Gang of One: One Man's Incredible Battle to Find His Missing (11 page)

‘Gabriel, er, Chief, do you know where bunk 003U is?’ I asked.

‘Right behind you in the corner there. That’s a good spot, Scotty. You can keep your back to the wall and you got that little window to look out!’ he said, still shading a piece of his drawing.

‘How comforting,’ I said, without quite meaning to. I’d read that even the simplest jokes could lead to many of your biggest problems – and the Americans weren’t always the best with British-style sarcasm. I had to keep that sort of thing in check.

‘Yup, I’d say that’s a sought-after piece of real estate you got there,’ Chief went on with a slightly different smile, like he’d fully got my joke. ‘They must have got word that you came from Pollock,’ he added – again suggesting by the merest trace of a grin that he knew full well which Pollock I’d come from. I liked the Chief.

My new apartment was a tiny space. There were no tables and chairs, and if you weren’t lying in your bed, you’d have to be sitting on top of it or standing in the thoroughfare everyone else used to get to and from their own beds. There was a small locker, maybe two feet high by a foot wide. I opened it and looked inside – I don’t quite know why; I wasn’t expecting to find something in it, a welcome pack or a bowl of fruit. I guess I wanted something to do. My heart was sinking faster than a fat man on thin ice and it sank further as more inmates started to come into the room, each one having himself a good long look at the fresh meat. Trying to ignore them, I went about making up my bed – which took all of three minutes – then I decanted my worldly possessions into my locker. I felt about as low as I could ever remember, but then I congratulated myself that I had actually been lower. Getting extradited and telling Calum I was leaving him had been worse than this; way, way worse.

I climbed up onto my top bunk and looked out of my tiny window. It was just like that little window I used to look up to when I spent those cold and lonely nights in Quarriers Homes as a little boy. This one had seven bars in it, but I was as much a prisoner then as I am now, I thought. Self-conscious and uncomfortable, I propped myself up on my bunk and began reading the Correctional Rules for New Inmates in the Big Spring Correctional Facility – surely one ‘Correctional’ too many – trying to ignore the fact that I was the subject of much staring and discussion as more and more inmates filtered back into the room.

Each new entrant to the
Big Brother
room looked scarier than the last. About two-thirds of my new roomies were Hispanic, with about a dozen Blacks, a few more Natives and maybe only five or six Whites – very much the minority. What they lacked in numbers, however, they made up for in sheer threat value, as most of them were the kind you wouldn’t want to see on a dark night, or on a bright day either. These first few white toughs were boy scouts, though, compared to the two scrawny looking dudes with skinheads who suddenly came marching into the room. Immediately I could see they set a number of people on edge. One of the Hispanics theatrically spat on the floor then wiped it with his shoe as he turned away from them. I sat with my legs dangling from my bunk watching the skinheads as they surveyed the room. ‘What are they up to?’ I wondered, and then, to my dismay, I found out, as the saw me and moved directly towards me.

‘Scotland? You called Scotland?’ asked the slightly shorter of the two as he approached me, offering his fist in a bump. I reluctantly bumped back and thought of saying ‘Who’s asking?’, but not feeling bold enough, I just nodded instead. They looked in their mid twenties, each with dental issues. The one who spoke looked almost wasted away, but he exuded a kind of nervous energy that was already unsettling me and seemingly everyone else around, except Chief, who kept right on drawing.

‘Yeah, I’m Scotland,’ I answered, quite liking my new name and enjoying the fact that I was sitting high above these two psychos on my top bunk. I started to focus on their tattoos. The short one who had spoken had a swastika tattoo on his neck and the other taller one had something tattooed on his shaven head, which I couldn’t quite read at first. After shifting a little, I made out the first line as ‘God Forgives . . .’ which seemed quite encouraging, although they didn’t strike me as Christian Fellowship types. Any lingering hopes that they might have come to hand me a Bible and invite me to a singalong were dispelled, when I saw the second line: ‘ . . . the Brotherhood Doesn’t’.

They were, I realised in that instant, a deputation from the Aryan Brotherhood. I recoiled from them both. Why were they coming to see me? I was mesmerised by the ‘God Forgives; the Brotherhood Doesn’t’ tattoo. ‘Imagine having that tattooed on your head,’ I thought, wondering if it had been sore. Subconsciously, I must have started pulling at my sleeve to cover my Cara and Calum lovefest tat as I saw Tattoo Head look at it. He had the look of an enforcer, the muscle, like he was coiled ready for action.

