Dark Days

by D. Randall Blythe

  “I think this man will make it very bad for me to return to Mongolia. Very bad,” Ganbold said, referring to his absentee business partner. He didn’t appear particularly terrified, but it was pretty clear from the way he spoke (and Dorj’s throat slitting motions) that Mongolia probably wasn’t the best destination for him at the moment.

  I immediately took a liking to Ganbold; out of all the men I knew in Pankrác (myself included), he seemed to be the least “criminal.” There was absolutely nothing shifty about him—he came across as a straight shooter, someone who had gotten a raw deal at the hands of a less than scrupulous business associate. Although a great number of men in prison will tell you they are innocent, going on to explain in great, convoluted length how they are really the victim in their situation, I actually believed Ganbold’s tale of woe. There was just something about him that made me feel he didn’t belong in there with the rest of us, an open way he had about him that belied no hidden acts or dark designs. As we talked, I learned that he had gotten divorced ten years ago from his wife, and had just started dating again for the first time in a decade at the insistence of his seventeen year old son.

  “My son say to me, ‘Dad, you must have woman. Is no good for man to be alone for so long’. I finally say okay after many alone years. Two month ago, I meet very nice Mongolian woman—so beautiful. Now I am in Pankrác. This prison no good for my new love romancing,” Ganbold said, shaking his head sadly.

  “Man, that blows,” I said, “Hell of a way to start off a relationship.”

  “I must write her letter! But I have no paper or pen for writings,” he said.

  “No worries, man. I’ll loan you some paper and a pen,” I said, and fetched writing materials from the pile of stuff on my bed. I handed him a few precious sheets of paper and a good pen, and Ganbold sat down at our table to write while Dorj and I set up camp in our new cell. From time to time, Ganbold would stop writing, look up at the ceiling, and sigh as he searched for the right words to try to convince his new lady friend he wasn’t a criminal. He looked liked a love sick teenage boy writing to his girlfriend, desperately trying to squash an ugly high school hallway rumor that he had made out with another girl. Dorj stared at him as he wrote, then turned to me with a scowl.

  “Ay ya ya ya ya, Doctor Pankrác. Look—he write. He like you. He doctor, too. Probably even like read book. Ay ya ya ya ya—two doctor,” he said, his disapproval very evident at having another cellmate with a propensity for chirography.

  “Yes, he is doctor, thank fuck. But you doctor, too. You Doctor Khun, hahaha!” I laughed.

  “You two are . . . doctors?” Ganbold asked incredulously.

  And so began Ganbold’s pursuit of his doctorate. For the next week, we called him “Student Ganbold,” and required him to address us by our titles, Doctor Khun and Doctor Pankrác, at all times—the man couldn’t very well just walk into a cell with two doctors and immediately expect to claim his place amongst that most elite of Euro correctional fraternities, the Doctorhood of Pankrác Remand Prison. There had to be a trial period to see if the new man would crack under the pressure of incarcerated life, to ascertain if he had the guts to live day in and day out crammed in a grimy airless cell with two other men, eating garbage and sleeping on a torture device, and still have the spirit to laugh heartily in the face of bachars like Bradley whenever they came around to be a dick. In prison, doctors of our sort didn’t whine and complain—little bitches did. Ganbold displayed exemplary behavior during his first week—no whining, complaining, bitching, snitching, or mooching (although we freely shared what we had with him). Right from the beginning of a very scary and stressful time in his life, Ganbold carried himself in a manner befitting a doctor; so at the end of his seventh day in prison I took pen to paper and drew up a fairly elaborate diploma with his full name, leaving a blank line for his doctor title. Dorj and I each signed it, thereby conferring upon him all the rights and privileges one could expect as a doctor. But exactly what kind of doctor was he? After a brief hushed conference on the bottom bunk with Dorj, we agreed that Ganbold was a doctor of an amorous sort, as he was constantly mooning over his girlfriend. He did this silently, without complaint, writing her long letters daily and sighing periodically to the ceiling, but we knew what was going on. It was obvious that the thought of losing her was just as disturbing to him (if not more so) than the prospect of a Mongolian prison; in fact his possibly doomed romantic affair had been one of the defining features of his character during his week as a student. Taking this into account, I quickly penned in his doctor name, handed him the diploma, Dorj and I shook his hand, and he became a KISS song.

