Marching Powder

by Rusty Young

  ‘Come on! We’ll smoke some ganja. I’ll pay.’

  ‘You’ll pay, hey? So, she’s rich too and giving you money!’ He put his arm around me and we walked up the stairs towards my room. ‘You must be San Pedro’s only toyboy.’

  Ricardo kept making jokes about what a bad friend I was, but I could tell that he was actually a little hurt that I had forgotten him when Yasheeda was around. I knew that he wouldn’t stay mad at me for long, though, and after the first joint he stopped teasing me. Just like old times, we were stoned and watching the ATB news, when Ricardo suddenly jumped out of his chair. ‘Look! There’s that politician. They caught him again!’ It was Gabriel Sanchez, the director of the workers’ pension fund who had stolen forty million dollars. The reporter said that there had been an anonymous tip-off that he was hiding out in Mar de Plata in Argentina. They brought him in by plane under armed guard. The picture showed him at El Alto Airport, handcuffed and surrounded by police, about to be transported somewhere. But you could hardly recognise him because he’d had plastic surgery.

  Hundreds of the workers who had been cheated out of their retirement money were protesting with their families. Some of the women were crying. The police had formed a ring around Sanchez, but they weren’t trying very hard to protect him. Sanchez didn’t try to shield himself, either. In the short time it took to bundle him into a vehicle, the protesters spat on him and threw things at him and one guy got past the guards and landed a big punch. The angry mob continued to kick and bang the car until it sped off. The reporter then started interviewing some of the people in the crowd.

  ‘Can you believe that guy?’ yelled Ricardo, pointing at the television and banging his fist on the table. ‘When he goes to prison, he’s not going to last the first night. They’ll kill him. Just like they did those rapists.’

  ‘He’s not going to prison, man. He’s got money. It’s all a show trial. Money buys you a lot of friends.’

  ‘But he has to go to prison,’ argued Ricardo. ‘He’s already escaped once, so now the whole country is watching. There will be riots if he doesn’t go to prison, at least for a little while until things calm down.’

  I disagreed. ‘No way, man. Where’s the forty million dollars he stole? They haven’t found any of it. I say that while he’s still got the money, he can pay his way out.’

  ‘I still say he’s going to prison.’

  ‘How much will we bet, then?’ I asked, holding out my hand.

  ‘Forty million.’

  ‘OK.’ We shook hands.

  ‘Wait!’ I said, not letting his hand go. ‘Dollars or bolivianos?’

  ‘Hey, inglés. You know this is a Bolivian jail,’ Ricardo laughed. ‘Everything is in dollars, remember?’

  23

  THOMAS THE TOUR GUIDE

  I was in a good mood the next morning when two taxistas called to me from the courtyard below, saying that someone was waiting in the interview room to see me. My heart leapt, hoping it was Yasheeda.

  ‘Who is it?’ I opened my door and yelled down.

  ‘I don’t know. About five or six foreigners.’

  At first I felt disappointed, and then confused. I didn’t know that many people in the whole of La Paz. There must have been some kind of mistake, but I went to the gate just to be sure. And there, behind the bars in the interview room was Yasheeda with her friend Sharon and two other Israeli girls. It had been months since she had left, but she acted as if it was just the day before.

  ‘I thought you might be lonely, so I brought you some visitors,’ she said. ‘There are two guys waiting outside. Can we come in?’

  I hesitated. It would be difficult to get six visitors in at one time. Especially since they didn’t have Bolivian IDs.

  ‘Well! Aren’t you going to get us in, Tommy?’ asked Yasheeda. ‘All my friends want to meet you.’

  ‘Wait! Let me check first.’

  I left the interview room and hurried around to the main entrance. I didn’t know what lie I could tell the police to get all of the Israelis in, but since they had made the effort to visit me, I at least owed it to them to try. At a minimum, I needed to get Yasheeda in. I didn’t know why she hadn’t contacted me, but I had already forgiven her. Luckily, the lieutenant on duty that day was my friend. He was standing by the metal gates with his set of keys, controlling the flow of people.

