The Cocaine Diaries: A Venezuelan Prison Nightmare (32 page)

Word got around I was desperate to get a trip out to the hospital for a check-up. As always, the cogs turned inside the Venos’ heads, as they schemed up ways to make money. ‘Paul,’ said Billy, ‘one of them says there’s a guard who’ll take you to the hospital in his own car for two hundred thousand bolos [about forty euro].’ No matter how bad I was, I wasn’t going down that road. Nothing ever came of giving cops money.

‘Tell him I said “fuck off”.’

‘Fair enough – you’re probably right.’

Soon after I got word through from Father Pat that Viviana had got the court order requesting that the prison heads get me an ambulance and bring me to hospital – and this was within a week of meeting her. I was impressed. This woman meant business.

The next day my name was on la lista. ‘Paul Keany – ambulancia.’ My spirits started to pick up and I felt a little better, despite being in bits with the pain. It looked like I’d get a real doctor the next day and in a hospital that had proper medicine in it.

In the morning I followed the inmates being escorted by the cops out the gate to where the buses were waiting to ship them off to court or to other jails. It was 8 a.m. and I took a seat on the stone steps next to the barred gate into the driveway, where a cop sat. I watched two buses pull off, spluttering out thick fumes. I then put my head between my legs, gripping my ear in agony.

At 9 a.m. there was no sign of the ambulance. Or at 10 a.m. Or at 11 a.m. ‘Hospital,
ambulancia
,’ I said to the cop, an old guy with dirty fingernails and hairy wrists.

‘
Mas tarde,
’ (‘Later’) he said.

By 2 p.m. it was time to go back inside. The cop escorted me back to the wing.

‘No
ambulancia
?’ I said again, shrugging.

‘
Mañana seguro.
’

For the next 14 days I sat out on the stone steps. No ambulance came. All I could do was sit there all day and look out through the bars at the activity, watching Macedonia lug bags of rubbish about, lawyers coming in to meet their clients. It was all boring. One day, though, I did notice something interesting. I saw the boss from the Mostrico wing walking along with his dog. He walked up to the gate, where a national troop was on guard. He slipped a bag off his shoulder and the soldier handed him another bag back. They exchanged bags without saying a word and the jefe walked back with his dog, whistling as if he was just out on a leisurely stroll. It was obvious what was going on. The wing jefe was handing over cash for drugs or guns.

The next day I was back on the stone steps again, massaging my head trying to get the pain away. The painkillers I bought in the shop or jabs I got in my ass from the inmate medics worked for a while but wore off after a couple of hours. I was starting to wake up in the middle of the night with pains like electric shocks in my head.

A cop in charge of transport for prisoners walked up to me.

‘Maxima,
regresas
,’ (‘Maxima, go back’) he said.

‘When will the ambulance come?’ I asked in Spanish.

‘
En la tarde, te llamamos
.’ (‘This afternoon, we’ll call you.’) I doubted it, but I didn’t have much choice but to go.

The next morning Vito walked out with me to the gate where I sat.

‘The ambulance, it didn’t arrive?’ I said to the cop.

Vito interpreted. ‘Yes, it came yesterday.’

‘What do you mean it came yesterday?’ I said, nearly hitting the roof.

‘It came; where were you?’

‘I was in the wing, where you told me to go!’

‘No, we were looking for you there.’

My blood boiled over. ‘
Mentiroso,
’ (‘Liar’) I said, a word I’d learned the night before. ‘
Mentiroso
, you muthafucking lying bastard.’ I was shouting now. The cop stood back and held his hands out. Vito stepped in between the two of us.

‘Paul, no, no, this could be very dangerous, talking to the cops like this.’

‘Bastard, liar,’ I said, then calmed down.

‘It will get you nowhere, getting angry.’ He was right. I gave up.

* * *

I was texting Father Pat every day. ‘Still no ambulance, waste of time.’ I was still barely eating because of the pain in my jaw. I was losing more weight and had to tighten the rope-belt around my waist even more to keep my jeans up.

A few days later Father Pat was back in to visit me and we spoke in the special office upstairs. He said he had rung the female cop, Morelba, in the infirmary to put pressure on her and get me to hospital in an ambulance for a check-up.

