Dark Days: A Memoir

by D. Randall Blythe

  The situation had come about without warning and was so foreign to me that I found my normally loquacious self slightly tongue-tied. In retrospect, I can think of a very long laundry list of things very wrong with the prison that I could and should have told them about (including our laundry). If I had known they were coming in advance I could have just written out that list, then invited them to stay for lunch so they could literally get a taste of what life in Pankrác was really like (of course the kitchen probably would have rustled up some steaks from somewhere), but as it was I just sort of stood there nervously mumbling and staring at their clean clothes. Since the man had said he was familiar with my case, I did mention the fact that I was extremely frustrated over my bail situation, and that I thought the Czech legal system an archaic hold over from the Communist era badly in need of an overhaul. A man of Middle Eastern descent in the back of the group, apparently the group’s official tour guide, grinned ruefully and spoke to me in a Czech accent.

  “Well, we are still learning . . .” he said sheepishly, as if the Czech Republic had just declared independence a month ago.

  “Still learning? You guys haven’t been a Communist country since 1989. Almost a quarter of a century isn’t long enough to figure out if the four hundred thousand dollars of bail in your government’s bank account, the bail I’ve had to pay twice now, is good enough to let me go until trial? I’d say you guys need to learn a little faster,” I barked, surprised at the sudden vehemence in my voice. The guard beside me jumped, the tour guide looked uncomfortable, and I saw one of the women with the group jotting something down on a clipboard. My voice had come back, and I had just begun to tell the man about the concrete cage we were crammed into for our one hour a day walk when he turned to the Middle Eastern Czech and asked if they could see it, then I was put back in my cell and they were gone.

  About fifteen minutes later, a Czech woman I didn’t recognize appeared at my cell with Archie Bunker. Via Ganbold’s rough translation skills, she told me that she was Pankrác’s social worker (I never would have believed they had such a thing if she hadn’t been blatantly hustled down there immediately after the Brits had left), and wanted to know if I was having any problems in the prison. Telling Ganbold to make sure that he was being absolutely clear, I told her in an angry voice about our shower earlier that day, about the man and his colostomy bag. I repeatedly used the word disease, explained that the Roma needed to shower in a sanitary environment by himself, and said that under no circumstances would my cellmates and myself ever be showering with that man again; furthermore, I would be contacting my embassy immediately if someone tried to make us. Archie Bunker stood beside her nodding his head, saying several times that it wouldn’t happen again. The woman took some notes on a clipboard and then left.

  We never had to shower with the man again, but I will never forget the sad way he had looked at me, nor my anger and shame over my repulsed behavior.

  Cindy would tell me later that virtually all the useful information she had discovered about the rules and regulations concerning my incarceration in Pankrác came from websites run by the British government. The British government at the very least gave the appearance of caring a whole lot more about the welfare of its citizens imprisoned overseas than my own government, which was basically useless as a source of information. That didn’t surprise me one bit, as the American government couldn’t even be bothered to let me know I was wanted for manslaughter in a foreign country. Their silence was one of the reasons I was behind bars in the first place, and I have to fight hard not to become very angry when I think about it. I’ve never received any sort of explanation from my government that made any sense, and I don’t expect to. But to the Brits, I would like to extend a hearty thanks for making useful information available for relatives of its citizens, as my American wife availed herself of it (and for coming to check up on me as well). Cheers mates!

  That evening I went to bed feeling almost victorious, having watched Archie Bunker standing there shaking his head like a buffoon and having to eat crow over the whole shower incident. I felt slightly vindicated, as the last day of my fourth week in prison had been pretty rough on me, and the previous one had been no picnic either. But the next day at walk, I would find out that I wasn’t the one who had had the worst day on the cellblock, even with the awful shower.

  Not by a long shot.

  chapter fifteen

  Violence is a reality in prison; for some inmates it is merely the continuation of a life lived violently on the outside. For some prisoners with particularly vicious temperaments, they have to be isolated in special heavily guarded sections for the protection of others. Violence can erupt instantly in any section of a correctional facility though, and a wise inmate is alert at all times to its possibility. Every prison, no matter how well run, is a powder keg—Pankrác was an ancient one that had developed many holes in its seals. By this time, it was clear to me that it was a decaying relic completely unfit for human habitation, hence the foiled riot planned the year before. I was entering my fifth week in Pankrác, and I had not witnessed any beatings or stabbings yet, but I was watching my back and waiting. I knew that if I stayed there long enough, I would inevitably see some violence, or at least its after effects. All I could do was remain vigilant and hope that it wouldn’t involve me.

