘Oi, you . . . Let him go!’ It was Joe, confident as always, standing about ten feet back in the garden. Finn turned away from me, momentarily releasing me, the blade still in his hand. ‘There’s the money, there,’ shouted Joe, throwing something across the close floor into the corner. It was hard to see in the dark. Finn turned away from me and started moving towards the package.
‘Run!’ shouted Joe, and off I went one way, Joe darting the other. Now, while I was rubbish at football, one thing I could do was run. Powered by fear, I streaked down Dormanside Road like Pollok’s answer to Forrest Gump, my cardigan billowing in the air behind me. Through the close entrances, I could see Joe, the complete athlete, leaping over fences, while in the background I could hear Finn shouting, ‘You’re deid! You’re chibbed, ya big skinny prick,’ but by this time I was running on pure terror, and he wouldn’t have caught me if he’d been in Starsky and Hutch’s own car.
‘What did you give him?’ I asked as we met up behind the middens (bins) at Joe’s tenement.
‘The pieces of jam ma maw made us.’ How I wished Joe
was here now to watch my back, but got the feeling I need more than him and some pieces of jam to protect me in Big Spring.
8
CHOKER
‘HEY ESCOSAIS! WAKE UP MAN, WE need to talk.’
I realised I must have dozed off. The reality of Big Spring was back upon me in an instant.
I looked down from my bunk and saw a short, bare-chested and heavily tattooed, Hispanic guy already walking away from me towards another inmate who, from his clothing, had obviously also just shown up that day. Even the back of the man who had called to me was completely covered in tattoos. He looked like one of the guys you’d catch on cable late at night on Inside America’s Nastiest Prisons. To the other new inmate he spoke just as brusquely, only in Spanish. I jumped more gingerly down from my bunk and stood and nodded to the other new guy, not quite sure yet what the greeting etiquette was. I felt an idiot, holding onto the rope of my pants and twisting it round to stop them falling down. I had thought of taking off my top and showing my finely honed body and my cool ‘poppy’ tattoo, but having seen how muscular this Hispanic guy was and how scary some of his tattoos were, I thought better of it. I could see he had the names of people on his chest and arms, with a load of dates – I doubted this was to remind him of their birthdays. I also caught sight of a tattoo which I knew from the Internet signified the Surenos gang: a picture of a decapitated King of Spain with bright red blood dripping from his severed head. Somehow my little green and purple thistle with Cara and Calum’s names above it suddenly didn’t quite seem so menacing.
The Surenos, meaning ‘Southerners’, were mainly based out of Southern California, and originated as a splinter group from the powerful Mexican Mafia. Often second-generation Mexicans, the rumour was that to join you had to have committed at least one murder or at least stabbed someone and caused significant bleeding. They mainly worked the narcotic trade inside and out of prisons, and also derived a considerable amount of their income from extortion. No one ever left the Surenos – or indeed any of the other gangs – unless it was in a body bag.
The Range was still almost completely empty – everyone had gone back to work, other than half a dozen guys, all Hispanic, playing cards, chatting away in Spanish or just lazing around on their bunks. I also realised there were no cops in the room, nor indeed was there anywhere for them to be positioned. There didn’t seem to be any CCTV cameras. Surely we weren’t left entirely on our own in here?
It was hot and claustrophobic. Chief was still sitting alone on his bunk drawing away, calm and relaxed. To all the world he looked like he was totally oblivious to what was going on, although I had an idea he was taking everything in.
‘Habla español?’ the heavily tattooed guy asked me.
‘Er, no,’ I responded quickly.
‘OK, my name is Choker,’ he said in heavily accented English.
Choker, I thought, gulping. Nice name.
‘This ees how it’s gonna bee,’ he began.
The Sureno Choker guy gonna tell me how it’s gonna be, I thought, or else, or else, I’ll probably be for the big choke. That’s probably how he did his ‘hit’ to join the Surenos – with his bare hands. My mind was racing ahead and I tried to concentrate on what he was saying.
‘ . . . respect for each other, respect for your bunkie,’ he was saying as I tuned in again. ‘When you use the bathroom, leave it clean. Don’t leave your hair and shit in the plughole, you clean it out. Lights go out at ten o’clock; some guys have to work kitchen shift so you have to respect them and keep the noise down to a minimum. No music or loud talking tolerated after 10 p.m. That ees a rool. Keep your bunk and your shit tidy. We get inspected once a week and that decides which Range gets to go the chow hall first . . .’
He continued with this bizarre lecture, but by this time I had caught sight of his hands. He had huge hands. I swallowed hard again. He could choke me with just one of them, I thought. ‘You cool with what I’m saying, Escosais?’ asked Choker, looking right at me.
‘Yup, er, yeah. Cool.’
