Gang of One: One Man's Incredible Battle to Find His Missing (24 page)

13

THE LIBRARY GANG

I
STARTED WORK IN THE LIBRARY
the following Monday, roughly ten weeks after entering Big Spring. I’d had a few more of those meltdown moments over the intervening time, but if any of my roommates had witnessed any part of them, no one said. In a way, though, the silence – the fact that I couldn’t talk about them – made them loom larger in my mind. I kept telling myself over and over that they were just panic attacks, but I had never experienced anything like them before, even through the extradition fight and those dark days in Houston. I suspected that Chief had noticed some or perhaps all of them, but he never said anything to me and I didn’t ask. I felt ashamed; weakened by it. I knew I couldn’t afford to have any more episodes like that, and tried to throw myself into creating some structure to my long, slow days in Big Spring.

When it came, the library job helped enormously with that, and so did having a few people around me, like Chief, whom I could talk to and trust. The Range Officer had frowned at my exclusion from kitchen work and Chief seemed mightily impressed that I had managed to dodge that one. He seemed less impressed by the fact that I took the effort to get clean-shaven and have my clothes ironed for my first day at work.

‘You’re wasting your time, Scotty dog,’ he offered. ‘No one’s gonna take a damn bit of notice of you in that place.’ He lay back on his bunk, hands casually behind his head.

‘Shit Chief,’ Kola added, ‘I think Scotland’s got the hots for Miss Reed. He done been in too long already!’ They both laughed and leaned over and high-fived. One of the benefits, I suppose, of having the Range so tightly packed with felons was that you could ‘high-five’ a neighbour without even getting out of your bunk.

The joking and the bonding ended swiftly as one of our new bunkmates passed by. His name was John, and he was tall and pale, white, with a long grey beard and he had moved into the same section as Chief and Kola, just ten feet away from me. All the chomos were white, I soon found out – not a racist observation, just a reality. They also invariably had beards, large, shaggy ones – possibly out of some subconscious attempt to hide their shame. In Big Spring, there were very clear ‘rules’ on how to treat them – they basically were not to be spoken to, and not to be helped in any way. No sharing of items, no favours done, no support in any way. Chief had already told me in some detail about the events of last December and how bad some of the beatings had been. Now more were being re-introduced into the very Range that had seen a few of them murdered and scores beaten beyond recognition.

The atmosphere around John was instantly hostile. But the inmates were aware that any visible aggression towards John or his ilk would not be tolerated by the prison officers and would lead to an immediate transfer out of Big Spring into another medium- or high-security establishment. So there was lip-service to some kind of protection for them, but essentially it was worthless. The chomos were a protected species while the guards were around – which meant that most of the worst abuse simply took place after the watershed. During the day, the abuse was more gentle and seemed to be divided up, like so much of prison life, on racial lines. The Hispanics spat near the chomos, or on their belongings, with the greatest ceremony, with real meaning and aplomb, while the Whites seemed to spend more time focusing on spit volume, summoning up a greater mixture from the depths of their bowels before violently exploding it onto their target. The Blacks seemed more intent on real damage and would throw anything around that John had left on his pristinely made bed.

Initially, no one hit him though. That will come later, Chief had told me morosely. At the moment everyone seemed required to show their outrage at his presence, but to me it looked like it was all posturing, just part of the façade that the inmates maintained. Kola and Chief held themselves apart from it too. Without ever being open or friendly as they had been with me, they were nevertheless respectful of John’s space, and basically courteous. Chief had told me he had learned many moons ago – he always spoke like that – that he was in no position to judge anyone. I liked that personal rule, and it was something I was trying to adhere to as well.

Everything about life in prison felt more intense – you got to know certain aspects of your fellow felons very well. But others were off-limits. Unless you were a shot-caller, for example, you never asked why someone was in prison. You could ask how many years they got, how many served and how many to go, but not why they were there – you waited until they told you, if they ever did. Anyway it was a mistake to define them by the crime they had been imprisoned for – nearly all of them had a much more developed criminal CV. What they had been caught doing was usually the tip of a very big iceberg. In darker moments, I would wonder what some of my roommates – the very ones I nodded to and joked and fist-bumped with – might have been up to on the outside, but in a strange way, with the exception of the hated chomos, that mattered a lot less than I’d imagined.

