4.
Because of the lockdown, I was marched immediately to my cell and locked inside. A few of the lads were holding palaver under their doors, some sounding pissed off about the lockdown, while others were discussing the events in White Block. It was hard to decipher the voices as I was locked away so didn’t pay too much attention to them.
The day had been a pretty tiring one, so I laid back and napped for the rest of the afternoon. I was woken briefly at dinner, but declined, the screws simply counting me in the muster and moving on.
5.
The prison remained in lockdown for 2 days during which the cops came and went from the unit at the end of the path. Each time they walked past our windows, a chorus of excited crooks yelled shit to them, but none reacted. Sometimes we were lucky enough to get a fresh-faced jack walk past, but during this event, they all seemed seasoned officers, none paying us the slightest attention.
There were only certain crooks allowed out of their cells during extended lockdowns and, thankfully, I was one of them due to my position in the medical wing. It was considered an important position, responsible for a lot of duties that needed attending, regardless of what was happening anywhere else in the jail.
One of the screws from the previous day came and escorted me up to medical a little after 8. The trap had barely closed from that morning’s muster before the cell door was cracked and I was summoned out. Although not the most talkative of screws, the blow-in’s name was Aiden Fisher.
He’d only been in the prison for four months and when I asked what he’d done previous to this job, he began to laugh awkwardly.
“You’d never guess,” he said as he unlocked one of the gates. I really wasn’t in the mood for a guessing game, but briefly played along.
“Hmmm, if I was to guess, I’d say a train driver.” He laughed a little more.
“Nope. But you don’t know how close you are. I sold model railways. Ran my own shop.” I didn’t see the funny side, but he seemed like one of those geeks that found most things funny, if only to distract himself from the seriousness of life.
“That sounds pretty cool,” I lied, not one for building model anythings. We finally reached the medical unit’s door and I sighed in relief as the airlock opened. I headed straight for the back room, keen to get started on that morning’s mopping duties.
Judging by the whiteboard that hung on the wall behind the station, there was a name allocated to every cell but one. That meant a full house of 54 sick crooks, all dirtying up the place and it would fall on me to keep the joint clean.
6.
The morning went quite quickly as I worked my way through almost half the cells. There was but a single distraction, the laundry delivery from the previous day held over. I helped unload the bags of linen and made sure to grab those marked with our unique signature, the straps folded around the bag in a large X before being tied off.
Before I could go through the incoming contraband, I needed to finish my mopping duties, the screws monitoring my progress. They needed to, as each cell needed to be unlocked in turn, due to the lockdown. Sometimes the screws got a bit lazy and unlocked 2 or 3 at once, returning to their station each time. It gave me enough time to do what I needed to, including emptying bins, wiping down benches and cleaning each cell’s toilet.
It wasn’t a quick job, each multi-bed cell taking upwards of 20 minutes. I wouldn’t see the screws for sometimes an hour, leaving me to do what I had to. It was cool. It gave me time to chin wag with the lads, some of who I knew quite well. But no-one warned me of the occupant of Cell 24A, a single cell housing a new arrival, one that I never saw coming.
7.
After finishing Cell 22, Aiden unlocked Cells 23, 24 and the empty 25. Cell 23 held 4 crooks, all over the age of 70 with half of them asleep 23 hours a day. They were so fucked on their medication; I doubt they knew the year they were living in. It meant I could go about my business with relative ease, only the one wanting to engage in a chat.
Cell 23 took about 20 minutes, during which time old Harry discussed robbing a bank back in the 60’s. I don’t know how true his tale was, but it made for good listening while I worked, kind of like a portable audiobook. Part of me wanted to ask the screws if Harry could follow me around the unit permanently; my own private walking library of stories. Hell, I could have listened to him talk for hours.
“Thanks for the war story, Harry,” I said as I finished, watching as he climbed carefully back into bed. He was fragile, a skinny runt of a man that probably saw the world change through 8 decades at least. It made me sad to think of a life living for all those years, only to end up in here at the end of it.
I waited for Harry to tuck himself back in, then gave him a final wave before wheeling my bucket with the mop back out into the hallway. I peered down towards the station and saw both officers sitting at respective computers, neither paying me the slightest attention. Cell 24 wasn’t directly across the hall, instead sitting a little further along as the cells were designed not to face each other.
The
