Read Online Hard Time by Anthony Papa Anne Mini Shaun Attwood - Free Book Online
Authors: Anthony Papa Anne Mini Shaun Attwood
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mattresses and bedding!’
The trusty fetched us blankets, sheets and towels. We helped ourselves to torn thin mattresses leaking a toxic-looking black soot. My companions coiled their mattresses around their belongings, so I copied them.
‘All right. Keep walking! We’re going to Tower 2!’
Shouldering our mattresses, we exited into a breezeway with an expanded-metal roof. We passed two recreation pens surrounded by chain-link fences and razor wire. Due to the weight of my belongings and the heat, sweat was running into my eyes by the time Kohlbeck buzzed us into Tower 2.
As we walked down the cement-block corridor, tattooed men wearing bee stripes banged on the Plexiglas at either side of us: zoo animals yearning to attack their visitors. Unnerved by the rows of hard faces, I wanted to look straight ahead, but my eyes instinctively jumped to the sources of the loudest banging. Some of them mimed smoking: their way of asking if any of us had smuggled in cigarettes.
‘Stop below the bubble,’ Officer Kohlbeck said.
We stopped in the middle of the building – all Plexiglas, metal and concrete. In the centre were spiral stairs leading up to the control tower – a giant fishbowl in the air giving the guards a view of the four identical pods lettered A, B, C and D. Separated by cement-block walkways with Plexiglas windows, each pod took up almost a quarter of the space below the control tower and had its own electronically activated sliding door. Walking in a circle in the control tower was a guard struggling to keep an eye on the almost 45 men in each pod. The other guard was watching surveillance screens. He occasionally pressed a button on the control panel to open one of the sliding doors to allow an inmate in or out of a pod. At the back of each pod were two storeys of cells facing the day room and the control tower. Each pod had stairs running from the middle of the upper tier down to about six feet before the sliding door at the front of the pod. The stairs were metal grid, so the guards could see through them. Most of the inmates in the pods were sizing us up. I steeled myself to join the overcrowded population of sweaty, hungry, violent men. A guard descended the control-tower stairs and ordered us to wait further down the corridor. Officer Kohlbeck disappeared. We sat on our rolled-up mattresses. The men in the pods talked to us in sign language.
‘He’s swindowing you,’ Boyd said, pointing at a skinhead with a swastika and skulls on his chest.
‘Swindowing?’ I asked.
‘Talking through the windows,’ Boyd said.
‘What’s he want?’
‘To know if you’re affiliated.’
‘Affiliated?’
‘With the gangs. Probably ’cause your head’s shaved.’
‘I’m not. Can you tell him this is my first time?’
‘Sure.’ Boyd raised his right arm to almost head height, hand horizontal, palm down, and then shook his head and hand in sync.
‘Thanks,’ I said.
The skinhead waved his arms around.
‘Now he wants to know if you’re bringing any dope in.’
‘No dope, no smokes.’
The inmates kept harassing us for contraband. I was starting to regret not being a smoker. I wished I had something to throw to the wolves other than just myself.
A guard descended from the control tower and directed the African American and the hippy to D pod, the rest of us to cell 12 in A pod.
The sliding door burred open, unleashing the stink of smoke and body odour. As I entered the pod, the heavy atmosphere weighed on my lungs. In the day room were four steel tables bolted to the floor: two at either side of the metal-grid stairs. The inmates at the tables stopped playing cards and watching the small TV fixed on a wall to check us out. I felt their eyes follow me up the stairs and along the balcony.
Boyd bolted ahead to A12 and claimed the bottom bunk. David, the quiet bespectacled man, quickly put his mattress on the middle bunk, leaving me the top, the smallest slab of sleeping space. The cell was the
The trusty fetched us blankets, sheets and towels. We helped ourselves to torn thin mattresses leaking a toxic-looking black soot. My companions coiled their mattresses around their belongings, so I copied them.
‘All right. Keep walking! We’re going to Tower 2!’
Shouldering our mattresses, we exited into a breezeway with an expanded-metal roof. We passed two recreation pens surrounded by chain-link fences and razor wire. Due to the weight of my belongings and the heat, sweat was running into my eyes by the time Kohlbeck buzzed us into Tower 2.
As we walked down the cement-block corridor, tattooed men wearing bee stripes banged on the Plexiglas at either side of us: zoo animals yearning to attack their visitors. Unnerved by the rows of hard faces, I wanted to look straight ahead, but my eyes instinctively jumped to the sources of the loudest banging. Some of them mimed smoking: their way of asking if any of us had smuggled in cigarettes.
‘Stop below the bubble,’ Officer Kohlbeck said.
We stopped in the middle of the building – all Plexiglas, metal and concrete. In the centre were spiral stairs leading up to the control tower – a giant fishbowl in the air giving the guards a view of the four identical pods lettered A, B, C and D. Separated by cement-block walkways with Plexiglas windows, each pod took up almost a quarter of the space below the control tower and had its own electronically activated sliding door. Walking in a circle in the control tower was a guard struggling to keep an eye on the almost 45 men in each pod. The other guard was watching surveillance screens. He occasionally pressed a button on the control panel to open one of the sliding doors to allow an inmate in or out of a pod. At the back of each pod were two storeys of cells facing the day room and the control tower. Each pod had stairs running from the middle of the upper tier down to about six feet before the sliding door at the front of the pod. The stairs were metal grid, so the guards could see through them. Most of the inmates in the pods were sizing us up. I steeled myself to join the overcrowded population of sweaty, hungry, violent men. A guard descended the control-tower stairs and ordered us to wait further down the corridor. Officer Kohlbeck disappeared. We sat on our rolled-up mattresses. The men in the pods talked to us in sign language.
‘He’s swindowing you,’ Boyd said, pointing at a skinhead with a swastika and skulls on his chest.
‘Swindowing?’ I asked.
‘Talking through the windows,’ Boyd said.
‘What’s he want?’
‘To know if you’re affiliated.’
‘Affiliated?’
‘With the gangs. Probably ’cause your head’s shaved.’
‘I’m not. Can you tell him this is my first time?’
‘Sure.’ Boyd raised his right arm to almost head height, hand horizontal, palm down, and then shook his head and hand in sync.
‘Thanks,’ I said.
The skinhead waved his arms around.
‘Now he wants to know if you’re bringing any dope in.’
‘No dope, no smokes.’
The inmates kept harassing us for contraband. I was starting to regret not being a smoker. I wished I had something to throw to the wolves other than just myself.
A guard descended from the control tower and directed the African American and the hippy to D pod, the rest of us to cell 12 in A pod.
The sliding door burred open, unleashing the stink of smoke and body odour. As I entered the pod, the heavy atmosphere weighed on my lungs. In the day room were four steel tables bolted to the floor: two at either side of the metal-grid stairs. The inmates at the tables stopped playing cards and watching the small TV fixed on a wall to check us out. I felt their eyes follow me up the stairs and along the balcony.
Boyd bolted ahead to A12 and claimed the bottom bunk. David, the quiet bespectacled man, quickly put his mattress on the middle bunk, leaving me the top, the smallest slab of sleeping space. The cell was the
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