  As crappy and rundown as the place was, in Pankrác I contemplated my possible sentence and decided that if I wound up doing serious time, I would rather do it there than in an American prison. My reasoning for this stemmed from a lucky accident of birth—the color of my skin. The inmate population of Pankrác was for the most part homogenous—white Europeans—and I did not see evidence of the widespread racial tension that exists in American correctional facilities. There were a few different ethnic groups represented in the prison population, mostly Vietnamese and Romani peoples from what I saw, but I did not see or hear of any signs of racial based gang activities. I asked a few inmates about this, and they informed me that gangs formulated around an ethnic identity didn’t really exist in Pankrác, and that they had only seen such things on American television shows. Other than learning that a few of the Vietnamese who were always huddled together at walk (they seemed to stick to their own kind tighter than any other ethnic group I saw) were the ones to go to if I wanted some drugs, I just didn’t see much evidence of inmates congregating based solely on race alone. Surely there were gangs of some sort inside the prison, but I didn’t consider five or six quiet Southeast Asians hustling pain pills, coke, and a little weed a gang. This is not the case in American prisons, where white, black, and Hispanic gangs have a very significant presence. These gangs periodically engage in bloody warfare behind prison walls, and it is best to not become involved with them or their activities, but that is no guarantee you won’t get caught in a melee and beaten up or stabbed simply because of the color of your skin. Racial tension is very real in American prisons, and I had felt that tension even in the Richmond City Jail on my very first trip downtown.

  Taking a lazy stand against a blatantly unjust system, I had refused to do any of the sixty-five community service hours that the infamous Judge Robertson had given me for peeing in an alley. I had a warrant out for my arrest for failure to appear, and a cop had recognized me out and about on my bicycle one fine Friday afternoon, so into the paddy wagon and off to the pokey for the weekend I went. I was sitting beside a huge, muscular black man, both of us in cuffs, waiting to make the one phone call you’re allotted when arrested, and thinking that I didn’t want to spend the money that I would have to pay back to someone after they came and bailed me out. Court would be in session Monday morning, and this was such a trivial matter that (provided I didn’t get Judge Robertson again) the judge would probably just roll his eyes, tack on a few more hours, and tell me to get the hell out of his sight and go do my community service. I decided to spend the weekend in jail rather than spend perfectly good drinking money on this matter, but figured I’d better at least call m
y roomate Clay to let someone know I was in jail. The inmate ahead of me finished up with his call, and the phone was handed to me. I dialed up Clay, and luckily he answered.

  “Clay, look dude, I’m downtown in jail. They picked me up on Grace Street for failure to appear. Court isn’t until Monday, so I’ll see ya then,” I said.

  “What?!? Shit. Well, do you want me to come bail you out?” he asked.

  “Nah, I don’t think so. Fuck it—waste of money. I’ll just wait it out,” I said.

  At this point, the very large and very black man seated on the bench inches away from me (who, of course, could hear my entire conversation) leaned over with a big grin on his face and said almost directly into my ear

  “You better tell your boy to come get you out before some big nigger fucks you.”

  “What? What was that?” Clay asked.

  “Clay, never mind. I changed my mind. Come get me outta here, bro,” I said.

  While I’m pretty sure my ebony friend was merely trying to scare my twenty-something year old skinny white ass for kicks, he definitely succeeded. And having been to jail for the night on other occasions (thankfully without having any sort of sexual experience, interracial or otherwise), I have felt the tension more than once, seen the way the different colors seemed to stick together, and noticed the ways eyes follow across a tier when a group gets up and moves as one to a different location. An American prison is not a place where the politically correct get together to put aside their petty differences, hold hands, sing Kumbaya, and “celebrate diversity.” In Pankrác, since the majority of the inmates were white, and (luckily for me) so was I, the racial tension just wasn’t there for me. In fact, the most racist person I met in Pankrác was my cellmate Dorj, but he just seemed to hate everyone that wasn’t Mongolian, and did nothing about it but talk shit. So while I expected to eventually see some violence amongst the inmates, maybe a personal beef settled in the yard one day, I didn’t expect it to be of a racial nature, or to come from any sort of organized group like a gang. The place was a shit hole, but I was used to shit holes, and I would rather deal with settling a beef with someone over a personal matter in a dump than have to fight for my life in a clean prison over something as inane as race.

