But I knew they could be.
They didn’t use my so-called escape history against me, but I was put into the hole anyway. The screening counsellor informed me that as I had less than thirty days of my sentence left, it would be pointless for the prison to go through the time-consuming charade of admitting and orientating me. The screener didn’t care who I was. It was policy.
‘How am I going to see Immigration and get deported? How can I get my passport? How can I get the airline ticket that will take me out of this horrible country if I can’t telephone or write?’
‘Don’t worry,’ said the screener. ‘They’ll come to you, tell you what’s happening, and arrange for you to have all the calls and stamps you need.’
They lie so easily.
The New Zealander saw my solemn face as I returned to the holding cell.
‘That’s too bad. Nice to have met you, British. Take care of yourself.’
I was so angry. I went to the toilet, now really crowded with dick-staring smokers.
‘Fuck them,’ I thought, and I let loose a stream of vile-smelling dark green liquid.
That was the last time I had any problem pissing. After a few hours, I was called out of the holding cell, handcuffed behind my back, and marched to the hole.
The Oakdale hole contained about forty cells. Everyone coming into the hole has to be showered under supervision in a cage; submit to mouth, anus, and foreskin search; and be given a pair of underpants, socks, fairy slippers (Chinese made), and a sterilised, oversized jump-suit. Nothing else could be acquired without a struggle. I had long ago reached the point where degrading rituals ceased to matter. Had they taken away my dignity, or was my dignity too formidable to be dented or diminished?
Most of the prison officers in Louisiana are Black. A Black duty officer took down my particulars. Custodians of the hole have no interest in why someone has been placed there. There was absolutely no point trying to explain that I had committed no disciplinary infraction, that I was only in this punishment block because I was almost free. They’d heard it all before. Sometimes it was true., sometimes not. Instead, I did my usual trick of being excessively friendly and polite. This was the only way I could begin to get the essential books, stamps, paper, envelopes and pencil. The duty officer liked my accent and did an almost recognisable imitation of John Gielgud. I laid on my best Oxford inflection and called him ‘Milord’. He loved it. Sure I could have some books to read.
He locked me for one hour in the library cell. I rummaged around and found Lord of the Flies, 1984, a Ken Follett novel, the inevitable Bible, a Graham Greene novel, and a textbook on calculus. These would last a few days, much longer if my cellmate turned out to be a jabbering Yank or loony. I got some paper, pencils, and envelopes. Stamps and phone calls were issued only by counsellors and lieutenants.
I was taken to a fairly clean and mercifully unoccupied cell, which contained the usual fixtures and fittings: steel bed, frayed and stained mattress, continuously flashing neon light, and a filthy, malfunctioning WC and washbasin. It had been an exhausting day. The time was almost 10 p.m. I read and slept.
‘You’re in the jailhouse now,’ sang a tone-deaf Irish hack as he passed coffee, cereal, and other quasi-edibles through three-inch slits in the cell doors.
I knew it had to be 6 a.m. Breakfast in bed. If it wasn’t for time zones, well over a million American prison inmates would be consuming the same fare at the same time. It was cold.
Special Housing Units, euphemism for holes, were always deliberately maintained at discomforting temperatures in case one or more of the prisoners were there to be punished. One of the hole’s inmates was assigned the job of orderly. He came round and took the breakfast waste back through the slits. The orderly’s other official duties included keeping the areas outside the cells clean and supplying prisoners with toilet requisites. Unofficial duties, ‘hustles’ that he could maybe make some money from, included distribution of contraband (non-generic coffee, stamps, and cigarettes) and liaising between buyers and sellers of the same.
‘Got a stamp?’ I asked as he retrieved an empty box of raisin bran.
‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘but I’ll need two back.’
This was the standard prison loansharking rate for almost everything.
‘Give me two, and I’ll give you five back.’
He looked as if he trusted me and nodded assent.
The cells were patrolled every couple of hours. When anyone other than the orderly passed by, I banged the door and demanded to make a phone call, to contact my lawyer, to contact my family, and to contact the British Embassy. Chaplains (authorised to listen to prayers), psychiatrists (authorised to listen to everything else), and medical officers (authorised to distribute Tylenol) are required by law to make daily rounds of the hole. They cannot supply stamps or arrange phone calls, so one is kept insane, stressed, and in need of help from above. I would have to be patient. Now that there was no one to watch my bumbling attempts to rescue my body from ugly deterioration, I could resume my yoga and callisthenics. And I had my books. Someone would come sometime and let me make a call. The orderly would bring some stamps. Relax. There wasn’t long to go until I became free. What was Special Agent Craig Lovato of the Drug Enforcement Administration doing? Was I in the hole again because of him? Was he going to be able to stop my release? He had ruined so much, so very, very much.
Craig Lovato’s ancestors were rich Spaniards. They emigrated to America from Spain about 250 years ago and were given 97,000 acres of what became New Mexico in a land grant from the Spanish throne. By the time Craig Lovato was born, his family had lost most of their fortune, and he had to work for a living. He missed both the Vietnam War and the Sixties movements which opposed it and joined the Las Vegas Sheriff’s Department as a deputy. He learned about street life as a patrolman and ‘goon squad’ officer chasing undesirables out of town, about dope as a narcotics detective, and about life and death as a homicide detective. In 1979, he yearned for a new way of life and joined the DEA.
The DEA has offices in sixty-seven of the world’s countries. It has more power than the KGB ever had. One of its offices is in the United States Embassy, Madrid. In August 1984, Craig Lovato went to work there. At the same time I was living in Palma peacefully carrying on my international drug-smuggling business. Lovato found out I was not only smuggling dope but actually enjoying it. God knows why, but this made him lose his marbles, and he has been hounding and persecuting me ever since.
The weather in Louisiana comprises rain, light or heavy, and thunder, loud or very loud. Although quite early in the evening, it suddenly got very dark, and a torrential downpour began. Four hours later, the rain was still tamping down. I went to sleep. In a few hours, I was woken by thunderclaps and observed about three inches of water on the floor. Strange creatures were swimming in the water, but I was too sleepy to be scared. I went back to sleep and was vaguely aware of the rain ceasing.
In the distance I heard, ‘You’re in the jailhouse now.’
I looked at the floor. The water had disappeared, and in its place was a writhing mass of hideous Louisiana insects: multicoloured spiders, grotesque underwater cockroaches, large worms, and giant beetles. All my carefully cultured Buddhist beliefs on the sanctity of all life quickly evaporated, and I set about systematically murdering the creatures of the night by whacking them with my Chinese fairy slippers before accepting my breakfast. The corpses filled two empty cartons of raisin bran. The air-conditioning was on full. It was very cold. I did more yoga, callisthenics, and reading, but I couldn’t get my mind off the primitive life-forms. Did Tibetans really ensure they killed no insects when building their temples?
‘Put your hands behind your back and through the slit,’ ordered two hacks in unison from the other side of the cell door.
One of them was the Irish crooner. They slipped on the handcuffs. I retrieved my hands. It was now safe for the hacks to