Guest Feature
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Disorientation An extract from Fools' Justice
By P Koupparis |
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During the early stages of my second trial, which
was heard before Judge Brian Smedley, a week's
adjournment was called one morning and I found
myself being transported back to HMP Brixton in an
otherwise empty "meat wagon". I arrived at noon.
After a meal in reception, I was sent through to
"A" Wing, the trials and appeals wing. It had a
reasonably good reputation for cleanliness and a
relaxed regime and I was looking forward to a
week's break from the stress of the trial. A large prison officer led me through a labyrinth of corridors and tunnels to "A" Wing and then up a metal stairway to the first-floor terrace in the stillness that pervades a prison after lunch. My new cell was at the end of the wing. He threw open the door and quickly ushered me in. "I hope you enjoy it here," he said, as the door slammed behind me. I heard him laughing as the iron clang echoed through the cathedral-like chamber. The cell was dark. Several sheets of newspaper were hung across the tiny window. It was like a pig's sty. An overpowering stench of ammonia filled the air - the unmistakable odour of stale, fermenting urine. Sheets of newspaper lay across the floor, overlapping at random and covered with small piles of food and excrement centred in dark, spreading stains. The walls were also smeared with food and excrement. A small, blue Formica-topped table stood at an angle to one side of the cell. It was streaked with dried food and piled high with bowls and plates of half-eaten, decomposing meals. I thought I was alone. The two-tier bunk was unmade, but I noticed a pile of sheets and blankets on the floor at the end of the cell. Then I felt a presence. As I peered into the gloom, I saw a pair of eyes flicker in the darkness at the end of the bunk's lower tier. A very large, shaven-headed black man was sitting against the wall, his legs drawn up, his hands clutching his knees. He was almost naked. His face and body outlined in glistening highlights of sweat. The whites of his eyes shone like beacons against the darkness. I was still standing in the middle of the cell, clutching my kit and wondering where to put it when I saw him. The officer's parting words congealed like the gravy on the table. I had perhaps ten seconds in which to decide what to do, and do it. I knew instinctively that the man was seriously disturbed. I recognised the bulging eyes and menacing disposition. The surprise cellmate was my punishment for challenging the authority of a senior Judge and forcing him to declare yet another adjournment in the long-running saga of my trial. If I was to prevail against the disorientation tactics the authorities were playing, I had to take command of the situation immediately. There was no time to think about it. I stepped forward and threw my kit on to the top bunk, claiming my territory. "Hello, my name is Pan. What's your name?" I said, crouching down to his eye level. I held out my hand. He just stared at me. I placed my hand on his, sat down on the bunk and began telling him exactly what we were going to do, "As soon as they open us up, I'm going to clear this place up real good. You won't recognise it when I've finished. The officers will be surprised. When they look in here, they'll think you did it, yeah? I know you've had a hard time, but that's all over now. I'm here now and you're going to be just fine. I'm going to look after you real good, just like mother, yeah?" "Yeah," he agreed. His hand moved a little beneath mine. That was all. I stood up and began tidying the cell. As I worked, I carried on talking, gently and quietly, never demanding a response. I talked to myself. The stream of dialogue swamped his own disturbed thoughts until all he could hear was my voice. Stimulation, for a man subjected to days, perhaps months, of sensory deprivation acted like a drug, a therapy. An effect I understood well. By the time the cell was opened later that afternoon, half the job was done. The sheets and blankets were neatly folded at the end of his bed. The newspapers were off the floor and the plastic bowls and plates scraped out and stacked on the table. Everything went into the dustbin except one set of utensils, which I washed for him. Disposing of the cell's uncovered "plastic bucket" was the worst job. I almost passed out as the vile, semi-liquid mass of filth struck the porcelain sluice and vented a malodorous cloud of disgusting foulness. It permeated my clothes for days. I can still smell it sometimes. But the job was done. With two wash basins full of hot water, a bar of soap and a prison issue towel torn in half, I set about washing the walls and floors as soon as we were locked up again. My cellmate had not moved, but he was no longer staring at me. He nodded occasionally as I spoke. It would soon be teatime, the last meal of the day. Our cell was clean and tidy, not by my standards, perhaps, but it would have to do. At teatime, my cellmate made no effort to collect his meal from the serving line. He didn't leave the cell at all. I knew a few other prisoners on the wing and, one way or another, I managed to get some extra food and borrow a little tobacco. At that time, unsealed packets of tobacco were confiscated at reception. My newly opened packet was seized on the way in. It was not a big problem though, the wing's canteen call was due the next day and my supplies would soon be replenished. Meanwhile, my credit was good with the tobacco hustlers (once called "barons," those young thugs do not deserve such a genteel or grandiose title). I laid out the table and divided the food between two plates. I poured half my tea into his cup. "Come on, let's eat. Let's celebrate our friendship," I suggested. To my surprise, he slowly manoeuvred himself off the bed and stood upright. He was a big man; perhaps 6'3" tall and very heavily built. There was something strange about the shape of his head and his face