STEPHEN HAWLEY.
Born and raised in the Notts-
Contact Stephen
I wasn’t strong enough to fight corruption, but I was strong enough to fight for a piece of it. -- John Garfield in Force of Evil.
ONE
Tony gazed out the iron barred window at the night sky. The stars were invisible beneath the grime and the glare of the security lights, but he knew they were there. Another six hours and he was out.
He lay back on his bunk and stared at the ceiling. Sleep was impossible, though. The way his guts knotted at the thought of release. It was the same sensation he felt as he entered a bank or stopped a security van. The knowledge that what happened next could see him end the day sipping Cristal or shot full of holes on a mortuary slab. The thing he’d been waiting for these last nine years was about to happen and it scared the living crap out of him.
In jail, your life wasn’t your own. Somebody else controlled it, planned it, told you what to do. Regulated it by routine. You ate, shat and slept to a timetable enforced by authority. Loss of liberty included loss of choice, surrender of control. It was all a part of your punishment.
Having your life planned out for you, though. It was something you got used to over time. The simplest of decisions were out of your hands. What to wear in the morning, what to cook for dinner – it was something you didn’t have to worry about anymore. It was all taken care of for you. You were reduced to a child again. And, difficult though it was to swallow, there were a lot of his fellow cons that found that state of existence a lot easier to handle than the freedom of the outside world.
He’d seen the ones that became institutionalised, the ones who were unable to function outside the walls, were actively scared of release, and he’d always sworn he’d never let it happen to him. Christ, though. He was shitting bricks, he had to admit. The idea of being free, the myriad choices, the thought of taking charge of your life again, taking the weight of decision on your shoulders after all this time.
He sat upright and propped his knees beneath his chin. Nine years. Nine fucking years. It was such a long time. His memories of freedom seemed like fantasy compared to the reality of life within HMP Durham. You left the outside world along with your outside identity as you went through the strip search at reception. Everything that made you a man, clothes, women, house, car - Christ, even your name - was stripped from you. You became a uniform, a number. A roach crawling beneath the door of your cell had more independence than you did. Your life went into storage along with your civilian kit, awaiting reclamation at the end of your sentence. He just hoped it was still there along with his clothing when they processed him through Admin in the morning.
A voice came from the bottom bunk. "Can’t sleep, Tony?"
"What do you think?"
"Excited?"
"More than that." He wet his lips. "Fucking scared, mate, more than anything. Nine year inside… shit. Sorry, Raj. I didn’t think."
Raj managed a laugh. "Don’t worry about it, Tone. I already got five under my belt. Another twenty five and I’ll be following you out."
Tony was silent a moment. Nine years was a tramp’s lagging compared to what Raj was facing. Thirty years old and doing a thirty - year stretch. Half your life in a prison cell. Bloke’d be coming up on his pension before he saw the sun again.
Christ. Christ Almighty. How did you live with a thirty without topping yourself? "I’d a cracked by now if they’d weighed me off with that," he said, swinging his legs over the side of the bunk. "I don’t know how you cope with it, youth, swear to God I don’t."
Raj shifted on his mattress. Exhaled. "I not got much choice in the matter, Tony. It’s hard, though. Very hard. Christ, I can’t pretend its not. I mean, shit, man, I was a name on the street for a few years there. A fucking don. I’d walk into a club and people’d step out my way. Young kids be falling over themselves to buy me drinks, get a nod from me as I passed. I got the cars, the clothes. Penthouse flat. Bitches at my beck and call..." He faltered a moment. Drew breath. His voice was hoarse when he continued. "Sometimes I try thinking what I’d do if I was out there now," he said. "See myself on a beach someplace, clear sea, blue skies, woman by my side. Try to escape for a few hours. Put myself outside the walls for a while. Make one inside my head.