‘Scotland, South Dakota?’ the shorter, scrawnier weirdo asked me.

‘Eh?’ I responded, confused.

‘Scotland, in South Dakota?’ he clarified.

‘Scotland, Scotland!’ I responded emphatically, feeling, not for the first time, that I had landed on a different planet.

‘You’re not from Scotland, South Dakota?’ Tattoo Head asked, clearly unable to keep pace with this highbrow conversation.

‘Naw, I’m from Scotland, Scotland!’ I responded, sounding irritated – which I was. I felt emboldened sitting above them, and I just wanted these bald-headed Nazis to go.

Everyone was watching our exchange and I didn’t want to be associated with people like this. I saw Chief had stopped drawing, his pencil resting on the pad, clearly tuning into every word of this exchange. I felt it was important, but I wasn’t yet sure why.

‘Can you come down here, Scotland?’ the shorter skinhead asked, with something that could almost have been a smile, if he’d had enough teeth. ‘It’s kinda awkward speaking to you when you’re up there,’ he continued, craning his scrawny red neck for good effect.

I hesitated. ‘Naw. I like it fine up here,’ I replied, allowing my Scottish accent its full range as I always did when I felt threatened.

‘OK,’ the smaller guy mumbled, sounding irritated, before switching tack and asking, ‘You did time in Pollock?’ They were both so edgy. The taller one with the tattooed bonce barely ever raised his head to look at me, simply staring straight in front, seemingly at the wall, as if he wanted me to focus entirely on the message on his head – what we might have termed in management terms as his personal ‘USP’, or unique selling point. He kept rubbing or flexing his hands as if he was preparing them for combat, and this set me on edge even more. Both wore sleeveless vests, worn and stained, giving the shorter one the look of Rab C. Nesbitt on a crash diet. He had foregone the skull-branding option, and instead had a large tattoo right across his chest, in bold writing, which was partially obscured by his vest. I could make out that it was three words, the second one of which said HATES in some kind of elaborate gothic font, and I kept trying to catch the other two words. Sometimes it looked like the third word might be ME. HATES ME. Something or someone HATES ME. What a sentiment to have on your chest, I thought, as my discourse with the two hillbillies continued.

‘You did time in Pollock, Scotland?’ he asked again.

‘Erm . . .’ I pondered, genuinely wondering how to answer that one. ‘I lived in Pollok, Scotland, but I didn’t do time in Pollock, no,’ I responded, instantly wondering if anyone had understood what I just said. The skinheads looked at each other as if I had just spoken in Farsi.

‘I lived in a place called Pollok, in a town called Glasgow, in a country called Scotland,’ I offered carefully, thinking a more detailed explanation might help. ‘So yes, I come from Pollok, but I’ve never been to Louisiana.’ Tattoo Head started scratching it, while Tattoo Chest looked as if he had just had a quick explanation of the mechanics of nuclear physics. Silence ensued. A couple of times, the shorter one positioned himself as if to speak, but each time thought better of it. The silence continued. I couldn’t think of anything to add to my detailed and thorough explanation, so I didn’t bother and focused instead on trying to figure out what the first word of the HATES ME tattoo was. Tattoo Head just kept staring ahead at the wall and as they seemed much more uncomfortable with the silence than I was, I let it ride. Suddenly I got it – BOB! BOB HATES ME. The tattoo was partially obscured, but that first word was clearly three letters with the ‘O’ fully visible in the middle and the tops of the first and third letters cut off by his vest, but they definitely looked like a couple of Bs.

BOB HATES ME! I thought, ‘What the fuck does that mean?’ The silence was starting to make me uncomfortable too. Who the hell was Bob? Why would you tattoo that on your chest? I could imagine a lot of people hated this guy, but what made Bob so special?

After a moment or two, Tattoo Chest nudged his taller accomplice, who grunted and suddenly proffered something up to me.

‘This is sum shower shoes an’ shit to git you started,’ he drawled, handing me some heavy plastic flip-flops and what looked like some coffee, some biscuits and a bar of chocolate. Suddenly my mood changed, as I realised too late what was happening. These guys were recruiting for the Brotherhood. That’s what all that bullshit preamble was about. Without thinking of anything but the chocolate, my hands had been on the package, but I withdrew them just as quickly.

‘I don’t want that shit!’ I said, fast and loud. I hoped everyone heard it.

