The Easy Day Was Yesterday (23 page)

Dad hadn’t really been there for Steven, Trevor and me when we were growing up. He had left when I was young, which broke my mother’s heart. Mum, being the champion she was, never ever let her emotions show so, as kids, we never really felt the impact of Dad’s departure and I didn’t give it much thought. Dad was a soldier, so was rarely around anyway and, one day, he just seemed to go and never came back. I know that Mum decided to make life a little difficult for Dad if he ever asked to take us out, so he gave up and was posted to another state with the army. But when I was 17 Dad left the army and returned to our lives. It took me a long time to accept Dad back into my life and, in reality, this had only occurred in the last two or three years. He was a good man and did his best but, like me, wasn’t really cut out to be a father. Now Dad was ill and didn’t have a great deal of time left in this world and I wanted to spend some time with him before he died. Being in this shithouse looked set to prevent that.

I munched on three biscuits and a mouthful of bottled water and waited for the activity outside to slow down before getting stuck into my nightly work-out. By now I was struggling with my work-out and had started to feel the effects of the poor diet catching up with me. Working out each night wasn’t enough to maintain my fitness; I also needed to eat well, but this was all I had for now. I had two mosquito coils burning in my cage, one in the top corner near my head and the other at my feet. I just didn’t think I could handle a case of malaria right now.

I then spent a lot of time (which I seemed to have plenty of) rat-proofing my mosquito net. As I now had 12 bottles of water, I was able to position them all round the base of the net to try to dissuade the rats from forcing themselves under the barrier. On my left side I lined up some bottles so that, once I finished reading, put the light into the Calvins and had a pee, I could get back under the net and line these up along the bottom to complete the barrier. It was a complicated procedure, but it promised a rat-free night, so it was well worth the hassle.

Tuesday 3 June

I can happily report that my fortress kept the rats out last night despite their visit at around 2.00 this morning. I didn’t know why they entered my cage because I was careful not to leave any scraps of biscuit lying around and the biscuit packets were in a plastic bag hanging on a nail on the wall. Perhaps they had a taste for my feet, the filthy bastards. I was reminded of a scene from the movie
Pulp Fiction
in which John Travolta and Samuel Jackson are in a diner and Travolta orders bacon, but Jackson refuses. Travolta asks whether this is a religious thing and Jackson says, ‘No, I just don’t dine on swine, that’s all.’

‘Yeh, but bacon tastes good; pork chops taste good.’

‘Hey, a sewer rat might taste like pumpkin pie, but I’d never know because I wouldn’t eat the filthy motherfucker. Pigs eat and root and shit. That’s a filthy animal. I don’t eat nothing that ain’t got sense enough to disregard its own faeces.’

‘A dog eats its own faeces.’

‘I don’t eat dog either.’

‘But do you regard a dog as a filthy animal?’

‘I wouldn’t go as far as calling a dog filthy, they’re definitely dirty. But a dog’s got personality.’

‘Ah yes, but by that rationale, if a pig had a better personality it would cease to be a filthy animal.’

‘Well, we’d have to be talking about one charming mother fucking pig. He’d have to be 10 times more charming than that Arnold from
Green Acres
.’

I started laughing and felt the need to watch the movie again. It was just classic writing; I loved the dialogue in that movie and it confirmed Tarantino as a genius.

As I lay on my mattress under the mozzie net enjoying the cool morning, I sensed something in the back of my mind that wasn’t quite right. Sometimes when my stars weren’t lined up I got a light feeling in my gut that told me to watch my arcs — I’m not sure where that sense disappeared to when I crossed the fucking border. I tried to dissect the previous day, but couldn’t think of anything and nothing happened last night to knock the stars from alignment. Maybe it was just me being a dick, but I normally had good senses and had learnt over the years to trust them. So I relaxed and thought about the random dream I had last night of a dear old friend of the family called Vicky.