But you got to come back, though. That’s the thing. You let go the dream and you see the locks again, the bars…"
Tony held his tongue. Yeah, he knew what he meant, alright. Imagination was a great thing for escaping the reality of the cellblock, but the greatest imagination in the world quailed before thirty years of concrete and razor wire. Sometimes you needed more than just imagination. He nodded towards the table in the corner of the room, a useless gesture in the dark. "I got my stash in the back of the radio," he said, picturing the tack wedged behind the batteries. "It’s yours when you want it, mate. Yours after – you know – yours after I’m gone in the morning."
Raj grunted. Cleared his throat. "Cheers, Tone. Appreciate it. I can always use a nice bit of black." He punched the underside of Tony’s mattress. Coughed into his fist. "Ah, you know, man… you want a curry on the house when you get out here, couple a bottles a Cobra, you call my brother, okay? I mean, you done right by me in this place, he’ll do the same for you out there. Set you up with more than a free feed and all if you ask him, you know what I’m saying."
Tony sucked his teeth. It was a nice offer, but - "Smack’s not my game, Raj. Never been into dealing. Thanks for the offer, but…"
Raj’s bunk creaked. "Keep it in mind, though. Only cowboys into blagging anymore. Gear’s where the money is these days. Shit, you know what its like in here." He paused. "You actually know what you going to do once you’re out there again, mate? Besides getting high and getting laid, I mean."
Tony shrugged. Realised Raj couldn’t see it. Shrugged again. "Thought about looking for a job, like, going straight, but… I dunno. Times in here at night, staring at the wall, I prayed to Christ, literally prayed that I could go back to that morning outside the bank and live it again. Stay in the car rather than walk through the door. Told him if he let me out of here right now, that was it, I’d live the straight life from now on. Wouldn’t even gob on the pavement from now on, so help me God."
Raj chuckled sourly. "Tried that myself, Tone. Don’t do much good, though, do it?"
"Not bleeding much. And now I’m actually going out…"
"They’ll nick you again eventually, Tony. You know that don’t you?"
"Yeah, mate. I know how it is."
" They’ll bury you alive next time. Throw away the key."
Tony didn’t answer. He knew that already. One single slip and you were back in jail. You had to be successful one hundred percent of the time if you wanted to be a professional criminal, but nothing was successful one hundred percent of the time. Law of averages meant you were bound for a cellblock sooner or later. And it had been sooner rather than later with most of the blokes you met inside.
Shit, though, what else could he do? A criminal record was like a clubfoot in the modern world. No way to get a decent job with an armed robbery conviction on your CV: Christ, he knew that from when he was out before. Best he could hope for was a mop and a toilet brush, if he was lucky. Mop and a toilet brush and a fucking bedsit. Date expired food and charity shop clothes and a black and white TV on an orange box. And all the while, the adverts and magazines and billboards flaunting the good life in your face, telling you that you were some kind of failure without the clothes and the car and the music centre. That you couldn’t have a woman without the pretties to buy her respect.
Bollocks to that, like. It hadn’t taken him long to trade his broom for a shotgun last time he was out. Nature hadn’t provided him with the skills to be a footballer or the looks to be a pop star. There was no way a cunt like him could live the good life with the skills he had except by breaking the law. The only way he knew how to get the kind of life he wanted was by going over the pavement.
Long as he got a good run before the hammer came down and he’d be content. Five or six years, say. Take him into his late thirties. His youth would be gone by then, anyway. Nothing to look forward to except grey hairs and rheumatism and sitting in front of the telly for the next forty year. Soap operas and oven chips and a run at the old lady of a Saturday night. Might as well be dead as live like that, anyway.
Yeah, five or six years and he’d be content. Cram as much living into his life as possible. Tuck away some memories for later. Go as hard and as fast and he could and then fuck them, they could nail down the lid and plant him in the ground.
He drew his legs up and hugged them to his chest. The rest of his life entombed in darkness. That was more than he could take. The darkness beyond that, though. The big black out. Compared to the reality of thirty years on a maximum - security block, that was no punishment at all.
It wasn’t how long you lived after all, but the kind of life you seized for yourself, the intensity you put into it. Balls and brains was all it took, and he had balls and brains in plenty. There was no reason he couldn’t have the fantasy he’d imagined these last nine years, the clothes, the motor, the woman and the beach. No reason at all.