What mattered was what you saw every day on the inside, and there could be a lot more dignity and pride and care there than I’d seen in many other walks of life. The man who’d ironed my shirt and khakis this time for my first day in the library, for example, did all sorts of laundry tasks for a few stamps. When he had collected enough of them, he’d send them back to his family in Central America, where the meagre amount of dollars they fetched could make a real difference to their lives. I admired him for that – whatever he’d done in the past.

On my first day on the new job, I counted the steps from the Range to the library door and, thoroughly satisfied with my new commute, entered the small prefabricated building carrying some writing paper and a Spanish grammar book. There was no sign of Miss Reed or anyone else ‘official’ for that matter, so I went to the desk where I’d seen AJ sitting on the day of my interview and pulled up another chair beside what I assumed was his. The library already had five or six inmates milling around, three of whom I assessed as likely chomos, being white and middle-aged with beards. I didn’t care though; all I could think about was how blissfully, magically quiet it was in this place. It was extraordinary, a revelation; a real oasis of respite, soothing my senses after months of the constant din of the Big Room. I methodically placed my writing paper and pen down in front of me and then my Spanish grammar book, revelling in the space and silence. I’d never felt happier beginning a new job in my life before. This scene was swiftly brought to an end, however.

‘Awww, this is bullshit!’ These were the first words AJ ever uttered to me, followed by, ‘I told Miss Reed I ain’t working with no white boy. No sir, no way,’ he complained, to no one in particular, looking around him as if one of the child molesters might suddenly come to his aid and remove me from my chair.

‘I don’t think she’s in today,’ I replied, keeping my expression bland. I didn’t care if he didn’t want to work with me; I wasn’t budging from this little piece of heaven for anyone. ‘You must be AJ. I’m Scotland,’ I added, offering a fist bump. He looked at it then looked back at me and let it hang there.

‘Uh huh . . .’

My fist stayed out a few seconds longer before I withdrew it, unbumped.

AJ was a diminutive African-American with closely cropped dark hair, a pencil-thin moustache, and a pencil-thin regard for everyone. Following our introduction, he asserted his ‘space’ by pushing my chair further into the corner as he took the lion’s share of our joint working desk, all the time mumbling profanities about Miss Reed and white boys under his breath. I smiled weakly at him, feeling like an interloper, and awkwardly big beside him given he was so short. After a few seconds, he sighed loudly and looked at me again. ‘What d’you say your name was?’

‘Scotland. Scotland,’ I said, twice, thinking it might not have registered.

‘I got you, I got you,’ he snapped. ‘You don’t have to repeat yourself. I’m not stupid.’

Although the conversation was starting badly, there was something instantly likeable about AJ, if I could just get beyond the prickliness. ‘Erm, Chief said to say hello,’ I threw in. Chief had told me more than that, actually. AJ, he’d explained, was a real character. A crack cocaine dealer from the age of fourteen, he’d lived all his life in Washington and had received a ten-year stretch for possession aged only twenty-five. He’d never been a user himself (‘He’s way too smart for that!’) but his mouth had got him into trouble in an East Coast prison and hence the dreaded transfer 2,000 miles away from home to sunny Big Spring. AJ had been pissed off ever since – ‘A small guy with a big attitude,’ quipped Chief – and he reserved most of that attitude for people with white skin. Then again, as Kola had chipped in, helpfully, AJ had probably never met a white guy quite like Scotland.

‘Chief said hi, did he?’ replied AJ, giving no indication of whether or not he was impressed by that association. He kept staring at me intently, which was very disconcerting, especially since he was sitting less than a foot away from me.

I smiled weakly again, feeling exposed and uncomfortable. I picked up my pen then put it back down, wondering what to say to keep this conversation going. I’d only seen characters like AJ on TV programmes like
The Wire
; none of my life’s experiences had really equipped me to be the Joint Assistant Librarian in the Big Spring Correctional Facility with a career crack cocaine dealer from the projects of inner Washington DC.

‘Do you get laid much with that accent?’ he suddenly asked – a complete change of tack.

‘Not in here.’ My quick response was rewarded with a slight grin from AJ.

‘I mean in the Free World,’ he qualified.

