40

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

La Grulla was the new solitary confinement section to replace La Muralla, although there was nothing new about it. And there was nothing lucky at all about being sent there, either. That place was hell on earth. It was like they had run out of funds halfway through building it. The walls were dirty and unpainted. The taps didn’t work. The toilets were permanently blocked. There were light sockets, but no globes. There were beds, but no mattresses or blankets.

My new life was made up of four elements: coldness, darkness, silence and boredom. The daily routine is simple enough to describe: twenty hours in the cell and four hours out. Inside, the cell was small and cold and dark. The walls and floor were made of cement and there were no windows and no light, other than the small amount that came under the door or through the small observation hatch in the door, which I could prop open when the guards weren’t around. The bed was just a few planks of wood that I inserted into holes in the wall at night and dismantled during the day to make more space.

There were six of us in the cell block together – Characoto, Chapako, Ramero, Chino, Samir (my Brazilian car-thief friend) and me – and the guards let us out together for two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon, although we were banned from talking at all times. When out of the cell, I had to watch my back. Those guys were tough. La Grulla was supposed to be where they sent people as punishment for specific misdemeanours. In practice, however, they used it to house the hard and violent cases that they couldn’t control and didn’t know what to do with. It was the last step before Chonchocoro. Most of them didn’t care about anything, not even themselves.

Ramero was in for punching a guard in the face. Chino spent most of his time in solitary for fighting. Characoto and Chapako were in there for stabbing an inmate to death with a screwdriver. Those two had nothing left to lose; they were already in prison for thirty years for another murder and they probably wouldn’t live that long anyway. Besides, if they got a second conviction of thirty years for the stabbing, there was a loophole in the law that would allow them to serve it concurrently with the first sentence, so it made no difference to when they would get out. And Samir? I don’t know what he was in for this time, but it was usually something to do with drugs or fighting. The only reason they didn’t send him to Chonchocoro was because he was always threatening to expose the police involved in the car-theft ring.

During those four hours we could go to the toilet, have a cold shower, move around in the small exercise pen or eat some food, if there was any. The meal system in La Grulla was the same as in the rest of the prison – a bucket of watered-down soup was sent out from the prison kitchen twice a day to all the sections. That was all you got and if you didn’t like it, you had to feed yourself. In La Grulla, there was a small kitchen area next to the bathrooms with running water and a cooker, but it was of no use to us since we couldn’t get to the shops. Sometimes the guards forgot to send us our soup and we went hungry unless the inmates from the neighbouring section of Posta sent us their leftovers, which was never enough for six men to survive on anyway.

The conditions in solitary got to me quickly. I was constantly hungry and lost a lot of weight. After one week, I had diarrhoea and a chest infection. A few days later, I started pissing blood because I had a urinary tract infection. But there was something worse than the physical conditions and the sickness: the mental torture that went along with it.

The guards in La Grulla were bastards. Real bastards. And they wanted to make an example of us because we were the first group to go through, so that everyone would hear about it and be afraid of being sent there. They did a good job of it, too. They called us dogs. They hit us like dogs. And after a while, we started to believe that we were dogs. The guards were our masters. We were dependent on them for everything: food, water, toilet breaks, even company. They made us beg for everything. If you misbehaved, you would be locked in your cell without food or water. After several days of severe thirst and starvation, there is nothing that even the toughest man in the world won’t do for something to eat, no matter how degrading. When Samir was being punished one time, the guards made him lick their boots while they pissed on him. Afterwards, they threw him scraps of food on the dirty floor and he thanked them for it.

Our communication with the rest of the world was cut off completely. We weren’t allowed visitors, we weren’t allowed phone calls, we couldn’t send a message to anyone in the main prison or even call for a doctor if we were sick. Communication with each other was forbidden. And communication with the guards was limited to nodding and shaking our heads. We weren’t even allowed to look at them. When they yelled at us, we had to keep our heads bowed. If they asked you a question and you answered it, they would strike you with a wooden baton for speaking. But if you didn’t answer, you would be beaten for insolence.

