by Gary Mulgrew
SlumDawg was circling his victim and, having received some words of advice from the other gang members, he quickly and confidently crouched down over his victim and peered closely into his face. Then, with a gentleness both surprising and chilling, he held his victim’s chin lightly in his left hand, turning his face smoothly one way then another. Kneeling over the flaccid body, and having adjusted his position so he was now crouched above the chest, he scrutinised the man’s face once more, as if considering how to best maximise the damage he could inflict on his unconscious victim.
I felt chained to that spot. Mouth open, I glanced away from SlumDawg for a second and saw the looks of relish on the other gang members’ faces. Still I stood there helplessly. This was breaking the rules of humanity, but still I couldn’t move.
The second blow was as sickening as it was sudden, the third and fourth rammed into this nameless soul’s unprotected face with such force it felt as if they must burst through to the concrete below. A fifth, maybe a sixth, maybe a seventh, I don’t know, maybe even a tenth blow fell onto his unprotected face and head, interspersed all the while with the occasional gentle adjustment from SlumDawg as he repositioned the head in order to target any undamaged features. And there I stood, too shocked to speak. Too horrified to run away. Too beaten to intervene.
There was nothing but silence, punctuated by the sound of SlumDawg’s blows and a man’s face breaking. No sound from the other ABs, just silence for seconds; maybe minutes, maybe someone’s lifetime; until suddenly and violently a scream emerged. An agonised, frenzied scream.
‘FUR FUCK’S SAKE!’
They all turned and looked at me. SlumDawg, still perched over his unconscious victim – a body now with no recognisable face – looked up at me, his fist still bloodied and at the ready. He turned and looked at the shot-caller for guidance, but he was too busy staring at me too. I recognised him from our meeting a few months back, my hairy biker friend. After a second or two, he sneered at me and motioned to SlumDawg to leave. Carefully extricating himself from the lifeless body below him, the enforcer stood up to his full height, smiling as he surveyed the wreckage of his work; his pride sickeningly obvious at the probable termination of another man’s life. I didn’t wait for them to leave. I turned around and started to walk away around the running track, my body trembling and my legs almost failing me.
‘Fuck these people!’ I said out loud, my breath rasping and my heart pounding. I was walking even quicker now but turned my head to view the scene behind me. The man had not moved, not one inch, while the rest of the ABs were dispersing rapidly. I was walking the wrong way, deeper into the running track and further from the safety of the Yard. I walked faster still in the wrong direction – just desperate to walk away. ‘Fuck that guy!’ I thought. ‘It’s not my issue; it’s not my fucking concern.’ I was scared; I was sickened; I was disgusted. Disgusted with myself. Here I was walking away again. Being a coward; just like I had done with the rat in the Range, just like I had done all those years ago with my brothers, when I hid with the girls behind the storm doors from DumbDumb and Finn. In here for fraud. And rightly too. I was a wanker, a complete fraud.
But this wasn’t my fault. It was the other guy’s fault – whoever he was, and for whatever he had done. I was going home. I had to go home. I had to get to Cara and had to help my son. I looked back. The guy still hadn’t moved. ‘Shit, move you dumb arsehole. Fucking move!’ I said under my breath. I stopped walking and turned and stared at him. I could feel my heart pounding. No movement. ‘Move, you dumb fuck!’ I shouted. I was still completely alone. Everyone else had known what was going down; everyone else had made sure they saw nothing. Chief had even fucking warned me.
‘Well, fuck him. Fuck them all!’ I turned away again and started to walk further around the track. I’d made my promises; I’d told Calum I would come home. Promised every night to do whatever it took to find Cara. I was getting transferred out of this hellhole. Leaving. Going. Now.
