David Mathew - O My Days

Don’t try to sit up, son, I’m told.

The face is kindly, unfamiliar, lightly bearded not through style sensibility but through personal neglect caused by overwork. He is wearing a white lab coat; he’s a doctor.

Where am I?

Hospital. You inhaled a lot of smoke, he tells me.

I also took on a lot of physical abuse, as I recall, but I hold my tongue on the subject. I let my pains find me again; they scurry home hard to my bones. Is the riot over? In what shape have I left Dellacotte YOI. I cough again, noting I’ve been cuffed to a hospital bed.

How’s Dott? I ask.

Who’s she?

Ronald Dott.

I don’t know, mate, the doctor replies. We’ve had a lot of you guys in here this morning. What started the riot? he asks candidly, wide-eyed.

It’s about time. Allow it.

Giving up on me for the moment, the doctor orders me to rest, informing me further I’ll be free to go shortly; there’s nothing serious wrong. But there is, I want to tell him, closing my eyes again. I don’t know if Dott is really dead. I don’t know if I helped carry him far enough back, to a place and time that’s before his own possibilities for future life. How can I tell? And who else can I tell any of this to either? The answer is Kate. Kate Thistle, of course.

I strike a deal with myself not to cough anymore, whether or not the effort makes my eyes bulge and bleed. I want to show I am fit; I am healthy enough to return to the nick. But is there any nick to go back to? Next time I wake, I’m more aware, not only of my surroundings, but of my senses: the taste of smoke on my tongue; an undeniable shoving sensation against my kidneys; and a body-high, body-wide series of relayed pains and twinges. My gut rot kicks in again, more welcome than any of these later additions, and I treat it as I would an old friend.

Too late, Billy. Can’t you see? It was always too late.

I hope I’ve assisted him to the place he wants to go—which is no place. No place at all; an anti-place. I hope I’ve been his passport to banality, to emptiness—to the negative. Thinking these thoughts, I sit up. Where am I? Hospital, I’ve been told, but I’ve not been given a room and the cupboard in which I’ve been left resembles nothing like a hospital that I know. A cupboard? A broom cupboard to boot. If not for the shackles on each wrist, securing me to the metal sidebars of the bed, I might well pick up a broom or a mop and use it as a weapon to get the hell out. The fact the light has been left on—a bare bulb burning above me—is not much of a consolation. Apparently I’m not worth any more than detergent. Hospital? The town of Hospital? Suddenly I’m scared again. Have I not made it back to where I started? Scratch that. Have I not made it back to where I started the previous day? When I shout out for help my throat tells me off; it is raw and aching, and utterly, totally dry. For the sake of continuity—continuity of my mental faculties—it’s quite a relief when the same doctor that consulted with me before now opens the door.

Are you all right, young man? he asks.

Apart from being locked in a fucking cupboard? Yeah, I’m peachy, mate, I retaliate. Any of the screws here? The prison officers?

Oh, one or two.

Well, can I speak to one, please?

I think they’re all being treated, the ones that’re here.

Treated?

In all my years, I’ve never seen a late shift like this, the doctor continues, shaking his head—even raising one hand to run sausage fingers through his dark, sweaty hair.

Why, what’s happened?

Full-scale riot, young man.

Oh, that.

Yes, that. Tell me: how did they get the keys?

Who?

The prisoners.

My mind catches up and joins the dots, but it’s not as fast as I want it to be—not as fast as I’ve been in the past. I say:

Excuse me?

At least one prison officer lost his keys, in a tête-à- tête, shall we say? Went round releasing some of the other prisoners. Never seen anything like it. Several times he shakes his head; then he reacquaints himself with the old bedside manner, and his voice becomes more clipped. All beds are full. So are most of the corridors and waiting rooms. I shouldn’t say this, but this could be a time bomb.

Jesus. You mean there are yoots out there without screws to look after them?

The police force’s in. The army’s in, says the doctor. What I’ll do is try to find someone in charge and suggest you’re fit to go back, if there’s anyone to take you back. We need all the space we can get, to tell you the truth, and you’ve got nothing that can’t wait.Talk about a stretch of resources! What started the riot? he asks me for the second time

I invent a total lie for the doctor to start spreading around on his coffee breaks.

Some of the lads got tired of being raped by the prison officers. That sort of thing can’t be allowed to carry on.

The doctor makes a face. He’ll be my town crier. For now he doesn’t know what to say, but he adds: That’s the best I can do for you, right now. I’ll be back to check on you in a bit.

Doctor! There’s one other thing!

What is it?

Bit embarrassing, doctor, I tell him, but I really, really need a piss.

I’ll ask a nurse to bring you a bedpan.

Thanks. And just one more thing before you go. Could you turn off the light, please? I’m getting a suntan in this box: bulb’s too bright.

Certainly. Sorry. Will you be okay? Shall I leave the door open?

I’ll be fine. I like the noise of activity, I answer candidly.

The doctor sniffs his mild amusement. Well, that’s one way of putting it, he tells me. I have to ask you one thing, young man—call it professional curiosity, but I don’t see it very often. You’re between eighteen and twenty-one, right, to be a prisoner at Dellacotte?

Yeah, I’m twenty, I tell him.

What age were you when your hair turned white? he asks.

There’ll be no clues, will there? I’ll never know if Dott made it back beyond the starting line, or if he’s merely settled once more into the traps, to run the race another time. Poor old Michael Finnegan, begin again. Loathsome old Dott. Where is Kate Thistle when I need her? Where’s my visit?

What time is it? I ask one of the three screws in the meat wagon.

Two other yoots and I are on our way back to the dreary walls and the stagnation. We’ve been assigned an officer each. All three of us are in cuffs—standard—and we’ve been pronounced fit enough to return to duties; the screws have their batons drawn, even though we are low risk prisoners, otherwise we wouldn’t be in the same vehicle at the same time. No one is taking any chances. The screw’s name is Vincent: the woman from the Visits Room. She tells me, Two, but I’m so discombobulated I add: Afternoon or morning?

It’s light outside, Alfreth. It’s the afternoon, she answers, puzzled.

Thanks.

One of the other YOs has a name like Markwell or Maxwell, or something like that. I only know him by sight—he’s a regular fixture in the Library on Thursdays, when C Wing gets its trip to borrow books.

Yo, Redband! he says.

Wogwun, blood?

Do you remember much about last night? It’s all a blur for me.

Remember bits, I fib. You know how it started?

No idea, cuz. One minute I’m bashing one out.

Thank you, Marwell, says Vincent, nice image for us all.

The next, shit’s sticking to the wall, cuz.

Allow it. Miss? Do you think there’s any chance of normal duties today, Miss? I’ve got some important stuff to clear up in the Library.

I very much doubt it, Alfreth. You’ll be part of the cleaning detail.

Marwell has an opinion on this verdict. Fuck that shit, Miss, he says.

Mind your language, son, says one of the other screws.