8

BUYING A CELL OF MY OWN

The British Embassy never did believe me about the room system. No one ever accused me directly of lying, but it was obvious what happened. They must have rung or visited the prison administration and asked whether any of what I had said was true. It was my word against that of the Bolivian police force. I was an international drug trafficker and the embassy probably already had a file on me a mile long, so who do you think they were going to believe?

Ricardo told me not to kick up a fuss; if the embassy asked too many questions, there could be consequences for me in the prison. Besides, I would never convince them. I would only succeed in looking like a worse liar and reduce the chances of the embassy ever helping me in the future. Luckily, Prisoners Abroad, the charity organisation Mr Harris had contacted on my behalf, was far more understanding. The driver from the British Embassy delivered to me in the interview room a big package from Prisoners Abroad. It contained a knife, fork, spoon, plate, bowl, cooker, another blanket – all the things I needed to start a new life in prison – and five hundred dollars in cash to help me buy my first prison cell in San Pedro. I got the driver to ask the guards to escort me back to Ricardo’s room. Two days later, he came again, this time with money from the contacts that owed me in London.

As soon as I received my money, I tried to pay Ricardo back, but he would only accept half of what I owed. I wanted to buy a room straight away; however, even though I now had money and knew how the titles system worked and where I wanted to live, I still needed Ricardo’s help in conducting the actual negotiations. I didn’t know the correct price to pay, and I thought the sellers might try to trick me because I was a foreigner. Ricardo got very excited when I asked for his help. He boasted that he had studied economics at university. He sat me down at his table and gave me a full lecture about the best buying strategy.

‘It’s just basic supply and demand, Thomas. Buy low, sell high. Simple capitalism,’ he declared, leaning back in his chair and lighting up a joint. The way he held that joint between his index finger and his thumb and the way he blew out the smoke, I could have sworn he thought he was some famous economist puffing away on a Cuban cigar. ‘Anyone with half a brain can understand it.’

I understood most of his explanation, but Ricardo made it hard by blowing marijuana smoke in my face and using technical words whenever he could. It was all common sense, really, but he made it sound far more complicated.

‘Timing is everything in these matters, my friend. You’ve just got to be smarter than the rest to beat the market.’

I nodded my head, but when he could see that I wanted him to explain further, he took a deep breath and went through the whole thing, step by step.

The room prices went up and down as in any property market, so the important thing was to make the right decision about when to buy in order to get the best deal. Rooms were usually put up for sale when a prisoner knew for sure that he was leaving, although sometimes trades were made as prisoners upgraded or downgraded before their sentences had expired, according to their financial situation. The prisoners called this ‘moving house’. For the seller to get the highest price, it was best for him to sell the room a long time before his actual release date because as that date got closer, buyers would know that he was desperate and would sell cheaper. The best thing to do as a buyer was the exact opposite: delay purchase until someone who hadn’t managed to sell was about to leave.

‘So, to get the best price, I should wait and find someone who is leaving very soon?’ I asked.

‘If the market permits, yes,’ Ricardo agreed, offering me the joint.

I looked at him questioningly and held up my hand to refuse. I needed all my concentration for this one.

‘You see, sometimes that option isn’t available,’ he explained, ‘because the prison is totally full. It all comes back to your basic supply and demand.’

He started to explain supply and demand, which I already knew about from the drug market. Ricardo became so enthusiastic at this point that he decided to draw me some graphs. There was no time to waste in finding a pen and paper, so he picked up his kitchen knife and started carving lines into his wooden table. We started with the supply side, being the available accommodation. The prison was in a situation of what Ricardo called ‘limited’ or ‘capped’ supply. This was because there was no space left to build any more rooms. Apparently, the prison had been originally built for two hundred and fifty inmates, but at times the population could reach up to fifteen hundred prisoners, plus their families, all crammed into one city block. If they had wanted to, the government probably could have built more rooms on top of the existing ones, but there were no funds available to do so. Besides, who really cared about the conditions of a bunch of prisoners, when most of the country was living in poverty? The politicians kept the money for themselves.

Then Ricardo explained the demand side of things. The demand was determined by people who needed to buy cells and it was rising because the prison population was expanding every day, mainly with people accused of drug-trafficking offences under a law called la Ley Mil Ocho – Law 1008 – which was the law I was being charged under. According to Ricardo, the reason for all this overcrowding and for Law 1008 was the US government’s ‘war on drugs’.

Ricardo was proud of having lived in the United States and of speaking English, because it made him feel superior to the Bolivians. However, at other times, he really hated the Americans. This was one of those times. Bolivia is one of the poorest Latin American countries and the US regularly made kind offers of humanitarian aid to help out the poor, the starving and the homeless. However, this was on the condition that Bolivia agreed to fumigate its coca plantations and go after the people who controlled the drug trade. Of course, the Bolivian politicians were always glad to accept all donations, most of which never made it to their intended destination. They jumped up and down, promising to destroy the crops and hunt down the evil people responsible for drug trafficking, but in reality their efforts were only minimal; coca was the most valuable industry Bolivia had and it was making a lot of people in power very rich.

‘They never actually go after the big fish,’ said Ricardo. ‘They’re untouchable. They just lock up the small fry like us to make it look like they’re cleaning up the country. There are people in prison for two grams, and others who weren’t even caught with anything. Just on suspicion.’ He banged his fist on the table to emphasise his point and the wood shavings from his supply and demand graphs jumped out of their grooves. ‘So, you see, that’s why we Bolivians hate the Americans,’ he concluded in his New York accent.

