The Cocaine Diaries: A Venezuelan Prison Nightmare (5 page)

It stopped. More laughter. Feet shuffling. Another of the guards entered me. Tears were welling in my eyes. Oh no. No. Flesh slapping against my ass.
Slap. Slap. Slap.
Then faster. My mind drifted off into another place. I wasn’t there.

Suddenly the guard thrusting into me stopped. I heard the guards talking in a serious tone. I heard a voice from outside. I thought it was a woman’s. I was still there in that position, doubled over. Face shoved into the wall. My breathing rapid. I feared I’d choke on the rag. My chest heaved up and down, lungs gasping for air for my nostrils being unable to suck in enough oxygen.

Somebody help.

The woman’s voice drifted off. The hands lifted off my shoulders and I stood upright, still facing the wall. One of the guards turned on a tap and a few drops trickled from the pipe. The rag was pulled from my mouth. They turned me around. My eyes looked to the ground. ‘Jesus, what’s the story? What’s the story?’ I said, but lower this time, as if I knew it was useless. Their dirty deed was done. And now I felt like nothing. Humiliated. A human condom.

They stood to one side and let me wash myself with the trickles of water. I then picked up my shirt from the damp floor and dried myself. I got fully dressed with them watching – probably disappointed they didn’t all get their way with me. Then they led me back to the stairs and I was cuffed to the banisters again. I wanted to shout, scream – but to who?

The bugger squad drifted off. The fat one with the moustache took up his post on the desk again. He looked over, grinning. Happy with his late-night fun. I couldn’t look at him. I just sat there, filled only with hatred for these scum. Bastards.

When I got caught in the airport, I’d thought, ‘Jesus, 15 years in jail and I’ll get raped by the prison daddy.’ I never thought it would be by the cops. I wondered whether getting raped was normal here. Maybe all the soldiers did this. I was afraid they’d kill me if I spoke out. And who would believe me – a drug mule? My word against four cops. I’d probably hear a rifle cocked and a bullet whizz my way. Who would come to save me? Thousands of miles from home in a strange, perverted country.

The anger soon left. In its place was shame. Emptiness. Pain – my rear end throbbing. I couldn’t sit properly on the staircase. I had to shift left and right on my cheeks to find comfort. But it was useless. And I just felt horrible. I wanted to cry. Let the tears flow. But I wasn’t going to show pain in front of the guard. I wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. I only let myself cry inside. Let dry tears flow.

I started to doze again, my head resting on my forearms. I drifted off to the sound of buzzing around my shins. Now it was the mosquitoes’ turn to penetrate me.

THE NEXT MORNING I WOKE UP FROM AN UNCOMFORTABLE SLEEP AND RUBBED my eyes. My body ached from the discomfort of a whole day and night handcuffed to the banisters and sitting on the metal staircase. My ass was still grating on it. And now I was internally in pain, too, from the two guards who got their way with me the previous night. It was a horrible thought that I tried to push away, like it had been some nightmare.

My lower legs were covered in red bumps: mosquito bites. The itch was unbearable. I scratched at the red mounds – I counted 60 in all during the spare time I had sitting there doing nothing. I now wished I had the talcum powder I’d dumped in the airport to douse my legs.

My stomach groaned. The smell of food wafting out of one of the rooms didn’t help. Cops were emerging from it carrying cups of coffee and what looked like sandwiches wrapped in paper. But nothing for the gringo. Still, the hole in my stomach wasn’t getting much attention from my mind. I was more focused on how I might be locked up in this awful country for the next decade or so.

I sat there using my uncuffed hand to slap at my legs with the spare shirt I got along with the toiletry bag in the airport. It was my Irish rugby top, which I’d brought over from Dublin and that they’d let me keep at the airport. The horrible thoughts of the night before started seeping back again. And the physical pain was unbearable. I couldn’t sit properly on the stairs. I felt a growth out of my ass, like my rectum had been pulled inside out. I could feel it, like there was a peach between my legs. I couldn’t sit still. I had to keep shifting from cheek to cheek to avoid hitting that growth on the metal staircase.

