There was a snicker from the door and I saw another blue uniform staring in. It was Dhurrin, peering in with the same kind of grin I saw on Frank’s face the previous day.
“Damn, it really must be cold,” he snickered, a couple of others joining in the chuckle. I felt my cheeks flush a little, now standing naked before 4 sets of eyes.
The next few instructions went by the book, me doing the strip-dance every crook is subjected to repeatedly. There’s the same routine to follow and this screw was following it precisely.
When I finished with the usual finale of ‘turn, bend over and spread your cheeks’, I grabbed my jocks and slid them on. As I reached for a t-shirt, Dhurrin suddenly chimed in.
“Hey, don’t grab your clothes. It needs checking.” I was about to pick up my jumper to throw at the officer to check, but the head screw had other ideas.
“Nope, leave them on your bed.” He turned to the Tactical Officer and said, “Take him out to the chook pen.” My protests fell on deaf ears as I was escorted out to the exercise yard where I joined about half a dozen other lads already pacing.
“Prick,” I muttered, watching as Dhurrin moved to my neighbour’s cell. I turned to look at who else was outside with me, some clothed and some topless. I was the only poor sap in my jocks, embracing my arms around me as white tendrils of mist flew from my mouth.
It was fucken cold and holding my arms around my upper body wasn’t helping. There was a bank of clothes dryers along one wall of the chook pen and I went to check them for anything.
“Don’t bother, I already checked,” a voice said from behind me. I turned and saw Razzie, standing topless near the side fence. He was alone. His own arms wrapped around his upper body.
Just as I was about to greet him, the door to the chook pen opened again and another crook was shuffled through.
“Hey, boss. It’s cold out here. Could we please get some jumpers?” another voice cried out. The Tactical Officer looked, grinned and nodded.
“Sure. Let me see what I can find,” he said, but his grin said otherwise. He didn’t care and there would be no jumpers coming.
“Arsehole,” Razzie muttered under his breath and clapped me on the back. “Let’s walk.”
Walking was good and one of the regular activities undertaken while in the chook pen most days. Either alone or in a line, crooks loved to walk back and forth, chatting as they paced up and down the line. Razzie and I stuck to one side of the chook pen, taking advantage of the low numbers still there. It wouldn’t be long before the numbers would make pacing impossible and I needed to warm up before then.
Each time we turned back towards the unit; I saw the officers working inside through the row of windows. There must have been at least 60 officers in total, 25 of which were Tactical Officers. They wore their blue uniform with pride, evident in how they carried themselves. There were a few women mixed in, none harder than Kate Norton.
She was a fair but firm hard-arse that swung a dick bigger than most men around the jail. In all my time at the Palace, I had never seen her back down from anything, always one of the first in to any disruption, regardless of the circumstances.
She would go nose-to-nose with some of the scariest fuckers in this joint and never backed down an inch. Her confidence got her through every situation I’d ever witnessed. While not the most attractive of females, she wasn’t ugly. Her long blond hair was always pulled back in a ponytail, her staunch face never appearing to falter. The boys would always comment on the size of her tits, calling them ‘rumble-bags’, as in air bags for rumbling.
I watched as she conducted the ramping, allocating officers to certain cells and running the show while Dhurrin appeared to wander from cell to cell. While he may have been in charge, it was Norton that ran the show.
10.
The numbers continued to build as daylight finally began to brighten the sky. It was still chilly, but with more and more crooks squeezed into the small space, the air flow reduced considerably, giving those of us without clothes a bit of a reprieve.
It was a little after 7 by the time the final crook was shoved through the door, a wall of faces pressed against the windows and watching the proceedings continue inside. They would holler whenever someone was caught with incriminating gear, banging on the windows and obnoxiously cheering on the officers.
“Anything in your cell they’ll find?” a voice suddenly said from behind me. I turned to see Frank standing behind me, his new favorite minion by his side. Nails scowled at me with a contemptuous stare. I didn’t care, more interested in his boss.
“Nah. I wouldn’t be that stupid,” I lied, Frank knowing his question was loaded. The question he asked wasn’t about whether anything was in my cell. There was always something hiding in there. The question was whether they would find anything and that was the aim of the game we played.
How well you could hide the crap in your cell was the only thing that mattered. The best place to hide stuff was where shit was supposed to live; up your arse. Half the boys in the chook pen would have things ‘booted’ up their cake holes. Screws weren’t permitted to search anal cavities.
If they suspected someone of hiding contraband internally, that crook could be taken to hospital for scans and monitoring. But that was rare, only really happening when someone was dumb enough to swallow something to avoid getting caught.
“Good boy,” Frank said, clapping me on the back. “How’s the supply line these days?” My work