And perhaps he was going to be the one that bucked the trend and stayed on the outside. The one that beat the law of averages. And if not –
No. Best not to think that way. Not the night before his release. What was he trying to do, jinx himself? He ought to be celebrating, for Christ sake, not fretting like an old woman. Tomorrow he was going to be on the outside for the first time in almost a decade. Tomorrow he was going to live again. Live the dream.
Yeah, that was right. He was going to have the fantasy. Live the dream. And if any wanker in blue pyjamas got in his way, well, he wasn’t going to be the one that showed the white feather this time. Not the one that ditched his piece at the first sight of a paddy wagon. The bastards tried to stop him again and they were going to be sorry. He’d hold court right then and there rather than stand still for a thirty stretch. There’d be hair on the walls before he took another nicking. If he was going to beat the law of averages, buck the trend, he was going to have to be prepared to fight his corner. Do a Harry Roberts. When it came to a choice between a dead copper and a shot at freedom, well, Jesus, far as he was concerned, there was no choice to make. No fucking choice at all.
TWO
He stepped through the Judas gate at six the following morning. Breathed deeply. Looked around him. He couldn’t quite believe it was happening. Half expected the screws to realise they’d made a mistake and drag him back inside. Either that or wake and find himself facing the damp patch above his bunk again.
Christ, though. This time there was no mistake. He’d come through it. Served his time. Paid his debt to society. He was a free man at last and, Jesus, it tasted sweet.
He traced the outline of the travel pass in his pocket, then shook his head. Plenty of time to catch the train. He’d spent the last nine years dreaming about home, family, his mam’s kitchen, but now the reality was in his grasp, he found himself shying away from the thought of the place. The council semi smelling of damp and old grease. The sight of his old man festering in front of the telly. Shit, the town itself, a closed down mining community rotting away in the Nottinghamshire countryside. Blaming crime on your background was a cop out, but fucking hell…
Going back home. Like stepping from one cell to another. Jesus, though. Home was home, even without the parole officer on his back. Everybody had to belong someplace. Where the fuck else was he going to go now that they’d cut him loose?
Fuck it. He made his way down to the river. Drank in the smell of nature. The sight of vegetation and running water. Felt the years begin to slide from his shoulders as he took in the scene. Yeah, there was plenty of time before the train. All he wanted to do now was enjoy these first few hours of liberty before he was plunged back into the world again.
He turned away from the trees and the water and began to walk into town. The morning rush hour was only beginning, but he dithered on the kerb like a nervous old biddy as he made up his mind to cross. The speed and the noise of the vehicles were unnerving after almost a decade behind bars. He was unable to gauge speed and distance properly. How long it would take to reach the other side before the traffic was on him. Be ironic to survive a police shoot out and nine years inside only to end up starfished beneath an artic on his first day on the street.
He waited for the lights to change, then scooted across the blacktop. Skipped up on the kerb. Jesus. Across in one piece. He smirked as he found himself shaking. Big hard blagger, here. Afraid to cross the frigging road.
Shit, he’d made it, though. And the exhaust fumes burning his nostrils. Boom of the traffic. A road – drill in a lay by. Thump of a bass line from a wound down window. The kind of thing you never noticed until it was taken away from you. Kind of thing you didn’t appreciate till you spent your best years in a twelve by twelve.
Christ, though. Way the street scene got to him. Like Xmas when he was a kid. The shop windows stacked with CDs and stereos and TV sets. The reds and blues and greens of grid locked cars. The sunburst patterns of summer clothing. After the grey and brown and navy of the cellblocks, it was almost too much to take. All he wanted now was a chance to be a part of it all again. A chance to deal himself back into the game.
The fifty quid discharge grant smouldered in his pocket as he reached the city centre. Most of the stores would be closed at this time of day, but there was a Tesco on the corner and he remembered something from the grapevine. Something he’d had trouble believing. Twenty – four hour opening sounded like something from the States, but from what they said in the yard, it’d become common over here since he’d gone inside. He unchained a trolley from the front of the store and steered it through the doors. Difficult to believe, but what the fuck, he’d give it a shot.
