by Shani Krebs
During the course of the morning, several foreigners in the building who knew me came to say hello. One of my good Nigerian friends, a guy by the name of Lawal, a great footballer, was also there, and there was an American I knew, as well as a British guy, both of whom were junkies, and both of whom had the same first name. They were amazed to discover that I had organised to have my cell door left open.
On the same floor as me, but at the opposite end of the corridor, was a Thai prisoner, a white-collar criminal, who had apparently embezzled millions on the stock exchange. The man lived like a king, but he kept very much to himself. He had actually paid money to stay in solitary confinement, for his own protection. The guy had a TV set, a portable fan, lights and even a foam mattress. He was only in his mid-twenties but he was fat, and he had a pasty-white complexion and an air of superiority about him. He treated the other Thai prisoners badly, and even disrespected the prison authorities. Actually, I was quite shocked by his behaviour and also how he seemed to get away with it. We spoke on occasion, and from what I gathered he was part of a syndicate and was the one who had taken the rap.
At lunchtime Joodt brought me a plate of rice, two fried chicken legs and some vegetables. It was very tasty. A meal like this would cost me 2 000 Thai baht a month. Afterwards, I was sitting quietly, eating fruit, when one of the Thai samurai knocked on my cell door. I knew this boy. He was a bit psycho and extremely dangerous. He had been thrown out of almost every building in Bangkwang and had been in solitary more times than you could count. I knew his last offence had been attacking another inmate with a meat cleaver, and that he had chopped the guy up pretty bad. I beckoned him into my room. He sat down in a squatting position and apologised for intruding. He asked if I would lend him some money, which was obviously for heroin. He was an addict and this made him even more unpredictable. I told him in Thai that I was going to be honest with him: I hated drugs and could not in all conscience give him money for drugs. However, if he didn’t have food, he was welcome to join me every day and eat with me, but money I wouldn’t give him. ‘Toti kartot kun korchai pom,’ I said, apologising and asking for his understanding.
He waied me and said, ‘Mai penrai’ (never mind), and thanked me.
It was important for me to make a stand on this issue or every junkie would be knocking on my door.
Nothing changed for the drug dealers in solitary and, as always, the Nigerians were running the show. One of the dealers was locked up for only 20 hours. The dealers paid a commission to the Building Chief, and if they didn’t pay, the Building Chief would send a few guys round to threaten them. They would even have someone who wouldn’t cooperate stabbed.
Okky had got to hear that I was not locked up and was moving around freely in the corridor. He wrote to the prison authorities, asking why he was locked up while I was allowed out. As a result the poor key-boy was reprimanded and my cell door was locked again. What an asshole – I was not impressed with Okky. So, there I was, locked up again for 24 hours a day. Even so, I didn’t feel safe in the place. I began to imagine that perhaps the prison authorities were planning to get rid of me. My suspicions were further heightened when, one afternoon around 3pm, the Director of the prison, along with the guard named Chavoret Jarubwon and his bodyguards, visited Building 10. They came to the second floor. One of the guards opened my cell and called me to come out. The Director was standing about four metres away from me. I greeted him with a bow. Then Chavoret asked me if I had been treated well and if there was anything I would like to ask the Director. It was unusual for the Director to see any prisoner, so I was highly suspicious. I said no, I had nothing to say, and then they left and I was locked up again. I guessed the Director wanted to know exactly who Alexander Krebs was. Shit! I vowed to be even more vigilant from then on.
The following morning, I made a request to go to the hospital. We left at midday. The normal procedure for this was that the prisoners from the other buildings went to the hospital at 9am. The authorities did not want those of us who were in solitary to meet with the other inmates, out of fear of us smuggling contraband. My ulterior motive for asking to be seen by the prison doctor was so that there would be a witness who, if I died, could say that it hadn’t been from natural causes. I complained about an infection on my heels where the chains had rubbed the skin off. I also asked for medication for my painful back. In fact, the awkwardness of walking with shackles was beginning to take its toll on my lower back, so it wasn’t entirely a lie. The medic put Betadene on my heels.
