David Mathew - O My Days

You’re being too literal, Billy. There’s no Hell. Grow up! The Oasis is half wood and half memory, I think. Half water and half notion.

That’s a lot of halves, I remark.

She is not in a punning mood. You may be right.

Kate, what’s wrong? I venture. You’re in a peculiar mood.

She shakes her head. Something came to me last night, she says. Something I’ve thought about before but haven’t managed to articulate, even to myself. I wonder how many other Dotts there are running around.

God, I hope not!

But there must be others, she answers me excitedly. Surely we can bank on that. It can’t be only our Ronald Dott. Others must have got out.

Others moving their way backwards?

Perhaps. No, let’s be positive. Undoubtedly. Without doubt. It’s just that most of them don’t spend nearly so long being a nomad, country to country, trying to find an equivalent of you. They live with their lot.’

With disappointment? I say.

Yes—Like the rest of us.

Starved of attention, in addition to being starved of food that my system can’t keep down long enough for it to do me any good, I am all but braying at the moon in the early hours of Friday morning. It’s all I can do not to hit the night bell: at one point I suffer what experience tells me is a mutually- complementary epileptic fit and asthma attack. In the dark I roll a burn; the smoke hits my chest like a harsh rugby tackle, if not worse: I can feel where the three yoots on the ship, the other night, pounded me, kicked me ragged. It’s all real, I tell myself. Even the bits in my head—they’re real. Nearly thirty minutes pass, the pains sparking over my body, and with me using my newfound powers of communication, however base and unreliable, before I welcome with my mind’s eye the news that Dott, at this moment, right now, is being bent over and twisted up by a couple of screws, batons drawn. There is no show to watch. I cannot see the fight. I cannot view the storming onset. And I have no idea what’s prompted it. But Dott is getting fucked up good, blood. He has said or done something bad, something bad. How can I sleep after that? Still my breathing regularises once more—very slowly, but it does—and I can sense the bags under my eyes darkening slightly. So tired. No snoozing! I chide myself. At this early hour the siren the ambulance wears like a flashy gown is all but certainly not required. Up here in the hills, how much traffic’s there gonna be in the dead of night? The stretched klaxon noises lap at the edge of my consciousness for a few seconds, before I pull myself back from the grip of a brief wee-hours nap. I hear the vehicle get closer—there it is! Midnight Rambler sheep scamper out of its way! Night birds witness the white and yellow, mechanised beast with head-turning disdain. It arrives at the front gates. The siren is doused. Me, I’m getting cock-heavy ready. Why is this? Have I developed some vile kink for cars? Inside these walls I’ve heard worse: the Puppydog with his erection in the soapsuds tray of the industrial washer in the Laundry; the yoot soulfully knocking one out in the exercise yard on C Wing, watching the ducks. But no: what I’ve got here is the thrill of the chase, it’s clear as. Dott has managed to get the shit kicked out of himself. He’ll be going to hospital.

How do I follow you? I ask him—then again, six, eight, ten times.

A spy is no bloody use without senses. I get out of bed. From my window, rolling my eyeballs as far right in their sockets as they’ll go, I can make out maybe the first ten centimetres of the offside front bumper of the ambulance. It’s parked at a rakish angle to the mesh surrounding the Puppydog Wing exercise yard. Stay banged up long enough with someone, or in my case—as I never want to share a cell—keep your next-door for long enough, and you start to come alive to one another’s rhythms. Like women prisoners, coming on together—beginning their menstrual cycles within a day of each other. Jarvis knows, I believe, I’m already awake, but he hisses and calls my name just to be sure .

Are you listening?

Wogwun, bruv, I call back.

The dialogue won’t be allowed to continue for long; nor do I want it to. But I’m thinking—Jarvis might be of some use to me at this point.

You watching the show, blood?

Allow it. What you see?

Just the bandage wagon.

Bait. Can you see it all?

Near enough, blood. Back doors are open. They’re taking someone out, he informs me—or wants to inform me.