‘Sure, between the accent and my boyish good looks,’ I responded straight faced. AJ paused for a moment, then began to smile. Like a lot of the African-Americans I’d seen, he had a set of teeth a mother would be proud of, including the obligatory gold one.

‘You’re not a chomo, are you?’ he asked, suddenly looking much more serious.

‘I don’t have a beard.’

‘Or an AB?’

‘No. No to both.’

‘A’ight, a’ight,’ AJ said, stretching his arms out on the desk before laying his head down on top of them and going to sleep.

About an hour later, he lifted his head up and carried on. ‘Because if you is a chomo or an AB, then you and me will have a problem and I’ll have to tell Miss Reed you can’t work here.’

‘Well, I’m not either!’ I said. I’d been making some progress with my Spanish verbs in the meantime, and this was just irritating. AJ looked over at what I was writing.

‘You studyin’ Spanish?’ he asked. I resisted the temptation to be sarcastic and instead just offered a grumpy ‘
Si.
’

‘So am I,’ said AJ.

‘Well maybe we could test each other sometimes,’ I offered. AJ carried on staring at me intently. ‘Shouldn’t you be teaching me the ropes or something?’ I asked him, encouraged that he hadn’t immediately shot down the idea of doing some Spanish together.

AJ stared at me once more. ‘Shit!’ he mumbled under his breath as he shook his head. ‘Dude, do I look like a teacher!? A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. And this here is my work station. You figure out the rest!’ With that he lay his head back down and missed my smile.

I decided to push on.

‘Shouldn’t you at least explain to me how the library is organised?’ I asked the back of his head. I still hadn’t really come to terms with the laissez-faire attitude of both the cops and staff in Big Spring – no one really seemed to care much about anything. Everyone was just waiting, doing their own time and counting the hours till they went home. Everyone.

Looking thoroughly fed up as he raised his head again, AJ sighed then turned away from me towards the books. ‘On this section over there, we have fiction,’ then turning towards the other side of the room he continued, ‘and over here we have the non-fiction.’

I had grabbed my pen and was writing this down. When I looked back up he was staring at me. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Ahm, um, taking notes.’

‘Notes?’ responded AJ incredulously. ‘You mean you can’t remember where the fiction and non-fiction sections are?’

‘Erm yes . . . no . . . I mean, of course I can,’ I stammered. ‘I just wanted to take notes for the rest of it.’

‘Rest of it? The rest of it?’ AJ echoed. ‘Ain’t no “rest of it”. Over there we have fiction, and over here we have non-fiction. If someone comes in and asks you, “Where’s the books at?” you say, “Over there we have fiction and over here we have non-fiction.” That’s it! If the book is fiction it goes there, and if its non-fiction it goes over here. And that’s all!’ That said, he theatrically placed his head back down onto the table and mimicked sleep.

I looked down at my scant notes, then looked up to the jumbled mess of books randomly scattered across the library. At first I felt bewildered but then suddenly elated – I had just found something to do. I was about to get up and start planning my assault on the books when AJ raised his head again.

‘What?’ I asked him.

‘Can I ask you something?’ he began in considered fashion. I had no idea where he was going this time, but had already realised he was the kind of guy that asked whatever was on his mind. That was why I liked him, I think, despite his rudeness.

‘Shoot,’ I said, unsure if that word sounded right coming from me, but thinking that’s the way you might speak to someone who has been a crack cocaine dealer since he was a teenager.

‘Does you like black people?’

‘Sure,’ I began confidently, without hesitation, ‘but I don’t like short people.’

AJ stared at me for a moment, contemplating that one before he broke out into a beautiful, face-filling smile, his gold tooth sparkling. ‘Shh-iiitt!!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s funny!’ he said, as he laughed and banged his hand on the table. ‘That’s good, Scotland! Don’t like short people. You’re funny!’ He carried on laughing and hitting the table. This little outburst had caught the attention of a few of the other inmates who were staring over until AJ remembered his librarian role. ‘What you motherfuckas looking at!?’ he barked. ‘You come here to read the motherfucking books or watch the motherfucking floor show, motherfuckas?’ The onlookers quickly recoiled into their books. Meanwhile, AJ’s fury vanished as swiftly as it had appeared and he chuckled in my direction. ‘We going be a’ight, Scotland, we going to be a’ight in the li-bra-ree!!’