The following day, I received a parcel from Jai containing a lot of tobacco, soap, another towel, a face cloth, the hand fan I’d especially asked her for, and a plastic fold-up mat to sleep on.
After ten days of being locked up for 24 hours a day, I started to lose my mind. I wrote to the prison authorities, asking to be allowed out of my cell to exercise, telling them that I was ready to commit suicide. I was given permission to come out three days a week from 9am to 12pm. It made a huge difference to the lonely days of doing nothing but staring at the four walls. The average punishment for fighting was three months in solitary confinement, but it could take three months just for your case to be heard. Once you were sentenced, your prisoner class would be cut, your visits stopped, and you could expect to be locked up for 24 hours a day.
By now, though, I was into my routine, such as it was, and a structured day did wonders to keep me stable. I would wake up between 4.30 and 5.30am, wash my hands as required by Jewish tradition, and then wash them again, after a thrilling session of squatting on the loo. (When I first got to prison, initially in Bombat, on discovering that there was no toilet paper and we were required to use our hands, the thought of touching my dirty arse sickened me, but now I had got used to it.)
After this, I would daven Mincha, the morning service, while on my mat. When I was finished, I would do 500 stomach crunches, a couple of back-stretching exercises and some pelvic thrusts. Then I would shift all my things to one side of my cell, fill my ice cooler with water and washing powder and proceed to wash the walls, wipe down the mosquito screen and the door, and then wash the floor on the empty side. I would then move all my things to the other side of the cell and clean that side. Usually by this time the workers would have been let out of their cells and my wash boy would come to collect my dirty laundry. Once the floor was dry, I would do a couple of loosening-up and stretching exercises, followed by ten sets of 50 push-ups, back and forward windmills and four sets of tricep dips, finishing with 15 minutes of shadow boxing. After that I would wash my hands again and roll up my plastic mat.
Then I began the preparations required for what I was going to wear for the day. I would cover my two canvas bags with a towel to form a kind of table surface and place my clean clothes on top of it. Then I removed my shorts. It was quite an interesting procedure getting them over or under the shackles. Each link of my chains was 4.5cm long and just over 1cm thick and there were 27 links, not to mention the two steel rings clamped around my feet … I would then brush my teeth, wash the rags I used to clean the floor and then scrub the toilet and shower area clean. Washing my underwear came next (I wasn’t comfortable giving these to my wash boy), then my ankle guards and, lastly, my bandana. I had not shaved since being in solitary confinement and my beard was coming on nicely. Finally, I began the arduous task of cleaning my chains, using washing powder and a square of Scotch-Brite, after which I would give the chains a good shake. Once all that was done, I would take a shower in what was river water diluted with lime. Afterwards I would usually be itching all over.
Then I hung my washing on a makeshift line in my cell. Moving across to my sleeping area, I’d take an earbud and clean my ears and bellybutton. Then I would get dressed and give my chains a final shine with a piece of towelling. My chores done for the day, I would stretch out on my mat and take it easy.
Many of the inmates in solitary already knew each other from the other buildings, the visit room or through playing football. The guys who
knew me and who were allowed out of their cells would come and sit outside my cell and engage in idle chatter. I didn’t really mind because it passed the time, but I was starting to enjoy being on my own.
Some days I would have a breakfast consisting of two fried eggs, bread and biscuits (although getting bread wasn’t always predictable). One day Mohammed sent me three loaves of sliced bread; I kept one for myself and the others I shared with some of the guys.
After breakfast, I would clean my teeth and then write a few letters, read for a while or take a nap. Around 2pm my food would be delivered to my cell. This was generally a portion of fried rice, 100g of fried chicken breast and more bread. If there were any vegetables on offer that day, I would arrange to eat some, but usually there were only bones in the stew. My wash boy would then arrive with my clean laundry and push it through the gap in the steel door. At around 4pm I would daven Mincha, after which I would read from my book of psalms and try to study a bit of Judaism. I found this quite difficult. After about 20 minutes my mind would begin to drift. This wasn’t a new problem; I lost concentration easily. Often I would think I was reading away, but nothing would be registering. All those years of drug abuse had definitely damaged my mind, and sometimes I wondered whether I would ever be normal again. In fact, I doubted it.
