Francisco Jose - The Samsons - Two Novels

White Sidewall shook his head. “I have a date and I am already late. No, just do whatever you must with him.”

Another policeman in civilian clothes asked me questions, which he typed, and after that, I was fingerprinted, then they hustled me off to a mosquito-infested corner where I waited for the next hour.

Should I have protested then? Should I have screamed and lashed away at the police pigs and my torturers? I thought about it later; I did right appearing meek and submissive. I was a prisoner no matter what the law said; I did not carry a gun — they did.

A police van finally came at dusk, and together with the leftovers that could not be taken by the Metrocom buses, we were herded off to the city jail.

A brief ride, through Quiapo and its environs, the shops shuttered with plywood, the sidewalks piled with garbage, the low stone embankments in the middle of the street plastered with our slogans and posters.

We went down the underpass then made a U-turn; I had not realized that the city jail was here, beyond a cratered street and crumbling, old buildings roofed with rusting tin.

I must get in touch with someone and the first person who came to mind was Betsy. At the jail reception, I rang her number and was told by the maid that she was still in Bacolod for the semester break, which I knew but had hoped that she had not gone or had returned. Father Jess — but there was no phone in the kumbento. Professor Hortenso had no phone either, and at this time of the school year there would be no one in his office. I tried it nonetheless, but there was no reply. Then I thought of Puneta. But I did not want to be beholden to him, not even in this moment of need.

The policemen in civilian clothes at the reception desk were not pleased that we had to come in at night. They separated the girls and sent them to the brigade close to the entrance. We had to strip and be examined for drugs and weapons, then we were shunted off to the different brigades.

By now I had become inured to the discomfort of not having a mat or a blanket, but some of the boys were grumbling, saying they were not criminals, that they should see their lawyers. The sergeant who manned the desk and glowered at us said we could do that in the morning, that at least we had a roof over our heads.

I walked through a dimly lighted courtyard and crossed over through a barbed-wire gate that was padlocked for the night, then shown the building where I was to sleep.

It was dimly lighted, but I could make out the shapes of those asleep on the wooden bunks, stretched like carcasses, most of them half naked. Though it was already November, the heat and the humidity were still oppressive even at night, and the heat, particularly, seemed to cling like some stringent glue to the very pores of the skin. No one stirred and there did not seem to be any place for me. I squatted on the stone floor. Clothes were strung on wires, and beyond the grilled windows I could see the rooftops of Recto, some still ablaze with neon. Mosquitoes and the sounds of the city drifted in. I thought I would never be able to sleep, but reclining against the cement wall, I dozed off only to waken in the night to a wild screaming in the next brigade — as if a man was going through what I underwent. No one was disturbed, no one stirred. I was, indeed, in another dimension.

It was still dark when the brigade started stirring, and by daybreak we were all up. A single line formed at the toilet at the end of the brigade and I joined it. A middle-aged man, perhaps forty or so, was behind me; he grinned, “So you are the one who arrived last night.” I nodded.

The young inmates studied me. “You can put your clothes in that corner and sleep at the far end if you wish,” the man said. “You are new here, so you must know the rules. The king is Bing-Bong over there—” he pointed to a sturdy, bald-shaved man of thirty at the gate; he was looking at me and smiling. “You do whatever he tells you. We do whatever he tells us. To disobey is to be punished. No harm will come to you if you do what you are told.”

I wanted to tell him to shut up, but he seemed so friendly, and I did not really know what new ordeal I was to go through. He also had that look of having lived a long time; there was that tiredness and dumb resignation in his thin, pinched face, as if he were a chicken caught in the rain, all wet and with no shelter to go to.

I was the only one thrown into this brigade; the others were assigned to another building. Now I could see the whole jail. The battered buildings were arranged like spokes in a wheel with the main office and reception area, through which we entered, in the middle, topped by a low rusting tower. This was the Old Bilibid prison — the National Penitentiary — before it was transferred to Muntinglupa, as Chicken explained again.

The day wore on in tedious idleness, for there was nothing to do, nothing to read. We stayed in the cement courtyard, most of us in shorts, and I could see now the tattoos on arms, legs, chests, and backs, just as I had seen them in the Barrio, emblems of that other world which Roger himself wore with pride. One even kept his head perpetually shaved, for it was there that the tail of a snake was curled and the body ran down the back of his neck, coiled around his torso and down to his penis — the snake’s head being the penis head itself.

Chicken was some sort of emissary or chief clerk, and it was his job to acquaint all newcomers with the rules of the brigade — rules the prisoners themselves enforced because within the jail there was another law — not the law of those who guarded us.

There were no tattoos on Chicken’s skinny arms or chest. “I am too old for that,” he said, laughing. Then he told me why he was in jail. A rich man’s son who loved women and fast cars and was drunk most of the time had run over and killed someone. He did not stop. The people who saw the accident had taken down his license plate number and that was how he was tracked down; the victim’s relatives did not want any settlement, the bastard must go to jail, and because he was a rich man’s son that could not be. But justice must be done, the crime must be punished. It did not matter that Chicken did not even know how to drive — that was not important; what mattered was his confession.

“I was given five thousand pesos. Five thousand pesos!” Chicken said. “And then, of course, there is the thousand pesos every month — every month. For the duration of my being here. And my son, he comes here every week you know, together with my wife, to bring me things. You know, we don’t eat enough here and one gets tired of fish and kangkong , fish and kangkong. You know.”

I nodded.

“And then, of course, the best lawyers defended me. When I get out there will be another five thousand. Where else can you find something like that? Here, I can eat regularly. And when I get sick, at least there is some medicine.”

“How do I get out of here?” I asked.

“If you are poor you cannot get out. There are no rich people in jail. They can afford bail, the best lawyers. They can even buy judges.”

“I am poor,” I said. “A self-supporting student. But I am innocent. I have not committed any crime. I swear to you …”

Chicken looked at me, his small sad eyes crinkling in a smile. “Who is innocent and who is guilty?” He shook his head. “The poor are always guilty and the rich are always innocent. Get some lawyer to stand for you. But while you are here, you must follow the rules — theirs and ours.”

“But the law—”

“The police, what do you think they care for? Their pay, first of all — and the more they can get, through foul means if necessary, the more they will get it. They are not here to help us; they are here to maintain order so that we will continue being what we are — poor.”