It’s Dott, I tell him.

How do you know?

Rumour has it innit, I tell him, effectively closing the subject.

Jarvis doesn’t wish it to be closed. What he do? Snitch? yoot asks.

Your guess, blood. Now I’m concentrating.

It’s something like relief courses through me when a baton taps on the metal door. The night screw tells me to shut up and go to sleep, then repeats his orders next door. So now I’m concentrating. On what? On everything Dott has told me so far. Every sentence I can recall; every riddle, every instant I’ve wanted to paint his nose knuckle red. Every time he’s boysed me, annoyed me, stolen from me. Cramming all those thoughts is like Julie (she pops into my head, unwelcome now) packing a suitcase for a couple of days away from London: too much for the space available. Won’t all fit in. I rearrange the memories for better packing, hoping as I do so to find some new ones—some uncovered ones. This unveiling is a muted, mixed success. Random—or seemingly random—snippets of conversation, like confetti in the wind. Like trying to catch raindrops. Like climbing the tallest sand dune in the desert.

But you’re a king, Dott says to me. You should have the privilege of a shorter life.

What does he mean?

I’m as old as the hills, Billy; as old as the dunes.

I know that, Dott! Something new! Something new!

Now my voice, joking?—I’m not sure. Superficially angry: That’s King Billy to you, Dott. And Dott saying something about a thorny crown—he is constructing the very same regal item from pieces pulled loose from a rose bush embracing a small tree. The loop-the-loop of memory, bringing me back to this grass, this rose.

How do you spend your time? I ask Dott. It’s the key that’s been lost in my overcoat pocket.

Follow me with your heart, he says clearly.

Dear Alfreth.

Of all things, a letter from Ostrich, which I’ll punctuate on his behalf. And capitalise. And re-spell. The rest I’ll leave, although in its first draft, raw and unpolished, it took me as long to read as it does my Psych Reports and parole files.