In the late afternoon, for dinner I would have some fruit and some of the things my sister had sent in one of her parcels. I cleaned and flossed my teeth after every meal. I would tidy up here and there, then remove my clothing, wash my ‘ankle bracelets’ and shower. After I had dried myself I would lie on my mat naked, with only a sarong covering my private parts, and listen to my Walkman. I was so lucky to have risked – and succeeded – smuggling my radio into solitary. Around 7pm I would continue with some letter-writing for about an hour, depending on how tired I was, and then, to tire myself out, I would read from my books on Judaism.
I had always suffered from insomnia. Some nights in solitary I would be so exhausted you’d have thought I’d have fallen asleep right away, but I wasn’t ever able to enjoy a full night’s sleep there. I would lie awake with my eyes closed, conjuring up my own dreams, and eventually drift off, but it was always into a light sleep.
Slowly I was adjusting to this dump. At least I was allowed to go out three times a week to exercise, and on Saturdays, depending on which guard was on duty, I was also let out of my cell for a few hours. After a month, the Building Chief returned from his leave. Through Joodt, my cook, I planned on negotiating with the chief to be let out every day like some of the others – most of whom, admittedly, had been there much longer than me. Naturally, I knew I would have to pay for this privilege but I was prepared to do that. Joodt said I should wait a few days, as I had only been there a month, but I told him I was going crazy. Being locked up for 20 hours a day is not funny.
One afternoon, my white-collar criminal friend arrived back from his afternoon visit carrying two big bags of ready-made food and fruit – man, that guy could eat! By now everybody was locked up. Unbeknown to me (and certainly to him), waiting in the shadows near my door were two samurai armed with knives. The fat man walked past my cell, where I was stretched out on my mat lost in my own thoughts, and I heard what sounded like a scuffle and a grunt-like moan. Then there was a thud, followed by noises like a pig squealing and some more muffled sounds. I jumped up and peeked through the bars and mosquito screen. I could see the man’s fat frame stretched out on the floor. Standing over him was one of the young Bad Boys, who couldn’t have been more than 21 years old, stabbing him repeatedly in the chest. There was blood everywhere. It was like watching a movie. To tell the truth, I was not really fazed, although it seemed to go on for ever. Eventually, the fat body stopped moving.
The two attackers left quickly, running past my cell, leaving the body lying in a pool of blood. A couple of minutes later, about three or four guards came upstairs with some of the workers. They carried the body out of view of my cell. I could hear the steel door at the opposite end of the corridor being opened, where I knew there was another entrance and a stairway that was only used by the guards. That was how easy it was to assassinate somebody.
I didn’t sleep at all that night. In fact, I became totally paranoid, imagining I could be next. I had witnessed the murder, after all. In the morning the key-boy and I drank coffee as usual. He asked me if I had seen what had happened. I told him I had been asleep and had been woken up by what sounded like a fight, but that I hadn’t looked to check what was going on. It was not my business. He told me that they had killed ‘Oen’, the fat one. I asked why. Apparently, his execution had been ordered from outside because he had threatened to bring down the others in his syndicate unless they paid him more money. You didn’t have to be a genius to understand how this hit had been arranged. I heard later that the youngster who had done the stabbing was badly beaten by the guards, and that they had broken his hand and leg.
That same morning, I was told by the Building Chief, Mr Sampon Pauksi, that I could come out of my cell, and that I would also be moved upstairs to the third floor on the west side of the building, where the sun set. The cells were much cleaner on that floor and were not so dark and dingy. I slipped the Building Chief an envelope containing some bucks, and that secured me my freedom in solitary.