There was no point in fighting back. The guards could do whatever they wanted and no one would ever know, because La Grulla was separated from the main prison. One of the other tricks they used to control us was punishing everyone when one person disobeyed the rules, which built up tension among the prisoners and stopped us from uniting against them. Usually, the punishment involved depriving us of yard time or food, or both. When that happened, I wouldn’t see another human being or eat a thing for days on end. The only noises I would hear were the ones I made myself – my footsteps pacing up and down the cell, or my own voice when I talked or hummed to myself. We had buckets for shitting in, but I kept mine filled with drinking water for emergencies. Instead, I shat in the corner of my cell on a piece of newspaper and wrapped it up tightly to stop the smell getting out. It never worked, though. On top of all this, I was constantly worried about my future.

I replayed the events in the Velascos’ room over and over in my mind, until I thought I was going crazy. The police had no evidence against me, and in any normal country I wouldn’t have been concerned. But things were different in Bolivia. They could easily change a few details in order to make me look guilty. Ricardo’s joke was no longer funny. ‘What could they do to you if they catch you with drugs in prison?’ he always asked. There was an answer: ‘Keep you in there a lot longer.’

On the scale of cocaine offences, two hundred grams wasn’t much. But the amount wasn’t that important. Dealing in jail carried a heavy sentence no matter what, since it was a second offence. I didn’t know what the exact penalty was, but I guessed the judges could add anything between five and fifteen years to my sentence if the case went to court. And the worst thing about it was that I was actually innocent this time. I have heard that for some people, knowing that they are innocent is the only thing that keeps them going while in prison. For me, it was the opposite; it made it worse. It made me realise that being innocent or guilty wasn’t relevant. They could do what they wanted with you, and you were completely powerless to stop them.

I hadn’t forgotten Abregon, either. What he was going through in Chonchocoro must have been far worse. I had no way of helping him from where I was. There was now no chance of getting any money to him; I couldn’t operate my shop or restaurant; I couldn’t run the tour business; I couldn’t even sell any of my possessions or mortgage my room. And worse still, I didn’t have any way of telling him what had happened to me. For all he knew, I might have been part of the plot to send him to maximum security in order to steal his money.

I often thought of Yasheeda. I had a lot of time to think about our relationship. I kept remembering one crazy night in particular, when we were both drunk and high, and we both said some crazy things to each other. We decided that we were going to get a little house together somewhere. It didn’t matter where. Maybe we would have to rent at first, but we would both work hard in order to save up. I was going to quit trafficking. I didn’t care what I had to do to get by. Maybe we could stay in Bolivia where everything was cheaper and I could teach English. I would clean toilets if I had to. Anything to be with her. We made love all that night and smoked marijuana and laughed in between times. I think I even proposed to her.

We never mentioned that conversation again, but I remembered it and I’m sure that she did too. We were crazy that night, and the things we said to each other were crazy, but they were true at the time. Part of me still wanted them to be true. But they couldn’t be. Not if I was locked up in prison. I wondered which country Yasheeda was in now and what she was doing. I realised how stupid I had been, driving her away like I did. If she had been in La Paz still, I knew that she would have saved me. Or even if she had known where I was, I felt that would have somehow made me stronger. She could have thought about me from the other side of the world. But there was no way that she could have known. No one on the outside knew where I was. I could have died and no one would have known.

Night-time was the most painful. The nights were cold, colder than I had ever imagined. It was difficult sleeping on hard wooden planks, but there was no choice – the concrete floor was colder. Without blankets, I couldn’t stop shivering and thinking about all these problems. I knew there was nothing I could do while I was locked up, so I tried not to think about them. But it was impossible. I couldn’t get away from my own thoughts, not for one minute. Being stuck in solitary confinement was like being a prisoner in your own head. In the dead cold of night, I became convinced that I was going to die before morning. I knew that I had to get out of there. I would go crazy otherwise.

Julián eventually managed to get past the La Grulla guards, claiming that he had an obligation as delegate to check on the prisoners’ welfare. I was so relieved when he arrived. He was my main hope of getting out of there and of proving my innocence.