How goes it, blood? Me, I’m shaking it, fam, he writes. You’re right, rudeboy—Big Man Jail ain’t no paradise, blood. Fucking screws are a bit more chummy but that’s it. I been already twisted up like ten time or so, but me, I’m just feeling my way and getting cock of the walk. Same time, I’m trying to go legit. Man have a LONG time to consider his actions, as them Psych bitches give it, blood. Don’t talk to me about parole. My actions my hole. We do what we need to do, I lie? If there’s another way to go, man will take that other way. But I bust the days. I join some classes, rudeboy. Arts and Crafts on a Tuesday afternoon, a full-time Motor Mechs course for the rest of the week. Big Man Jail get sponsorship from a local car dealership—good for the profile, both ways. So I work on real cars, Alfreth. I’ve learned the difference between a rotary engine and an internal combustion engine. I know what two-stroke means. I know the difference between a carburettor and a camshaft, rudeboy. I had to get out of there, Alfreth. I don’t know what it is but there’s a stink about the place. Man use to have dreams about the graveyard at the back exploding and showering us all over with bits of dead bodies. We’re in the exercise yard and deconstructed slices of dead men and women, blood, they’re raining all around. They’re twitching. They start looking for the rest of their bodies. Never home, never whole, just like us, cuz. And another dream too. I’ll tell you about it in a minute, but the one I just give—I don’t know what a dream like that might say about my state of mind, but the dreams have nearly stopped now. Now? Now I dream of nothing at all. Usually. There are exceptions to the rule, every once in a while. Maybe that’s a sign I’ve grown up, even a bit. Took my time about it, yah—go ahead and bust chuckles, blood. I’ve asked for it. Fuck knows if I’ll even send this. Never say it at the time but you were a good friend to me, Alfreth. There are things we can’t say that we are happy to say when we hit road. Why’s that? Wogwun? What are we scared of, blood? We scared if we say it, it got no place to go? The emotion’s out of our head—and our head is prison enough. It can’t escape the walls of a jail. You can’t unsay it, rudeboy. And if you start to have beef with man, you already told man you love him. What do you do then? So it’s easier to say nothing at all. But you were a friend. I have a new friend now, and I doubt you and I will hear much from each other from now on. When you hit road I’ll be thinking of you, blood—course I will. The message will get to me somehow. Prison networks. You know how the gossip goes: I’ll find out. And I’ll be jealous and I’ll be angry, and I’ll try to tell myself lies like: I’ll see you in another twenty years, maybe still. But I won’t, will I, Alfreth? If you’ve got any sense, you’ll go legit—get some shit job you hate but pays regular. Keep your nose clean. Keep the knives in the kitchen drawer. Work hard for your living. But me, I’m gonna be an old man when I get out. If I get out. My new friend is helping me with this. His name is Clarity. I think at first it’s because he sees the world with clear vision, but no, Alfreth—it’s really his name. Although he does as well see clearly. I don’t know his first name. He calls me Younger. I’m not Ostrich anymore—I’m Younger. In a Big Man Jail I’m a little boy. Clarity tells me I’ve got two addictions and I tell him yeah: hooch and zoot. He says no. Freedom and incarceration. I’m addicted to freedom but I know I won’t be able to touch that shit again, not without all but killing myself. I’m addicted to incarceration, though; there’s no way round that. Try to take me away and I think I’ll have withdrawal shakes and twitches. You should’ve seen me in the van, bringing me here, it didn’t matter how much I was looking forward to moving—I missed Dellacotte like it was in my cells. The cells of my body. In my blood, blood; in my brain. It’s a relief to be banged up again. I felt, at home, Alfreth. Tell me: are you really ready to leave? Think about it seriously. Where will you go? Back to Mumsy? Okay, and then what? That shit job I talk about—maybe it ain’t coming round to your yard a couple month. What’ll you do for peas in the meanwhile? We do what we need to do. That’s all there is to it. Be careful of wishing for freedom, Alfreth—it’s a powerful drug with no known cure. That’s what Clarity says. When I tell him I have a dream of a hamburger, he says, ‘It’s a drug.’ When I tell him I long for nice bedclothes, he says, ‘It’s a drug.’ He’s closer to fifty than forty—Clarity—and I suppose he should know. He’s been in and out since the age of fifteen. He has never had a home, a job, a family or a ting. Prison’s what he knows. He’ll be leaving in a year’s time. He’s scared to death. Not that he’ll let me see he’s scared to death, but he is. He enjoys the boredom. Once a month he sits on the Prison-Prisoner Forum Meetings, but other than that he lies around thinking. Doesn’t turn on the TV. Doesn’t open a book. He claims man can generate all the knowledge man needs, by his age. No help required. Perhaps he’s right. I used to think I was intelligent in my way, but compared to Clarity, I’m a novice, a beginner—I’m a Younger. All I’ve got to look forward to is a time when I can be as wise as he is. And I’m looking forward to the journey to that place, Alfreth. I feel it calling me. It’s like the moon seen through clouds, some days, and other days it’s as close as dinner smells and the bell in the chapel on a Sunday morning. One piece of advice he give me: kill time. I say to him: That’s rich, coming from you, lying on your bed all day—it’s an attempt at a joke. But he takes it serious. So I ask him what he mean and he tell me: ‘Burn your calendar. The increments are too small. It’s not like the run-up to Christmas—this is your life, Younger.’ So I burn my calendar. I get twisted up by a couple screws for that; they think I’m trying to set fire to my pad as a protest over something. I tell them this ain’t the case but they don’t believe me. Or they do believe me, maybe, but just fancy a fight anyway. So be it. What’s another punch? I stop watching the news. I don’t care. It’s not important. The day the war breaks out that’ll need involuntary volunteers to fight the front line and they come to my door, this is the day I’ll start watching again, to see what it is I’m supposed to be fighting for. And who I’m meant to be fighting. Other than that, the news is ‘new things’. I don’t want new things. I don’t want old things. I am happy to be here, even though it’s not really different from Dellacotte. Not really different? It must be. I contradict myself, Alfreth—I should have structured this better before I start writing. But would that have helped much? I doubt it. All I know is, the nightmares have stopped, more or less, as I say—the ones where I’m walking through a desert. I’m trying to climb the side of this fucking huge sand dune and I keep falling to the bottom and I have to start again. I’m in a circle, a loop—I can’t get out. I only have those dreams rarely now. I don’t dream of nothing anymore, but I’ve said that. What else can be new? I’ve just said I don’t want new things—but you do, Alfreth. You’ll welcome this letter and these words, I’m sure of that. Burn it afterwards. What else can I tell you? I’m looking forward to the time I finish my Motor Mechs course. When I’m there I’m gonna follow Clarity’s lead: meditate all day. Refuse my meals from time to time, just to show the screws I have been as deeply indoctrinated as I’m sure I really have been, because a protest now and then is a good sign, from their point of view. Just a little one; even a cuss, it’s good news as far as screws are concerned. It means you’re playing the game; the brainwashing has worked, or is working. Perfect passivity, Clarity say—they don’t like that. They lose their sharp edge. But I have another reason, anyway, for not eating every single morsel. It’s not that the food is shit—it’s better than anything the Dellacotte kitchens ground out—it’s more, I feel like keeping hungry is really giving the raised middle finger up to the passing of time. I don’t want the daily punctuation. I don’t want the markers, the clues; I want the riddle. So I’m whittling away at those markers and clues, slowly but surely—catchee monkey. And already I’m making progress—I can tell you honestly, hand on heart, Mumsy’s life, I’ve no idea, right now, what day of the week we’re on. I’m not even sure of the month as I write—I know we’re approaching the end of one and the start of another. Yeah. That’s what I want. No days, no months, with luck I get to the point where I’m not a hundred per cent on what year we’re in. That’ll be bliss, and man will be bless. Until then I’ll play the game and keep my head down. Man don’t expect man to write back. I won’t read it if you do, unless I’m weak and I give in to my addictions. This is possible. Not saying I’ve got it perfect yet—not by a long chalk, rudeboy, as Clarity says—but I’m stepping in the right direction. I’m declining any visits from now on. I don’t want to know the outside world, even the ghetto girls. I only care about the moment. So by and large I’ll only do what they want me to do, without further arguments. Clean my cell, I’ll clean my cell. Time for Gym, it’s time for Gym. They say Education, I’ll go to my course—I’ll paint my pictures—my pictures of the desert, quite often—or I’ll learn about oil filters or I’ll pick up my spanner, and whatever it is I’m doing I’ll set to it. Soon I’m gonna try not to speak. If any of this, Alfreth, make you think man is broken, think again. Man is liberated by being banged up. When the door is closed at the end of the day, I lie down and think myself into a peaceful world. The night screams at Dellacotte are hardly heard, and that’s a relief; but the absence of the silence that was everywhere towards the end of my time there—that’s gone too. Cons keep their music down to respectable levels; it’s good to hear it. There are occasional shouted conversations from cell to cell, but only for a while—things forgotten to be said that can’t wait until morning, because no one has a memory here, and if they’re not said straight away they’re not said at all. And for some people that’s a wasted opportunity—a wasted thought. We need all the thoughts we can express, some might say, I’m usually asleep before midnight and at seven the next morning I exercise, wash, and get ready for my day, like a businessman putting on a suit. And in that respect, blood, I am still hogtied by time. It won’t last forever. It might not last past next week. I’m going now, Alfreth. I wish I could remember your first name. I can remember your prison number but not your first name. How stupid is that? Sometimes—swear down—I struggle to recall my own first name. My name is Maxwell, I say to myself, my name is Maxwell. I use it as a call to prayer—or even as my prayer. Don’t let go of yourself as you slide towards the other names. I don’t even know if this is making any sense.