Adrian McKinty - Dead I Well May Be

The black bucket was close to overflowing with piss now, and most of us had succumbed to a drizzly diarrhea. We hoped that today was the day they let us empty it. But we were wrong. We eventually learned that you slopped out every third day. The prison was on a quadrangle, but one of the cell blocks was empty, so there were three walls of prisoners. Every third day, a cell block was allowed to slop out and spend the morning exercising in the yard. We had heard them come every morning and knew that sooner or later our turn would arrive, or at least we hoped so.

There was no prison work and no canteen and no medical facilities. Prisoners stayed in their cells all the time except for that one morning every three days. We guessed that the prison held three or four hundred prisoners, with maybe thirty or forty guards, though it was impossible to tell for sure.

When the prisoners were let out we heard a lot of talk, and once a voice outside our cell said:

Gringos. Hello, America.

On that first third morning the guards came and undid the padlocks on the ring bolts at our ankles. They put the padlocks in a sack and went out, leaving the door open. We were still shackled at the wrists, but we all immediately got up. The guards yelled at us to sit down. They jabbered something important in Spanish that I hoped Andy was getting since he had the language.

What’s he saying? I asked Andy.

He’s saying we have to wait until, a word I don’t know, I think the whistle, I think, Andy said.

Andy had done O-level Spanish. He’d only gotten a C, but it was better than nothing. I thought I’d heard a whistle the two previous mornings, so maybe Andy was just guessing.

We waited and, sure enough, there was a whistle, and we heard the other prisoners start to come out into the yard.

Have to empty that fucking bucket, Scotchy said. Fergal, you grab it.

Why me?

Because I say so, Scotchy said. And when we get out we all stick together, is that clear?

We nodded.

Complaining, Fergal lifted the bucket gingerly, urine slopping over the sides and onto his hands. None of us had been capable of a big shit, though, so at least that was something. When we got outside, the sunlight was intense, and it took us all a minute to adjust. The other prisoners on our block came out of their cells and the guards watched warily from the towers. I imagined this was the most dangerous time for the guards, for if we’d chosen, we could have all run out and overpowered the four guys who’d been going from cell to cell unlocking us. Probably there was some kind of rule that if anyone came out of his cell before the whistle went (at which point presumably the guards were clear), he got shot.

Prisoners emptied their slop buckets at a latrine near what we discovered later was the disused cell block. The rest walked around the yard. They were a skinny, badly dressed crew, Indian looking. About a hundred of them. The majority barefooted, bareheaded. None of them looked at us. They talked in low tones, most walking, a few immediately setting up to play dice games on the dusty ground.

We walked over to the latrine with Fergal.

Again the big sky and the dust from the prisoners’ feet rising in spirals like djinns over the cell wells. The smell of openness and air and jungle and a great mass of human beings that weren’t the boys or me.

Swarms of flies over the latrine and a streaking bird, whose plumage reflected back light in wavelengths I had missed: red and emerald green and gold.

Four guard towers, two guards a tower, shotguns, searchlights, I said to Scotchy.

He was looking at me and grinning.

Bruce, dear, it isn’t the fucking Great Escape . We’re sitting tight and not doing anything stupid, is that clear? he said, cheerfully.

Is that what you did in the Kesh? I asked him.

Aye, it is, as a matter of fact, he said.

I’d tried to catch him out because he had said that he had been in the Kesh, but Scotchy never remembered anything and I was hoping he’d confound me by saying No, actually, I was in the Big Bad Magab or something.

How long exactly were you in? I asked him, conversationally, but before he could answer I interrupted and pointed to where some of the prisoners were making for a big pile of straw that had been left near the front gates. I elbowed him.

It’s bedding, look, that’s what it is, I said.

Ok, we all go, he said.

He called Fergal and Andy over and we stuck together. We went over to the pile of straw and grabbed a bunch each. We wanted to take it back immediately, but we got the impression you had to wait for the whistle before going back to your cell.

Let’s just shove it in, Fergal said, but when he edged over to the cell a guard walking along the cell-block roof pointed his shotgun and yelled something at us.

What’s he saying, And?

But Andy couldn’t make head or tail of it.

See, sorry, lads, but uh, I learned Castilian, not Mexican Spanish, he explained.

So we stood there near our cell block and waited for the whistle. We were pretty conspicuous, not just as the new boys but also as the only non-Mexicans there.

Straw’ll make things easier, Fergal said, and sat down on the dust. Scotchy pulled him up, and he almost tripped over the chain still dragging behind his ankle.

Let’s just keep our eyes peeled, Scotchy scowled.

And he was right, because before we knew what was happening a gang of about a dozen or more guys had come up to us. They’d just walked over, taking a detour from their circuit, but it was so quick and confusing that suddenly they were on us from four sides. They started saying things in Spanish and pointing at us. Aye, where’s the guards now? I was thinking.

What are they saying, Andy? Scotchy asked, but Andy couldn’t get it. The head guy was a small man in a string T-shirt and baggy blue jeans. He was pointing at Scotchy’s red hair and grabbing his own and making a joke. They had surrounded us completely now and had done it so incredibly fast we hadn’t even been able to get to a wall. They were all smaller than us, but some of them had leather belts and were wrapping them around their fists. Others brandished their manacle chains. The yelling was so loud now I was sure the guards were going to intervene. I looked up at the watchtowers to see what was going on, but no one paid any attention.

Here they come, Scotchy said simply, and they rushed us. I took a swipe at some boy, but before I could do anything I’d been kicked in the back and I was on the ground. I got a kick in the head and the legs. I felt my sandals getting pulled off. Someone was trying to get my T-shirt. I curled into the fetal position and waited. The guards would come. The kicks came in again and again. There was no pain at all. Nothing. I bundled myself tighter and moved my arms down to protect my ribs. Someone started pulling my hair. Dust was in my throat. A foot came onto my neck and I grabbed the ankle and bit into it until I got bone. A belt buckle thumped me in the ear, but still I bit into the ankle. I could taste the blood now. A bare foot kicked me on the forehead and I went backwards over my head and scrambled up and found that I was standing. I hit the guy next to me with my elbow and I felt his nose break. There was a whistle and through the dust I could see the men run back to their cells.

Now I started to hurt.

I’d been scraped all over my back, and despite the head kicks, that was the worst. I’d bitten my tongue and I spat blood. I felt an arm underneath mine and Scotchy yelling at me. I couldn’t understand a word. He yelled, and then he saw that I wasn’t getting it and he showed me. Andy and Fergal lay flat out on the ground and he wanted me to help get them up. The guards were yelling at us to get back in the cells. It was a fucking joke. I bent down and lifted Fergal under the arms, but it was impossible. I slipped, went on my arse. Before I could try again, the guards were there screaming at us and hitting us with billy clubs. They shoved us back towards our cell. I was shouting, but they cut me off with a dig in the mouth. They pushed us inside and beat us down and locked our ankles into the ring bolts.