‘How are you holding up, Thomas?’ he asked, lifting the flap and poking his arm through the observation hatch to shake my hand and slip me a stack of coins he had taped together for bribing the guards with.

‘I’m OK, but how’s Abregon? Does he know I’m in here?’

‘He hasn’t called.’ Julián paused and added slowly, ‘Someone spotted his woman in Cochabamba.’ According to Julián, there were rumours going around that Raquel was dressing nicely and spending up big. It was what I had suspected, but that didn’t make it any easier when I heard.

‘Can’t you send him something?’

‘We’re trying our hardest.’

‘Julián, I need you to get me out of here. I need to speak to the governor.’

Julián persuaded the guards to let me call the administration office. But the governor wasn’t there, not that time or the next, or the time after that; he was always in a meeting or away from his desk. I knew that Julián couldn’t keep coming every day just to help me make phone calls, so on the fourth occasion I told the governor’s secretary to give him a message that I was going to ring the media. The governor took my call immediately.

‘Governor, I’m innocent. Can’t you help me get out? I had nothing to do with this,’ I said, getting straight to the point. He did too.

‘I know, Thomas. I believe you. But it’s out of my hands. There has to be an investigation.’

‘When?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘But I’m innocent.’

The governor kept repeating that he had nothing to do with this type of disciplinary matter and that he couldn’t interfere. I offered him money to get me out, but he claimed it was impossible. Too many people knew. Finally, I said I would call my embassy and the television stations unless I was given a chance to clear my name. He didn’t like me threatening him like that, but I was desperate and it was the only weapon I had left.

‘I can’t get you out,’ said the governor angrily, ‘but I’ll see what I can do about speeding up the investigation.’ Then he hung up on me.

Two days later, I was summonsed to the administration block to appear before a meeting of the prison discipline committee. This was a panel of prison officials they put together to investigate and judge internal disciplinary matters. On it sat the governor, the prison psychologist, the major, some administration staff and the prisoners’ delegate. The meeting was relaxed, and assuming that I had the governor and Julián on my side, I was confident that things would go my way.

I was allowed to give evidence and to put my case to the committee. I explained that I hadn’t been inside the Velascos’ room at all, and that the police had found no money or drugs on me, and nothing in my room. When the committee asked what I had been doing there, I explained how the Velascos owed me money and how we had had a fight over the debt. I said that I had sent my shop employee, El General, to pick up the money before going myself.

‘So, you see, it doesn’t make sense for me to be doing a drug deal with them an hour after fighting with them,’ I argued, looking into the eyes of the committee members, one by one. Some of them nodded slightly. I was convincing them. That was the atmosphere in the room. I could feel it.

I was also allowed to call witnesses and to tender evidence. El General came and backed up my account about being owed money and of how I had sent him to collect it. He handed over the authorisation note I had written him, as well as the loan contract with the Velascos. But my best witness by far was Julián, who had actually been there when the police arrived. And since he was also a member of the committee, no one doubted that he was telling the truth.

In fact, no one contradicted any of my arguments. I was certain that they were going to let me go on the spot, but the governor stood up and said that the committee needed to finish its investigation before it could arrive at a decision. Until it had done so, the prisoner was to remain in solitary confinement. He nodded coldly to the guards to escort me back to La Grulla.

‘But, governor. What more do you need to investigate?’ I yelled at him, as they led me to the door. When we were in public situations, the governor and I pretended that we didn’t know each other. But by that point, I was too angry to stop myself. ‘I’m innocent and you know it. You said so yourself!’

After my outburst at the discipline committee meeting, the governor came to see me personally in my solitary confinement cell. He apologised for not being able to help me. I offered him money once more, but he refused it.

‘I’m innocent. You know I’m innocent.’

‘I said I believed you, Thomas. But the media are all over us.’

‘Well then, they should get a chance to hear my version.’ I no longer trusted the discipline committee’s internal investigation. Once people knew the facts, there was no way I could be implicated. And the more people who knew, the better.

‘That wouldn’t help you or anyone else, Thomas,’ the governor warned, adjusting the stars on his shoulders. ‘The best thing you can do is to keep quiet. Keep your mouth shut and I promise to get you out of here as soon as things calm down.’