I was repeating these points over and over again, trying to drown everything else out. I stopped once again and looked back the hundred metres or so. It occurred to me that in my haste to get away from SlumDawg, to get away from the body, I was still moving the wrong way. I needed to walk back down past the body. Fuck, he still hadn’t moved. Worse, a voice inside me was saying over and over again that there was something wrong with his position, with the way he was lying. His head was right back – the prime position in which to swallow your tongue or choke on your own blood or vomit. ‘At least move your fucking head!’ I shouted. I looked around to see if anyone was coming near but there was no sign of anyone, other than the inmates milling around down the hill towards the main yard. The ABs were long gone. No cops, no anyone. Just me alone on the top of this running track and this . . . this dying man.
I stood still for a further second. ‘Fuck him. Forget him. Fuck him!!’ I chanted, tears welling up in my eyes. I walked determinedly away. Two steps later I stopped. ‘He might be dying!’ a voice inside pleaded. I turned again, not knowing what to do – to walk or stay; to help or to run away? He still wasn’t moving. What could I do anyway? I was just an idiot from Glasgow. I was out of my depth in the Texas desert; a danger to myself, a danger to others.
Without even consciously making the decision, I found that I’d started back towards him, moving quickly. I had no choice, I realised – I just had to help him. If I didn’t, then I would have lost my basic humanity; I would be lost myself. There would be no point in my going home then; the person I had been would be gone forever. It had a sudden inevitability about it and as I continued to think it through I realised I was moving rapidly towards the body on the ground.
He still hadn’t moved, so I ran the last few yards to the prostrate and bloodied figure. I quickly crouched beside him but then recoiled as I went to touch him. I saw he was breathing but his face was horribly misshapen and tilted at an alarming angle. The area around his eyes was badly swollen and the bottom half of his face had collapsed, his chin effectively missing. I tried not to look at him, sickened at the sudden, ludicrous thought that part of him might come off in my hand. I looked around again, anxiously checking that no one could see me and that there were no cops around. There was blood everywhere. My eyes took snapshots that would haunt me for years to come. They haunt me still.
From my vantage point, I could see what looked like a cop near the far away perimeter fence, too far to see me, but he could be within vision in moments. I had my hands now on the victim’s torso as I crouched over him. He had lost a lot of blood, too much blood, but I tried to ignore that and figure out how to move him.
His body was warm and surprisingly heavy as I tried to pull him forward towards me. I couldn’t budge him the first time, as I was too tentative and worried about hurting him further, but another glance down to where the cop was walking near the perimeter fence galvanised me, and I yanked him over as my panic began to deepen. His arm, lifeless and bloodstained, flopped onto my legs, limp and clammy and heavy. My heart soared as he spluttered and spat, an explosion of air finally escaping from his lungs. I tried to check that his airway was unobstructed, but the destruction to his face made it almost impossible to tell exactly where his mouth was. The touch of his brutalised mouth disgusted me, but I found it and managed to force open a gap with my fingers. I leaned forward towards him and put my ear to where his jaw hung limply on the concrete. He was breathing still; barely, but breathing, definitely breathing.
The cop was now walking in my direction, although still not looking my way. I hauled the victim’s legs forward into the recovery position just as I had been taught all those years ago in my First Aid classes. I realised I was crying, a fool in hell’s arms. He spluttered again, alive, but as I started to rise from my crouched position I saw how horribly misshapen the back of his skull had become. It was hopeless. I desperately wanted to help him, to hold his hand, to touch him. But I couldn’t stay. I blessed him quickly and my prayer for him contained
only the words ‘please God’. Panic began to envelope me. I looked up again and saw the cop getting ever closer. I crouched over the body, my hands still resting on him, but my eyes trained on the cop as I waited for my opportunity to move. He groaned again. Maybe he would live, maybe it wasn’t too bad, but I tried to block these thoughts out of my mind; I needed to make my move. The cop looked toward the fence and I was up and away. Not running, but walking as fast as I could. Walking alone.
