by Gary Mulgrew
FOR THE NEXT FEW WEEKS, THE picture of Cara dominated much of my thoughts. When I’d first received it, it had shocked me. She looked so different, so much older than the most recent pictures and memories I had of her, when she had just turned five; an angelic smile when we went to buy flowers for her granny in Crail in Scotland; or a cheeky grin on her birthday. The difference in her made me sad and anxious; bringing home to me even more that precious moments with her had already slipped by, that my wee girl was growing up without me. I needed solitude; somewhere I could be on my own to grieve my sense of the years lost already. To grieve the loss of my daughter, the loss of my son and my failure as a father – but there was nowhere for me to go. Only this incessantly noisy, crowded room.
It was a Saturday, the visits were finished and we had ‘free movement’ until around 5 p.m., when they would complete a count then start the dinner rota. I had taken refuge in the Range, where the air-conditioning remained sporadic at best, but offered at least some respite from the heat. It was one of those slow, torturous days in Big Spring when life seemed to be what other people lived. Monday was a government holiday, so the prison would be effectively closed for a long weekend – and on days such as this, despair could creep up on you suddenly.
I was writing a letter to Calum, which wasn’t helping my feeling of melancholy and despair. It was his birthday soon, and Chief was completing a drawing for him which I was sending him as a gift. He would be thirteen years old, becoming a teenager – a target date I had always set for coming home, when I foolishly believed we were going to trial to win. I wanted to sound cheery in the letter and the card, but missing his birthday just felt like another entry on the failure list as a father. My poor boy got me as a dad. I felt I should be apologising to him rather than telling him how much I missed him.
This was one of the ‘real’ Big Spring days, mind-numbingly boring, with nothing happening other than the usual spats and power displays. Treading time in significant discomfort, and solitude among the multitude. Bryan Ferry had been wrong when he sang that ‘Loneliness is a crowded room’, or at least he had been slightly inaccurate. ‘Loneliness is a crowded room full of Mexicans,’ I thought as I lay there gazing at my excitable roommates.
Yesterday we had had another spontaneous ‘shakedown’ by the cops. ‘Shakedowns’ were about the only time they seemed to involve themselves with the inmates’ lives in Big Spring – if involvement meant picking up your stuff and hurling it across the room while shouting at you. They had removed books from my locker, because I’d had six in there, and regulation 4(ii) sub-section 8 of the Correctional Rules for Big Spring Correctional Facility said that I could only have two at a time. Fortunately this breach wasn’t a Federal offence so I wouldn’t be getting extra time for it.
The cops weren’t looking for books, though, and they had found what they termed a ‘shank’ or weapon, but which Alex, the unfortunate inmate under whose bed they’d found it, termed a ‘can-opener’. Alex bunked about fifteen feet away from me and also played left-back for our football team, so his disappearance off to the Hole was a disappointment for all of us. I couldn’t imagine him – this mild-mannered, slightly boring bloke – using a weapon, but then as you got to know people more and more, it was harder to see any of them as criminals. Alex came from French Guyana and had a shock of red, gingery hair. We called him ‘the Axe’ – not because of his penchant for chopping things into pieces, but on account of his violent tackling on the football pitch. Or at least that is why I assumed ‘we’ called him the Axe . . .
I had seen the cops find the implement and I was struck by two things. Firstly, what a very stupid place to hide it, under a bed, and secondly that Alex must have been planning to open some industrial-sized tins. It had a six-inch handle and about a four-inch blade – made apparently from a number of tuna cans welded together. Its existence under Alex’s bed confirmed the uncomfortable truth of how little I really understood about what was going on around me.
I pushed Calum’s card aside for a moment, lay back again and wondered when all of this would ever end. There had been some news on my transfer. I had filled in a few more forms and signed a few more papers, but progress was sporadic. Julie had written to me and said that pressure was being applied from the UK to bring us home, but I had no confidence in any politician other than Menzies Campbell. Only Sir Menzies had stayed resolutely behind us and I think truly understood the inadequacies of the US judicial system, having practised law himself in the United States many years earlier. His support never wavered and I knew he would continue to help as much as he could. Julie told me that David had been moved and I took that as a positive sign that a move for me might also be imminent. All repatriations to England took place from New York, so David being moved could be an indication of something afoot.
