Hotel Kerobokan (32 page)

‘Get out of the light,’ Mick yelled as the shadows flew across the pages of his book. ‘It’s not a fucking bus stop.’ Robert was jigging from one foot to the other, desperate to use the bathroom but not wanting to leave the spiked cup or piss on the floor again. ‘It will boil in a minute,’ he mumbled, before feverishly muttering his mantra, ‘Fucking idiot, Mick, fucking idiot, Mick’. Mick pulled down his blue sarong and pretended not to hear him.

Minutes later, Robert asked, ‘Thomas, you want a coffee?’ Thomas, who was sitting cross-legged on his mattress with his eyes closed and a cigarette dangling from his lips, replied, ‘Sure, thanks’. Robert gave him the cup, and then ran to the bathroom. Thomas took one mouthful and spat it across his mattress. ‘Fuck, did he piss in that?’ he asked, putting the cup on the floor near their pillows.

Robert came out of the bathroom five minutes later, so drunk and stoned that he’d forgotten all about his plan. He climbed onto his mattress, and sat against the wall with his legs stretched out under Mick’s bunk. Mick passed him a joint. Robert took a couple of puffs and handed it back, then lit a cigarette. He spotted the cup of coffee on the floor and reached out for it. Thirsty from all the smoke and booze, he gulped down half the cup. Within sixty seconds, he was out.

When Mick looked up from his book, he instantly grabbed his sketchpad. It was a sight too good to waste. Robert was asleep, sitting slumped against the wall with a burning cigarette hanging loosely from his lips, and his glasses skewed awkwardly across his nose. Mick sat on his bottom bunk sketching Robert for forty-five minutes. He was the perfect model; still as a statue, unflinching even when hot ash fell onto his neck. When Mick was finished, he plucked the dead cigarette butt from his model’s mouth, switched off the light and went to sleep.

When Room 13 was unlocked at 7.30 am, Robert hadn’t moved a muscle. He was still sleeping against the wall with his glasses on the end of his nose. But no-one took any notice, except for English Steve, who was initially shocked to see Thomas up and about. Steve walked past Room 13 a number of times throughout the day, calling out, ‘Robert, Robert!’ He finally asked Mick, ‘Why’s Robert still asleep?’ Mick answered casually, ‘He’s probably still drunk,’ a bit surprised that anyone was interested in Robert’s sleeping habits.

Robert didn’t wake up that day, or the next. He slept for two days and nights, only coming to forty-eight hours later, confused and angry.

He was like a bear coming out of hibernation. He was hungry and thirsty, looking for food, stumbling around, gasping for water, saying, ‘I feel dizzy, I can’t see properly. I need water’.

– Mick

Robert later confessed his devious Xanax plot to Mick. ‘You fucking idiot, Robert,’ Mick rebuked him, ‘you could have killed him. Why did you use twenty-four tablets?’ Whimpering like a child, Robert said he’d only wanted to use two pills but that Steve had convinced him to use twenty-four, to knock Thomas out in the first one or two mouthfuls. When it dawned on Robert that the plan had worked perfectly on him, he was furious with Steve, walking around for days like a madman mumbling, ‘Fucking idiot, Steve, fucking idiot’.

Robert – sometimes he was too much, I tell you. If he’s not drunk, no problem, but if he’s drunk, he’s such a fucking asshole.

– Thomas

For Thomas, guarding his smack was a full-time job. He even had to take it with him when he used the bathroom. A couple of times a week, Robert would sneak two or three straws to smoke with Mick and Chris. Mick would watch from his bunk Robert’s sleight of hand, as Thomas sat on his mattress, filling his straws, counting them, taking one out for himself; always busy with his stash. When Thomas turned away for a split second, quick as a flash Robert’s hand would dart across, snatch a straw or two and shove it under his own mattress. By the time Thomas turned back around, Robert would be slumped against the wall, pretending to sleep. Thomas often thought he’d miscounted his straws.

