The Cocaine Diaries: A Venezuelan Prison Nightmare (12 page)

My thoughts suddenly darkened and I went quiet. The memories of that night in the drug-police building flowed back. The bugger squad. Would it be the same here?

I returned to staring at the wall, shifting left to right on the paint bucket when one side of my arse went numb. Other than that the only relief from the boredom was a trip to the toilet to our right. I heard some of the Venezuelan lads in there, snorting and giggling. Others sat snoring on their buckets, blankets over their heads. Exhausted from no sleep, like me. As usual I started wondering how I was going to stick this place for eight years, and the madness of it – inmates walking around with guns and orgies in the cells with their girlfriends and wives. Lunacy. A circus behind bars.

* * *

The boys in green marched into the yard for the evening headcount, looking more vigilant this time – probably worried one of the inmates had sneaked out the gate with the missus. There was a woman with them. A bottle blonde. She had long, wavy hair, tied up and with yellow curls dangling around her forehead. She wore tight jeans and had a pair of high black boots up to her knees. To me, she looked more like a bird out on the pull than a prison director.

‘Who’s that?’ I whispered to Eddy.

‘Director, mate. Top dog.’

The cop started the count. At my turn, Eddy clapped me on the shoulder and shouted out my number, which changed depending on where I was sitting in the row of inmates. Nelson Mandela may have been prisoner number 46664 in all his years in jail, but in Los Teques your number was one higher than the lag on your left. Prison order Venezuelan-style.

* * *

The next morning it was time for Spanish classes. I didn’t have to go, but it was a chance to get out of the wing. And I knew knowing more than
hola
and
cerveza
would be useful. Not that I cared to talk with Venezuelans. I hated them, for what the bugger squad had done to me. I hadn’t really met a good Venezuelan yet. But I knew the lingo would come in handy.

The classroom was on the second floor. It was my first time anywhere outside Maxima and the canteen. Most of the administration offices were here. Prison workers such as secretaries were typing away, hunched over keyboards. Silvio had told us we had to scrub up a bit for this part of the jail. He usually looked like a tramp himself in a vest and shorts, but he had now smartened up into a shirt, jacket and shoes. Roberto, the other Italian, wore pressed trousers and a shirt – and I even got a whiff of cologne. Who he was trying to impress I didn’t know. I reckoned he was getting good money in from the outside, a couple of Western Unions a month. I was still wearing my shoes that I’d worn when I was caught at the airport, as well as the blue Ralph Lauren shirt and a pair of jeans.

I sat down at one of the little hard chairs with an arm rest and a little ledge to put a copybook on. It was like the desks I used in school when I was a kid. Forty-five years of age and I was back in them.

The class were a mixed bunch, including a Canadian, two yanks and a German.

‘Hey, Irish. Hey, Eye-Ar-Ay. How’s it going?’ said one Yank to me.

‘I’m not in the IRA.’ I shrugged.

‘Don’t let them know that. They all think you’re a terrorist.’ We both laughed.

There were about a dozen others in the classroom: Italians such as Roberto and gringos like me learning Spanish and Venezuelans learning English – all taught by Silvio. This should be fun. Silvio was a master of many tongues. His father was Italian and his mother French. He lived in London, where he worked as a cinema-screen projectionist.

Silvio took up his post at the front of the classroom. The first lesson wasn’t about learning a new lingo – it was about how to escape Venezuela. He stood next to a giant map of South America on the wall and pointed at Caracas, just in from Venezuela’s northern Caribbean coast. The capital was about halfway between the Colombian border to the west and Venezuela’s eastern coast.

‘Here is Caracas here,’ said Silvio, pointing at the capital on the map. He was all serious, as if he was teaching us Spanish grammar. ‘And here is San Cristóbal here,’ he said, pointing at a provincial city way down south, close to Venezuela’s western border with Colombia. He nodded back at Caracas. ‘You can get a coach from here to San Cristóbal, which takes about 18 hours. Lots of army checkpoints. And from San Cristóbal you can get across the border, which is only a few kilometres away. When there, you are free.’ We all sat there giggling. In a way it was a language lesson, because he went around the class explaining it in Spanish, Italian and English.

But how would we get out of Los Teques to get there, I wondered. Silvio explained that after 18 months you were eligible for parole: to get a job on the outside approved by the prison. All you had to do was pass a psychological assessment in Spanish, have work lined up and go to live with a family, and have it all approved by a judge. So when you got parole you boarded a long-distance bus in Caracas and disappeared into the wilderness, then emerged later in Colombia, all going well.

