by Jay Sharman
Julian said, ‘I will come with you to the shower room but be prepared for a shock of finding naked men taking shower.’
Nicki’s cheeks turned red as she looked at the floor to say ‘I will just close my eyes and not look at anybody else and as for my bra - I don't have one, fortunately my breasts are very small so I can get away with that. Or the best thing would be to clean myself inside the room here by using wet towels.’
Julian said, ‘Alright, that is a good idea, but you still will need to take a shower from time to time to keep your body clean or we can go there during lunch time. Sometimes the shower rooms are open at that time and mostly are empty.’
Nicki looked at Julian and suggested, ‘Let us go there now, I think they are open now and seem to be empty.’
Nicki followed Julian into the shower room and to their delight, there was nobody there. Nicki left her shirt on and went to a corner of the shower room to clean herself. The room was wet in the changing area, which was separated by a wall from the main shower. As the windows had been shut for a while, there was a pungent smell in the room. Some inmates had left their dirty clothes on the floor, mainly to dry their feet despite the presence of a bin for them in one corner. Few empty shampoo bottles and soap containers were also scattered on the floor. Julian picked up some of them while Nicki took her clothes off in the open changing area. She was constantly looking at the door for any inmates.
After taking her clothes off she quickly went under the shower, the water was nice and warm. Julian used the adjoining shower just to protect her. Nicki said, ‘I can't believe that I am taking a shower in men’s section. I feel so embarrassed and confused.’
Julian put his fingers on his lips and said, ‘Shush, somebody might hear you talking and blow the whistle about your dumbness.’
Just after he had finished his shower, a black guy entered in the room and asked Julian, ‘How is the water mate?’
Julian felt like saying “it is icy cold”, but then he would wonder how come he was under water himself but instead said, ‘It is alright.’
Within minutes, the black guy took his clothes off completely and came under the shower without his underwear. When Nicki looked at him, she nearly fainted. The black guy was called Tony, the same person, who was bullied by Angelo a few weeks ago. Tony asked Julian, ‘I have not seen you before here, are you new in prison, mate?’
Julian replied while rubbing his wet hair with the towel, ‘Yes, fairly new.’
Tony then looked at Nicki and started to giggle. ‘Why are you covering yourself? We are all mates here. I can see that you have a nice body.’
Tony then moved towards Nicki and held her arm with his hand and said, ‘Look at you, you are blushing like a girl. My name is Tony and you are?’
Julian moved to his right to hold outstretched hand of Tony and said, ‘Hi Tony, he is Nick. Unfortunately, he cannot speak.’
Tony withdrew his hand and moved back to his shower area and asked, ‘How do you know Nick? He looks so innocent and baby faced. I can't expect him to commit any crime.’
Julian smiled back and said, ‘Innocent looking people can be worst offenders as nobody can suspect them. Do you agree with me, Tony’
Tony laughed and said, ‘You are right man, he must have done something horrible to end up here, but he looks cute.’
Nicki turned her back away from them and made a growling sound.
She was not impressed with that conversation and quickly stepped towards the changing area. She took her shirt off to dry with a towel before taking off her briefs, she put on another shirt.
Tony came back to the changing area. He lifted the towel from Nicki’s back and said, ‘What a beautiful bottom. You have girls like bottoms. You are going to make many hearts go faster and turn many men into gays.’
Without looking at Tony, Nicki put her trousers on and left the room in a hurry. Tony shouted, ‘Hey man, where are you going. Come on, come to me, let us do something together. The echoes of his laughers could be heard outside the shower room.
Julian followed Nicki back to the room and found her crying, with tears pouring from her eyes. She said, ‘I can't stay here like this. Imagine me taking shower like this among naked men all the time and them pinching my bottom. How can you tolerate other men looking at me with such Leviticus ways?’