One morning, Thomas almost lost the half kilogram stash that he had tucked under his pillow. It was almost 9 am, but the four cellmates were still sleeping after drinking and taking drugs until late the previous night. Mick was woken by a prisoner shaking him vigorously, saying: ‘Mick, Mick, wake up’. ‘Oh, shit.’ The cell floor was under a few centimetres of water. Mick yelled out to Thomas, whose mattress was soaked. The instant Thomas’s eyes opened, he grabbed his stash from under his pillow and leaped up, stepping straight onto a wet electrical cable. He got a shock and did a frenzied jig in the middle of the cell as he clung to his smack. A moment later, he turned and yelled abuse at Robert for his stupid cables. Robert threw back, ‘I’m not your baby-sitter. Watch where you walk’. It turned out that someone had left the bathroom hose running during the night.

The events of that morning prompted Thomas to start stashing his drugs in a hole in the ceiling, which Chris had made one night during a drunken escape bid. Thomas employed Robert to stand on his shoulders and put his plastic bag of drugs through the hole, into the dark, dirty roof, pushing it out of sight, and tethering it by a piece of string to a nail he’d hammered on the ceiling. Whenever Thomas wanted it put up or taken down, he got Robert to climb on his shoulders. Robert would jump down, saying, ‘Okay, give me my wages,’ and Thomas would give him two or three smack straws. It was a good arrangement until Robert tried another prank. One afternoon, he was standing precariously on Thomas’s shoulders, blindly flapping his hands around inside the ceiling, trying to locate the string attached to the bag.

He says, ‘Oh, it’s gone, it’s gone. Somebody took it, maybe.’ He was looking everywhere and saying, ‘Oh, it’s not here, I cannot find it. It’s gone’. He kept checking it and couldn’t find it. I thought, fuck, it’s better that I go up and check upstairs.

– Thomas

Thomas walked out and found a
tamping
prisoner with a key to unlock the small gate in front of a ladder to the roof. They both climbed up into the ceiling and found the bag of drugs about one metre from the hole in Room 13.

I suspect it was Robert but I cannot say one hundred per cent, but it cannot automatically fly over there. He put it there, maybe, because in one week I was going free and he can take it.

– Thomas

Chris and Mick knew that Robert had tried to steal the smack. Chris had heard a clunk above his head while he was standing near the bathroom. As soon as Robert told Thomas that the stash was missing, Chris realised what the clunk had been. Thomas had been too busy concentrating on keeping Robert balanced on his thin shoulders to notice. Mick had heard a faint noise, but didn’t pay any attention. Chris told Mick about it later, and Mick told him to shut up.

But Robert was the least of Thomas’s problems. The Laskars had started coming into the cell, asking for cash. Arman had found out about Thomas’s recent deliveries and was not pleased. He wanted Thomas to pay him the sales profit. Several times Thomas had obeyed the rules and given his new supply to Arman. But he’d become sick of giving his cheap, quality smack to Arman and making no profit, and was acutely aware that he’d need cash when he checked out shortly. But now Arman wanted the money he considered due to him.

They came in my cell and asked, ‘When do you give us money?’ They asked and asked and asked. I said, ‘I don’t know, later on, later on, later on’. Every day they came and gave me headache. They beat me two or three times and say, ‘Okay, tomorrow we come back again’. Ah, make me a headache.

– Thomas

One morning, the talking was finished. Laskar heavies turned up in Room 13, telling Thomas that Arman wanted to speak to him over in his cell. Thomas knew this was bad news, but had nowhere to run. The Laskars walked outside, and waited for him out the front of the block. Thomas grabbed his plastic bag of smack, ran into Michael’s cell, where Mick was sitting and talking, and said, ‘Please hold this, Mick’. Of course, once Thomas left, Mick and the other cellmates opened the bag, saw the smack and started chasing the dragon.

You cannot work against Laskar. If you work against Laskar, it’s a problem. Guards were afraid, everybody is afraid.

– Thomas

Thomas walked into Arman’s cell and four bulky Laskars started knocking the skinny Austrian around as Arman stood against the wall, watching. They were throwing punches and demanding money. Thomas was still defiant, ‘I don’t have, don’t have,’ he kept saying. He took blow after blow, in the face, in the neck and in the stomach. He didn’t try fighting back, as he didn’t stand a chance. He was surrounded; they were huge. They took turns smashing into him. Somehow he was enduring it until a fist struck his face especially hard. He felt his nose crack. Another fist hit it again fast. He fell down screaming, but they didn’t stop. It only got more frenzied as they smelled blood. Thomas was now crouching, trying to shield his broken face with his arms, with blood pouring from his nose. Fists and feet were coming at him furiously. ‘I want my money,’ Arman yelled angrily. It was enough. He was surrounded by thugs, it was not going to stop. ‘Okay, okay!’ he cried in defeat.