He offered me a deal. The minimum stretch in solitary was ninety days, but he could get me out a lot sooner, with no charges laid, provided I kept quiet. After I got out, he would destroy the file so that there would be no mark on my prison record. In the meantime, he would do whatever he could to make my stay more comfortable. He didn’t mention what would happen if I refused his offer, but I knew that he could make things worse for me if he wanted to. I agreed reluctantly and he whistled for the guard to let him out. I still wasn’t happy about it, so after he had shut the door I called to him through the flap: ‘They found the drugs in the Velascos’ room and I’m the one in punishment for it. That’s not logical.’

My complaint was effective, but not in the way I had intended. Rather than letting me out, there were two new additions to La Grulla’s population that afternoon: Jose Luis and Jorge Velasco. There were eight cells in the block, all in a row. The Velascos were placed together in the very end cell because the seventh cell was being used as the depósito, for storing contraband seized in the police raids. As soon as I saw them being led in, I wanted to kill them, but with the guards always watching us during yard time, I never got the chance. I might have got two punches in before the guards jumped on me and transferred me to Chonchocoro. Their time would come though, soon enough.

Life was still horrible in solitary confinement, but it was made more bearable once the governor had had a few words with the guards. I was permitted to bring some possessions across from my room. I took everything I could carry: a mattress, blankets, light globes, as much money as I could beg from my neighbours, and warm clothing for the other inmates, except the Velascos. On a subsequent trip, I even managed to sneak in a small heater and my television. Samir cut the cables and hooked them up to the wires that ran across the roof.

Little by little, our privileges were extended. The guards began leaving us to our own devices during yard time, letting us talk quietly among ourselves. Some of them started speaking to us, and the cleverer ones would do us small favours, such as taking notes to our friends and bringing us money. Sometimes we were allowed extra yard time. They occasionally let visitors in to see us and, most importantly, I got one guard, Mario, to bring us food. He was reluctant at first, but once we became friends, he would do anything I asked.

Mario was a new recruit who had been transferred to San Pedro directly from the military training academy. He was still filled with ideas about honesty, integrity and serving the Bolivian Republic. He was nineteen years old, but he looked younger because his face was covered with severe acne. The other guards called him Pizza Boy behind his back. For the first few weeks, he did everything by the book. He was always shining his boots, and his green trousers had sharp creases down the front. And he wouldn’t talk to me at all, because the guards were under strict instructions not to speak to prisoners.

Finally, I got a response from him, by commenting on how shiny his boots were.

‘The secret is cotton,’ he answered. ‘You have to finish the job with cotton. Not many people know that.’ I offered him a few coins to bring me some food, but he refused them outright. ‘Put that away, please. I don’t accept bribes.’

‘It’s not a bribe,’ I said. ‘It’s for your lunch.’ That usually eased their conscience, but it didn’t work on Pizza Boy.

‘I’m not hungry, thank you,’ he snapped back, then marched off with his head held high.

I tried everything, but the only things Mario was interested in were his shoes and his girlfriend. Our conversations always started in the same way: ‘How’s your chica?’ or ‘Those shoes are even shinier than yesterday.’

He would respond angrily, ‘She’s not my chica, she’s my fiancée,’ or ‘They’re not shoes, they’re boots. There’s a difference, you know.’

Bit by bit, I learned how to get through to him. He was disappointed that the Bolivian government could only afford to give each man one uniform, which made it nearly impossible to have it washed, dried and ironed before work each day. He also confided in me his ambition to make sergeant one day, or maybe even an officer, in order to get enough money to marry his sweetheart.

Even though our conversations became longer, Pizza Boy continued to refuse my propinas. Luckily, however, he was a fast learner. Lucky for him, since honest cops were transferred to remote postings as soon as they were found out. Lucky for me, because I was always starving in La Grulla. Gradually, I got him to accept small amounts of money. I would say that I wanted to buy him some special boot polish, or help him save for an extra uniform, and since I couldn’t get to a shop, he would have to make the purchase himself. Provided the money was for work and not for him, it was OK. Then, as the amounts increased, I began to put doubts in his mind about his girlfriend.