My mind slowly woke up to this reality I was in. Locked up by life forms lower than animals. I wanted it to be a bad dream. I took in my surroundings. I knew I was in the drug squad’s main building, but maybe it was a prison as well? It didn’t make any sense. I couldn’t ask anyone. None of the guards spoke English. I sat there looking around and wondering what would happen tonight – would the fuck squad be back? Ten, fifteen years of this . . . I started thinking about killing myself. The stairs I sat on led to a platform above, where a large blue drum full of water stood next to piles of rubbish and a locked door. There was a drop of about fifteen to twenty feet below. If I could somehow get out of the cuffs and get up there, I could use my trousers or something to hang myself. In that moment, death seemed better than this place.

* * *

‘
Tú, tú mama huevo,
’ (‘You, you cocksucker’) said one of the guards, walking up holding a newspaper. He tapped a finger at a short article. I’d made the papers, what looked like a local one. I didn’t read Spanish, but I could make out ‘
aeropuerto
’, ‘
cocaína
’ and ‘
irlandés
’. There was no mention of my name or a photograph, thank God. I didn’t want anyone back home other than my family to know I was locked up for smuggling drugs.

A few hours later, a stream of people came down from the opposite steep staircase. I was sure they were passengers from the car-ferry terminal above I’d seen the day before. That banished from my mind the thought that there was a proper prison up there. The passengers must have had to pass through the drug squad’s area on their way out to the road outside. I counted about 40, probably workers coming over from nearby islands for jobs on the mainland.

Not an eyebrow was raised at the sight of a European man cuffed to stairs in a police building in the bowels of a ferry terminal. I’m not the palest of Paddies, but with my white skin and light-brown hair I stood out as a gringo. A few glanced over, but no one cared. They all seemed to know: another drug mule caught at the airport.

* * *

One of the office doors in front was open, so I looked in. I saw my black Wilson suitcase stuffed inside a large plastic bag. I couldn’t believe it. My spirits were buoyed up, because I thought I could get a fresh T-shirt or jeans. What I was wearing was sticky and damp. ‘Clothes, clothes,’ I said to one guard, pointing at the case with my uncuffed hand. I started pulling at my blue shirt, which I’d been wearing for two days and was soaked with sweat in the humidity. I guessed Ralph Lauren shirts weren’t made for drug smugglers handcuffed to stairs. A babble of Spanish came back from a shaking head. A ‘no’. I thought it must have meant that the case was evidence and so off-limits.

However, a little later, the guards were parading around in the clothes from my suitcase. A lovely Brazilian football shirt I’d bought for my nephew. Nike shirts. All the gear I’d picked up for my family back home. ‘
Gracias, amigo. Gracias,
’ they said, sharing the clothes and walking around, laughing and grinning. A motley crew of morons. A fancy dress for freaks. Since they had taken my clothes, I imagined there wasn’t any point in asking for the cash taken from me at the airport. Probably long ago shared out among the cops.

Later in the afternoon, a guard slipped the cuffs off. The metal clanked against the tubular banister. An escort of three guards led me out into the courtyard outside and into a dark-green military jeep. We sped west along the coastal road, and I sat there taking in the sounds and sights after being cooped up on the stairs for the past day. I marvelled at small things we passed, like makeshift stalls selling rubber rings for kids, as well as snorkels and other stuff for a day at the beach. Others sold seafood snacks such as ‘
cocteles de camarones
’, or prawn cocktails in plastic cups. I thought back to myself as a kid, running around the beach with a bucket and spade.

* * *

We were back in the airport. I couldn’t believe it. It was quiet again. There were just a few passengers wheeling cases. I started having delusions that the cops had realised they’d made a mistake with me and I’d be escorted onto a flight home with a pat on the back. Maybe they just wanted the publicity of capturing a drug mule and were letting me leave. My imagination started running away with itself. Suddenly, we turned left and walked down a corridor into an office. So much for the plane home.

A man in a suit, shirt and tie stood there. Two guards stood on either side of me. ‘Hallo sir, I am with Interpol,’ the guy said.

‘How ya doing,’ I said. I looked around the office and felt I was back on the set of
Kojak
: chunky computer monitors, a brown carpet and an old, dusty desk.