I arched my path rather than take the direct route to the gymnasium, so I would have the cover of the two-tiered benching around the running track, never taking my eyes off the cop until he was fractionally behind me. I switched my focus to the gymnasium and the large number of inmates milling around there, all still oblivious to the drama up top.
It was just at that moment that I’d wiped my forehead and noticed my hands were damp even though the rain had long since stopped. As I looked down at my socks and shoes, I shook my head and felt on the verge of screaming. I was covered in that man’s blood. I’d completely failed to notice how much blood and teeth and bones he’d spluttered on me when he’d taken that breath, or the extent to which my hands and fingers were now bloodied.
By this time I was coming into view of the other inmates, but I suddenly took a sharp left, to where the gymnasium, and critically the toilets, were housed. At that exact moment, the whistle went up – much to my further alarm. I was done with caring about the victim anymore and was just panic-stricken about my own situation. The alarm jolted me and I increased my pace, then gave in to the desire to run the last hundred metres or so to the gym. With blood smeared over my forehead and all over my hands, and a little on my knees and legs, other inmates saw me and moved rapidly away. I ripped my T-shirt over my head while still moving and wiped away as much as I could from my hands and brow. The T-shirt was quickly bloodied. I tried rubbing my hands and then my knees again, but that slowed my run which I could not afford.
‘You fucking wanker!’ I blurted out – to myself, to SlumDawg, to everyone – moving through the inmates like a storm was following me.
No cops. Yet. I guessed they’d all be running towards the victim, through the front entrance to the gym, while I was going in through the back. The other inmates were heading towards the gated area where everyone would slowly be processed and checked for cuts, blood and bruises or any other telltale signs of their involvement. I heard someone call my name, but I didn’t look to see who. I stormed towards a cubicle in the toilets. I felt like I wanted to take myself out and beat myself to a pulp. How could I have been so fucking stupid?
I pushed the first cubicle door open to see two Hispanics standing there like I’d caught them smoking a joint. Their look of horror at my bloodstained hands spoke volumes. I shouted at them to fuck off and physically yanked the first one out. The second one held his hands up and scurried out as I quickly closed the door behind me. I dipped my T-shirt into the urinal then started to wash off my face and knees which were encrusted with a mixture of dirt and blood. The mess seemed to get worse as the diluted blood ran further down my legs while the sirens continued to blare ‘lockdown’, just adding further to my panic.
Just then I heard a light knock on the cubicle door and someone whispering, ‘Escosais . . . Escosais!’ as he pushed a clean white T-shirt under the door. It was Polvora, my fellow stamp collector. At considerable personal risk, he was breaking the rules to help me, and the concern registered in his voice told me everything I needed to know about the danger we were now both in.
Surprised and grateful, I quickly grabbed the T-shirt but found that I couldn’t speak; couldn’t even utter the words, ‘Thank you.’
‘Fucking rapido, Escosais!’ Polvora urged me, in a tone that betrayed his anxiety further, before I heard him moving off quickly.
I took my socks off and wiped down my shoes. They still had bloodstains on them, so I dipped them in the urinal, then stuffed my socks and old T-shirt behind the cistern which was wired down to stop anything being hidden inside. I took my shorts off and put them back on inside out. I paused for a second, the panic and noise around me still at its height. I took a deep breath, then tried to take a calm look at myself. My hands were fine, but since there were no mirrors I could only splash myself with more water from the urinal, and hope. When I got to my shoes, I could see blood and teeth and bone in amongst the laces, so I hauled them out, dipped the shoes in the urinal once more, then took my new T-shirt and opened the urinal door.
There was no one around – not good, as I didn’t want to get isolated and find myself walking down towards the guards on my own. I ran through the gym corridors until I reached the exit. Everyone had moved towards the Ranges, and already the crowd was milling around the locked gates about 150 metres away from me. I would have to walk down there alone. I took a deep breath and moved swiftly towards the crowd.