I could see that Ricardo was capable of talking about American politics for hours, but I wanted to get back to the subject of buying my room, so I cut in before he could continue.

‘I get it. So, if the prices are always going up, that means I should buy as soon as possible before it gets more expensive. Right?’

‘Not necessarily,’ Ricardo the politician went back to being Ricardo the wise economist. He stroked his chin and drew back on his ‘cigar’ as though he had just been asked a very controversial question by a clever journalist and needed time to formulate his response. Of course, I could tell that he had already thought about these things a lot and was simply enjoying the opportunity to show off his knowledge. In fact, he was loving every minute of it and stringing it out for as long as possible. Or maybe he was just getting his revenge because I had interrupted him just as he was getting to an important point about the Americans. He repeated very slowly, ‘Not necessarily, my friend.’

Occasionally, room prices did actually go down, he explained. There were two things that could cause this; the first was when more people were leaving prison than were entering. This occurred when a lot of prisoners were pardoned or given early release, which meant there were more vacancies and so the cell market went down. This happened by pure necessity when the prison was full and the administration used any excuse to reduce the number of prisoners. That was easy enough to understand. In fact, I later experienced the biggest example of this first hand when a new law called Extra Muro – ‘Extra Wall’ – was passed, which halved the sentences of most prisoners in the country. This law led to hundreds of prisoners becoming eligible for immediate or early release.

The second reason was what Ricardo called ‘market scare’. Frequently, the Bolivian government announced plans to pull down San Pedro prison and transfer all the inmates to a new jail it wanted to build in El Alto. And since it was officially denied that prisoners actually paid for their own cells, no one would be refunded any of their purchase money. The first few times this was announced, the prisoners believed the politicians and panicked. Prices dropped overnight because of what Ricardo called a ‘fire sale’ – hundreds of inmates put ‘En Venta’ signs on their doors, trying to get anything they could for their rooms.

‘If I’d had money, I could have bought up everything and retired a rich man,’ Ricardo sighed. ‘I did get a cheap television out of it, though,’ he pointed proudly to the cardboard box at the end of his bed where his purchase was sitting. ‘Supposedly, no privileges were going to be allowed in the new prison. It’s amazing what market hysteria will do to people,’ he said, shaking his head at the irrationality of humans.

‘So, it was just a rumour, then?’ I asked. ‘They’re not really going to knock it down?’

‘Of course they’re going to knock it down. Are you stupid? You really don’t understand economics, do you?’

Ricardo had to explain yet again. I got the feeling that he was doing all of this on purpose just to make me look like an idiot and himself look smarter, but I let him get away with it because I was captivated by what he was saying. Besides, he was really quite entertaining when he got in these moods and I liked watching him; he really did seem to think that he was giving an important speech at Harvard.

According to Ricardo, it made sense to knock down San Pedro prison, since the inner-city real estate on which the jail was located was worth millions. After that, they would need to build another prison to house all the inmates, which would require the use of public funds. These public funds would obviously be controlled by corrupt politicians. So, of course it was in their interests to knock down the prison. One day they would actually do it, predicted Ricardo. The only problem was getting the funds from the Americans.

Although fascinating, all these explanations left me more confused than when we began. Before, I had known nothing, but now, with the help of economics, I knew even less. To me, every single one of Ricardo’s arguments went around in circles. No sooner did I think I understood what he was saying than he would deliberately contradict it. Sometimes prices went up, sometimes they went down. Sometimes it was best to wait as long as possible, sometimes you should buy straight away. People behaved rationally according to graphs carved on wooden tables, but sometimes they were stupid and sold their televisions very cheaply. You could make money on property, but then the government might take everything away from you. Oh well, I never liked economics, anyway. I think that’s why I dropped out of school early and became a drug trafficker.

‘So, how do I know if it’s the right time to buy, then?’ I asked, trying to get back to the original topic, being when I was going to buy a room.

‘You don’t. No one does, really. You can make a guess, but it’s impossible to predict a market perfectly. And it’s irrelevant, anyway.’

‘Why is it irrelevant?’

‘Because you’ve got no choice. You have to buy a room right now or you’ll have nowhere to sleep,’ he laughed and pointed to the door, grabbing my arm and pushing me towards it as though he were evicting me. ‘It gets quite cold out there at night, you know.’

I knew he was only joking, so I laughed too.

‘So, that means this whole conversation was also irrelevant?’

‘No. Not at all, my friend. You learned something. You’re intelligent and I enjoy talking with you,’ he complimented me, even though I had hardly said a word and was clearly not as intelligent as he was. Ricardo then put his joint out and concluded his university seminar.

‘So, you see, Thomas, San Pedro prison, apart from being a social microcosm, is also a microeconomy that operates under basic capitalist principles. In fact, it’s probably more efficient than the whole Bolivian national economy. And more democratic, too, but I’ll explain the prison election system to you another day. I’m tired now. You ask a lot of questions, inglés – you know that?’

I was glad we stopped there, too; I needed a joint to help my brain recover from Ricardo’s economics lecture.

The room I liked most was in Pinos on the second storey. It had a window overlooking the courtyard and it was only a minute’s walk from Ricardo’s apartment. The owner was an old Bolivian prisoner who was shortly due for release. He wanted twenty-five hundred dollars, but Ricardo managed to bargain him down to eighteen hundred dollars, and persuaded him to include his television, refrigerator as well as some furniture into the deal. With the contribution sent by Prisoners Abroad and some money a friend sent to the Embassy for me, I had enough, although on the sale-purchase agreement we wrote down twelve hundred dollars less than the actual price to reduce the transfer fee I had to pay.