‘She said it’s only a European with a headache. That’s what she said to me.’ He stood there shaking his head, and for the first time I detected a trace of anger in his voice. I had told him my symptoms, the jolts of pain. His brow furrowed like old leather; I could see he was worried about me. He didn’t want one of the Irish boys dying on his watch. One of his own. He had been on to the Irish consulate about getting on the case and forcing the jail to get me an ambulance and a trip to the hospital.

I nodded. ‘If that’s what it takes, that’s what it takes. They might listen to that. But if it doesn’t work could you try to get me some antibiotics for now?’

‘Let’s do that.’ I listed off what was wrong and he wrote down ‘pain’ and ‘bloody ear wax’ in a little notebook he kept in his satchel. ‘I’ll tell Viviana,’ said Father Pat. ‘She said last night on the phone she had a good friend who was a doctor. I’m meeting her this evening to give her your money.’

The next day Father Pat was back with a bottle of tablets in his hand. We spoke only for a few minutes. ‘Take them back with you, get a glass of water and start them. Viviana’s doctor gave them to her after I told her your symptoms.’

I didn’t waste time. I shook his hand and nodded. It was a thank you and a sign of respect to the Father, and I blessed myself. ‘Right, I’m gone.’

In two days I felt like a new man. I started dancing out in the yard. ‘Heyy, heyyyy.’ I was doing a little jig, lifting my knees up like Michael Flatley in
Riverdance
. The Venos were staring at me like I was mad. After four or five days the pain cleared up and one evening my jaw started to loosen. I was starving then – I had only been eating rice and was looking forward to a steak dinner for lunch the next day, which I’d pay a lag to cook.

* * *

The next morning I sat on my bucket next to the yard door for the headcount. The cops and the army marched out after the número and I was feeling like a million dollars. The whistling was gone from my ear and I could talk without feeling like someone had stuck a crowbar in my jawbone. But I was still starving. I could already smell and taste the ladle of porridge that was waiting for me in the canteen for
desayuno
(breakfast).

The bosses suddenly stood up in front of us all. What’s going on here? I thought. They rarely made any announcements after the headcount in the morning. An underboss wearing khaki shorts and a red bandana started talking. My Spanish was a bit better than it had been and I understood more. But at that moment I wished I hadn’t. The words I picked up spun around my head and I felt dizzy.
Huelga de hambre
(hunger strike).

I couldn’t believe it. I put my head in my hands and started saying out loud, ‘No, no, it can’t be, no.’ The bosses, in their infinite wisdom, had called a food ban.

‘When does the madness in this place stop?’ I said to Eddy. ‘What’s it about?’

‘The cops, they reneged on their promises after the kidnappings. They’re still taking cash and cigarettes off the visitors.’

So the days went on without a bite of food. My stomach thought my throat had been slit. All we could eat were the few boiled sweets that were passed around, and drink water and some coffee. You couldn’t eat or the bosses would shoot or stab you. It was that simple. The worst thing was I hadn’t eaten properly for a long time, not since the pain like electric shocks started in my head and my jaw seized up.

The first few days were painful. My belly groaned. You were used to getting your two meals a day – and now nothing. On the fourth and fifth day I started feeling my ribcage, and was able to poke my fingers into the bones, something I hadn’t done since I was a nipper. I was already thin. I was about 13 stone when I was locked up. Now I’d say I was down to about ten stone, or less. So I didn’t have much weight to lose.

‘What’s it going to be like after ten days?’ I said to the others.

On the seventh evening of the strike I walked to my bed and sat down. My legs felt like it was a struggle to carry my upper body. I flopped down on my bed. The world around me started to swirl. The sounds of voices trailed off, like people were talking miles away. The yellow light from bare bulbs threw faded light on walls that looked like they had jaundice, spiderwebs clung to corners, everything seemed to be sucked away into a blackness that fell around me.

Then nothing.

I woke up the next morning. I’d been out for about 12 hours. I opened my mouth. It was dry and my tongue was stiff, like it was some kind of alien object. Everyone was up and a lucero was doing the wake-up rounds, nudging and kicking bodies on the ground. I dragged myself out on weak legs to the yard. Dazed, bleary-eyed, confused. I sat on a bucket. The cops came in and did the headcount.