  ‘Mi teniente, a small consultation please.’ I said, holding up my thumb and index finger with a small gap between them, which was the Bolivian way of asking for a quick chat. He leaned towards the bars and said, ‘Dígame’ — ‘Tell me.’

  I told him that some people had come from the other side of the world especially to visit me. ‘Can you help me? I don’t have any family here,’ I pleaded.

  ‘Do they have their carnets? If they don’t have a carnet, they aren’t allowed in the prison,’ he stated. I already knew that was the rule, but I kept arguing.

  ‘But my lieutenant, that doesn’t seem fair. I am a foreigner, so all my family are foreigners! That means my family can’t visit me.’

  ‘So, these people are your family?’

  ‘No, but all my friends are foreigners, too. Please, maybe I can help you also,’ I hinted. His expression began to change. ‘Where are they from, your friends? From your home town?’

  All the guards knew me as ‘íngles’ and I thought about saying my visitors were from England too, but they definitely looked Israeli.

  ‘They are from Israel. I used to live in Israel where I met my Israeli girlfriend. You know my chica.’ I had seen the lieutenant admiring Yasheeda whenever she was leaving, so with my hands I made an outline in the air of a full-figured woman, exaggerating the size of her breasts and buttocks. The lieutenant and his men all started laughing.

  ‘Ahhh. ¡Su chica!’

  I had them now. ‘Can you help me?’ I winked at him. ‘I can introduce you to her pretty amigas!’ I traced another curvaceous woman in the air, this time pulling her towards me and grunting when I got to the hips. They laughed even louder.

  ‘¡Qué bueno! Gringas. Just a moment.’ He went off to discuss it with the major. Things were looking good.

  That was the first of many lies I told to the police in order to gain admission for foreign tourists to San Pedro prison. Yasheeda had always been friendly with the major, which probably helped with getting her friends in that time. However, later on, when travellers I had never seen before began turning up and asking to be let in to see me, it became more and more difficult to come up with new excuses. My family tree became more and more complicated as distant cousins, nieces and half-brothers with passports from Egypt, Iceland and Japan came to visit me. The guards must have joked among themselves about some of the stories I told them. In the end, I doubt that they believed a word I said. At the peak of my career as tour guide, two or three girls I had never laid eyes on would turn up each day claiming to be my wife. However, provided I made the police laugh and there was money in it for them, they seemed to play along with most of my lies.

  The lieutenant came back from the major’s office with good news. ‘He says it’s OK, but they have to pay. And keep them away from the main gate in case the gobernador sees them.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Of course, they will pay. No hay problema.’

  ‘Ten bolivianos each person,’ he whispered through the gate so that only I could hear. ‘Straight up to your room.’

  ‘Yes. Of course,’ I agreed willingly. I didn’t think Yasheeda’s friends would mind. Three bolivianos more than local visitors paid wasn’t much extra, even for travellers on a backpacking budget.

  I ran back to the interview room and told Yasheeda to call the boys in and come around to the main gate, where the lieutenant took their passports, making a big show of checking that the photos matched the person. Then he handed the key to his junior and nodded at the gate. The junior policeman opened the padlock, the tourists passed through, and then he locked it behind them and handed the key back to the lieutenant.
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  ‘Gracias, mi teniente,’ I said, but the lieutenant didn’t look up. He was too busy studying his tiny notepad, doing the figures. Normally, all the money from the main gate was divided between the police on duty, according to their rank, but I noticed that this time he hadn’t made an official record of the tourists entering. Today would be a good day for the lieutenant; the sixty bolivianos from the Israelis would be shared between him and the major only.

  When Yasheeda came through the gates, I wanted to hug her, but there wasn’t time. I hadn’t had any trouble from the other inmates for months, but I was still careful not to do anything that might cause a stir in the prison. Unfortunately, this was exactly what was happening. The inmates weren’t used to seeing foreigners and there were now six visitors standing in front of me inside the main gates who were clearly not Bolivian. People stopped what they were doing to stare. I was worried that something might happen to one of the Israelis. I had to get them away from the main gate and out of sight before they attracted any more attention.