Julian tried to dry his hair with his towel and said, ‘Other men don't know that you are a woman. I found it very hard to let you take shower in front of a naked man. I was not expecting anybody in the shower room during lunchtime. Be careful next time or the best thing is that you should clean yourself in this room here instead of going to the shower room.’
Nicki sat down on the bed and said, ‘Maybe I should go to a female prison in Holloway. They can't find me guilty for revealing my true sex.’
Julian put the wet towel on the chair and started to comb his hair, ‘You have come so far without being identified. Why can't you wait for few more weeks and then we can try for a bail and who knows then you will be allowed to go home. We have not done anything wrong and should not be in the prison’
Nick was still drying her hair with a towel. She looked in the small mirror and turned her head to the right to say, ‘If police knew that I am a woman rather than a man, then they may not release me on a bail.’
Julian looked outside the half open door and said, ‘Once you are released on bail, you can disappear in the crowd of London, and then you can revert back to your real sex, grow long hair and dress like a woman to go back to your community. Police will never be able to catch you.’
Suddenly a landing officer opened the door and shouted, ‘Lunch time lads, hurry up, there will be no food left for you.’
After the officer left, Nicki said, ‘I don't feel hungry. You can go and get your lunch. I feel paranoid that everybody will be looking at me. The man in servery tried to touch my hands a few times and always kept commenting to me that you have beautiful hands.’
Julian smiled and said, ‘You have very beautiful hands, indeed.’
Nicki looked at her hands and whispered, ‘This is not funny, Julian, there are so many gay men here in prison. Whenever they find somebody soft and smooth looking, they never stop chasing him.’
Julian whispered, ‘In fact, it seems that the prison encourages gay relationships as it keeps some of the prisoners away from their problems. Did you know that the prison distributes free condoms to the prisoners.’
Nicki seemed shocked as she covered her mouth with her hands. ‘You must be joking. I don't believe that. Why would they do that’
Julian picked up his plastic plate and said, ‘Come on, let us go for lunch first otherwise, the food will be finished soon.’ Nicki also picked up her blue plate to follow Julian to outside the room.
Nicki stood in the queue in front of Julian. A tall black man was standing in front of her with bulging muscles. Julian realised that he was Robin- one of the Greens. Robin looked back at Nicki and started to move his tongue to touch his lips and said, ‘Hi man, you have got a pretty face. You can come in front of me.’
Julian nodded Nicki to do so. Nicki moved in front of Robin, but then she felt Robin’s genitals touching her bottom, as he had moved closer to Nicki and put his arms around her chest and whispered, ‘Hey pretty boy, you smell nice, with wet hair. How come I did not see you before?’
Julian tapped on Robin’s shoulders and said, ‘Hi, he can't talk, he is dumb.’
Robin laughed louder, ‘Man, this solves all the problems, means that anybody who sleeps with him will be safe, as he can't tell anything to anybody, ha, ha.’
Nicki went to the counter and asked for some rice on her plate, as she put forward her plate, the man instead held her hand and smiled, ‘You have got soft hands like that of a woman. Maybe you need to work harder to get them tough.’
Nicki simply nodded, as she was glad that Robin was not behind her anymore, as he had gone to a different counter to get extra milk for himself.
Julian again came to Ni
cki’s rescue and told the man. ‘He can't speak, and also, he has some physical problems, so leave him alone.’
The man grinned. ‘Oh man, so you are his fucking protector or a boyfriend, or you are one of the gays as well. Maybe we can all get together then; you do not look that bad either?’
All men at the counter started to laugh together by looking at each other.
Julian kept quiet, as he did not want to cause any problems with the servery staff.
Nicki was again tearful when she reached back in the room and said, ‘Julian what is happening today? Everybody is making a pass at me.’
Julian shut the door behind him and put the plate on the table and said, ‘Look Nicki, I know that the first few weeks in prison may be difficult, but once inmates realise that you are not like one of them, they will lose interest in you and do not forget that we are going to the art class in the education department today, that will take your mind off the problems that you are facing here, Ok honey.’