was stuck in a perpetual grimace. His movements seemed awkward and ungainly. As we ate, he finally spoke. His name was Albert. He had recently been convicted of an assault against a woman at a bus stop, a complete stranger, and was awaiting reports before sentencing. That explained his presence on "A" Wing. His speech was slow and inarticulate. He was not a man of intellect or learning. If anything, his intellectual development was well below average. I played out a hunch. "Are you on medication, now," I asked? "No, I don't take no medicine now," he responded. "What did the doctor say," I continued, trying to build on my tentative diagnosis. He looked around the cell and shrugged his shoulders, "I don't know," after a while he added, "Them doctors don't know nothing, I tell you. How do they know how you feel, what is inside your head, eh?" "Did this happen to you before," I enquired? "Yeah," he said. "What happened then," I asked? "They send me to hospital, but they's lying, I tell you. I never hit no woman. I didn't even know who she is. It was that woman, that fucking white woman, she hit me, I tell you," his eyes rolled around in their sockets and his arms swayed in stifled gestures as he struggled to explain his case. Could Albert be another victim of a miscarriage of justice, I wondered? "Do you smoke, Albert?" I asked, after we had eaten. "You have cigarettes?" His eyes lit up. "Of course, I got some at teatime, here you go." I gave him a pinch of tobacco, a Rizla paper and a strip of cardboard for a "roach". A smile flashed briefly across his distorted features as he fumbled with the components of the cigarette. His hands were trembling. He was all thumbs. "Here take this one, give me back that one and I'll roll it in my machine," I said, as I popped a perfectly formed rollup from the plastic sleeve. "What's that thing," he enquired? In all my years of imprisonment, I had not seen anyone else with a cigarette-rolling machine. It is a tiny gadget, nothing more than two spindles with a thin plastic sheet wrapped around them, but it makes a perfect rollup every time. With that little gadget, I could squeeze 50 or even 60 rollups from a half-ounce of finely shredded tobacco (a week's ration for a convicted prisoner). I showed Albert how it worked. He laughed out loud, the only time he ever did that while we were together. By the next day, we had plenty of tobacco, biscuits, chocolates and even a few luxuries like toothpaste and shampoo. Over the next few days, Albert and I became good friends. Gradually, he opened up and told me a little about himself. He agreed to let some light into our cell by reducing the number of newspapers across the window, but only because I was still on trail and had to read my case papers. He never once asked me what I was in for or showed any interest in me as a person. He said he did not like leaving the cell. Every morning I would invite him to join me on the exercise yard and he would decline. He said he did not like people looking at him. Occasionally, he would come down to the hotplate with me at meal times. I noticed he had a strange walk, he shuffled along with his toes splayed outwards, knees slightly bent. He looked confused, lost in the milling crowds. It was all too fast for him. He was happy to get back to the safety and tranquillity of the cell. Each day, I emptied our bucket, made our beds and took care of the washing up. He sat on his bed all the time, sometimes not moving for hours on end. We spoke occasionally, but conversation was unnecessary. He never started a conversation but was happy to answer my questions. When he got tired, he simply vanished back into himself and fell silent. He told me that he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, he remembered the diagnosis when I prompted him. He had spent most of his life in and out of mental hospitals or prisons. He was always getting into trouble and ending up in prison whenever he was released into the community. He never spoke about his family. He had no money in his prison account and received no visitors or mail while I was with him. He told me that no one had ever visited him or written to him in prison. He could not read or write. He did not think he was paranoid (his word), he felt his fears and suspicions were justified, although, what they were, he did not tell me. I spent seven days with Albert. When my trial resumed, I gave him my opened tobacco and another half-ounce, my canteen goodies and the shampoo and toothpaste (apart from the sealed tobacco, none of those items could have been brought back to Brixton after a Court appearance). As I was being led out, an officer whispered, "I bet you're glad to be out of there? You've got some balls, Koupparis, I'll give you that." "No Guv," I replied, "and if you had more brains than balls, you would understand why." I joined the ranks of the other trial prisoners on the ground floor of "A" Wing. I did not see Albert at Brixton after that. A few weeks later, my second trial collapsed, Judge Smedley withdrew and I became an ordinary remand prisoner again. Two months later, after an abortive third trial, I was finally convicted on the forth attempt. Justice Macpherson sentenced me to serve five and three years, to run concurrently. Some months later, whilst serving the retributive part of my sentence at HMP Wandsworth, I saw Albert shuffling along on a lower terrace of "C" Wing. I called out to him. He recognised me and ran up a flight to where I was standing. "You have cigarettes," he asked? "I'm sorry Albert, this is Wandsworth, nobody has any tobacco. I'll see you all right on canteen day. How are you? What sentence did you get? How long have you been here? Where are they sending you?" I was shouting my questions after him until he was back on the lower terrace. He kept looking up at me as he walked away. All he wanted was a cigarette. I never saw him again. [NB: The author is now an active anti-smoking campaigner.] © Copyright P Koupparis 1999. All rights reserved.
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