URBAN STORIES: Prison! What’s the point?

Daryl Casey?

I heard them call my name, but I wanted to take as long as I possibly could... you know, feed their stereotype. After all, I’m supposed to be ignorant, hard to reach, insecure, unsettled, changeable… wild!
That’s what it says in the report.

Eventually, they see me.

I take the last drag of my fag before stepping out onto my stage of dreams.
They think I’m stupid.
But I’m not stupid.
There’s a method to my madness.

They want to know if I have anything to say before they sentence me.
This was it: this audience of suits and briefcases is for me. I’m finally going to be given the chance to play out every scene, every act, every performance I have always wanted to and tell it like it really is.

All the boys are here.
The ‘man dem’ from the street.
I’ll be sorry to lose ‘em, sorry to see them go, but they’ve done all they can for me. Kept me alive.
Kept the streets from gobbling me up.

“Yes, your honour. I do have something to say…

At night, I’d go to sleep listening to the tap drip.
It used to freak me out, but then it became my only friend.
If I could hear it, I was still alive. Thinking about it now, if they really wanted to punish me, they’d have tightened that tap.

He’d get angry. My dad. Or at least that’s who she told me he was. He’d smash the TV. Pull the pictures off the wall and break Mum’s ornaments, then send us to bed without dinner.
He’d beat my mum, me, and my sisters, and no one would know why.

Then he’d switch and be nice as pie.
Tell us all he was sorry.

It freaked me out because up until that point, he was cool.
One day, he beat me so bad I was in hospital for a week.
Mum took me by bus because dad had ripped out the phone so we couldn’t call anyone and he refused to drive us.
On the way, Mum asked me what I’d done to make dad so angry…
I cried, and I couldn’t honestly tell her.

She said I had to tell the doctors, and anyone else who asked, that I fell off the garden shed.
We lived on the fifth floor of a block of council flats.
She was crying.
I was eight.

I felt sorry for her, so I did what she said.

I was the child with a hairline fracture, internal bruising from where the bannister broke my fall. And there I was, feeling sorry for her.

I couldn’t lie forever.

As I grew older, Dad lost his job, and I guess, his will to be any kind of a decent man.
We ate only when he hadn’t gambled the income support.
We smiled only when he was gone for days.
There was nothing else to smile about.

Over the years, feeling sorry for Mum became the norm.
I’d feel sorry for her and her sleepless nights.
Sorry for the early mornings when he’d bring friends home, get high, and blast music.
Sorry, when the neighbours complained at 3am.
Sorry, when she pulled my sisters into her bed to make sure they weren’t touched.

Sorry when she fell asleep… and they were.

Sorry when she woke up tired and bruised, unable to take us to school.

Eventually, we had to move.
The solicitors said Dad was a violent risk to our well-being.
Imagine that, your dad becoming a violent risk to you.

It’s like something snapped in him.
Mental health, the doctors said.

I felt sorry for her the day she finally left him.
Felt sorry for her during the barren years when the bottle took control.

I felt sorry for her when I came home from one of my rare days at school and found her asleep on her favourite sofa.
With a quiet smile on her face.

Suicide, they said.

I guess her mind couldn’t carry her past anymore.
Her body looked at peace.
The lies, excuses, and shame she could no longer justify were gone.

I was twelve. She looked young again. Younger than I’d seen her in years.

So, Your Honour, there’s nothing you or anyone else can do to me that I haven’t already experienced, heard of, or felt before.

I know what living on the streets means.
I’ve been out there for four years, hustling for my next meal.
Yeah, I snatch bags and steal cars. I’ll do anything to survive.

Who’s gonna give me a job? You?

The court orders… Referrals to this team, then that team.
All of them are filled with people who can’t help themselves, but claim they can help me.

They keep trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.
I don’t fit.
Maybe I never did.

Where were the truant officers when I didn’t attend school for months?
What happened to each of those endless reports written by police officers, social services, and worried neighbours?

Four years!
And now you class me as a continual offender?

You are the ones who’ve continually offended.
Against me.
Against my rights as a child.

My family didn’t protect me.
You didn’t protect me.

What was I supposed to do?

I took from the streets in the only way I knew how.
And don’t you think this is some solo sob story.
I can give you lists of people with stories just like mine.

We don’t choose the streets.
We’re there because it’s the only option left open to us, and it doesn’t involve someone else telling us what to do.
It’s no magic trick that we keep getting into trouble.

Like it or not, a thread running through your courts hangs us up like a child’s mobile, spinning us around for all to see.

Like puppets on a string?

Your Honour, we’ve been here before.
You probably know more about me than I do.
But you need to know one more thing:

You lock me up and think you’re punishing me.
But where I come from, that only enhances my reputation.

The penal system requires me to have something to lose for it to work.

Well…

I’m sixteen now.
No family.
No prospects.

What have I got to lose?

I go inside, and my family are in there.
I get three meals a day, more than I get sometimes on the outside.
Out there, I’m a small fish in a big bowl.
In here, I rule the roost.
I’m a man to be respected.

So, go ahead, lock me up, Your Honour.
Tell them I’m a menace to society, a scourge on the good people of the community.

And when I come out, revitalised and re-invented,
With no other qualification than to offend again…

I’ll ask you, ever so politely:

What is the point of prison? 

THE FIRST TIME

The room was dimly lit as Patience entered. She never imagined it would be like this. Her thoughts were of palm trees and golden sands. Lobster Thermidor and pink bubbly champagne, of swaying winds and gently flowing tides. Of being looked after, nurtured, and caressed. Gently, she would lie under the sheet of stars and study them at her leisure; she'd watch the sunrise and, with it, take her time with this adventure.