The shorter one put his hand on Tattoo Head’s arm to stop him from withdrawing the offer.

‘Now lookie here, Scotland. Don’t go misunderstandin’ nuthin’. We like to look after our own here. Ain’t nun of these other fuckers,’ – he looked around directly at the Blacks in the corner, before drawing closer to me – ‘ain’t none of these other fuckers gonna take care of nuthin’ but their own. You know what ah’m sayin’? Us white boys got to stick together, you hearin’ me?’

I was hearing him alright. He had taken on a much nastier demeanour and I felt the tension rise between the three of us.

‘Now why don’t you just take a little time to consider what you’d like to do, Scotland?’ he said, taking the goodies away from Tattoo Head and placing them carefully on my bunk. ‘You really don’t want to be walkin’ alone in this Yard, and if you ain’t runnin’ with us, we will see you as agin us, you know what I’m sayin’, Scotland? You feelin’ me, Scotland?’

I was feeling him.

He moved back and smiled at me, a menacing, toothless and graceless grin. He patted my knee.

‘Take yer crap off my bunk,’ I said calmly, ‘and fuck off.’ Inside I was shit-scared, but I just kept focusing on the two messenger boys in front of me. I didn’t have a strategy or a plan, even though I’d always known I would face a recruitment drive sooner or later. I just hadn’t expected it this early and with so few corporate benefits.

Tattoo Head was twitching uncontrollably and kept looking from the shorter one to the floor. Itching to get started on me, I thought.

‘Scotland, I’m going cut you some slack and ask you once again to reconsider ma offer,’ the shorter one began again, slowly. ‘You really don’t want to be pissin’ us off and havin’ to walk that Yard on your own now, do ya? You ain’t gonna git no help from the Negros or the Paises or the Injuns now, are ya? All you’ve got is your own kind,’ he went on. So this was melting-pot America, then.

He stopped talking. In the silence, I started to re-examine my logic. I don’t want to be sucked into their turf wars and battles, and I knew that in joining them there would always be a price to pay – probably a messy job like beating up some poor guy that had pissed them off in some way; maybe even doing something worse. But then again, I couldn’t ‘walk that Yard alone’ as the skinhead had put it, or – worse still – with the might of the Aryan Brotherhood coming after me. Surely not everyone must be affiliated to a gang? If I could just get rid of them and show I wasn’t interested, maybe everyone else would leave me alone?

‘Look,’ I said, leaning towards them and speaking more quietly. ‘I’m not from around here, and I’m not your kind. I don’t want to cause any trouble with you guys and I ain’t trying to be disrespectful. But I’m a Scot, from Scotland. I’m British. I play football and eat chips.’ I found myself immediately regretting that these were the only examples of British credentials I could summon at that moment, but I don’t suppose my interlocutors minded. ‘I’m not part of your battles, and I won’t be part of your Brotherhood. You know what I’m sayin?’ Tattoo Head involuntarily nodded and my confidence grew.

‘So why don’t you take this shit . . .’ I said, gradually raising my voice as I picked up the package of stuff, ‘ . . . and ask Bob to forgive you!’

The Bob jibe seemed to have confused them somewhat as they both looked at each other in a bemused fashion. Eventually the shorter guy said, ‘OK, Scotland, OK. If that’s how you wanna play it. Just don’t come cryin’ to us when the shit hits the fan. And the shit hits the fan most every day in Big Spring,’ he added with a mischievous grin, as if all the shit emanated from him. ‘C’mon, SlumDawg,’ he said, as he turned to walk away, the ‘dawg’ part extending to well over three syllables.

SlumDawg looked like he wanted to stay and drag me off the bed. ‘SlumDawg!’ Tattoo Chest said again, this time more forcefully. SlumDawg looked up at me fully for the first time with the confidence of a true enforcer and instantly my own confidence evaporated. He smirked at me and began to walk off, grinning at all the other inmates who had watched this unfold. Suddenly the shorter one turned around and walked swiftly back towards me. Not bothering to look up at me, he put out his hand and said, ‘Chocolate . . .’

‘Oh yeah!’ I exclaimed in mock surprise. ‘Here, here you go.’ I handed it over, regretting the loss of that little luxury. ‘Man, I’m hungry,’ I thought as I lay back and wondered if I’d already cooked my own goose. For the next ten minutes my heart was racing as I replayed the scene over and over again in my mind and I tried to work out if I had played it right. I could sense everyone in the room was watching me, discussing me.