Julian took the plate away from her hand to put on the table. Both plates had rice and curry chicken on the sides.
Nicki sat on the empty chair and said,
‘Yes, maybe, art class will be a good escape. The food smells nice and is not too bad here in prison.’
Julian took a bite of chicken, ‘yes, the food tastes nice, also there is so much variety and choices for inmates here.’
Nicki laughed, ‘Julian, we need to get used to this atmosphere as we do not know how long it will take to get out of this hell.’
Julian sipped water and said, ‘I hope that it will be soon as we have not done anything wrong.’
Nicki did not look up but instead carried on eating her food.
Chapter 16
Greg, Robin, Angelo and David had gathered in Angelo’s room to have a meeting together. Greg was their ring leader and it was helped by his bulging biceps, broad shoulders and six feet and five inches body frame. His were normally final words and nobody wanted to challenge him unless Greg had made a gross error. David looked outside the room to check if anybody was listening to them.
After he gave the all clear, the group gathered around Greg in the room. Greg stood up in the centre of the room and whispered, ‘After Hussain’s death, we need to be careful. The prison staff and the police suspect our hands in his death. We need to keep a low profile for the next few weeks.’
David stepped forward to mutter ‘If we went too much into defensive, then prison will also suspect our involvement and inmates will start questioning our authority. There is no evidence to suggest that any one of us killed Hussain.’
Robin who was the quietest of the Greens commented. ‘Mates, Hussain’s death has taken a political turn because of his religion. The national newspapers are demanding an investigation. The parliament had heated debates about the security in the prison system and demanded increased protection for ethnic minorities in prison. We will need to be careful and not do anything stupid to put ourselves in trouble.’
Robin said, ‘Why should we suffer in silence? If we can't stay active, then we must encourage our second string of army to act on our behalf.’
Greg intervened to say ‘I think that Robin is right. We must ask others to do tasks on our behalf. We need to train more inmates to become like us ‘Greens’.
The evening association was coming to an end, and landing officers were trying to lock the door on the fifth floor. David heard the sound of banging doors and said, ‘Some people do not like fucking Andrew in the second floor. We have heard that he is a rapist. He should not be walking around in our wing just like that and People don't like his fucking foreign accent.’
Robin said, ‘Man, I have heard that he has tried to assault his own fucking mother. That is so disgusting piece of shit, I never heard something like this before.’
David said, ‘The worse thing about that asshole is that he is arrogant and tries to bully the weaker inmates in his wing. By doing so, the mother fucker has made many enemies in the process. If he is attacked by us, nobody will find out the real culprit. Leave it to me, mates. I will arrange something for that asshole in the next few days’ time.’
The four greens shook hands with each other and left the room except for Angelo who after collecting his towel and shampoo went to the fourth floor to take a shower. When Angelo went inside, there were only two people in the shower – Tony and John, who were both upset with Angelo for pushing Tony on the floor a few weeks back. Tony and Angelo exchanged angry glances. The room was full of steam, as all the windows were closed. Nobody wanted cold drift to come inside the room, as it was a freezing weather outside. The floor had few towels and shirts lying there. Angelo went near Tony and asked him, ‘Mate, what is the water like today? Is it normal or very hot?’
Tony replied, ‘Very hot.’ He lied so that Angelo would not take his shower there.
Angelo replied with a grin, ‘I like hot water. This room is so steamy. I am going to open the windows.’
Tony and John could feel the cold air, which made them shiver with cold. They quickly came to the changing room and put their clothes on and without saying a word to Angelo and left the shower room hastily. Angelo was pleased that he was left on his own in the shower room. He opened all the windows and doors, and then removed his clothes and went under the shower and started singing an Elton John song.
