Banged Up

by Jack Dickson

  Jas moved to another demarcation more permanent than the one in the induction area.

  “Open your mouth.”

  He complied.

  Quivering fingers efficiently explored under tongue, around teeth and up into soft palate.

  Jas stared at the ceiling, gagging on talc and rubber.

  The fingers removed. “Turn round and spread your buttocks.”

  Jas thought about the Bic razor at present snuggling in a so far unsearched heap of clothing. He stared at the white line, fingers wrenching arse-cheeks apart.

  A pause. “How did you get these bruises?” Fingers on the kidney area.

  Jas frowned: it wasn’t worth it.

  Sigh. “Fighting will not be tolerated in here ...” Then another well-greased digit exploring another orifice. “... and no drugs. Hadrian are very strict about that.” The digit curled upwards.

  Bowels clenched. Mongrel sensations flushed his skin. Jas inhaled sharply. “Ah don’t dae drugs!” Finger tips rigid on arse-cheeks.

  Sounds of a door opening. Footsteps. Two sets.

  The first thing prison took away from you: dignity. Jas scowled.

  “Kindly knock in future.” Irritated digit removed, gloves pulled off, binned.

  Jas straightened up. Blood rushed from his face. He stared into other, younger features.

  A blushing Ms Pepperpot looked away from his naked body. Brodie met, held the Armani bag and his stare:

  “Finished, doctor?”

  Question ignored. “Get dressed er ... Anderson.”

  Jas eyed his heap of clothes.

  Ms Pepperpot wandered over to inspect the leaves of the wilting begonia.

  Jas scooped up underpants, palming the Bic and hauling jersey over goosefleshed thighs. He slipped the slim section of plastic back beside a now shrivelled prick and continued to dress.

  The medical examination had been cursory – his clothes had never left his sight. Jas struggled into Adidas tee-shirt then combat trousers.

  Pioneer Security Solutions? If he could get a razor past Hadrian, fuck knows what other, more experienced inductees had managed.

  Shreds of low conversation drifted over from the Brodie/Doctor huddle:

  “There should really be a locum at least on call at all ...” Concerned.

  “It’s in hand ...” Placatory.

  “You’ve been saying that for ...” Unconvinced.

  “It’s in hand, doctor.” Less placatory.

  Sigh. “Like the overcrowding in Remand’s in hand?”

  Jas paused. Billy McKinley’s words reeled back at him: Two thousand in a prison built fur nine hundred.

  Brodie’s response was less certain: “We re doing what we can, doctor.”

  The responding silence spoke volumes.

  Jas turned, picked up Peter’s Armani bag. Predictably, the Bics had vanished, as had the lighter. The cellophane-wrapped underwear and cigarettes were still there. He raised his eyes to where Ms Pepperpot was now relieving the begonia of several withered leaves.

  Bespectacled eyes regarded him. Words to Hadrian-grey. “As a former police officer, this prisoner should be segregated for the duration of his remand.”

  “Don’t tell me how to do my job, doctor.”

  Jas stared at the too-young face. Hadrian had an obligation over and above keeping him here: keeping him alive.

  Brodie returned the stare. “Don’t worry, Anderson – we’ve always got room for the likes of you. Come on ...” A hand gripped his arm. Wry smile. “There’s a cell in Triple-S with your name on it.” Joined by Ms Pepperpot, Brodie steered him towards the door.

  Triple-S: Strict Suicide Supervision. Better than nothing.

  The door opened. Jas walked through. He stared at the back of Brodie’s blond head.

  Next stop for inductees: the Governor’s office.

  He continued to walk, inhaling the silent smell of two thousand, unseen men ...

  ... and the sour stench of his own apprehension.

  Nine

  MS PEPPERPOT HAD DEPARTED a while back.

  Jas looked at his wrist, then remembered the second thing they took away from you. His watch was in a manila envelope with his name on it, somewhere in the prison safe.

  Officer Brodie walked two steps in front.

  A bell rang.

  He registered the sound. BST. Barlinnie Standard Time.

  He was here on remand, not for punishment.