  ‘OK, everyone. Follow me, please.’ I tried not to sound anxious as I led the group in single file across the main courtyard. Yasheeda’s friends looked around nervously, staying as close to one another as possible. ‘And make sure you hold on to your wallets!’ I called back to them as we started through the gates into Pinos, with all eyes still fixed on our little group. We made it up the stairs, into my room and I shut the door behind me, leaning against the wall and panting from the rapid climb, but relieved that nothing had happened.

  Even though I now felt safe, it still wasn’t the right time to say anything to Yasheeda. I wanted to ask her why she’d taken so long, and why she hadn’t called, but I couldn’t say anything in front of the others. I had to wait until we were alone. Instead I motioned for everyone to sit down. Later, I bought more chairs for my small wooden table, but at that time I wasn’t used to receiving visitors and there weren’t enough seats to go around. Yasheeda and Sharon sat on my bed and the others sat at the table. I remained standing. It was only then that I had time to take a proper look at my visitors.

  They were all tanned and healthy-looking after their hike along the Inca trail to the famous ruins of Machu Picchu and had clearly been shopping at the local markets because they were wearing traditional Bolivian clothing. I looked more closely at their faces. Not one of them was flushed from the climb to my room, but I could tell that they were quite shaken by the experience of entering a real prison and being stared at by hundreds of strange-looking South American prisoners. They all gazed back at me, waiting for me to speak.

  I knew I had to say something, but I didn’t know what. I couldn’t understand why anyone on an overseas holiday would want to go to a jail to visit a drug trafficker they didn’t know. It seemed such a strange thing to do. I guess it was just as strange for them; I was probably the first real criminal in a real prison they had ever met and, for all they knew, I might have been dangerous and violent.

  ‘So … Welcome to San Pedro prison …’ I stuttered. ‘I’m Thomas the tour guide.’ They all laughed.

  I didn’t mean for it to sound funny, and I don’t really think they thought it was, but it broke the tension. Afterwards, that line became the standard opening for all my tours. Thomas the tour guide. It was a good way to overcome people’s fears on entering the prison. As time went by, I became better and better at understanding how other people felt in awkward situations, and eventually I could make tourists feel safe almost as soon as I met them at the entrance.

  Thomas the tour guide. Actually, I kind of liked the sound of it. Each time I repeated it over the next few years, I thought back to that very first tour, sitting in my room with my first group of tourists.

  ‘Well, here we are. This is my prison cell. Welcome!’ I plugged the kettle in and asked who wanted tea or coffee. They seemed to be relaxing, but it was still difficult to know what they wanted to hear. Luckily, before another uncomfortable silence fell, Yasheeda suggested that I tell her friends about the night I came to San Pedro.

  I started telling them about my time in the FELCN and about how the police had virtually starved me there. Then I told them about arriving at San Pedro by taxi and being asked to pay the entrance fee. And about how I had slept in the abandoned building, almost freezing to death there, because I didn’t have enough money to buy a cell. No one said anything but they all looked shocked.

  I continued talking, gradually feeling more confident as the story progressed. I explained how the prisoners had to pay to belong to a section and then pay a transfer fee in order to get the legal title to a cell. I explained how everyone had to have a job in order to survive. I told them about the restaurants, and about the guards and the corruption. I also explained about how many of the inmates were addicted to smoking base. I could sense the Israelis were starting to believe me. Under the table, Yasheeda gave my hand a squeeze of encouragement. I saw from her friends’ faces that they were now totally involved in my experiences. Yasheeda winked at me. As her friends became more comfortable, they began firing questions at me: Where are you from? How long have you been here? What’s it like living here? What did you do? Are you innocent? Is it dangerous? Is this your first time in prison? Did you get caught with drugs? What’s the food like? Is there a school inside the prison for the children? Where is your family? When do you get out? Isn’t it against human rights to make you pay for a cell?

