Hard Time (5 page)

‘Garcia! Watkins! Snyder! Vasquez! Castillo! Johnston! Lynch!’ the clerk yelled.

The first group of defendants jumped up like a team of firefighters responding to an emergency call. In an apathetic voice, Judge Powischer chastised them, one after the other, for committing petty crimes.

‘Walker! Ramirez! Brooks! Wright! Lopez! Washington! Attwood!’

Judge Powischer read my charges. When he quoted my bond, the crowd gasped.

‘Do you have anything to say on your own behalf?’ he asked, his slitty brown eyes radiating impatience.

‘Your Honour, I was arrested yesterday morning, told the raid would vindicate the charges, but no drugs were found. I trade stocks for a living and have an investment in a clothing store, but there’s no way I can pay this bond. I’m—’

‘Enough!’ Judge Powischer’s head swivelled towards the familiar woman.

She rose, her face becoming animated around large glasses as she launched into her statement. ‘Judge, I’m Gloria Olivia Davis, prosecutor for the Organised Crime Division of the Attorney General’s Office. About six years ago, Tempe Police Department began receiving reports of an Englishman involved in throwing raves and distributing drugs in and around the Phoenix and Tempe area. Surveillance was set up, but the Englishman moved around a lot, eluding earlier investigations. He used numerous aliases: so many we couldn’t even list them all in his indictment. Detectives only discovered Mr Attwood’s real name this year and were finally able to capture him. It is the allegation of the state that Mr Attwood is the head of a drug organisation and that he has been operating a continuous criminal enterprise in Arizona for at least six years. The Attwood Organisation specialises in the distribution of club drugs, including the drug he is most well known for: Ecstasy. Mr Attwood is not a citizen of this country. He is a citizen of England. He thus poses a considerable flight risk if he were to be bonded out. Mr Attwood is also a liar, Judge. He lied to your own staff here today, stating that he lives in Tucson when he in fact lives in Scottsdale. He also put that he works at a store, in sales – maybe he meant drug sales? The state requests his bond remains the same.’

‘Bond remains the same. Next!’

His words were like a kick to the testes. I wanted to throw up. I had to steady my hands to sign the court papers. Back in my seat, I brooded on the impossibility of bonding out and having to tell my parents. I wondered how much longer I could stay awake before I broke down.

‘Everyone who has seen the judge,’ the bailiff yelled, ‘go through that door and get back into the jail right now!’

Apprehensively, I returned to The Horseshoe: an apprehension that turned into dread when I saw the number of men sardined in the next cell. I wedged myself in past the tiny Mexican from earlier, who was still hyperventilating. I spotted another familiar face and sighed. It was the Cuban. He was standing next to the Mexican, staring blankly, like a wind-up toy waiting for someone to turn the key in his back.

I worked my way to the toilet and unbuttoned my pants. Urinating, I winced at the smell. I cupped water from the sink in my hand and leant forward. My eyes slammed shut as I splashed my face. The water cooled my skin and washed away some of the grime and tiredness. Removing my T-shirt released the odour of stale sweat and yesterday’s deodorant. I wetted the T-shirt and wiped my face and armpits. I put the T-shirt back on. It clung to my body, cooling it down. My mouth tasted foul. Gargling water failed to stop the burning in my throat. I picked the coating of white scum off my lips in tiny clumps and strings. Sitting down against a wall, I could feel the filth in the air reattaching itself to my skin. A headache set in. I drifted in and out of consciousness, and my worries took on surreal dimensions. Every time I felt too itchy, I revisited the sink and repeated my bathing ritual.

Except for the Mexican and Cuban, everyone looked exhausted. The Cuban had been staring at the wall for a while, his eyeballs bulging slightly more than the Mexican’s. Every ten minutes or so, he reanimated and yelled at someone. Inevitably, my turn came.

‘Why you look at me?’ He stared at me hard.

I was tense enough, yet he managed to elevate my tension. ‘I wasn’t looking at you. My friend, are you OK?’ Try to calm him down, I thought. Do a good deed.

‘You fuckin’ no-no look at me!’ he yelled louder, his head convulsing as if demons were trying to burst through his crown chakra.

