Christos Tsiolkas - Barracuda

It is just before we are sent to our cells. Carlo is sitting on the chair next to me, his knee touching mine — that’s all the contact we have but it is enough to send a charge through me, a pulse that repeatedly pounds through my body. He leans into me and whispers, ‘That mate of yours who visited you today: tell him he can’t have you.’ The words slip into me and through me, I have to control myself not to react to them. I am careful not to reveal anything, that no expression disturbs the look of feigned boredom on my face. It was one of the first lessons I received here, the importance of appearing oblivious and unmoved.

So my eyes don’t move from the television screen, my body is still, my legs outstretched, my arms folded, all insouciant carelessness; but I feel his warm breath on my face, a light spray of his spit against my cheek. Later tonight, in bed, I will trace my finger along that cheek, then bring my finger to my mouth, and taste him. That is all I need to bring me to orgasm. I will come into a tissue and that tissue I will hand to him in the morning, and he will hand me the one he spilled himself into. I will tear tiny strips from it during the day, in the kitchen, in the library, in the yard. I will chew on them, and I will taste his semen and through his semen I will taste his cock and through his cock I will taste all of him. Sometimes he will shake the last drops of piss into a tissue, sometimes he will have wiped his arse with one; I ask him to keep one in his armpit throughout the long night. In the morning, as I take the still-damp tissue he will wink at me, daring me to guess what secretion I am to imbibe. You jerked off into this one , I say. Or I might whisper, I am tasting your piss, aren’t I? Or, I am licking your arse. Or, I am drinking your sweat . His thrill is so acute that his words are hoarse. You’re a dirty bastard, Danny Boy, you’re filthy . He loves that word, it is an endearment and a come-on and a plea. I so want to fuck you.

And we do fuck. But it is rare. We are always seeking the opportunity. Seeking that opportunity, and reading: these are what get me through the hours, get me through the days. I could not choose between the two of them, I would be rendered immobile if the gun was at my head and I was ordered to make the decision. The joy and freedom that I find now in words, and the safety and the bliss that I experience when Carlo’s prick has pierced and entered me are both experiences that in this place have become as essential to me as oxygen, as water. I need them to breathe, to live. They both allow me to escape. The first activity frees my imagination and lets me soar up and beyond walls and concrete and steel. The other liberates me from my will, and as Carlo pounds fiercely into my body, I pass through both humiliation and agony and become insensible to both. That is no small gift in prison. That is no small gift anywhere .

‘An eye more bright than theirs,’ I whisper back, ‘less false in rolling, gilding the object whereupon it gazeth.’ My lips just hover over his rough skin, my breath just moistens the coarse bristles of one sideburn. Like me, he doesn’t move, his eyes don’t stray from the screen. He doesn’t know Shakespeare, he wouldn’t give a rat’s arse for what I am quoting. But his knee presses more firmly against mine. I fumble in my pocket and tear another fine strip off the tissue. I have to ration these strips, I have to make them last through the night and into the morning, when I will see him again.

What if I told Luke that I finally got Shakespeare in here? All of poor Mr Gilbert’s attempts to make me comprehend Julius Caesar , all the resources of our privileged rich school, and it is gaol that finally reveals to me the beauty of Shakespeare, the spirit in his words, the jaw-dropping audacity of his language.

What if I said, ‘Luke, I discovered Shakespeare in here and I also discovered getting fucked up the arse. And they are both beautiful and they are both bliss.’ I wish I could explain to him that I discovered Shakespeare through getting fucked up the arse and I allowed myself to get fucked up the arse because of Shakespeare.

‘You’re looking good, Danny, you really are.’

I have to stop myself blurting out, ‘Of course. It’s because I’m content here.’ But I don’t. Such words would dismay him, make him doubt my sanity. But though I am locked in prison, I have once more found routine. Luke has known me since I was a boy. He knows what routine means to me.

‘I’m at the gym twice a day,’ I say, ‘any chance I get. They’ve got me working in the kitchen so I’m learning some skills there.’ Then, so excited that I almost forget myself and go to grab his hand, before the shift in the guard’s stance reminds me of my place, I tell him how much I am reading. This pleases Luke more than anything and it makes me smile. Even now, so very handsome, so confident and self-assured, Luke remains a bookworm. I tell him about the books I am reading, the ancient dialogues, the novels of Hemingway, the sonnets of Shakespeare, the histories of revolution, the biographies of Bonaparte, of Tolstoy and Keating, and he laughs good-naturedly and says that they sound like an eclectic bunch. The remark stings like a rebuke and I press back into my chair but he doesn’t notice. University has given him something more than a confidence in his own skin, it has also made him arrogant. Whatever I say, whatever I read, he will always believe he knows more than I do. He assumes we have a full library here, he doesn’t know I am eager for anything on those damn shelves that I can open and read. Those of us in the library, we are magpies, picking at the second-hand scraps.

‘A Farewell to Arms is the best book I’ve ever read,’ I tell him.

‘I don’t really get into Hemingway. The writing is a bit too utilitarian for me.’

I can’t help it, this further censure makes me twist in my chair.

He notices my shift in mood. ‘You OK?’

‘I’m fine.’ I have to process his words, to try to make sense of his critique. I know the word ‘utilitarian’, it is a philosophical concept, I know I’ve come across it. Something about the greater good; I have no idea why he would apply it to Hemingway. I will have to ask Alec in the library how it is possible for fiction writing to be about the best outcome for the greater good. I feel stupid. Luke has made me feel stupid.

On the way to the cells I will tell Carlo that Luke is half-Chink, that his mother is Vietnamese. Carlo’s top lip will curl in distaste. He can’t stand Asians. He can’t stand Asians or Aborigines or blacks or Arabs. For Carlo there are Italians and there are Aussies. Anyone else doesn’t matter, anyone else shouldn’t be. ‘I fucking hate Slopes,’ he hisses back at me. ‘I can’t fucking stand them.’ Luke doesn’t need to know that this is how I will get my revenge.

I thought I knew all about hate but until I got to prison I had no idea how much hate there was in the world. But then, until I came to prison I didn’t know how many colours there were to skin. For years I stripped and showered next to only white flesh, only pale and luminous flesh, with slight variations in shade. But here there is flesh as black as the darkest ink, flesh that is as white as freshly pressed paper, mottled jaundiced flesh, skin the hue of black coffee when a few drops of milk are added to it, skin in all shades of yellow and red. There is flesh so black it shines blue; there is flesh that is grey and ashen, the flesh of the meth heads and the heroin users, the flesh that is dying.