  But some inmates in Pankrác weren’t born into the prevalent ethnicity, and despite the fact that most everyone I knew seemed to get along regardless of race, sometimes racially motivated violence arrives from members of an organized group who aren’t inmates at all.

  As we lined up to go out for walk that day, I noticed Rene talking in hushed tones to his friend the Quiet Gypsy, the one who had so kindly shared his coffee with me during my first few days in Pankrác. I noticed that T.Q.G. was walking rather slowly on the way out to our cage, and had his hand pressed to one side of his face. Once we were outside and locked in, he sat down slowly, as if he was sore, slumping against the wall, still holding his face. Rene began asking him questions, to which the Quiet Gypsy simply shrugged and periodically spoke a few words of Czech. Rene appeared angry, and I noticed all the other men were silent and paying careful attention to the conversation going on. I heard Rene curse, then sit down beside T.Q.G., gently placing his hand on his shoulder and shaking his head in disgust.

  “Rene, what’s going on? What’s wrong? Did something happen to him?” I asked, pointing at T.Q.G., who sat silently rubbing his jaw.

  “Policie, policie,” Rene said bitterly, then spat to the side.

  “Police? What the fuck?” I said. Ollie walked over, and in a mixture of French, English, and Czech, explained what had happened.

  The Quiet Gypsy had just gotten out of the shower yesterday, and after being returned to his solitary cell (he didn’t have a cellmate at that time), he was beginning to get dressed when a guard opened his cell door. Two large policemen in uniform immediately walked in, the door was shut behind them, and without warning, one punched him in the face hard enough to knock him to the floor. He lay there stunned for a second, then the police began to taunt him, saying “Come on, get up, you’re a man, right?” The Quiet Gypsy began to get up when the other policeman punched him in the face, knocking him down again. The policemen continued berating him until he stood up, but this time they smiled, clapped him on the shoulders, and said, “Okay, okay; you are a man after all. We’re friends now, right?” Then they laughed and left.

  I asked the Quiet Gypsy to show me his face; there was a large bruise on the left side of his jaw where the policemen had struck him, and a couple of teeth were loose in his head. I asked him why this had happened, and he just shrugged his shoulders.

  “He is a Gypsy. The police do these things if they wish,” Ollie said matter-of-factly by way of explanation.

  This immediately enraged me to the point that I began shaking. The Quiet Gypsy was the most mild-mannered man I had met in Pankrác, a slender, reserved fellow of very few words who had never asked me for a thing but had always been willing to share what little he had. I stood there cursing at the rough concrete walls around me, impotently clenching my fists and trying not to tear up, consumed by a deep hatred. I was so angry for T.Q.G.—there was nothing he could do about the abuse, no one he could complain to about his mistreatment. Who was he supposed to tell, the police? A guard? The cops were the ones who had administered the beating, and a guard had let them in to do it, remaining quiet while it occurred. Complaining would probably only result in another (probably worse) beating. T.Q.G. was just another Gypsy in a Czech prison, and as Romani people are the victims of widespread discrimination in the Czech Republic (and across Europe), he could be mistreated without anyone giving a fuck. (We found out later that day the reason for the beating: Someone T.Q.G. knew on the outside, another Roma, had resisted arrest earlier that day. The two arresting officers, after kicking the shit out of the resisting Roma, decided to come to Pankrác and use T.Q.G. as a punching bag just to get that last bit of aggression out of their systems.) So while I was lucky to be a white man in a white prison in a white country, my quiet and generous friend was not.

