by Shelly Pratt
I just wanted to be left alone— ignored. In the beginning it made people wary of me, wondering what it was that kept me so distant from human contact. Now my actions seem to have worked to my detriment. Over the months and years I’ve been here, they get a little braver each day, pushing and testing my boundaries. They do this thing called a chin check, where another inmate will punch you in the jaw to see if you’ll fight back. I will, because that’s what you do to survive, but they’re not going to like the outcome the day they push me too far. Come to think of it, neither will I.
I’ll do what I have to do. I just don’t want the added sentence on my record. Let me tell you, solitary’s no picnic either.
This life is not for me. It’s like a slow and painful death. The bizarre thing is, although you resist entering places like this, once you do, you’re afraid to leave. You’re afraid of the stigma, the judgy eyes and the unwillingness of society to give you a second chance. You become conditioned into believing this is the only life on offer, despite having experienced another at some point in time.
Talk about watching paint dry. This is much worse. I’m stuck in a cell with a guy who reeks of sour body odor, whose shit smells probably just as bad as my own, but coming from his ass, it’s enough to knock me off my feet. Especially when you can’t just duck out of your cell any time you please. I’m made to suffer his poor personal hygiene because that’s my lot in life right now. To boot, the guy’s a monkey mouth as well, which is the name we give prisoners who go on and on about nothing. It drives me fucking insane. I’d rather be in solitary than put up with his drivel.
I’m the kind of guy who doesn’t like rules and conformity. You know the type; a little badass in school, broke curfew more than once and got a tattoo before I was legal. This works well in the real world where you want to be seen as the strong, dependable man who doesn’t take shit from anyone. Out of these bars I would be every woman’s wet dream and every guy’s best mate. In here, I’m nothing more than the inmates I house with. Sooner or later we all succumb to the rules and regulations of the house. We all become owned.
One thing I don’t wanna be is a prison wolf. You know, straight on the outside but swing the other way behind these bars. Days may be lonely but I’m not gonna ride with any of these guys just to gain protection or contraband.
The clang of cell doors opening shakes the prison floors. These doors are old school. Old mechanics, old steel. You know the minute they start moving it’s either meal time or the hour in which we hit the exercise yard.
Right now, breakfast is on the table. There’s no fancy meal awaiting us, that’s for sure. The prison guards wait in the hallway, seven am on the dot, ready to escort us to our first structured meal for the day. Half the time it’s porridge slop, made with water, not milk. And there’ll be none of that fancy golden syrup on it either. You get a piece of fruit, a carton of milk and something they like to call a beef patty, but it’s more likely to resemble a cow shit than not. There’s no coffee either. Apparently it’s got no health benefits. I’d like to argue with the warden that the coffee bean is full of antioxidants. All that’d do though is piss him off and make him look on me even less favorably than he already does.
So I do what I do. Keep quiet, keep my nose clean and ignore what’s going on around me. Not unaware, just ignore. You can’t afford to take your eyes off these guys, even for a second. It could cost you a shank to a vital organ or your asshole being torn apart by a man who thinks you’re in need of some lovin’. Not for me, thanks all the same.
Thankfully at meal times my cell mate goes and sits with a gang of inmates from D Block. Apparently he does like being a prison wolf. I watch him go as I grab my tray from another inmate behind the serving counter. Like every day since I’ve been in Silverwater, I take my food and sit on my own in a corner table of the eating facilities.
I feel everybody’s eyes on me, making each step more torturous than the last. Something is brewing, but I don’t know what. That’s the problem when you’re a loner, you don’t have your finger on the pulse. I’m going to have to make sure I keep my eye on the ball today or I could end up in the infirmary.
Like everyone else, I eat the food on my tray. It’s not always without complaint. I can see two men from the Middle Eastern Gangs on the move towards the service area, their cow patties in hand. It looks like they’ve got something to complain about. Without any provocation, they chuck the offending meat at the inmates who’ve served them the crap. Before the custodial guards can get to them, they’ve jump the counter and are laying into the guys with bare knuckles and sporks.
One of the guards hits the alarm and a deafening siren blares out around us. I calmly finish the food on my plate before getting on my stomach on the floor with my hands in the air. We know the drill. If you don’t want to be taken down with the rest of them, you obey immediately.
This isn’t about the food, though. It’s a nice distraction while guards try and break up four inmates going at it with each other, but it’s the quiet ones standing back you need to look out for.
From where I’m lying on the cold, hard, linoleum floor, I can see one of their gang members is advancing towards a new inmate. Fresh meat they call it. He’s a feeble forty-something pedophile with thick-rimmed specs and shaggy hair. I can see it happening, yet I’m not going to do a single thing about it. Most of these guys have kids, and can’t stand the kiddie fiddlers entering our walls. They’re soon sorted out by the hierarchy of the men. I’ve got too much to risk getting caught up in a fight with a man I’m just as happy to see dead as they are. So I lay there, quiet, waiting for the shit to hit the fan.
The siren drowns out the first of his screams as the shank sinks into his green jumpsuit. I can tell by the sudden leakage on the linoleum that they’ve hit his liver. Normal stabbings run red. This time, it looks like black tar running out of his body.