###
The inside of the supermarket hit him like a body punch. He couldn’t believe the stuff they had in there. The place was like Aladdin’s cave. Digital cameras and I – pods and DVD players. Laptops. X boxes. There was shit he’d only seen in magazines before. Shit he’d dreamed of nights in his cell. After nine years of nothing but Mars bars and stationery to spend his money on, it was like he’d died and gone to consumer heaven.
Yeah, died and gone to heaven been left at the gate. It was socks and shaving oil and deodorant that went into his trolley rather than the goodies from the electronics section. Fifty quid would stretch only so far and he needed clothing and toiletries more than he needed the latest Robbie Williams or a copy of Grand Theft Auto. He was a poor man now in a rich man’s country and he better get used to the fact. A bastard to swallow, but there it was. He added a copy of GQ to his trolley on the way to the checkout and a Daily Mirror at the cigarette stand, then headed for the station and caught the eight o’clock train for Nottingham.
He skimmed the Mirror as they left the station, then opened GQ as they headed south. Clothes were important to him and he needed to know what was in before he hit the street. He’d always felt the way a man dressed was an expression of who he was. That staying sharp was a sign of self - respect. He liked the way that clothes made you stand out and blend in at the same time. The way they put you one up on the blokes. Got you across with the birds.
Way fashion had changed since he’d gone inside, though. Jeans were longer now, flared or boot cut, the hems dragging the ground. Shirts were still worn outside the trousers, same with Tee shirts, but the tails were shorter, barely brushing the belt. Bastard if you wanted to carry a piece in your belt like he used to, but what the fuck. A bloke had to make some sacrifices if he wanted to be in style.
Shit, though. The price tags. Cost of the fuckers. Freedom was great, but you needed money to make it work. It was the supermarket all over again. Clothes, women, electronics: you were on the outside looking in if you couldn’t afford the entrance fee. Poverty locked you up on the estates and the tower blocks with the rest of the inmates. Freedom wasn’t really freedom without a wedge in your pocket.
He turned to the centre spread, J-Lo pushing her new movie, then stole a look at the blonde opposite and felt his mood drop another notch. Without that wedge in his pocket, a roll on his hip, she was as out of his reach as the airbrushed fantasy on the page before him. He might as well resign himself to pulling his prick as hope to get next to a class looking sort like that. For now, at least.
He adjusted the hang of his kecks and made his way to the phones in the buffet car. Once he got back to Notts, though. Once he got himself back together, got some threads organised, money in his pocket. He borrowed a pen from behind the counter and got on the blower. Hoped to Christ she hadn’t moved. "Hello? Is that Mrs Mason? It’s Tony. Tony Latham. Friend of your Alan’s… Yes, that Tony. I’ve just got back in town and I was wondering if… well, that’s all behind me now, Mrs Mason. Just wanted to get hold of him for a drink. Chat about old times… if you’ve got it, that’d be great. Hold on." He trapped the phone between his chin and shoulder and flattened a napkin against the wall. "Okay. 07918…554…6784. Right. Got it. I’ll just read that back to you. 07918…554…6784. Okay, thanks Mrs Mason, that’s great… yeah, you too, love. You been a big help there. Thanks. Thanks a lot."
He hung up and redialled. Grinned at the sound of the voice on the other end of the line. "Hello? Maz?… It’s me… me, you cunt. Who’d you think it was? …Just this morning. I’m on the train now. Eight o’clock train… Couple a hours…My mam’s place … yeah, bleeding Sutton Colliery. Parole board, though. What you going to do.
Listen, you meet us someplace tonight? Get a drink? … Friday, then … yeah, Friday night… Don’t know the pubs these days so make it somewhere obvious. Yates’ say? … Okay, Yates’. About eight o’clock… Yeah, you too, Maz… Sweet… Keep it Nelson… See you then, alright, mate?"
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Copyright© 2007 Stephen Hawley