‘You’ll need to start saving right away if you’re going to get married,’ I declared. ‘Or she might leave you.’

‘She would never do that. She’s not like that.’

‘Show me that photo again, then.’ Pizza Boy pulled the picture out of his wallet for the tenth time and held it up proudly by the corner. The girlfriend was ugly, but he never let me touch her photo in case I got fingerprints on it. ‘She’s a very special-looking woman. A woman like that needs a man to care for her. And if you can’t do it, there are a thousand men out there with money who will. How are you going to look after her on your salary?’

That made Pizza Boy very worried. The pay for a private was less than one hundred dollars per month. We got started on a wedding fund immediately. I would send him out into the main prison to buy proper food from the restaurants and bring it back to me in solitary confinement. I called this ‘cell delivery service’. With the tips I had to pay him, it was an expensive way to eat, but it was worth it. If I’d had more money, I would have sent Pizza Boy outside the prison to pick me up a takeaway ham and pineapple, extra-thick crust.

There was only one occasion that I ate better food than what Mario brought me. Towards the end of yard time one afternoon, two guards we had never seen before came into the section carrying a collapsible table. Nothing interesting ever happened in solitary, so we all stopped what we were doing and stared. They left the table lying against the wall and we watched them leave, then come back again five minutes later, this time carrying a huge barrel of steaming soup and a tray filled with fried chicken pieces covered in mushroom sauce. The delicious smell of the food filled our small exercise area.

Then they set up the table and started setting the places with knives, forks and paper napkins. It seemed there was to be some kind of party. But what a strange place to have it! And who was it for? It certainly wasn’t for us. They wouldn’t waste such good food on the inmates in solitary confinement. Besides, they never let us use metal cutlery, in case we sharpened it into weapons.

‘What’s happening?’ I asked the others.

‘It’s a new torture they’ve invented especially for us,’ said Chino, who was always making jokes. ‘Watch. They’re going to eat it in front of us.’

Everyone was curious, but no one spoke for a while. We continued staring at them as they set up for the party. When they were done, someone finally called out.

‘Who’s all that for?’

‘For you lot,’ replied the guards. ‘Go and bring out the chairs, then you can all have some.’

Ignoring the order to get chairs, the eight of us scrambled towards the table. The others ate standing up, greedily stuffing food into their mouths while I observed them. I was afraid that the food was poisoned, or laced with tranquilliser, and I wanted to wait and see if any of them became sick. They were eating so quickly that there would be none left so I drank a whole bowl of soup in one go, then grabbed two chicken legs in my effort to catch up.

‘Tranquilo,’ said the guard, patting me on the shoulder. ‘There is plenty more where that came from.’

After eating, we were told to wash our clothes and clean the cell block thoroughly, and if we did a good job we would be given extra yard time. Something strange was going on, but no one argued; anything was better than being locked back in those dungeons, even cleaning. There was only one broom, but I took my time sweeping out my cell while the others waited their turn. I would make a pile of dust, then accidentally knock it everywhere in order to take longer. Then I washed my clothes very slowly and took them out to dry in the exercise yard, piece by piece.

On my way back in to pick up more clothes, I saw Chino leaning against the door to my cell. He was waiting for me and he looked nervous. Without saying anything, he looked up and down the corridor and then nodded his head towards my cell. He obviously had something important to tell me.

‘Quick,’ he said, shutting the door behind us so that it didn’t click loudly and stood with his back against it.

‘Why? What’s up, man?’ I asked, after he had checked the corridor again through the observation hatch. ‘Why are you so nervous?’

‘Listen, Thomas,’ he whispered. ‘I’ve got a message for you from a powerful friend. But you didn’t hear it from me, OK?’ I nodded. ‘The brother of Jose Luis Velasco works for the FELCN.’ I waited for him to say more, but that was all he had to say.

‘And what?’ I asked.

‘I can’t say anything more. That’s all I was told to say. Your friend just said to be careful about what you say about those two.’ Chino checked the corridor again and then slipped out of my cell. I didn’t know what to make of it. I wasn’t sure if the powerful friend was the governor and he was trying to warn me of something, or if the Velascos had put Chino up to it to scare me.

