Dragons & Butterflies

by Shani Krebs

  One night, when Jib was busy hauling in the phone, one of the cats that lived in solitary started grabbing the plastic bag and trying to pull it just as a guard walked past in the corridor. I don’t know if we were more scared of the cat snapping the string or of the guard catching Jib in a highly illegal act. We were both shitting ourselves. What if the cat broke the string and ran off with the phone? I was hysterical; I couldn’t help laughing, but more from nerves than anything else. Luckily for us, the cat ran off and the commodore was none the wiser.

  Some of the guys would just wrap the charger in a cloth and throw it across the corridor. Sometimes it would fall short, and the guy who wanted to use it couldn’t reach it; it was also difficult to throw because you couldn’t swing your arm properly. You had to sort of flick it. There were instances where a guard would quietly be watching the whole operation; after a while, he would open the security door, sneak up to the cell and listen. When he was satisfied that someone was using a mobile, as he’d suspected, his face would suddenly appear at the bars and he would demand that the phone be handed over, or else he would just open the cell door, march in, do a thorough search and confiscate both mobile and charger. When the guards confiscated a phone, some of them would hang on to it and sell it to a guard in another building; those who were less corrupt would actually take a baton and smash the dog in front of you. This was always such a sad moment, because a dog cost in the vicinity of 40 000 to 200 000 Thai baht.

  Despite the ongoing national crackdown on mobiles and drugs, both continued to circulate among inmates and it was largely business as usual. Ironically, the dealers were probably doing more business selling drugs inside prison than they ever did outside. But there were consequences, of course. Numerous dealers who were caught outside the prison would give information about their contacts behind bars, and then these inmates would be rounded up and a new civilian case would be opened; in addition, they would be either thrown into solitary confinement or moved to another building.

  It was well over a month now that I had been in solitary. Although a comfortable bed was not yet a reality and I wasn’t getting much sleep, I was surprisingly content. I began to understand that Hashem was preparing me for my freedom. I had been reduced from being in a position of power in Building 2 in Bangkwang, where I had stayed for over 16 years, and then to being a guest in Building 6, and now to here, where I had nothing. Not even a bed. It was humbling. My relationship with G-d had strengthened. Every morning I would put on my tefillin and daven. I was back to davening three times a day. I found sometimes that I didn’t really care any more whether I went back to Bangkwang or stayed where I was.

  I had also acquired a pencil, an eraser and a ruler, and I had started thinking about designing my own pack of cards. I was quite excited at the prospect of expressing myself through drawing again. I decided I would use prison as my theme and depict on the cards some of the depressing faces among Klong Prem’s inmates. It was really such a stressful prison. Nobody ever seemed to smile there. Everybody looked depressed.

  My sentence was down to 21 years and seven months. This meant that there was a chance I was going to be released in 2012, but I didn’t know where I was going or when. And a lot depended on the amnesty that would be granted on 5 December, on the occasion of the King’s birthday.

  On 9 May our Building Chief came around, accompanied by his usual entourage. At first I thought they were mounting another full-scale search, but this time I was wrong. The chief had come to tell us he was being replaced by the chief from Building 3. He looked very upset to be moving on from Building 2. No doubt this had something to do with the fact that Building 2 housed some of the richest Big Legs in Klong Prem, from whom he was extorting a lot of money. I told him I was really sorry to see him go, and in fact he was a nice guy and more understanding of prisoners than a lot of the others. He said his goodbyes and left; not even 30 minutes later, our new Building Chief arrived, pitching up with the same entourage as his predecessor.

  As it turned out, I knew the new guy from Bombat prison, from when I was arrested way back in 1994. He had been one of the guards who had welcomed a truckload of prisoners to Bombat. He was bald, and back then I had nicknamed him ‘Kojak’ (his real name was Mr Shavolit Pubping, and his peers called him Bobby). He was quite a boorish man, but conscientious when it came to his duties and strict with those who didn’t find favour with his pocket. When he walked into our section and saw me there, he came straight up to me. He turned to the other guards and in Thai told them he knew me and that I was very dangerous, and, according to the drug enforcement agencies, that I was involved in selling drugs in the prison.

  In return, I greeted him respectfully and then, also in Thai, said, ‘Sawadi Kap wanna Kojak, Khun yung mai prokarsiel’ (Hello, Chief Kojak, I see you haven’t retired yet). He wasn’t impressed, and pretended not to hear what I’d said. Anyway, he didn’t respond. I guess he didn’t like his nickname. What I’d done was bordering on being over-familiar and may even have belittled him in front of the guards and the prisoners. He had his sidekick with him, a man named Santi. He was a sadist, who enjoyed inflicting physical pain on prisoners. Santi’s favourite way of spreading fear was to make prisoners lie on their backs and then, using a bamboo cane, to strike them on the soles of their bare feet. He also used to kick, punch and beat prisoners. What sickened me the most was that Santi was extremely corrupt. My friend Somsak had once actually given him a piece of land to get him to close his eyes to us using a mobile phone.

