Perry Scrimshaw's Rite of Passage

by Chris Hannon

  21

  Perry worked the Press the next two days and enjoyed the relative luxury of getting to bathe every evening. He figured his trial would be relatively soon and washing regularly gave him a better chance of appearing reasonably clean and appointed before the judge.

  No news of his trial date, nor response from Saldrup came until the following Sunday. It was after chapel. Perry was in his cell, legs resting up against the wall when he heard the mail cart doing the rounds. An envelope shushed along the floor of his cell.

  He scrambled to pick it up. It was brown, official-looking with the flap already loose. The guards had probably read it. The bastards would know anything before he knew it himself. He slid his finger inside the envelope. The bell sounded. Time for afternoon Count and Patio Rest. Reluctantly, he pocketed the letter.

  The cell doors slid back with a metallic thud that echoed around the cavernous space. Like an unruly army stamping to attention, the prisoners stepped out of their cells, all in grey like pigeons lining a ledge.

  Martín gave Perry a nod in greeting. He managed a smile back and stuffed his hand in his pockets. The envelope paper crinkled. It wouldn’t be long before he could read it. He’d find a quiet spot by the herb garden and read it there.

  The top floor guards, armed with clipboards, began Count. Nausea rose in his tummy. When would his trial be? He might not have long to prepare, he just hoped it was long enough to get Saldrup to look a bit deeper into his case.

  Count took forever.

  ‘Hurry up,’ he said through gritted teeth.

  The guards were having a conference on the lower floor comparing their sheets and numbers. Bleach, sharp to the nostrils just added to his nausea. Although talking was forbidden, the guards appeared busy enough, distractedly running through their registers. Their voices carried up, speaking in thick lunfardo, local slang. He glanced over at Martín.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  Martín kept staring straight ahead, his lips barely moved. ‘Bad maths, who knows?’

  Perry thought about stepping back into his cell, sitting on the bed and reading the letter, but two guards were making their way up the steps to his floor again. Just a little longer, he told himself, hardly worth losing any privileges over.

  The two guards began a second count, taking their time now, ticking off every single prisoner in turn.

  ‘Hands out your pockets Inglés!’ the guard sneered as he passed.

  It was another twenty minutes before the guards reconvened on the ground floor. Again, they were scratching their heads and pointing at the list. Perry found himself shuffling with impatience on the spot.

  ‘Christ’s sake, how hard can it be?’

  ‘Shh!’ Martín shot him a warning look, but others were murmuring too, looking for some sort of explanation. The guards were too absorbed to stamp out the talking.

  ‘Vamos!’ someone yelled from Perry’s floor. The guards all looked up to try and spot the culprit, but it would have been impossible.

  ‘Quién falta?’ yelled another. Who’s missing? It was the most sensible thing Perry had heard in the last half-hour.

  ‘Quién falta?’ he copied, cupping his hands around his mouth. His outburst drew a disdainful look from Martín, but soon another voice yelled ‘Quién falta?’ Who was missing?

  Martín pulled a face. ‘Maybe someone escape.’

  Perry felt the buzz in the prison; everyone was thinking the same thing. The guards blew whistles, cutting through the yelling, slicing it to silence once more. Head guard Torro stalked around below, his big shoulders heaving up and down.

  ‘Silencio!’ he yelled, even though everybody was already quiet. He stabbed his finger on the clipboard. ‘Faltamos Santiago Guerrera,’ he barked. We’re missing Santiago Guerrera.

  A collective moan went up around the prison, idiotas, boludos, payasos. Perry gathered the insults being slung at the guards for future reference.

  ‘Está en La Cueva,’ someone shouted. And Perry got it. The missing inmate from Count was in La Cueva.

  The guards all looked at each other as if to say, ‘Oh shit, how did we forget?’ and one actually laughed. He and Martín shook their heads in disgust. Unbelievable. Perry sensed the mood plummet. No escape. He tapped his pocket, the envelope, like a weight, tugging on the hope of his being. There were other ways out of here.