Maintaining eye contact, I rose. I felt my stress surge into anger at him. I knew this was wrong. But some force was pushing me to fight him. Expecting to be the one he’d finally attack, I steeled myself. Raising my arms, I shifted my left side towards him.

‘Take no notice,’ an old Mexican American said. ‘He’s crazy.’

Shouldn’t be fighting a crazy, I thought. No backing down either. With everyone watching to see how I’d react, I didn’t want to show any weakness.

‘Why you look at me? Why you fuckin’ look at me?’

Figuring he was testing me, I responded the way I’d heard many of the others respond: ‘Shut the fuck up!’ I was immediately taken aback by the severity in my voice.

The Cuban shuffled away, pivoted like a robot and headed for the tiny Mexican. He stopped next to the Mexican and stared out of the window. The expectation of a confrontation was palpable. Even men who’d been nodding off fixated on the twosome. But the Cuban settled back into a trance. Just when the spectators were losing interest, the Cuban started muttering and trembling.

‘Who look at me no-no look at me!’ he yelled at the Plexiglas, as if imaginary people in the corridor were eyeballing him.

Hearing this, the Mexican jumped like a startled animal and then thundered on the Plexiglas with both fists.

The Cuban whirled towards the Mexican. ‘Why you fuckin’ look at me?’

Still pounding on the Plexiglas, the Mexican yelled for someone to save him from ‘
el diablo
’.

‘You fuckin’ look at me! No-no look at me!’ the Cuban yelled, wagging his finger in the Mexican’s face.

They fed off each other’s hysteria until a hillbilly guard the size of a buffalo swung the door open and said in a bumpkin voice, ‘What in the Sam Hill’s goin’ on in here?’

When the Cuban yelled ‘Why you fuckin’ look at me?’ at the guard, the Mexican ducked under the guard’s arm and sprinted down the corridor.

‘Hell’s bells!’ The guard slammed the door and radioed for backup.

I couldn’t resist vying for viewing room at the Plexiglas. Side by side, two guards were marching towards the Mexican, driving him back towards the hillbilly, who was blocking the corridor like a rugby forward eager to squash a winger. The Mexican feinted to the left, and the hillbilly lurched in that direction. The Mexican veered to the right and zigzagged around the guard.

‘This little fella’s quicker than a bob cat!’ the hillbilly yelled.

Keys jingling and a staccato of radio interference announced the arrival of groups of guards at both ends of the corridor – big guards snapping on rubber gloves, marching with menace in their stride. The Mexican skidded into a U-turn and headed back towards the hillbilly. But within seconds he had nowhere to go. He swivelled his head wildly, appraising the situation like an animal aware of its imminent slaughter. Boots squealed as the guards fell upon him. He resisted briefly, kicking and yelping, but then curled into a ball. He was pinned down, picked up and thrown into a restraint chair. As they strapped him in, his tiny body panted as if his chest were about to explode. As they slid the chair down the corridor, his screams faded out of earshot.

The hillbilly extracted the Cuban and placed him in a cell opposite. We watched the Cuban shout at a man. Then a large figure rose from the floor at the back of the cell as if roused from sleep. Approaching the Cuban, the figure knocked people out of the way. It was Wild Man. He came up behind the Cuban and applied a chokehold. The Cuban’s arms windmilled then flopped down. Wild Man dropped the Cuban to the floor like a sack of potatoes, grinned at us and lay back down.

Other than the heat rising and falling, I had no sense of night and day. The heat was up again when a guard extracted me to see a nurse at a desk in the corridor. I was well into my second day now. The nurse mocked my accent and took my blood pressure. She stuck a needle in my arm.

‘I fucking hate needles. I’m refusing this shit,’ Wild Man said, sitting down next to me opposite another nurse. ‘How’re you, la’?’ he asked, addressing me in the Liverpudlian slang for lad.

‘Shattered. I need sleep. Hungry. I can’t eat green baloney.’

‘You ready?’ the nurse asked Wild Man.

‘I told you, I’m refusing.’

‘It’s for your own good.’

‘I’m fucking refusing,’ Wild Man laughed.

‘How can you refuse?’ I asked.

‘I just did.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ I said.

‘They got you good, didn’t they?’

‘I guess.’

