Read Online Fighting to the Death by Carl Merritt - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Carl Merritt
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of rights followed by a left square on the face. The kid went flying but everyone just carried on working as if nothing had happened. A screw turned up just as this kid was getting to his feet. Just like the other kid before him, he told the officer: ‘I fell over, I fell over.’
Even without these incidents, my life wasn’t exactly a bed of roses inside Rochester. We had to be up at 6 am for a 6.30 am breakfast. Then it was straight off to work. I spent most of my time planting and digging up vegetables in the greenhouse. I really did try to keep my head down. I didn’t want any aggro – I just wanted to get home.
The sound of my fists pounding into the heavy bag soon regularly permeated the prison gym. I usually started something like this: tap … tap … with my left fist. I’d push my arms away from my body, but the bag would still swing and the top links of the chain holding it to the ceiling would start grating against each other and would squeak. Then I’d pop a right into the battered brown leather. It might not have looked like a hard shot, but the heavy bag would this time jump on its little chain. Once I’d got the bag swinging, I’d begin to pound away: left, left … and then right … WHACK; left, left … right … WHACK; left, left … right … WHACK. Air would wheeze out of the bag with every slap, the noise from the chain punctuating my swings.
Other inmates would look on, knowing that those shots I was inflicting on the leather bag could soon be beating out a rhythm on some poor bastard’s boat race or rib cage if they weren’t careful.
Each time I visited that gym, I got fitter. My face became ruddy from the outdoor work, running and skipping round the Rochester yard for an hour every morning. I’d have easily ballooned up to fifteen or sixteen stone if I wasn’t training, but now I was fit again, my optimum weight was around fourteen-and-a-half stone. I suppose you’d call it fighting fit.
I always trained in a T-shirt, old sweatpants and dirty white trainers, which I never bothered lacing up. Before I got sent down I’d appeared huge but shapeless – no neck, beefy shoulders, big arms and the rest coming out in all the wrong places. But being in the slammer turned me into a sculptured, toned-up master of the universe, if you know what I mean. Despite everything, I was sharper, tighter. My bulk was closing in on itself, huddling my frame. I felt compact and constantly wound up. I was on full alert.
My dear old mum came to see me once a week in Rochester. She’d always start off each visit by smiling at me and saying: ‘You’ll be out soon, son.’ Then she’d spend the entire visit babbling on about my brothers and sister and what was happening back at home. I couldn’t get a word in edgeways and I knew she was trying her hardest to avoid cracking up. I could see in her eyes that she was holding herself back from crying. Trouble was that watching her suffer made me feel like shit. It broke my heart to see her in such distress.
At the end of each visit, she’d give me a hug and I could feelher shaking like a leaf, still holding back the tears. I knew that if I hugged her too long then she’d completely crack up so I’d sort of push her away. Sometimes the bad things you do are done for a good reason. She told me later how she’d then go home and sob her eyes out. She never wanted to show me how upset she really was but I knew all along. It’s typical of my mum to try and always be strong.
Meanwhile the staff at Rochester continued to prove themselves to be total wankers. If they could get one over on an inmate they would. It was all like a game to them and there were a lot more sensitive souls than me around.
There was one particularly evil screw who baited up a fight between me and a boy who was supposed to be the ‘Big Daddy’ inside – the kid no-one dared take on. This screw kept trying to wind us up to have a tear-up. He got his kicks from seeing this
Even without these incidents, my life wasn’t exactly a bed of roses inside Rochester. We had to be up at 6 am for a 6.30 am breakfast. Then it was straight off to work. I spent most of my time planting and digging up vegetables in the greenhouse. I really did try to keep my head down. I didn’t want any aggro – I just wanted to get home.
The sound of my fists pounding into the heavy bag soon regularly permeated the prison gym. I usually started something like this: tap … tap … with my left fist. I’d push my arms away from my body, but the bag would still swing and the top links of the chain holding it to the ceiling would start grating against each other and would squeak. Then I’d pop a right into the battered brown leather. It might not have looked like a hard shot, but the heavy bag would this time jump on its little chain. Once I’d got the bag swinging, I’d begin to pound away: left, left … and then right … WHACK; left, left … right … WHACK; left, left … right … WHACK. Air would wheeze out of the bag with every slap, the noise from the chain punctuating my swings.
Other inmates would look on, knowing that those shots I was inflicting on the leather bag could soon be beating out a rhythm on some poor bastard’s boat race or rib cage if they weren’t careful.
Each time I visited that gym, I got fitter. My face became ruddy from the outdoor work, running and skipping round the Rochester yard for an hour every morning. I’d have easily ballooned up to fifteen or sixteen stone if I wasn’t training, but now I was fit again, my optimum weight was around fourteen-and-a-half stone. I suppose you’d call it fighting fit.
I always trained in a T-shirt, old sweatpants and dirty white trainers, which I never bothered lacing up. Before I got sent down I’d appeared huge but shapeless – no neck, beefy shoulders, big arms and the rest coming out in all the wrong places. But being in the slammer turned me into a sculptured, toned-up master of the universe, if you know what I mean. Despite everything, I was sharper, tighter. My bulk was closing in on itself, huddling my frame. I felt compact and constantly wound up. I was on full alert.
My dear old mum came to see me once a week in Rochester. She’d always start off each visit by smiling at me and saying: ‘You’ll be out soon, son.’ Then she’d spend the entire visit babbling on about my brothers and sister and what was happening back at home. I couldn’t get a word in edgeways and I knew she was trying her hardest to avoid cracking up. I could see in her eyes that she was holding herself back from crying. Trouble was that watching her suffer made me feel like shit. It broke my heart to see her in such distress.
At the end of each visit, she’d give me a hug and I could feelher shaking like a leaf, still holding back the tears. I knew that if I hugged her too long then she’d completely crack up so I’d sort of push her away. Sometimes the bad things you do are done for a good reason. She told me later how she’d then go home and sob her eyes out. She never wanted to show me how upset she really was but I knew all along. It’s typical of my mum to try and always be strong.
Meanwhile the staff at Rochester continued to prove themselves to be total wankers. If they could get one over on an inmate they would. It was all like a game to them and there were a lot more sensitive souls than me around.
There was one particularly evil screw who baited up a fight between me and a boy who was supposed to be the ‘Big Daddy’ inside – the kid no-one dared take on. This screw kept trying to wind us up to have a tear-up. He got his kicks from seeing this
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