Dragons & Butterflies: Sentenced to Die, Choosing to Live (54 page)

By the end of 1995 already I had started sketching with a Bic pen. Most of my drawings were done in black, symbolic of my oppression and suffering. I found myself a place in the dining room where I would spend hours on end every morning, drawing. There were two entrances to the dining area, which was an open-air structure enclosed by fencing, making it relatively cool. The steel-frame tables were topped with narrow wooden beams at half-inch intervals. They were about 5m long, with attached benches to sit on, and they were very heavy. One table could seat up to 30 people. There were 14 tables in the dining room. In the morning, first thing when we were let out of our cells, I would fetch my pillow, which I had had made for me at the towel factory, and take it to the dining room, placing it on the bench where I sat, next to the fence that bordered on the side of the yard where the guys jogged and played football. It was the spot that offered the most light. I had to do this in order to reserve my place, as after 8am the dining room would fill up with people who either ate or wrote letters or slept there on the benches. Exactly above where I sat was a ceiling fan, which provided a bit of extra breeze. The tables were always dirty, so I would always wipe down the surface where I sat.

Thais are inquisitive by nature and they are also culturally quite advanced. In prison there was no privacy; people were forever watching me, especially when I was painting or drawing. At intervals, small groups of Thais would form around me and watch me work. Some would pass comments, such as
‘Dee muk
’ (very good) or ‘
Fee mer
’ (excellent). At first, I was so self-conscious that it irritated me, to the extent that I struggled to concentrate on my drawing. I would look up angrily and cover my drawing with my hand. I wished everybody would just fuck off and mind their own business. ‘What the fuck are you looking at?’ I would say morosely, and then I would get some dirty stares in return before they dispersed.

Some of the Thais who ended up in Bangkwang came from the mountains, and many had never seen a foreigner before, so they would often sit and stare blankly at me for what seemed like forever. To overcome my discomfort, I would sometimes imagine that I was the leading actor in a movie and that all the people watching me were part of a film crew. I had a role to play, which I learnt to play exceedingly well, and with time I grew to feel less uncomfortable being watched.

I wrote to my sister about it:

It is so hard to draw in this heat as the sweat is running down my face; I have to be so careful not to smudge the picture – that is why my drawings are so unique. Nobody can imagine the conditions I have to work under. Sometimes I have to fight for my place in the dining hall where I sit. People are lying all over the benches and sleeping. There is a crazy psychopath sitting near me talking aloud to himself for hours on end. I feel like bashing his head in. Sitting and facing me is an old man who has TB and does not stop coughing. Man, it is like a lunatic asylum here. You think you have problems, I have people leaning over my shoulder staring at me drawing, on my side and in front of me. You would think that they have never seen a foreigner drawing. It is quite an education and if nothing else I’m certainly learning to be patient.

With time, I became more comfortable, realising that the Thais who crowded round every day to watch me draw actually appreciated art. In fact, their admiration for my work became inspiring to me. By now I was painting portraits for friends in different parts of the world, who, in return, were sending me art supplies.

It came to me one night in a vision that, before I would be emancipated, I would go through three levels of evolution: artistically, spiritually and as a person. I knew I had to change. I needed to redeem myself. In my mind there was still too much turmoil, however, that needed to be quieted. The battle raged on inside me.

Besides electrical appliances, money and things that were illegal, we could receive almost anything in the parcels our friends and relatives sent us. For medicines, though, you had to have a prescription. In the event that your family
did
send money, the officer in charge would automatically deposit it in your account. For a prisoner to have cash on him was strictly illegal. One of my friends had sent me a
siddur
, a Jewish prayer book. There were many reasons why I should have been praying. G-d was working miracles all around me, but I was not yet paying close attention. Although I was becoming aware that coming to prison was for my own benefit, I wasn’t yet ready to admit it. Instead I clung stubbornly to the belief that a terrible injustice had befallen me. Having convinced my family about my innocence, I started to believe it was true. In my heart I was grateful and gradually I could feel my anger beginning to subside, but I was yet to open that prayer book and pray. In my heart I remained distant from G-d and it would still be a while before I found my way back to him.

My sister Joan had a friend, Edna Ralph, who lived in Manchester in England and was affiliated with Chabad House. She had heard of my plight and, feeling compassion for my situation, initiated contact with me. Edna was deeply spiritual and she started sending me books on Judaism. In her letters she encouraged me to study and read as much as I could. I can honestly say that this was the beginning of my spiritual journey and of my renewed faith in G-d. Edna would walk around Manchester and collect money for ‘Eleazer’ (my Hebrew name), her new prisoner friend in Bangkok. She sent me £100 every month, and I have to say that the extra funds were a tremendous help and went a long way towards improving my standard of living. I also managed to purchase a lot more art supplies as a result. I was so grateful to her.