Guards stomp past me, their thick, heavy boots smacking the floor double time. By the time they reach the new guy, the gang member has already stabbed him several more times in the chest. He’ll be lucky if he doesn’t bleed out within two minutes.
Because of this inner squabbling, I know they’re going to cancel all visits to the jail today. I’m angry and frustrated because this is the one time I get to see my baby brother each week. He’s the reason I’m here, and it’s important for both of us to get this visit.
The rest of breakfast is cancelled. We’re all rushed back to our cells for lockdown and I’m left resentful and hating as I lie on the ghetto penthouse, which is what us crims favorably call the top bunk.
My cellmate, Clinton, is talking below me, but I tune him out as I get lost in old memories as I so often do. I try hard not to think about the good times, but it’s inevitable when all I’ve got to look forward to in here is more of the same old monotonous shit.
Jamie was supposed to visit today. He always does on a Tuesday, without fail. I know he feels guilty—fuck, don’t we all. It’s hard for him to move on from that night, while I’m sitting in here, day after day, rotting away. I’ve lost so much and I know it cuts him deeply. It wasn’t just my family, but my girl, my job… everything.
Ma never visits. She can’t stand to see her first-born holed up in a cell with other crims. The old man never visits either. I’m sure he feels the shame I’ve brought upon the family, now unable to walk out into his neighborhood with his head held high. Now people judge; they point and stare at the father whose son took another’s life.
It’s just me and Jamie, both needing to talk to exorcise our demons and try to move on with our lot in life. The problem is Jamie’s life can move forward. He can heal. He can keep moving from the inertia of life and find pleasure in the little things, whether it’s a new job or whatever.
My life is stuck. So long as I’m here, my life is suspended. As of three years ago, I no longer own my freedom. It now belongs to the parole board who work for Corrective Services. I’m pinning an early release on keeping my nose c
lean and out of trouble. A hard task when you’re surrounded by armed robbers and murderers who wouldn’t think twice about knifing you for your toilet paper.
Lunch is hours away, maybe even longer than that if the cleanup in the service hall takes longer. I close my eyes, tormenting myself with memories of what it used to be like to have a woman, a job and family. All I hope is that I make it through the rest of my time unhindered, so that one day, I might be able to have all of those things again.
#3
A cold sweat grips me, my dreams just as agonizing as my waking hours. It’s always the same: Daniel and me standing on the precipice, so close to falling. It’s cruel that he comes to me in dreams like this, teasing me, making me think he’s still real. Still alive. Even though it’s more of a nightmare, it’s the only time I can interact with him. Talk with him; plead with him to come back to me. So I welcome sleep with open arms.
I feel so alone without him, but each time I have these nightmares I get to see him just one more time. That’s before he’s ripped from my hands again. He always falls, a look of shock on his face. It’s unexpected, and I can see his suffering and distress. He knows it’s not something he can come back from.
When I wake in the frigid night air with my sheets kicked off, I wonder how many more nights these battles can go on. I know I’m trying to save a man already dead, yet my subconscious can’t seem to help itself.
I’m screaming, but no one hears me. No neighbors come running, no family to comfort a tortured soul. It’s just me and the pain that grips me every night. It seems endless sometimes, like the only way to stop this vicious cycle of despair and hope is to end my own life. I wouldn’t, but that’s how eternal my grief feels.
I sit up in bed and run my clammy hands over my face. Now that I’m awake and my fevered sweating has stopped, the night air is quickly turning my body slick with sweat into a shivering mess.
Without my blankets I’ll catch a cold quickly in this weather. A part of me is so apathetic that I really have no desire to reach for them, my own welfare just an inconvenience to my sorrow. But in my mind I hear my dad’s voice, telling me for the hundredth time to move on, to take care of myself. I bid his wishes some thought and grab the duvet, suddenly angry that his concern motivates me to relent.
I want to be angry; I want to be violent and indifferent, because it makes the everyday seem that much easier to cope with. My life before Daniel’s death used to be filled with love and kindness. Now I’m a callous, selfish, empty-shell of a woman who gleans nothing from interacting with others.
A part of me knows that needs to change; that I can’t be mad at the person who took his life forever. Another part of me is resilient to my own pleas. Hate is a powerful emotion and I seem to have embraced it with all the zealous enthusiasm of a dog with a bone.
Tossing and turning in bed, I know that sleep will elude me. Ditching the sheets that have started to warm my body, I replace them with the dressing gown I bought Daniel on our first anniversary. By now it’s ragged and tatty, probably smelling more of me, than him. But I love it. It comforts me to wear it. It makes me feel close to him. It makes me feel loved, even though the man and his warm embrace are absent.
Preferring to keep my dark refuge as it is, I leave the lights off as I make my way down the stairs to the kitchen. I flick the electricity button on the wall to turn the coffee machine on. It hums to life, eager little noises as the water starts to reach boiling temperature. I used to have coffee after making love with Daniel. We would sip the beverage in bed, basking in the afterglow and talking about our future together. Now I drink it in the middle of the night when I miss him the most. Not conducive to my sleep patterns, I know, but I’m just getting by doing what I can. It’s these times that I reserve for trips down memory lane.