I had known Vicky since I first joined the army as a 19-year-old when her son and Colin, my half-brother, started playing football in the same team as seven-year-olds. Vicky was a large woman with a happy personality and beautiful spirit. She was indeed a lifelong friend of the family; Mum regarded Vicky as her best friend. It was huge shock to us all when Vicky died last year and it certainly left a gap in the lives of everyone she came in contact with. Vicky had one request for her funeral; her favourite colour was pink, so she wanted everyone to wear something pink. I can comfortably confirm that I didn’t have any item of clothing that was pink, so I bought a pink tie. The crowd at Vicky’s funeral was a testament to the person she was and the number of lives she touched and it was fantastic to see all the pink flowers, dresses, shirts and ties.

It was strange that Vicky would talk to me the way she did. It wasn’t like a normal dream that’s mixed with the unreal and absurd. I didn’t know whether we were sitting or standing, but Vicky was holding my hand as I looked down and she just said, ‘Don’t worry, this will all turn out okay.’ That was it, nothing more, but it was so real — almost not a dream.

Even though the caveman had opened the cage and delivered his morning grunt, I just wanted to stay where I was a little longer. It was going to be another beautiful day and the temperature still had an edge to it, so I tried as best I could under the circumstances to curl up under my thin sheet. But then my incredibly friendly neighbour, Sanjay, walked into my cage. I lay still, hoping he’d think that I was still asleep and go away. Oh no, not Sanjay. It wouldn’t even occur to Sanjay that a motionless person under a mozzie net might still be sleeping.

‘Morning, Sir.’

I grunt.

‘Sir, morning,’ he persists.

‘For fuck’s sake,’ I mumble.

‘Sir, good morning.’

‘Are you kidding?’

‘Good morning, Sir.’

‘Yeh, good morning,’ I mumbled.

‘Sir, Sir, present for you.’

I prop up on one elbow and Sanjay hands me a pink rose under my mosquito net. Oh shit, I’d heard this sort of stuff goes on in prison, and thought I’d be safe in here, but now it has started. I sat up in bed and contemplated my next move, smelling the rose. It smelt good, with a strong perfume.

‘Thanks Sanjay, very kind of you.’

‘No problem, Sir,’ he said as he pranced out the door.

Bloody hell, I thought.

This flower reminded me of Vicki. What a strange coincidence. I dreamt of Vicky talking to me last night and today Sanjay handed me a pink flower. This was too much, so I checked the date on my G Shock and it suddenly dawned on me that Vicky died a year ago today. Wow — this was a little spooky. Whatever it was, I needed all the help I could get, so I urged Vicky to ‘go for your life’.

I eventually got up, but I wanted to spend another day hiding in my cell. I just didn’t want to do anything or talk to anyone. I wished I could just go to sleep or slip into a coma, or place my body into a cryogenic state until the day I would be released. This was taking far too long for something so bloody benign.

The old man came in and I got the hint that I needed to move so he could clean my cell. He was a great guy and I knew I was lucky to have him. I wished I could take him home with me. He had to be in his mid-sixties. He had a great head of flowing grey hair and a beard to match. He was about 5 feet 3 inches (160 centimetres) and must have weighed only 45 kilograms. His dark brown skin was stretched tightly over his rib cage and stomach and he carried absolutely no fat at all. He rarely wore a shirt and the only time I saw him wearing thongs was when he went to court. At night he would put on an old tracksuit top, but generally only wore a green sarong. He seemed to still have most of his teeth as I was certain a dentist wouldn’t make a set of teeth that looked that bad. He had too many teeth in the top row and his right front tooth was very prominent. He had been convicted of robbery and sentenced to a year in prison. He’d done five months but insisted that he didn’t do it, but couldn’t afford a lawyer to plead his innocence. His home town was near the border with Pakistan and, given that he and his family were very poor, he had never had a family member visit him.