One year, the Chabad rabbi deposited 3 000 Thai baht into all the Jewish guys’ prison accounts for Purim, the Jewish festival in which it is customary to give ‘
shalach manot
’ (little parcels of food and fruit) and charity. The money was donated by an affluent Persian Jew who lived in Bangkok. The Israeli prisoners were visited every month by the rabbi, who represented the Israeli embassy. He would bring punnets of kosher food. Although I was not called for these visits, because I was not an Israeli, Rabbi Nechemya always brought an equal portion for me.

In Jewish tradition, it is forbidden to have your body marked. If you are tattooed, you cannot be buried in a Jewish cemetery when you die. I did know this, and part of me was reluctant to defy the tradition, but I did it all the same. For some, a tattoo might symbolise something important; for others, it might be an act of rebellion or merely to be fashionable, part of a trend. I had my first tattoo done when I was in the army, on that infamous New Year’s holiday in Cape Town with Gerry, Sam and Mark, when we went to Adams in Woodstock. Mine was an eagle, representing freedom. My second tattoo I had done in Bangkok a few days before I was arrested. I chose a snake with the head of a cobra and the tail of a rattlesnake, implying double danger.

Tattoos are very much part of prison culture, and for the most part are not merely decorative. In prison, tattoos indicate gang membership, and particular tattoos serve to align members of particular gangs.

When I first got to prison, I was surprised to see so many guys with tattoos; some had their entire bodies covered. One very popular symbol was the Thai dragon, which represents supernatural power or some form of magic. Dragons are also associated with wisdom and longevity. The dragon is a central feature of Thai art and literature, and its mythology draws on Indian, Chinese and Japanese legends. Thailand shares a cultural and historical heritage with neighbouring Laos and Cambodia. You will find statues of dragons all over Thailand, particularly outside temples, where they are symbols of protection. In prison, the Thai dragon is associated with the warrior, the way of the samurai. The Thai mafia, or Bad Boys, as we referred to them, had huge dragon tattoos on their backs.

If I was about to spend the rest of my life in prison, I decided that my body ink would become symbolic of my journey: I would have a tattoo done every year until the day of my release. Good tattoo artists, however, were hard to come by, and invariably these artists were one of the Bad Boys. These guys were forever fighting or stabbing each other, resulting in their being sent to solitary confinement, being moved from one building to another, and even being transferred to other prisons.

My very first tattoo in prison was a Thai dragon, which I had done on my left arm in the traditional method, whereby the artist uses a piece of bamboo to which five thin needles are attached. The way these guys work is quite incredible – I had to admire their talent.

Tattooing in prison is strictly forbidden, but on Saturdays and Sundays things were generally more relaxed. Outside guards were on duty over weekends. They were not familiar with the prisoners, so they were either sleeping, watching TV or getting a massage. As long as you were out of sight of the guards, you could usually get away with risking it. In the event that the guards happened to stumble on you while you were being tattooed, they would confiscate the ink and bamboo stick. The tattoo artists normally used ink from a regular pen, which contains lead and can cause skin infections. However, I managed to organise proper tattoo ink and made sure that, when it was my turn, the needles were cleaned with pure alcohol. One couldn’t be too careful, with so many of the prisoners having AIDS.

Prison regulations required all prisoners to have short hair, army style. Every building at Bangkwang had at least three barber shops where haircuts were given by prisoners, largely inexperienced guys and not very skilled. In Thai culture, having a haircut is something of a ritual. After having your hair cropped with electric clippers and a switchblade, your ears would then be cleaned. To do this, the barber takes a long thin feather and inserts it deep into your ear. The session ends with a facial massage. In my first two years in Bangkwang I was fortunate to have a hair stylist who had won some international hairdressing competition. I say ‘fortunate’ because he knew his trade, so that was the upside. On the downside, he was serving time for murder, after apparently running a pair of scissors into a client’s throat while cutting the man’s hair.

Before I knew about his crime, I would go to him for a trim and a shave. The guy was so popular that guards from other buildings would also come to him. When I learnt what he had done to earn his place in Bangkwang, I never again went near him, or any other barber, for that matter. From then on, I cut my hair myself when I wanted to.

Those of us foreigners who liked to wear our hair long refused to have haircuts. We would argue and say it was for religious purposes, and eventually the guards gave up and allowed us to grow our hair. Before going to prison I’d never grown a beard. I didn’t like facial hair. In prison, it really didn’t matter what you looked like, and altering your appearance could prove to be interesting. Although a beard never actually suited me, I did get a sense of comfort knowing that if ever I escaped I could simply change my identity by growing facial hair.