With my mug of coffee already warming me to my core, I make my way to the couch, ready to see his face again. As much as I try, it fades a little more each day, unprotected from the cruelness of time. So while I sit wide awake in the middle of the night, I go through the photos that illustrate so many good memories.
The box I keep them in is old and worn; open and closed many times until the paper that covers it starts to fray and tear. I sticky-tape it back together, hoping that there’s at least one thing I can fix in my life.
There’s many pictures, some blurred and distorted, some vivid and sharp. Each one tells a story of a couple who met, fell in love, fell in love some more and became so beautifully connected they decided to get engaged. It’s mine and Daniel’s story, only the pictures taken from now on will no longer have him in them.
I look at the photograph that holds the most importance to me. It was taken the day before he died. We went to the zoo on a whim, sick of staying at home because it had rained for weeks on end. We took an umbrella to shield us from the rain. We practically had the place to ourselves, no one else daring enough to brave the weather.
Before we left, we had one of the zoo’s keepers take a picture of us with the elephant. We both look mischievously happy and soaking wet, despite the umbrella. They printed it out and displayed it in the exit foyer like they do at fun parks, making its visitors unable to resist the purchase as they leave the venue.
Daniel was a sucker, too. He bought it, and I’m so glad he did, because I remember exactly what we felt that day. I know every relationship has its ups and downs, but I’m thankful we ended on a good year. Him dying didn’t take away any of the love I felt for him—then, now, or forever.
I carefully put the picture back in the box, not wanting to spoil it with the tears that are falling from my cheeks. I drink the rest of my coffee and sigh. My dad’s right. I do need to get back into the world. Not because I need people, but because I know I can’t go on like this forever. Every little bit of my sadness is leaking through my pores and I know I’m going to die of a broken heart if I don’t do something to block out my misery.
I know I can never forget Daniel, or even stop loving him. But I know that for a few hours each day I could do with a reprieve from the blues that surround me incessantly. I need a distraction; one where I don’t have to deal. Deal with real people, deal with emotions and deal with life.
The money won’t last forever, either. It’s not a driving factor right now, but it’s good to have a motivator that spurs thought towards my future. I’m going to need to start earning again sooner or later, and there’s no way I’m ever going back to the police beat that took Daniels life. That would kill me.
I know that I’m not ready to get over Daniel, but perhaps it’s time I softened the blow his absence creates. Without checking the time, I reach for the phone and dial the number that’s as familiar to me as my own.
‘Hello?’ His voice is gruff this early in the morning, still drugged with sleep.
‘Dad?’
‘Yes, love, are you alright?’
‘No, but I think I will be,’ I say, brushing the tears from my face with the back of my hand.
‘What’s up, Mercy? Do you need me to come around?’
‘No, I’m fine. I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to call the warden tomorrow and tell him I’ll take the job.’ Silence hangs in the air. I know he doesn’t want to say the wrong thing, but I can tell he’s eager to express how happy he is at my news.
‘That’s great, honey, really great.’
‘Yeah, well, I’m sorry if I woke you…’
‘It’s no problem. Hey, how about I stop by and take you out for breakfast in the morning, and then we can drive over to Silverwater together?’
‘I’d like that a lot, Dad.’
‘Alright then; you get some sleep before I come get you, okay, kiddo?’
‘Sure, Dad.’
I hang up the phone, a spark of trepidation filling me. If I hadn’t just committed to my dad, I’d probably bail on calling about the job. That’s the thing with loving someone to death – you don’t know when to stop mourning. It becomes natural to think that your days should
be spent crying over the one you loved, rather than functioning in the real world. Because I was the last to love him, I know no one else will ever love him romantically again. So it feels like a bit of a betrayal if I give up being consumed by him and his death.
I take my box of treasured photographs and place it on the mantle, keeping it safe for another night. Despite the caffeine, my eyelids suddenly feel heavy, like the weight of my tears have finally worn me down. I need to sleep, even if it’s fitfully, although I’m hopeful that one nightmare is more than enough for tonight.
Padding up the stairs with Daniel’s nightgown around me, I don’t feel so alone. I’m not peaceful – far from it, but I feel a sense of hope as I climb the last of the stairs. I’m hopeful that one day I’ll be able to look back at our life together with happiness instead of sadness.
For now, I’m just going through the motions. Some might even compare me to an alcoholic or a drug addict of some sort. One day at a time is all I can hope for. I may need to learn to live my life with a new code of behavior, I may not like it, but I can learn over time to accept it.
For the first time in months, I sleep with relative peace. I’m actually startled awake by the banging on my front door. It’s almost eight o’clock when I reluctantly roll out of bed.
‘Shit!’ I scramble out of the sheets and take the stairs two at a time. When I fling open the front door, my dad is standing out in the cold with a bemused look on his face. He blows warm air from his mouth into his hands, the puff of steam reminding me of a skiing holiday Daniel and I took last winter. A quick stab of pain goes right through my heart, reminding me that my days of anguish are far from over.
‘You sleep in, love?’
‘Must have,’ I say non-committedly.
