The Mandela Play #2
Chapter: ‘The Right Thing’
This is part 2 of a new meme thriller series. (part#1) “The Mandela Play” An American boy, Willem Hollant, gets imprisoned with a deadly secret, which ties him to an international conspiracy. To escape and set things right he must use extraordinary measures. Can Willem overcome injustice, Deep State, International Crime and several American delusions as a single boy in prison?
Chapter II: ‘The right thing’
Prison sucks. There’s gangs that rule the hallways when the doors are open. There’s guards that are either corrupt or totalitarian bastards often both. Only a few have some humanity. And as a white boy, with little affinity to the white gangs I fall in with the illegal minorities. I throw in my very watered down bits of native American, Chinese and Italian blood as if that defines who I am. Somehow it works, but I think it’s mostly me being a friends with Kevin. We’ve also formed a small gang, more like we-keep-an-eye-on-each-other-and-avoid-all-other-gangs-kind-of-gang. I can only hope Kevin and the others don’t get transported out too soon. I am a little bit ashamed for this wish, but prisoners have little security without enough friends. You could wonder what the guards are for then.
To prevent my new book from getting stolen, I crumple it up, like I don’t care about it. That’s the safest way. And I read fast, because tomorrow it can be stolen or confiscated anyway. As I slowly start to make sense of this world famous prisoner in the book, I start seeing how his attitude and self restraint slowly build his image. He had all the time in the world. I fear I have that too.
“Hey Kid!” A white gang guy shouts towards Kevin. At our table we look at each other. We’re with six younger prisoners, most of us here through stupid mistakes or injustice. We cluster up to keep the career criminals out of our hairs (read pants). This is bad news. “Kid!!,” the guy shouts again. His bald head branded with his narrow minded beliefs in blue black tattoos, glistening with sweat. I can only assume the sweat is built up aggression that needs to be let of steam by bullying someone weaker. We stand up, with six of us and let that sink in. We hear a barked command, while the dining room falls silent. He stands up with twenty of them. Twenty guys with blown up muscles from daily work out smile at us, with a predatory grin. All of them have histories of violence, rape, murder. Now guards start giving a shit. Now they bark commands. We sit down. They sit down more slowly. They may think they won, but nobody calls us again that day.
A bulldozer of a black guy pushes me against the bars. “If I ever see you looking at us like that again, you’re dead meat,” he whispers in my ear. I don’t know what to say. His forearm presses into my throat and I can only hope it will end soon. I don’t even know how or where I’ve triggered him. One little look at him at lunch couldn’t be, shouldn’t be reason enough for this. He presses harder and I struggle to breathe. Then the Morgan Freeman type puts his hand on the guys shoulder. He says something softly that I don’t quite catch. The big black guys shrugs his shoulders, lets go and walks away with Morgan. I wonder what just happened. Thus far I thought violence ruled the prison. Perhaps there’s more.
As I sit working packing paper cups two guards walk over to me. One looks around if no one is looking. I immediately start to sweat. I sense bad news. The white one, one Kraminsky, tramples over my last hour of work. “Oops,” he says. The other one, the one we call Dumpster, grasps me by the collar, “We need you to work with us. We need eyes and ears to keep us informed. Capice?” The Mafia joke makes complete sense, as they are a kind of Mafia. Yet, I can’t deliver. The last snitch for the guards died just three days ago in a pool of blood in the showers. “I prefer solitary, sir,” I say as steady as I can. They look at each other, than one works me over with his baton. With an awful headache and painful body I’m led away for four days confinement. The pain is terrible, but no one that saw me dragged away will think I snitched.
Getting used to prison life, without small screens was already tough. This is so much tougher. Screams, wailing from down the hallway are the most common sounds. Once the guy in the cell next to mine gets beaten up extra. “You better be deaf boy,” is the only thing they warn me with. For the rest the boredom is stifling. I end up doing exercises and then fantasizing movies. They are superhero movies, mostly about a guy who can walk through walls, or blow them up if he gets angry. At night I cry, biting down the noise to prevent anyone hearing me sob. What a worthless life this turns out to be.
“They gang raped Enrique,” Kevin whispers to me when I return from solitary. Enrique is a beautiful 18 year old with coffee skin and a kind of feminine face. We knew he was a target. Kevin tells me how they only needed 15 minutes to drive him in a corner and do their thing with him. No guards intervening of course, nor taking action when it got reported, because ‘rape doesn’t happen in our institute’ they claim. They even warned some of the guys to not talk about this to anyone outside, for loss of privileges or worse. I ask which gang. Kevin sees how angry I am and raises his shoulders. “Does it matter?” he asks. “Well, if it wasn’t latino’s, then maybe we could get the latino gang to do some revenge,” I wonder back to him. “You don’t want to go there,” Kevin replies, pointing to my crumpled book, “Read it. It’s good stuff, better than revenge and all the nasty bloodshed that would surely follow.” I pick up the book. Nelson Mandela looks back at me. I throw the book angrily in a corner. Kevin slowly picks it up and points me to page. It’s about not losing your temper. It’s about keeping your integrity and posture intact, at all times. I can do naught but fight back my tears. Kevin stands up and blocks the view for people passing by. Very, very slowly I shake my head. If I don’t follow a strategy here, this place will break us down, one by one, break me down, bit by bit. Six years, at the least, minus a few months, to go. Keep integrity up, keep chin up, like Mandela had easy talking. Thing is, he didn’t. That haunts me.