Chief kept reminding me that the journey through the US prison system would take me many months after I left Big Spring, and would, in fact, be many times worse; but it was hard to imagine anything worse than this soul-destroying purgatory. And the way I saw it, even one step towards home – towards Calum and Cara and the rest of my loved ones – was progress.
Even though there had been so much publicity around our case when Enron had first collapsed, I had thought Calum was immune to it. That naive view changed one day when I was dropping off Angus, one of Calum’s friends, at his house in the village next to us. I took turns at the school runs some evenings with a couple of other parents whose children attended the same school. Laura had become increasingly isolated since the news of the Enron collapse had broken, and believed everyone was looking at her and talking about her, so she stopped doing the school runs. After years in the City, I found them quite enjoyable.
Angus’s mother, Edith, had invited me in for a cup of tea, somewhat conspiratorially, as seven-year-old Calum rushed off to play with Angus in the garden.
‘What does Calum know about your possible extradition?’ she asked, when we had settled into the kitchen.
‘Nothing.’ I was surprised by the question.
‘You might be mistaken about that,’ she began.
‘Go on,’ I said, feeling uncomfortable as I watched him play in the garden with Angus.
‘Yesterday,’ Edith went on, ‘when I picked the boys up, I congratulated Calum on the school play, you know, because there was a picture of it in the local paper. And then Angus piped up, “Oh, I saw your dad in the paper, Calum.” I froze. And I looked at Calum in my rear-view mirror, but he just seemed lost, gazing out of the window. And then Angus said, “They say he stole one pound from someone.”’ Edith told me that part with a smile on her face. We looked out at the pair of them, hurtling round the garden, so innocent.
‘Anyway,’ continued Edith, eyeing me intently. ‘Then Calum said, “Yes, the Americans are after my dad for something he didn’t do.”’
My heart sank and I leaned my head against the window, still watching him play.
‘And then he said, “They might come during the night but I’ve made a spear to keep under my bed to get them if they try to take my dad.”’
Edith stopped talking. I couldn’t look at her. I never thought he was so aware of what was going on, but I suppose with all the phone calls and hushed conversations there was always a good chance of him picking up something. I chided myself for not being more self-disciplined around him. The thought that he was trying to protect me made my heart feel like it was going to burst.
Later, when we returned home, he and I went hunting chestnuts in the garden together. I said nothing to him about Edith’s revelations, but I watched him more intently than ever. He seemed to be playing happily enough, and I almost convinced myself that he’d perhaps just been joking with Angus and Edith. Later that night, I read him one of his favourite stories and told him a couple of tales about William Wallace, the great Scottish warrior. Like all kids, he pushed for a little more, but I stuck with our routine then sang to him a little. My singing was rotten, but he and Cara used to like it, so I’d usua
lly oblige. It was one of the (admittedly few) great things about being out of work awaiting extradition to a US Correctional Facility – you got more time with the kids. I held one of his hands while I stroked his head with the other. And five minutes later he was asleep.
I watched him for a while longer, just the ticking of his luminous bear clock breaking the silence of his darkened room. I loved the smell of his room and the sense of comfort in it. Thinking again of what Edith had said, I gently released his hand, and went down on my knees, quietly feeling around under his bed. It didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for, a long bamboo stick with a plastic ‘bayonet’ Sellotaped to the top of it and some feathers stuck halfway down the bamboo. Nothing like as dangerous as Alex’s shank, but definitely Calum’s spear. I held the flimsy weapon in my hand and looked again at my beautiful boy, trying to defend his father, but now fast asleep.
Six years later, on my bunk in Big Spring, I thought of what must have been going through my boy’s head as he made his spear to protect his dad all those years ago, and the thought that now, even though he was just turning thirteen, that fight had lasted almost half of his lifetime. Where would his next birthday card be sent from? By then he would be fourteen and I would have missed so much of his childhood. I had to start heading home soon, or my loss, his loss, our loss, would be incalculable.