  He was here because twelve years on the force counted for nothing.

  He was here because drug dealers were the scum of the earth ...

  ... and the courts wanted it seen they believed that.

  He followed Brodie along another yellow corridor, past an empty recreation area. Jas glanced at his wrist again, sighed and tried to estimate the time.

  Should be late afternoon-ish.

  Should be recreation or work duties.

  As the slight Hadrian officer waved at another heavy gate leading to another empty corridor, they had the prison to themselves.

  No sounds.

  No other prisoners.

  No other officers.

  Just him and Brodie ...

  ... the head of the Bic razor dug into the top of his thigh. Jas remembered their destination: as ex-polis, and therefore high risk, was Triple-S doubling as Isolation? He walked through another gate into a corridor which looked exactly like the first one.

  Rows of doors stared at him.

  Behind, the gate slid silently shut.

  Jas glanced up at the CCTV camera perched on a ledge fourteen feet above his head. Its red eye glanced back, then continued its automated sweep of the area.

  Officer Brodie quickened his pace and moved in front, heading for the stairs.

  Jas stared past the CCTV camera and up through the suicide net ...

  Four floors of B-Block. For some reason, Barlinnie always reminded him of a ship’s engine-room. A powerhouse.

  ... no one stared down. The sound of boots on metal steps told him Brodie was already climbing the stairs. He turned his eyes to the row of locked doors to his left.

  Triple-S cells were usually ground level. For obvious reasons.

  “Get a move on, Anderson!”

  Brodie’s attempt at authority drifted down from the first landing.

  Jas nudged the Armani bag more securely over his shoulder, and mounted the stairs.

  On the second landing, life-signs.

  Cursing life-signs.

  He paused behind Brodie.

  A figure in jeans and denim shirt appeared backwards out of a cell. The figure was holding the end of a single cot. A yard down, neatly stationed against the narrow walkway’s yellow-brick wall, a double set of bunks.

  So much for single cells. So much for Triple-S.

  The figure cursed again, moved back into the cell.

  Brodie. Impatient. “Come on – get a move on ...”

  The man obviously had a thing about speed. Jas leant against the yellow brick wall.

  More cursing. Different voice. The figure clad in denim re-emerged, with more of the cot this time. And another figure on the end. Carefully, they manoeuvred the bed out of the cell and along past where Jas stood.

  One then two sets of eyes on him, then the Armani shoulder bag.

  He met the gaze and held it.

  Brodie ruined the moment. “We’ve not got all day, lads!”

  Jas looked away, turning to the metal railing which surrounded the walkway. He stared down past yards of yellow brick wall ...

  ... scraping of metal on metal behind told him the double bunk was on its way into the cell. The noise echoed around the otherwise silent block.

  “Straighten up there, Anderson!”

  His hands tightened on the smooth metal bar. Jas gazed around at the appearance of order and control. Maybe Hadrian were doing a good job: he’d never seen a quieter prison.

  More scrapings. More curses.

  “I said, straighten up!” The voice was louder, p
artly for the benefit of the two figures in denim. Then words for his ears only. “I’ve got your number, Anderson. Don’t push it ...”

  Jas spun round. Any number Brodie had was way out of date, long since disconnected. He stared into a pink youthful face desperately trying to maintain its power position. He shrugged and straightened up, eyes beyond.

  The men in denim reappeared from the cell, looked expectantly at Brodie’s back.

  Jas stared over a grey-clad shoulder.

  Two sets of pupils, more curious than hostile.

  Front was all. Jas stared back.

  One of the denimed figures looked away. The other winked.

  As he was pushed past the two men into the cell. Jas registered the winker.

  Mid-forties. Grey, receding hair. Ruddy face. Small grey beard. Brodie was talking at him. Jas continued to hold the man’s stare over a uniformed shoulder.

  Another wink.

  Another still.

  A voice. “C’mon, Twitchy ...”

  The ruddy face reddened further, then turned.

  Footsteps. Away from the cell. Jas threw the Armani shoulder-bag on the lower of two bunks and returned his attention to Brodie. “Ah want tae make a phone call.”