‘Yes, is good plan,’ said Roberto. Yeah, sounded good to me too, but at this stage I thought learning Spanish would be a bigger challenge.

Going to the Spanish classes helped speed up getting parole and was looked upon favourably by the prison chiefs. Silvio explained that the language classes took place twice a week, were scheduled to last three hours, from 9 a.m. to midday, and counted as a full day of your sentence. He said more than a year of two classes a week would be equivalent to about a hundred days off our sentence. I could see myself going to a lot of Spanish lessons.

* * *

Most gringo inmates had been through the same rigmarole as me after they were caught at the airport: they were processed and held in remand in Macuto before being moved to Los Teques. McKenzie’s reputation there was infamous in most of the jails.

‘That bastard,’ said Hanz, a thin guy from Switzerland with shaggy dark hair and a beard. ‘He robbed me of everything: cash, clothes – even my sandals. I had nothing. Kept threatening me with this bloody machete. “
Te mato, gringo,
” [“I kill you”] he kept shouting. I had pains in my ribs for weeks after that place. He kept jabbing me.’

‘I’d believe it,’ I said, ‘I was told about him, but he never bothered me.’

‘Never bothered you?’ he said, louder than before. ‘He make everybody’s life hell.’

‘I stayed in the nice wing with ex-cops,’ I laughed. ‘Good food and treatment.’

‘That is unbelievable,’ he said, ‘I know that place, but it is only for the dirty police. How’d you get to stay there?’

‘I arrived in a suit and fancy shoes. Think they thought I’d money. Tried to get me to pay a 2,000-euro bribe to them through Western Union from home.’

‘And you paid?’ His eyebrows lifted up and seemed to knot together.

‘No way. Gave them the runaround.’ Looking at Hanz, I could see why the ex-cops didn’t want him in the wing. He was skinny as a rake. Looked like a typical backpacker tramp. He’d been travelling around Colombia for about a year before getting to Venezuela, where he ran out of cash. Taking a case back to Switzerland seemed like ‘easy money’ on his way home. Instead he ended up in this dump.

* * *

About five weeks had passed since I got caught. I hadn’t spoken to my family since the quick phone call to my ma from Macuto. I also hadn’t heard another word from the consul since his brief visit to me there. Now that I was in Los Teques, which in theory would be home for up to eight years, I genuinely needed a Western Union transfer this time. I wanted to phone home and get a money wire sent over. The jefe wanted his weekly causa money, and the 200-euro ‘entry fee’ to stay in the wing. I also needed cash on top of that sum to live here. I had nothing – no cup, no saucer, no knife and fork, no colchoneta. Nothing was ‘on the house’.

New Yawk Mike was my middleman for dealing with the jefe, since I had no Spanish. We were standing in the yard and I went over to him. ‘Mike, what’s the story with making a call home?’

‘Hey man, don’t worry, I’ll get you a phone. All cool.’ He was a chilled-out ‘dude’. Minutes later he was back with a mobile phone. I hadn’t thought it’d be that easy. I rang the number for my sister, which I had in my head. It was about 5 p.m. in Los Teques and about 10 p.m. in Dublin.

The phone started ringing. I got a bit anxious. The usual thoughts went through my head. What had I done to my family? Would they think I was drug vermin?

‘Hallo.’ It was my sister’s voice.

‘Hi, Sharon, it’s Paul,’ I said.

‘Ah, how are ya?’ she said, sounding excited to hear from me.

‘I’m OK, Gal,’ I said, using the name I’d called her since we were kids.

‘It’s great to hear from you,’ she said in a sad voice. Then she put on her big-sister hat. ‘How’s your health? How’s your weight? Are you eating OK?’ You’d know she was a nurse; she always asked about my well-being.

‘I’m doing OK,’ I said. Everything she asked I just said, ‘Sound, not a bother, all good.’ I didn’t want anyone at home to worry any more than they already were.

‘Look, I need a few quid sent over. It’s to pay to get into this place.’

‘What?’

‘It’s crazy here, you have to pay to stay.’ I asked her for 350 euro.

‘No problem,’ she replied quickly, ‘I’ll send that tomorrow after work.’ I gave her the name and address for a girl in Colombia, which Mike had given me. I told Sharon 200 of the 350 euro would be gone on the ‘entry fee’. The other 150 euro was to get me going with bedding, a plate and bowl, and a few other basics. If that sounded odd, she didn’t say.