  Ganbold was now Doctor Love.

  But on that first day, he was just Student Ganbold, and although not quite a doctor yet, I was still glad to have him join us. For some reason, despite the fact that our new cell was only slightly larger than our last one, the addition of another person did not make me feel more cramped or crowded. On the contrary, my days seemed to be roomier and more full of possibility and humor now that Ganbold had arrived—he was a good man, with an even keeled temperament, and was quicker to smile than frown. Of course, I do believe that Dorj and I got very lucky—we could have been crammed in with some terrible ill-tempered brute, or a child molester, or a mooch. But Ganbold was none of these things, and it was really nice to have someone who spoke a modicum of English in my cell, a man who neither whistled nor ever once uttered the phrase “pure vodka” in my presence. When Tom Selleck and Bradley popped by to check on us an hour after our move, they actually looked dismayed to find the three of us sitting in our cell, chatting affably over Marlboro Reds. I was surprised they didn’t immediately move us again—obviously they had been hoping I would be upset by the addition of yet another Mongolian into my already cramped habitat.

  Ganbold’s arrival did change Dorj’s primary means of amusing himself, though. While the whistling nearly totally and instantaneously disappeared, it was replaced by a never-ending stream of Mongolian delivered in that hideous girlish whispering giggle Dorj had first used when speaking to our new companion. Until the day I left Pankrác, I listened to this entirely one-sided conversation go on from sunup to well past sundown, Ganbold quickly abandoning the idea of contributing anything to the dialogue other than a noncommittal grunt periodically. This did not seem to bother Dorj one iota—he would carry on speaking Mongolian even when Ganbold’s loud snores from the bunk above him filled the cell air, competing nicely for sonic dominance of cell #512. Neither Ganbold nor myself were paying the slightest attention to his blabbering; Dorj might as well have been speaking to a plate of braised turnips (although they would have been slurped up within seconds of being placed in front of him, and he would have just had to carry on speaking to an empty plate). Ganbold seemed only slightly irritated by Dorj’s incessant self-amused spiel, merely raising his eyebrows at me once or twice a day in a “I wish this dude would shut up” expression from his top bunk. I, however, wasn’t handling Dorj’s new-found loquaciousness so well—his constant torrent of effeminate-sounding prattle had started to activate my throttling instinct. I seriously wanted to choke the shit out of him, and began noticing my hands clenching and unclenching of their own accord from time to time. Once again, English lessons saved the day—right from the beginning of his stay with Dorj and me, I began to polish up Ganbold’s rough grasp of my language. Dorj actually had the decency to shut up while we were doing lessons, aside from correcting Ganbold’s pronunciation from time to time, or explaining in Mongolian what a word meant. For all his faults, Dorj’s talent for languages was phenomenal, and he could be quite helpful at times as I taught Ganbold English.

  The next day when we went outside for walk, Bradley and an unfamiliar guard came to escort us. Unbelievably, just like Bradley’s usual comrade in arms, the new guard looked exactly like the actor Tom Selleck. But whereas Tom Selleck #1 was stuck in the glory days of the 1980s with his spiky hairdo and large, luxurious mustache, Tom Selleck #2 w
as a Tom Selleck for the new millennium—his mustache was trimmed much more sensibly, and his hair was cut quite a bit tighter to his head. Tom Selleck #2 also seemed to be a more jovial breed of man; Tom Selleck #1 was always scowling whenever he came by, but Tom Selleck #2 greeted us with a smile as he opened the door and said something in Czech in a pleasant tone; something that obviously meant “It is time for your walk, if you so desire to participate, my friends.” His Czech was very strange, a deep, back-of-the-throat version of the language I had not heard before—perhaps he was from some far-flung border province of the Republic. Not that I understood much Czech at all, but Tom Selleck #2’s Czech was truly bizarre—it sounded as if it consisted of varying tonal inflections of just one word, something that sounded like yarl.

