Dragons & Butterflies: Sentenced to Die, Choosing to Live (80 page)

Joseph, the Israeli backgammon player who had been so soundly beaten by the Cripple, slept opposite me. He and his co-accused had escaped from Chiang Rai prison, but had been caught, rearrested and given the death penalty. For seven years they had sat on death row, with leg irons welded round their ankles. Then, with the support of the Israeli government, through a royal decree their sentences were reduced to life imprisonment, which was how Joseph had come to our building.

Late one night, at around 1am, the sounds of a muffled conversation woke me from my sleep. It happened again the next night. After a few nights of puzzlement I realised Joseph had a mobile phone, a dog. The next day I spoke to him about it, thinking that I would reprimand him and ban him from bringing his mobile into the room. I did not want to run the risks that being caught with a dog carried. When Joseph first arrived from Building 1, I had invited him to stay in my house with Simon and me, on condition that he stopped using heroin, which he did. He turned out to be a great guy, actually, and he was the one who introduced me to gambling on football. Joseph was from the old school, where there was still honour among men who had chosen a life of crime. When I spoke to him about the phone, very diplomatically and respectfully, he explained to me that in fact there was nothing I could do to prevent the guys from using mobiles in the room. If I tried to stop them, he said, I would make a lot of enemies. He added, ‘Don’t you want to speak to your family?’

Obviously, he was right. How could I even try to prevent the inmates from having instant contact with their families? Joseph had one of those small Panasonics and a SIM card (code word ‘biscuit’). His friends on the outside would text him airtime numbers from a pop-up voucher.

On weekends, the General’s house and the area behind it became like the post office. Guys were ducking and diving behind their locker doors all day, phoning their families. People would happily allow you to use their mobiles (‘bark the dog’) and airtime was easily arranged. Every 500 Thai baht cost you an extra 50 Thai baht. It was another way of bringing revenue into the prison without having to go through the guards. I remember the first text message I ever sent was to my friend Melanie in Pretoria. It read: ‘Hello’.

When I took ownership of the gym, our membership stood at 15. I employed the services of two Thai boys to unpack and pack the weights away every day. We also had to pay the guard 500 Thai baht a month, after expenses. The profit left was worth one football. If the gym was going to run profitably, we needed to get more members to join. So I had this idea. Everybody liked to watch themselves in the mirror when they trained, but the gym had only two mirrors, both of which were small and badly cracked. Through one of the guards I arranged to buy four big mirrors, ordering them from the furniture factory in Building 8. Within a week of fitting them in the gym our membership increased to 30 paying members. I also organised permission for the guys on death row to work out between 8 and 9am. Actually, I ran the gym single-handedly; my Russian partner Yegor sat back and did bugger all. Being a people person, and knowing how important it was to keep busy – not that I had all that much time on my hands – I didn’t really mind. I also offered a special for senior citizens and only charged these older guys half-price.

Much as I was beginning to like some of the Thais – and some were already close friends – they had some personal hygiene habits I could never quite get my head around. Sometimes when you would be working out in the gym, and looking at yourself in the mirror from about 3m away, a Thai guy would come and stand close to the mirror right in front of you, squeeze his blackheads, pick his nose, then wipe his nails on the edge of the wooden frame, not in the least perturbed that you were watching him. It amazed me every time one of them did this.

It was hard to prevent people from training in the gym for free. If I saw somebody who was not a member working out for the first time, I wouldn’t say anything. If he came back the next day, I would tell him that the use of the gym was strictly for members, but that he was welcome to join – at a fee, of course. There were also some guards who worked out; naturally I could not charge them. With the profits I made, I would buy footballs,
takraw
balls and even ping-pong balls. I was one of the fortunate ones who had support from home, so I used the money I generated from the gym to benefit prisoners by buying sports equipment.

Being the owner of the gym also enhanced my position as leader of the foreigners. Among the Thais there were some really big gangsters, and these guys had a lot of influence. I would allow them to train for free, mostly out of respect, but also because they all had bodyguards. So while the boss didn’t have to pay to train, he paid for six or seven of his boys to use the gym. There was an incident where one of the Thai Bad Boys took a 5kg weight and smashed it on the head of one of the other prisoners with whom he had had a falling-out, opening quite a deep gash. I did not witness the attack, but whenever there was a fight, every second person who walked past you would say, or ask, whether you had seen or heard about what happened. One of my boys who worked in the gym came running to tell me.

In the gym we had dumbbells, weights, bars, any of which could be used as a weapon. The investigating guard submitted the 5kg weight as evidence as the weapon used in the attack. It was sent out with a report to the security section. My greatest concern was that they might close the gym down, but thankfully this didn’t happen. I was called to the inquiry, but the guard in charge only asked me to please monitor the weights and generally to be more vigilant. After that, every afternoon when my boys packed the weights away, I was careful to do a count.

One day, a Frenchman arrived from a prison in the provinces. In our cell we had decided that whenever a new person came, until they paid their 2 000 Thai baht, they would have to sleep among the Thais without any space between their beds.

On his first night, as the new guy passed my bed, he muttered in his French accent, ‘I want the same space as you.’

‘All in good time, my friend,’ I told him. ‘It took me almost ten years and a lot of money to enjoy this privilege.’