The numbers were already backed up to the gate as the cops started the slow process of checking everyone’s hands and bodies. I eased my way into the crowd in the hope of being more anonymous. We were packed together but I felt as if all eyes were on me as I checked and re-checked my hands and knees for any further signs of blood or bone.
It was only when I reached the periphery of that queue that I started to realise the enormity of what I had done, the danger I was now in, both from the Feds and the gangs. If they found blood on me now, I would be taken to the Hole then questioned by the FBI – I was the only one in the vicinity, after all. Any hopes of a transfer and getting home to England would be over.
A new wave of panic enveloped me as I thought of these consequences. They could put me down for murder or attempted murder, and who would believe it had nothing to do with me, that I was only trying to help? The Feds wouldn’t care and no one else would ever know the truth. I would never get home. Never get back to Calum. Never find Cara. Even if I found her, they’d never let me near her. My panic deepened as I checked my hands once more. We were edging slowly forward and I could see four guards, with four separate lines building up in front of them as they individually checked each inmate. I recognised Malone from my first day and made a detour towards him, thinking my chances might somehow be better with him. Just as I did, I caught Polvora’s eye and he motioned discreetly with his finger rubbing on his forehead just above his right eye. I wet my fingers and saw the telltale sign of a little blood as I wiped my forehead vigorously again. Polvora looked tense but he scrutinised me again for a second, then nodded it was OK.
As we kept moving forward to the right, I saw SlumDawg and the rest of his posse, laughing and joking and edging their way forward as if enjoying a pre-match ritual in a football crowd. SlumDawg looked directly at me and smiled his gormless smile. He’d be coming back for me soon enough, I knew. I wasn’t afraid of him. In fact, at that moment I felt I hated him; that I would relish the visit. The beating started to appear in flashback and with that misshapen face dominating my thoughts, my revulsion overcame my fear and turned to anger. Still staring at me, SlumDawg raised his finger to his mouth in the sign of silence. Instinctively I nodded, my face still set hard as I stared at him. I wouldn’t rat, of that I was certain, but at that moment I knew I would kill him if I had the chance. I had come full circle, past a watermark. The rules had changed – even for me.
I edged further towards Malone in the hope that he would inspect me. I made a final check as I approached the individual line forming in front of him.
‘Mulgrew,’ he said jovially as he prompted me to show him my hands. ‘You been causing trouble again?’
‘No more than usual,’ I managed to respond, my head spinning. Malone laughed a little as he gave no more than a cursory check to my arms, my legs and my shoes.
‘On you go, Mildew,’ he said, turning towards the next inmate. I walked quickly back to the Range.
Back there, it was as if we were under attack. Inmates were filling up all the water containers they could as the talk raged about how long a lockdown it would be and how one of
the cops had said some guy was dead, and how another had heard he was brain damaged, and another that he was OK. I felt physically sick, and I needed to wash my hands again, even though I knew they were clear of blood now. As I stood at the sink, Chief came to the one next to me, then New York to the other side.
‘You dumb motherfucka, son-of-a bitch, dumb-assed Scot,’ began Chief through gritted teeth as he looked straight ahead. I’d never seen him so angry. ‘You stupid, stupid asshole,’ he continued as I kept scrubbing my hands. I looked up and saw the concern on New York’s face as Chief continued his tirade of abuse.
‘Shit, Scotty,’ added New York, more calmly but shaking his head. ‘Shit.’
‘I know,’ I said looking right at him then turning to Chief, ‘I know, OK? I know.’ I tried to walk past him, but he put his hand out to stop me.
‘Watch your back, Scotty,’ he said. ‘We’ll cover you the best we can,’ he continued as New York nodded, ‘but you need to hope for a long lockdown and then you get your sorry ass transferred out of here as soon as possible. Either that or check yourself into the Hole, although you’ll hardly be safe there.’ He looked tired and drawn and sad, like he’d spent too much time in Big Spring. We’d all spent too much time here. He’d probably seen too many like me crash and burn.