  In the United States, there are approximately one million Romani people, aka Gypsies. Unlike Europe, the Romani population largely assimilated into American society quite some time ago, and the term “Gypsy” is not used as a racial slur the way it often is in Europe. Most modern day Americans aren’t really aware of the Romani population in their midst; in fact, the majority of Americans don’t know what a “Gypsy” really is. When they think of one it’s generally some woman with big earrings and a colorful scarf tied around her head who reads palms and tarot cards for a living, or a Walt Disney-esque group of exotic dark skinned nomads who travel in a covered wagon across the land as tinkers, sharpening knives and repairing kitchenware for money, playing lively music around a campfire in between polishing their crystal balls. As a child in the American South, I heard more than one parent tell their misbehaving child to straighten up or they would “sell them to the Gypsies,” but they might as well have been talking about the boogie man as no one I knew had ever seen hide nor hair of a Gypsy (this saying comes from the old superstition that Gypsies are predisposed to kidnapping gadje children for some odd reason).

  In America, the term Gypsy is also often broadly used to describe anyone who wanders, rather than a specific ethnicity. And although the term gypped (to have been cheated by someone out of something) originally comes from the term Gypsy (as they were stereotyped as con artists and thieves in America in the past), and as such is definitely offensive, the majority of modern day Americans don’t associate it with Romani people, or know its etymology. Most Americans generally don’t associate Gypsies with Romani people period, because they don’t know that Romani people even exist.

  This is not the case in Europe, where members of the Romani diaspora are far more widespread, are not as assimilated into the different countries they inhabit, and are subject to all sorts of hideous discrimination. The term Gypsy in various European languages is very often used with derision (even though some
Romani organizations include the word in their name). I myself would not have used the term, except that all the Roma I met in Pankrác referred to themselves as Gypsies and told me to do the same—I think this is probably because I spoke English, and Gypsy is an English word, the Czech being Cikán. Before I went to prison, I was aware that the Romani people suffered quite a bit, even in modern day Europe, sometimes even legally under populist laws (there is a long history of this throughout Europe dating back to before the Middle Ages, and the first anti-Romani laws went on the books in 1583 in what is now the Eastern Czech Republic). I had seen a few impoverished looking Roma on the streets of various European cities, but it wasn’t until I came to Pankrác that I actually met anyone of Romani descent, and began to learn first-hand of the discrimination they faced there. In 2007 the Czech Republic and neighboring Slovakia were reprimanded by E.U. officials for antiziganism (discrimination against Romani people) after it was discovered that they were forcibly segregating Roma children from normal schools. Romani children were (and in some places still are) removed from public schools, placed in substandard educational facilities, or even in classes for the mentally handicapped. Violent attacks on Romani people (both as communities and as individuals on the street) are common in Europe, and the language used to describe them by some government officials is alarmingly similar to that used by Hitler’s thugs prior to the mass Romani slaughter of the 1930s and ’40s—unclean. Dangerous to society. Parasites.

  I despise all forms of racism. I am lucky I have wonderful parents of above-average intelligence who taught me to think this way from birth. However, while I understand how racism works and the way its moronic cycle is perpetuated, I still have very little tolerance for it from anyone with any sort of link to the modern world (an ancient computer with a dial-up Internet connection will suffice), regardless of race, color, or creed. It is unacceptable to me not merely because I was raised to view it as immoral, but primarily because as a rational adult human being with a brain in my head, I can very clearly see its base stupidity. Stupidity offends me. Throughout recent history, during times of extreme unrest, people of all colors have experienced moments of clarity from whence they suddenly began the process of rejecting the dunderheaded racially biased beliefs pervasive amongst their peers. From Oskar Schindler witnessing the brutal liquidation of the Krakow Jewish ghetto at the hands of the Nazis during World War II, to Malcolm X’s trip to Mecca where he worshipped with fair-haired blue-eyed Muslims in Islam’s most sacred site during the Civil Rights struggle of the 1960s, individuals have had their preconceptions shaken and begun to use their brains. Growing up in the American South as a boy, I personally witnessed people of an advanced age make a conscious decision to question what they had been taught to believe their entire lives when they began to realize that their parents were wrong. It is not an overnight process to unlearn a lifetime of what basically amounts to primitive superstition, but in this day and age, where an unfathomable amount of information is instantly and freely available to anyone with a smart phone, there is no excuse to not at least make a start. I don’t want everyone on the planet to get together, hold hands, and sing We Are the World or some hideous feel-good shit like that, I just want people to act like they use their brain for something other than switching TV channels. We do not live in the 1800s anymore, and there is absolutely no excuse for this sort of ignorance.