David Mathew: O My Days

No one kicks off in the Cookery class. Kicking off in Cookery means the class is cancelled, and for some of us it’s the only good meal of the week. So there are consequences. Naturally enough, the D responsible gets a battering later on. That stands to reason. But far worse than getting twisted up is the cold shoulder the brother receives for the duration of the Cookery ban. Some rudeboys can’t handle that at all. They can’t stand not being spoken to; can’t stand the pantomime reactions, the dilated nostrils, that suggest a bad aroma has wafted over. Anyone busted? the D will hear.

Roller really should have known better. The Gov goes for the bell, and he moves fast for someone so hench; I feel the air whip past my ears. I turn. And Roller’s got Meaney in a headlock; he’s pounding the brother’s head with a rolling pin. No expression on his face. No build-up to the incident, no bickering, no beef. It’s like someone’s flipped a switch. It happens from time to time, but not in the Cookery class.

There’s blood on the rolling pin by the time the screws arrive, a couple of seconds later. We’re all shouting, Allow it, bruv, Allow it, cuz, but Roller keeps on rolling. Doesn’t hear us. Doesn’t hear how desperate we are not to lose our bangers ‘n’ mash or our chicken terrine every week. Even doing the fucking theory worksheets is worth it if it means a Wednesday apple crumble or cauliflower cheese.

Allow it, blood! I’m screaming.

Just as quickly as it began, it ends. Roller loses interest and starts blinking away some tears. He releases Meaney. Brother falls to the floor in a jellyfish heap. There’s blood on his face like a Balaclava. Roller looks confused, even as the screws start to twist him up. They are surprised that he doesn’t fight back. We all are. The screws don’t like it; they’re not used to passivity or playing possum. Their confusion lends them energy and malice. What would normally have waited until ‘an unfortunate accident’ during Sosh or after the evening meal is executed, there and then. They twist him up something different. So much so that the Gov is going again for the panic bell—to stop this new scuff.

It doesn’t happen. Activity ceases. There are two broken bruvs on the Cookery Room floor; six inmates looking stunned—I count myself among this number, and if I don’t look stunned I certainly feel it; a hush in the air, of dust settling, maybe; and a dreadful smell tickling the hairs in my nostrils. My bacon’s burning, my eggs are turning brown; how the fuck has that happened in a hot minute? It’s going weird.

O my days! someone says.

Then the fun starts again. Food is burning in three or four frying pans; an oven is belching out dense burps of smoke. The fire alarm squeals. The screws’ radios begin bleating—and then comes the bit that makes Ray, the Cookery Gov, pale visibly—like he’s just been shanked—and that guy’s old school and he’s been in the army.

Simultaneously the two screws lean down, one over Roller and one over Meaney; and do you know what? It’s horrifying. In the smoke, the pong and the din, do you know what? Those screws lips the co-Ds.

Swear down. Mouth-to-mouth kisses. They lips the brothers and the scuff re-commences, and no one knows what to do. Ray’s veiny thumb-pad hits the bell. We should dust, I’m thinking; we should get the fuck into the corridor. They’ll come in charging. The afternoon’s flavour has changed; I’ve never tasted it before. I don’t know if I like it or I don’t.

Someone sighs. O my days! the cuz breathes.

O my days! someone answers. O my days!

Man! When man get to Big Man Jail, well, man! That when man know man blessed, rudeboy. Man know it and man allow it.

It’s Ostrich talking. We call him Ostrich because of the length of his bird. He’s a lifer. Murder. A Johnny-99, full stretch. Chair leg to cranium.

Man, he is mumbling on.

Me? My bird is five years. Wounding with Intent. It could’ve been worse. I say, Why, Ostrich-man? Big Man Jail tough. This is sick.

This ain’t sick, Ostrich contends. This is explosive.

Twos on that, I add, hoping to change the CD. I’m referring to the burn that he’s pinching—oddly—between third and fourth fingers. He hands me the cigarette. I drag. Hand it back.

Ostrich is still in happy-clappy land, in his head. Me own duvet. Me own cloze, he says. Me this. Me that.

Twenty-four seven bang-up, I say.

That noise, rudeboy.

We’re outside, although it’s cold. Why not? You live in a box, you want to be unwrapped, time to time. There in our grey sweats, with our burns. And I’m longing for Canteen, Friday morning. I’ve earned well this month and I should be eligible for a new pack of burn and a bash mag.

What you make-a this morning? I ask Ostrich. Cookery, innit. That time ting. It was put on peculiar.

Man? says Ostrich. Like I don’t even know. Are you listening?

I’m listening.

Time went long. Yeah. Difficult.

Allow it, cuz. Time went devious innit. Allow it again .

Who that? asks Ostrich.

I look up. And here he comes, five foot and a squirt of shit, and he’s in He-Man pyjamas—blue and yellow—for trying to escape from the previous jail. Three-man escort, fully-armed. I’m impressed, blood.

He’s a fish. Name of Dott, I tell Ostrich. Tell you more if you twos me on a burn. If not, ask the chaplain on Friday. I’m going back in to play pool.

He the fish? Ostrich goes on. Thought he be a hench motherfucker.

He’s the size of a poodle.

It’s at moments such as these that you start to get a grip on how the screws, the Ed.U Govs, the Health Care staff and others form an opinion about the collective psyche of the members of a non-voluntary club such as ours. Because Ostrich says, That squirt? Fourteen women?

Lifed off, I tell him.

Man, Ostrich says disgusted. Man shoulda known better than to stop at four, man, he says. Man knew man was only breaking cherry.

I accept the offer of his tiny burn. What you mean? I ask cautiously.

There’s three man no man know about, rudeboy, Ostrich tells me.

And I guess that’s where it all begins.

Seven-thirty in the a.m. and I’m awake a long time before I need to be. I bash one out, using whatever porn I haven’t lent out in return for burn or for a favour, and I sit at my desk with my beads in my hands. I pray. I contemplate the day: Thursday.

I’m looking forward to next Tuesday in the same way that I always do, and it seems like a distance, blood. But it’s a mark. Tuesday is the day I get to meet the new fish in the pond, traditionally: unless they are deemed unsuitable for interaction with other prisoners (for whatever reason; for protection for them or for us), or unsuitable for interaction with the staff. There are some I don’t get to meet as they’re immediately strapped into Health Care, into Suicide Watch, into Maximum Segregation (‘going down block’) or the worst of the worse: to the Puppydog Wing. If I have to, I’ll talk about that at a later date. I haven’t had my breakfast yet and my stomach is still queasy from yesterday and from a bad sleep on what sometimes feels like a bed of rusty nails. Feeling sick, I wait for unlock.