  “No phone calls for the first two weeks.”

  Jas stared. “Whit?”

  Brodie produced a small booklet from the pocket of the grey blouson. “No phone calls in or out for the first two weeks. No incoming or outgoing mail for a similar period ...” He thrust the booklet at Jas. “... no visitors for the first month. Only family and your legal advisor may visit. If you have family, please ask them to put in a request for a visitor’s warrant to the Secretary of State for Scotland at least four weeks in advance, in order that Hadrian can process it ...”

  Jas looked at the booklet, then took it.

  “... please read the rules, Anderson. Make life easier for yourself and try to stick to them ...” Brodie turned towards the door.

  “Oi!” The booklet quivered between his fingers. Jas stared at the back of a neatly cut head: legal visits were a right, at any time. “Ma trial’s in six weeks – ah need tae talk tae ma solicitor now, no’ in a fortnight’s time! Accordin’ tae the rules ah ...”

  “... new rules, Anderson.” Turning. Face impassive. “... this is a strike situation. The old rules don’t apply.” Brodie seized what he thought was the initiative. “Don’t make trouble, Anderson. Keep your nose clean and you’ll do okay ...”

  Jas frowned. “Ah should be segregated.” He nodded to the double-bunk, leant against it.

  “Just read the rules and ...”

  “Ah want a single cell an’ ah want tae see the governor.”

  “I’ll make an appointment for you ...” Said without conviction.

  “An interview wi’ the governor’s standard induction procedure – even you ken that ...” Jas levered himself off the bunks. “... ah want tae see him now!”

  Brodie took a step closer. “What you want doesn’t count for much, Anderson. Hadrian ...”

  “Who’s in charge, here?” Something was making sense.

  “Centre Control, in Livingston, are responsible for ...”

  “No one, right?” Jas scowled.

  “Hadrian’s structure dictates ...”

  “Aw’ forget it!” Jas sat down. No governor on the premises – it made a kind of sense: had the Scottish Office employee refused to work with Hadrian, or was it cheaper to control from an anonymous building on an industrial estate in Livingston?

  “Sir.”

  Jas looked up.

  “Sir!” Brodie was struggling.

  Jas tried not to savour the man’s discomfort. He feigned ignorance.

  Brodie cleared his throat. “Please address me as sir or Officer Brodie!”

  Jas grinned, despite himself. “Okay – Officer Brodie!” He watched the man wrap himself in the title.

  It was just a title. The real power lay elsewhere. Jas eyed the keys which dangled from the man’s belt.

  The uniform.

  The words.

  The trappings ...

  Jas took in the face.

  The face of Hadrian Security Solutions.

  A face regulations said he should respect ...

  ... a face tax-payers should trust with their rejects.

  Brodie avoided his gaze.

  Strike one.

  He wouldn’t trust this man to run an egg-and-spoon race, let alone a penal institution. Jas scowled, stared at the rule book. Hadrian were a joke ...

  He waited for the punch-line, listening to the silence in an institution where noise was the norm. Two thousand men in a prison built to hold nine hundred.

  Maybe there wasn’t a punch-line.

  Maybe this wasn’t a joke.

  “Let me give you some advice, Anderson.”

  Jas looked up, flicking the pages of the rulebook with one thumb.

  Brodie was leaning in the doorway, back in command. “I don’t know what you’re used to, but things work differently, in here ...”

  Jas watched the face closely.

  “... we don’t want trouble. You don’t want trouble. We’re here to see there is no trouble ...”

  We?

  Jas listened to the silence, then remembered Ms Pepperpot and a handful of other grey-clad figures: no apparent chain-of-command. No apparent experience. A bunch of kids with PCs and CCTV-cameras running the Bar-L like it was Crimes-R-Us. New management structures. New rule books. New uniforms.

  “... help us to help you ...”

  Jas blinked. He wondered whether a day or a weekend’s training course had qualified him to think he could do this job. “Okay, Officer Brodie.”

