Many deals were hatched. Many, I’m sure, will come to fruition.
The Mexican was also right about the difficulty in seeing an Immigration Officer. I tried relentlessly. We were able to phone, so I called the British Consul.
‘Yes, Howard, your passport has been sent. Your parents, who send you all their love, paid for your open ticket, and that’s also been sent.’
I finally found an Immigration Liaison Officer.
‘Yes, we’ve received your passport and ticket, but they’ve been mislaid. Don’t worry. We’re all on the case. We’ll find them.’
Apparently everyone’s ticket and passport got mislaid at some stage. We just had to wait patiently. There was nothing we could do.
A Walkman was permitted. I bought one and spent every day walking twenty miles around the jogging track listening to the oldies’ station. During my years inside, my daughter Francesca, now fourteen, had regularly written to me of her fondness for my record collection. Little Richard, Elvis Presley, Waylon Jennings, and Jimi Hendrix were among her favourites. Soon we could listen to them together, and she could educate me on the new music I’d missed. I became sun-tanned, nostalgic, and bored. Three days before my supposed release date of March 25th, I was pacing the track listening to a New Orleans disc jockey raving about the latest and greatest British band, the Super Furry Animals. They were from the Welsh valleys. I was listening to them calling me home when the prison loudspeaker crackled.
‘Marks, 41526–004, report to the Immigration Office.’
‘We’ve got your passport and your ticket,’ said the Immigration Officer. ‘Everything’s ready for you to leave. We can’t tell you precisely when, of course, in case you initiate plans to prevent it. But it’ll be soon.’
My release date came and went, and a week or so passed by. ‘Lovato’s doing it,’ I thought. ‘He’s persuading his buddies in the DEA to stop me leaving.’
On Thursday, April 7th, Komo, a Thai who’d been fighting deportation for seven years and who’d not been outside of a prison for seventeen years, came running towards me.
‘British, British, you’re on the list. Leaving tonight. About 1 a.m. Please leave me Walkman.’
Komo’s prison job was cleaning and tidying the offices of the administrative staff, so he had access to confidential information. He also had about twenty Walkmans, which he would attempt to sell to new arrivals. Every long-term prisoner has to have a solid hustle. But it was such good news that I immediately handed over my Walkman.
‘Good luck, Komo. Maybe see you in Bangkok one day.’
‘Me never go Bangkok, British. They kill me there. Me American. Stay here.’
‘They’ll kill you here, too, Komo,’ I said, ‘but much slower and more painfully.’
‘Slow is okay, British, and very slow is very good.’
I couldn’t risk telephoning anyone with the news. It might not be true, and besides, the phones were tapped. If the authorities discovered that I was leaving, they just might change my travel plans.
There were eight others leaving that night: an Americanised Nigerian of British nationality and seven South Americans.
‘Is this all your property, Marks?’
I had approximately one hundred dollars, a pair of shorts, nail-clippers, comb, toothbrush, alarm clock, papers confirming my ‘release’ date of two weeks ago, a credit card I could use in prison vending-machines, and five books, including one written about me. Hunting Marco Polo.
‘Yes, that’s it.’
I put the money in my pocket. It felt strange. First time for over six years. How often was I going to be thinking that. First time for over six years. Money, sex, wine, a joint of marijuana, a bath, an Indian curry. All around the corner.
My other belongings were put into a cardboard box. I was given a pair of blue jeans with legs about a foot too long and an extremely tight white tee-shirt. This was called being ‘dressed out’, a gift from the United States Government for those re-entering the free world.
We were handcuffed, but not chained, and squeezed into a small van. Then we picked up two other guys from another prison exit. One seemed Hispanic, the other seemed northern European. Everyone was silent, excited by his own thoughts. The van’s engine made a terrible racket as it headed towards Houston and the dawn, just beginning to break. By nine o’clock, it was like sitting on a rock in a sardine can on fire. By ten o’clock, we were sitting in an enormous holding cell at Houston International Airport, along with over fifty other criminal aliens.
The northern European asked the Nigerian, ‘Where do you live?’ His accent was strong South Welsh. I had never met a Welshman in an American prison, nor heard of one. I’d met very few Americans who’d heard of Wales.
‘Are you Welsh?’ I interrupted.
‘Aye,’ he said, looking at me with deep suspicion.
‘So am I.’
‘Oh yeah!’ Deeper suspicion.
‘Which part are ’ew from?’ I asked, laying on the accent a bit.
‘Swansea,’ he said, ‘and ’ew?’
‘Twenty-five miles away from ’ew in Kenfig Hill,’ I answered.
He started laughing.
‘You’re not him, are you? God Almighty! Jesus wept! Howard bloody Marks. Marco fucking Polo. They’re letting you go, are they? That’s bloody great. Good to meet you, boy. I’m Scoogsie.’
We had a chat, a long one. Scoogsie explained how he, too, had just finished a drug sentence, and he told me of his early days in the business.
‘My wife has worked for a long time in a drug rehabilitation centre in Swansea. Not a bad partnership, really. I get them hooked; she gets them off. We keep each other going, like.’
Memories of South Welsh humour had often helped me through the bad times in prison. Now I was hearing it for real. I was heading back towards my roots, and they were reaching out for me.
Looking confused, the Nigerian belatedly replied to Scoogsie’s original question.
‘I live in London. I am being deported there. I am never coming back here. They took away my money, my property, and my business. Just because someone I didn’t know swore in court that I sold him some drugs.’
An all too familiar story.
The number of deportees in the converted aeroplane hangar was dwindling. ‘Anyone else going to London?’ Scoogsie asked.
No one.
Soon, there were just the three of us left. We’d found out that the Continental Airlines flight to London should be leaving in an hour. An Immigration Officer came in holding a gun.
‘This way, you three.’
A small van took us to the gangway. With his gun, the Immigration Officer indicated we should climb the steps. The Nigerian led the way. Scoogsie followed and spat dramatically on American soil.
‘None of that!’ ordered the immigration man, waving his gun.
‘Don’t mess it up now, Scoogsie. You know what they’re like.’
‘I know what the fuckers are like, all right,’ said Scoogsie. ‘I hate them. I wouldn’t piss in their mouths if their throats were on fire. I’m never going to eat another McDonalds. No more cornflakes for breakfast. And pity help any Yank who asks me the way anywhere. Let anyone dare try to pay me in dollars. God help him.’
‘Take it easy, Scoogsie. Let’s