Mid-morning I was lying down with my legs crossed when the old man came in to preach to me. This wasn’t as torturous as it sounds; in fact, it was quite entertaining. I’d just lie and listen to him as he threw his arms around and went on and on about something. Then it would all stop, just when I’d had about enough of the sermon. This time when he stopped, I closed my eyes, but they smashed open when the old man suddenly grabbed my legs and straightened them and, before I could protest (as I’d done every other time he suggested a massage), he was kneading my legs with his grip of steel using those calloused old hands of his. I started laughing at the sight of this and could imagine telling Sallie. The old bugger had the roughest and strongest hands and was actually inflicting pain on me. I went with it for about 30 seconds before finally putting a stop to it. He told me to turn over, but that wasn’t happening. Washing my back was enough. This was a line we weren’t stepping over. The reality was that the old man made life a lot easier for me and I valued his friendship and assistance, but I just can’t handle a man touching me in any way. I remember once doing some bodyguard work for an American actor who was rumoured to be gay. When the gig was over, the actor gave me the man hug and the other lads told me later how funny it looked because, when the actor came in for the hug, my hips immediately withdrew, so there was plenty of air between our groins. Stupid, I know, and I can just hear my gay friends laughing at me, but that’s the way it was. The old man realised I wasn’t going to weaken, so he gave up and decided to leave.

My cold was getting worse, which was just what I needed; frankly, I was surprised I hadn’t contracted hepatitis, scurvy, malaria and Ebola in this shit hole. It was now 1.10 pm and, aside from the bucket bath this morning and a slow walk to the piss drain, I hadn’t left the cage. I wished I could sleep more. I’d had no visitors so that meant I would be here for another night — excellent. I knew people were working very hard for me on the outside, but I had no visibility of any of that so felt quite helpless and, worst of all, had no control over events.

Sallie was in New Delhi meeting the Australian High Commissioner, John McCarthy. I hoped she’d be okay. She was certainly the right person to have running this because her instincts were generally very good; although I was sure she would let the High Commission guys have a mouthful if things weren’t moving quickly enough.

It was getting late in the day so I thought I’d go and visit Manish, Gaz and the Chief Clerk. I needed to ask Manish to organise more mosquito coils for me. The mozzie net was good, but the coils also helped to keep the little bastards at bay. Manish was happy to help and mentioned to the Chief Clerk that I needed more mozzie coils. The Chief Clerk stood at the barred gate and yelled to a young bloke who ran over. Apparently the young bloke was the Chief Clerk’s cook. Some notes were exchanged and the young bloke bolted towards the entrance to the prison, turned left and disappeared.

After a bucket bath and a walk with the politician, the caveman locked the cage and I used this time to check and clear my text messages. I was very careful when I used the phone and only kept it turned on for short periods so it didn’t go flat. I got some nice messages from the kids, my brother Trevor and my mate, Dave. With an eye on the door, I placed the phone back in its hiding place.

The old man was trying to be helpful and placed my water bottles in a large bucket of water to try to keep them cool through the night. It wasn’t really necessary as the water didn’t get too hot and I decided to tell him tomorrow not to worry about it. Then, as I was standing at the gate wondering once again whether I should grab a tin cup and start dragging it along the bars the way they did in the movies, I picked up the bucket and started doing arm curls. After three sets of 10, my arms were screaming for mercy, so I let a little water out of the bucket and continued with three sets of 10 lateral shoulder raises. I was well and truly knackered after that and had changed my mind about the bucket staying in the cage at night. I rested for an hour or so then completed my usual routine of sit-ups and push-ups. I then spent about 30 minutes getting the mozzie net right and got two coils burning before relaxing on my mattress with Sudoku. I managed to stay awake until 1.00 am, which pleased me no end. It would mean I’d be tired during the day tomorrow and sleep would come easily.

Wednesday 4 June

It was nice to wake up this morning to the yelling and screaming coming from the sick cell next door. There was a pretty good chance the lunatic had done something to piss the others off. The yelling and commotion hadn’t really woken me; I had woken quite early and read some more. It was nice being on my own and the chill in the early morning air meant I could curl up under the sheet. I then realised that it was the old man yelling, with the periodic support of Sanjay, and others would join in when there was a gap in the tirade. When Ugly unlocked the gates, the yelling got worse as my neighbours poured out of the cell. I decided to get away from it all and go for my morning pee in the drain. When I returned to the cage I walked past my neighbour’s cell to see the lunatic throwing buckets of water through the cell and the section in front. I later learnt that the lunatic had shat in the cell through the night and they were, justifiably, pretty pissed off. They made him carry bucket after bucket to clean the mess, which he did without complaint. I was glad I wasn’t in with those poor buggers.