The Bars That Hold Us (2 page)

Dad’s moustache twitches, a sure sign there
are things on his mind. I decide to steer his conversation away from my welfare before I bite anger at his good intentions and well-meaning words.

‘How’s M
om?’ He contemplates this, clearly not what he had in mind.

‘She’s well, although she’d like to see you more.’

‘She knows where I live.’

‘As do you, her.’

‘I just—’

‘You’ve got to start living again, Mercy. Daniel wouldn’t want this for you.’

‘Don’t say his name, Dad, please.’

‘You need to talk about this with someone
; get some grief counseling.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘You’re far from it. I don’t mean to be the one to tell you some hard truths, love, but you look like death warmed up.’

I gasp, unable to hide from his blunt words. He can see
that the mention of death is just another taunt at the man I’ve already lost. I know he’s trying to make me see that this isn’t me, the old me, but none of it matters any more. It’s like out of the two of us, he’s the only one who doesn’t see that the girl he knew and loved is never coming back. She’s gone, because a piece of me died that day as well.

‘Look, love, I didn’t mean
—’

‘I look like shit
. I know, Dad.’

‘You need something to take your mind of things.’

‘I’m happy the way I am.’

‘Happy? You call this happy?’ His arms sweep wildly, making note of the home that feels like a prison. There’s no life here, and he can see it.

‘It’s all I’m capable of right now.’

‘Look. I’ve had this job offer come my way and
—’

‘Dad! I’m not going back, despite what you think.’

‘Just give me a minute to explain. There’s a position come up over at Silverwater. The warden is a colleague of mine and is willing to give it to you, no questions asked.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Just like that.’

‘Thanks, Dad, but no thanks. I’m not ready to deal with people again so soon.’

‘It’s been a year, Mercy! You’ve got to move on!’

‘Please, I just need to be left alone,’ I plead,
needing him to see this my way. He swallows the rest of his coffee and places his cup in the sink. Reaching into the pocket of his uniform he pulls out a business card and drops it on the counter. He extends his arms out towards me, as though desperate to hug all of my troubles away.

I let him embrace me, knowing it is comfort for him, not me.

‘Just think about the offer okay, love?’

‘I—
’

‘Don’t answer now,’ he says, releasing me. ‘Just think about it. In the meantime, get some food into you. You’re all skin and bones these days. Some fresh air wouldn’t go astray either.’

I see dad out to the front door, knowing that he’s completely right, but hating that he is. He kisses the top of my head fondly before heading to the patrol car that’s waiting in my driveway. He’s a man who lives and breathes the job. I used to be the same until my very reason for breathing was snatched away from me. Now all I have are vague ideals of what my life should be. All I know is that the one person I want to share it with is never coming back and that, more than anything else, is the hardest thing to reconcile in my head.

I always said I would do anything for family, but now that the realization of that sentiment has come true, I carry the burden of guilt in wishing I hadn’t been so hasty in my actions.

This place, it eats you alive. It slowly removes every single aspect of who you were and replaces it all with just a number.
I’m
just a number. No value to anyone. My number earns me no respect, no admiration, no nothing.

And time, fuck, time just seems to stand still. It’s bottomless, bountiful and ill-placed in surroundings that hold you with concrete walls and bars. It’s torture. Privacy? Yeah, that went out the window
, too. There is not a single second of any given day that I don’t feel completely and utterly alone. The flip side is that I have over eight hundred inmates watching every move I make.

I was naïve enough to think that this place wouldn’t end up
being my home. I was wrong. So dead wrong. I’m not built for places like this. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a killer when I have to be, obviously, that’s why I’m here, right? But it’s not ingrained in me like most of the inmates. I wasn’t born bad. I just made a wrong decision in the heat of the moment.

And that decision is going to cost me. Cost me my freedom, my love, my life and my will to give two shits about anything anymore.