‘Cool, Adam?’ he said, just as aggressively to the other new guy, who nodded in agreement. He was also Hispanic, medium built, maybe twenty-two or twenty-three. He seemed very edgy and had a decidedly dodgy Errol-Flynn-like pencil moustache that did nothing for him. Choker walked off, induction talk over. His back was just a wall of tattoos. He had only one or two on his arms, so from a distance it looked like he was wearing a dark tank top. He was a lot cooler than Adam.
‘You just got in today, Scotland?’ piped up Adam, eyeing me. Before I had time to answer, Choker turned around again and came purposefully back towards me.
‘Hey, Escosais,’ he began, ‘you not runnin’ with the Whites?’
I wondered why everyone was so interested in who I was runnin’ with and I noticed now Chief had stopped drawing and started to watch. I shrugged my shoulders like it was no big deal, and waited nervously to see if this would launch Choker and his giant paws into action.
‘Who’d you run with in Pollock?’ he asked, clearly not about to let it go. I didn’t feel I could be flippant with Choker the way I had been with the ABs, so I tried a different tack this time.
‘Oh you’re thinking Pollock spelt “ock”,’ I began slowly. ‘I come from the Pollok spelt “o . . . k.” OK?’ The second OK felt superfluous the minute I’d said it.
‘O . . . k . . .’ Choker echoed, hesitantly narrowing his eyes, although I couldn’t tell if it was a question, a statement, or a spelling.
‘Oh . . . kay. Not oh . . . cee . . . kay . . .’ I reiterated, scouring him intently for a sign that he’d got my drift.
He shifted his weight awkwardly from one leg to another as he pondered this, looking intently at me the whole time.
‘You hung with the Whites in Pollock, though, right?’ he continued. This was a minefield but I still didn’t feel I could come clean about this mess of my own making.
‘Erm, well, everybody is white there . . .’ I began to lose the will to live. I could also see Chief chuckling to himself on his bunk, keeping his head down.
Fortunately my evasiveness seemed to be boring Choker and he started looking around, then cut me short by saying, ‘Well, just make your mind up soon who you’re runnin’ with. I don’t want to have to be cleaning up after you.’ I nodded in agreement, despite having no idea what I might have agreed to.
‘Adam, nosotros te venira ver hasta.’ We will come and see you later. He said this in a very business-like manner, which seemed to please Adam no end. Then he turned and marched off back towards his bunk halfway down the room.
I returned to my bunk and lay down for a while, conscious that there were no seats for me or anyone else. Chief was still drawing, seemingly oblivious to the noise and chatter around him. The room was getting about half full, but many of the bunks around me in my corner, including the one below me, were empty. I wasn’t sure whether that made me feel better or worse. At any rate, I’d seen no prison staff for a long time – everything, from the basic induction into the rules, to the handing out of the welcome packs, seemed to be in the hands of the cons. Or more accurately, the gangs.
I suddenly felt very tired again, drained. I was also very hungry. Was it only fourteen hours since I had awakened in my apartment in Houston? I replayed parts of the day in my mind: saying goodbye to Reid, being processed by Malone, getting my Coco the Clown outfit, then the tragic loss of the chocolate bar. I involuntarily shivered when I thought of how much more I could be losing as a result of the bravado I had foolishly displayed. I knew I needed to strike a balance between being tough enough to cope with the aggressiveness of the inmates, while not going far enough to provoke a response. I had to be sure they didn’t see me as a soft touch, but I didn’t want to have to fight anyone to prove it.
Realising that people were coming in and out of the Range freely, I decided to jump down, more gingerly this time, and have a quick look around the rooms I had briefly seen on my way in. Holding onto my baggy pants, I
walked the ten paces or so to the door, but before I could leave Chief called over to me.
‘Hey, Scotty,’ he said, still not looking up. I turned to face him.
‘Fixin’ to go out, are ye?’ he asked, this time looking up from his drawing.
‘I was.’
‘OK then. Just don’t go too far. Count is in fifteen minutes,’ he added, returning to his drawing.
‘Count?’ No one from the prison had actually explained how anything worked – I was just thrown into the big room in my clown clothes and left to swim or flounder.
‘Man,’ he beamed a smile. ‘You really didn’t do much time in Pollock, did you?’
‘I guess, I guess people misunderstood me.’
‘Oh they misunderstood alright, Scotty,’ Chief replied with a chuckle. ‘Everyone in the Yard thinks you did fifteen straight in Pollock – that makes you a player, dude; a serious player. That and all that Enron shit. That’s why they so interested in who you gonna be runnin’ with.’
The ‘runnin’ with’ thing again. The thought of more confrontations like the last one – with other, possibly even meaner gang recruiters – filled me with dread. ‘You enjoy your chat with those white boys?’ Chief asked, the mischievous grin still playing on his lips.
‘Not really,’ I said moving closer to him. ‘They’re not that popular here, right?’
‘Some people cause happiness wherever they go. Other people whenever they go,’ responded Chief looking up directly at me, his smile gone. ‘A count, by the way,’ he continued after a brief pause, ‘is when the officer done come round and see if your sorry ass is still here where it’s supposed to be!’