She wanted to enjoy every minute and have each one logged in her diary of life. Those transcripts would be filled with fantasy, imagination, passion, and emotion. Patience wanted to be able to look back over the pages and remember.

Sitting back, she rested her poor, weary feet on the table and sipped the Miller Lite that should have been champagne. Lying her head back, she looked up to see the plain ceiling. She grabbed the patio doors, pulling the sofa to its edge so she could look up and dream. The plough wasn't visible, but the bright lights from the canal made up for its absence. At this moment, she wanted to be wrapped up in a little box with a ribbon and a sign saying please handle with care; she was in tune with herself and wanted everything to be right.

She closed her eyes tighter as she heard the music play; she could hear him, his deep, resounding voice, that sexiness that could only be him. The way his lyrics echoed made her shiver. Barry White could do that like no other; she'd grown up on a diet of good soul music, real music, her mother used to call it.

“Girl,” she would say, “when I was not much older than you, I was fed the greats like... Solomon Burke and Otis Redding, remember Dock of the Bay?” Then she'd start clicking her fingers and singing:

Sitting in the morning sun, I'll be waiting till the evening comes, watching the ships roll in, and then I’d watch them roll away again.

Those were the days. She'd snuggle up closely and listen to her mother tell stories of Aunt Jody, of how brazen she was when the sailors came ashore. Then she would sing some more, dance the jive, then weep because it brought back memories of being young again, and then, she would apologise for crying. This part for Patience was unpleasant, what was there to be sorry for? Sometimes, they'd sing and cry together; it felt good for them both. They were more like sisters than mother and child; they talked about everything, and Patience's mother wanted her to have everything she didn't.

“Experience life to the full,” her mother would say, “because you don't know when the good lord will come to take you. I know one thing: I want to be ready when he comes. I don't want to say I never did this, or I'm sorry I did that; when the father comes, I want it to be with open arms so we can dance, all the way back to heaven.”

As these thoughts flowed through her, the night air brushed her cheeks, its sensual touch making her smile and sigh slightly; its caress teased her; she pushed her hips down into a warm sofa. Patience sipped on the brew and closed her eyes to the stars. Barry’s voice was still drifting from the stereo, curling through the room like a blanket. She lay contemplating the moment, the journey she was just about to take, knowing that once she arrived, she could never come back. She could feel the moment stretching in front of her, like the hush before the curtain rises, the stillness that comes before the leap. Patience had thought about this often. At first, she was afraid, then curious. She had talked about it, even seen it occasionally. They'd laughed on those occasions, laughed at the embarrassment of it all. What a lovely way of looking at it, dance back to heaven.

The music changed and the new artist awakened something within. As she heard his deep voice bounce off the walls, she closed her eyes tighter and smiled as its depth embraced her body.

“Come on and go with me. Come on over to my place,”

She could see candlelight and a massive marble fireplace. Two glasses of deep red wine sat on top of a stained glass table sparkling amongst the changing light; it was heaven, and she was there.

“I don't feel like being lonely tonight. You see, I want some company, and you look like you’re just my type; you’re the kind whose spirits are running free.” Oh, how she loved that song! It brought back memories of her father mock serenading her mother; he'd put his hand on his heart and waltz over to her, trying to be every ounce the man she'd first met. He'd put on his sexiest voice, and she would act all shy and coy. Slowly, he'd caress her hand and bend on one knee as though he were about to propose.

“Let's take a sip of some cold, cold wine, and we can be each other’s company, now, how does that sound to you? You see, ‘cause it sounds so good, it sounds so good to me,” And they'd both melt as he sang the chorus, “Come on and go with me, come on over to my place, baby you won't be under any kind of pressure.”

Then they would fall about laughing as he'd walk towards the bedroom, beckoning her with a cocked finger. Through laughter, Patience was reminded that his singing helped bring her into the world, and then he would pinch her nose playfully, for it reminded him of his own. He would say music is full of memories; there's a song for every occasion. Patience wanted her own song, one that her daughter would remember when she was older, which she could be serenaded to in later life.

She felt the touch, a touch that had been alien to her for so long, but now she could feel it tingle her spine and warm her insides, like mulled wine on a cold winter’s night, like chocolate as it melts in the mouth, like the forbidden fruit she was just about to taste.

Patience looked out onto the canal. Its water cut into zigzags from the moon and surrounding barge lights as the music from the room danced in time, to the tide ebbing and flowing to the sounds of lyrical foreplay.

Her eyes looked to the stars as she felt the warmth take hold, the warm sweet breath as lips met lips, sing Teddy, sing. “I'm lying here waiting, my dear. You can get what you want anytime you want it. Tell me what you wanna do, tell me what you wanna do, baby”

Ear lobes tingle as her body collapses in submission. The limpness in her arms disappears as she holds on to the long, strong back beneath her. She strokes it gently, and it arches like a yawning lion. Spinning her over, softly, slowly, as lips meet lips, followed by nose, then chin, followed by breast, as his tongue stops right there. She can hear herself moan as her nipples harden and her hips soften and her mind free flows, her heartbeat quickens, the pace is almost too much to bear, then her body fades underneath him, then writhes back up again. Softly, slowly, then faster... the music gets louder as he sings and she sings. The room becomes a crescendo of music, lighting up the stage, and they dance and sing until they collapse under a multitude of tiny atoms that appear spinning wildly in front of their very eyes.

Breathless...she holds onto that final moment to remember the passion. That intimate, total ecstasy...

The first time.