20
The next day I went down to breakfast as usual. Harry, Arty and Dad wanted to know how it went and I said nothing really except that the police thought they had some evidence but it was crap.
One of the officers, Moorby, walked across and told me I was to remain in my cell after breakfast. There was something about the way he said it but I couldn’t quite place it. My expectation was that I would be called should Inspector Elliot arrive with the damning evidence, and my expectation was (well, my hope was) that he wouldn’t have that evidence. I could see the concern in the faces of the people at the table; two of them had watched me kill Ratty. Dad looked particularly concerned. He flicked his head to one side, so I walked around the table and he got up and we walked to the window and looked out.
‘You’re going to be glassed, Captain. You’ve seen it. When you come away from the tray rack Tug will do you.’
‘Advice, Dad?’
The old man smiled. ‘Because of the way the tray racks are, everybody turns right. Turn left so you’ve an edge then do what you can.’
I looked around the dining room; there were no officers in sight. I went back to my seat and sat. Sergeant was alert. ‘I’ll come with you, Captain.’
‘No, Sergeant, it would send the wrong message.’ I left the table and took my tray to the disposal. I scrapped the debris from my tray into the pig bin and placed it in the rack then threw the plastic tools into the rubbish bin. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Wilson approaching me. I was alone and to some extent in trouble and there were a few hundred observers watching. What a place for taking me down. I couldn’t help smiling to myself and that must have shown. I turned left then spun to face him. He went to launch an attack on me and I came off the back foot with a thrust, whipped my head forward and smashed my forehead into his nose. I’d shattered his nose and hopefully his cheekbones. He staggered back, off balance and my knuckles stabbed into his throat. He went down coughing onto his knees and my boot smashed into his ribs: more damage. I stepped over him to walk out and a prison officer was running towards me.
‘I think he’s having a fit, Officer. I think he needs help.’ I thought about Sun Tzu, who said in The Art of War, ‘Those who are skilled in producing surprises will win.’ Yes, I was involved in a war.
The officer was in a dilemma; should he grab me or go and help Wilson? Maniac arrived. ‘I’ll handle this, Captain,’ he said and turned to the officer. ‘I think he slipped, sir. You can see where he bashed his nose. Shall we get him up?’ Maniac was in sane mode.
I didn’t hang around. I just slipped through the door, walked up to our cell and Harry joined me on the way.
‘What have you done to Maniac?’ he asked. ‘He was quite sane.’
‘I think the therapy is working, Sergeant.’
‘What therapy?’
‘A new psychiatrist has some sessions with him. He’s put him on some medication and a psychotherapist has started working with him. At good times he becomes Joe. Sometimes Maniac and Joe talk to each other.’
‘Christ, he shouldn’t be in here.’
‘I know that and you know that. Joe knows that but it seems Maniac doesn’t and nor do the prison authorities so I have to cope with him.’
I just lay on my bunk after that, looking at the ceiling. The excitement was over. The issue of what the prison authorities were going to do about the murder and what they would do about the incident in the dining hall was to come but my guess was that they would do nothing and my guess turned out to be correct. Explanations as to why no prison officers were there in the dining hall would be awkward, but any explanation was going to be awkward for them. As for the murder, my only concern was whether Elliot had my fingerprints from the body. So I turned my mind to other things. I thought about Arthur, a big, intelligent giant of a man. Mr Cratcher was right; Arthur couldn’t read so he dropped out of school. Being on the street meant trouble, trouble in the form of crime, and eventually he got caught. How on earth could he get out of the system if he thought he couldn’t read? What else can people do if they can’t read or write? How do you apply for a job? Companies have application forms. Even if you do get a job most jobs require some training. How do you find somewhere to live if you can’t read the accommodation adverts? I lay there and for the first time, recognised the absolute horror that the prisoners in my class had faced and surmounted. Even though it wasn’t an ideal solution, crime solved many of their problems. At least it provided independent survival as opposed to the dependent survival of relying on the state. The state solution required obedience to bureaucratic rules. I wanted even more to help these people who had become my students and now my friends. This was a revelation to me, that the elementary ability to read and write was the foundation of independent, honest survival. I now understood why they liked me. I was one of the few people that had tried to genuinely help them instead of treating them as if they were mere victims or had something wrong with them or were just evil. I was no saint. I was offered this teaching job and I did it and I enjoyed doing it. I wouldn’t have selected it. It just happened that I was good at it. It’s a funny old life.
No call came and I was told to go back to work, so I joined my motley crew, most of whom weren’t there because they thought I wouldn’t be, but Maniac was there and now he was Joe. I hoped it would last.