‘Where are you?’

‘I’m in the big prison in Los Teques, outside Caracas.’

‘What’s it like?’

‘Grand.’ I doubted she believed me. I just didn’t see the point in telling the truth.

‘OK.’

I’d mentioned to my mother in the phone call from Macuto that I could get sprung from jail for 20 grand. That was what one of the hocus-pocus lawyers said. I had told the family that and it stuck in their heads. Sharon said she’d spoken to one of my mates, Ryan, who ran a construction company and had made a good few quid in the boom years. ‘He says he’ll get you the 20 grand, or we’ll get someone to put the money up. And we’ve been talking to solicitors.’ They had it in their heads I could pay off someone and sail out the front door.

‘No one sends a penny unless it’s 100 per cent sure,’ I said. ‘And tell no one to come over. I don’t want anyone visiting me. The place is a death-trap – all of Caracas.’

I didn’t know it when I called, but Katie was there too and she got on the phone.

‘Da,’ said Katie. A lump swelled in my throat. ‘How are ya?’

‘I’m all right, darling, I’m all right.’ Katie, I’m so sorry, I thought.

‘You’ll be home in no time,’ she said through tears. ‘We’ll sort it.’

‘Look, Katie, I’ve been caught here. I’ll be here for a few years, darling. Nothing can be done.’ What had I done to her, leaving her in the lurch like that?

She had moved in with my sister after the rent ran out on the apartment where we lived. I remembered I had a couple of grand in a bank account at home. It was a slush fund to pay bills and the rent on the apartment. I wanted her to have it. ‘You know my bank account number – empty it. You have the pin number,’ I said, shouting into the phone. I was standing in the yard with one finger in my ear to block out the noise of chatter, laughter and music.

I stood there, taking in my thoughts while speaking to my sister and Katie. It was very hard. But I had to prepare myself mentally for this place. If I was thinking, ‘When will I get out? When will I get out?’ I’d drive myself mad. That’s why I didn’t want to hear any illusions from my family that I could grease a few palms and walk out the prison gate. Or get out any way other than serving my time. As I gathered my thoughts, I took in my surroundings. There were fellas walking around off their heads on crack, like zombies – extras off the set of
Dawn of the Dead
.

I spoke to Katie for a few minutes more, just chatting about her hairdressing apprenticeship, but it was heartbreaking talking to her. I knew I’d let her down. We agreed to talk another day; it was too noisy anyway.

‘Bye, Da,’ said Katie. I didn’t know it then, but it would be the last time she would speak to me.

MUFFLED SCREAMS FILTERED INTO THE YARD. THE SHRIEKS OF A MAN WHO knew his life would be over in minutes. We could hear him trying to flee
banditos
armed with crudely made knives – cell bars broken off and filed down to deadly weapons. The scurrying of feet. Then it stopped and we knew they’d caught him. He must have known he couldn’t escape their blades inside the walls of the cramped wing. But a rat cornered will do what it can to save its skin. More screams. They had him. He was now yelping like a dog.

A hush had fallen over the yard as we listened. I was sitting on a bucket next to Silvio. ‘
Cuchillo,
’ (‘Knife’) said inmates in the yard. ‘Somebody’s having their last day,’ said Silvio. Moments before there had been the usual joking and laughing in the yard and horsing around. Not then. The only talk was in hushed tones as we sat there looking at each other or just staring at the ground. Helpless. The man’s life delivered up to the demons of Los Teques, coming to an end in this concrete circus. His shrieks then gave way to a slow, steady whimpering as his life ebbed away. It all went on for about 20 minutes. Then silence.

This wasn’t in the Maxima wing, however, thank God. It was in the Number 7 cell block next door. The cries had been wafting in through the vents in the wall that separated our yard from that wing, the narrow slats bringing air into their windowless dungeon and sending us back the sounds of this man as he was gasping in his last breaths. His shrieks rattled me. Even though the cries were coming from the next wing and I couldn’t see the man, the sounds were amplified in my head, as if I were in there watching the knives sink into his flesh. Hearing those horrific, inescapable sounds strengthened my goal: to get parole after 18 months and get out of here. I sat there and told myself that Los Teques would not claim my life. I planned to keep my head down and my nose clean, to do my time and get out. I wasn’t going to get sidetracked with drugs or other crap.