  “Good!” Pale hands rubbing each other. Brodie looked like a scout master after a successful jamboree. How secure were the guyropes?

  But it wasn’t his problem.

  His problem was the next six weeks and how to get through them. Jas watched Officer Brodie walk from the cell. The door swung shut. Sounds of locking. Bootsteps trailed along the walkway. When he could no longer hear them, he opened the Armani shoulder-bag and removed a packet of cigarettes.

  No lighter.

  He sat down on the bottom bunk and took in his environment.

  Twelve feet by eight. The space was barely big enough for one man, never mind two. The bunk on which he sat lined one, unpainted brick wall. Opposite, more unpainted brick.

  No yellow.

  Jas looked towards the small window which punctured the bricks facing the door. His eyes slid down the wall to the aluminium piss-pot under the barred space, then did another tour of the cell.

  Barlinnie was short-stay, low security ...

  ... in theory.

  Barlinnie had a remand wing, reserved for remand prisoners ...

  ... in theory.

  This was Triple-S ...

  ... in theory.

  Reality, he had a feeling, was something else.

  Despite the single bunk he’d seen removed, minutes earlier, this cell seemed unoccupied ...

  ... no magazines, no posters, no radio, no sign this room was inhabited by a living creature.

  Where were the porno pics, the desperate indications that another sex existed?

  He stuck the unlit cigarette between his lips, leant back and stared at the wall behind him.

  A sign.

  One sign.

  Jas moved closer to the small Polaroid, blu-tacked to bare brick.

  A woman. A man. Two children. Boy and girl. On grass. Smiling, the boy held a football. The man held Jas’s attention.

  Tall. Neatly-cut dark hair. Lop-sided grin. One hand obscured behind the woman’s back. The other resting on top of the boy’s head ...

  He scrutinised more closely.

  ... late twenties ... relaxed-looking ... an ordinary guy ...

  ... a happy, family group.

  He’d been in enough prisons, in a professional capacity, to know memories and connections were hoarded and savoured
. Regardless of the pain they caused, or the length of the sentence, those on the outside were necessary to give inside a meaning.

  His eyes flicked to the back of the door.

  Clothes.

  A pair of jeans. A denim shirt. Spare regulation uniform.

  Jas stood up. The unlit cigarette bobbed between his lips. He turned and leaned against the opposite wall.

  Six weeks.

  The small, grey room shrank around him. The unlit cigarette’s filter was damp and soggy. He wished he’d asked Scoutmaster Brodie for two sticks to rub together.

  Returning to the bunk. Jas stretched out on bare springs and contemplated what he knew about his cell-mate ...

  Male.

  Two kids.

  Inside.

  ... in effect, nothing. He removed the useless cigarette from his mouth, crumpled it in his fist.

  A bell rang.

  Nothing happened.

  Jas stared at the ceiling and waited til something did.

  A Hadrian officer – not Brodie – arrived wordlessly with bedding, then a tray of food.

  Jas ate something mushy in silence, then unrolled two soiled mattresses the same way.

  The officer left.

  Jas pissed into an aluminium bucket, listening to the sounds of urine splatter against metal. He lay on his bunk. He walked to the small window. He walked back to the bunk. He walked to the small window. He walked back to the bunk, sat down and wrapped himself in a hard, fuzzy-grey blanket and tried to sleep.

  He’d almost managed it when the scraping of keys punctured the silence. Jas opened his eyes, head craning up from the lower bunk.

  “Whit the ...?” Low antagonism.

  “New cell-mate for you.”

  “Get him oota here!” Lower.

  Jas stayed where he was: there was little enough room in the tiny space. He stared up at the broad man, whose head was flicking between the officer and the double-bunk.

  An attempt at placating. “Take it easy, McStay. Ah ...”

  “Get him oot! Now!” Barely audible.

  Warning, not placating any more. “Shut it, McStay, or ah’ll ...”

  “Ye’ll – whit?” Taunting. “Lock me up?” Finger jabbed into a Hadrian-grey chest.

  Jas took in a broad forearm and bitten-down nail, trying to match the hulking form with a Polaroid image.