I sighed, feeling a trickle of sweat roll down my back. I sat up and tuned back into the chaos around me. Most of the other guys were still kicking back, either sleeping or playing cards or arguing over something. Chief was lost in the finishing touches of Calum’s drawing and I hadn’t seen New York or AJ all day. A few bunks across from me, Adam, who had entered Big Spring the same day as me so many months earlier, had been agonising over a letter to his ex-girlfriend. I had heard him ask about six or seven times how to spell words like ‘bitch’, ‘cock-sucker’ and ‘destroy’ – so I doubted he’d parted on cordial terms with this particular lady. A light-hearted argument had now developed over how to spell the word ‘strangle’ – the two leading protagonists being a member of the Aryan Brotherhood, and a tubby, Buddha-like Hispanic guy called Amadeo. I had never seen him leave the Range and he had a huge tattoo of the decapitated head of the King of Spain – the sign of a Sureno – over his engorged belly. Unfortunately, he had clearly expanded his waistline after getting the tattoo because the King of Spain, as well as suffering the misfortune of being decapitated, had had his nose and forehead significantly stretched. This gave the unfortunate king a look closer to Gerard Depardieu in Cyrano de Bergerac – a frequent downside of prison tattooing. As stomachs expanded or arms and legs grew to ridiculous sizes from too much gym time, once perfectly proportioned body art would get distorted, and take on a myriad of bizarre forms.
Adam remained torn between the Aryan ‘S.T.R.A.N.G.I.L.’ and the less prosaic Hispanic ‘S.T.R.A.N.G.U.L.L.’, when Amadeo gestured excitedly towards me. ‘Ask Scotland. He knows all kinds of shit!’ Several heads turned my way.
Ignoring the possibility that the FBI might charge me with being a co-conspirator to some poor girl’s strangulation, I rapidly fired off my response. ‘S.T.R.A.N.G.L.E.’
There was silence for a moment as Adam, Amadeo and the Aryan Brother just gazed at me, at first sceptical, then finally dumbfounded.
‘Wow,’ said Adam eventually, with genuine admiration. ‘How do you know so much stuff?’
I shrugged my shoulders then lay back on my bunk and sighed. What the hell was I doing here? I was considering having another go at the letter to Calum when New York bounded into the room, full of the joys of life, calling over to me as he strode towards his bunk halfway down the Range. ‘Hey Scottie. Scottie?’
‘Yo!’ I responded, my paltry attempt at jail-speak raising a wry smile and a shake of the head from the ever-observant Chief in the corner. It was a constant battle to seem outwardly positive when inside my spirits were flagging so badly.
‘I thought you’d be out there, man,’ exclaimed an excitable New York as he ripped off his clothing, getting ready to go to the shower. He had clearly been working out again.
‘Yeah?’ I queried, having no idea what he was talking about. ‘Out where?’
‘In the Yard, man! It’s raining!’ New York replied as he reached for his toiletries from his locker. I didn’t even wait for him to finish – just leapt right off my bunk, grabbed my T-shirt and was heading for the door.
‘Hey, Scotty,’ a serious-sounding Chief shouted after me.
Raining! It hadn’t rained in over four months, and before that only twice at night – soaking the floors, but not giving us any relief.
‘Scotty, hold up . . .’ I briefly heard Chief shout again as I left the Range, determined to get out into the rain before it stopped, and completely overlooking the concern in his voice.
I paused at the front of Sunset and looked out into the gap between the two buildings, seeing an almost imperceptible light mist of rain falling steadily. I had read once that there were forty-seven different terms for rain in the Scottish vernacular, something I could well believe, having been drenched, drowned and sodden all too often growing up in dreach Glasgow, but I’d never seen rain like this. I’d often wondered why we hadn’t just switched to the German word for weather – ‘Wetter’. It seemed a far more appropriate word for the west coast of Scotland – we don’t have weather there, we just have wetter.
I put my top on and started to walk up to the Yard, positively revelling in the fine, misty spray that passed for rain in Big Spring, Texas, my spirits suddenly soaring. Texas mist, not Scotch mist, but it would do for me. It had a cleansing, serene quality and I stopped for a moment just under the bird house and turned my face to the air, letting the tiny droplets fall gently onto my face. I felt almost free and completely refreshed. There was a slight breeze, another first for Big Spring, yet it was still warm and the overall combination was intoxicating. I felt elated; I felt connected to home; I felt blessed to experience this simple pleasure in such a dire place.