My first reaction when entering Silverwater was to do whatever it took to survive. I know I’m not like the rest of them and, for some reason, they can seem to sniff it out a mile off. Most prisoners enter the Metropolitan Remand and Reception Centre knowing at least a handful of the inmates. Not me. Most join their segregated group, whether it’s a gang affiliation or race association. Not me.

I just wanted to be left alone
— ignored. In the beginning it made people wary of me, wondering what it was that kept me so distant from human contact. Now my actions seem to have worked to my detriment. Over the months and years I’ve been here, they get a little braver each day, pushing and testing my boundaries. They do this thing called a chin check, where another inmate will punch you in the jaw to see if you’ll fight back. I will, because that’s what you do to survive, but they’re not going to like the outcome the day they push me too far. Come to think of it, neither will I.

I’ll do what I have to do.
I just don’t want the added sentence on my record. Let me tell you, solitary’s no picnic either.

This life is not for me. It’s like a slow and painful death. The bizarre thing is
, although you resist entering places like this, once you do, you’re afraid to leave. You’re afraid of the stigma, the judgy eyes and the unwillingness of society to give you a second chance. You become conditioned into believing this is the only life on offer, despite having experienced another at some point in time.

Talk about watching paint dry. This is much worse. I’m stuck in a cell with a guy who reeks of sour body
odor, whose shit smells probably just as bad as my own, but coming from his ass, it’s enough to knock me off my feet. Especially when you can’t just duck out of your cell any time you please. I’m made to suffer his poor personal hygiene because that’s my lot in life right now. To boot, the guy’s a monkey mouth as well, which is the name we give prisoners who go on and on about nothing. It drives me fucking insane. I’d rather be in solitary than put up with his drivel. 

I’m the kind of guy who doesn’t like rules and conformity. You know the type; a little badass in school, broke curfew more than once and got a tattoo before I was legal. This works well in the real world where you want to be seen as the strong, dependable man who doesn’t take shit from anyone. Out of these bars I would be every
woman’s wet dream and every guy’s best mate. In here, I’m nothing more than the inmates I house with. Sooner or later we all succumb to the rules and regulations of the house. We all become
owned
.

One thing I don’t wanna be is a prison wolf
. You know, straight on the outside but swing the other way behind these bars. Days may be lonely but I’m not gonna ride with any of these guys just to gain protection or contraband.

Th
e clang of cell doors opening shakes the prison floors. These doors are old school. Old mechanics, old steel. You know the minute they start moving it’s either meal time or the hour in which we hit the exercise yard.

R
ight now, breakfast is on the table. There’s no fancy meal awaiting us, that’s for sure. The prison guards wait in the hallway, seven am on the dot, ready to escort us to our first structured meal for the day. Half the time it’s porridge slop, made with water, not milk. And there’ll be none of that fancy golden syrup on it either. You get a piece of fruit, a carton of milk and something they like to call a beef patty, but it’s more likely to resemble a cow shit than not. There’s no coffee either. Apparently it’s got no health benefits. I’d like to argue with the warden that the coffee bean is full of antioxidants. All that’d do though is piss him off and make him look on me even less favorably than he already does.

So I do what I do
. Keep quiet, keep my nose clean and ignore what’s going on around me. Not unaware, just ignore. You can’t afford to take your eyes off these guys, even for a second. It could cost you a shank to a vital organ or your asshole being torn apart by a man who thinks you’re in need of some lovin’. Not for me, thanks all the same.

Thankfully at meal times my cell mate goes and sits with
a gang of inmates from D Block. Apparently he does like being a prison wolf. I watch him go as I grab my tray from another inmate behind the serving counter. Like every day since I’ve been in Silverwater, I take my food and sit on my own in a corner table of the eating facilities.

I feel everybody’s eyes on me, making each step more torturous than the last. Something is brewing, but I don’t know what. That’s the problem when you’re a loner, you don’t have your finger on the pulse. I’m going to have to make sure I keep my eye on the ball today or I could end up in the infirmary.