I struggled back to my bunk. Then I heard someone singing out in the yard. There were a couple of voices, then more. It was some Venezuelan song. I walked out and saw a load of Venos standing on their buckets and all singing now, waving towels back and forth and singing at the top of their lungs.

‘The national anthem, mate, that’s what that is,’ said Eddy, seeing me looking puzzled. ‘The hunger strike. It’s over.’

I turned back to watch the Venos singing. It was like being at a football game, with the towels they were waving like fans holding up their team colours. The sound of it was weird, over 1,000 inmates singing their anthem, their voices echoing through the whole prison and all singing in time. At the end of it they started shouting and clapping and roaring, ‘Venezuela, Venezuela.’

Later, at about 5 p.m., I found out there was no dinner planned for that day as the strike had been called off all of a sudden. I actually didn’t care. I wasn’t bothered about food. The interest was gone. It was a weird feeling. A few of the lags went down to the back of the yard and pulled out the containers where dry food had been locked away for the strike. They started pulling out biscuits and crackers, getting stuck into anything they could.

I felt it had been touch and go in the last few weeks. Just as I was pulling through after the infection in my ear, I thought the hunger strike would wipe me out. I was afraid I’d get so skinny, like the crackheads, that Billy and the boys would have to report me missing.

But not everyone survived. The few inmates who had diet problems were moved to live in the canteen during the hunger strike. That way they got their regular meals, such as for Ruut, who was diabetic. Macalou, the French-Algerian, went out too in his wheelchair but had taken a turn and died. I was devastated by the news. I got on really well with him. I loved his infectious laugh. We often spoke for hours.

I was mad, too. Only a few months before he had had a chance to get out of Venezuela on humanitarian grounds and had chosen not to. His twisted body had now probably been turfed into some unmarked grave in the hillsides of Los Teques. No wreath or loved ones to shed tears. That he died in the jail wasn’t just a story. Viviana later confirmed it to me.

On the upside from the hunger strike, the prison authorities started upping the ante with court cases and psychological exams to get people who qualified for early release out on parole. More court cases had been one of the demands made by the cell-block bosses during the hunger strike – and the prison chiefs were living up to their promises. In the past, only one or two prisoners a week were getting out. Now it was about ten. It was music to my ears. Between that good news and getting my diet back on track, within weeks I was fitter and healthier and back in the gym. Strong in body and mind, ready for my mission to get out on parole – and one day home.

THE DIRECTOR WAS STILL TRYING TO BE THE BEST FRIEND OF THE INMATES. She was going even further with her policy to make the jail more visitor friendly. An ‘open house’ for families and partners.
Mi casa es tú casa
. Murderers, rapists and bank robbers, now happy, would then put down their guns and settle rows with a handshake. That was the thinking in her ‘infinite wisdom’. She had already allowed visitors to stay over during holidays such as Christmas and Easter – now she opened the prison for overnight stays every Saturday. The inmates took the meaning of visits to new heights and put on a disco every Saturday night. All aboard to boogie.

I had taken to sleeping on a colchoneta on the floor of the Maxima wing’s gym with cotton wool shoved in my ears to try to get some sleep on Saturday nights. The music from the party went on until the early hours of Sunday morning. Eddy had been doing the same and would stretch out on another colchoneta. I had to give up my bed to the inmates in the wing who had visitors in so they could spend the night there; Eddy had to give up his place on the floor.

We spent our evenings in the gym watching DVDs on my laptop, such as
The Godfather
, a favourite we viewed over and over. The violence in it was like a tea party compared to Los Teques, though.

On the second week of the disco I was sitting down on the gym floor chatting with Eddy and doodling around on the Internet on my laptop. Music was pounding out from the roof above. Billy’s mop of mousey-brown hair appeared as he walked up the stairs into the gym, his hands in his pockets.

‘That sounds mental. Let’s go and try it out,’ he said.

‘Nah, not for me.’ It wasn’t my cup of tea. I was too long in the tooth for discos.

‘Come on, Pauly.’

‘Nah.’

‘Come on, just once.’

‘All right, I’ll just have a look.’ Anything to keep him happy. Eddy and two South African lads agreed to come along as well.