I walked quickly towards the gateposts separating the main housing blocks from the path, up past the church to the Yard. I had been relatively oblivious to anyone else, although it had occurred to me that everyone seemed to be heading back in, even though the move wouldn’t be called for a while yet.
‘Bunch of pussies,’ I thought. ‘It’s just a wee bit of mist. It’s barely even raining.’
I held my hand in front of my face. The rain was so light it was drifting, giving the whole moment a surreal quality. Still people passed me.
‘Scotland, you’d better done not go up there,’ an unrecognisable voice called as its owner hurried by me.
The place was emptying fast. Some of them were covering their heads as they ran, a sight which fuelled my disdain further, and by the time I reached the running track there were only a few people ahead of me.
I hadn’t seen them initially because they were standing at the one covered spot that abutted the running track. The running track was on the top of a gradual incline, so since the covered section was slightly hidden from the main Yard, it was a regular gathering place for gang meetings and retributions. I could tell immediately, from the way the two chief protagonists were standing facing each other, surrounded by a ring of a dozen or so gang-bangers, that violence was in the air. My mood immediately changed, and my heart started to race. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I was already only fifty feet away, but at that moment, I had a chance, a brief chance, to turn around and walk away without anyone being the wiser. But I hesitated, not in movement, but in thought – the wrong combination, because by the time I had decided to turn around my legs had carried me further on, level with the little crowd, but just to their left on the running track.
I saw sunlight glinting on a bald head. Aryan Brotherhood, my favourite guys. There were around ten of them, encircling some poor guy who was facing up to my old pal SlumDawg, the AB’s enforcer. He dwarfed his victim, and I noticed how rel
axed his arms were and how large his hands seemed as they dangled loosely by his side. Always fear the man who looks relaxed prior to combat.
SlumDawg had a face wracked with pockmarks, a mind ravaged by crystal meth. What he lacked in teeth he now made up for in hair, blonde hair, masses of it covering his head and face, but more in patchwork than in any consistent fashion. Pasty white and very thin, he looked like a mutation of his beloved white gene pool, fucked up by centuries of inbreeding in the Tennessee Blue Mountains. I’d barely heard him speaking since he visited me on my first day in Big Spring, but had seen him on the same ‘stoop’ at the side of the Yard most days, sitting idly and growing new bits of blonde hair. New York, unaware that we had ‘history’, had furtively pointed him out to me and told me he was one to steer clear of – the Aryan Brotherhood’s weapon of choice when retribution was called for. I’d often thought he and I would end up having more dealings with each other. But not like this.
I was anxious to walk on round the track before I drew any attention to myself. I looked ahead and kept moving. I was just slightly ahead of them now, but temptation got the better of me and I turned to glance over my shoulder. With perfect timing, I saw SlumDawg swing a haymaker – round and wide and clean into the face of his victim, who had made no attempt to defend himself. I caught a clear view of the man’s face as he began to fall to the concrete floor. The first punch had knocked him out cold. His head cracked onto the solid surface, the sound unusual but unmistakeable.
I recognised him, but I didn’t know his name. He was a good handball player, and I’d often seen him on the courts there. I’d never even realised he was an AB – he didn’t seem the type – even though he was white, tall and angular. I remember him as always smiling. He wasn’t smiling now. I realised I had stopped and was standing staring, mesmerised by what I had just seen. Everything seemed to have slowed down and I knew from the mechanical, precise movements of SlumDawg and the other ABs that this retribution had only just begun. I couldn’t move, as if my feet were set in concrete, and I knew then that I was going to stand there and watch; that I wouldn’t move now even if I could. A thought entered my head that I wouldn’t initially acknowledge, but which forced itself to the fore. ‘They are going to kill him.’ I nodded; maybe I nodded, I don’t know. My mind was spinning and I continued to stand spellbound, useless, as SlumDawg surveyed his victim. He was lying peacefully as if asleep, on the concrete floor of the shelter. As SlumDawg walked around him, it registered with me that he was already bleeding from the head. I say registered, because I remember clearly seeing the blood flow off the concrete and onto the dust that preceded the running track where I stood, but I don’t know what I thought about it; what my view of this was. It felt like I was watching a TV show. But I had no way of changing channels.