  Perry formed a line with the other prisoners and filed down the steps, past the Dining Hall and out onto the Patio. Daylight hit him like a warm hug as he made a beeline for the herb garden. He found a sunny spot against the perimeter wall, rested his back against it and slumped down on the ground. It was as private a spot as could be had in here. He pulled the envelope out and upturned it, letting the letter spill onto his lap. His hands were shaking with anticipation as he unfolded it. He shielded his eyes from the setting sun.

  N.F Saldrup

  Buenos Aires

  11th March 1891

  Dear Mr Scrimshaw

  I read your letter with interest. My delay in responding was due to your dispatch being delivered c/o Sr. Villanueva’s offices at Julio Station.

  To business. Whilst I have my doubts about your guilt, Señor Villanueva does not - he has no wish to investigate further and my services are no longer in demand. I confess to a soft spot for you boy, so I shall give you this advice. Sr. V has many friends, some of whom are judges. Innocent or not - you will be found guilty. Do not for one minute think otherwise. That is the way of things here. I tell you this not to be cruel but to prepare you for the likelihood of years spent inside - little can crush a man’s soul as fully as false hope.

  I regret that there is little I can do. Life, Mr Scrimshaw, is long. I beg you not to despair.

  Yours truly,

  Niels F. Saldrup

  He felt punched numb. His eyes anchored onto the underlined writing: you will be found guilty. The absolute bastards! He would not, could not even contemplate spending years in here. Do not despair. What did that idiot know? This wasn’t the robbing of a year or two of his existence; this could cost him Eva, the chance to see his father again. This was all that mattered. The sun dropped behind the guard tower, stealing away the warm orange glow and with it went his last hope.

  The next few days passed in a daze. Unthinking, Perry followed his fellow inmates from cell to Dining Hall, to Press, to Patio Rest and back to the cell again for another sleepless night. He conveyed ink from store to inkwell, food from plate to mouth in a dull spell. Every day, he found himself in the same spot by the herb garden where he’d read the letter, as if this patch of wall were a monument to his personal despair.

  It was here later that week that Martín came to see him.

  ‘Amigo.’

  He looked up to see his cell neighbour.

  ‘You realise is raining?’

  Perry shrugged.

  ‘Refreshing no? I sit with you?’ Martín slid down next to him with a groan, apparently not needing an answer.

  ‘So mister, what happened with you?’

  Perry stared at the ground between his feet. The earth was darker in the spots touched by the rain. A trio of ants scrambled towards the shelter provided under his bent knees.

  ‘You know. I see you, reading a paper some days ago.’

  Perry met Martín’s gaze. If he’d seen him here, why hadn’t he said anything before?

  ‘Mira Perry. I see you. The paper, he was bad news, ok. Is hard to accustom yourself here Perry, I know this. But is no so bad in here, most spend their lives here. Is named La Tumba, the grave, for a reason you know.’

  ‘And that’s a good thing?’ Perry was surprised by the anger in his own voice. ‘I’m sorry but-’ Perry couldn’t stop his eyes from swimming with tears. ‘I can’t waste any more-’

  ‘Sh sh sh sh, tranquilo, is ok.’ Martín’s arm gathered him in.

  It felt strange, feeling the embrace of another human after so long without it. As if the comfort, the genuine care it harboured only exaggerated it
s hitherto absence. The rain pattered down around them in thick drops. Perry opened his mouth to try to explain about Eva, about how he had to get home, that he was innocent, but all that came out was a croak.

  ‘I know, I know,’ Martín said, ‘he gets better here, te lo prometo. God is in here with us.’

  Perry stayed like that for a while, letting Martín pat him on his arm. He took a deep breath and righted himself.

  ‘I’m sorry about that.’

  ‘No sorry. We all do bad thing. We all have to pay in here,’ he pointed to the floor, ‘and here,’ he pointed to his heart.