  “Yarl, yarl, yarl,” he said with a smile before he closed the door to our outside cage, pointing to his watch and holding up a single finger, indicating that he would be back in an hour to collect us, “Yarl? Yarl!” Tom Selleck #2’s intense love of this word, to the exclusion of all others, was not noticed by myself alone.

  “‘Yarl’? What is this ‘yarl’? Is this this man’s name?” Ganbold asked me. I had no idea what a “yarl” was, but it became Tom Selleck #2’s other nickname immediately. How could it not? It’s all the man ever said.

  I introduced Ganbold to all the guys at walk, and soon he was laughing and speaking in Czech with everyone. While we were outside, I noticed that Felix wasn’t present—this was the second or third day in a row I hadn’t seen him. I asked his young, shaven headed cellmate, George, where he was, but George didn’t speak much English, shaking his head and rubbing his stomach like he had a tummy ache. I gave George a couple of cigarettes to take back to his cellmate, making a writing motion while telling George I would send a note for Felix with him soon. George squirreled away the cigarettes and nodded that he understood me.

  I was pretty bummed about not having Felix next door anymore, as he spoke excellent English and had been a great assistance to me in communicating with the guards. Plus, he was just a nice guy, and it was pleasant to chat with him through our cell windows. His cellmate, George, always seemed a little odd to me though. He smiled incessantly whenever I would speak to him, but made no efforts at communicating with anyone else when we met up for our daily walk. None of the other men seemed interested in talking to him either, and he always seemed to be the last to be given a drag off a cigarette when the smokes were being passed around. Of course, George was always trying to mooch cigarettes off me; maybe he had been hitting the other men up too much before I arrived. For whatever reason, George seemed strangely distanced from the rest of us when we were outside for walk—something about him seemed not quite not right.

  At walk, I always enjoyed “reading” the graffiti on the wall of whichever concrete cage they had put us in that day—I use the term “reading” very loosely, because it was written in many, many different languages, most of which I had no comprehension. I did find tags from a few Americans, including Honolulu Joe, and Rex from Arkansas. Seeing their scribblings brought me great joy, especially Honolulu Joe’s, as he drew palm trees and a nice beach scene beside his name. I also saw the logos of a few punk rock and metal bands, obviously drawn by fans, and decided to throw my own into the mix—”D. Randall Blythe/lamb of god, Euro Prison Tour, Pankrác, Summer 2012” went up on quite a few walls in Pankrác, and while I certainly had no wish for any of our fans to wind up in prison, I thought it might be cool for a lamb of god fan to see that if they ever were unlucky enough to wind up in that dreadful shit hole. I had just finished tagging the wall with a rapidly drying Sharpie on that particular day when I saw some English graffiti I hadn’t noticed before near the top of the wall. In block letters, someone had written “Oh God, Oh my Lord, why me?” A few feet down the wall, in the same handwriting, was “I am too good for prison!” Not far from that, the same person had scrawled, “Prison is the worst place one could be in life.” Reading this stuff highly annoyed me—why did this guy have to be such a little punk bitch in my language? I really hoped he wasn’t an American—I hadn’t met any other Americans in Pankrác, and I didn’t need guys like this running around giving us a bad name. Obviously he wasn’t too good for prison, otherwise he wouldn’t have wound up in there. And I could think of quite a few places that were far worse to be stuck in than prison. Compared to, say, a combat zone in Somalia, Pankrác was Disney World. I re-read the part about being too good for prison, and wished that the whining, embarrassing, scribe was in the cage with me right then, so I could slap the shit out of him.