I went out into the corridor again, but Chino was already gone. I continued with my washing. By the time I was on my last sock, the others had finished cleaning their cells and were back outside. They were sitting on the wooden benches, leaning against the wall, with the afternoon sun streaming down on their faces. The guards were nowhere to be seen. I sat down next to Chino and lit a cigarette. I thought he might tell me something more, but from the way he was acting, we hadn’t had the conversation.

It was a beautiful afternoon in the Andean mountain range. We looked upwards, staring into the cloudless sky, trying to spot birds. In La Paz, bird spotting always helped to pass the time, because hardly any lived at that altitude, apart from pigeons. Anyway, none that I had seen from jail. I smoked cigarette after cigarette and squinted into the blueness until my eyes began to itch and my eyesight went blurry. I wasn’t used to that amount of daylight so I closed my eyes until the vision blotches went away. I stayed throughout the afternoon in that position: propped against the wall, eyelids shut, the warmth of the sun on my face, thinking about nothing. An hour later, the guards still hadn’t returned us to our cells.

‘What’s going on?’ I finally called across to Chapako, who had been in and out of the previous punishment section more than any of the others.

‘I’d say we’re getting a visit from derechos humanos,’ he yelled back. The others nodded knowingly and chuckled among themselves, but I didn’t understand. My Spanish was good by then, but in all my years in prison I had never heard that expression used once.

‘What are derechos humanos?’ I asked Chino quietly, a little embarrassed not to have understood the joke.

‘I don’t know how to explain to you, my brother,’ he responded loudly, so that everyone could hear. He looked up into the sky for inspiration and said philosophically, ‘They don’t exist. That’s it. Derechos humanos are something that don’t really exist.’ This made the others smirk again.

‘What? Like an illusion?’ I asked, and the others laughed louder than the first time.

‘Something like that,’ he responded, smiling wryly at me. I was still confused but no one would explain. Then the others joined in teasing me.

‘What are you saying, inglés?’ Chapako asked in mock seriousness. ‘You don’t know what derechos humanos are?’

‘What’s so funny about that?’ I answered, trying to go along with the teasing. ‘So what? I don’t know what they are.’

‘Neither do we, inglés,’ Ramero responded and this sent the others into bigger fits of laughter. ‘We can’t tell you because we’ve never heard of them either.’ This made them hysterical. They kept playing with me like that until, eventually, I caught on.

Human rights. They were coming to visit.

Everyone remained in a good mood sitting along the wall, leaning against the warm bricks, which had heated up over the course of the afternoon. I was beginning to really enjoy this human rights caper. I concentrated hard on absorbing the sun into my body. I only wished that I could be like a lizard and store some of the warmth to stop me from shivering at night. Sometimes it felt like my body wanted to just give up and stop heating itself. But at that moment at least, I was happy, with a full, warm belly.

‘What’s the time?’ I asked Ramero, who was the only one in La Grulla who hadn’t sold his watch to the guards yet.

‘Four o’clock.’ The guards still hadn’t come.

No one said anything for several minutes more. I was quite content just resting there, until Jorge Velasco came over and crouched down beside me and ruined it. A shiver of pure hatred ran down my back and my muscles tensed so suddenly that I almost bit through my tongue. Chino gave me a threatening look, warning me not to spoil it for everyone.

Surprisingly, the feeling lasted only a short time. I calmed myself down. I still wanted to punch him, but for the first time in weeks, I could control it. It was true that he had made a lot of mistakes; but now that he was in punishment also, I wasn’t so sure that he was the one who had set me up.

I looked at him and he tried to smile at me. I didn’t smile back. I could tell that he was about to say something, but when he saw the expression on my face, he thought better of it. I looked up again. It was at that moment that I saw a La Paz bird darting across the sky, my first one since arriving at La Grulla. I turned back to Jorge to check whether he had seen it also and he smiled at me again. Everyone had seen it and was smiling, even Samir. It was the first time I had seen him smile since we had been in solitary. Samir was crazy, but he never smiled.