‘If you’re refusing, get back to your cell!’

‘Tara, la’,’ Wild Man said.

‘Tara, la’,’ I said.

As the nurse applied a band-aid to my arm, Wild Woman and my female friends arrived. Prisoners leered and banged on the Plexiglas.

‘How’re you doing?’ I asked.

‘It’s terrible,’ Melissa said.

‘But Wild Woman’s taking care of us,’ Misty said.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

‘I already twatted one fucking daft bitch for picking on Misty ’cause she’s Asian,’ Wild Woman said.

‘She headbutted some chick and boxed her down,’ Boo said.

‘They know better than to fuck with me now,’ Wild Woman said. ‘I’m in no fucking mood. I hope another daft cunt talks some shit. I’m looking for some fucker to take my fucking anger out on.’

‘You! Stop talking to the females! In fact, come with me!’ A guard led me to a cell on the third corridor.

‘It’s the $750,000-bond man!’ Chad yelled.

‘What’s up, brother!’ Cody said, and explained he’d been discussing our prospects with Chad and Tony, the pirate-looking murderer.

‘If you haven’t got any priors,’ Tony said, ‘the worst they can give you is five years on a Class 2 felony.’

‘What’s priors?’ I asked.

‘Prior felony convictions.’

‘I’ve got no prior felonies. I’ve got a misdemeanour from years ago.’

‘Misdemeanours don’t count,’ Tony said. ‘You’re looking at five years max.’

‘Five years!’ It seemed like the rest of my life.

‘That’s the worst you’re looking at,’ Tony said. ‘Five’s a walk in the park. You’re also eligible for probation.’

‘I’d sign for probation right now just to get out of here,’ I said.

‘If you’re a first-time non-dangerous drug offender, you’re eligible for probation. Take no notice of that bond. It’s just a scare tactic and so you can’t bond out and prepare a good defence. Just make sure your crew keep their mouths shut when they try to scare them into snitching. “Cooperate or you’ll never see the light of day,”’ Tony said in a mock voice. ‘It’s all bullshit. If no drugs or money were found, then they fucked up. You’re gonna have to be careful ’cause they spent a lot of money on this case, so they’re gonna be looking to justify it. Get a real good defence attorney, and you’ll be all right. Don’t sign the first plea bargain they offer you unless it’s for less than five years.’

The door swung open, and the hillbilly tossed Ladmo bags at us. ‘It’s like feeding a pack of javelinas. Y’all smell about the same.’

Hunched over their Ladmo bags, the men bartered items of food as volubly as traders on the New York Stock Exchange. A line formed for the toilet. The stench of bowel movements soon dominated the other odours our bodies were letting loose. Chad and Tony amused themselves by throwing grapefruit peel at anyone who dared, accidentally or otherwise, to fall asleep.

The door swung open. ‘Attwood, come with me!’

I arrived at a massive cell at the end of The Horseshoe. It had multiple bunk beds on two opposite walls and a toilet at the back. Some of the inmates were in street clothes, others in jail attire. Black-and-white bee-striped pyjamas. Pink boxer shorts. Orange shower sandals.

As this was the last intake holding cell, I thought I’d better ask my aunt Ann (my aunt Sue’s older sister) to notify my parents before I ended up who knows where. On the wall by the cell door was a collect-call phone. To dial, I had to stoop – to prevent suicides all of the phones in the jail had been designed with short cords. I was so disgusted with what I was about to do that hanging myself seemed an easier option. I half hoped no one would answer, but Ann did. Surprised by the news, she reassured me she’d tell my parents as gently as possible. I hung up the phone feeling sick. I’d just sent a bomb over the Atlantic Ocean aimed at my parents’ home. I sat on my own for a bit, imagining their reactions, the devastation I’d surely caused such gentle and caring people.

The door opened every few hours, and a guard yelled the names of the inmates being transported to one of Arpaio’s local jails.

Wild Man introduced me to Maximum Ted, an old-timer who’d killed his wife in Florida and had been classified to the Madison Street jail’s maximum-security quarters. He’d been shipped from a Florida prison to face charges of stealing a Renaissance-era painting from a wealthy Arizonan. With all of my male co-defendants present, I asked Maximum Ted for advice.