  Later that afternoon, when he was in the corridor, I walked up to Kojak and asked why he had said what he did. I told him that it wasn’t true. And although I was in solitary, I still hadn’t been told why I was being punished or what I had done wrong. I had not violated any of the prison regulations. Kojak smiled and said in English, ‘Joking.’ At the same time, he stretched out his hand and I shook it. Then he asked me why I was in Klong Prem. I told him I didn’t know.

  The next morning there was a major reshuffle in our section. All the normal prisoners who occupied cells in the punishment section had to pack their things and were moved to normal cells. There were others who were also on permanent lockdown, and these people were all moved to our section, bringing us to a total of 16 in solitary confinement. During the move we were pounced on by the prison search party known as ‘Moodang’ (Red Caps). Through my own stupidity I was still holding the Bluetooth earpiece of Jib’s cellphone. Being a foreigner, I didn’t expect a thorough search of my person, so I hid the piece between my thigh and my right testicle. We were all lined up in the centre of the corridor while two of the 30 Red Caps searched each prisoner from head to toe. At the same time, a guard ran a metal detector between our legs, in our pockets etc. I was wearing cut-off denims and, thinking quickly, I placed a tube of lip-ice in my right pocket as a deliberate distraction. It worked. It caught their attention, as it was meant to do. After they were done feeling my balls and ass, I then pretended to assume they were finished with me and tried to push past them, but I was roughly pulled back.

  ‘Bi-nai?’ (Where are you going?) one of the Red Caps said.

  I tried to act dumb and began moving away again, but the trustee pulled me back by the arm. I was instructed to drop my pants. Silently I started praying, asking G-d to close their eyes. And can you believe it – when I pulled my underpants open, showing them my cock, they didn’t see the earpiece hidden there. I was told to get dressed and move on, and I allowed myself to breathe one heavy sigh of relief.

  The next time we had to entertain the Red Caps was only a few mornings later. This time they raided our cells, taking out our bedding, ripping it apart and rummaging through all our belongings. I was really shitting myself, as Jib’s dog was in its regular hiding place, but luckily they didn’t find it.

  These military-style raids continued almost daily, and at first this was extremely frustrating for me. I found it difficult to control myself. I just wanted to lash out all the time. Then, with time, as strang
e as it seems, even these raids in a sense became normal. On the positive side, though, once the Red Caps had searched through everything, they would leave, and immediately after they’d gone we would take out our dogs and bark them.

  On Tuesday 24 May I was called for an embassy visit. I could see that Anna, the consular officer, was kind of shocked by my appearance. I hadn’t shaved for two weeks, and I was going grey on my face. I can’t have looked very happy. Anna asked me to please shave, but I explained that you couldn’t purchase shaving cream in this fucked-up place, and anyway you could pay up to 5 000 Thai baht for a can. It was unbelievable how expensive things were there. She was very sympathetic and promised to follow up with the Department of Corrections, and to ask to have me transferred back to Bangkwang. In the meantime, she said she would at least request to have me taken out of solitary. I wasn’t holding my breath. Nothing seemed to be going my way.

  The more I thought about it, the more I realised that coming to prison was not only my destiny but also an opportunity to change. With all the chaos around me, in spite of everything, I felt quite peaceful.

  A month later, Eli Gil, the consular representative from the Israeli embassy, the rabbi and the Thai secretary visited me. There was a lot of mumbling, some of it word for word the same stuff Mr Gil had told me six months before, when he had made such a big deal about me being issued an Israeli passport and telling me that all the documentation on their side was ready. The consular officer admitted that, when they had sent my transfer documents to Israel, they had somehow neglected to include my official release date. Now they were waiting for the Thais to give them this last piece of information, but it seemed they were struggling to obtain it from the Department of Corrections. Gil also muttered some incoherent words about having spoken to Sam Goldstein, our lawyer in Israel, but actually it was all crap. The man was lying through his teeth.

  At that point I became very emotional and told Gil that unless I was in the next transfer meeting I would refuse to go to Israel. Gil didn’t defend himself against my verbal attack, which only made him look even more guilty. Instead he remained cordial and promised to make it his priority to speed up things.

  On the matter of my being transferred back to Bangkwang, however, he had no news for me, only that he had forwarded my request letter to the Director of the Department of Corrections. During my outburst, I was almost on the verge of tears, I was so angry. As prisoners, we really had no control over anything that happened on the outside. I was completely dependent on other people, which I found incredibly frustrating.

  I could see that the rabbi genuinely had my best interests at heart, but I was quickly losing faith in Mr Gil. I wasn’t planning to hold him to his promise, because I believed there was no way he was going to keep it. In fact, I was beginning to believe that the Israeli government had concluded that transferring a South African drug dealer to a prison in Israel, not to mention granting him citizenship, would be a bad move politically after all. Well, I would have to wait and see. I had no other choice.