The prison officers were locking all the doors of the prisoners to count their numbers to ensure that nobody had escaped from there, and finally one of the officers came to lock the shower room. The prison officer came inside the shower room to check if that was vacant, as he did not hear any noise from outside. He found the changing area empty but when he looked in the shower area, he found somebody hanging from the shower. He rushed to the person and found Angelo hanging, with his eyes wide open and his face shifted to one side, and no signs of breathing. His lifeless hands were hanging by the sides of his body.
The officer quickly took the weight of Angelo’s body on to his hands and opened the knot of a bed sheet around his neck. After laying him on the floor, he tried to feel his pulse and his breathing by putting his hand in front of his mouth, but there was no sign of any life. He pushed his chest with his both hands, but the officer knew that it was too late, and Angelo was gone.
The officer blew a whistle with his mouth and then sent a message to call for help from other prison officers and within seconds, dozens of prison officers rushed towards the shower room, that was followed by arrival of a paramedic and a nurse. The nurse put Angelo’s head onto one side to check for his breathing, but nothing had changed. She could not hear any heart beats with her stethoscope and Angelo’s eyes did not react to the light that she shone in his eyes.
There was a major uproar in the prison by the latest tragedy, as nobody had expected Angelo to take his own life. Additional prison officers from adjoining wings also rushed to the scene to assist their colleagues.
The Governor of the prison was informed of the news, who also rushed there to investigate the incident. He summoned emergency meeting with senior officers in his room and raised a question, ‘What is going on in this prison? We have two hangings or possible murders within few weeks of each other. First, it was Hussain and now we have Angelo, who is behind this all. We are not doing our job properly in providing safety to the prisoners’
Senior officer Mike Jackson replied, ‘Sir, Angelo was one of the suspects for Hussain’s death. This could be a tit for tat killing.’
Another officer intervened, ‘Nobody can dare to touch Greens’ gang, it is very strange that one of their members should die like this.’
Governor thumped the desk with his hand and said, ‘we do not know yet, if this is a suicide or a murder.’
Same officer said, ‘Most probably, it is a suicide as Hussain did not have any friends or gang support in the prison, so it is very unlikely that Hussain’s supporters have revenged his death.’
Third officer suggested, ‘Sir, most likely, Angelo could have hange
d himself, as he was under investigations for Hussain’s death. There is another possibility that Angelo had arguments with Tony and John in the shower room few weeks ago and Angelo assaulted Tony, that caused him to bleed from his nose. The last people to see Angelo alive were Tony and John, so it is a strong possibility that they may have taken their revenge by hanging Angelo in the shower room, when the place was empty.’
Jackson bent forward and said, ‘Tony and John are gentle people and not the kind of people to murder someone. Last thing they want is wrath of other Greens.’
The Governor who was quiet up to now put his cup of tea to one side of the table and said, ‘Let us not go into circles. I will appoint Mike Jackson as the officer in charge for investigations. For outside world, this could be a suicide, but we will do our own investigations with homicide in mind.’
The same day, both Tony and John found themselves sitting in front of Jackson, who asked, ‘Tony, you were hit by Angelo, few weeks ago and you fell on the floor. Is that right?’
‘Yes, that is right, Gov.’ Tony looked at John with a grin on his face.
Jackson said while looking straight into Tony’s eyes, ‘So you took your revenge by hanging Angelo in the shower room?’
Tony raised his face, folded his hands on his lap and said, ‘That is not true. He is twice of my size. I can't even imagine going near him.’
‘You did not have to do it yourself, that is why you took help from John.’ said Jackson.
John seemed to be panicking, as the sweat appeared on his face and he said, ‘We both are innocent. Angelo is a very dangerous man. We are no match for him.’
Jackson saw through John’s point. Tell me then, what happened in the shower room?’
Tony replied, ‘When Angelo came to the shower room, we stopped taking the shower and went to the changing room and after another few minutes, we were out of the shower room. Angelo was singing under the shower when we left the room. That is the last we saw of him.’
Jackson asked, ‘So you are saying that you did not see anybody else entering the shower room after you left there?’