Like everyone else, I eat the food on my tray. It’s not always without complaint. I can see two men from the Middle Eastern Gangs on the move towards the service area, their cow patties in hand. It looks like they’ve got something to complain about. Without any provocation, they chuck the offending meat at the inmates who’ve served them the crap. Before the custodial guards can get to them, they’ve jump the counter and are laying into the guys with bare knuckles and sporks.

One of the guards hits the alarm and a deafening siren blares out around us. I calmly finish the food on my plate before getting on my stomach on the floor with my hands in the air. We know the drill. If you don’t want to be taken down with the rest of them, you obey immediately.

This isn’t about the food, though. It’s a nice distraction while guards try and break up four inmates going at it with each other, but it’s the quiet ones standing back you need to look out for.

From where I’m lying on the cold, hard, linoleum floor, I can see one of their gang members is advancing towards a new inmate. Fresh meat they call it. He’s a feeble forty-something
pedophile with thick-rimmed specs and shaggy hair. I can see it happening, yet I’m not going to do a single thing about it. Most of these guys have kids, and can’t stand the kiddie fiddlers entering our walls. They’re soon sorted out by the hierarchy of the men. I’ve got too much to risk getting caught up in a fight with a man I’m just as happy to see dead as they are. So I lay there, quiet, waiting for the shit to hit the fan.

The siren drowns out
the first of his screams as the shank sinks into his green jumpsuit. I can tell by the sudden leakage on the linoleum that they’ve hit his liver. Normal stabbings run red. This time, it looks like black tar running out of his body.

Guards stomp past me, their thick, heavy boots smacking the floor double time. By the time they reach the new guy, the gang
member has already stabbed him several more times in the chest. He’ll be lucky if he doesn’t bleed out within two minutes.

Because of this inner squabbling, I know they’re going to cancel all visits to the jail today. I’m angry and frustrated because this is the one time I get to see my baby brother each week. He’s the reason I’m here, and it’s important for both of us to get this visit.

The rest of breakfast is cancelled. We’re all rushed back to our cells for lockdown and I’m left resentful and hating as I lie on the ghetto penthouse, which is what us crims favorably call the top bunk.

My cellmate, Clinton
, is talking below me, but I tune him out as I get lost in old memories as I so often do. I try hard not to think about the good times, but it’s inevitable when all I’ve got to look forward to in here is more of the same old monotonous shit.

Jamie was supposed to visit today. He always does
on a Tuesday, without fail. I know he feels guilty—fuck, don’t we all. It’s hard for him to move on from that night, while I’m sitting in here, day after day, rotting away. I’ve lost so much and I know it cuts him deeply. It wasn’t just my family, but my girl, my job… everything.

Ma never visits. She can’t stand to see her first-born holed up in a cell with other crims.
The old man never visits either. I’m sure he feels the shame I’ve brought upon the family, now unable to walk out into his neighborhood with his head held high. Now people judge; they point and stare at the father whose son took another’s life.

It’s just me and Jamie, both needing to talk to exorcise our demons and try to move on with our lot in life.
The problem is Jamie’s life
can
move forward. He can heal. He can keep moving from the inertia of life and find pleasure in the little things, whether it’s a new job or whatever.

My life is stuck. So long as I’m here, my life is suspended. As of three years ago, I no longer own my freedom. It now belongs to the parole board who work for Corrective Services. I’m pinning an early release on keeping my
nose clean and out of trouble. A hard task when you’re surrounded by armed robbers and murderers who wouldn’t think twice about knifing you for your toilet paper.

Lunch is hours away, maybe eve
n longer than that if the cleanup in the service hall takes longer. I close my eyes, tormenting myself with memories of what it used to be like to have a woman, a job and family. All I hope is that I make it through the rest of my time unhindered, so that one day, I might be able to have all of those things again.