All he had was a couple of soiled blankets. Without his knowledge, I ordered one of my boys to wash his blankets, dry them, buy another two blankets and make him a bed, which was ready by the time he came to the cell that afternoon. He looked at his bed, not sure if it was for him.

‘It’s yours,’ I said.

I couldn’t believe my ears. The guy moaned about my gift, saying that he’d never asked for help. I actually found myself apologising for my good deed, and saying that one of the requirements of being in our cell was that he have a bed. I didn’t get upset, though. When I extended help, it was always unconditional. With time, most of us took a liking to the Frenchman.

Jonnie the South African, on the other hand, was likeable, easy-going and always had a smile on his face. He and the Russian and the Frenchman became good friends, and all three of them would hang out in my house.

By now there were at least two dogs in our cell. Jonnie and one of the British guys wanted the three of us to club in and buy one. We paid 18 000 Thai baht for a Nokia and I took on the responsibility of hiding it and bringing it in and out of the room, which was quite dangerous. Before we entered, there would be a guard at the gate checking our bags and frisking our bodies. Because of the power I had by now, whenever we entered I would briskly walk past the guard without pausing to give him time to search my bag or my body, and I was never called back. You have to remember that most of these guards had, at one stage or another, taken a bribe from me. I wasn’t about to allow myself to be searched.

I took the cardboard tube from a roll of toilet paper and made a small box with it, about the size of a cigarette packet. I used Super Glue to stick the box under and against the edge of one of my lockers, and this was where I would hide the dog. Having a phone was still extremely dangerous and had to be kept a secret, especially from the Thais, whom one couldn’t trust. Despite the good friendships I had forged with some of them, the Thai mentality remained very strange to me: if a Thai could benefit from you in some way, he would be your best friend, but the second there was no advantage to be gained, he didn’t know you and wouldn’t give you the time of day.

I went through stages of contentment, but often depression crept in. It would take me by surprise, throwing me completely off balance. The scorching heat didn’t help matters, and when I was in this low state of mind, often I wouldn’t paint for weeks on end and I would neglect my Jewish studies. Sometimes I hit such a low that not only did I lose my will to live but I also thought I was losing my mind. I became short-tempered and everybody irritated the fuck out of me. And, more often than not, I would take my bad moods out on Jai. She once remarked that my tongue was quicker than my brain, and she was right. The smallest thing would upset me, and then I would say the most hurtful things without considering the other person’s feelings. When I saw that I’d upset the person, I would be quick to apologise, and I couldn’t understand it when the recipient of my verbal attack wasn’t as quick to forgive. The truth was, I really
did
care, but I just couldn’t control my mouth. The abuse would spurt out of me with such ferocity that I frightened even myself. The anger that I thought had dissipated over the years was still there, festering inside me like a cancer.

I needed some answers, and so, as I certainly wasn’t going to find them in my head, I looked to G-d. I assumed He knew my mind was troubled. During one of my many conversations with Him, through my inner voice He asked me these questions: ‘Eleazer, if I were to grant you your physical freedom, redeemed as you are, would you be able to resist becoming a slave of your own desire? Why would you be any different from what you were before coming to prison? If you are ready to fulfil My purpose, I will open the steel gates of hell.’ His voice was audible in its silence. If I answered yes, I had no doubt the way would be open, but this truth still remained: I was not ready. The gates to freedom were only an obstruction of my mind; my time behind these walls was of greater significance than my liberation.

When a baby is born prematurely, there are all sorts of complications, so I thought of this as an analogy and I answered no. I was not ready. Time would be the deciding factor. With every day that passed, I would grow from strength to strength, so I told
Hashem
I was not ready. Once I understood that I would be staying indefinitely in prison, I began to be more at peace with myself.

The authorities had decided to install a telephone in every building, to replace those we had been using at the computer room outside the building. That first system had become a logistical nightmare and a security risk, with so many prisoners leaving the building to make calls. This new system would be far more practical. Of course I had a mobile by then, but in order not to arouse suspicion I applied through the embassy for a prison telephone card, which permitted me two five-minute calls a week. Scratchcard vouchers were available through the coffee shop. To call South Africa cost me 40 Thai baht for five minutes. Scratchcards came in fifties and hundreds. The problem was that, some months, a telephone card holder could only buy the 100 Thai baht cards. There was always a shortage of fifties. The owner of the coffee shop, who was a Taiwanese, would organise extra scratchcards and share them out, mostly among his Chinese friends. Seeing that we had been together for so long, and that he was also a member of my drinking circle, he helped me out, too. Whenever there was a shortage I would make a lot of noise, write petitions and demand extra, but it was all a bluff. I was in contact with my sister on a daily basis barking the dog, so when I called her from the office for my five-minute session, we would have nothing to talk about!

Keeping an account of the weights in the gym was a headache, but it was a necessary exercise – we
were
a bunch of criminals, after all. There was an incident where one of the prisoners removed a set of dumbbells, took them to his locker on the other side of the building, and just kept them. But my biggest problem came when new prisoners arrived. They would walk around the building familiarising themselves with the environment, just as I had done years before. The gym was probably the main attraction. I couldn’t allow people to exercise for free; it wasn’t fair to the paying members. So some of those who wanted to train but didn’t want to pay would occasionally help themselves. Weights would frequently disappear and the equipment would also wear out quickly or get broken. I can’t tell you how often I had to do repairs or replace equipment.