  There was a glint of sadness in Martín’s eyes and Perry saw some kindred pain, some understanding in there perhaps.

  ‘I’ve never asked you, why are you in here?’

  Martín sighed. ‘I did a terrible thing.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I kill four persons.’

  ‘Four!’ Perry wiped his nose with his sleeve.

  ‘Sí,’ Martín looked at the floor. ‘An accident, I don’t like to talk about it. Maybe I tell you someday.’

  ‘Blimey.’

  There was a pause. Martín’s straggly hair was deadened by rainfall, his round face weathered. Perry was starting to like el sapo and couldn’t imagine him killing anybody - accidentally or otherwise.

  Martín stuck his tongue out and caught a few drops of rain. ‘I will die here, and I probably deserve it.’

  Perry didn’t know what to say to that. His own fate now seemed dwarfed by Martín’s acceptance of his own destiny. He had to remind himself that there was one key difference between them. Perry was innocent.

  ‘Perry. You need to realise you deserve to be here too. It help you to get used to it.’

  ‘I don’t want to get used to it.’

  ‘Trust me you do, or you go crazy. And I tell you what help you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Confession. On Sunday.’

  Perry rolled his eyes. ‘Come on, really?’

  ‘Inglés, how you think I find peace here?’

  ‘Martín. Look at where I am. God hasn’t worked out so well for me has He? If anything, that bugger should be confessing to me!’

  ‘You no say that!’ Martín looked up to the heavens and made the sign of the cross over his chest. ‘Is in here we most need Him. And you are right Perry; look at you, look at where you are. It is now you need His help no? What you have to lose?’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ he said, knowing already that he wouldn’t.

  22

  ‘Every Sunday I encourage you to open your hearts to the Lord’s forgiveness.’ Dressed in coal-black robes, the chaplain steepled his hands together. ‘In three weeks, we have the particularly special time of Easter,’ a smile crept over his face, ‘and for a second consecutive year, we have a special treat for you. On Easter Sunday, Federico León Aneiros, Archbishop of Buenos Aires will be accompanying me in taking confession after Easter service!’

  All along Perry’s row, nobody but Martín seemed to care. El sapo nodded vigorously to the chaplain’s every word. Perry didn’t know the archbishop, what did he care? His curiosity was more piqued by the logistics. How would it work? He had images of some papal figure and the chaplain squeezed together in the same box, the chaplain perhaps sitting on the archbishop’s lap. Then Perry remembered there were two boxes, one on either wing of the chapel and the farcical image of the two clergymen dissolved.

  ‘It is a great honour,’ the chaplain insisted, ‘that on so holy a day the august archbishop has chosen to see us a second time. He’ll be here with his normal entourage of religious helpers to tour the cells and speak with you all should you wish it. He said unto me: “Those with the largest sin must seek the largest repentance from the Lord.” And he is here to prove just that.’

  The service finished with a prayer. Perry hung around with a handful of other prisoners and lined up outside the confession box. Martín had been good to him, the least he could do was go in once, then he could say he tried and it just wasn’t for him.

  When it was his turn, he found it was a much smaller space than it looked from the outside, with a headache inducing smell of wood and polish. The grille separating his side from the other was thick and he could barely make out the silhouette of the chaplain.

  ‘Hello? Father are you there?’ Perry rapped on the grille with his knuckle.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ the chaplain’s voice was muffled. ‘Why are you knocking like that?’

  ‘Er…I’m sorry. First time.’

  ‘Then you have taken the first step on the path to righteousness.’

  Perry sighed; it was this kind of talk that he didn’t want.

  ‘How do I do this then?’

  ‘Well,’ the chaplain’s voice was gentle, reassuring, ‘you may choose to kneel or sit.’

  ‘I’m sitting.’

  ‘Very well. You are here to speak to God through me, to tell Him what it is you seek forgiveness for and why. I will listen and consider a path of forgiveness for you and give you your penitence.’

  Wasn’t he already doing penitence by being in a penitentiary?