  I did my best to answer all their questions, although I avoided the ones about what I had done. I didn’t want people I had never met before knowing details about what I was charged with, especially since I was in the middle of my trial.

  ‘Well, can we see the rest of the prison now?’ one of the guys asked.

  ‘Yeah, let’s go and have a look around,’ suggested his friend. ‘I want to see those restaurants. I’ve never eaten prison food.’

  The Israelis were no longer frightened. Even though I didn’t like the idea, they insisted that I show them around the other sections. I didn’t want to ignore the lieutenant’s order about staying in my room, but neither did I want to disappoint my guests. As a compromise, we went downstairs and ate a meal of fried chicken and rice in Pinos. I hoped the inmates wouldn’t cause any trouble. In fact, they were quite friendly. A small group came over and began asking the Israelis questions about where they were from, what they thought of Bolivia and what they thought of San Pedro prison. The Israelis answered all their questions happily and even began to joke around with them. After we had finished eating, the bravest of the group asked, ‘And these inmates that smoke cocaine – can we see that now?’

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘That section is dangerous, man. We can go there another day. It’s not a good idea.’

  We ended up back in my room, sitting around my table again. After talking with the other prisoners, they were even more excited than before. They had many more questions to ask. They also wanted to know more about the prison, so I started telling them about the prison elections and the rules we had in each section. They sat there completely captivated until a taxista knocked on my door to tell me that the lieutenant wanted the tourists to leave. They didn’t want to go and I didn’t want them to go, but I had to stay on the lieutenant’s good side.

  We said our first goodbyes in my room and they offered me small amounts of money. I refused them, but they insisted and left some notes on the table saying. ‘Don’t worry, you need it more than we do.’

  ‘OK. Thanks very much.’

  I accompanied my new friends to the gate, where the girls kissed me goodbye – except Yasheeda, who was staying behind. When I went to shake hands with the guy who had asked most of the questions, he gave me a hug. I was surprised and very moved. We had only met each other a few hours before, but in that short time there had been a strong connection.

  ‘You know what? You should become a proper tour guide,’ he suggested. ‘You’re an amazing person. I know about ten people who would come right now, if I told them.’

 
The others joined in enthusiastically, ‘Yeah, that would be cool.’

  ‘We’re going to send our friends to visit you. They’ll love it.’

  ‘And you could charge them all an extra five bolivianos. No one would mind. This place is worth paying for. I’ve never seen anything like it.’

  Everybody needed a job in San Pedro. Quite by accident, I had stumbled upon mine. I was to be the prison’s tour guide. The guards would make their share of profit from the tourists and I could make enough money to get by. I wouldn’t have to clean shoes, run errands, sell drugs, wash clothes, lend money or stand over people. Everyone would be happy, especially me.

  Although the Israelis didn’t get to see much of the prison, that was my first official prison ‘tour’. I was grateful to that group of backpackers for helping me to find a way to spend my time in San Pedro and distract me from my trial. I felt inspired by the encouragement they had given me, but when I got back to my cell a strange thing happened: I started to cry. It was partly from happiness – I was so happy that people had come to visit me – but at the same time I felt very sad, because I wished that they didn’t have to leave. Or, better still, I wanted to go with them. But I couldn’t.

  For a few hours, people I didn’t know had made me forget my problems and feel like a normal person. They treated me like a real friend, not just someone they had to get along with because we lived in the same prison block. I had forgotten what it was like to be around nice people who don’t want something from you and whom you can really trust. They had listened to what I said and had wanted to know everything about me. Now that they were gone, I was on my own again.

  I wasn’t completely alone, of course. Yasheeda was still with me and she was wonderful – she never got in bad moods, not even in the mornings, and she never said anything nasty about anyone. But it wasn’t the same as having whole groups of wonderful people to keep me company. I really missed just sitting at a table with friends and letting the conversation go everywhere and anywhere. I knew Yasheeda and I needed to talk about our relationship, but I decided to put off the conversation until another day. Right then, I didn’t trust myself to speak.