Upstairs turned out to be great. I discovered that my wash boy was an electrician by trade and was quite a resourceful young man. From the lights in the corridor he ran a cable into my cell and attached a plug. Using some wet rice, I stuck some paper from a magazine around the mosquito screen to hide the cable. One of the workers who was a permanent resident in solitary sold me a light fixture with a globe and I made a lampshade from cardboard. I tied my new lamp to the bars with a piece of string so that it hung about two feet above my mat. In solitary you were not allowed to have a light in your cell. Our floor faced the prison tower, and at night a light in one of our cells could easily be spotted by the guards on duty. Sometimes during the night the guards also patrolled the corridor, and if we heard the steel gates being opened at any point, everybody would quickly switch their lights off. Lady Luck seemed to follow me wherever I went. The next day, a group of inmates who had finished their punishment were being moved back to their buildings. One of them had a portable electric fan, which I bought off him for 500 Thai baht. I also managed to buy two blankets. Life in solitary confinement was turning out to be very different from how I had imagined it.
Besides the inconvenience of the shackles, once I had got myself into a routine, I realised that living alone in a cell and having privacy again was something I could actually get to like. I suppose that, wherever we are in life, it is our present circumstances that will always be the environment that holds challenges and offers growth. This I was learning. No matter what the situation, I embraced the dawning of each day, because in my heart I knew that G-d had a purpose for me. Having faith gave me strength. I had begun to accept that we were born to suffer in order to teach others to appreciate what they have.
My family and friends all over the world continued to send me parcels. From my friend Edna in England I received the Me’am Lo’ez volumes of The Torah Anthology by Yaakov Culi. This is a widely studied commentary on the Tanach. Now that I had light in my cell I could devote more time to studying.
In one of the parcels Joan sent me she included about ten bandanas, which I shared with my wash boy and some of my friends. While he was doing my laundry one day, one of the Bad Boys strolled up to him, pulled the bandana off his head and walked off with it. I was lying in my cell, my newly acquired fan blowing cool air in my face. I was thinking how great life was, even in this confined space. I felt content. I could have been anywhere in the world.
Next thing my boy came charging through my door. He looked really upset.
‘Mi aria, puen?’ (What’s up, friend?) I asked him, and he told me what had just happened.
Thais have their own way of dealing with their problems, and as a foreigner it was generally
prudent not to interfere. I told him to report the incident to the guards – after all, most of them were snitches – but he was a proud man and he didn’t want to involve them. He was looking at me like I had the answer. As his boss, I realised that he wanted me to go and retrieve the bandana for him. Fuck it, I told him, let it go. I told him I would give him another one. If I did that, though, it would be perceived as an act of weakness, and, the next thing I knew, the Bad Boys would be helping themselves to my things.
There was an African American guy in solitary by the name of Stan, and he and I had become good friends. I discussed my dilemma with him and he offered to come with me to try and resolve my wash boy’s problem. I didn’t really want to involve him because I knew that if two of us approached the Bad Boys, this would be considered an act of aggression. I agreed that Stan should come with me, but that he would stay out of sight and wait for me at the entrance of the staircase.
The Bad Boys slept in cells on the first floor, and this floor was their turf. Going there was like walking into a hornets’ nest. When I got there, there were about 13 of them, sitting around talking, some doing deals, while one or two others were shooting heroin up their veins. The guy who had stolen the bandana was a new face to me. I had never seen him before. I estimated him to be in his late twenties. He was tall and skinny and his eyes were psychotic. As I approached, they all stopped what they were doing – except for the junkies, who carried on shooting up. I lifted my arm with my palm facing the ground. I moved my fingers as if closing my hand. I repeated the action a few times, calling the culprit at the same time to come to me. He ignored me, giving me the who-the-fuck-do-you-think-you-are look. This was not a good sign. I could feel my throat constricting, and I realised that I might very well have to fight the guy.
As I moved forward to confront him, the samurai who had come to me wanting to borrow money walked out of his cell.