You cannot fight back. How you fight against three or four people … and more coming? [You’re] fucked up if you fight back, you’re fucked up.

– Thomas

Thomas agreed to give Arman the rest of his stash as payment. Arman knew that Thomas was leaving in a week and agreed to accept the stash, as it was better than nothing. Arman sent a boy to go with Thomas to collect four grams of smack. Thomas left Arman’s Block E and walked into the sunshine, sore, dazed and bloody. He felt the tip of his nose with his fingers. It was squashed flat and he gently pulled it out, trying to straighten it. He could feel his eyes starting to swell.

Thomas took the Laskar boy to Michael’s cell in Block B, where several inmates were now high on some of his smack. He grabbed his plastic bag off the table and gave it to the boy, and then went across to his cell. He was a shattered mess. One of the prisoners came into Room 13 and told him to put honey on his eyes to stop the swelling. He smeared it on his eyes and the rest of his face. When Mick came back into their cell, he wasn’t the slightest bit sympathetic.

He knew what he was dealing with. He had the money, he had the drugs but didn’t want to pay.

– Mick

The next day, Thomas’s eyes were blue and his face was swollen. But he would be involved in a further drug drama before walking free. He got a call from an old friend asking if he could buy fifteen grams of smack. Thomas told him to come to a visit in the blue room later that day. He would ask Mick to go and pass over the smack, paying him with a bit for himself. Mick had done it before, taking drugs out in his sandals, and passing them to Thomas’s client. But this time, the client didn’t want to enter Hotel K. It was guard Pak Giri’s day off, so Thomas asked his
tamping
friend, who was a user and dealer, if he knew anyone who could go outside that day and make the delivery. He did.

Thomas gave the fifteen grams to the
tamping
, and the
tamping
passed it to the courier prisoner, who walked out of Hotel K and straight into a trap. Thomas’s customer was already in police custody. He’d done a deal with police to set up two or three people for them, so that he could walk free after being caught with drugs himself. The moment the Hotel K courier handed him the smack, he was gone. At the police station, the courier inmate told them he was only the delivery boy for the
tamping
. The
tamping
wasn’t immediately taken to the police, but was thrown in cell
tikus
. Thomas had only a few days left in Hotel K, and was desperate to stay out of it. He asked the
tamping
not to mention his name, offering to give him drugs when he was free, and paid him 500,000 rupiah ($70).

Thomas walked free before anyone breathed his name to the police.

Scott Rush is a 23-year-old death row inmate at Hotel K.

I got a letter the other day, it was just a little Post-it note, and this girl said to me, ‘I would rather get killed than be in jail in this place’. Well, sometimes that makes sense to me. Sometimes I think I would rather get shot than have to spend my life in here. Because if I do get life, it’s long life, life without remissions, which is here until you’re dead. And sometimes I think I would rather get the death penalty than that. That’s what makes it easier for me to cope with the death penalty hanging over my head. It’s just something to prepare myself for, I guess, mentally. I don’t want to go fully crazy before I get executed. I wouldn’t want to go out like that.

Do you ever talk to the other three on death row about execution?

No, I don’t talk to them about their case whatsoever.

Why?

I think it stresses them out.

– Scott, death row inmate

Being sentenced to many years in Hotel K, with only a faint light glinting at the end of a long, dark tunnel, is grim. But for those inmates living under the shadow of death, spending their empty days in Hotel K, trying to keep going and have some kind of life before they get a bullet through the heart, is souldestroying.

Scott was sharing a cell in the so-called ‘death tower’ with another death row inmate, Nigerian man Emmanuel – the same cell that smiling assassin Amrozi was in before he was transferred to Nusakambangan Island and shot dead. Now the same fate loomed for Scott and Emmanuel, and two others in the Bali Nine, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, although all were still appealing their sentences. The four rooms in the death tower were filled with all eight men from the Bali Nine syndicate. One day blurred into the next. But somehow, they still got on with life in Hotel K.

I’ve just got to keep myself prepared for what happens later. I don’t believe I should destroy myself, even though everyone mentally destroys themselves every once in a while. I like sport. I prefer to keep myself busy with things with my physical body, it keeps me mentally sane.