  In solitary in Klong Prem, I found I had little desire to draw or paint. Even my attempt at making my own set of cards fell hopelessly short of the standard I had reached before. In my bleaker moments I couldn’t help wondering whether this was another test, or whether the angels had taken back my talent. I wasn’t one for sitting around doing nothing for too long, and the only other way to express myself was through poetry, and so I would let my pen lead the way:

  POEM 1 (in Solitary)

  Wall, walls and more walls. Adorned in steel, like a platoon of stark imposing monoliths conspiring to escort you beyond the veil.

  Blindfolded in an all-encompassing sinister shred of the sun, moon and stars, all rolled up in one.

  Strapped in a straitjacket to a runaway train with a one-way ticket to the nearest tow-away zone.

  In suspended animation, a portrait of distorted faces reflected in the hall of mirrors, parallel the ebb and flow of the awakening tides.

  From a bird’s-eye view, the bridge between madness and sanity is a dark place of 1000 serpents juggling lost souls.

  Through men of a pure heart congregating along the Wailing Wall an avalanche of blessings fall down the end of a rainbow.

  Self-expression bottled in a jar of Jell-O, high on Ritalin, kids are nothing more than puppets on a string mimicking their parents marking time.

  While in the name of global enterprise pharmaceutical giants live the American dream.

  Amy Winehouse majestically rode the white horse, straight into rock and rolls legendary club of 27.

  In the process of opening our eyes to the ways of the world, Adam and Eve uncovered the very secret that sustains life, Like a mountain of fireworks all going off at once.

  Words were drawn, boundaries were crossed. It’s friendship such as yours that restore our faith in the human spirit.

  Swallow a snake, wrestle a crocodile, in the land where the scales of justice sway to the momentum of a rusty pendulum ultimately the righteous will always prevail.

  Listen to the pouring rain, listening to it pour …

  One day, I think it was Sunday 26 June, I felt really homesick, not that nostalgic feeling that borders on euphoric emotion, but one where your entire perception of the world changes. This feeling turned into something more frightening. The walls and floor, and in fact everything, seemed to come alive and take on a menacing appearance, as if at any moment I’d be swallowed up by them. Scared to close my eyes, I turned up the volume on my TV, which usually had a soothing and calming effect on me, but this time it didn’t work.

  I looked at myself in a mirror and saw an old, white-bearded man. Then the old man with the white beard started going psycho on me. He seemed to be mumbling under his breath about how fed-up he was with prison life, and some bullshit about fulfilling his purpose once he was free. Most of it was incoherent, and the rest made little or no sense. At first I ignored my white-bearded other self, but when he produced a blade, I started to become concerned. I proposed a deal with him: either you shave that fucking white beard of yours, which makes you look like some lost vagrant, or else you lose the blade. I hoped he would agree to the former, which thankfully he did. He shaved his beard. After that, everything seemed to get back on track. The blade was put in a safe place and we began to coexist peacefully. I guess solitary confinement has its way of fucking with your mind.

  The visit with the Israeli embassy kept playing over and over in my head like a never-ending silent movie, and a deep feeling of bitterness persisted. The problem with society, and with people in general, is a preconceived notion about prisoners: people think that all prisoners are uneducated and rotten to the core. In my 17 years of incarceration I had come to realise that this was far from the truth. Prison changes a man, and the lessons we learn during our confinement behind those high walls a ‘normal’ person in the free world wouldn’t grasp in two lifetimes. Once you have been caught for breaking the law, you can expect to be discriminated against for the rest of your natural life. Convicts are a condemned species. Forget about second chances. Nobody really gives a fuck.

  Still, I desperately waited for news from the Israeli embassy, but nothing was forthcoming. It seemed to me that they were deliberately delaying the signing of my documents. I found myself sliding deeper and deeper into a state of depression, not helped by Elisabeth’s departure for Switzerland and her annual holiday. A feeling of hopelessness consumed me. This was compounded by what I could only think might have been hypertension. My spirit felt crushed, physically crushed. One day I almost choked on my own breath, and I could feel my chest closing up. The pain reached as far as my lower back. I know that when I am very stressed I tend to overreact, but this time I thought I was having a stroke. Then, as if an angel had descended from heaven, I remembered something my friend Jenny had written in one of her letters to me. Overcome with a sense of urgency, I scrambled through my things and found an envelope with her familiar handwriting on it. At this point I could se
nse myself falling over the edge, barely managing to stay afloat. I think I might have been on the border of insanity. Jenny’s words pulled me back to life:

  At this point in time, as you read this, ask yourself for a sincere intuitive response to this question: how much energy and focus am I putting into accessing the full range of my inner guidance, my inner knowing, and my commitment to my highest path of unified intent? Who do you truly want to be as a free man, what kind of man? What do you wish to work on when you’re free? Apply this in whatever way, to whatever ways your mind takes you, pray for the real Shani to be set free, to follow his noblest path. Find yourself in yourself alone, in the stillest, humblest, most peaceful place in yourself.