  ‘Should I say anything to start or-’

  ‘Forgive me Father for I have sinned, is a good way to start,’ the chaplain urged. ‘Now, my son, share your worries with our Lord, unload them from your conscience.’

  Perry took a deep breath.

  ‘Forgive me Father for I have sinned. I’m not long inside. And I suppose I’ve been struggling to understand how it is that I could be here.’

  ‘Good,’ the chaplain encouraged.

  Perry leant forward, resting his elbows on his knees in thought, ‘I’m innocent, I mean really innocent but you probably get told that all the time Father.’

  ‘At confession people tend to admit more than they deny. There is no point lying to God. He knows.’

  Perry stirred. ‘He knows?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘If that’s true Father, then I’m here not because of theft - but because I must deserve to be in here.’

  ‘Why do you think that?’

  He rubbed his temples, sifting through his own logic. ‘I’ve done some terrible things. Not here mind, but back home. I stole from folk, blackmailed and scammed people to make ends meet.’

  ‘And that is why you think you’re here?’

  ‘It must be,’ Perry replied, surprising himself, ‘God or whatever is out there must be punishing me for those other things. The charge of theft is neither here nor there.’

  He heard the chaplain’s steady breath on the other side. Perry wasn’t sure where this was all coming from, but hearing his niggling suspicions out in the open suddenly made them more real, more likely.

  ‘And then I am thinking, if that is the case, why now? I mean I feel like I’ve been punished plenty. I got sent here against my will and I’m away from the girl I love. I can’t see my friend Joel, or visit my Pa… that to me felt like a lot to take. So when I got here, I tried to work hard, do things the right way. It feels like I get punished for living the wrong way and then punished some more for trying to do it the right way!’ he heard the exasperation in his own voice.

  ‘Think not of these as punishments from God, but as tests.’

  Perry rubbed his eyes, raw from lack of sleep. ‘Tests do me no good.’

  ‘But seeking forgiveness does. Are you prepared to swear before the Lord our saviour, that you will live an honest life hereon in and do good unto others?’

  He wasn’t sure what honest meant anymore, but he agreed anyway; ‘I do, Father.’

  ‘Then go. Your conscience is heavy, let the Lord’s forgiveness lighten your soul.’

  ‘Thank you Father.’

  As he got up to leave, he did feel lighter, freer somehow. Perhaps Martín was right about all this.

  Resting in his cell, the numbness of the previous days gave way to something else. He reread Niels Saldrup’s letter. False hope can crush a man. Carrying the
burden of his future when he had no say in it was pointless.

  ‘Knock knock.’

  Perry lifted his head up. Martín’s arms were behind his back.

  ‘No guards about?’

  ‘They just passed, we have five minutes maybe more.’

  ‘Don’t just stand there then, come in.’

  Martín stepped inside, took his hands from behind his back and held out a plant in a pot.

  ‘How on earth did you get that?’ Perry sat up on his bed.

  ‘Old timer like me, run the Press, keep my head down and give the guards no trouble. They ignore these small privilegios.’

  ‘Lucky you.’

  ‘Tell me. You go to confession?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘Did it help?’

  Perry chewed his lip for a second, he didn’t want Martín to start thinking he was right about everything or he would be assaulted with advice.

  ‘I’m not sure about it all really. It must have helped a little to talk about it I suppose.’

  Martín nodded and took a seat next to him on the bed, keeping the plant pot on his lap. It looked odd, not a species Perry recognised, with pear shaped leaves that were vibrantly green, thick and rubbery, sparsely dotted up the stem.

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘Is a friendship tree. Also called jade plant. When I come here to La Tumba I was like you. No accept anything. But I had a plant, different to this one. It was something to look after and grow. It helped the time pass and gave me another thing to care about.’

  He handed it to Perry, ‘For me?’

  ‘Yes, of course. You almost never have to water it, but you must give it some light,’ he pointed up to the letterbox of window above Perry’s bed, ‘the ledge perhaps.’