  The next day Jeff Cohen flew back to America, and I spent most of my waking hours working on the comedic letter to my family. I was about to start writing again after breaking for yet another tasteless dinner when I heard a noise that made me drop my pen and run to our cell window. I hopped up on Ganbold’s bunk, and right outside our cell was a ratty looking black cat. I called out to the cat, wishing I had some sort of solid food to offer it, but the cat just sat on the pile of rubble outside our cell and stared at me in the imperious manner of cats all over the world, meowing from time to time. I was glad to see an animal other than a rat or cockroach, but the sound of its meow that had drawn me to the window brought on a sudden wave of worry and homesick sadness. I missed my elderly cat Henry, and I began to wonder how he was recovering from a recent brutal shaving fiasco. Henry was over seventeen years old, and that evening as I lay on my cot, I thought about how I may never get to see him again. I did not sleep well that night.

  When everything that you know and love is taken from you, the smallest, most mundane things, stuff that you normally pay no attention to, like a random alley cat passing by your window, can have a very large emotional impact.

  The next day I got a visit from Tomas, who not only brought me some cigarettes and a couple of books (one being an English/Czech dictionary I had requested; the other a slim, informative, and highly amusing book called Xenophobe’s Guide to the Czechs), but good news about my bail as well . . . sort of. There had been a hearing the day before concerning the prosecuting attorney’s objection to my bail, and the appeals court had rejected his attempt to have my bail reversed. I was free to leave the country and go home—as long as I was able to pay double the amount of my original bail. Eight million Czech crowns, about 400,000 U.S. dollars. My bail was approaching the half-a-million-dollar mark, but Tomas informed me that my band had agreed to pay it and would be sending the money soon—he assured me that I would definitely be released, it was just a matter of when.

  Another $200,000? Where in the hell would we get that kind of cheddar? My band couldn’t just call up a Czech bail bondsman and give them 10 percent down, like they could have in America (I didn’t even know if they had bail bondsmen there, period). Lamb of god had already borrowed a large chunk of cash from our record label, and I had serious doubts that they would fork over double that amount for a band that hadn’t brought them a single gold record after eight years. But Tomas reassured me they had agreed to pay it, and the check would be in the mail very soon. (I would later find out that some rather well off friends had gotten together and agreed to loan my band the money. While it would be incredibly tacky to print their names here, I cannot thank these people enough. So if y’all ever read this—you know who you are—thanks. I owe you big time.) He also told me that upon receipt of the money by the Czech government, the prosecuting attorney had a three-day period in which to file yet another objection to the conditions of my new bail, which would then have to be reviewed by another appeals court. Tomas didn’t seem to think that the prosecutor would have any reason to file another complaint, but I did—he wanted me to remain in prison.

  Emotionally, the lowest hour I spent during my entire time in Pankrác was when I was informed that my bail had been challenged the first time. I had been told that I would be walking out of the prison gates soon. I was happily convinced that I would be free at some point in the very near future, I had believed that I would b
e on a plane back to America, I had begun dreaming of seeing my wife, family, and friends, I had started to think about eating something other than soup. In short, I had begun to count my chickens before they had hatched, and when all the eggs were smashed to bits by the strange legal procedures of the country I was locked up in, I had learned a very harsh lesson. After laying on my cell bed and feeling extremely sorry for myself for about an hour, I gave myself a swift kick in the ass for being a fool and made a vow to never count on anything before it happened ever again, especially not in prison. Until I left Pankrác a free man, I would consider the prison my home. I would not give up hope of being released, but I would do my best to not think about what I would do once I was on the outside. For my own emotional health, I would try to cultivate the attitude and habits of a monk cloistered in a very strict monastery, expanding my mental and spiritual life while doing what I could to maintain my physical well-being. I was no longer willing to climb on board Ye Olde Emotional Roller Coaster and suffer the brutal whiplash that occurred every time I raised my head to look towards the end of the ride and freedom, only to have my neck almost broken when it took yet another steep plummet downwards around the next corner. The prosecutor was delaying every chance he could, dragging out the process as long as possible and playing systematic legal games with my freedom. I had learned over many years of alcoholism and a bit of bad luck here and there how to endure pain, but I had not always done so in the smartest manner. Like the old saying goes, pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. I do not enjoy suffering, so I decided I would keep my head down, dig in hard, and focus only on the present as much as possible.