‘We must do fingerprints and photo,’ said the Interpol official in accented English. I sat down and held out the palms of my hands. He ran a roller of ink across them and I planted them down on a sheet of paper, like a child’s game in a crèche. I wasn’t in much humour for conversation with any Venezuelans after last night and didn’t talk to the guy at all. A guard shoved me over to stand against a white background, where the official clicked a handheld camera.
Snap.
I was officially an international drug smuggler. My name, prints and mug shot would probably pop up on Interpol searches across the world. But I realised the point of the whole thing was to see whether I was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, that they were looking to see whether I was Carlos the Jackal and score kudos for capturing me. More like Paddy the Clown.

‘You sign here,’ the official said, thrusting a pen towards me. He then squeezed a blob of soap into my hands to wash off the ink and nodded towards another room. I was pushed through two swing doors, like in a western cantina. A pot gurgled on a two-ring stove. The waft of what smelled like a stew danced around my nostrils. Lovely jubbly, how long are we staying?

‘I haven’t had anything to eat for a day, what’s the chance of a bit of stew?’

‘It is not ready,’ said the Interpol official curtly. The hunger went on.

I was now wondering when I’d get to see a lawyer or someone from the Irish embassy. But nothing.

* * *

Later that night, back at the drug-squad headquarters, the guards changed shift. I remembered one of them, a skinny soldier with a short haircut who looked about thirty. He was one of the guards who’d pinned me against the wall in the toilets while another two rammed their dicks into me. El Diablo was also knocking around, walking in and out of the armoury again, cocking guns and pointing them at my head. I didn’t look at either of them, though, just kept my eyes towards the floor. I didn’t even want to register them. Scum.

I later watched the other guards arm up as usual like they were gearing up for a stint in Afghanistan, taking on al-Qaeda with full-on assault gear: bulletproof vests, machine guns and an arsenal of weapons that would put the Delta Force to shame.

For the next two days I sat on the stairs cuffed to the banisters, getting hungrier and my backside still throbbing. The only time I got to move was when the guards brought me to the toilet once or twice a day. I hadn’t eaten anything since my lunch at the airport and I was only being given one or two cups of water a day, so there wasn’t much to pass. I could mostly ignore the physical discomfort; it was my mind that was the problem. I was confused about where I was being held. Was this the prison? If so, where was my cell? And would the guards let me starve to death? Why hadn’t I been sentenced in a court? Even in a country like this, there must be judges. And on it went.

On the third morning, the guards went through their usual drill when taking me, their prisoner, out. Three of them escorted me to a military jeep parked in the yard. After about 20 minutes, we pulled up at a modern, state-of-the-art building where I could read ‘
justicia
’. I realised I was at a court. It was a fortified building right on the waterfront, with a wall at the back blocking the view of a sliver of a beach. It looked brand spanking new: one storey tall, and wide, with big glass doors. We pulled up at the side, where a sentry was posted at a security checkpoint. We drove through with a nod and pulled into a courtyard. I stepped out of the jeep and felt a lovely warm breeze blowing in gently from the Caribbean. I wanted to jump into the sea and freshen up in the water.

Inside the courthouse, I was led down to an underground level to cells that looked like they belonged in a Victorian dungeon: dirty, dark and damp smelling. The waft of urine and excrement drifted from a hole in the floor that was a toilet. Faded yellow light fell from bare bulbs. I heard a ‘ya-ya-ya-hoohhh’ cry before I saw what lay in the cells ahead. Seven to eight inmates sat around on L-shaped stone benches. A barred door squeaked open and I stepped through. The Venezuelan prisoners looked happy at the sight of the gringo. It would kill a bit of boredom. They started talking to me. All I could make out was ‘gringo’ and ‘drogas’. They all knew I was a drug mule. I supposed any foreigner locked up in Venezuela was. They were a decent bunch and offered me sweets and smokes, and I enjoyed a bit of light banter with them. I sat back and watched as single cigarettes passed back and forth among the inmates through the bars of the adjacent cells.

One of the courthouse guards came and led me up the stairs again and then down a corridor. There I met an interpreter provided by the Venezuelan state – a fair-haired, fresh-faced man in his early 30s, with hazel eyes in stark contrast to his pale skin.

‘I am Antonio,’ he said.

‘Paul, Paul Keany,’ I said.

‘Yes, Mr Keany, come with me, please.’ He seemed to be new to the job. He kept backtracking after taking wrong turns as we walked around the building.